The Observer and the Observee (blog 1)

A Film Art approach to an image vs a Practices of Looking approach to an image.

Firstly, the books’ titles have some standout, inherent differences. Practices of Looking refers to the act of a viewer. The title implicates that the book is going to highlight concepts oflooking, thus placing its weight on the idea of viewers, lookers, the people observing the media. Film Art would appear to be focused more around film, the media itself. So already, just from the titles, we have a viewer-centric approach, and a media-centric approach.

The keyword in Chapter Two of PL is interpellation. The chapter asserts that images interpellate viewers, evoke meanings from these viewers. The meaning is henceforth, in the hands of the viewer, who can interpret the image in a plethora of different ways. FA Chapter 2 focuses on the form of the image, the complex system that causes viewers to react the way they do. FA asserts that meaning viewers make comes from this reaction, that images have “cues that can elicit a particular activity from the perceiver.”

So using these viewer-centric vs. image-centric, let’s dissect the possible meanings of an image:

Both sides would agree on the referential meaning. A black woman standing against a wall on a sidewalk holds a white baby in her arms. Neither side would argue these denotations. Now let’s be interpellated. We’re immediately compelled to look for meaning—for symbolism, for messages, for contradictions, anything we can analyze and put a reason behind. As a viewer, I could point out two concrete, referential meanings that lend to something more implicit. The image is constructed from only two colors- black and white. The characters in the image are constructed from two different complexions—black and white. Thus, despite the characters’ differences, they come from the same core, the same set of building blocks, the same basic units. The image provoked me, the human viewer, to come to my own personal conclusions.

Now from an FA perspective. The image has a complex form, a system of symbols that combine together to elicit a reaction from the viewer. Let’s say that the fact that the inhabit the very front of the depth of field draws immediate attention to the characters. The woman and the child this merit a primary reaction, as they are the front and center of the image. Then, there is a notable contrast of complexion between the woman and the child, since they are so physically close to each other. Essentially, the placement of the characters works in this image to provoke the viewer into responding with a reason—a reason as to what the contrast is, why the characters are in the foreground.

Habermas on Blogging

"By 'the public sphere' we mean first of all a realm of our social life in which something approaching public opinion can be formed. Access is guaranteed to all citizens."

-Jurgen Habermas

So what would Habermas have to say about a blogging portal like dailykos.com?

Daily Kos would be an example of what Habermas refers to as "refeudalism," a step away from progressivism towards the early public sphere which was ruled by the bourgeois. This comes ironically of course, given that the site is a result of technological advancement and exists in an unmonitored environment. While the website has no laws blocking anyone from accessing it, it is inherently exclusive in many ways:

• It's participants must be computer literate and have internet access
• Participants without a decent political knowledge will suffer natural exclusion
• The people running the site are middle to upper class, well educated citizens

The third point is what really sums up the idea of feudalism. In this sense, the public sphere is represented by the upper class, who let their thinking dictate that of the public. Habermas would refer to it as the nobility creating the "organs of public authority." While the site is available to all, one must possess certain middle to upper class traits to access it, and the bourgeois prioritizes the information published on it.

Barthes Lends a Hand in Analyzing Yet Another Poster

“The image is representation, which is to say ultimately resurrection, and, as we know, the intelligible is reputed antipathetic to lived experience.”

So what the heck does Barthes mean by "the intelligible is reputed to antipathetic lived experience? " For starters, let's define intelligible within his standards. The intelligible for Barthes, is the representation or resurrection that isn't quite the real thing. It's palpable, it's conceivable, but it's not that concrete real thing. It is tangible because of it's "shared experience" counterpart. In the case of this image, the Statue of Liberty itself is the shared experience. It's an international icon, one that stands tall to this day. The intelligible is the photographed version of the statue that currently resides on your screen. It has a mystical, white to gray glow. It's tangible because we can see it clearly on a screen, and not be dumbstruck by it. Some intrinsic ticker goes off in the brain and tells us to recognize it. But at the same time, we know that it is not THE Statue of Liberty. 

"The signification of the image is undoubtedly intentional. The signifieds of the advertising message are formed a priori by certain attributes of the product and these signifieds have to be transmitted as clearly as possible.” 

Our product in this case, is The Sopranos. The attributes of this product exist both in the content of the show, and outside, in exogenous factors like the show's reputation. The attributes within the show displayed in the picture are Tony Soprano himself, and New York (or right outside of it in New Jersey), where the show takes place. Looking a little further, we have suspicious glance cast by Tony, the glance of a mobster who must always have a cautious eye out. We know these attributes thanks to the exogenous factors. The Sopranos is an immensely popular show, and is well known to be about a mob family led by Tony. These attributes produce signifieds, which are clearly transmitted with help from the above text, "The Final Episodes." We now are sure that this is an ad, attributes creating signifieds, telling us to watch this show.

“Text and image stand in a complementary relationship”

Text makes it all the easier to interpret an image. This Barthes quote sums up the idea of a caption, or using text to further explain or provide meaning for an image. Without the text, this image would still be of Tony Soprano, and still contain all its attributes. But it would no longer be transmitting as clearly as possible. By simply stating "The Final Episodes," and listing a time, the image inherently becomes an advertisement rather than a just a slice of the show.  And the text, standing alone without the image, would lose most of its significance. We would have to ask, "The Final Episodes of what?" The text and image feed off of each other, thriving under a symbiotic relationship.

