Introduction: “Out of the Dark Stacks and into the Light: Re

Transcription

Introduction: “Out of the Dark Stacks and into the Light: Re-viewing
the Moving Image Archive for the 21st Century”
Volume 4, no. 1
Guest edited by Sophie Cook, Rachel Webb Jekanowski, and Papagena Robbins
The archive, as a concept and a physical repository of historical traces and material
fragments, holds a central place within contemporary film and media studies. The
archive is not only a location for historical research; it also functions as a source of
images and materials to be mined by filmmakers and media artists. For decades, film
scholarship regarded the archive as a repository, in which a humanities scholar or
historian could access the past by delving into the boxes and stacks of files held within.
Studies of documentary film and avant-garde found footage cinema, in particular,
focused on the film archive as a source of artistic and historiographical materials. After
the archival turn in Anglo-American film and cultural studies scholarship in the 1990s,
film and media scholars increasingly approach the archive as an object of critical study
in its own right. Increasingly, the moving image archive is both mined and theorized to
revise histories of film theory, production, and circulation, especially in post-colonial and
transnational film scholarship. As such, the archive becomes as much a site of
hermeneutical struggle, privileged access, contested histories, and loss as it is a site of
creative inspiration and cultural preservation.
With the transnational and global turn in film scholarship, a greater analysis of the
circulation and display of archival materials and moving images is necessary to
understand how archival access might impact the current assessment of global and
local shifts. Accordingly, this issue of Synoptique is dedicated to exploring both the sites
of moving image archival preservation and display (such as art galleries, institutional
archives, private collections, and the World Wide Web), as well as the socio-political,
historical, and creative circulatory networks that connect them. This issue seeks to
inquire into the myriad ways in which archive studies—and the scholars and
practitioners who drive the discipline—have transitioned away from the traditional library
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stacks and institutional repositories in favor of exploring different technologies and
spaces of material preservation and knowledge exchange.
For many of the scholars included within this issue, the catalyst for this inquiry is the
emergence of the digital and the World Wide Web. The adoption of digital modes of
collection, organization, preservation and media-making by archivists and artists is not
the only seismic shift to shape the study of moving image archives in the twenty-first
century, however. As several of the articles in this issue show, the emergence of New
Historicism and queer and post-colonial modes of historiography in the twentieth
century have also intersected with experimental filmmaking practices (such as the
interactive documentary or the digital database) to create fertile grounds for new
investigations of the archive. The five articles and extensive interview included in this
volume, as well as the non-peer review exhibition and book reviews, span a variety of
different filmmaking modes and historiographical practices, critically engaging with
theories of the archive and archives across Anglophone and Francophone scholarship.
Concurrently, each text also addresses the interplay between historiography and the
archive, as well as the ways in which filmmakers turn to the archive to meditate upon
and challenge narratives of the past.
In this issue’s opening article, “A Shared Pain: Archival footage and history as
immanent cause in In the Year of the Pig,” Benedict Stork proposes that one might
frame the relationship between documentary cinema and historiography in terms of
immanent causality. Stork defines an immanent cause approach to history as: “the
expression of the painful necessity of over-determination and the coincidence of past,
present, and future made differentially evident in particular assemblages of contingent
events and forces” (this issue, 19). Drawing heavily upon Frederic Jameson’s The
Political Unconscious (1982), where he characterizes history as pain, as well as Bill
Nichols and Michael Renov’s prominent documentary film theories, Stork argues that
Emile de Antonio’s compilation documentary In the Year of the Pig (1968) presents
history as a force irreducible to linear causality. Stork offers a close textual reading of de
Synoptique, Vol. 4, No. 1, Summer 2015
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Antonio’s archival images, proposing that de Antonio challenges the idea of historical
teleology, pushing us to question the ways in which we witness and narrate the past.
Lauren Pilcher undertakes a similar host of questions around the narration of history in
“Querying Queerness in the Film Archive, Tracing the Ephemeral Anders als die Andern
(Different from the Others) (1919).” In it, Pilcher addresses the excavation and
restoration of the censored film Anders als die Andern from German sexologist Magnus
Hirschfield’s personal archive. One of the first feature length films to boldly depict
homosexuality, she approaches this film as a queer material trace of Weimar-era
homosexual culture, arguing that its restoration and later exhibition during the 1990s in
Germany and the United States propels a reconsideration of dominant archiving
practices. Instead, the film’s unique history and cultural significance within European
and North American gay cultures encourages us to reconsider alternative or queer
forms of archiving that more appropriately represent the unruly process of writing history.
Like Stork and Pilcher, Myriam Tremblay-Sher is similarly concerned with the
intertwining of historiography and archive studies, albeit though a national lens, in
“Engaging History: Nuit et brouillard’s Cinematic Mediation on the Archive.” TremblaySher turns to Alain Resnais’ unprecedented 1955 short documentary depicting the
Auschwitz and Majdanek camps to question the ways in which his use of documentary
photographs from French national archives ten years after the Allied liberation of the
concentration camps challenged French postwar national discourses about France’s
participation in the Holocaust. Studying the film’s production, exhibition and early
censorship in France, as well as the film’s formal strategies and Resnais’ own
navigation of archival research, she traces how the film’s critical modes of historical
mediation potentially offer new ways of understanding this traumatic history while
engaging with ongoing scholarly debates over the limits of documentary cinema’s truth
claims. At the same time, Tremblay-Sher theorizes the cinematic archive’s role in
national processes of remembrance, memorialization, and historiography.
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Shifting discussions of the moving image archive from historiographical processes to
the actual technologies of archiving, Rémy Besson’s article “Archives visuelles et
documentaire interactif : Vers un nouveau mode de médiation du passé ?” focuses on
the intersection of new digital media forms and the rise of online database collections.
Besson looks at the emerging genre of the web-based interactive documentary, and he
argues that this new mode of aesthetic and technological mediation between the past
and present repositions the historical status of photographic and filmic documents.
Specifically, he analyses how Katerina Cizek’s interactive documentary A Short History
of the Highrise (2013), coproduced by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) and
The New York Times, offers a reimagining of the role of the archivist and historian in the
digital age.
Finally, Souad Azizi’s article “Casa Cité-ciné : Images de Casablanca dans le cinema
(Maroc)” adopts a distinctly different disciplinary approach than the other the articles in
this issue. Drawing upon visual anthropology, colonial theory, and film scholarship on
cinema’s relationship to the city, Azizi presents a portrait of Casablanca as a perversely
European architectural and cultural site through the city’s historical depictions in
Moroccan film and international cinemas. She argues that Casablanca’s colonial past
and cosmopolitan atmosphere positions the city as a privileged space to explore the
country’s social and cultural contradictions as it emerged into global society. By
focusing on the historical articulations of urbanity, modernity, and nation in Morocco,
we, the guest editors, contend that Azizi’s study of the cinematic city of Casablanca can
be understood as a cultural archive of the ways in which filmmakers worked through
these contradictions within Moroccan society over the past thirty years.
While each author distinguishes their approach to the moving image archive and the
technologies that create them through a unique theoretical framework—positioning the
archive alternatively as a concept, practice, and physical repository for future
generations of scholars and artists—the five articles together offer a glimpse into the
wide number of approaches and disciplinary intersections that characterize archive
studies today. The interview, exhibition reports, and book reviews that constitute the
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non-peer reviewed section of this journal issue likewise trace a complex web of
disciplinary intersections surrounding the moving image archive.
The two exhibition reports, for instance, each adopt a different mode of scholarly writing
to explore a collection of issues around the exhibition and dissemination of archival
images in contemporary artistic practice. In his report, “Where Have the Good Old
Naughty Days Gone? Curating an Exhibition on Moving-Image Pornography,” Troy
Bordun discusses the gallery exhibition entitled “Stags, Sexploitation, and Hard Core:
Moving-Image Pornography up to 1972” he curated in August 2014, in Peterborough,
Ontario. Bordun narrates some of the difficulties he encountered in accessing and
exhibiting pornographic materials for the show, and he reflects upon what he describes
as the “missing archive” of moving images that have constituted this visual and sensual
history of desire. Bordun also speaks to his decision to program digital pornographic
films, and the surprising complexity of studying and publically exhibiting pornography in
our digital media-saturated, porn-on-demand age.
Unlike Bordun’s integration of first person reflections and critical reportage, Agnès Peller
offers a more lyrical meditation upon poet Kenneth Goldsmith’s web-based archive of
avant-garde cinema in her report “UbuWeb de Kenneth Goldsmith: une archive issue du
web de documents.” This article, which emerged out of her Master’s thesis for
Université de Paris 3-Sorbone Nouvelle on UbuWeb and the digital humanities, is
concerned with the ways in which online databases and digital archives have changed
the collection and exhibition of film documents. Focusing on the open-access, noncommercial website UbuWeb, founded by Goldsmith in 1996, she argues that this digital
archive, by making accessible ephemeral avant-garde materials and experimenting with
artistic form, helps to negotiate forms of curatorship and spaces of the avant-garde in
the digital age. While not an ‘exhibition’ in the conventional sense, Peller’s critical
approach to UbuWeb nevertheless presents the site as an artistic gesture of curatorial
practice (parallel to the American experimental cinematic and literary scenes from which
Goldsmith emerged as an artist) as much as it is an archival one. By bringing these two
reports together, this issue seeks to explore how contemporary artists and practitioners
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have turned to the film archive for inspiration, while simultaneously transforming the
archive itself into different, more accessible sites of knowledge organization,
preservation, and display.
No discussion of moving image archives in the 21st century would be complete without a
consultation with one of today’s most innovative media theorists, Rick Prelinger, whose
theory is inspired by and also influences his archivist and filmmaking practices.
Prelinger has been a prominent voice that has helped to identify, reevaluate, and
defend the collection, preservation, and dissemination of orphan and ephemeral films
for several decades now. Sophie Cook, Beatriz Bartolomé Herrera, and Papagena
Robbins caught up with Prelinger through an exchange of emails from Quebec to
California, culminating in an extensive interview in which Prelinger elaborates on the
trajectory of his collecting efforts, his most recent filmography, and his ideas about
archival preservation, open access, and the social role of moving image archival
materials.
Synoptique issue 4.1 concludes with five book reviews covering several recent scholarly
publications in English, French, and German theorizing film archives, archival and
ephemeral film, and the writing of media history. The first two book reviews seek to
engage with archival practices across international registers. Annaëlle Winand review of
Giusy Pisano’s edited collection L'archive-forme. Création, mémoire, histoire (2014), for
instance, offers a collection of French-language articles on aesthetic, historical and
sociological studies of archives, which emerged from the 8th annual conference of the
Association française des enseignants et chercheurs en cinéma et audiovisuel in 2012.
In “Celebrating 50 years of film archiving,” Philipp Dominik Keidl reviews Edition
Lamprecht (2013) and Fünfzig Jahre Österreichisches Filmmuseum 1964-2014 (2014),
two German-language histories of archives in Germany and Austria, and traces the
cultural importance of these institutions within European archival practice. The following
two book reviews then turn to the question of aesthetic strategies in the use of archival
and ephemeral imagery. Rachel Webb Jekanowski’s review “Experiences of Pastness”
evaluates Jaimie Baron’s The Archive Effect: Found footage and the audiovisual
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experience of history (2014), a study of how filmmakers appropriate archival and found
sound and images in their films to create an “archive effect,” provoking in spectators a
feeling of the past. In “Amateur Filmmaking,” Enrique Fibla Gutierrez looks at Laura
Rascaroli, Gwenda Young, and Barry Monahan’s edited collection of essays on
neglected nonprofessional traditions within film history Amateur Filmmaking: The Home
Movie, the Archive, the Web (2014), and the role that filmmakers sometimes play as
informal “archivists” in creating amateur and found footage films. Lastly, Alex LussierCraig shifts the conversation to the question of media history in “Know-Show.”
Reviewing Lisa Gitelman’s latest book Paper Knowledge: Toward a Media History of
Documents (2014), Lussier-Craig argues that the history and ontology of the print
document can be reconceptualized in light of contemporary digital texts, and the digital
modes of collection and access. Spanning three continents and multiple traditions,
these assorted book reviews present a mosaic of the lively state of archive studies
today within the discipline of film and media.
Sophie Cook, Rachel Webb Jekanowski, and Papagena Robbins are doctoral students
in the Film and Moving Image Studies Program at Concordia University.
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A Shared Pain: archival footage and history as immanent cause
By Benedict Stork
I
n the Year of the Pig (de Antonio, 1968) begins with a shot of a war
monument. Before even the film’s title, the black and white image of a statue
memorializing a fallen Union soldier at Gettysburg occupies the entirety of the
right half of the screen, the stone figure gazing right to left at a black void the title will
soon occupy. The film’s second (photographic) image, taking up the entire frame, is of
another memorial, this one an inscription on the Union Square Monument to Lafayette
reading, “As soon as I heard of American independence my heart was enlisted.” These
images, the first of the film, announce In the Year of the Pig’s embrace of history, which
is at the center of its attempt to intervene in the then ongoing war in Vietnam. Based on
this initial description one might think the film is a work of memorialization but here
history operates in an ironic mode, playing with the ossification of particular historical
moments and figures within specific national contexts.1 Exceeding the conception of
history as either the plain record of the past or an unambiguous teleology of progress,
the film foregrounds the complexity of historical time and the importance of history
through its ambivalent presentation of these martial memorials. These memorials are
positioned to begin denaturalizing the simplistic heroism of American nationalist history
through analogy with the Vietnamese anti-colonial struggle.
Given the intertwining of documentary with history through their shared investment in
nonfiction and the ex post facto nature of the form, it is important to articulate accounts
and conceptions of history that exceed more conventional deployments of the term in
documentary studies. A film as overtly, and yet subtly, concerned with history as In the
Year of the Pig is a particularly apt site for this insofar as its use of images, particularly
archival and other previously existing images, evinces, on one hand, an exceptionally
rigorous commitment to the historiographic underpinnings of documentary, while on the
1
For a compelling reading of In the Year of the Pig’s relation to monumentalism, see Barbara
Correll “Rem(a)inders of G(l)ory: Monuments and Bodies in Glory and In the Year of the Pig”
(1991).
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other deploying material that points to a different and more expansive understanding of
the relations between past and present, stasis and change, cause and effect that
constitute history and its presence in documentary. Often in documentary scholarship,
though, history functions as a cipher for documentary realism through a particularly
narrow relation to the past. As a name for the “real” within documentary, history at once
stands in for, but is less tainted by, the thorny problematic of “objectivity” and truth in the
representation of reality.
Certainly documentary’s engagement with history—imprecisely yet narrowly defined—
remains a key reference for documentary scholarship above almost all other disciplinary
affinities. In a germinal statement on documentary’s generic identity, Bill Nichols
famously coined the phrase “discourses of sobriety” as an aspirational logic to articulate
and differentiate documentary’s epistemological pretensions. Though ultimately
documentary’s “kinship” with “[S]cience, economics, politics, foreign policy, education,
religion, welfare…” is superficial and doomed, sullied by the moving images that make
up its material, history, on the other hand, becomes a touchstone for documentary’s
distinction from fiction film (Nichols 5). Yet, it is unclear—beyond another name for the
real—what exactly “history” means when summoned in relation to the study of
documentary, such as when Nichols substitutes the term “historical world” for the “real
world,” or what documentary contributes to our understanding and conception of history.
In what follows, the point is not to offer a corrective to other uses of “history” in relation
to documentary but to articulate the ways documentary makes legible a particular notion
of history that, exemplified by archival footage in In the Year of the Pig, differs from how
history is generally understood in both documentary and documentary scholarship. The
conception of history that I argue documentary renders visible emerges from the
distinction between Bill Nichols’s framing of history as death and its intertextual
reference to Fredric Jameson’s characterization of history as pain. While de Antonio’s
1968 anti-Vietnam War film represents documentary’s overt concern for history as an
explanatory mode based on the sequence of “real” events, its heavy reliance on preexisting images is analogous with the historiographic citing of source documents, which
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introduce material not reducible to the chain of transitive cause. The conception of
history produced in the friction between history as death and history as pain conceives
of history as an immanent cause, a folding of cause into effect inscribed on the surface
of the image, exceeding, as in specific moments of In the Year of the Pig, without
undercutting, overt historical arguments. At stake in this identification of history with
immanent cause is history’s legibility as a common name for the binding force and
temporality of the social, which documentary makes uniquely visible.
“History kills”
Shortly after the shots of monuments that this essay (like the film) begins with, In the
Year of the Pig presents the spectator with a series of archival images of French
colonial Vietnam. As we hear Franz Von Suppe’s “The Light Cavalry Overture,” stitched
together from audio fragments of multiple recordings, we see uniformed colonial
soldiers marching toward the camera intercut with Vietnamese rickshaw drivers
delivering Frenchmen to a café and collecting their fares. The final shots of the
sequence present a lone rickshaw man lingering at the café demanding further
compensation for his labor, before finally cutting back to the end of the military
procession, where colonial officers are carried past the camera by still other foot taxis.
No additional information is given and no necessary relationship—temporal, spatial, or
otherwise—is established between the different sets of images beyond the mimetic
similarity of the footage (black and white, grainy) and its display of colonial labor. That
these images are both of the same time and geography is only implied. Though of the
past, at least on their surface, the evidentiary value of these images is limited: at best
they verify what needs no verification, merely typifying a past state of affairs. This scene
operates as an establishing sequence that puts the historical dynamic driving the film in
place: the Vietnamese confronting foreign occupiers and resisting the continued
exploitation and oppression of Vietnam.
Even more than the opening shots of monuments, these images begin the film’s
historiographic trajectory tracking the Vietnamese struggle from its anti-colonial to anti-
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neocolonial stages. This series of shots, which de Antonio retrieved from a French Army
film archive, show relations of exploitation in French Indo-China of the 1930s, suturing
the U.S. war in Vietnam into the narrative of anti-colonial antagonism (Crowdus and
Gerogakas 95). In fact, de Antonio explicitly understands this footage as establishing
the colonial past that conditions the film’s present:
They arrive in front of a café where there is a tall Moroccan with a fez—the
scene encapsulates the whole French colonial empire—and when the
Vietnamese put their hands out for payment, the Moroccan sends them away
like trash. To me, that said everything you could say about colonialism
without ever saying a word. If anything shows the primacy of the image over
the word, what the image can reveal, it’s the image of those rickshaws. It’s
the equivalent of a couple of chapters of dense writing about the meaning of
colonialism. (Quoted in Crowdus and Gerogakas 96)
Once in place, the film immediately launches into an elaboration of this history in order
to introduce Ho Chi Minh as, in the words of Republican senator and Nixon campaign
chair Thurston B Morton, the “George Washington” of Vietnam. While, as Douglas
Kellner and Dan Strieble write, “[d]e Antonio’s treatment [of Ho] was unabashedly
romantic,” it is also a structuring presence in the film (36). From the images of urban
colonial exploitation the film transitions—by way of Philippe Devillers commenting on
the necessity of armed revolution—to Professor Paul Mus explaining Ho Chi Minh’s
deep connection to the land as the lifeblood of the Vietnamese peasantry; Mus’s words
are overlaid on top of and intercut with images of the Vietnamese countryside. In this
way the film situates Ho at the center of its historical narrative, at once verifying his
place as virtuosic revolutionary leader, the vanguard of the peasantry, and metonymic
representation of Vietnam, while also installing its own historical argument.
Apropos of the logic of these opening scenes from In the Year of the Pig, Philip Rosen
offers this useful terminological and conceptual parsing of historical epistemology: “By
historiography, I mean the text written by the historian…. [B]y history, I mean the object
of the text, the ‘real’ pastness it seeks to construct or recount in and for the present,”
and, “[B]y historicity, I mean the particular interrelations of the mode of historiography
and the types of construction of history related to it” (XI). This tripartite conceptual
schema binds historiography and historicity together as constitutive aspects of history,
much as Saussure understood the sign as the combined instantiation of signifier and
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signified. Regarding the scenes described above, the formal ordering of the archival
images and their combination with interview commentary is a historiographic act, while
the exposure of colonial exploitation signals its historicity, and the archival status of the
moving image artifacts embody “‘real’ pastness.” In many ways it is, as I’ve already
suggested, this last aspect of the triad that dominates the invocation of history in
documentary discourse, where the “real”—i.e. materially existing—images are the
nexus for the controversy surrounding the truth of documentary claims. To some extent,
the invocation of history, an already dense and institutionally secure discourse, provides
refuge for documentary scholars engaged in the critique of naïve realism and ideology
while preserving the unique status of documentary films.
