Merleau-Ponty - The Madness of Vision

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146dernFrenchvisual heoryA critical reader

6/ited by Nigel Saint and Andy Stafford

Manchester University Press

Manchester and New York

distributed n the United States xclusively

by PalgraveMacmillan



PRECURSORS:HENOMENOLOCYANDEMIOTICS

Visible nd he nvisible,n which he akes p again numberof hi s

analyses f the object, he body, and the relation between he seer

the visible, n order to show that they acquire heir full meaning

Merleau-Pontyopens the Phenomenologyf Perceptionwith a

question: What is phenomenology?'Anchoring his answer n

works,r he provides a deceptively imple definition:

Phenomenologys hestudyof essenceslnd accordingo it, al l problems

amount o f ini ing definit ions ft isences:heessencef perception. r the

essence f consciousness,or example. [1945] 2001:vii)

lrnmediately, however, hings get more comPlicated :

But phenomenology is also a philosophy which puts ess ences ack into

existence, nd doesnol exPect o arrive at an understanding of man andthe world from any startingpoint other than that of their'ptj.cityl (ilid.)

At the same ime, this facticity servesas a basis or a

philosophy,which 'places n abeyance he assertionsarising out of

natural attitude, he bett€r o understand hem'(ibid.). The task

phenomenology s the descriptiveanalysis f essences s hey appear

our intellectual ntuition. Its realisation ecuires the search or a I

dation,a spherenilich thingsgive hemselvesbsolutely;har s,

a:larity, dislinclness nd completenesshich renders hem

or demonstrablycertain.The originality of Merleau-Ponty's pproach

that it is seeking this facticity in a world that is always

To tr% as Descartes ad attempted before, o establisha

that is both a'rigorous science' nd an'account of space, ime and

world aswe'live' hem' ibid.)appears. gainst he background f

nalist philosophy,an impossible,contradictory task.And yet this is

very programmeof Merleau-Ponty's heidltenologyof

outside of a psychological nterpretation and when they are

in a new phenomenologicalontology.

which is supposed o account or the paradox of immanence and 1

scendencehat are both..presentr perciption. In this book it

Merleau-Ponty's intention to establisha solid basis tor the I

which would takehim forwar d rom the phenomenology f

to studies on imagination, Ianguage, ulture, reason and on

ethical, oliLical nd even eligious xperience.'z

With the thesisof the 'primacy of perception',Merleau-Ponty

to assed irst of all that the perceived .ifj-world is the prima

Following Husserl'scall for a return to 'things themselves', e

MERLEAU-PONTY:HEMADNESS F VIStON

1q egain he experience fthe inter:4a;nirgofthe subiectand he object

that had been os-t-j1L-dualistichilosophies.So doing, Merleau-Ponty

found that the qu€stion of perception merged with the ontological

questionn its simplest orm, namely an nquiry into the meaningofthe

beingof what is.lndeed,Merleau-Ponry rgues hat it is in and throughour experi-

ence, rimord-ially erceptuJ. hat we are ni tiated nto ire tt ingi;etl

Ir is in the'immiffiof what we'live'that we find a path r;wards

transcendence. his explains the pfi ose of the phenomenological

return o the things hemselves sa return to perception. n ThePrimacy

0f Perception,Merleau-Ponty establishes hat 'the perceivedworld is

always he presupposed oundation of all rationality, all value and all

existence' 1964b: 13) even if'there is a whole cultural world whichconstitutes second evel about perceptualexperience' ibid-: 33). Priorto this 'second evel of perceptual experience', here is perception initself,'the undamentalbasiswhich cannot be gnored' (i&id). Insteadofapproachingperception on the basis of consciousness,e approachedconsciousnesss.basedon perception. This means not only thatconsciousnesss a rnoment of perception,but that consciousnessfselflJa PercePtlon:

At theoutset fthe studyofperception, e ind n languagehenotionofsensation, hich seemsmmediateand obvious: havea sensation fredness,fblueness, fhot or cold. t r^rill, owever,eseen hatnothinscould n fact be moreconfused, nd thar becausehev acceotedtreadily,radilional

nalyses issed he phenomenon f perception.([1945] 001:3)

Significantly, the first sentence of the first chapter of his studymentions languageand how we wrongly assume hat we understandperceptionTetause we accept a certain type of_ ormulation withoutquestioning hat is at the hearrofthe sensalion of red, blue,hot orcold) itlEtF--Pbitdition is the sensationand its expressionand that is



PRECURSORS:HENOMENOLOGYND SEMIOTICS

Phenomenologyf Perception he pre-reflexivephenomenalfield which-

he called'being in the world' (ibid.: xiii), examining the experienceofperceptionprior to the construction ofthe body asobject and the cogrto

as a rational subject, Vision' for him could not be reduced,as in ths

empiricist tradition, to a mere sensationnor could it be an escapento

the purer world of eidetic essences,The perceived s not limited to that

which strikesmy eyes'he contended, when I am sitting at my desk, he

spaces closed ehind me not only in idea,but also n reality'(1965:

249).

This'inherence o the world'explains Merleau-Ponty's mphasis n the

body; he goesso far as to c laim that vision is linked with the other

senses, nd that t ouch for example plays a role in our perception of

colours.There s no objectifying gaze n his work,r rather an'inherence'

to the textured quality ofthe world surrounding us. The world is appre-

hendedby him on the evelofan interactivepresence nd the iv-ed ody

is irreducible to a st atic image observed rom w ithout:'the livedperspectivehat which we actuallyperceive,s not a geometricor photo-

graphicone' (Johnson1993:64). Equally,becausehe body is not a static

image,Merleau-PontyechoedBergson n stressingemporality asoneofits constituentelements.4 his position emerges owards he end of

Phenomenology f Perception,n particular in the chapter dedicated o

temporality.5Merleau-Ponty'swork thus argues hat visual images are

not instantaneous snapshots of external realitt that they have a

duration. Most importantly, this temporal dimension forms the basisof

his definition of the visual as a knot of words and imases.

Having criticised classicalpreffdices iiuting totf,.i."ption (and inparticular the hegemonyof a vision based, ision-cent redepistemefound in the division betweenobject and subject aspresented n both

the empiricist and intellectualis t radition) rn Phenomenology f

Perception,he endeavoured, n an unfinished text (€dited by Claude

Lefort after the author's untimely death n 1961) known as TheVisibleand the Inyisible, o take up again a number of his early analysesby

concentratingespecially n the thing, the body, he relation between he

seerand the visible. The Visibleand the nylsible s the result of Merleau-

Ponty's exploration n his latter_years f the relationshipbetween

perception and language. n Phenomenology f Perception,MerlealJ-Ponty set out an optimistic hermeneutic belief in the saturation of the

world with meaning,but cameup againsthow to extract his meaninS

without losing altogether he directnessof the initial contact with the

world, with the things themselves;n other words, how the visible and

MERLEAU-PONTyrHEMADNESS F VIStON

the nvisible can interact in a non-contradictory way is one of his keyPreoccuPatlons.

Appearing at the end of The Visibleand the Invisible.his ,working

notes'allow us to seeMerleau-ponty,s hought on languageat work.

Underthe date

27 October 1959,he wrote:I describe erception s diacritical, elative, ppositional ystem theprimordialspace s opological that s, cut out in a total voluminositywhichsurroundsme, n which am,which sbehindmeaswellasbeforeme. )

This s right.But heres all hesamehisdifferenceetweenerceptionand anguage,hat seeheperceivedhings nd hat hesignificationsnthe ontrary re nvisible.[196a] 968: I3-14)

Perception s now almostentirely concentrated n the act ofseeing:

Wesee he hings hemselves,he world s whatwe see: ormulae f this

meaning. he description of this perceptual processhas to be firmlyanchored n an elaboratedefinition ofvision; True philosophy consistsin reJearning o look at theworld,([1945] 2001:lrrj.

SinceThePhenomenologyf perception,and evenmore so TheVisibteqnd the nvisible,Merleau-ponty,snsistence n the absence f exterior

mentsor of "solutions'l but as aveil ifted, a verbalchainwoven, [1964]



1968:199).The ontologicalaffinity betweenvision and the visitmeans hatvisioncannotpierce he ontological exlureout oi;hichis made. This transc,endences what the philosopher calls cftlequally, he incarnatecondition of vision, the fact that vision

PRECURSORS:HENOMENOLOCYND SEMtOTtCS MERLEAU-PONTYTHEMADNESS F VISION

(rructuresof categorical hought (of 'rationality') are ultimately

iounded n PercePtion.We are always mmersed n the world and

DerceptuallyPresent to it. Equally, becauseour encounter with the

Sepething'would become ost n darkress, t has o beunderpinned by

anactivity hat constitutes t, that tries to grasp ts significance. t is nota dogmaticdoctrine but a programme of phenomenological esearch

whichhe left incomPleteat his death.