Benjamin on the Blair Witch

First, two quotes from Walter Benjamin's The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction:

“...for the first time – and this is the effect of the film – man has to operate with his whole living person, yet forgoing its aura. For aura is tied to his presence; there can be no replica of it. The aura which, on the stage, emanates from Macbeth, cannot be separated for the spectators from that of the actor. However, the singularity of the shot in the studio is that the camera is substituted for the public. Consequently, the aura that envelops the actor vanishes, and with it the aura of the figure he portrays.”

“Magician and surgeon compare to painter and cameraman. The painter maintains in his work a natural distance from reality, the cameraman penetrates deeply into its web. There is a tremendous difference between the pictures they obtain. That of the painter is a total one, that of the cameraman consists of multiple fragments which are assembled under a new law. Thus, for contemporary man the representation of reality by the film is incomparably more significant than that of the painter, since it offers, precisely because of the thoroughgoing permeation of reality with mechanical equipment, an aspect of reality which is free of all equipment. And that is what one is entitled to ask from a work of art.”

You'd have to imagine that Walter Benjamin would be intrigued by the Blair Witch Project. Inherently, of course, The Blair Witch Project is a film, and lacks the Benjamin's concept of a unique aura. But what it does however, that most other films don't, is realistically (and harrowingly so) recapture the aura of an event. The movie essentially brings to life a fictitious encounter that has an aura of it's own, a different kind than Benjamin is used to.

This aura that the film possesses stems first from the lack of Benjamin's "singularity of the shot in the studio." Benjamin asserts that film loses its aura because of the way it's tactfully prepared for mass reproduction, in via mechanical systems like studios. The Blair Witch Project, however, eliminates the idea of a studio, and serves as a window into an event. Rather than attempt to recreate the aura of something else, it creates an aura for a fictitious but highly realistic event, and by doing so, makes a bold attempt at cutting into reality. 

There are no "fragments" in the camerawork of the film. Rather than using strategic shots, the cameras are held by the actors, who use partially simulated, and partially real fear to guide the camera around in capturing the event. Rather than piece together reality, the film dives straight into it, and embraces the flaws of a handheld, shaky camera. It's the ultimate form of Benjamin's concept of "permeation." The viewer can become totally entrenched in the film's reality, moreso than most other films, and ignore aesthetics and technique. The genius of the technique used for it, is the lack of technique. 

This lack of a certain technique allows the film to transcend the reality of a painting in a different way than Benjamin is used to. Paintings exist on a spectrum ranging from surreal to real, because of the technique with which they are crafted. The filmmaker is given a set of tools incomparably more practical in the quest for reality than the brush, and thus almost always come closer to cutting into reality. But The Blair Witch Project abandons these tools, and embodies the look of teenagers wandering around the forest with a camera. Rather than a film about these derelicts, it's a film by them.

The film also cleverly uses no big name actors, and well recognized locations. These two concepts both allow viewers to be more completely immersed rather than recognizing the characters as fictitious representations reenacted by celebrities. Again, the aura of the film derives from the creation of a new reality, one with its own aura that transcends the film itself. 

A Few Types of Realism

When I think about realism in the context of cinema, a couple of key things come to mind:

Bleakness, or the lack of a miracle turnaround for a happy ending; an objective, observational camera style, and characters as everyday and mundane as possible. 

I, along, with plenty of others, have fallen into the cynical mindset that implies something that is real life, or realistic,  is ordinary, objective, and sparsely populated with heartwarming, happy endings. This is not to say life is terrible and bleak, of course. It's the sparsity of magnificent events that makes them so special. If life were consistently inhabited by comeback victories, unlikely survival stories, and inexplicable, seemingly supernatural events, then these events would lose their aura. So essentially, realism represents the ordinary side of like, the one we're accustomed to seeing every day.

Typical Realism

Ozu's Tokyo Story encapsulates this idea of realism, in all of my favorite (not to say that I enjoyed watching it) ways.  The story, and it's nearly a lack thereof, is painstakingly mundane, and just as painstakingly unforgiving. An elderly couple travel to Tokyo to visit their workaholic, neglectful children. Their children spend little time with them on the disappointing trip, and to top things off, the mother becomes deathly ill on the train ride home, and dies shortly afterwards. The children come briefly in memorial, and return to their lives. No revelations, no coming to terms, no growth or change.

The camera is stationary for almost the entire film, giving it a voyeuristic feel, an objective peek into the life of this disrupted family. Cuts are jarring, and seemingly arbitrary, but keep the candid nature of what's on screen solidly intact. Extensive dialogue is often used as a substitute for visuals, allowing characters to explain their stories rather than the camera on its own. 

Not Typical Realism

What's strange about this kind of realism however, ii it's inaccessibility. Realism flicks aren't typically known for commercial success, as they're jarring, require patience and attention, and are more often than not tragic. If it's harder to immerse oneself into a film, there becomes a lack of a reality in general, and the viewer is left with light and sound. This void of a reality can be encountered in works which we don't typically consider realism, works with classical Hollywood continuity.

Classical Hollywood continuity is designed to accommodate the eye. Movies with this structure are typically easier to watch than ones without. Cuts are smooth, flowing, filled with rules and reasoning. We have establishing shots, that lead into mediums, and then over the shoulder exchanges- logical ordering that appeals to the eye. And while the content of the movie may be something about gangsters trolling for treasure chests in the Amazon, the camera work and editing allow viewers to easily immerse themselves into what is happening on screen.

So. Which is more realistic:

A film with a candid nature but void of an penetrable reality, or a film with an outlandish nature, but accessible alternate reality?