Indeed this is the impetus behind Bill Nichols’s famous turn to history to differentiate the
world of documentary from both the “discourses of sobriety” and fiction film.
“Documentary offers access to a shared historical construct,” Nichols writes:
Instead of a world, we are offered access to the world. The world is where, at
the extreme, issues of life and death are always at hand. History kills.
Though our entry to the world is through a series of webs of signification….
[…] Material practices occur that are not entirely or totally discursive, even if
their meanings and social values are. (109, emphasis in original)2
History is a construction yet it is a construction with deadly consequences; it is part of a
“web of signification” but still the hard rocks on which our mortal bodies crash. Could
this discourse be any more sober?
In positing history here as the realm of death, a singular, if entirely predictable and
inevitably repeated, event in “the world,” the concept is attached to the empirical
occurrence of acts and phenomena that can be confirmed or denied, verified or
invalidated; is Elvis dead or alive? On the other hand, of course, the world of life and
death is also a “shared historical construct,” an accepted fiction, that we all contribute to
by giving meanings to death and other grave matters. As Nichols foregrounds, this is
the crux of summoning history as a stable ground in place of simple “reality.” The history
2
There are certainly many other (both more recent and earlier) references to history in studies
of documentary but Nichols’s remarkable text is both paradigmatic and canonical, in many ways
establishing the centrality of the concept of history for documentary.
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that kills is invariable and inaccessible, perhaps even transcendent, and in itself
definitively ahistorical, but history that constructs “meanings and social values” changes.
Put differently, history is both what decisively happened and where the never conclusive
answers to why and how are produced.
This tension at the heart of Nichols’s “historical world” is part and parcel of the concept
itself, as Rosen’s definitions also suggest. When connected to documentary, with its
reliance on indexical images, social actors, and cinematic conventions, the ambivalent
relationship between the specific event (captured on film or video) and the larger
framework of meanings and causal claims becomes especially acute. “History kills” but
how and why specifically? We can be sure that the rickshaw drivers, their fares, and the
French colonial soldiers re-presented in In the Year of the Pig are, or will be, dead but is
history the cause simply because of the movement of time? Or, on the other hand, does
history kill insofar as it is the march of dominant, oppressive regimes, like the French
gendarmes and bourgeoisie subjugating these Vietnamese workers? The mortal threat
posed by history is not, and cannot be, directly figured in these images since, as is now
a thoroughly beaten dead horse, photographic indexicality’s “evidentiary status as
real… can guarantee nothing” (Renov, Theorizing Documentary 9). Still the
documentary image’s status as “real,” especially when associated with the prior
existence of archival footage, is bound, via Nichols’s formulation, to the brute fact of
death as the ground of history and its “reality.” Unavoidable, yet also unrepresentable,
the historical “world is where not only information circulates but also matter and energy:”
Whatever else we may say about the constructed, mediated, semiotic nature
of the world in which we live, we must also say that it exceeds
representations. This is a brute reality; objects collide, actions occur, forces
take their toll. The world, as the domain of the historically real, is neither text
nor narrative. […] Documentary directs us toward the world of brute reality
even as it also seeks to interpret it…. (Nichols 110, emphasis added)
Thus, the history that kills is positioned as at once documentary’s ground and horizon,
leaving reflexive acknowledgment of this paradoxical limit the only recourse for
maintaining the privilege of nonfiction against the fantasies of fiction.
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Faced with this representational bind, in which history is the privileged but ultimately
unreachable object of documentary, the reflexive gesture,3 a staple in Nichols’s
“performative,” “poetic,” and “reflexive” modes, at its best, points to this limit in order to
situate documentary on this-side of epistemological and ethical problematics. Reflexivity
may in fact emblematize the historicity (per Rosen) of much recent documentary work,
though not In the Year of the Pig, as well as the evaluative dominance of certain film
styles. Reflexivity foregrounds the work of the filmmaker in order to disrupt the
authoritative rhetoric of conventional, expository documentary, while subjectivity—the
now good other of objectivity—emerges as the focal point for approaching the historical
world. Michael Renov, writing early in the trajectory of this discourse and as a prominent
proponent of reflexivity in documentary, claims, “The works in question [autobiographic
film and video] thus undertake a double and mutually defining inscription—of history and
the self—that refuses the categorical and the totalizing” (Renov, Subject Of
Documentary 110). In a move exemplary of the discourse of reflexivity, Renov posits
history and the self, here bound together by m-dashes, as constitutive of one another
insofar as each, in the wake of critiques of Cartesian subjectivity and master narratives,
refuses reduction to a stable and certain form of hegemonic knowledge.
History is an effect of the subject as the subject is an effect of history; thus, to
understand history one must traverse the winding path of fragmentary subjectivity and
its irreducibility to given categories (even as these categories are deployed as
authorizing marks of otherness). As such, history becomes histories where the effects of
temporal change and formation are felt in the bodies of individual subjects, often in the
act of interrogating the construction of their collective belonging within an identity group.
Thus the reflexive gesture, whatever its intention, stands for and signals the
impossibility of knowing the subjects at the (slipping) center of history and stakes its
ethical and political claims on the disruptive act of asserting these lacunae against
hegemonic totalizations. While the danger of slipping into a relativistic infinite regress is
3
For examples of commentary on this turn to reflexivity see Trinh T. Minh-ha, “The Totalizing
Quest of Meaning,” (Renov, Theorizing Documentary, 58-59); Linda Williams, “Mirrors without
Memories: Truth, History, and The Thin Blue Line,” (Sloniowski and Grant 379-396); and
Michael Renov, “Surveying the Self,” (Renov, Subject Of Documentary, xi-xxiv).
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much remarked in critiques of postmodern (and modernist) reflexivity,4 perhaps more
important with regard to the concept of history is the emphasis on individuation that
accompanies the fragmenting of subjectivity. While reflexive gestures undermine the
hegemonic reduction of historical experience to the unified march of a particularly
hegemonic Western vision of a unified past, the emphasis on singular subjects risks
cutting these subjects off from history as common, social field.
Following from this emphasis on reflexive subjectivity, history within documentary
increasingly intertwines with memory as an engagement with the past. Brushing against
the grain of progressive historicist narratives, memories of past suffering (though
occasional pleasures too) are leveraged against a linear history of triumphant and
established events.5 Historical change is then a matter of bearing witness to the
ravages of the past and expanding the framework of experience to reveal the lives and
deaths on the constitutive outside of dominant culture and its ready-made accounts of
the past. Subjectivity, memory, and trauma are fitting watchwords for the history that
kills precisely because they offer insight into the felt injustices produced by Nichols’s
“shared [hegemonic] historical construct” on the bodies of particular individuals and
communities (109). This important and admirable work on the part of filmmakers and
scholars produces a notion of history that is polyvalent and indeterminate, lived and felt,
individual and communal. Yet, in doing so, there is little, beyond generalized notions of
pain and death, injustice and complicity, self and other, that links these diverse histories
together. What remains unaddressed here is an underpinning structure holding together
the forms of injustice and the memories of traumatic experiences as part of a common
social body.
4
See, for example, Noel Carroll’s “Nonfiction Film and Postmodernist Skepticism” in PostTheory (Bordwell and Carroll 283-306).
5
For a recent example of an argument that relies on the distinction between memory and
“historical temporality,” see Ernst Van Alphen, “Toward a New Historiography: The Aesthetics of
Temporality” (Nichols and Renov 59-74).
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“History is what hurts”
It is difficult to place the images of rickshaw drivers that open In the Year of the Pig’s
historical argument within this regime of reflexivity constructed through the history that
kills. Though de Antonio’s film is decidedly leftist and, at certain points, embraces a
certain version of Marxist historical materialism, for the most part it excludes the voices
of Vietnamese subjects, such as those pictured in these archival images. From this
perspective it is ethically suspect insofar as the anti-colonial/neocolonial case is made
through, but not by, the represented bodies of colonized subjects. This is precisely not
an account of history as fragmentary subjective experience, though it is certainly a
treatment that connects history to death. But death here, which is certainly a signifier of
the real throughout the film, seems to find a compliment in the sense of revolution as
historical necessity. Much as the film dwells on the injustices of US intervention and
attempts to bring to its American spectators a sense of the historical stakes of this
country’s neocolonial misadventures, In the Year of the Pig also presents the
inevitability of this clash and the march toward independence represented by Ho Chi
Minh through its cataloguing of Vietnamese victories juxtaposed with Western betrayals;
the analogizing of the Vietnamese independence struggle with the American revolution
only enhances this effect by associating the ongoing war with the fait accompli of that
historical event. In this way the film begins from the totalizing perspective—the great
battle between the imperial hegemon and the revolutionary figure, i.e. the confrontation
between world historical figures—of a more-or-less unified and stable vision of history.
From this perspective, then, the film is perhaps closer to Fredric Jameson’s sense of
history, which Nichols obliquely summons with “History kills,” without quite aligning with
it.
Though it is far from the origin of the conceptualization of history described in the
previous section, Nichols’s pithy phrase, “history kills,” resonates with this emphasis on
the unrepresentability of historical experience but does so, somewhat ironically (as we
will see), through an indirect reference to Jameson’s conceptualization of history and
representational forms. In The Political Unconscious, Jameson claims “History is what
hurts” based on a working through of this statement: “history is not a text, not a
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narrative, master or otherwise, but […] as an absent cause, it is inaccessible to us
except in textual form, and [that] our approach to it and to the Real itself necessarily
passes through its prior textualization, its narrativization in the political unconscious”
(Jameson 35, emphasis in original). History is here defined negatively as that which is
irreducible to the texts (historiography) that represent the past, even if these remain our
only access point to history. But for Jameson the issue, as compared to our film and
documentary scholars, is not “‘real’ pastness” or the actuality of life and death so much
as the past’s conditioning of the present through the diachronic structuring of a
synchronic social totality, rather than the linear unfolding of events: in short, the mode of
production. In the passage where the phrase “History is what hurts” appears, Jameson’s
discussion of history culminates with this affirmative definition:
History is therefore the experience of Necessity, and it is this alone that can
forestall its thematization or reification as a mere object of representation or
as one master code among many others. […] Conceived in this sense,
History is what hurts, it is what refuses desire and sets inexorable limits to
individual and collective praxis…. But this History can be apprehended only
through its effects, and never directly as some reified force. (Jameson 102)
While death is certainly a necessity and a limit, Jameson’s equation of history with
necessity and limit is quite different from individual mortality insofar as history’s
determinations of “individual and collective practice” are the products of contingency,
placing history as much in the present as the past. Jameson conceptualizes history as
an absent cause, following Althusser, legible only in its necessary effects in the present.
As such, history’s relation to time’s irreversible diachronic flow (necessity) is bound to a
synchronic structure irreducible to any individual event, institution, or figure (nation,
historical actor, etc.). The synchronic register (for Jameson the terrain of “periods”)
changes glacially over the longue durée and its accompanying effects are felt across
the entire social field yet maintain an affective sense of stability. This synchronic
dimension of the historical is constituted by the agglomeration and concatenation of
events and forces at once holding a period together and driving it to change. History for
Jameson and Althusser is an absent cause because its determining effects belong to
the entire historical conjuncture—the period, and its relations—rather than direct and
transitive causes. History is everywhere and nowhere, at once; there are too many
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historical actors and events to pinpoint a single cause for the maintenance of stasis or
the movement of change.
“History is what hurts” shares with “History kills” the conviction that history, beyond the
irreversibility of time, limits human agency and escapes stable representation. But the
pain of history is not the crushing certainty of death so much as the fact of being subject
to forces that cannot be directly identified or affected. If history is a killer then attention
to the past entails tracing back the essential points leading to the moment of death. But
if history is the chronic pain of ongoing changes in the body, rife with antagonism
between forces seeking to maintain and grow the (social) body’s power and duration,
and entropic forces pushing toward its dissolution and replacement by other bodies,
then the task of reckoning with the past must move beyond debating particular historical
events as reified causes for present conditions. Similarly, the stakes of history cannot
be reduced to only tracking the fait accompli of tragic deaths (or, for that matter,
successful revolutions), revealing (and preserving) memories of oppression, and
bearing witness to trauma (as is the tendency in much recent work on documentary).
Thus, the little series of archival images of foot taxis from In the Year of the Pig is not
only a document of two opposed and uneven forces, one dominating the other; it is also
a product, an effect, of the complex relations of colonial capitalism, not to mention
technological mediation, that are inseparable from the images themselves. Indeed, it is
the social totality that Jameson seeks to “apprehend” with history as “absent cause.”
Despite his adroit foregrounding of the complexity entailed in the pain of history,
Jameson insists on a single treatment, and cause, for this pain: the Marxist dialectic of
class struggle responding to the contradictions inherent in capitalism. On this level
history is, as Jameson prefers to render it, History, the field on which the relations of
production and classes unfolds in a series of ongoing negations. In response to the
overdeterminations of history that Althusser identified with the absent cause, Jameson
falls back on “the Marxian injunction of the ‘ultimate determining instance’ of economic
organization and tendencies” to articulate and, to some extent, homogenize history as
absent cause and name for social totality (Jameson 92). On this front, the history that
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exceeds, yet requires, textualization is “ultimately” determined by and reducible to the
economic relations that guide the suffering it metes out and the economic base remains
a stable articulation of cause and effect regardless of the myriad relations within a given
historical conjuncture. In many ways this resonates with In the Year of the Pig’s
presentation of Vietnamese resistance as it tracks the unfolding revolutionary activity
through the figure of Ho Chi Minh and the machinations of imperialist forces, even as
Jameson’s conception of history as absent cause expands the field of this struggle to
the entire mode of production. The problem with this approach is not the focus on
capitalism and the mode of production as the common force articulating history—just as
there is nothing necessarily wrong with de Antonio’s historicizing argument focused on
Ho as catalytic, anti-colonial figure—but the coherence it grants this force, nearly
exempting capitalism from the becoming necessary that is historical contingency. In this
sense capitalism becomes an all too present cause.
For this reason it is better to hew closer to the Spinozist terminology of “immanent
cause” rather than “absent cause.” Where absence maintains the structure of
representation in which historical effects continue to point back to a transcendent point
determining events, immanent causality maintains cause and effect as two sides of the
same coin; effect and cause are not identical but simultaneous with one another,
moving between the two aspects depending on the various relations of force, desire,
etc. at work at a given moment. Thus, approaching history as immanent cause is not a
matter of identifying the trace of a hidden or missing cause in the past but of recognizing
cause itself as it is manifest in a specific effect. History is not, then, the pursuit of an
absent past or structure that holds the key to social change and stasis, much less a
catalogue of essential personae and recognizable events; instead, history is itself the
expression of the painful necessity of over-determination and the coincidence of past,
present, and future made differentially evident in particular assemblages of contingent
events and forces. History as immanent cause presupposes that human social relations,
shaped as they are by fickle discourse and signifying systems, etc., remain part of the
same reality as that which exceeds discourse. As such, history does not require any
bridge between the social and physical world, nor the unification of material social life in
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the name of the determining economic instance, because it presupposes their
immanent indiscernibility.
The question posed by history, understood as either absent or immanent cause, is: how
does history become legible to those ensconced within it and what are the effects of this
legibility? Jameson’s answer in The Political Unconscious, which is largely consistent
with his work in the three decades since, is to privilege narrative’s formal capacity to
apprehend, or fail to apprehend history (as is the case with postmodern culture, where
this failure itself becomes an historical symptom) because narratives display a particular
temporal, explanatory logic at the level of form. Hayden White, an essential voice in
debates regarding history’s relationship to narrative and, thus, an important touchstone
in documentary studies’ mobilization of history, summarizes narrative’s appeal for
Jameson:
[Narrative] is privileged because it permits a representation of both synchrony
and diachrony, of structural continuities and of the processes by which those
continuities are dissolved and reconstituted in the kind of meaning
production…. […] Moreover, in its purely formal properties, the dialectical
movement by which a unity of plot is imposed upon the superficial chaos of
story elements, narrative serves as a paradigm of the kind of social
movement by which a unity of meaning can be imposed upon the chaos of
history. (White 157)
As such, where history as death turns documentary toward reflexively engaging a
fragmentary and ultimately unrepresentable real, Jameson’s emphasis on the “socially
symbolic” act of narrative attempts to grapple with history as a pain shared across the
social totality, a pain that produces the social itself. This is an essential difference that
suggests an alternative sense of documentary’s relation to history. On the other hand,
Jameson’s embrace of narrative, flowing out of the concept of absent causality, focuses
on producing a stable, and re-stabilizing, figuration of the mode of production, even at
points of overt transition,6 thus retaining the logic of representation insofar as the
determining structure continues to consolidate cause as separate, and primary, over its
effects. This investment in narrative and periodization as a stabilizing theoretical gesture
6
Jameson focuses on texts, like the realist novels of the nineteenth century, which emerge at
points of historical change in the mode of production and naturalize or denaturalize this
transition for the historical present.
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makes the legibility of history dependent on Jameson’s particular Marxist hermeneutics
as a master code for historical necessity. For a number of reasons this yoking of history
to narrative misses the important ways documentary, to use Jameson’s phrase,
“apprehends history” as social totality, at least potentially. This is certainly not because
documentary is, as such, non- or anti-narrative, much less because of the claim to nonfiction. In fact, as we will see shortly, documentary utilizes its own textual tactics “by
which a unity of meaning can be imposed upon the chaos of history,” thus distinctly
resembling the “socially symbolic” work of narrative (White 157).
Instead, the ethos of documentary realism, especially as expressed in and through
documentary’s use of archival and found images7, while no guarantee of direct access
to history, grants a privileged, if subtle and unconscious, visibility to history as immanent
cause. The compulsion to incorporate the world supposedly beyond mere “discourse”
and outside “webs of signification,” drives documentary to draw on fragments,
documents, of events whose value lies precisely in their explicit differentiation from both
previous intended use and narrative or rhetorical ordering. Much as any given text may
attempt to leverage these materials for the film’s argument the weight of non-fiction
leans toward foregrounding the limited autonomy of material evidence. This is a central
paradox for documentary: the fragments, generally indexical images, that authorize the
interpretive, epistemological, and argumentative claims of a film rarely verify, at least
unambiguously, these claims. This material—singular and always partial—seems to
foreclose the possibility of founding a relationship between documentary and history on
immanent cause since the pieces of evidence films deploy to make their cases cannot
7
The distinction between archival and found footage is a thorny and lively—as well as, I
suspect, intractable—topic of debate in both film studies and art history. Though this essay
focuses on archival footage, the conceptualization of their use in documentary vis-à-vis history
would, I believe, apply to more properly “found” images. That said, it is worth noting that the
porous relation between the two seems to turn, to some extent, on the site of storage—if it is
catalogued, it can’t be “found”—and the act of acquisition—in which the surprise encounter
between filmmaker and image in an undefined search is privileged over images “discovered”
through intensive, directed research. As such, the moniker “found footage” seems more readily
applied to images used in experimental cinema. See William C. Wees’s Recycled Images: The
Art and Politics of Found Footage Film for a germinal account of “found footage” (1993). For a
more recent engagement with the question of archival and found footage, see Jaimie Baron’s
The Archive Effect: Found Footage and the Audiovisual Experience of History (2014).
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in themselves encapsulate history; there can be no snapshot of the conjuncture. Yet this
is not, as we will see, how history as immanent cause becomes visible in documentary.