Although Ctzanne's Doubtwas dedicated to the study of two painters:

Leonardoda Vinci and C€zanne,Merleau-Pontywas more interested,

more attun€d to Cezanne'sefforts to 'paint from nature'. For, in the

Frenchpainter, the philosopher found a modern artist who did not

seemo b.e lave o the Renaissanceechniquesoflinear perspectivd'lnd

outline.This instinctive'appibach o painting, ridillEd-with anxietyand

doubt (the discordance between the posthumous recognition of

Cizanne'sachievements nd the critical reception of his works during

his ifetime is well documented)7 esults, n Merleau-Ponty' seyes, n a

genuinely riginary.form ofexpression: the artist auncheshis work just

asa man once aunched he first word, not k rowing whether it will be

anything more than a shout' (Johnson 1993: 69). C6zanne himself

reportedlysaid hat he did ngt-lvant o make a picture,but to attempt'a

piece f-gqllurel,Vhen equotedC€zanne aying'The andscapehinks

itself n me' ibid.:671,Merleau-Ponryeemedo see iri<iof hai lrithispaintei-r-work the visible world is reconstructed in the processofappearingo visual sensation,which, for the philosopherepitomisedhisphenomenologyof painting, The painter does not depict representa-

tions n his mind but rather paintswith his body which is mingled withthe perceivellurprld. This immeJsisir of ttre viewer in the world on view

The selfrevealed y painting is thus'not a self through transpareiriy, like thought, which only thinks itsobject by assimilating it, by constituting it, by transforming it intolhought. t is a selfthrough confusion,narcissism,hrough inherenceofthe one who sees n that whiih_hr sees' 1964b 162-3).

And yet, although at one with theworld, thepainter is also apart romit, which is the paradoxical, enigmatic 'madness'of visioil?7e and

Mind, which was the last work Merleau-Poriiy sdw publishedfirasconceivsd, ccording o ClaudeLefort, as a preliminary statement o thebook that the philosopher was writing at the time of his death, whichbecame ?fie Visible and the Invisible. Tellingly, C€zanne'spainting(alongside hat of Matisse,Klee and some Dutch artists) is still at the

the milieu of the world, 'asan envelopment rreducible in principlefrontal grasp' (Barbaras2004: 156) s what Merleau-p;nly c;l lfollowing Husserl, he,/lesfi .More precisely, ince vision cannotdistinguishedrom heiorld, it follows harrheworld c)nnor bedisiiguished from vision either. The duality between subiect andwhich raer3esr the levelof peqceg.lionequires new philorlanguage o describe his paradoxical nteia?tio-ri- r irreri

work Cdzan-ne'soubt.Rather ellingly,Cd.zanne\ oubt appearednFontaine, iffireview of poetryand Frenchetters.6his clearlyreflected erleau-Ponty'seliefthat n order o lorm a new deaof

It is aspainstakings heworksof Balzac,rogl,J,al€ryor Feanne byreason fthe same indofattentivenessndwonder,ihe ame emandoiawareness,hesamewill to seizehe meaning fthe worldor ofhistoryaslhrtmeaningomesntobeing. n hisway tmergesnto he eneralfforlofmodernhoughr.[ lc45l200t: x i )

A central difficulty of Merleau-ponty'sapproach o phenomenologyis that although there are'maq4poeysor conscious_nesso be conscious,,as he says n a famous phrase ibid.: 124),we nevercompletelyescapelrom the realmof perc.eptualeali ty;even he seeminglynd-pendent



PRECURSORS:HENOMENOLOCYND SEMIOTtCS

heart of the reflection on science and painting in Eye andDescarles's ioptrique s criticised or failing to appreciate heical importance of painting. One can indeed argue,as Merleau-does, hat Descartes s more concerned with draw-ing han p

when light, lighTfiig,shadows, eflectionsand coloursare all the

paintings. To understand hese ranssubstantiationswe must go backthe working, actualbody- not the body asa chunk ofspace or a bundle

of fthe painter's] quest' ibid.: 166).Merleau-Pontyconcentrates nb_ojy"going as far asarguing that 'we cannot imagine how a mindpaint' (ibid: 162):

It isbylending his bodyto the world that the arrist changes he world

functionsbut Lhatbody which is inlertwin ingof vision and movement.(ibid.)

Accordingto Merleau-Ponty, this is this li4k between vjsionmov-qmenthat forbids us to conceive ision asdn operation ofthou

'that would setup before he mind a pictureor iiiFresentation ofworld,a world oI immanence nd of ideality' ibid.). or Merleau- o

chiasmaor intertwining betweenbody and world. The body envelthe world, that is to say makes t appear, only to the degree o-wfiiii-

paintiggreveals the,e&igma of the body simultaneouslybgiggseen.This is what Merleau-Pontyattempts o describe n terms

envelopedby it. Thus, the manifestationof the world for t he body isthe same ime a manifestationof the world by itself within the body,that the body's constituting power coincideswith the phenof the world. This intertwining reveals an ontological contibetween the body and the world, a co-belonging deipii.thanopposition. o llustratehis,Merleau-Pontysesheconcept f'flerFleshdesignateshe co-appearancef the world and the subJ'iiiiry3$ated. In this theoretical laboration, ainting as ari art isessential stepping stone; its creations, a 'figured philosophy': 'paintingshemselvesecouldseek igured hilosophy'ibid.: 68).means f painting,Merleau-Pohtys hoping o be able o openuporiginarysignifiingof language,ts nscriptionn the worldbeforeworld ransmuteshissignifyingnto ideality.

After havingdescribedhe mute expression f our contactwithworld which he seespainting accomplishing (especially n C6zannelart), Merleau-Pontyshows hat pictorial expressionannounces hatlanguage.fthe worldcanbepainted,t is becausescatterefGiGcontainsalreadyall of what painting and languagewill unfold on

MERLEAU-PONry:HEMADNESS F VISION

discoveryI exp-r€ssionsahsence f c]osEr e.grdnfinity__ofenseha t

.,me at lhe lime he was writing The Proseof the tr4rorld,mPUed thecameat the time he was writing The Proseof the rDhed tbe

unveilingof the world in its authentic, originary appearance.Merleau-

ponty husofferedan approach o expressionn which the world i s only

eivenasa withdrawal, as a presencewhich, through its obscurity,gives

6irth to expressionwithout everbeing absorbed nto the expressed.

If a number of the categories t work in The Visibleantl the nvisible

areborrowed from the description of pictorial expression, he novel,

and n particular,Pro.ust'sn Search f LostTime, s alsoable o provide

amodelor this conception of exPression, s one which is a movement

preserving nd continiring perceptual ife (evenwhile transforming it)

andwhich is simultaneously apprehending ideality.'The difference

betweenangu3gqand erceplionwhich dominatedPhenomenologyf

Perreprior,iiiiiueEJrom Tfte P.os of the World o The visibleand

the nvisible as tr;vo fioments of,oIt:, more fundaloental reality:

Thephilosopher nowsbetter han anyone hat what is lived s lived-

spg\eD.-that,orn at this depth, anguagesnalJrmaskoverBeing, ut -ifone knowshow o graspt with all ts rootsand ts oliation themost

valuable itnesso Being, hat t does ot interruptan mmediationhat

wouldbeperfectwithout t, that hevision tself, he hought tself, re, shasbeen aid,structured sa anguage',rearti.ulation eforc he ette\apparitionof somi[hing vhere herewas nio-thing r somethii]*dlse.([196a] 968: 26)

Merleau-Pontyargues his on the basisof a new definition ofpercep-tion, sonceived s exegesis'.he Iived s already'spoken ived'before theletter.ParaphrasingiEan, he eiplains thql-vision, placed at the samelevelas hought is structured as a anguage'.

This 'articulation before the letter' (as well as the velv use of abot,tnical etaphor) s a Lranspositionn philosophicalermsof what

Proustexpressed n literary terms with the episodeof the hawthorn6.ashn Swann'sWay.