“There is no document of culture which is not at the same time a document of
barbarism”
The sequence of archival images I have been working through is singularly descriptive
rather than analytic. Impressionistic and unabashedly aesthetic, this sequence connects
military and economic domination through modernist collage,8 while the footage itself,
especially compared to iconic images of, for instance, self-immolating monks (which the
film also deploys), appears mundane, perhaps even banal and its evidentiary status
limited. Yet these images of quotidian imperialism exemplify a rhetorical commonplace
in historiography and other historically inclined texts: the anecdotal opening. The
anecdote, vis-à-vis “real ‘pastness,’” is ambivalently placed between the sober,
evidentiary pole of historical fact and the aesthetic, discursive pole of construction,
“mere” rhetoric, and, more generally, “signification.”
According to Joel Fineman:
[T]he anecdote determines the destiny of a specifically historiographic
integration of event and context. […] It reminds us, on the one hand, that the
anecdote has something literary [aesthetic] about it…. On the other hand, it
reminds us that there is something about the anecdote that exceeds its
literary status, and this excess is precisely that which gives the anecdote its
pointed, referential access to the real. (Fineman 56)
Bearing the burden often assigned to the presumed indexicality of the image within
documentary, the anecdote operates as “the smallest minimal unit of the historiographic
fact” (Fineman 57). Like the fragmentary mise-en-scène of the colonial past exhibited in
these archival images, the anecdote “produces the effect of the real, the occurrence of
contingency, by establishing an event as an event within and yet without the framing
context of historical successivity…” (Fineman 61). The anecdote asserts its relative
autonomy by gesturing outside the text via the grain of its formal construction (for
8
This technique is intensified and reiterated on the audio track, which combines various
recordings of “The Light Cavalry Overture,” differentiated by abrupt shifts in cadence and tone,
into an openly fractured whole.
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instance, the inclusion of more detailed descriptive elements, an affected journalistic
tone, or purely narrative structure). The anecdote touches the real insofar as it opens
onto historical analysis without itself constituting an explicit interpretation, instead
functioning as the grain of sand around which the pearl of interpretation forms. The
power of the anecdote is not connected to the importance of the represented event; to
the contrary, it derives its effects from an excess in the real that escapes sober
empiricism: the collective and contingent social complexity that conditions history but is
only registered in the extra-evidentiary aesthetic of the anecdote. This aspect of the
anecdote is especially relevant to documentary and its use of indexical images,
particularly appropriated archival footage,9 where the relative impassivity of image
capture ensures that a certain aleatory element remains in play regardless of the
narrative or interpretive framework it begets. A surplus of details proclaims the image’s
belonging to the real, at once bearing the specificity of unfolding time while being
indeterminately generalizable and expressive.
At the same time, documentary uses of archival footage, as in this example from In the
Year of the Pig, also resemble another central aspect of written history: the source
document. Documents, whether images or sheets of paper from an archive, offer a
material contact with events lost to the flow of time. Like the anecdote the essential
characteristic of documents is the fact that they enter the historical text from the outside
but with the added charge of being, as R.G. Collingwood puts it, “something here and
now perceptible” (Collingwood 247). Beyond even the anecdote’s attempt to index an
external referent, source documents, in one way or the other, have a continuous
relationship to the “real past,” drawing on the authenticating authority of their relatively
autonomous material persistence through time, bridging the gap between the now
9
Etymologically the Greek root of anecdote, anekdota, referred to unpublished accounts, written
but never circulated. In this sense there is an intimate connection between the anecdote and
archival, found, or otherwise appropriated footage, as the redeployment of these images is, if
nothing else, a republishing. Whether they were previously exhibited or not, the archival scenes
from In the Year of the Pig mark the entrance of these inscriptions into the world beyond the
French colonial archive.
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absent event and its present interpretation.10 Where the anecdote bends toward the
aesthetic figuration of the real, the source document bears the stamp of evidence on its
very body regardless of its specific evidentiary value; before it provides any particular
proof, it speaks the indifference of potential evidence.
“If shots as indexical traces of past reality may be treated as documents in the broad
sense,” writes Philip Rosen, “documentary can be treated as a conversion from the
document” (Rosen 240). Yet documentary’s emergence as a coherent genre or mode of
filmmaking is contingent on “controlling documents” by converting “raw” actualities to
documentary through “sequentiation”: “…the great assistance sequenciation provides
[is] in centralizing and restricting meaning derived from the points at which actual
contact with the real is asserted—the realm of the document” (Rosen 243). This
operation of “sequentiation” is akin to the unity granted events in narrative insofar as the
“rawness” of indexical images is submitted to a structuring, supplementary procedure
restricting the image’s meaning in the name of coherent argumentation.
Though he characterizes documentary as “an aesthetic of the document,” Rosen never
directly addresses the use of actual “actualities” or other borrowed moving images in
documentary. Certainly archival and similarly pre-existing images are submitted to the
harnessing and directing of meaning performed in the conversions of document to
documentary but the attempt to control meaning must allow for an excess that marks
these images as documents independent of the film itself; they must remain documents
for the documentary. In this sense, the sequence of rickshaw drivers, and other
instances of appropriated images in documentary, carry the anecdote’s referential
excess in their specific, indexical, details while demanding a formal enfolding to contain
and leverage the contingencies opened up by their materiality. Thus, even as Rosen
locates documentary’s historiographic character in documentary “sequenciation,” like
Jameson privileging the stabilizing logic of text and its articulation of events and causes,
the expanse of the historical conjuncture enters documentary through these fragments.
10
Roland Barthes famously critiques the historian’s idealist and theological investment in source
documents as “secularized relics”: “Secularized, the relic no longer has anything sacred about it,
except that sacred quality attached to the enigma of what has been, is no more, and yet offers
itself as present sign of a dead thing” (Barthes 139-140).
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It is precisely the necessity of remaining marked as the outside within the inside that
makes these images potent bearers of history as immanent cause. The singular images
of colonialism from In the Year of the Pig undergo, from one side, subsumption by the
formal ordering they launch, with the cross-cutting between the different sites/sights of
French Indo-China leading, as detailed earlier, into the film’s explicit explanations of
Vietnamese resistance and the rise of Ho Chi Minh as revolutionary leader. However,
from the side of the images themselves, the details inscribed on these documents—the
expressions of dissatisfaction and recognition of exploitation by the rickshaw men, the
dismissive gesture of the valet—remain irreducible to the film’s argument, though
without contradicting them. Walter Benjamin’s claim, “There is no document of culture
which is not at the same time a document of barbarism,” famously raises the
perspectival problematic of historicism, seemingly embracing a dialectical opposition as
well as aligning himself with the reflexive subjectivity emphasized in recent documentary
work. But Benjamin’s “at the same time” also posits the document as an object holding
both barbarism and culture together, immanent to one another, as products of history
(Benjamin, “On the Concept of History” 392). In this sense, the document is neither
barbaric nor civilized, tool of oppression nor liberation, killer nor savior but the very
intermingling of antagonistic forces within the complex relations of history as social
totality and immanent cause. The aspects of these archival documents of Vietnamese
foot taxis that exceed their “sequentiation” within the film, and which will occupy the next
section, need not be set against this argumentative and interpretive ordering; rather,
they mark the “at the same time” of history itself. If, as Benjamin argues elsewhere, “To
write history… means to cite history,” then the referential overflow of details in archival
and other appropriated footage is evidence that through “citation… the historical object
in each case is torn from its context” (Benjamin, The Arcades Project 460). This
excision from context represents not only the threat of losing context and the fullness of
the empirical instant but also the affirmative transmission of the image itself as context
and the document as a composition of history. While documentary’s inability to
reconstruct the wholeness of this lost historical context is much remarked upon, it is
precisely documentary’s “aesthetic of the document” that makes visible history’s binding
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together of heterogeneous elements and forces, which are neither clearly cause nor
effect but their shifting relation in the past, present, and future that undergirds social
totality.
“History is this mode of shared experience where all experiences are equivalent
and where the signs of any one experience are capable of expressing all the
others.”
Let us return once again to the rickshaw sequence in order to put a more specific point
on the argument for documentary’s rendering of history as immanent cause. There are
many important historical details within the seven shots I’ve continuously returned to
here. Most overt and pressing for the film overall are, as de Antonio himself makes
clear, the marks of the colonial system and its organization of the world, pointing the
viewer to the once dominant global system of geographic and racial hierarchy whose
effects continue to exert themselves both in the film’s present (the U.S. war in Vietnam)
and our own. The brutal difference between colonized and colonizer is visible in nearly
every frame, acting, per de Antonio’s words, as the “equivalent of a couple of chapters
of dense writing about the meaning of colonialism,” and the film’s discourse projects
from this stark illustration the historical context out of which the citation is ripped.
Restricted to this context, these images speak to a bygone state of affairs now
surpassed by subsequent independence struggles, postcolonial geography, and
neoliberal globalization, differentiating the past and present in terms of the diachronic
chain of events. History would thusly be understood as a directly identifiable object of
inquiry and critique (European colonialism) delimited by specific dates and locations, as
well as historical personae.
On the other hand, one of the most prominent features of these images and the system
they represent is the fact of colonial labor, a subject that is strikingly muted in the film.
Along with the traces of armed imperial domination, here are expressions of the
coercive division of labor interwoven with and policed by colonial power that persists to
the present, though not unchanged. Indeed, the post-colonial period, especially
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following the collapse of the Soviet empire, is marked by the changing status of labor
and, mutatis mutandis, production on a global scale, which is acknowledged in debates
both within academic and public discourse.11 Far from signaling an overthrow of the
division of labor instituted under European colonialism, the ongoing historical shifts of
labor and production in contemporary capitalism are reorganizing and intensifying this
division. There is neither a single standpoint from which these changes can be
identified, no sector of society that remains unchanged, nor a singular cause outside the
myriad machinations of global capital in partnership with nation states; these shifts,
despite their differences, are felt by all, even as capitalism—notwithstanding its current
and continual crises—becomes more entrenched as the hegemonic social force
articulating these diverse historical effects.
Obviously, if no image, no matter how iconic, can capture the historical conjuncture, no
image can index these broad and uneven changes distributed throughout the diversity
of the social totality. And at the same time that the vastness of historical context
escapes encapsulation within indexical representation, the temporality of historical shifts
defy the clarity of sequence. Following Jameson, the mode of production offers the
proper historical and conceptual scale for registering these changes. However, unlike
Jameson’s focus on the dominating, yet ultimately comprehensible, coherence of this
overlapping diachronic and synchronic conceptual field, whether “apprehended” by
narrative plotting or documentary “sequentiation,” the contemporary global
reorganization of labor and production—variously referred to as globalization,
neoliberalism, late capitalism, or postfordism—requires grappling with the diversity of
labor and social practices connected by the logic of surplus-value. The novel
technological and organizational forces of contemporary capitalism stand alongside
those older forms (land rent, the liberal state, and the factory floor) that persist from
various other points in its roughly 500 years of existence. On one hand, capitalism
unifies all the differing facets of production and labor in their coexistence; on the other
11
See for instance Paolo Virno’s A Grammar of the Multitude: For an Analysis of Contemporary
Forms of Life (2004), as well as Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s Empire (2001). For a
popular, non-Marxist account of these changes see Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative
Class: And How it is Transforming Work, Leisure, Community, and Everyday Life (2014).
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hand, capitalism names and bears the stamp of the continual micro-adjustments,
displacements, mutations, and conflicts in the social totality which are both the cause
and effect of ongoing antagonisms within the mode of production. This is precisely why
history as immanent cause, inseparable from its effects, demands thinking of the
present not as the outcome and negation of the past but as the concatenation of these
temporalities in which the present is already figured in the past, just as the past persists
in the present.
Registering history and its shared but diverse, antagonistic, and overlapping constitution
of the social depends on attending to the ways effect and cause, past and present,
coincide in singular instantiations of history, such as archival images and documents. In
this vein we must note that the display of service labor in these archival images from In
the Year of the Pig contrasts significantly with the nearly feudal plantation system, and
ongoing, small-scale peasant farming, that typified production at the time these images
were captured.12 Where agricultural production and labor represents, within the logic of
the film, the exploitation of traditional, archaic Vietnamese life, the rickshaw drivers are
ensconced in the abstract exchange of labor for general equivalent and the antagonism
of this structure is inscribed in the images through the minute gestures of recognition
and resistance.
Once the French colonial passengers disembark, in the second shot of the sequence,
the drivers collect their fares but are clearly unsatisfied (Figure 1). As shot four returns
to this scene, the marks of dissatisfaction are intensified by the rickshaw men’s
collective confirmation of the inadequacy of their remuneration; their gathering itself
disputing the false equivalence between their labor and the coinage offered (Figure 2).
The shot ends with the intervention of the café’s valet—presumptively identified as
Moroccan by de Antonio based on his headwear—who shoos the malcontents away.
12
Indeed, as has already been pointed out, the film makes much of the centrality of agriculture
to Vietnamese life and anti-colonial resistance through an anecdote told by Professor Paul Mus
which links Ho Chi Minh’s rise to leadership to his understanding of the relation between land,
labor, and the peasantry. As Mus describes Ho Chi Minh’s fateful action upon return to Vietnam,
the film cuts between the Mus interview and shots of the Vietnamese countryside to illustrate
this emphasis on agriculture.
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Shot six brings the anecdote to a close with the valet physically expelling the lone hold
out (Figure 3). Over the course of these three shots, the spectator witnesses a labor
dispute in miniature between workers in the tertiary sector and the colonial
bourgeoisie’s managerial representative in this forestalled negotiation. An establishing
image of colonial domination—white men in suits (and uniforms) served by “natives” for
meager wages—the scene is also uncannily resonant with contemporary labor trends in
the global North. Out of sync with the productive regime of its own present, this citation
of work is, recalling Benjamin, ripped from its initial context and transported to a present
where such work, as well as the means of disciplining it, verges on hegemonic.
Meanwhile, the global division of labor that enables the shift to a service or affective
economy in the so-called “developed world,” transforms post-colonial nations, like
Vietnam, into industrial production centers manufacturing both the technological means
of managing the flow of capital and the commodities that drive consumption, while also
serving as sites of intensive affective labor in the tourism industry.
Fig. 1 In the Year of the Pig (de Antonio, 1968) still capture from DVD
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Benedict Stork
These details, whose untimely resonances exceed by necessity the film’s historical
discourse, transport an immanent surplus into the present historical conjuncture, making
legible a past that becomes recognizable now, rather than in the moment of the film’s
intervention. The very persistence that attracts de Antonio to the images and provides
an opening for In the Year of the Pig’s historicization of the Vietnamese struggle, allows
the film to continue to function as an expression of history as immanent cause. That is,
the same history—name for the overdetermined, painful assemblage of the social
totality—that brings together and articulates the persistence of agrarian plantation
economies at the height of industrial capitalism also inscribes in these images a
prefiguration of the changes constituting the contemporary pain of history. On one hand
there is the encapsulation of the colonial relation that de Antonio points to and
leverages, suggesting the sort of stability and coherence that Jameson argues must be
apprehended in historical representations; and, on the other hand, there is the out of
place specificity of the type of labor depicted here that leans toward a reconfiguration of
these very relations insofar as this form of work approaches, according to many
prominent commentators, hegemonic status in the contemporary incarnation of global
capitalism. And at the heart of this concatenation of labor and exploitation folded
between past and present, are the signs of struggle and resistance, which take the form
of a collective recognition and expression of the ongoing antagonisms animating the
movement of history without rendering any outcomes inevitable.
Jacques Rancière writes, responding to Godard’s monumental Histoire(s) du cinéma,
“History is this mode of shared experience where all experiences are equivalent and
where the signs of any one experience are capable of expressing all the others” (176).
Though not explicitly theorizing history as immanent cause, Rancière’s statement
articulates the relation between the concepts of immanent causality and the mode of
production at the core of history. Historical time and change are neither merely matters
of recording the irreversible unfurling of transitive cause, nor the memorialization of
“what happened”—whether in celebration or mourning—but the expression of the copresence of past, present, and contingent future, where the “signs of any one
experience are capable of expressing all others” because they are the effects of history.
31
A Shared Pain
Benedict Stork
Felt across the social totality, these “signs,” the recognitions of exploitation marked by a
refusal to accept labor’s assigned value, are founded on the differential relations that
proliferate within the whole yet remain common. Fodder for In the Year of the Pig’s anti(neo)colonial critique, these images of rickshaw drivers are also documents that, by
standing out in relief from this context, carry the coordinates of history’s overlapping of
experiences in the variegated social field held tenuously together by the mode of
production. The experience expressed here is not reducible to any other but is bound to
all others by belonging to history and bearing its marks, such that the work and
exploitation of these foot taxis resonates with that of the Uber driver caught in the
unfolding, yet precariously continuous, mutations of capitalism.
History hurts in these images not only because it is testament to the innumerable
deaths of colonial and neocolonial violence (undeniably an outcome of history) but also
because history saturates life, connecting the most remote experiences to each other in
complex and diffuse ways that frustrate clear and unambiguous responses. It is through
the traces of the ongoing encounters and struggles of its subjects that documentary,
beyond its resemblance to historiography’s explanatory ordering of the “real past,”
expresses history as immanent cause and the irreducible complexity of social totality.
Documentaries, like In the Year of the Pig, insist on contact with the real in the form of
indexical images that cannot help but take in and reproduce the immanent presence of
history not as an individuating force of victim and victor, but as collective inscriptions of
suffering and resistance that express a common belonging to an unstable social totality.
Benedict Stork is an instructor at Seattle University.
32
A Shared Pain
Benedict Stork
Works Cited
Baron, Jaimie. The Archive Effect: Found Footage and the Audiovisual Experience of
History. London and New York: Routledge, 2014. Print.
Barthes, Roland. The Rustle of Language. Oakland: University of California Press,
1989. Print.
Benjamin, Walter. The Arcades Project. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 2002. Print.
Benjamin, Walter, Howard Eiland, and Michael W. Jennings. Walter Benjamin: Selected
Writings, Volume 4: 1938-1940. First edition. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press,
2006. Print.
Bordwell, David and Noel Carroll, eds. Post-Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies. First
edition. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996. Print.
Collingwood, R.G. The Idea of History. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1946. Print.
Correll, Barbara. “Rem(a)inders of G(l)ory: Monuments and Bodies in ‘Glory’ and ‘In the
Year of the Pig.’” Cultural Critique 19 (1991): 141–177. Web. 16 Apr. 2014.
Crowdus, Gary and Dan Gerogakas. “‘History Is the Theme of All My Films.’” New
Challenges for Documentary: Second Edition. Ed. Alan Rosenthal and John
Corner. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005): 94-109. Print.
De Antonio, Emile. In the Year of the Pig. Homevision, 2005. Film.
Fineman, Joel. “‘The History of the Anecdote: Fiction and Fiction.’” The New
Historicism. New York: Routledge, 1989. Print.
Florida, Richard. The Rise of the Creative Class--Revisited: Revised and Expanded.
First edition. New York: Basic Books, 2014. Print.
Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. Empire. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 2001. Print.
Jameson, Fredric. The Political Unconscious. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982.
Print.
Kellner, Douglas and Daniel G. Streible, eds. Emile de Antonio: A Reader. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 2000. Print.
Nichols, Bill. Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1991. Web.
Nichols, Bill and Michael Renov, eds. Cinema’s Alchemist: The Films of Peter Forgacs.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011. Print.
33
A Shared Pain
Benedict Stork
Rancière, Jacques. Film Fables. Trans. Emiliano Battista. New York: Bloomsbury
Academic, 2006. Print.
Renov, Michael. Subject Of Documentary. First edition. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 2004. Print.
-----. Theorizing Documentary. New York: Routledge, 1993. Print.
Rosen, Philip. Change Mummified: Cinema, Historicity, Theory. Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press, 2001. Print.
Sloniowski, Jeannette and Barry Keith Grant. Documenting the Documentary: Close
Readings of Documentary Film and Video. Detroit: Wayne State University
Press, 1998. Print.
Virno, Paolo. A Grammar of the Multitude: For an Analysis of Contemporary Forms of
Life. Trans. Isabella Bertoletti, James Cascaito, and Andrea Casson. Cambridge,
Mass; London: Semiotext, 2004. Print.
Wees, William C. Recycled Images: The Art and Politics of Found Footage Films. New
York: Anthology Film Archives, 1993. Print.
White, Hayden. The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical
Representation. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990. Print.
34
Querying Queerness in the Film Archive, the Ephemeral Anders als
die Andern (Different from the Others) (1919)
By Lauren Elizabeth Pilcher
O
n May 24, 1919, Anders als die Andern/Different from the Others (1919),
“arguably the first feature film with an explicitly homosexual theme made
anywhere in the world,” (Steakley, “Cinema” 181) screened for the first time at
a press preview at the Apollo-Theater in Berlin (188). The narrative film, approximately
ninety minutes in length, followed a romantic relationship between a concert violinist
and his young male protégé in an effort to inform audiences of the injustice that
homosexual males faced under Germany’s anti-sodomy statute Paragraph 175 (181182). Jewish sexologist and sexual rights activist Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, who had
collaborated with controversial Jewish-Austrian director Richard Oswald to produce the
film, gave an introductory address at the screening (181). The film, produced during a
brief period of lifted censorship in Weimar Germany, was met with both theatrical
success and controversy upon its public release in the summer of 1919. Though
popular in Berlin, various local censorship boards blocked screenings of the film, and it
was banned across Germany in October of 1920, following the national reinstatement of
film censorship (192). The ban restricted screenings to select medical audiences,
primarily at Hirschfeld’s Institute of Sexual Science in Berlin (188, 192). James D.
Steakley speculates that prints of the feature-length film did not survive the Third
Reich’s attempt to rid German culture of Jewish and homosexual influence (194). At
present, the only remnant of Different from the Others is an abridged, re-edited version
included in an exported print of Hirschfeld’s later film Gesetze der Liebe/ Laws of Love
(1927) (181).
The extant twenty-four minute fragment of the film was lost for decades until it
resurfaced and began to circulate among gay rights activists in the 1970s. In 1971, the
fragment was found in a Russian archive and screened at a Richard Oswald
Retrospective in Vienna (195). Beginning in 1974, the Gosfilmofond, the national
35
Querying Queerness in the Film Archive
Lauren Elizabeth Pilcher
archive of the former Soviet Union, provided copies of the fragment to various European
archives (195). The fragment attracted subcultural interest and audiences in Europe and
the United States throughout the 1980s and onward as attitudes toward sexuality
continued to shift. In 1999, the Filmmuseum München reconstructed the fragment from
information found in documents from the Weimar period. Filmmuseum recreated lost
scenes by adding new intertitles, archival photographs, and historical information on the
film’s relationship to Hirschfeld and German sexology. The reconstruction, which was
updated in 2004 and has been released in several DVD editions, remains the most
accessible version of Different from the Others to date. More recently, the Outfest UCLA
Legacy Project has revitalized American interest in Different from the Others by again
attempting to create a viewable reconstruction of the original using Weimar documents.
The joint project is part of an ongoing partnership between UCLA’s Film and Television
Archive and Outfest, a Los Angeles organization that promotes “LGBT equality by
creating, sharing, and protecting LGBT stories on the screen” (“About Outfest”). The
unfinished Outfest-UCLA reconstruction has been publicized and promoted in online
articles, on websites, and in social media spaces.
A single fragment of celluloid connects the near century that has passed since the first
screening of Different from the Others and this latest American attempt to restore the
film to its original state. In this article, I investigate the significance of the original film’s
fragmentation and the ways in which LGBTQ communities and allies have
reconstructed the partial film in recent decades. The original Different from the Others
was censored because its representation of homosexuality invited spectators to take
pleasure in aesthetically appealing, erotic images of sexual deviance. As a result, the
remaining fragment thwarts attempts to restore the feature-length film in a historically
accurate manner. In the Filmmuseum and Outfest-UCLA reconstructions, the absence
of the film proves as important as its extant content as they create a new original that
can be authentically consumed by sexuality-aware viewers. Rather than provide
conclusive archival accounts of the film, Filmmuseum and Outfest-UCLA engage the
fragmented Different from the Others as ephemeral evidence of LGBTQ history
uncovered in an imagined contemporary archive experienced on-screen and in new
36
media spaces. In doing so, these restorative returns to the film queer traditional
standards of archiving and the contemporary narratives of a repressed, but increasingly
visible LGBTQ community upon which they implicitly depend.
To explicate my argument, the remainder of the article examines how and why the
fragmented Different from the Others eluded and continues to elude archival practice.
The first section theorizes how the loss of a significant portion of Different from the
Others effects historicizing the film as a cinematic origin of modern homosexuality. I
interpret the film’s production context, censorship, and destruction as a politically
charged instance of failed archiving that resists a history of sexual enlightenment and
social progress. In the second section, I analyze how production and reception of
Different from the Others in Weimar Germany influenced its archival fate. Hirschfeld and
Oswald drew upon German sexology discourse, political discussions of Paragraph 175,
and the popular appeal of cinema to produce a film that would critique governmental
regulation of sex. The film thus evidenced a tension in modernizing Germany between
the need to legitimize homosexuality according to legal and social codes and a longing
to cinematically visualize desires deemed socially and culturally perverse. By engaging
an educative lesson and romantic narrative, the film failed to meet standards of
appropriate cultural consumption and preservation. The third section considers how
Filmmuseum München’s and Outfest-UCLA’s recent efforts to reconstruct the partial film
ultimately recreate it as a hybrid archival text in the present. These recent efforts rely on
imagined collections of extra-filmic materials that contextualize the fragment for
contemporary audiences and allow spectators to visualize it as ephemera of LGBTQ
history.
Absent Archives, Queer Fragments
The lost footage of Different from the Others raises questions about how archival
materials are utilized in the writing of LGBTQ history. Recirculation and reconstruction
of the fragment since the 1970s extends and complicates Jacques Derrida’s claim that
37
archiving always involves a case of archive fever. According to Derrida, this sickness,
which is brought on by the theoretical impossibility of “the archive”:
is to burn with passion. It is never to rest, interminably, from searching for the
archive right where it slips away. It is to run after the archive, even if there’s too
much of it, right where something anarchives itself. It is to have a compulsive,
repetitive, and nostalgic desire for the archive, an irrepressible desire to return to
the origin, a homesickness, a nostalgia for the return to the most archaic place of
absolute commencement. (91)
Derrida claims here that archival practice is driven and consumed by an enduring,
burning desire to return to an absent point of origin. In the case of Different from the
Others, shifting cultural attitudes toward sexuality have led to a “repetitive” and
“irrepressible” desire to reconstruct the silent film as a lost origin of Western LGBTQ
history (91). Restorations of the fragmented film in recent decades reflect a longing to
locate and return to the first cinematic representation of unrepressed homosexuality
despite, and perhaps as a result of, the fact that much of the original film’s content is
omitted from the remaining print.
Feverish reconstructions of Different from the Others are more, however, than a
contemporary excavation of a repressed history of sexuality. According to Michel
Foucault, the idea that modern societies now progressively accept rather than silence
discussions of sexuality is an enduring Enlightenment narrative that normalizes and
regulates sexual desire in order to maintain bourgeois power (3-13). Within this modern
cultural discourse, sex is an object of scientific investigation, education, and progress
that follows the logic and social controls of reproductive heteronormativity. Different
from the Others resists being subsumed by this normalizing historical discourse on
sexuality. The original film critiqued the social control of sexual desire in Germany,
particularly penal code Paragraph 175, by depicting homosexuality in an educational
and entertaining way. Proponents of sexual regulation fragmented and attempted to
erase the film’s depiction of deviant sexual desires. Though the content of Different from
the Others is often read as affirming a historical narrative of increased LGBTQ visibility
and acceptance, the absence of the film marks its failure to adhere to socially and
politically respectable discourse on sexuality in modernizing Germany.
38
As a sexually controversial text rendered ephemeral to dominant historical narratives of
desire, Different from the Others disrupts the conventional notions of archival evidence
upon which preservation and reconstruction depend. Jose Munoz asserts that
“Queerness is rarely complemented by evidence, or at least by traditional
understandings of the term. The key to queering evidence, and by that I mean the ways
in which we prove queerness, is suturing it to the concept of ephemera. Think of
ephemera as trace, the remains, the things that are left, hanging in the air like a rumor”
(65). He goes on to argue that “The ephemeral does not equal unmateriality. It is more
nearly about another understanding of what matters” (81). Munoz implies here that
accepted modes of establishing evidence devalue the material existence of queer
desires and bodies by deeming representations of queerness perverse and limiting
them to ephemeral forms and modes of communication and documentation. Different
from the Others was censored and partially destroyed for failing to follow the social
values and norms governing representations of sexuality in the Weimar and Nazi
periods. Officially deemed perverse, the partial film shifts what matters when
approached as an archival text that provides evidence of early LGBTQ life. The
ephemerality of Different from the Others, more so than its positive content, evidences
deviant sexual desires that resist and exist outside of “the archive.”
Recent reconstructions of the film engage the ephemeral failure of Different from the
Others in ways that challenge the values that underlie conventional archiving and
historicism. Jack Halberstam argues that failure, as a queer mode of being, provides
greater potential for contemporary innovation because it adapts where well-rooted,
institutionalized models of hegemonic success that value seriousness, discipline, and
expertise remain have grown stagnant (6-15). Following Halberstam’s argument,
Different from the Others’ lack of sexual discipline and failure to meet the criteria of
archival preservation during the Weimar and Nazi periods has allowed the extant
fragment to adapt to changing conceptions of sexuality in ways that complicate reading
it as an origin of Western LGBTQ communities. How the film has been lost and
reconstructed shows where and how queer desires have been rendered ephemeral to
dominant narratives of history. What can be historically experienced and imagined in the
39
absence of the film is equally and perhaps more important to historical accounts and
reconstructions of Different from the Others than what can be excavated and archived.
A Weimar Other
The archival absence of Different from the Others’ reflects the cultural and social
debates concerning sex and sexuality in the Weimar period. The content of the
Hirschfeld Oswald production was directly related to Germany’s established field of
sexology. Unlike other European nations, German sexological research was both
popular and widely circulated during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, due
in large part to a free press and the enduring debates surrounding anti-sodomy statute
Paragraph 175.1 According to historian Robert Beachy, Germany was unique in
comparison to other Western nations because the statute prompted open discussions of
homosexuality that “compelled both activists and medical practitioners to explain samesex attraction” (Beachy, “The German Invention” 820). German sexologists contributed
to explanations of same-sex desire by differentiating and documenting sexual behavior
and practices beginning the in the mid-nineteenth century. Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld
continued the research of sexologist and psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing by
innovatively intertwining his scientific research with social activism.2
Visual culture played an important role in Hirschfeld’s commitment “to working for the
acceptance of different kinds of sexual practices considered deviant, including
homosexuality, transsexuality, cross-dressing, bisexuality and fetishism” (Mennel 11).
Hirschfield extensively photographed patients in thousands of consultations at his
Institute of Sexual Science (Prickett 104). These photographs, which he also archived at
the Institute, provided visual and material proof of diverse sexual intermediaries, or the
“third sex” (Steakley, Homosexual 105). The sexologist catalogued, archived, and often
1
See Beachy “The German Invention of Homosexuality” 801-838 and Beachy Gay Berlin for
more in-depth discussion of this claim.
2
Hirschfeld’s activist efforts included founding sexual rights organization the ScientificHumanitarian Committee (SHC) and fostering its annual publication, The Yearbook of Sexual
Inbetweenness. See Steakley Homosexual Emancipation 23-40; Beachy, Gay Berlin 86-91, and
109-11.
40
published these images in the Institute’s journal “as testimony, as narrative, and as
memory of those who stood at the periphery of patriarchal, heterosexist German
society” (Prickett 116).
Different from the Others was part of Hirschfeld’s sustained efforts to scientifically and
visually document sexual variation in ways that could be utilized for public education
and social change. According to Jill Suzanne Smith, the push for sexual reform by
Hirschfeld “intensified dramatically in 1918, when the prospect of a new democratic
constitution presented the perfect opportunity to change the sections of the penal code
that regulated sexual behavior” (24). In effort to capitalize on the potential for reform,
Hirschfeld and Oswald collaborated during 1918 and 1919 on three Aufklärungsfilme
dealing with sexual issues, including Different from the Others (24). The Aufklärungsfilm
genre, which was popularized by Oswald and soon imitated by numerous lesser known
directors, typically featured a fictional narrative about a sexual issue accompanied by
instructive narration often utilized to more easily allow for controversial or exploitative
content that appealed to audiences (Smith 14-15; Steakley, “Cinema” 189). In Different
from the Others, Hirschfeld and Oswald similarly included a provocative narrative
interwoven with informative elements, which allowed them to adapt an activist stance on
the medical legitimacy of homosexuality to a popular platform in order to attract Weimar
viewers.
According to the extant fragment and descriptions in written documents, the featurelength Different from the Others begins as famous violin virtuoso Paul Körner (played by
Conrad Veidt) becomes visibly upset as he reads newspaper obituaries. As he reads
about the suicides of three men, an intercut image reveals his interior reflection on why
these men took their own lives – numerous historical figures stand in a line beneath a
sword marked §175. Körner’s fears temporarily subside as his concert performance in
the following scene enthralls young Kurt Sivers (Fritz Schulz). Kurt briefly introduces
himself after the concert and visits Körner’s home on the following day to inquire about
violin lessons. The two, as teacher and pupil, develop a romantic relationship to the
dismay of their families, who attempt to draw their attention away from one another.
41
Danger soon lurks as a scheming gentleman who is familiar with Körner, Franz Bollek
(Reinhold Schünzel), follows the two as they stroll through a park. Franz later shows up
at Körner’s home demanding money to stay quiet about the violinist’s violation of
Paragraph 175. The blackmailer’s threats settle only to turn dramatic shortly after Kurt
plays his first concert with Körner. The couple finds Franz attempting to steal money
from Körner’s home, and a climactic fight ensues. Kurt, shaken by the event and
Franz’s claim that he too, is being paid by Körner, leaves town indefinitely. Körner seeks
treatment for his enduring inclination toward men, and a series of flashbacks recall
painful memories of shaming from his youth. Quite depressed, Körner attends a lecture
given by Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, who assures him that his interest in men is natural and
unfairly punished under the law. Soon, however, Franz brings Körner’s offense to court.
Though Körner is sentenced to only one week in prison due to his respectable
reputation and Franz’s prior record, he commits suicide before beginning his sentence.
The final scene concludes as Kurt returns and collapses at Körner’s deathbed. The
young man also wants to take his own life, but Hirschfeld, present at the scene, advises
him to fight for social justice in honor of Körner’s memory.
As a hybrid of education and entertainment, Different from the Others not only informs
audiences of the social and legal issues surrounding homosexuality but also incites
spectator pleasure in the images and narrative. Conrad Veidt, Anita Berber, and
Reinhold Schünzel, actors familiar to German audiences, play key roles in the film.
Veidt, known for his androgynous portrayals and soon to play the sexually ambiguous
somnambulist in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), plays the lead role, Paul Körner.
Berber appears as Kurt’s sister, Else, in a role that coquettishly downplays her
provocative roles and nude cabaret performances. Schünzel, known for playing villains
and corrupted men, makes a similar appearance as blackmailer Franz Bollek. Prior to
and during screening of the film, the cinematic appeal of these popular actors, and the
erotic appeal of Veidt and Berber, prompts spectators to identify with and take visual
pleasure in the homosexual relationship at the center of the narrative. By casting Veidt,
Berber, and Schünzel to realistically depict an underrepresented sexuality considered
42
deviant, Hirschfeld and Oswald play with the pleasure of cinematic experience as a way
to critique and mobilize political resistance to Paragraph 175.
Throughout the film, Hirschfeld and Oswald provide educational information on
homosexuality but also invite spectators to viscerally experience the narrative
representation of homosexuality according to cinematic expectations. In the opening
scene, a medium close shot of Körner becoming upset as he reads suicide notices in
the newspaper positions audiences to understand and empathize with the character’s
subjective emotions. The image that follows – a line of male historical figures standing
beneath a sword marked §175 – represents Körner’s realization that the obituaries
relate to Paragraph 175. The juxtaposed images connect Körner to Paragraph 175 and
reveal the violinist’s fear that he may face a similar plight under the law. On an
informative level, the historical icons are linked to Körner’s anxious reaction as a way to
point to an individual within an enduring group of men who suffer under Paragraph 175.
On a visual level, Veidt’s appearance and the images that provide access to Körner’s
emotions bring the protagonist’s thoughts, feelings, and implied homosexuality into the
field of spectator desire and expectation.
Fig. 1 In the opening scene, Paul Körner becomes increasingly fearful
as he reads male suicide notices in the newspaper
(Anders als die Andern, Richard-Oswald Produktion, Filmmuseum)
43
Fig. 2 An image of famous men standing beneath the sword of Paragraph 175
provides viewers access to Körner’s realization that the anti-sodomy
statute is the historically enduring cause of recent male suicides
Scenes depicting the romantic relationship between Körner and Kurt then provide
viewers visual access to a private space of homosexual desire in order to incite
pleasure in a represented site of legal regulation. The blocking, gestures, and framing of
the two during Kurt’s violin lessons early in the film aesthetically represent their growing
sexual desire. In one particular scene in Körner’s home, a medium iris shot frames the
two as they practice playing the violin in close spatial proximity to one another. Körner
plays the instrument briefly and passes it to his new pupil. Kurt imitates the tune as the
two gaze longingly at one another and exchange the phallic gesture. The iris shot
focuses the gaze of the camera and audience on the couple while also giving the
impression of looking through a keyhole at the private, erotic scene. In a letter to
Hirschfeld, a postal worker who had seen Different from the Others fondly recalls a
similar scene, seemingly lost from the extant fragment, where Körner strokes Kurt’s hair
while the two play music with a group of family members (Trans. Barbara Mennel, qtd.
in Steakley, Anders 71-72).3 He describes the scene in detail and claims that he will
3
Steakley quotes from Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen [Yearbook for Sexual
Inbetweenness] 19 (1919/20): 40-41.
44
never forget this visually pleasing, superbly acted moment in the film (Anders 71-72).
For this viewer, the recollected scene visualizes prohibited sexual desires and practices
in the aesthetically and erotically pleasing ways expected of cinema. Considered in
relation to the film’s activist message, scenes where Kurt and Körner play music prompt
audience desire for a budding, private intimacy depicted on-screen but deemed legally
and socially deviant.
Fig. 3 Violinist Paul Körner gives a lesson to his newest pupil, Kurt Sivers
Extending its educational message, the film also provides a provocative view of public
spaces of homosexual desire that complicate accepted notions of sexual perversity. In a
flashback that recalls Körner’s past experiences of same-sex attraction, a brief scene
depicts how he and Franz met at a masquerade ball in a Berlin bar. In the scene, which
caused a riot in a Berlin cinema in 1919, Körner and Franz talk in the foreground while
costumed men (some in drag) dance with other men in the background (Steakley,
“Cinema” 195). Within the medium long shot, the decorative mise-en-scène that
surrounds the two characters suggests that the space is an exciting, moving spectacle
where the two play with sexual desire and identity. Franz’s desires remain hidden and
mischievous, however, since he has been established as a blackmailer earlier in the
45
film. The flirtatious content of his conversation with Körner is inferred without intertitles,
and the two return to the violinist’s lavish home. As Körner makes a sexual advance,
Franz slyly demands money.
Fig. 4 Körner recalls meeting blackmailer Franz Bollek
The scene raises provocative questions about Franz’s sexuality: Why is Franz at the
masquerade ball? What are his intentions with Körner? Is he also gay and repressing
his sexual desires? Does he take pleasure in manipulating Körner? Why does he
continue to blackmail Körner? On an educational level, the attention to public spaces
where homosexual men gather informs audiences that there is community of people
who are attracted to the same sex. The scene also suggests that Franz is driven by
corrupted desires hidden maliciously in the aesthetic, erotic excess of the masquerade
under the name of the law. The scene ultimately visualizes Berlin as a space of queer
desire where legal codes destroy the ephemeral, aesthetic codes of homosexuality via a
contradictory cycle of hiding and exposing homosexual desire as perverse.