It was n vain hat I lingered esidehe hawthorns breathingn theirinvisible ndunchanging doun rying o fix t in mymind (whichdid notknowwhat o do with it),losing t, recapturingt, absorbing yselfn the




rhythmwhichdisposedhe flowers ereand herewith a yourhful

heartedness nd at intervals asunexpectedas cettain intervals n music

they went on offering me the samecharm in inexhaustibleprofusion,

without letting me delve any more deeply, ike those melodieswhich

canplaya hundred times n succes sion ithout coming any nearer o

secret. turned away rom them for a moment so as o be able o leturnthem afresh [...] And then I returned to hawthorns, and stood

them asone standsbefore masterpieces hich, one imagines,one will

better able to'take in'when one has looked away for a moment

somethingelse;but in vain did I make a screenwith my hands, he

to concentrate pon he riowers,he feeling heyarousedn me

obscureand vague,struggling and failing to free tself, to float across

become one with them. They themselves ffered rne no enlightenment,

and I could not call upon any other flowers to satisir this

longing. Proust1988: 51-2)

In this episode, Proust stagespowerfully the idea of a -sense'plqcqdeJ ts strictba inguistic expression. anguage s here consi

as an analogu,eof perceptual life rather than a transforming of

meaning; Proust ndicateshere,and n other moments of his long

(bearingall the marks of a quest or truth), the insertion of

into the world, t he world as veiling of sense.And the reason why

author of In Searci of Lost Time coulil-arovide such a model

Merleau-Ponty's conception of language s that Proust

better than anyoneelse, he movement which, in vision, opens

texture of Being of which the sensorial yet enigmatic - messages

onlv the Dunctuations:

No one has gone firrther than Pro ust in fixing the relations behveen he

visible and the invisible, n describingan idea hat is not the contrary of

the sensible, hat is irs ining and its depth. ([196a] 1968: 149)

Expression s not a veil draped over the world but'insofar as t is

verybecoming ofthe world, what can open us to it'(Barbaras 2004:

or, n other words: The eye ives n this texture asman lives n his(1964b:166).

Merleau-Ponty specifically r€fers to'the little phrase' which,

Swann's ove story with Odette, s like the anthem of their love',and

quotes rom Proust: the notions of light, sound, of relief, of pvoluptuousness,which are the rich possessions ith which our

domain is diversified nd adorned'(Proust1988:503).Fo r

Ponty the arts,but alsohuman passions nd generally he experience

the visible world, all contribute (no less han science) o the exp

MERLEAU-PONry:HEMADNESS F VISION

^tanav.isible hich s, for him, the disclosure f a universe [ ideas.

ifiidifference with science, nd an important one n his view is that

lresedeas annot be detached rom'the sensible ppearance nd be

erecrednto a second osi t iv i ty ' ( [19641968: 49). t is worthquoting

yerleau-Ponty'somment on Proust's ext at ength, since t

allowsus tose€he way p.erception nd expression nt€rconnect,and the way, even

when peakingof music, Proust s still, in fact, speakingof the visible:

Swann an of course losen the'lit tle phrase'betr{eenhe marks f

flusical otation, scribehe'withdrawn ndchilly enderness'that akes

up its essencer its sense o the narrow rangeof the five nofes hat

composet and to the constant ecurrence f t lvo of them: while he s

thinking f these igns nd his sense,e no longerhas he little phrase'

itself, e hasonly'bar€ alues ubstitutedor themysterious ntityhe hadperceived,or the conveniencefhis understanding:hus t is essentialothis sort of i deas hat they be'veiled with shadows', ppear'undera

disguise'.heygiveus the assurancehat the'great unpenetrated nddiscouragin8ightofour soul'isnot empry s not'nothingness';ut theseentities,hesedomains, heseworlds hat line it, people t, and whosepresencet feels ike the presence f someonen the dark, havebeenacquired nlythroughts commerce ith thevisible,o which hey emainattached.ibid:150)

This example ftom Proust's novel is in a way more telling than thosederived tom painting, since, t is, after all, a visual art. There is no doubtthatMerleau-Ponty deliberately chose a musical example - in a novelwherepictorial descriptions abound - to expand and illustrate what

'visible'means for him. Thq'ivisibility he has in mind is bom out of ourunmersion in the -world and <i?our ability to,.r:qress it. Expression isanchoredn intentioraliry which is part of what Ihe process f perceptionts.The possibility of erpression nscribed in things themselves s t-heguaranteelat 'tiere is somethingl There is a lining in the 'texture' of alllhings hat is potenl.ially he bearer of meaning: the 'absence', hichMerleau-Pontyalso calls 'a certain hollow, a certain interior'is the'negativity

that is not nothing' (ibid: 151); t is, ashe says uotingValery,somethingike the secret lackness f mik' (ibid; 150).What Vinteuil'ssonata's otesoffer is a sort of screenedpresentationoiideas, enti;;;tr-ed

oehind hese few notes, perfecrlydistinct

ftom one anolher, unequalamong themselves n value and in significance' Proust 1988: 505).Merleau-Pontyconcluded, after a passage ntirely dedicated o music:

With the rrstvision, he irst contact,he irstpleasure,here s nitiation,that s,not thepositing f a content, ut the opening f a dimensionhat

51



52 PRECURSORS:HENOMENOLOCyND SEMtOTtCs

can never again be closed, he establishmentof a level n terms ofevery other experiencewill henceforth be situated.The idea s thisthis dimension. [1964]1968: 5l )

aftistic formsare a lanquage

nrsrrc orms area.tanquage apable f introducing us loperspecttvesnsteadol confirming us in our own. Cezans n our own.Cezanrd

amohg others, supplied Merleau-ponty with a conception of

lilg"1.t: nul pro.videsswithsyrnbolst"r neu.,toftheir style s whatallowshem o makemanif.r, ifr. ,jriif.-rrrijcoherent eformat ion ' y which theyconcentrate. thet i l l

3"11i"Sof [their]perceptionndmake , .r", .*pr.rrfy;ii

Precisely ecauset dwellsand makesus dwell in a world we do not have\ey o--rhework of art teaches sto seeand

"lifio#t?;;;;;-#

to think abour-aso aIf.lytical work can. ibid.:77)

Following Husserl,Merleau-pontFcame o consider hat:

*:.*..I^:t_{,*"phy[...] consistsn resrormg power o sr.gnifi ,

:,j:i""1 T:"Tllcl:]:wild mearing. nexpressjonf erperience-b-y>cp

ffi ,:l;lili"J,'fi#l":,Hn::f.:tttrTi'::;#j:r::: i t

i: lhevery oice f the hings,hewavesnd h" fr.;;,;. i i l ; ; l1968:55

In the end however, his reliance on artti(ic lansuaqe.languagen particularnd he

meraphoricalf,fr L iir""*i'iis certainlyoneof the reasonswhy_ 21s"g*i,h l_ri":";l; ;;;;t_

l i l l r:rfnlwasconsidered n- mlgsseby many of his successors.

CJaude eforrpointedout:

MERLEAU-PONTY:HEMADNESS FVISION

confines [ a mel.aphysics,be mqtaphysics_ofgesence'197]: 94).

FinalJy,t was especially truc-turalismwhich iiduced a crisis in

phenomnology,r'z nd 'deconstu cl on' was used as a mefhod to

unmask hatwas onsidered aive n Merleau-Ponty'sphenomenolog-

icalpositivism',This critical discoursecoalesced, ot alwayscoherently

or self-consciouslyJay1993:327), nto an attack on visuality in all its

fotmscorncidi.ngwith the proclamation of the death of the subjectwhich isqualified philosophy ssential lyentred n the expei;ince f

'being or myself

Today, owever,we can say hat Merleau-Ponty' s nduring legacy, is

conception f an incarnated eality ofyision in the corporeal and social

context avebeen developed gainby a number ofphilosophers (Nanry,

and hen Rancidre)r3whose reflection on the visual, like his, is oftenbasedon art; painting in particular, not as rep-resentationof theempiricalworld - understood n the platonii, metaphj'iiealway- but aspresentationf world, of sense, f existence.

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toucault,M. ([1969] 1989)TheArchaeologyfKnowledge ndthe Discourse

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The keynotions introduced n someoft

ffimld#':r##*f#krrtr:#:: *{#::i'i,'.lJ:::i,'ffi"::::"511;:-,".t1fi:tr#*m'.*"i:y,::l.lj::,T"."rdimensions.iinees----Api*,r,ii*""."1,r;;;;";;i,il;h-emselveso a strict definition.io

One of the problems that the later generatron had withPonty'swritings was_hat, as Marjlulay explaintd, ,natier

ffl*:""llg*: ylual mbricationF,r,.i,."i,i".""a

r"'ie"..rthe lesh_ofthe orld, heywouldquestion nypositi:; il:'J::ffi1: il::,X:;8"J#t?il1H.fl"fl;l



PRECURSORS:HENOMENOLOGYND SEMIOTtCS

fohnson, G. A. (1993) The Me eau-PontyAestheticsReadcr,lL: NorthweslernUniversity ress.