Different from the Others invites audience pleasure in viewing prohibited homosexual
bodies, spaces, and relationships. The film emphasizes a pleasurable view of
homosexuality in private and public spaces where legal and social controls deem them
46
deviant. By educating and entertaining Weimar audiences in Different from the Others,
Hirschfeld and Oswald queerly employed cinematic desire as a way to illustrate the
corruption of sexual desire that accompanies Paragraph 175. Audience pleasure in the
images and narrative of the educational film was an integral component of the film’s
activist message and political resistance to governmental regulation of sex.
Different from the Others’ persuasive channeling of sexual and cinematic desire for
reformative aims proved controversial once the film was released. The film ran
successfully in Berlin for months while other regions of Germany quickly banned public
screenings.4 Following the reinstatement of film censorship law in June of 1920, the
Berlin Censorship Chamber appointed a panel of three psychiatrists to evaluate
Different from the Others (Steakley, “Cinema” 192; Beachy, Gay Berlin 166). The panel,
in a formal decision dated October 16, 1920, banned the film from the general public
and restricted viewing to limited private screenings at Hirschfeld’s Institute (Steakley,
“Cinema” 193). In a commentary published shortly after the decision, panelist Dr. Albert
Moll explained that a primary concern in censoring the film was that it did not show the
sexual acts that conclude homosexual seduction. He claims that Hirschfeld and Oswald,
and other advocates of “ideal” homosexuality, “present homosexuality as purely
aesthetic” while they remain deceptively silent about “homosexual acts and especially
about the seduction of young people” (193). According to Moll, the film’s aesthetic
depiction of Körner and Kurt is seductive rather than attentive to the end result of
homosexual desire – perverse sexual acts between men. The film, for Moll, needed to
be censored because its visual appeal to spectators, more so than its educational
agenda, was aesthetically deceitful and dangerous.
4
See Steakley 188. According to Steakley, prior to the May 24, 1919 press preview of Different
from the Others in Berlin, “Oswald had prepared thirty to forty prints of the film and arranged for
distribution points in Hanover, Cologne, Frankfurt am Main and Vienna, as well as Berlin.” He
explains that even though the film did not face national censorship, local debates ensued
following distribution: the censorship board in Munich banned the film “for all of Bavaria prior to
its scheduled July opening”; Vienna restricted the film to adult audiences and soon prohibited
screening of the film entirely; the state of Wurttemburg banned the film as soon as posters for its
release appeared in cinemas.
47
Supporters of Different from the Others downplayed the film’s entertainment value with
rhetoric similar to Moll’s but used instead to emphasize its social value. A reviewer
writing for a Berlin newspaper concluded:
As a film critic I do not want to meddle with the fight over pro and contra the
penal code 175; I only saw how the average fate of a feminine man appeared onscreen with extreme urgency, and note that the dramatist [director] offered the
leadership to the scientist in the truly enlightening [or: educating] film. (Trans.
Barbara Mennel, qtd. in Steakley, Anders 69)5
By refusing to comment on the film’s stance on Paragraph 175, the reviewer avoids
explicitly discussing the film’s depiction of a homosexual relationship. Instead, he goes
on to praise Schünzel and Veidt for their dynamically acted, realistic portrayals in a
narrative about the “average fate of a feminine man” (Anders 69). In doing so, he
interprets the film as an enlightening and urgent representation of a relevant social
issue rather than a visually pleasing depiction of homosexual desire. The rhetorical
similarities between Moll’s detracting statement and the reviewer’s praise, even as they
take opposing stances on the film’s cultural value, pinpoint how Hirschfeld and Oswald’s
Different from the Others critiqued accepted conceptions of sexual desire by engaging
the aesthetic, cinematic impulses of Weimar audiences.
The film’s influence on spectators and relationship to Hirschfeld’s sexual reform efforts
ultimately played a key role in its archival disappearance. In an attempt to violently
erase the marginalized sexualities that Hirschfeld had worked to scientifically and
visually document, Nazis raided his Institute in early May of 1933 (Steakley, “Cinema”
105). In a public ceremony, they burned more than 12,000 books from the library’s
20,000 volumes as well a significant number of the 35,000 collected photographs.
Though it is unknown exactly what happened to prints of Different from the Others
under the Third Reich, the film faced a fate similar to Hirschfeld’s archive. The Nazis
removed the film, and the sexologist’s other materials, from archives in order to efface
the abject, representational threat that they posed to strict regulation of sexual
deviance. Different from the Others was censored and ultimately rendered ephemeral to
5
Steakley quotes from B.Z. am Mittag [Berlin Newspaper Midday Edition] 30 May 1919, qtd. in
“Aus der Bewegung.” [“From the Movement”] Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen [Yearbook
for Sexual Inbetweenness] 19 (1919/20): 19.
48
dominant narratives of German history until it resurfaced and was reconstructed by gay
rights activists in later decades.
Lost Fragments, Found Ephemera
In his influential gay and lesbian reading of Different from the Others in Now You See It,
Richard Dyer describes how contemporary spectators encounter the fragmented
Weimar film. He claims “What often strikes audiences today is the discrepancy between
the tragic, down-beat story part of the film and – yet another gay film with an unhappy
ending – and the unambiguously affirmative character of the lecture elements” (28).
According to Dyer, viewers perceive a “discrepancy” in the film between its educational
depiction of gay men and tragic narrative due to the missing footage and to “competing
contemporary definitions of gay identity” (28). By acknowledging the archival loss of
significant portions of Different from the Others here, and throughout his account, Dyer
avoids taking an explicit political stance on this tension according to later notions of
sexuality. He concludes that “for most viewers now, Anders als die Andern is a museum
piece, touching, moving and testimony to the role of film in gay struggle, but needing an
act of imagination to see beyond its fragments” (62).
If for most viewers today, Different from the Others is a “museum piece,” the fragment
has been imagined as such in ways that are also “testimony to the role of film in gay
struggle” (62). Any attempt to make sense of the film, textually or historically, requires
an act of imagination due to the material fragmentation of the extant print. Absent
scenes reflect the edits made to the original for its inclusion in censored and exported
Laws of Love,6 and mark its resistance to social and legal narratives of sexual behavior
in the Weimar and Nazi periods. Recent reconstructive projects inconclusively attempt
to make sense of the film as an early gay text despite its lost footage and context.
Relying on extra-filmic documents, Filmmuseum and Outfest-UCLA visually and virtually
imagine the fragment as recently excavated evidence given new meaning in a
6
See Steakley, “Cinema” (181) for a description of the re-edited fragment that was screened in
the years before the Filmmuseum reconstruction.
49
contemporary archive of LGBTQ materials experienced on-screen and in new media
spaces.
The 1999/2004 Filmmuseum München reconstruction of Different from the Others, the
version most accessible to audiences today, recreates a cinematic experience of the
original film for spectators by visualizing the fragment within a found archive of Weimar
documents. In the opening of the reconstruction, Filmmuseum appends introductory,
scrolling text with information on the film’s historical context, particularly the production’s
relationship to Hirschfeld’s “third sex” activism. The text briefly charts the sexologist’s
pivotal role in German resistance to Paragraph 175, Oswald and Hirschfeld’s
collaborative film productions, and the political controversy over Different from the
Others. The concluding lines establish Different from the Others as “The world’s first film
to deal explicitly with homosexuality” and explain that the film “survives today only as a
fragment.” The appended introduction invites audiences to relate the film, and their
viewing experience, to a contemporary archive of historical information on sexual rights
in Germany. By historically contextualizing the sexual politics of the film, the opening
locates the fragment in a lost archive of sexuality from which it will be reconstructed.
Throughout the reconstruction, Filmmuseum replaces lost footage with Weimar
information and documents that allow spectators to watch the fragmented film as part of
an archive of LGBTQ ephemera. Filmmuseum creates a viewable version of the
fragment that imitates the original by adapting information from extant written
documents to intertitles and replacing missing scenes with archival photographs. For
example, an abbreviated scene featuring a lecture by an unnamed sexologist, played by
Hirschfeld, now features lengthy intertitles that stand in, in neutral digital font, for the
missing images of the original sequence as described in written records.
50
Fig. 5 In a brief scene that survives in the extant fragment, Hirschfeld gives
a lecture on the medical legitimacy of homosexuality to a large audience
In an intertitle appended to images of the lecture, the sexologist claims: “Nature is
boundless in its creations. Between all opposites there are transitions, and this is also
true of the sexes. Thus, apart from man and woman there are also men with womanly
physical and psychological traits, as well as women with all sorts of male
characteristics.” Following the text is a series of archival photographs denoting various
“in-between” females and males. Titles include “masculine woman as house painter,”
“female homosexual couple,” “a man with female feelings in men’s clothing and
women’s clothing,” and “a transvestite as waiter and maid.”7 The montage of
photographs reshapes the partially absent lecture to make meaning in the present. The
reconstructed sequence positions viewers to historically fantasize about an emerging
LGBTQ community as they look at a collection of sexological photographs depicting
gender and sexual play, or “in-betweenness,” in the Weimar period.
7
Detailed source information on these photos is not provided in the DVD version of
Filmmuseum’s reconstruction. According to the concluding credits, the images are “still photos
from the photos archives of the British Film Institute in London and the Filmmuseum Berlin.”
51
Fig. 6 Filmmuseum added a montage of archival photos depicting
“sexual inbetweenness” during the Weimar period to an abbreviated
lecture scene from the remaining fragment
Still photographs accompanied by plot-laden intertitles also replace key scenes of
Different from the Others that were cut for the fragment’s inclusion in Laws of Love. For
example, a still frame of Kurt kneeling in grief at Körner’s deathbed as family members
surround him stands in for a longer scene in which the film’s unnamed sexologist,
Hirschfeld, consoles the young man who is now himself suicidal. An intertitle explains
the missing action: Körner’s family is angry that Kurt returns to grieve, but Hirschfeld
urges the distraught young man to fight for social justice rather than take his own life.
Other key scenes are similarly reconstructed: an image of Körner standing with his
family as he reluctantly hugs a woman replaces a scene where his family sets him up
with a recent widow; a close image of Kurt playing a violin replaces a scene where he
leaves town and plays music at pubs in order to avoid facing his relationship with
Körner. The added photographs and intertitles prompt audiences to interact with the
reconstruction as an archival space where the original narrative can be imagined from
ephemera. The lost scenes from the original become a virtual space where viewers find
fragmented artifacts of LGTBQ history.
52
Fig. 7 A still photograph of Kurt grieving at Körner’s deathbed replaces
a longer scene where he considers suicide and is consoled
by a sexologist played by Hirschfeld
Fig. 8 Added intertitles provide the missing plot details
of the film’s concluding scene
(Anders als Die Andern, Richard-Oswald Produktion, Filmmuseum)
53
Filmmuseum markets the reconstruction of Different from the Others as a contemporary
discovery of the lost silent film. Promotion of the project again contextualizes the
fragmented film as part of an archive of Weimar LGBTQ ephemera made accessible to
spectators. The Filmmuseum website claims:
One of the first gay-themed films in the history of cinema, Anders als die Andern /
Different from the Others was banned at the time of its release, later burned by
the Nazis and was believed lost for more than forty years. Using recently
discovered film segments, still photos and censorship documents from different
archives, Filmmuseum Muenchen has resurrected this truly groundbreaking
silent film. (“Anders Als die Andern”)
As marketed here, the reconstruction “resurrects” the fragment for contemporary visual
consumption via “recently discovered” materials. Filmmuseum similarly markets the
DVD version of the reconstruction. The extra features of the latest edition, released in
July of 2007, include a reproduction of the exported Laws of Love, a recent short film on
the scandal surrounding the film, and various Weimar documents related to production
of the film and its censorship. The added materials used in reconstruction as well as the
DVD special features allow spectators to view and interpret the fragment in extra-linear
ways as they watch the reconstructed film and navigate the extra-filmic material.
Filmmuseum makes meaning of the material fragmentation of Different from the Others
by directing spectatorship to an on-screen archive that allows them to interact with the
text as an artifact of early gay life. The sources used by archivists to reconstruct the film
are listed in the concluding credits, as if actors in the recreation of the original. The list
does not explain the details of how and where these obliquely related and gap-ridden
pieces of archival evidence are used to reassemble the original film because where and
how these sources fail to completely restore the original becomes a way to experience
and play with the film as evidence of Weimar homosexuality. The Filmmuseum DVD
extends the filmic boundaries of the fragment further by inviting viewers to participate in
excavation of the film as they wander the extra features. Ultimately, the Filmmuseum
project visualizes the fragmented film as part of an archive of historical documents
where today’s spectators can visually interact with the ephemerality of the film as lost
and found evidence of LGBTQ history.
54
Outfest-UCLA’s reconstruction in-progress allows American audiences to experience
Different from the Others as ephemera of early LGBTQ life by participating in various
contemporary media spaces. The incomplete reconstruction extends to new archives
and social networks that ultimately take the fragment beyond the archival scope and
intentions of both UCLA and Outfest. Various sources provide information on the
project, including several newspaper and magazine articles publicizing the
reconstruction, Outfest’s Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the project, descriptions
of public screenings of the work-in-progress, as webpages about the project on both
UCLA’s and Outfest’s website. These sources outline the aims and progress of the
reconstruction for a particular audience and often feature unverified historical details
about the production of Different from the Others. These texts function much like the
introductory and extra-filmic texts that accompany the Filmmuseum reconstruction, but,
instead of being appended to the fragment or made available on a DVD, they are
connected to the Outfest-UCLA project via the Internet. Online articles and websites
detailing this most recent reconstruction of Different from the Others contextualize the
film fragment as a trending topic of social media conversation available at the speed of
a Google search. Potential spectators of the film experience the fragment and
understand the LGBTQ-focused reconstruction by navigating a virtual archive of media
information.
Discussions of the Outfest-UCLA reconstruction imagine the fragmented film as a lost
archive of homosexuality excavated by institutional and/or LGBTQ community efforts
and contextualized by contemporary media. In a recent New York Times article titled “A
Daring Film, Silenced No More,” Robert Ito discusses details of the Outfest-UCLA
reconstruction by focusing on the institutional work of UCLA Film and Television
Archive. He tells readers the aims and details of the yet to be completed reconstruction,
reporting that it “will be the most complete to date, with new English intertitles and the
inclusion of recently found photos and film stills” (Ito). For Ito, what is missing from the
fragment does not deter UCLA’s return to the fragment. He claims that even though the
film is missing scenes, its explicit depictions of LGBTQ people tell “a captivating story”
that needs to be recovered from silence (Ito). He also speculates about the archival
55
future of the fragment: “the preservationists at U.C.L.A. are not giving up hope on
finding more “Different” material. ‘What if some other source turns up?’ Mr. Horak said.
‘In a sense, you’re never done’ (Ito). Ito informatively and intellectually considers the
archival project for New York Times readers in terms of institutional progress
concerning LGBTQ issues. In doing so, he imagines the ephemerality of Different from
the Others in an ever-expanding contemporary archive explored by UCLA
“preservationists,” interpreted by The New York Times, and consumed by educated,
LGBTQ-aware Times readers. The notion that reconstruction of the fragment is never
complete says less about the potential for new, illuminating source documents and
more about the repetitive desire to extend the reach of institutional archives to changing
histories and media spaces.
Differing from the institutional, intellectual focus of Ito’s piece, Outfest’s Kickstarter
campaign provides a space for organizational, social participation in reconstructing the
film as an LGBTQ artifact. In the textual description of their funding pitch, Outfest sells
the Outfest-UCLA project as a restoration of a “historic” film “explicitly about LGBT
people” that will include the creation of a new negative and projectable prints intended
for civic consumption. In the campaign video, Outfest spokesperson Michael Reisz
briefly and dramatically describes the Different from the Others fragment and how it will
be reconstructed:
When it was found, that fragment was in terrible, terrible shape. So far video
restoration efforts have pieced together film fragments, photos, and documents
but there has never been a full restoration to film or a new negative created until
now. Different from the Others, one of the earliest films in existence to portray the
LGBT communities on the screen [sic]. In conjunction with the UCLA Film &
Television Archive, Outfest is working tirelessly to completely restore this
critically historic film. (Racster, “Different from the Others”)
Here, Racster markets the project as a “full restoration to film” that is more about more
fully imagining the fragmented film for contemporary, American “LGBT communities”
than uncovering new sources that aid in reconstruction. In the campaign description,
Outfest claims that a portion of the raised funds will ensure “educational kits for 35 mm
screenings and DVD dissemination to high school and college campuses,” and links on
the page provide supporters with further information on how to participate and invest in
56
the project and the organization. Audience participation in the Kickstarter and LGBT
community building, rather than reading news in the New York Times, becomes part of
reconstructing the film and its history.
The attention given to the Outfest-UCLA reconstruction in American media suggests
that the project has become much more than an attempted return to accurately
depicting a film viewed by Weimar audiences. The media discourse surrounding the
Outfest-UCLA project allows the LGBTQ-aware Americans to read themselves into a
virtual site of lost history via interactive engagement with contemporary technologies
and communication networks. Ito’s article in The New York Times imagines UCLA’s
archival preservation and reconstruction as an exploration of a lost yet expanding
institutional archive of information on LGBTQ history. Outfest’s Kickstarter campaign
aims to restore the loss of the film via new configurations of cinematic spectatorship that
privilege social interaction with material ephemera in online spaces like Kickstarter. The
media discourse surrounding the Outfest-UCLA reconstruction makes sense of the
fragmented film by allowing audiences to interact with its ephemerality in digital spaces
where participation fosters contemporary LGBTQ communities and historical narratives.
Leave It To Queer Imaginations
In both its Weimar iteration and its current reconstructed state, Different from the Others
shifts what matters when cinematically viewing and archiving representations of sexual
desire and behavior. Hirschfeld and Oswald’s original film controversially represented
deviant sexual desires and practices by appealing to popular desire for the visual
spectacle of cinema. The Weimar film was censored and erased from German archives
because it invited audiences to take aesthetic and erotic pleasure in scenes of public
and private resistance to Paragraph 175. Fragmented by cultural tensions in the
Weimar period and effaced from German archives by the Nazis, Different from the
Others exposes the social and cultural values that have shaped archival practice and
critiques an historical narrative of culturally repressed Western homosexuality becoming
more visible throughout the twentieth century.
57
Since the fragmented film resurfaced in the 1970s, the archival failure of Different from
the Others has taken on new significance within LGBTQ communities. Filmmuseum
München and Outfest-UCLA have attempted to reconstruct the fragment to its original
state by engaging the ephemerality of the extant text. Far from recreating an accurate
experience of the 1919 feature-length film, these reconstructions contextualize the
absence of the fragment by imagining and reimagining its homosexual content as part
of an expanding contemporary archive experienced on-screen or in digital media
spaces. Audiences lose and find “arguably the first feature film with an explicitly
homosexual theme” as they visually and virtually encounter the gap-ridden fragment
and connect it to other past and present texts that illuminate its content. How the
Different from the Others fragment has and will continue to be imagined provides
important information on where, how, and why we construct histories and communities
based on sexuality. The fragment that remains is not a repressed origin of modern
homosexuality whose history needs to be more expertly and thoroughly uncovered so
that it can be made accessible to contemporary audiences. Different from the Others is
an abject and ephemeral site of cinematic and sexual pleasure that continues to fail the
aims of institutional and cultural archiving as it is reconstructed in hybridity. Even as
Filmmuseum, Outfest, UCLA, Dyer, and others inscribe the fragment with contemporary
narratives of LGBTQ history, its adaptive absence eludes and leaves much to queer
imaginations.
Lauren Elizabeth Pilcher is a doctoral student at the University of Florida.
58
Works Cited
“About Outfest.” outfest.org, n.d. Web. 30 Dec. 2014. <http://www.outfest.org/about/>.