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- ([1945] 1964a) The War Has Taken place',trans. DreyfusDreyfus in Senseqnd Non-Sense,Evanston, IL:University Press.

......._ 1964b) ThePrimacyof Perception,ans. J. M Fdie,NorthwesternUniversity Press.

- (1964c) Indirect Languageand the Voicesof SilenceEyanston, L: NorthwesternUniversity Press,

- (1965) The Structure of Behat our, trans. A. L. Fisher,

Methuen.Proust, M. (1988) Swann\ Way, rans.C. K. Scott Moncrieff,

PenguinClassics.

Rancidre, . (1998a) La Chqir desmots: Politiquesde I'dcriture,Galilde.

- (1998b)La Pqrolemuetle: Essai ur lescontredictions e .ltrre, Paris:Hachette.

- (2000)LePartageu sensible,aris: aFabrique.Zola,E.(2008)TheMasterpiece,d R.Pearson,rans.T.Walton,

OxfordWorld'sClassics.

Notes

I ln Phenomenology f Percepion,Merleatt-Ponty, mmediatelythe possible contradictions of a 'docrrine which savsmentioned both Husserland HeideggeralongsideDescartes. orPonty, Husserl's Cartesiafi Meditations is the primary p

reference or anybody trying to establish a philosophy which shall be'r igorous cience'[1945]2001: i i ) .

In The Primacy of Perception,'r,lhercMerleau-Ponty addressedhe

Frangaise e Philosophie n order to defend he central thesisofhis

ptb\shed Phenomenologyf Perceptionhortly after ts publication,acknowledgedhe programmatic aspectofhis phenomenologyof

[it is] only a preliminary tudy, ince t hardlyspeaksf cultureor11964b:25).

3 This is where he differs significantly with Sartre'sanalysisof the gaze.

Sartret conception of a'reifying look'goes as ar as ocuJarphobia, seeJayD93i276)

4 Bergsont nfluence on Merleau-Ponty s significant,and ully acknowledged

by the arlthorof Phenomenohgy f Percepioa.Bergsoncrucially associaied

perceplionnot with knowledgebut with aclion. for him. perception

;mounts lo the produ(t ion of imageswhich a." in mouementbec"r"e

the perceiving subject is a living subject. It is the singularity of rhismovement explaining the emergence of specific manifestations thataccounts or perception.Perceptualmanifestationdoes ndeed proceed nthis instance rom the stricl relation between ivinq marem.., a^ aphenomenal ield. n so far as i t stems ro- moue-int, perceDtion ssarisfied irh focusing n the hing irself n order ro circum;crib; r; i t isintentionalbecause f its mobility. This is the reasonwhy the way to accessperception n a satisfactoryway cannot thereforebeeitherby coincidence rfusionwith things: an essential omponent ofthe process funderstandingperceptions an nterrogation n language.

5 In his analysis,Merleau-Pontyusesboth Heideggerand Bergson,even fhethinks that the latter'was wrong in explaining he unity of time in terms ofits continuity' pr eferring to follow Heidegger'sdefinition h Sein snd Zeitaccording o which 'temporality temporalizes tself as uture_which apsesinto-the-past-by-coming-inro-the-present,Merleau-ponty[1945] 2001:420).

6 Fontaine:Reyuemensuelle e la potsie et des ettres frangaises (47) (Dec.I945), 80-100.The director of rhe ournal wasMax_polFoucher.This issueof the ournal included essays y Roger Caillois on Bossuetand pascal,byGeorgesBlin on Gabriel Marcel, by paul Eluard and paul Claudel. t alsocontainedtheannouncementofthe first nu mbet of Les em\smodernes,the

poliricaJ nd philosophicaljour nalditedby Sartre nd Meileau_pontyse eIohnson 99J:J75).

7 It famouslycaused is break-upwith his childhood friend, Emile Zola,who.in i'Grlre [The Masrerpiece] ad depicteda failed painter,Claude Lantier.who,Cezanneargely ssumed,ad beenbased n his riend.s erceotion fhlm.

MERLEAU-PONTYTHEMADNESS F VtStON

Gallimard ublishedt asa book n 1964.As haveried o shown Aubert 2003i.'Les otions l6sntroduites ans ettains ssaiseSignes,ans aproseduVonde,dans L'(El et 'esprir, arls eVisible r 'jnviiblesu rou | n'ex_er(aient lusmanifestementa fonction uon prete ux con.epi. un" e

9

l0



56 PRECURSORSTHENoMENOLOCYND EMlOTlCs

discoursm€taphysiqr.re.hair, hiasme,tvenibilitt, citculatift,

or dimensions,charniires, PilotJ, ces mots ne semblaient Plus

d'une stricte d6finition (Lefort 1982:101).

In a letter to Alphonse de Waelhensof 1962,he wrote:'The only

paintingMerleau-Pontyealswith is a varietyof serious ut futile

tissement, f interest nly to well-intertioned umbugs. heonlywortl lookine at has the same rqisox d'6trc as lhe raison d'ttre of lhe

- mystery' quoted n lay 1993t326)

12 Although,asViocentDescombesointsout (1980: 7),

not a philosophical school in the way that the phenomenological

was.Nonetheless:Theeffect fstructuralism ponphilosophical

is [...] incontestable.'

RanciCreuses he category of the'flesh as defined by

number of his books su.h as La Patule fluette, La Chair des mots

Partagedu sensible.

l1

Christianetz: onstructingrneaning

MartineolY

tn film

ChristianMetzJ1931-93) is righdy considered as the founder of the

semiology kjnq.ma. His semiological hought, part of a wider struc-

turalistmovementdominant at the time, brought togethercinema and

finguistics, inema and psychoanalysis,nd later cinema with utt€rance

$eory.rNeyer one to be an intellectual maitre' [guru], Metz wasnever-

thelessxemplary n his openness rtd nnovation, aswell as his rigour.

In an interview, Marc VeuELleminded ChristiaAJ[etz of his 'trois

r6gimes.d'6critulgj (rentb' [threedifferent writing regimes] 'celui desEssais,elui de Langageet cin(ma (qu'i l a) explicitementvoulu"#i6nne'l echnique . n i 2l.nnn c"toi du Signifinr imaginair e, vecur stylebeaucoupplus litt€raire, plus fl.yide,parfois presque ranspar-ert' lthat of the Essdb, hat of Language and cinemawhichhe explicitlywantedo be rock solidl and finally that'of the maginary Signifierwith

amuch more lit6' style that is fluid, sometimesEc-nilihnsparent](MarieandVernet 1990t276).

Film s ext

It was he 1950sand 1960s hat saw the founding of a semiology of



PRECURSORS:HENOMENOLOCYND SEMIOTICS

des unitds de discours,en s'obligeantpar ld i rechercher es

s/tef#i,(qutils' sbientou non descodes)qui viennent nformer

textes t s'implicite r neux' adefinition odayof thesemiology f

is the wish to consider ilms as erfs,asunits ofdiscourse which

the search or the differents/sfemswhich nform these exts and

part of them, whetherbasedon codesor not] (Metz 1971: 4). From

first article onwards,'Le cin€ma: angueou langage?'(1964),

work on film asdiscoursewill be based, ight up to his final publi

on'l'6nonciation au cin€ma' [utterance n cinema].All his work

sentsa constantquestioningoflanguageand ts materials, ncluding

ways they work, the signifying processes,and using theories

utterance.Along the way,aswith studiesof all discourses,here was

bound to be a fundamental questioning of the links between

analysisand language,and the whys and whereforesof

and cinema. The famous issue 4 of the structuralist

mention on contempo,raries such as Souriau, Cohen-S6at,

Robbe-Grilletand Zazzo.Here he Germanist n Christian Metz (

former eicherat th€ Institut frantais n Hamburgdn?lnterpreter

Radio Hamburg), allowedhim to readworks by Rudolph Arnheim,

he even thought about translating Film als Kunst (Film-E{Art) inseminar at the EHESS.Tustas he would fl&ie ['d€pouiller'] F{eud

. Lacat for Le signifiantjlnagi.naire I977b), his translatibn (alsounl

lished) of Freud's Witz und sein Beziehung um UnbewusstenLe

rh€torique de I'image',ClaudeBremond's Le message ar?aiif',

Todo.loJ's'Ladescriptionde a signification en itt€rature'.Looking

on his first article, we might be struck by the programmatic

the piece,and this may be part of our a posferiorisynthesis f the

of Christian Metz. Indeed, there are ilijlg "flecades hat

lEnonciation mpersonnelleu esitedu rIm ftom thisearlyarticle,in the atterwecanalreidyseeMetz's uture rajector|, swellas hat

many of his successors.

For each new research opic Metz begins with ath€orique desdcrits pr6c€dents' theoreticallybasedsurvey of

writ ing] (1964: 66). Hence his referencenot only to the

mentionedbut also o the RussianFormalists,Eisenstein, r Bela

Communications rought together;feries of seminal articles,

additio;To 'Le cindrni, langlue u langage?':Roland Barthes's

There s work on Chgglin, o-n h'e-Frenclr3ant-gardistes'dhEpstein, ellucand Dulac,and hen BazinandMerleau-Ponty;ot

d'espritet ses apportsatec I'inconscientJokesand their relation to

CHRISTIANETZ:CONSTRUCTINCEANINCN FILM

unconsciousl)amewith his commentsattached, s ecalJed y those

r/hoattended he seminar. et us not f orget hat his seminarwas very

5pecialn that it was both closed and open to the public; closed n the

sensehat Christian Metz allowed n (and with greatgenerositybesides)

only those people he had already spoken to individually about theirmotives, hereby avoiding the seminar becoming mondain' Ifashion-

able],aswas the casewith certain other seminarsat the EHESSat the

dme;but open, n the sense hat he allowedmany Frenchand interna-

tional researcherso attend and to talk about th€ir own work, in such a

wayas o nourish theoretical ese_archn cine-matom asmany different

pointsof view aspossible.Metz'sweekly eminar allowed or an explo-

ration of major and ancillary themes, both complementary and

contradictory. n line with the essentially nterdisciplinary nature of

semiology,here were French and international theoreticiansof sound,

of '6nonciation' Iutterance], gestalt,didactics, media studies, experi-

mentalcinema,narrative theory, generativegrammar; not to mention

sociologists, istorians, experimental directors, French and interna-tionalcritics, and young researchers oming fiom many horizons. La

sdmiologie.. est interdisciplinaire" par elle-mdme[...] elleentretientddji, et couramment, des apports avecautre chose: ritique des ddolo-gies,psychanalyse,€minisme, analyse extuelle,histoire structurale . . .sciences e l'6ducation, etc.' [Semiology is 'interdisciplinary' by itsnature, t alreadyhas regular inks with other subjects: orms of ideo-logicalcritique, psychoanalysis,eminism, textual analysis,structuralhistory,educational theory etc.l, as Christian Metz argued n a 1990

rnteryiew Mari€ and Vercet 19901 77).

'Lecinema:angue u langage?'

As or the links betweencinemaand linguistics, t fell to Christian Metzto '6puiser' (research thoroughly) the expression 'langage cin€-matographique'.n his book Langqgeet cinlma which is basedon thearticle'Lecin€ma: angueou langa$fwt{nd from the outseta concernwith producing a systeqgLi9._$qqyf the question n irs Lheoreticaloomain: ere, hat of l inguistics;La sdmiologie eut et doit s)appuyer

fortement sur la linguisiiqie, mais elle ne i.e-.eodond pu, uu.i .il"' \,^Lsemiologyan and must rely heavily on linguistics, but it is not to be /'confusedwith it l (i971: 58 n. 4). Thus we can see he appearance,progressively,that is to say programmatiquement',of a dpfinition of asemiologyof cinema: une th€orie du fait filmique est ngd passp€ciale-



PRECURSORSTHENOMENOLOCYANDEMIOTICS

ment une approche nspirdede a linguistique,m€me s'il faut passer

cecipour atteindr€a cela' a theory of t he filmic is not especially

approach nspiredby linguistics. ven f one has o go thio6 [ one

reach fie diherl (ibid.:13). Far from it being about an application

ofthe Lerm, ne.which perates n five.types f signifr ingmaterial:moving mage, he w_rittenext,speech, oiseand mijiic.

l inSuisticso cinema, s t hasbeenoftensuggestednd much

('on n'applique amaisrien' Iyou never apply anlthing], Metz would

in his seminars), instead it is about a conftontation, of a mea

between anguage,he language ystemandtinema. I f we can agree

the lineuist Andrd Martinet that what characterises

the doulle arli_cu,lation hone.m^e-moneme, hich is possible

thanks o the isolationof smallestunities ofsound and meaning,

becameclear hat this isolation was no longer possiblewhen applied

the cinema any more than to the image in general, Christian

insisted then on the heterogeneity of cinematographic language

showed hat it was ndeed a langgage ut a anguage n the w_idest

ilbwever, f cinemiiographicailuage hdi nos*nall nitsofit nevertheless ssemblesarge syntagmaticunits, which can be seen

the way they permutate,and these arge units are describedby Metz'segments utonomes' ftee-standingsegments] nd for which he was

try to write an inventory,a'Grande syntagmatique'.hu s

graphic languageshareswith the languagesystema certain number

rules of functioning: those of developing along the two axes of

s)'ntagm and the paradigm, or also according to the laws of

(1977b).Theseobservations y Christian Metz were made ollowingmajor theoretical advance made by Roland Barthes in'Eldrrents

s6miologie',4 y making semiology part of linguistics and not the

way round as Ferdinand de Saussure ad argued n the introduction

hi.s Cours de linguistique gdndrale.The cinema appeared then like'languagewithout a anguage ystem' nd furthermore stuck with

tivity. 'Passerd'une irnage deux images, c'est passerde l'image

langage' to move from one to two images, s to move from image

language],declaredChristian Metz (19641 3). He was showing all

while that as ong aswe do not forget what will later be called a'

Istitchingl perated y'l'esprithumain,cediachronistempdnitent'Ihuman spirit, that impenitent diachronistl, this language'ne ait qu'

avecla arrativite u fi lm' [isbut onewith thenarrativityof i ]ml (

64). Therefore it was necessarv o underline the irresistible neednarrativise th€ montage between two frames, to fictionalise

CHRISTIANETZ:CONSTRUCTINCEANINCN FtLM

stitching.usl as Koulechov ad onceshown.Semiological nalysis f

f i lm rhenbecomesike an 4tudedesdiscours t des textes" .. qui

relcoltrera in6vitablement a sociologie, 'histoire descultures,1'esth6-

dcue, a psychanalyse'a study of discoursesand'texts'which comes

inevitably into contact with sociology, cultural history, aesthetics,p5ychoanalYsisli&ld).'

But still, what preciselydoes he term 'cinemalcayer?How is cinema

different tom film? Here Metz uses he cinema-film distinction made

by Gilbert Cohe :S€at (1958), n order to sharpen his distinction and

show he extent to which the filmic includes he cinematographicand

viceversa, llowing Metz to describenevertheless ertainspecificitiesof

cinematographicanguage,his'languagewithout a anguage ystem'. s

for*grammafes" cindmatographiques',was it an acceptable orm of

terminology for film? Christian Metz pointed out in the first two

chapters f Langage t cintmathal clnemawas notj__uqt_a-anguage', ut

a [ait cindmatogra hique', ilm constitutes vastcomplex'au seinduquel trois aspectspredominent avec force: aspect tggb,Jlologique,

aspectdcongglque, aspectso-q,iplogique'at the heart of which threeaspects ominateheavily; he technological, he economic and the soci-ologicall; whereas a 'fait filmique' sees in each film an 'espacedelimitable'adefinable pacel, n'obietvouede parten part A Jsigni-fication' [an object wholly given over to creating meaning], a'discoursclos' a closed discoursel,which allows t self to be considered commeun langage'uike a language]only'dans son entier' las a whole entity].In other words,'le cin6matographique'wouldcoveranlthing to do with

the phenomenon 'cinema': economics (let us not forget the famouscommentbythe then culture ministerAndr€ Malraux,'cinema s alsoanindustry'); sociology ('going to the cinema'); forms of expression(particular language, screen-play, cameras, microphones, actorsJsettings,etc.); world cinema (European, ndian, Arnerican, etc.);whereas he'filmic', for its part, would be concernedstdctly with thework itself, with the film in as much as t displays ts cinematographic

Potential 1971).

Lagrandesyntatmatique

As for the need o classify he various elements n a'langagecin€-matographique', Metz went on to establish the_firsl-grandesyntagmaiique' Metz 1968a). ts principle was to elaborateajpologyof cinematographic sequences n films with narratives typical of




Hollpvood, putting into play the eigblgpee-of syntagms that

needed n order to start analysingat a level hat reflected he

mode in which films areput together, hat is montage.So Metz

lalgg-ua:ts, 'segments autonomes', into which went all

elements of the t6inposition ('plao-"autdnome' Ifree-stansecionl/syntagms), ft ime (descriptivel.ntagms,arallel r

found in the major narrative codes hat Todorov was studying at

time in his narrative semiotics,alongside Greimas, Barthes

Bremond.