Anders Als Die Andern. Dir. Richard Oswald. Richard-Oswald Produktion. Edition
Filmmuseum, 2004. DVD.
“Anders Als Die Andern: Edition Filmmuseum 04.” edition-filmmusuem.com, n.d. Web.
30 Dec. 2014. <http://www.editionfilmmuseum.com/product_info.php/language/en/info/p4_Anders-als-dieandern.html>.
Beachy, Robert. “The German Invention of Homosexuality.” The Journal of Modern
History 82.4 (2010): 801-838. Print.
-----. Gay Berlin: Birthplace of a Modern Identity. New York: Knopf, 2014. Print.
Derrida, Jacques. Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression. Trans. Eric Prenowitz.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. Print.
Dyer, Richard. Now You See It: Studies on Lesbian and Gay Film, 2nd ed. London:
Routledge, 2003. Print.
Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction. Trans. Robert Hurley.
New York: Vintage Books, 1990. Print.
Halberstam, Jack. The Queer Art of Failure. Durham: Duke University Press, 2011.
Print.
Ito, Robert. “A Daring Film, Silenced No More: ‘Different from the Others,’ A 1919 Film
on Homosexuality” New York Times. 15 Nov. 2013. Web. 3 September 2014.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/movies/different-from-the-others-a-1919film-on-homosexuality.html>.
Mennel, Barbara. Queer Cinema: Schoolgirls, Vampires, and Gay Cowboys. London:
Wallflower Press, 2012. Print.
Munoz, Jose Esteban. Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity. New
York: New York University Press, 2009. Print.
Prickett, David James. “Magnus Hirschfeld and the Photographic (Re)Invention of the
‘Third Sex.’” In Visual Culture in the Twentieth Germany: Text as Spectacle. Ed.
Gail Finney. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006): 101-119. Print.
Smith, Jill Suzanne. “Richard Oswald and the Social Hygiene Film: Promoting Public
Health or Promiscuity?” In The Many Faces of Weimar Cinema: Rediscovering
Germany’s Filmic Legacy. Ed. Christian Rogowski. (Rochester: Camden House,
2010): 13-30. Print.
59
Steakley, James D. Anders als die Andern. Hamburg: Männerschwarm Verlag, 2007.
Print.
-----. “Cinema and Censorship in the Weimar Republic: The Case of Anders als die
Andern,” Film History 11.2 (1999): 181-203. Print.
-----. The Homosexual Emancipation Movement. New York: Arno Press, 1975. Print.
Racster, Christopher. “Different from the Others (1919) Restore this historic film!”
Kickstarter.com. Outfest Legacy Project. 30 Nov. 2012. Web. 30 Aug. 2014.
<https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1041058527/different-from-the-others1919-restore-this-histor>.
60
Engaging History: Nuit et brouillard’s Cinematic Meditation on the
Archive
By Myriam Tremblay-Sher
A
lain Resnais’ 1955 documentary Nuit et brouillard emerged in a complex
period in France’s history, fraught with competing memorial narratives. Ten
years after the end of the Second World War, France was still grappling with
a seemingly irreconcilable legacy of victimhood, collaboration, and resistance. The
atrocities suffered in the labour and extermination camps, as well as the struggles of the
French resistance fighters, were hard to forget, but the question of French collaboration
with the Nazis was tucked away, as efforts to construct a nationalistic, collective image
of “Résistance” reigned over political discourse. By the 1950s, this national image
building was reinforced to erase France’s brutal colonialist repression of the Algerian
independence movement from public address. It was in this context that Resnais
released the film.
The film’s troubled production history and its negative initial reception signalled France’s
struggle to look at its traumatic past (and present) with a critical eye toward national
mythmaking. At the same time, its pioneering poetic-essayistic form challenged
historical assumptions and broke open the idea of France as shaped by officially
sanctioned remembrance. By disrupting the embedded power structures in different
nations’ archiving practices as a means of recording official histories, and by engaging
the archival object in a formal and reflective dialogue, Alain Resnais articulated a
cinematic meditation on the limits of memory and historical representation, while
critically questioning the present through an understanding of the past as trace.
By analyzing Resnais’ use of archival imagery and Jean Cayrol’s voice-over narration, I
argue that Resnais draws on French national archives and personal experiences of the
camps in Nuit et brouillard in order to challenge established national discourses in
France around the Second World War. The film provides a revised historiography that
61
Engaging History
Myriam Tremblay-Sher
significantly departs from the vision of the status quo, and substantiates its claims by
offering up its source material for viewer inspection. I begin by interrogating the role of
the archive in the film’s production and release. I then move to an overview of French
historiographical debates around the memorialization of the Holocaust, and an
epistemological analysis of the archive as a concept. Finally, in the latter half of the
article, I turn to textual analysis of the narration and the editing of images in several key
sequences to demonstrate the multiple ways in which Resnais used the film to theorize
the archive’s role in processes of remembrance, memorialization, and the writing of
history in postwar France.
What marks Nuit et brouillard as an innovative historical documentary is its cinematic
engagement with both the archiving process and the archival material from all levels of
production. Indeed, from initial research to editing, the creation of Nuit et brouillard was
much like the process of memory: creative, incoherent, and sometimes conflicting.
Andreas Huyssen elaborates an important operational characteristic of memory as the
articulation, in the present, of the past. The past does not simply exist in memory, he
argues, “the mode of memory is recherche rather than recuperation” (Huyssen 3).
Resnais’ excavation of archival fragments and subsequent organization of them in his
film, offers a sense of temporal fluidity and dialectical tension between historical
moments. This archival excavation and consequential juxtaposition recasts the process
of remembering the past as an act of research instead of retrieval, as if from some
repository of the past. Here, a brief overview of Nuit et brouillard’s production history,
and France’s political climate at the time, will highlight the critical methodology
employed to subvert official memorial discourses, both institutionally and formally.
The inception of Nuit et brouillard emerged from France’s political efforts to
commemorate the victims and heroes of the Second World War. The initiative came
from the Comité d’histoire de la Deuxième Guerre Mondiale and the Réseau du
souvenir (Lindeperg, “Night and Fog: Inventing a Perspective” 72), an association
62
Engaging History
founded in 1952 whose mandate was to promote the memory of the “Déportation,”1 with
the intent of elevating the memory of the deportee as the image of resistance. The
association’s stated goal was to “transform memory into monument” (Ministère de la
Culture et de la Communication et du Service interministériel des Archives de France).
In 1954, the Réseau spearheaded the publication of an anthology of eyewitness
accounts entitled “Tragédie de la déportation,” led by historians Henri Michel, who was
a head at both the Réseau and the Comité, and Olga Wormser (ibid). In November
1954, for the tenth anniversary of France’s liberation, the minister of education
inaugurated the exhibit entitled “Résistance, libération, déportation” at the Musée
pédagogique du 29 de la rue d’Ulm in Paris, where Michel and Wormser announced the
idea of a film about the German concentration camp system (Delage 83). The Comité
had commissioned Anatole Dauman as the producer, who picked Alain Resnais to
direct the film. Resnais was to work closely with Michel and Wormser, who would act as
his historical advisors. Michel anticipated that the film’s historical value would lay in the
authenticity of the archival images, and in a sober, sociologically informed commentary
(85). While the film was born from a politically and institutionally motivated
remembrance project, inscribed by the idealization of “la Résistance” within the French
context of deportations and the concentration camp systems, its director and historians
would ultimately redirect this memorial imperative. Indeed, the careful and thorough
archival research that Michel, Wormser, and Resnais undertook to make the film
uncovered a more nuanced and confrontational history than the Réseau’s push for a
memorialization of war heroes.
Their pre-production archival research demonstrated, furthermore, the complexity of
competing historical narratives that marked the official remembrance of the Second
World War in France. By using archival imagery from Wormser’s documentation
collected for the 1954 exhibit (including photographs of the liberation of the camps and
objects and drawings belonging to the deportees) and by collecting archival photos and
films from various war and camp museums, their search spanned the deportation to
1
A blanket term used in various French documentary and historical sources that does not
specify details about who was deported or whether it was before or after the implementation of
the Final Solution.
63
Engaging History
ghettos and camps, life (and death) inside the camps, and liberation in 1944-45. During
the 1950s, the specific deportation and extermination of European Jews was largely
obscured from French public discourse by the overriding historical thread of the
concentration camp system (Lindeperg, “Night and Fog: Inventing a Perspective” 76),
yet the team’s search for images from various sources enabled them to unearth this
buried history and bring it to the public’s eye, in turn broadening the Réseau du
Souvenir’s memorial call to immortalize resistance heroes. Ultimately, Nuit et
brouillard’s narrative did not explicitly single out the fate of the Jews, but it is noteworthy
that the archival research for the film nuanced the Réseau’s tunnelled vision of history.
The team’s archival research involved the examination of several institutional archives’
holdings, which met with varying degrees of success as they faced some opposition
from certain institutions. They searched the photographic archives of the Centre de
documentation juive contemporaine, the Comité d’histoire de la Deuxième Guerre
Mondiale, and the Amicale de Mauthausen, in addition to viewing footage of the
liberation of the camps from the Actualités françaises, taken in the spring of 1945 (73).
However, some of the army archives were more reticent to release material. As Resnais
explains in a 1986 interview with film scholar Richard Raskin, the Service
cinématographique de l’armée française, from which Resnais regretfully recalls mostly
official ceremony images, prohibited the use of some of the shots he had nonetheless
chosen with a note explaining the forbiddance had to do with the nature of the film
(Raskin 53). Similarly, the London Imperial War Museum forbade access to its archives.
Resnais stated in his interview with Raskin that he interpreted these bans as solidarity
between the armies in refusing to talk about this part of documented history (ibid). The
team still persisted to gather more archival material and headed to the Dutch Institute
for War Documentation in Amsterdam and then to Poland where it continued its
research at the Institute for Jewish History, the Documentary Film Studios in Warsaw,
the Warsaw Ghetto museum, the Majdanek concentration camp, and the Auschwitz
concentration camp (Lindeperg, “Night and Fog: Inventing a Perspective” 73, 75).
64
Engaging History
The team’s international scavenge for archival material from numerous institutions, as
well as the restrictions they faced, are revealing of the vectors of power imposed onto
archives and shaping its involvement in national forms of memorial representation. The
archives they visited correspond to what Jamie Baron describes as the traditional
historiographic notion of the archive: an official institutional repository of official
documents (Baron 2). As such, the archive was elevated as a proprietor of empirical
evidence and objective accounts of the past, which came to serve totalizing,
unquestioned theorizations of history. As Mike Featherstone explains, the archive as
institution, therefore, acted as a stronghold for national memory: “It was the building that
acted as the sanctum, the place in which the sacred texts and objects were stored that
were used to generate collective identity and social solidarity” (Featherstone 592). Over
time, institutional archives gather records upon records, enabling the accumulation of
data, but in doing so, questions arise around the preservation of historical knowledge:
whose data is it? Is the collection process politically motivated or regulated? Is there a
responsibility toward the public? As Baron and Featherstone point out, historically, the
purpose of such collections served the construction of national identity. In this light, the
preservation of historical knowledge, via those given records conserved in national
archives, is in fact a process of selection that cultivates a dominant vision of the past.
Both Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida engage with the question of the archival
conservation of historical knowledge, reformulating our understanding of the archive’s
physically institutional power toward an understanding of it as a system that oversees
how the past is remembered and articulated. For Foucault, the particular selection and
ordering of documents determines a structure of power embedded in the narration of
history (Foucault 28-29). Likewise, in his seminal Archive Fever, Derrida recognizes that
the structure of the archival institution also determines the structure of the archival
material, whereby the past is not simply preserved, but constructed by the archive: “The
archivization produces as much as it records the event” (Derrida 17). This production is
determined by the archive’s administrators, known as the archons, who carry
hermeneutic authority at the intersection of what Derrida posits as the archive’s defining
features: domiciliation (the archives’ permanent place of dwelling) and consignation (the
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act of gathering together signs into a synchronous unit where all the elements form an
ideal arrangement) (2-3). Ontologically, then, the archive as an institution is understood
as taking place in a privileged residence where the archons’ power functions through
the accumulation and classification of signs into a singular organized system. Through
this configuration, heterogeneity would threaten consignation, so the archive becomes
the site where grand narratives of history are commanded. In this context, mnemonic
authority within public discourse is relegated to those who appropriate and arrange the
past. Consequently, “there is no political power without control of the archive, if not of
memory. Effective democratization can always be measured by this criterion: the
participation in and access to the archive, its constitution, and its interpretation” (Derrida
4). Building upon Derrida’s argument, then, the act of browsing through an archive and
selecting certain records over others—of reading records against the grain—opens up a
space for the formulation of historical counter-narratives, while potentially democratizing
the historiographical process.
Resnais challenged the structures of power that often govern the archival process when
he collected fragments of historical records from different national archives and
repositories. This questioning of the relationship between authoritative dictates of
history and memorial institutions lies at the heart of his three short documentaries of the
1950s: Les Statues meurent aussi (1953), Nuit et brouillard (1955), and Toute la
mémoire du monde (1956). In his article on Resnais’ short documentaries, Matthew
Croombs explains: “The particular institutions that they feature – the national library, the
Musée de l’Homme, and the camp (as museum) – concern the epistemology of history,
and the ways that the national past is made to cohere within totalizing, representational
spaces” (Croombs 29-30). Through the processes of searching various centres
belonging to different nations and selecting which archival objects to bring together to
form a new collection in Nuit et brouillard, Resnais confronted the hegemonic
nationalistic discourses of institutional historical conservation in France.
Upon the film’s completion in 1955, Resnais was confronted by the repressive nature of
these nationalistic discourses. The French control committee viewed the completed film
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and ordered the removal of the archival photo of a French officer guarding the Pithiviers
camp (Lindeperg, Nuit et brouillard: un film dans l’histoire 144). In the background of the
photo, a dozen or so prisoners are visible within a barbed wire perimeter. In the
foreground there is the silhouette of a French gendarme, slightly profiled, and wearing a
képi (the French military hat). The photograph was a lasting symbol of French
collaboration with the Nazis in the arrest and internment of French Jews before their
deportation.
Fig. 1 Photograph of French gendarme, reproduced in Nuit et brouilllard (1955)
In the political climate of 1950s France, any reference to French activities outside of the
self-image projected and sanctioned by the state was considered unsuitable for public
discourse. With the memory of French complicity in Nazi horrors through the Vichy
regime, and with France’s repressive colonial operation in Algeria, a major rift existed
between the French experience of war and historical discourses as conserved by public
record and held within the state’s archives. This rift created what Croombs articulates as
a “crisis of appearances,” referring to “the absence of a criminal history that was
conducted in the French public’s name yet erased from their view, and to the equally
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invisible yet palpable existence of the state machinery responsible for that erasure”
(Croombs 31). It is precisely within this crisis that Resnais’ use of the photograph in
question in Nuit et brouillard intervenes and opens a space within the public sphere to
challenge the suppression of uncomfortable moments in recorded history.
In March 1956, the production company, Argos, re-submitted the film to the control
committee, but instead of replacing the photograph, the production team merely hid the
gendarme’s képi beneath a dark shadow.
Fig. 2 Censored photograph, reproduced in Nuit et brouilllard (1955)
This allowed Jean Cayrol’s narration to still accurately enumerate the French internment
locations (“internés de Pithiviers, raflés du Vél’ d’Hiv,’…”), while craftily preserving on
screen the state’s censorship stamp (Lindeperg, Nuit et brouillard: un film dans l’histoire
153). This was but one of the ways Resnais resisted various forms of state censorship
and intervention. When he directed his next film, Toute la mémoire du monde, which
was commissioned by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he subverted the state
agency’s intention to make a film displaying France’s modernization of knowledge by
depicting the French national library as a “carceral space” (Ungar 73). His
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confrontational cinematic representation of both the archive and those objects held
therein sought to challenge this element of France’s nationalistic mythmaking.
Nuit et brouillard’s controversy did not end with the censorship of archival images. It
was nominated by the Cannes Film Festival’s selection committee in the short subject
category, but the State Secretary of Industry and Commerce did not list it as one of its
entries, launching a slew of exchanges between political figures and film officials alike
(Ungar 64). While official Cannes discourse promoted a conciliatory and uncontroversial
festival atmosphere, growing Cold War tensions ultimately brought nations such as
France to attempt to silence cultural outputs that upset diplomatic discourses (ibid). In
the end, the film was presented at the festival, but not as part of its official selection.
The initial censorship of Nuit et brouillard, at both the level of its production and
domestic exhibition, revealed the delicate nature of France’s war remembrance effort in
the postwar years.2 As historian Henry Rousso claims, France’s official memorial
discourse was spawned by Charles de Gaulle’s heavy-handed call for a unified, glorious
imaging of the war effort as a people en résistance (Rousso 28). This glazed myth of
the past eclipsed the less palatable memory of the Vichy regime. De Gaulle’s myth of
resistance and his discursive crusade to elevate a “certain image of France” (Greene 3)
grew throughout the 1950s as the Cold War escalated in Europe, and as France
violently fought against Algerian independence. Resnais’ cinema also probed the
fissures in the myth of French national identity by reintroducing uncensored, disturbing
images into its collective memory.
Nuit et brouillard’s disruption of official memory involved the simultaneously poetic and
dialectical treatment of the archival imagery itself. Resnais’ use of archives created a
contemplative intersection of past and present by interlacing the archival images with
2
Resnais’ work had been censored before by the French government, which had fought to
suppress in the immediate postwar years domestic criticism of its military operations abroad.
For many years, only a truncated version of his 1953 Les Statues meurent aussi, which
conveyed a strong anti-colonialist critique, was made available and it was refused a permit for
commercial distribution until 1968 (Croombs).
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contemporary footage through jarring editing. In one particular sequence describing the
gruesome functionality and productivity of the camps, towards the end of the film,
Resnais juxtaposes archival images of personal belongings with overt signs of death to
disturbingly convey the trauma of the Holocaust by signalling to viewers the immense
scale of this extermination campaign. Five photos exhibiting piles of personal
belongings are jarringly interrupted by a shot of women’s hair. For an agonizingly long
thirty-two seconds, the camera tilts down and then up an endless mountain of hair. It
cuts directly to a shot of huge rolls of cloth, over which the narrator mentions the
economic gain of using the hair to make these rolls. The next archival shot shows a
man opening an oven, revealing a human skeleton inside. This is quickly followed by a
lengthier bird’s-eye view shot of thousands of bones, which cuts to a wide shot of a
large lettuce field, displaying what the narrator explains as the Nazis’ attempt to
transform the bones into fertilizer. Next is a bold series of seven rapid shots of dead
bodies, some piled and some decapitated. The viewer has little time to wonder what
could possibly be done with the bodies before the next two shots quickly and casually
show the making of soap. Finally, a short shot of a container filled with human skin is
followed by a ten second tracking shot of delicately placed ‘paper’ drawings on a table.
Through direct cuts and carefully chosen archival images, the editing in Nuit et
brouillard highlights the historically documented process of transforming human beings
into material goods.
Fig. 3 Mountain of hair
(Nuit et brouillard)
Fig. 4 Roll of cloth made of hair
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Whereas the contemporary footage can point towards an absence, this archival imagery
also effectively indexes a disturbing abundance. The archival image’s ability to retain
and retrieve an excess of historical information is key to destabilizing historical
narratives that are formed through the imprint of time on place. In the concentration
camps, where there is a dearth of photographs and footage showing the traumatic
violence at the moment it was perpetrated, the traces and remnants of that violence
nevertheless engulfed later footage shot in the camps after Liberation. The
overwhelming urgency with which these remnants fill the frame signals celluloid’s
inherent ability to record all details in front of the camera lens, including those which
may become evidence of overlooked or supressed histories. This excess can potentially
destabilize deterministic attempts at constructing a specific historical narrative,
transmuting archival footage into what Paula Amad calls the counter-archive: “[…] a
supplementary realm where the modern conditions of disorder, fragmentation, and
contingency came to haunt the already unstable positivist utopia of order, synthesis,
and totality” (Amad 21). In this realm, the excess that constitutes traumatic historical
traces disrupts the silence and absence of the sweeping passage of time.