Many have cdticised the fact that this typology did not account

the whole uqglioning of the'cin€matographique',hat certain ilmshave no segment corresponding to the eighLoegmentsset out in

Srande)-ntagmatique'.In articular, he typology did not correspond

thepracticeof the nouveau in€ma' Chxteau nd osfi9z9). Intypeof cinema, ariation3'(iirrppositions) ould be no ongermaticbut paradigmatic. urthermore,n as much as lh es).ntagmatique'was interestedabove all in the visual aspect,Metzbeen accusedof ignoring the role of sound in c inema. In reality

questionofsound, ofspeech,ofthe noisesand the music, s very

in the preoccupations of Metz's thought, which had set out atearl iest tagehe notionof a language,e t visualor soundmaterial.

for the first objection raised concerning the relations between'grande syntagmatique' and Holll.wood film - or those

of compactnes5sceneFquence,ith oi *itlooti.rnJgral?li-p-sis,variableength).Thiswasno different rom the seginentsf monti

semiologyand fictional film - Metz replied by underlining the factgiven that fictiofiii,film is in the predominant category, semio

Furthermore,Christian Metz reco€lised hat semiology doit s'oc(

aussi de tous les films qui sont plu =ou moins noh:liftionnels' I

cannot but start by studying it. In so doing he went on to measure

extent to which his grandesyntagmatique'was adapted o fitmoderncinema t968a).He pointedout that modern'c inemanout elle rague, n particular) was renewing narrative forms wiabandoning hem:'Nous pensons . . que e principal apport du"nouveari'est d'avoir enrichi e r6cit filmique' lWe believe hat theeffect of the'new' cinema is to have enriched the fimicl (ibid-

alsoconsider all films which aremore or lessnon-ffETidhall. utwith a nod towards his detractors; je ne me senspasoblig6 depersonnellement ,, tout le champ de la sdmiologie du cin€ma;etobligd non plus de remplir personnellement a totalit€ du programme

t f r

CHRISTIAN ETZ:CONSTRUCTTNCEANiNC N FtLM

que 'aipu esquisser oi-memedans angoge t cindma, arexemple.l

;a d'autres hercheursheureusemenlour moii)' Ll do not seemyself

obligedpersonally o cover he whole field of semiologyof cinema,nor

personally o cauy out in its entirety what I myself setout in Language'aal Cinema.Thereareother researcherso do this (luckily

fo, -";f.t fi.suggestedhat we should understandsemiology dans e sensd'analyse

sructurale du film et des films' [in the senseof structural analysisof

fih and filmsl, with the aim of realising'une th6orie du fait filmiquel

whichuses irst ofall a method inspiredby linguistics,and then psycho-

analysis, nd then by theoriesof utterance,as'lesmorceauxde I'acquisp€uventet doivent circuler' [the collected data can and must move

aroundl 1971: 3) .

So La grande s)'ntagmatique'mustgot be considereda_ -a*rriversaltyp-olo_gy.ul one which reveals dominant model o['cinemal an dwhich enaourages s to isolatea systemof oppositions (in accordancewith the first rule ofmodern linguistics) hat is operative n eachpartic-ular film, so as to understand he particular systemof signification inuse,Metz went on, with Michdle Lacoste,o establisha ist of

.sesments

autonomes' n the film Adieu Philippineby lacquesnozier ftloo,1,despitehis declaredaversion o 'exemples'.He preferred to work at amuchwider theoretical evel,he would say.Nevertheless,dentifring theeighty-three segments utolomes' that make up JacquesRozier'shlm,allowedhim to arrive ai a certain number of conclusions about thelengthofsegments,aboutthe history of styles n cinematography, boutthcconnectionbetweengrammar and stylistics n cinematographics, ll

of which forms the basisof the particular rhetoric that belonqi to eachwork,As i l happens.his typeof analysis llowsus to show h-ow dieriPhilippine,a film about 1960syouth and above all this youth,sway ofspelking bout tself, rivilegeshe'scine'and he

plan-sequence's h e

'typesslrrtagmatiques es mieux adapt€sa h conveisation, sceneandsequenceayout are the syntagmatic ypes the best suited to conversa-tionl. This work allowedMetz also o distinguishbetween he

,sdquence

cinematographique',he'unit6 filmique' (or'segment auton*oine,), nthe one hand, and the nariitive sequence normally called

sequence')

on the other which he calls he unitd sc€naristiquel



oloSist hat the "'au deld"' ['beyond'] and the "'en de9d"' this side] (

analogy)be considered n all the codeswhich add to the analogy.

what ca1-de$lethe image cannot be reduced o an analogy,even f

notion obviouslyneeds o be preserved. t was mi.bitdnt for the st

these codes construct the analogy (rhetorical codes, socio-cr

codes, inguistic cirffef" and allow us to refute, at this stage, he'

ficienry) of what is known as'speqialeffects'which domiaate n

cinema. n Darticular he insistei uJon iiiiidistinction be$een i

effects od visible nes; nvisible ut perceptible ffects ringa sati


sion de r€alit6' s intensified n the cinema hanks o the injection "

f irr€a1it6de I'imaee de la rdalitd du mouvement" et du son

Iinjection'into the irreality ofthe imageofthe reality of movement'

of (perceived)sound] (1965c:82); Metz's insistence on the fact

tion to the viewer who appreciateshat'l 'on ne voit rien' [w enothing], it is that well done, but enjoying also the feeling of

complicit in a particular type of cinema(1975c).

lmpersonalpeech

It is in the areaof impersonal speech hat Metz's research

tion in the cinema appears, ven fit is true to say hat, n

terms, this dnly comes n the final publications Metz. To study

enormous areaMetz uses he samemethod; exploring existingworks

enunciation,understanding hem fully and working out if Efidhow

might help to think about enunciation n the cinema. n 1983,a

number of the journal Communications 38) is gi}en over'Enonciat ion t cindma'. n 1987.'enmargede travaux ecents

l'6nonciation au cin6ma',Metz p-iblished a first consideration of

question n the f i rst numberof lhejournal Verfgo 19881 sing

same itle as hat of h s i nalwork, L'Enoniat on mpersonnelleu e

de la "puret€ visuelle"' [m1th of'visual purity'], which is very m

preseni tdday and regularly nvoked to point to the mlth of'pour

commonly attributed to images (1970a: 9). Hence his work on

notion of the 'vraisemblable in€rnatographique'which is closer o'effet-genre',a relatiiist'ariterion if ever there was one, and which

impossible o bring up to date, according o Metz, unless here s

form of a'possible'proposed; his would not be a conventional

at all, allowing a new form of 'vraisemblable'lverisimilitudel (l

Crucial in all this was the essay n'Trucage el cinemd (1972t I

which helpsus to understand he reception and the efflciency(or i

CHRISTIAN ETZ:CONSTRUCTINCEANINCN FILM

daf.tn I I.q9\\. Metzoffersus irst a problematisationf I he verynolion

6fenunciationcoming rig ina l lyrom inguisl icsJ.o admi l hat,once

theargumentsover the pseu{o-transparencyof the filmic haveelded,

r,e can counterpos-Lallfnonciation didgetisde donc imperceptible) d

unednonciationnonc€e

donc'percefiibi?).ui

sesignale 'dne agonou d'uneautre' ut-t?ianceosr n ihe dlegesisthereforemperceptible)

with an utterance hat is uttered (thereforeperceptible)which signals

itself one way or another]. If 'l'€nonciation c'est le fait d'6noncer'

[utterance s the act of uttering], then to borrow from linguistics

appearsounded; but to see how it works in films, then we haye to

abandon he--lrum-an erms, according to Metz, such as 6nonciateur'

lutterer]and 'dnonciataire'[utteree]. ndeed Metz considered ha t

utterancen the cinema s never personnifiante'but always mpersonal

becauset is alwaysaccroch€e u texte' ltied to the text], its'site':'Tout

sepasse ommesi Ie film ne pouvait manifester iastancede proferation

qu'il porte en Iui et qui le porte, qu'ennous parlant de camdra,de spec-tateur, u en ddsignantsapropre filmitude, c'est-i-dire dans ous escasense 4g"rrlrant u.doigt' Ever]'thinghappensas fthe film can show hemoment of its proferation that it carries n it and which carries t onlyby speaking o us about the camera, he spectatoror by pointing to its '

own filmic status, hat is only by pointing to itselfl (1991:214). Thisproposal, ua l i f iedby an'envolde hdorique'wri t ten by Metz ibid.i173),s carriedout after closeexaminationofthe main forms ofaddressin the cinema: he look towards he camera,screendivided into boxes.splitscreens,mirrors, ihttusion ofth planning in the film, di-mwithin

the filn, 'subjective' mages, -narrations, etc. But it is the chapteronimages nd sounds hat are called neutral' which allows Metz to makehispoint d5"ofi't"iimpersonal'speechildr,s he reminds us, there is no'nobody'sshot',ngloljectif' ftaming ('not ftom point') that is able tohold,even f the regime he d?scribes s objectif-non-conditionn6' canDeseen o correspond o what we call'neutre': 'il faut tourner Ie dos dcette aton de voir, quelqueancienneet E6urantequ'elle soit, l n'existePas 'imagesneutres.Tout 6l6mentvisuelou sonorede tout film . . . s'estconslru i t sur des choix mulr ip le i impliquant une act iv i t€ . . .Ldnoncialion a ne pr-f6frTc indre vec esmarques t ses onfigura-

tions - est omniprdsenteet responsable e chaque detail' [we ha;e toturn our back on tEilway of looking, howeverold-fashionedor current]t may be, as there is no image that is neutral. Everyvisual and soundelementin every ilm is basedon a rangeof choiceswhich suggesthatsomeonehas taken an active ole. Utterance not to be confusedwith



PRECURSORSTHENOMENOLOCYND SEMlOTlCS

hidden or not, 'dansun certain sens l'dnonciation] se

puisquee texJe stoffeg la rue et l'ouielThissuggestionies nthe theory of enunciation based on the very idea that sub

manifest also in language,even n the most 'neutral' aspects But

Metz, m€me si le concept d'dnonciation filmique r€sisteassez ien'dnonciateur'doesnot exist,or rather he is but a personificationof

enunciation, f the origin of the ext hat s profdr€',nd that s

to the concretebody that is the spectator. hat is to say,meta

and impersonal (necessarily)as it is, 'l'€nonciation elle-m€me n'jamaiq44tiropoide, elle reste4ccroch€e -u exte' uttering itself s

anthropoid, it remains ied to textl (ibid.:2I4). This

utterance,possible n a, gok, is declared mpossible n a film by

for its origin is always and necessarilycollectiviitrnd tliversified.

points now made, Metz does_no-t_howeviihen evacudte he notion

its markings nd tsconfigurations is omnipresent n{ responsible

e.yery-debill (ibid.: tTUt.ln a[, ry-fierher erceptible ii6i] *ft.t

'sgjet in its psychoanalyticalsense.On the contrary Metz

psychoanalysisan indispensable discipline on which he

important study, whicE'lobked at its relations with the

cintma' (1977b).

Le signifiant imaginaire

First published in the Communicqtions umber (1975d) given over'Psychanalyse t cindma', his book (1977b)was to be published

thesame itle n the 0/ 18 series ithEditidnsUGE,but benefitingthree extra chapters:Histoire/Discours (Note sur deux

alreadypublished n the collectivehomage o Emile Benveniste l

'Le film de fiction et son sp€ctateur Etudem6tapsychologique)',

appeared in the same i.ssue of Communicqtions (1975a);'M6taphore/M6tonymie, ou le rdf€rent imaginaire', not pub

elsewhere, These texts, which are very important and hard

summarise.still influence contemporarycinema-related esearch.include an assessment f Freudianand'ti&:rqian psychoanalysison

mirror) wit h regard ocinema, f the-work f MelanieKlein th e

of the.object),aswell as an analysisof the different sorts oflytical studiesavailableon cinema,Metz observeshat many ofthese

often'des tentativesde diagnostic (nosographiqueouportant sur despersonneslescin€astes)'attemptso providenosographic or characterial diagnostics on certain people (

cHRISTIAN ETZ:CONSTRUcTINGEANINGN FILM

Raymond ellour n Communicalionso.23.called'Le.llocageymbol-

,.,," rS"ttol-, i 1975). But, for his part, Metz proposed o studyique' ( 1975). But, for his part, Metz proposed to study,directement, ors de tout film Particulier' [directly,outside of any film

in particularJ, he psychoanalltical mplications of t he cinematographic

so as o'6clairer en termes reudiens desph€nomdnescomme le hors

charnp,e cadrage,e montage court ou le tournage en profondeur'[to

explainusing Freud phenomena such as the off- screen, raming, the

short ilm or deep-vision ilmingl (1977b:.79).

Wemight want to indicate severalareas f progresswhich seem o be

crucial,n particular the analysis ft he'l'6tat filmique',distinct for Metzfrom the dream state,but which is lirked by hidden motivations, the

engagementfthe unconspiousand the relative owering of vigilance o

waking dreaming, to fantasy,more than to dreams, while remaining

radicallyseparatedrom them through the very materiality of the film,

ofthe imagesand the sounds.Another crucial area s the analysis f the

process f identification in the cinema,which is invoked today n order

to backup the supposedefEciencyof visual communication especially

in advertising or politics. A quoi s'identifle.lg tjgglut"ot durant la

projectiondu film?' lWith what does he spectator dentifr during the

pro.jection fthe film?] The character? he actor?Thesearepossiblebutonly in a way that is 'secondairiJfi"ihe psychoanalltical senseof theterm. hat is. afgr a necessarydentification with one\ o.119;lqqk hichhas eenconfusedwith that of Lhe amera'dansun double mouvem€nl

Projectifet introjectif' [in a dorible movement ofthe projective and thentroiective]. We are clearly a ong way from a simplifying reductionismthat s supplied by this psychicphenomenon to a supposeds)'npathyfor one or another character.

Finally,Metz helpsus to understand he cinema-machineby the verytitleof hiswork:Au cindma ommeau hdalr e e eD rdsentdstpardefi-

-.'--+-,. ^ ":-

nltton maqinairei 'est equi caractdrisea iction comme elle .. Marsld reprdsentation.. au cinemaest a son tour imaginaire.e mat€riau6tantd61ffi1eflet . .., [In the .fi.rrru

",ii the theatre that which is

representedis imaginary; it is this that characterisesiction as such.Butrepresentation in the cinema is itself imaginary, as the material is

'fi



PRECURSORS:HENOMENOLOCYND SEMtOTtCS

alreadya reflection].Metz is Iooking then for the psychimplications of an art form'ou tout estabsent,ol) tout estIwhere everything is absent,where everything recorded], wheieentiresignifier'estabtence' is absence].He points out this veryredoublin&that Qf the referent,which then actsmore to the

thetriegesis,endsmore o ger tuckn ir, o bepaid nto tsthe pe'ctatort-pelief1977b;92,s).It s thisabsence hichrrc Pecraror \Dellel 19 /D:9 2, 5

the scopic impulse in a dual act ofne scoprc mputse n a dual act ofvoyeurism: in order that thelieu' [takeplace],'je egarde r 'aide' [I watch and I helpl,,i,at 'aide' I watchand I help],'j 'asrist.as I able o etri"Lemoinretre-adjuvanCobeboihwitnesscounsel ] ,

-\ii_j _

L a text booth 'exhib i t ion is i ' .a" we watch, and'lrgqriue of the dispositii;Iplan, so har l histoireigne' thest oin chargel. h isabsencelso eeds he maginary apaciry fresearcher smuch asofthe spectator,n a waywhich is rnoreproj,than that of identification. Metz's main preoccupation s then to

for'la consiitution psychanalytique du slgndant au cin6ma, Ipsychoanallticaldimension ofthe signifier n tliri cinemal (ibid.:51)discoverby which 'chemins' [routes] the cinema s able to set intounconsciousnd to explore he specificity f the mechanismsf idtfication, of voyeurism,of exhibitionism, or fetishism,which areoperation. Elsewhere, he aim is to show how the mechanismsmetaphor and metonymy, of displacement and conoverwhelm us againwithin this absence, ow the rhetoricaltions are there, traditionally, in order to highlight,dans des ad'op€rations,des parent€sdans e travail du sens' within those

tions which have affinities, the deep links that exist in the workmeaningl. Here, and aswe haveseenelsewhere,we can seeone ofcharacteristics n the work blr' Metz, which is that ofprevious deas,evenpieconceivedones,and then explorinffiem=to Ipointof ieiecling r acceplinghem: n either ase ireyari modifieda systematicmode of thought that is linked to linguistics and toturalism, and which privileges he contemporarynotion ofin all its dimensions.