In another sequence, it is the counterbalance between the archival imagery and the
contemporary footage that offers an affective engagement with different temporal lines.
It begins in the present, as the camera enters a gas chamber and travels for thirty
seconds in close-up across the ceiling, showing the fingernail scrapings of the victims.
The seemingly endless backward tracking shot of the damaged white ceiling evokes the
difficulty of representing such immeasurable pain and loss. Resnais then places a harsh
archival close-up shot of a dead woman’s face. The next archival shots show groups of
dead bodies and their subsequent burning in pyres (as an efficient alternative to
crematoria). What the previous contemporary images cannot capture, the archival
footage can, by visually filling the emptiness of the gas chamber as it is explored in
1955. As the contemporary footage encourages a thoughtful meditation on the
unimaginable past, the archives attempt to counterbalance contemplation with a
devastating historical referent. Conversely, the intercutting of the disturbing archival
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footage with contemporary imagery prevents the sensationalizing of this trauma through
a voyeuristic over-saturation of shocking visual material.
Fig. 5 Contemporary image of gas
chamber (Nuit et brouillard)
Fig. 6 Dead prisoner
The careful montage of the archival imagery and the contemporary footage visualizes
the history of the Holocaust by jointly alarming the viewer and asking him/her to ponder
how time can fracture and displace memory. The balancing of the archival material with
the contemporary footage engages the viewer with a reflective temporality where past
and present meet, thus creating what Jamie Baron calls the “archive effect.” The
“archive effect” relies on “temporal disparity” (Baron 18), articulated here through the
contrast between the movement in the contemporary shots and the black-and-white
static photos, enabling the viewer to recognize these latter images as archival
documents. This effect cultivates a critical reflection of Resnais’ interplay of
temporalities. In this sense, the archive effect deepens a sense of access to multiple
points of entry into history rather than merely direct to an official repository of historical
knowledge (7).
The method of juxtaposing stark archival imagery of suffering and death with
contemporary footage, and narrativising a connection between these images through a
lyrical yet probing voice-over, was innovative compared to other archive-based
documentaries being made at the time. Jean Cayrol’s voice-over narration was key in
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inviting the viewer to question the cinematic meditation on the archive. A Catholic
French poet, Cayrol survived concentration camps during the Second World War. He
joined the French Resistance in 1940, but in 1942, he was denounced and incarcerated
at the Fresnes prison, where he stayed for ten months (Jean Cayrol: Nuit et brouillard,
73). In 1943, he was deported to the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp (74)
under the “Nacht und Nebel” (“Night and Fog” or “Nuit et brouillard”) Nazi directive
aimed against political activists and resistance helpers. In his interview with Raskin,
Resnais reflected on the initial team-forming process for the production of Nuit et
brouillard and states that he in fact only agreed to direct the film on the condition that
Cayrol write the commentary, precisely because of his experience as a survivor (Raskin
48). He explains, however, that Cayrol struggled initially with revisiting this traumatic
period of his life and fell ill after viewing an early cut of the film. Cayrol reportedly told
Resnais he could not write the narration from within the editing suite, but would instead
write it from memory (54). The ensuing narration did not completely match the visual
narrative, so Chris Marker, friend to both Resnais and Cayrol and Resnais’ previous
collaborator, was brought on board and rewrote Cayrol’s text (ibid). When Cayrol
healed, he took Marker’s revisions and completely rewrote the script himself.
Cayrol’s voice-over narration, combined with Nuit et brouillard’s provoking
counterbalance of archival imagery with contemporary footage, challenged the formula
of contemporaneous documentaries about concentration camps. From the end of the
war until the early 1960s, such documentaries fell into two principal categories: the
newsreel-type and the expository compilation film (Hirsch 32). In these forms of
documentary, historical explanation aimed for authoritative objectivity through raw
footage (as in the newsreel form) or through a diachronic assemblage of images (as in
the compilation form), presented as evidence and accompanied by an omniscient
commentary, thus binding together a grand narrative of historical events (33, 37). In
these two types of filmmaking, archival imagery was typically regarded as reliable visual
evidence of the past and therefore used as a means of visualizing a moment in history.
Resnais challenged this classical positivist use of documentary evidence in Nuit et
brouillard by confronting the archival image’s status as empirical evidence and pointing
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towards potentially alternative readings of seemingly benign images. For example, in an
aforementioned sequence, a shot of human bones is followed by a shot of a lettuce
field, over which the narrator simply and succinctly explains that fertilizer is made with
the bones. The understated narration and the dialectical juxtaposition of an image filled
with remnants of death with another image of vast growing fields effectively
contextualizes the Holocaust’s concentration camps within the economic reality that
many profited from the Final Solution.
As Nuit et brouillard broke away from the mould of these contemporaneous, more
conventional documentary uses of archival footage, formal and narrative filmmaking
strategies for historical documentaries continued to evolve and were questioned in the
decades following its release. Debates over the value of archival imagery in historical
documentary films reached a pivotal point in the 1980s with the release of another
French film about the Holocaust: Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah (1985). Avoiding archival
images completely, Lanzmann’s film is notable for its refusal to depict the terror of the
Holocaust, instead relying on testimony as the only way, he believed, to authentically
offer a grasp on the incomprehensible nature of its experience. He remained within the
boundaries of what can be imagined by denying any concrete depiction of the murder of
millions (Koch, Daniel, and Hansen, 21). Lanzmann’s rhetoric around Shoah was part of
a larger debate in the 1980s in trauma and media studies over the reliability of visual
representation to truthfully convey the incomprehensible horrors of a trauma like the
Holocaust (Guerin and Hallas 7). The ambivalence of filmmakers and scholars toward
the image’s ability to adequately depict large-scale traumas gained traction after the
Second World War. This ambivalence was rooted in the idea that the event’s atrocity
and enormity constitutes a representational limit (Hirsch 4-5). Film scholars like Ilan
Avisar, author of Screening the Holocaust: Cinema’s Images of the Unimaginable
(1988), focused on the challenges of the visual representation of such an indescribable
event: “the Holocaust represents a reality so fantastic and so extraordinary that it defies
our basic notion of empirical reality, the raw material of every mimetic art” (Avisar 1).
Through this type of representational discourse, and productions like Shoah, the
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mediation of this empirical reality, long hailed as archival imagery’s unique authority,
was called into question.
The widely held belief that the meaning behind an unaltered archival moving image is
inextricably linked to a real world referent has since been replaced by an
acknowledgment of archival footage’s mediated nature (Swender 3). Today,
documentary scholars agree that visual representation is a construction. It involves
more than the conception of the image as pure re-presentation, as outlined in André
Bazin’s 1960 essay “The Ontology of the Photographic Image. Indeed, the mere
intervention of the camera within a space enacts a mediation through various visual and
aural signifiers, such as angling, framing, positioning, and sound, to name a few (Renov
26). In her article “Claiming the Found: Archive Footage and Documentary Practice,”
Rebecca Swender classifies archival footage based on categories of specificity that
characterize the footage in its original form (that is to say, before its insertion in a
secondary text). Two of these categories are relevant to the discussion of Resnais’ Nuit
et brouillard: historical specificity and conventional specificity. Historical specificity refers
to the viewer’s assumed knowledge of the historical world, whereas conventional
specificity signals the image’s over-familiarity to the viewer and the accepted truth claim
that can no longer be detached from its iconicity (Swender 5). While Swender refers to
archival moving images in her article, the same could apply to archival photos as well;
both of which are used in Resnais’ film. An interesting consequence of historical and
conventional specificity occurs in Nuit et brouillard through the collage of archival
imagery, taken at different times during the war: the images of deportees lying on their
bedsteads, which are now known to have been taken by Americans at Buchenwald
upon liberation (Lindeperg, “Night and Fog: Inventing a Perspective” 79), are combined
with images of walking prisoners taken by the Nazis to give a rundown of daily life in the
camp. Over the years, some scholarly experts researching concentration camp
photographs taken over the course of the war have questioned the strategy of using
camp photographs interchangeably to depict the trauma of the camps (78). Increased
contextual knowledge means that photographs taken from the time of internment and
others taken from the time of liberation from the camps were no longer seen as
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interchangeable in portraying the horrors of the concentration camp system.
Interestingly, despite the theoretical discourse on the distinctiveness of the context in
which each photograph was taken, the images blend disturbingly well in Nuit et
brouillard. In other words, the distancing effect produced by the Nazi photographs of
naked or beaten prisoners recalls a similar raw dissociation in the photographs of dead
or dying prisoners taken during liberation. This similarity evokes the limits of archival
imagery in providing indexical evidence and specificity.
Nevertheless, Resnais’ approach towards the archive continues to be relevant to
documentary filmmaking and archive studies, given his critique of the French state’s
mythologizing of history through the alternative historiography he proposes in Nuit et
brouillard. Central to Resnais’ vision is the confrontation between the past and the
present, an act that potentially encourages historical reflection and raises awareness
about contemporary struggles in France through disrupting official national discourses.
By engaging the past with visual explorations of traces and archival remains, Nuit et
brouillard encourages an active examination of the meaning of history as it affects the
present, and the ways in which the present correspondingly shapes understandings of
the past.
This transition away from chronological historical reproduction to critical engagement
with the historiographical process set the tone for an important trend in cinema,
cemented in later years by avant-garde films. In Shadows, Specters, Shards: Making
History in Avant-Garde Film, Jeffrey Skoller argues that avant-garde or experimental
documentaries, in their formal experiments with the medium of film and historiography,
evoke the past only through the present and resist the production of historical
knowledge through the re-creation of indexical signs that point to what can be said and
seen about the past (xiv). Though Skoller is talking about avant-garde documentaries,
this articulation of representational language, especially as it concerns historical events
that push the limits of what can be expressed, can also be found in a type of
documentary film concerned with a filmmaker’s and/or subject’s journey of “return”
(Insdorf 300). One such example is Birthplace (1992), a Polish documentary by Pawel
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Lozinski. Following the film’s subject Henryk Grynberg as he returns to his hometown in
Poland to try to uncover what happened to his family during the Second World War, the
documentary provides a direct plunge into the experience of return and memorial
discovery without much contextual explanation. The lack of contextual information shifts
the burden of meaning making onto the viewer, who must glean clues from the scarce
imagery about the passage of history. At the end of the film, Grynberg discovers where
the body of his father was un-commemoratively buried and he searches the site with a
group of locals. The scene resists the use of archival photos of Grynberg’s father and
instead focuses on his rotted skull as the primary link to the past. The careful and
patient archaeological search for the skull encourages an active involvement by the
viewer, as s/he witnesses only the tangible effect of the passage of time without
reference points.
Fig. 7 Birthplace (1992)
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Conversely, Nuit et brouillard offered a formula decades before that combined imagery
of the past and the present, in order to position historical mediation as an active process
that invites critical reflection.
Indeed, by continually balancing imagery of the past with pensive travelling shots of the
contemporary landscape of the camps, Nuit et brouillard provides the contemplative
space for the viewer to process history as it affects his/her present. By contrasting the
black-and-white archival images with the contemporary colour footage, the shorter takes
of the archival material with the longer takes of the contemporary footage, and the
stasis of the archival photography with the movement of the camera in the
contemporary shots, Resnais clearly contrasts the two temporalities through these
formal differences, and invites the viewer to investigate the impact of time.
Additionally, the imagery of both the past and present share a status as visible
evidence. Previously recorded or physical, these traces are reanimated by their
cinematic juxtaposition into a reflective temporality where past and present meet,
recalling Baron’s “archive effect.” The oppositional presentation of black-and-white
imagery with the colour contemporary footage enables the viewer’s recognition of the
former as archival. In addition to the aforementioned archive effect, the temporal
disparity created by this juxtaposition in Nuit et brouillard also produces an “archive
affect,” or an emotional reaction to the imprint of time’s passage on people and places
(Baron 21). Baron explains that through the archive affect, the viewer attributes to the
archival document not just evidentiary authority over the past, but also a sense of loss,
and she argues that in Nuit et brouillard, “[…] the production of temporal disparity forces
us to recognize that the past is irretrievable even as its traces are visible” (ibid). While
the archive affect’s disturbing recognition of time’s inscription on bodies and places
cogently shapes Nuit et brouillard’s form, I contend that this temporal disparity does not
necessarily force a recognition that “the past is irretrievable.” While a feeling of loss is
evoked by the presentation of images of dead, mutilated bodies, and barren places, the
archive effect and affect in Nuit et brouillard probe the limits of representation and open
up reflective opportunities for the viewer to access the past. In line with Huyssen’s
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conceptualization of memory as “recherche,” this process of retrieval demands a form of
imaginative viewing when facing this melding of archival footage with images of the
contemporary ruins. One striking example of this imaginative potential is the sequence
toward the second half of the film describing the city-like nature of the camps
accompanied by Jean Cayrol’s evocative commentary. The narration explains how
there were hospitals, red light districts, residential districts, and even prisons in the
camps. As the camera tracks across the exterior of the building that was once a prison,
the narrator reflectively comments on the futility of describing what occurred here,
leaving the viewer to fill in the gaps. Then, in a haunting moment of visual tact, the
camera travels across the air vents at the bottom of the building, pauses at one of them,
and the narrator very simply states: “les bouches d’aération ne retiennent pas le cri.”3
This imagining of the camp’s disturbing past that this representative strategy subtly
imposes on the viewer epitomizes the kind of affective engagement with the past that
Resnais’ film provokes. The openings that he leaves throughout the film for the viewer
to conceive the horrors of the past open up an experiential point of contact with
historical fact.
Jean Cayrol’s commentary is a determining factor in the film’s ability to invite the viewer
into contact with the past. Cayrol’s experience as a survivor of the concentration camps
had heavily influenced his writing. After the war, he developed a style in modern French
literature known as the Lazarean novel, whose narrative world is similar to the
concentration camp system in that characters are often trapped in a space, elusively
searching for meaning and facing the paradoxical impossibility and necessity to
communicate with humanity (Colombat 139-140). This sense infuses Cayrol’s poetic
language in Nuit et brouillard with a self-reflective call to arms, made evident by the
following excerpt from his narration: “Cette réalité des camps, méprisée par ceux qui la
fabriquent, insaisissable pour ceux qui la subissent, c’est bien en vain qu’à notre tour
nous essayons d’en découvrir les restes.”4 This cynical tone, which permeates through
most of the narration, is imbued with a charge of accountability aimed at the viewer. It
3
“The air vents do not withhold the screams” (author’s translation).
“This reality of the camps, scorned by those who build it, elusive to those who endure it; it is in
vain that we now try to discover its remnants” (author’s translation).
4
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does so through several means, most notably its unsentimental honesty, its irony, and
its warning. In one sequence in the latter half of the film, where the systematic
extermination process of the camps is unveiled, the narration calmly describes the truth
of this inhumanity, without sensationalizing it. Over images of gas chambers and
crematoria, the narrator’s tone remains neutral and the words themselves are
descriptive yet unemotional. This not only offers the viewer the freedom to respond
affectively on his/her own terms, but it also enables the other formal elements to speak
for themselves. Over unsettling photographs of several emaciated dead bodies, the
narrator simply states: “Quand les crématoires sont insuffisants, on dresse des
buchés.”5 Given the harshly poignant quality of the photographs combined with the
lyrical score, the narration does not need to be overly sensitive. In its simplicity and
straightforwardness, it efficiently compliments the visual and musical emotional appeal.
The narration’s dispassionate quality does not, however, preclude cunning commentary.
At key points during the film, the commentary ironically remarks upon the image,
preventing the viewer from simply visually absorbing it and forcing him/her to take
position in regards to the historical representation. For example, at the beginning of the
aforementioned sequence that outlines the extermination processes of the camps, the
narration explains the Nazis’ strategic plans for killing over photographs of the
construction of crematoria. The next shot is the contemporary view of a crematorium on
a sunny day, over which the narrator states that crematoria can have a postcard look
and tourists get their picture taken in front of them. This sternly articulated comment
injects a hint of cynicism, allowing the spectator to reconsider what is being shown.
Furthermore, the narration jokingly offers a sombre remark on the inadequacy, or even
inappropriateness, of a common practice of taking photos in and around the crematoria
as a means of commemoration, itself a form of historical tourism. Sardonic insertions
like these provide the film with critical reflections on such shocking visible evidence of
past atrocities.
5
“When the crematoria prove insufficient, pyres are set up” (author’s translation).
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While Cayrol’s commentary encourages the viewer to reconsider how she or he
understands the ways in which we document and represent the past, it also morally
confronts the viewer at the end of the film. Over archival footage of war trials followed
by archival footage of dead bodies being tossed into pits, the narrator asks who is
accountable:
“Je ne suis pas responsable,” dit le kapo.
“Je ne suis pas responsable,” dit l’officier.
“Je ne suis pas responsable.”
Alors qui est responsable ?” 6
Visually, the sequence transitions to contemporary travelling shots of murky water and
ruins covering the camps and the narration begins to use a plural personal pronoun,
indicating the inclusivity of the warning. It cautions us that we look upon these ruins with
the false belief that such evil died along with them. It warns us about our naïveté about
its potential recurrence, and about our ignorance of other sufferings occurring
contemporarily: “Qui de nous veille de cet étrange observatoire pour nous avertir de
l’arrivée de ces nouveaux bourreaux? Ont-ils vraiment un autre visage que le nôtre?”7
In its critical reflection on atrocities seemingly locked in the past, the narration here
clearly articulates Resnais’ intention to politicize the film as an awareness-raising artistic
intervention into French public discourse. In an interview, Resnais presents Nuit et
brouillard as a tool for shedding light on viewers’ forgetfulness (or ignorance) of ongoing
human rights violations, while reiterating his unwillingness to make the film as simply a
monument for the dead: “Je ne voulais pas faire un film ‘monument aux morts.’ C’est ça
dont j’avais très peur, c’est de faire un film qui soit ‘Plus jamais ça.’ Non, ça ne
recommencera pas”8 (Raskin 51). His resistance to making a film that holds the naïve
hope that history will not repeat itself was undoubtedly shaped by his experiences
witnessing numerous atrocities, committed during and after the war. More specifically,
Resnais had in fact stated that the essence of Nuit et brouillard’s message was to allude
6
““I am not responsible,” says the Kapo. “I am not responsible,” says the officer.” “I am not
responsible.” Then who is responsible?” (author’s translation).
7
“Who among us keeps watch from this strange observatory to warn of the arrival of our new
executioners? Are their faces really different from our own?” (author’s translation).
8
I did not want to make a film as a monument to the dead. What really scared me was to make
a film that said “never again. No, this will not happen again.” (author’s translation).
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Engaging History
to France’s current operation in Algeria (Croombs 29). While there are no direct
references to this within the voice-over narration, the final words can be read as much
an indictment of France’s suppression of Algerian independence as it can of the
Holocaust:
“Il y a nous qui regardons sincèrement ces ruines comme si le vieux monstre
concentrationnaire était mort sous les décombres, qui feignons de reprendre
espoir devant cette image qui s'éloigne, comme si on guérissait de la peste
concentrationnaire, nous qui feignons de croire que tout cela est d’un seul temps
et d’un seul pays, et qui ne pensons pas à regarder autour de nous et qui
n’entendons pas qu’on crie sans fin."9
The power of these last words lies not only in their intended reference to events within
the 1950s context, but also, sixty years later, in their continued defiance of assumptions
about history as a closed narrative isolated in the past.