Teaching nd nfluence

It would be rnpossiblenot to mention, by wayofa conclusion, helectual nfluence of Christian Metz. This appreciationof his workconsciously argeted iom an early stage he educationalaspect,butwassoon to spill over nto other areas, ll testament o a success

CHRISTIANETZ:CONSTRUCTINGEANINGN FILM

throughout he world. While all this experimentationwas taking place

therewereall sorts ofthoughts, observations r seminarsat which Metz

waspresentand which have ed to publications in article, journal or

report form.6 Meanwhile there were similar experiments in many

educational uthorities (such as in the Midi-Pyrenees,or in the Paris

resion).7t seems, nfortunately, hat, at the very moment when we find

ourselves ore than ever envahi' Iinvaded] f not 'manipuld' by images,

all the conclusions and educational suggestionsemerging from this

work havedisappearedand have not been taken up in contemporary

institutionsnor in discussion n the mainstreammedia,which rely on

outmoded deas,while ignoring totally thesepioneering ideas of the

1970s.

Forhis part Metz recommended hat we respectcertain stageswhich

arenecessaryedagogica\ speaking; irst, we have o 'regresser c'est-i-dire progresser d'abord en direction desm€canismes erceptifsfortement cod€s culturellement' [regress that is, progress - first

towardshoseperceptualmechanisms hat areheavilyculturally coded];then, we need to institule a form of teaching that is 'proprementiconique'Iproperly iconic], coded in socio-cultural terms; finally, weneedo move'du niveau angagier u niveaumdta-langagier'from th elevel f anguageo that o[ metaja guage],n order o allowsrudentsodevelopa form of intelligence 'que seule '6cole peut ddvelopper dgrande6che11e'[that can developon a wide scaleonly by being n highereducationl ibid.: 165).This preoccupationwith and respect f thentelliSenceofothers, be they pupils,students, olleagues r researchers,wasa central element in Metz's aDDroachand which 'contribua iL ui

donnercette sensibilit€ de culture-civilitd int€rieure que sa pr€sencelmpo\aildjscritement t peremptoirement sesnterlo;uteurs; helpedto Sivehim an inner sensitivityboth cultural and civil that his presenceu^ould impose discretely and peremptorily on his interlocutors]\\.arroni1994/95).



PRECURSORS:HENOMENoLocYND EMIoTIcs

What is alsosymptomaticof the personalityof Christian Metz is

and thought, which today aremore relevant han ever,

clnema anc lmage heory wasmade n 19g9,at a,Cerisy,corcalledCh isran MetTet la thdoriedu cinemalpublishedn th elfis (Marie and Vernet 1990).HereAmerican eseurchers,s' wBritish, tapanese, talian, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, UruguayanFrench all worked on, and testified to the theoretical imioChristian Metz for their generation and their work. In thewith Marieand Vernetat theend of thevolume,Metz s keen o*j t

, i l , ia5.oI_Barthes, sonseul raimaitre'hisonly ruema :

wno naddied n dn accidentineyears arlier. ealso ries o re rhis own work, with a measuredand modesteye, n t,r-g;;J;

while announcinghis next book Ie zot d,esprir, swell a'she finalin his work on enunciation.This lasi prolect appeared sa book in .whereas he'mot d'esprit'work wasngver o le puUlisnea, s rA'Ein 293..lf he galaxiesemologie' as " *. in,.ff".ru"iJri"ing

:o.1.'::1." researchor about qudlter f acenrury,t *as n-ot

in the. 990swhen,as MetzpointeJout, the theory*u,"o

lonn",mode'.Nowadays, ot onll is semiology o longer'.ba modeiL'riin thewords IChrisrianMerz,.celaensei$fieiu."

-oa.,non-,

theor ie'I i t e l ls sabout ashion ut norabout, f , .o.yti f " l " i [Vernet 990: 76).Then,inLesCahiersuCRC,qVGfi, igSS-iii,is_another

omageo Metzwith,onceagain,he espectfularticipofforty or soresearcherstom all theoreticaland geographi.alhoilz,who_all underline his human, as well as i",el"f..l""j, Girioconclude,t is worlh remembering nceagainBarthes or whomwa5aboveall someone respectueux

de: autres.Irespectful f otand also a'didacticien merveilleux,lwonderfui tr,orl, i, S,words: lorsqu'on e it, on sait out commesi on l,avaitapprissoi_{whenreading Metz you understandeverything h. *ys

'J;;;

learned t yourself] (Barthes1975:6). So, et,s eadhim and ,,seiis

CHRISTIANETZ:CONSTRUCTTNCEANTNGN F|LM 71

Reletences

Barrhes..{ l9t'4).'Eldments e semiologie. ommuncations | 1964),

ql-lJ5; reprinted n R. Barthes.'Aventure emiologiqae,aris:Seuii,

985,17,84; Elemenx of semiology,rans.

A. Layeri and C. Smith,gew York:Hill & Wang, 1968.

Bergala, . (1_97.5)our unepddagogie e I'audio-yisuel, aris: La Liguefrangaise e 'Enseignement.

- (1977) ni.t.iation lo sdmiologie u rdciten mages, arrs:La Llguefrangaise e 'Enseignement.

Chateau, . and Jost,F. (1979) Nouveaucindma,Nouvelles1miologie,Paris: GE, 10/18.

Cohen-Sdat, . (1958) Essctisur lesprincipesd'une philosophie ucifiima.ParisiPUF,

- (1965a) Une 6tapedans a rdflexion2t(214) Mar.),227 48; lsee1972: .3_341.

=-- { 1965b) Le cindma,monde et rdci t . ,485_6.

- (1965c)A proposde ,impressionde r€alit€au cin6ma,,Cahiers uctnem.t 66_7 May_Jun.),74_g3

-=- ( 1968b) Le dire et le dit au cindma:vers e ddclin d,un vraisem_blable?'.Communicariorj I

LeVraisemblable.ed.RolandBarthes,

\ (1970a) u-deldde 'analogie,,im age., ommunications5, _10.

sur Ie ctnlma'. Critique

Crit ique21 216) (May),




- (1970b)'Images t p€dagogie',ommunications5,162-8.- (1971,) angage t cindma,Paris:Larousse new edition with

afterword: Paris:Albatros, 1977); rans. C. Umiker-Sebeok-Haque:Mouton. 1974.

- (1972) Essais ur la signit'ication u cindma, vol. 2,Klincksieck; Film Language:A Semioticsof the Cinema, tra\s.Taylor,Oxford: Oxford University Press, 974.

- (1975a)'Le fi lm de fiction et son spectateur Etudechologique)l Comtnunicatiotls 3, 708-35-

- (1975b) Histoire/discoursNote sur deux voyeurismes),.Kristeva,J.-C.Milner and N. Ruwet (eds),Langue,discours,PourEmile Benyeniste, aris:Seuil,301-6.

- (1975c)'Le ergu, e nomm6l n Pourune esthdtiquean sMtlangesMikel Dufrenne,Pans:UGE-10II8, 345 77.

- (1975d)'Le ignifiant maginaire', ommuniuttions 3,3-55.

- (1977 ) Essais dmiotiques,Paris:lincksieck.- (1977b) Le signifiant imagjnaire (Psychanalyset cinlma),

UGE, 10/18 (new edition with a new preface,paris: Ch rBourgois, 1984); rans. C, Britton, Psychoanalysisnr lBasingstoke:Macmillan, 1982.

- (1991) L'Enonci.ttion mpersonnelle u Ie site du fi lm,Mdridiens-Klincksieck.

Notes

I Between1966and 1968,working with Emile Benveniste nd Algirdas_Greimas,he alsoparticipated n founding theAssociationS6miotiqueAIS).

SeeMetz (1965a) (on vol. 1 of fean Mitry, L'Esthitique et psychologieclnima) at\d,Merz (1965b) (on Albert Laffa , Logiquedu cindma).Originaliy called he EcolePratiquedesHautesErudes EpHE), thetion in which Metz worked was renamed he Ecoie des Hautes EtudesSciences ociales EHESS) n 1975.

4 SeeBarthes 1964).

5 In'Christian Metz: EntuetienavecM. Ve netet D. p ercheron,la cinima 7(197s), 9.

See he CentreR€gionalde Documentationpddagogiquein Botdeaux.See or example, he works by Alain Bergala, out unepldagogie le 'vlsuel and, rlitiation d la simiologie du rtcit en images parrs: Lafrangaise e 'Enseignement,975 nd 1977).

Part I

Newart historiesand genealogies

Merleau-Ponty - The Madness of Vision

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