As its journey across shifting debates over modes of historical representation shows,
Alain Resnais’ Nuit et brouillard continues to be relevant to contemporary audiences
and scholars as a creative work of archival documentary. Through the film’s critical
engagement with the official archival sites in its pre-production, its release in a time of
repressive nationalistic revisionism in France, and its juxtaposition of archival material
and contemporary footage through reflective formal devices (such as rhythmic editing,
pace change, framing variation, and contemplative movement), Nuit et brouillard has
insistently broadened the ongoing debates over the limits of historical mediation in
documentary. By excavating jarring photography and film footage of genocide from their
official institutional repositories, and by animating these images alongside archaeological explorations of their physical heritage in the present, Resnais nuances prior
readings of officially sanctioned records of the past. Guided by Cayrol’s voice-over
narration which demands viewers’ collective introspection, the resulting historical
narrative simultaneously questions the indexicality of the archival image and challenges
the viewer’s acceptance of its meaning. Resnais’ treatment of archival imagery, then,
9
With our sincere gaze we survey these ruins, as if the old monster of the concentration camp
lay crushed forever beneath the rubble. We pretend to take up hope again as the image
recedes into the past, as if we were cured once and for all of the scourge of the camps. We
pretend it all happened only once, at a given time and place. We turn a blind eye to what
surrounds us and a deaf ear to humanity’s never-ending cry” (author’s translation).
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Engaging History
questions assumed knowledge about the past by engaging with modes of historical
representation that critically reflect on the signification of images of the traumatic past,
amidst its eerily calm legacy in the traces of the present. From Resnais’ contested
archival research for the film’s production, to the film’s critical positioning of archival
imagery and its subsequently contentious distribution in France, Nuit et brouillard reenvisioned the ongoing historical narrative of national unity, constructed at the expense
of self-reflection and accountability, by subverting the dominant rationalized discourses
of traumatic history.
Myriam Tremblay-Sher is a doctoral student in Communication Studies at Concordia
University.
83
Engaging History
Works Cited
Amad, Paula. Counter-Archive: Film, the Everyday and Albert Kahn’s Archives de la
Planète. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010. Print.
Avisar, Ilan. Screening the Holocaust: Cinema’s Images of the Unimaginable.
Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1988. Print.
Baron, Jamie. The Archive Effect: Found Footage and the Audiovisual Experience of
History. London and New York: Routledge, 2014. Print.
Bazin, André. “The Ontology of the Photographic Image.” Trans. Hugh Gray. Film
Quarterly 13.4 (Summer 1960): 4-9. Print.
Colombat, André Pierre. The Holocaust in French Film. London: The Scarecrow Press,
Inc., 1993. Print.
Croombs, Matthew. "French Algeria and the Police: Horror as Political Affect in Three
Short Documentaries by Alain Resnais." Screen 55.1 (2014): 29-47. Print.
Delage, Christian. “Nuit et Brouillard: un tournant dans la mémoire de la Shoah.” Politix
16.61 (2003): 81-94. Print.
Derrida, Jacques. Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression. Trans. Eric Prenowitz.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. Print.
Featherstone, Mike. “Archive.” Theory, Culture & Society 23.2-3 (2006): 591-596. Print.
Foucault, Michel. “The Historical a Priori and the Archive.” The Archive. Ed. Charles
Merewether. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006. 26-30. Print.
Greene, Naomi. Landscapes of Loss: The National Past in Postwar French Cinema.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. Print.
Guerin, Frances and Roger Hallas, eds. The Image and the Witness: Trauma, Memory
and Visual Culture. London: Wallflower Press, 2007. Print.
Hirsch, Joshua Francis. Afterimage: Film, Trauma, and the Holocaust. Philadelphia:
Temple University Press, 2004. Print.
Huyssen, Andreas. Twilight Memories: Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia. New
York: Routledge, 1995. Print.
Insdorf, Annette. Indelible Shadows: Film and the Holocaust. 3rd ed. New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2003. Print.
84
Engaging History
Jean Cayrol: Nuit et brouillard. No. 572. Paris: Éditions Mille et une nuits, 1997. Print.
Koch, Gertrud, Jamie Owen Daniel, and Miriam Hansen. “The Aesthetic Transformation
of the Image of the Unimaginable: Notes on Claude Lanzmann's "Shoah,"”
October 48 (Spring 1989): 15-24. Print.
Lindeperg, Sylvie. Nuit et brouillard: un film dans l’histoire. Paris: Odile Jacob, 2007.
Print.
-----. “Night and Fog: Inventing a Perspective.” Cinema and the Shoah: An Art Confronts
the Tragedy of the Twentieth Century. Ed. Jean-Michel Frodon. Trans. Anna
Harrison and Tom Mes. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2010. 7191. Print.
Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication et du Service interministériel des
Archives de France. “Archives du Réseau du Souvenir.” Archives Nationales.
Web. 15 Mar. 2015. <http://www.archivesnationales.culture.gouv.fr/fr/web/guest/home>
Raskin, Richard. Nuit et brouillard by Alain Resnais: On the Making, Reception and
Functions of a Major Documentary Film. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1987.
Print.
Renov, Michael. “Towards a Poetics of Documentary.” Theorizing Documentary. Ed.
Michael Renov. New York: Routledge, 1993. 12-36. Print.
Skoller, Jeffrey. Shadows, Specters, Shards: Making History in Avant-Garde Film.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2005. Print.
Swender, Rebecca “Claiming the Found: Archive Footage and Documentary Practice.”
The Velvet Light Trap 64 (Fall 2009): 3-10. Print.
Ungar, Steven. "Scenes in a Library: Alain Resnais and Toute la mémoire du monde."
SubStance 41.2 (2012): 58-78. Print.
Filmography
Birthplace. Dir. Pawel Lozinski. Kronika Film Studio. 1992. DVD.
Nuit et brouillard. Dir. Alain Resnais. Argos Films, 1955. DVD.
Shoah. Dir. Claude Lanzmann. Les Films Aleph and Historia Films. 1985. DVD.
85
Archives visuelles et documentaire interactif :
Vers un nouveau mode de médiation du passé ?
Par Rémy Besson
L
’évolution des technologies numériques et des usages du web par les
internautes a, depuis une vingtaine d’années, conduit à l’avènement de
nouveaux modes de médiation entre passé et présent. Ces séries culturelles,
c’est-à-dire ces types d’artefacts qui n’ont pas encore acquis le statut de média
institutionnalisé (Gaudreault, 2007), recouvrent, actuellement, des productions
culturelles aussi variées que des expositions virtuelles, des sites documentaires, des
articles multimédias, des frises chronologiques, des cartographies temporelles, des
cours en ligne, ou encore de nouvelles formes de films documentaires. Créés aussi
bien par des artistes, des journalistes, des reporters d’images, des réalisateurs, que
par des développeurs, ces dernières correspondent à un format adapté, non plus à
une diffusion en salle de cinéma ou à la télévision, mais en ligne. On parle alors de
webdocumentaire. Le plus souvent ceux-ci reposent aussi sur un rôle plus actif de
l’usager. Dans ce cas, ils sont désignés par l’expression documentaire interactif.
Samuel Ganthier précise, qu’en général, ils « associe[nt alors] un contenu
médiatique (photographies, vidéos, sons, textes, cartes, éléments graphiques, etc.)
à des techniques, ou fonctionnalités du web dit 2.0 (réseaux sociaux, contenus
participatifs, géolocalisation, gamification, tagcloud, flashcode, etc.) » (2012).
On formule ici l’hypothèse que ceux-ci participent à un changement de fonction des
traces matérielles du passé en général (Jeanneret, 2011) et sources visuelles (films
et photographies, notamment) en particulier. Leur place dans la mise en intrigue du
passé (Ricœur, 1990) se transforme, en effet, progressivement depuis les débuts de
la popularisation du web.1 Ni référence confinée au péritexte (Genette, 1987),
comme c’est le cas dans les textes historiens, ni matériaux de base comme c’est le
cas dans les films de montage, les sources films et photographies acquièrent un
nouveau statut, qui conduit à repenser en profondeur notre rapport au passé. Ce
1
Il s’agit donc de s’interroger à propos des conséquences de l’avènement de l’ère du
numérique sur les études portant sur les modes de médiation de l’histoire (Clavert, 2014).
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Archives visuelles et documentaire interactif
Rémy Besson
changement d’abord d’ordre technique est donc avant tout à interpréter d’un point de
vue culturaliste (Gintelman, 2006 ; Gunthert, 2014 ; Rieffel, 2014). Les
documentaires interactifs ne sont, en effet, pas tant des représentations de l’histoire,
soit des artefacts présentés à la place d’un événement passé, que des
environnements évolutifs, des modes de médiation, dont la signification dépend
principalement de la manière dont ils sont actualisés par les membres d’une société
à un moment donné (Gaudenzi, 2013).
Le projet de Katerina Cizek : un documentaire interactif historique
Dans le cadre de cet article, cette évolution est pensée à travers une étude de cas
(Passeron et Revel, 2005). Le principe argumentatif choisi consiste ainsi à faire
alterner analyse circonscrite d’un objet en particulier et remontée en généralité. Le
documentaire interactif étudié s’intitule A Short History of the Highrise (Katerina
Cizek, 2013).2 Celui-ci a été préféré à des propositions formulées par des historiens
de métier, car les chercheurs en humanité numériques utilisent encore trop souvent
le web comme un instrument (Dacos et Mounier, 2014) et trop rarement comme un
moyen de penser autrement la forme de leurs démonstrations. Le renouvellement
que l’on cherche à étudier a ainsi lieu ailleurs, chez des outsiders, informaticiens et
réalisateurs, comme cela a souvent été le cas par le passé (Hartog, 2006 et pour le
cinéma, Arnoldy, 2008).
Co-produit par l’Office National du Film du Canada (ONF) et par le New York Times
qui a choisi de l’intégrer à sa série de documentaires d’opinion (Op-Docs), celui-ci
s’inscrit dans un projet plus large intitulé Highrise3. Lancé en 2009, cette narration
transmédia (Jenkins, 2006), porte sur la vie quotidienne des habitants des gratteciels et des tours à travers le monde. Il se compose notamment d’un blog tenu par la
réalisatrice4, d’installations et de conférences, ainsi que d’autres documentaires
interactifs (Out My Window, 2010 ; One Millionth Tower ; 2011), dans lesquels les
internautes sont toujours amenés à jouer un rôle central (voir notamment, Out My
Window : Participative, 2011). Filmé dans une dizaine de métropoles à travers le
2
URL : http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/high-rise/
Pour plus d’informations sur ce projet, consulter, en ligne : http://highrise.nfb.ca/about/
4
URL : http://www.highrise.nfb.ca/blog
3
Synoptique, Vol 4, numéro 1, été 2015
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Rémy Besson
mode (Amsterdam, Chicago, Toronto, Johannesburg, etc.), le projet intègre des
commentaires et photographies amateurs des personnes vivants dans ces tours.
Ce documentaire interactif a été retenu pour cette étude car la réalisatrice aborde
de manière centrale la question des archives institutionnelles et privées, ainsi que la
mise en récit du passé. Cette partie du projet a, en effet, été rendue possible par un
accès ouvert au très important fonds d’archives photographiques du New York
Times (Spingarn-Koff et Lingo, 2013). Partant des tirages argentiques conservés par
ce journal, Cizek propose une histoire transnationale des premiers logements
collectifs aux tours les plus récentes, de l’émancipation qu’a pu représenter l’utopie
des Villes nouvelles à la progressive paupérisation des grands ensembles, en
passant par la représentation de situations parfois atypiques (le développement
d’une cité minière sur l’île Hashima au Japon, notamment), d’autres fois plus
représentatives (la politique expansionniste des années 1930 du maire de New York
Fiorello La Guardia).
Pour mieux comprendre ce que le numérique change au statut des archives
visuelles (film et photographie, principalement), trois types de médiation sont étudiés
toujours en lien avec le projet de Cizek. Il s’agit d’abord de considérer la manière
dont l’histoire a été écrite par les historiens depuis le milieu du 19ème siècle. Les
formes classiques de la monographie et de l’article seront ainsi abordées. Ensuite,
les films documentaires historiques tels qu’ils se sont développés depuis les
années 1920 seront pris en compte (Gauthier, 2008). Le cas des expositions
d’histoire sera aussi mentionné. Sur la base de ces premières réflexions, des
changements d’interface et d’interaction liés aux usages contemporains du web
seront analysés. Il s’agira de déterminer si on peut parler à ce propos de
l’avènement d’un nouveau paradigme, soit d’une manière dominante de représenter
les choses (du passé dans ce cas) dans une culture à une époque donnée (Kuhn,
1996).
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Les représentations scripturaires de l’histoire
Il est important de rappeler que chez les historiens, le mode de représentation
principal est depuis longtemps l’écrit. Dans ce cadre, les documents d’archives sont
mentionnés dans le péritexte, c’est-à-dire principalement en note de bas de page,
l’usage de celles-ci s’étant développé en parallèle de la professionnalisation de
l’écriture de l’histoire.5 Dès le début du 19ème siècle, l’historien allemand Leopold von
Ranke s’est appuyé sur ce type de renvois pour distinguer ses textes de la
littérature. L’objectif était d’insister sur le caractère objectif des résultats
communiqués. Il s’agit à proprement parler d’un effet de scientificité (de Certeau,
1983). Celui-ci est progressivement devenu un élément à la base de la discipline. Le
médiéviste, Patrick Boucheron indique à ce sujet, « si l’historien n’est pas le seul à
user de la note de bas de page, il en est le plus ardent défenseur, la considérant
comme l’une des marques d’appartenance à sa communauté disciplinaire » (2010).
Le principe méthodologique dont il est ici question est celui de la vérifiabilité des
sources. Il repose sur l’idée que chaque argument avancé par l’auteur-historien
s’appuie sur une note qui fait référence à un travail mené en amont, la phase
documentaire (Ricœur, 2000). Le lecteur peut ainsi, tout du moins potentiellement,
retracer le parcours du chercheur, c’est-à-dire savoir quelles archives il a consultées,
quels livres il a lus ou encore quels entretiens il a sollicités. Cette présence est dite
discrète, car les sources, dont en premier lieu les documents archivés,
n’apparaissent que via des cotes reportées dans les notes infrapaginales. Le corps
du texte est ainsi principalement occupé par la narration du chercheur. Et, si des
reproductions de sources apparaissent régulièrement dans certains ouvrages, elles
ont le plus souvent le statut d’illustrations, qui viennent compléter ce qui est exprimé
par le verbe.6 La fonction de l’archive change quand elle est placée au centre de la
forme, comme dans les films de montage. Venons-en ici au second mode de
médiation étudié, le film documentaire, en passant par une présentation du
webdocumentaire A Short History of the Highrise.
5
Il est à noter que ce type d’inscriptions correspond à un déplacement vers le bas de page
de la glose marginale déjà utilisée pour faire figurer des références.
6
Il est aussi nécessaire de mentionner le cas des citations d’extraits de sources, qui, elles,
aussi bien en notes que dans le corps du texte, reposent sur le principe d’un abandon de la
forme médiatique du document source.
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Rémy Besson
A Short History of the Highrise comme film de montage
Lors de cette première analyse, nous insisterons surtout sur ce qui inscrit cette
réalisation singulière dans le temps long de la production documentaire historique.
Celle-ci a été conçue de manière à ce qu’elle puisse être regardée comme un film
documentaire classique durant dix-huit minutes et se divisant en quatre parties.
Katerina Cizek revendique d’ailleurs ce choix, « I wanted a very simple idea : you
could just watch the film and do nothing at all » (Cizek et Zax, 2013). Une fois
chargée la première vidéo, qui dure un peu plus de trois minutes, l’interface coproduite par le New York Times et l’ONF est à peine visible (un bandeau de
quelques pixels à droite de l’écran et une autre en bas, cf. ill. 1a). Ce mode de
consultation est porté à son aboutissement par la possibilité de regarder chacune
des parties du webdocumentaire sur YouTube (ill. 1b). Cette décontextualisation /
recontextualisation (Treleani, 2014), correspondant à une autonomisation volontaire
du contenu audiovisuel vis-à-vis de l’interface, rend compte du fait que A Short
History… peut être vu de manière strictement linéaire.7 Le web est alors un support
servant à diffuser un contenu, il est en cela comparable aux services de vidéo sur
demande disponible sur un nombre croissant de téléviseurs. Il est, dans ce cas,
difficile de parler d’un véritable changement de mode de médiation vis-à-vis du film
documentaire.
Ill. 1a et 1b. Captures d’écran issues du début de la première partie de A short History of the
Highrise sur l’interface dédiée (à gauche) et sur YouTube (à droite)
7
Cela semble fonctionner puisqu’aucun des cinquante-cinq commentaires publiés sur les
pages présentant les quatre parties de A Short History of the Highrise sur YouTube ne fait
référence à l’interface dédiée.
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Rémy Besson
Continuons d’étudier cette première capsule vidéo, cette fois en se concentrant sur
le contenu sonore et visuel. Dans ce cas précis, c’est une voix off, celle de la
chanteuse Feist,8 qui porte le récit. Cette narration a été écrite en rimes, ce qui n’est
pas sans rappeler le ton d’une fable, ou tout du moins celui d’un livre pour enfant.
Les plans s’enchaînent rapidement. Il est question d’immeubles new-yorkais, de
tours médiévales, d’habitations circulaires en Chine ou encore de la création des
premiers ascenseurs en France. Quelques cartons sont ajoutés afin d’introduire les
sous-chapitres qui sont placés dans un ordre chronologique : il y a 2000 ans, 700
ans, 500 ans, 1743, 200 ans et 100 ans. Ce strict respect d’une temporalité linéaire
permet d’assurer une cohérence d’ensemble, alors même que de nombreux
changements d’aires géographiques sont opérés, parfois sans véritable transition.
D’un point de vue visuel, des plans d’architecte alternent avec des peintures, puis
laissent principalement place à des photographies. Ces images fixes ont été
animées, si bien que l’on voit ici un immeuble surgir de terre, là des oiseaux prendre
leur envol ou encore de la fumée sortir de cheminées. Parfois un zoom avant ou
arrière ainsi que de légers panoramiques sont opérés. L’équipe de développeurs, de
l’entreprise Helios Design explique qu’avec Jacky Myint du NYT, « Over a period of
several months we used every trick in our book to help bring these incredible
photographs to life » (Anonyme, 2013).9
Les représentations filmiques de l’histoire
Cette production s’inscrit dans un genre plus large, le film historique d’auteur avec
voix off et montage de documents archives, depuis longtemps analysé par les
historiens s’intéressant au visuel (Ferro, 1977 ; Delage et Guigueno, 2004 ; de
Baecque, 2008). Il s’agit d’un type de représentation cinématographique du passé
qui a longtemps été très largement dominant dans le domaine du documentaire
8
Il est à noter que dans la seconde partie, c’est la réalisatrice elle-même qui assure la voix
off, alors que dans la partie 3 c’est la chanteuse canadienne Cold Specks.
9
Ils poursuivent « Most stills were retouched with foreground and background elements split
into different layers. These were then animated with a parallax effect in order to give the
illusion of depth. Others were mapped onto 3d planes and shattered to make it seem like the
image was crumbling. » (idem).
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Rémy Besson
aussi bien au cinéma (Niney, 2002), qu’à la télévision (Veyrat-Masson, 2008).10
Dans ce cas, à ce choix formel s’ajoute un parti pris historiographique. Celui-ci
revient à inscrire le sujet présenté dans la longue durée et à adopter une approche
globale, c’est-à-dire à étudier ce phénomène sans privilégier a priori un espace
géographique par rapport à un autre.
Pour autant, s’agit-il d’une écriture historienne ? Trois éléments nous conduisent à
apporter, dans un premier temps, une réponse négative à cette question.
Premièrement, le contenu verbal est parfois très simplificateur. L’auteure et
illustratrice, Ayaun Halliday indique à ce propos « it’s the sort of storybook no adult
(…) wants to read aloud », tout en indiquant que les plus jeunes devraient
particulièrement apprécier le ton adopté (2013).11 Cela conduit à remarquer que le
film correspond plus à une représentation pédagogique de l’histoire à destination
des enfants (Briand, 2013), qu’à une écriture historienne. Deuxièmement, le nonrespect de l’intégrité des sources mobilisées constitue également quelque chose de
perçu comme anti-historien. Par exemple, un internaute écrit sous pseudonyme, que
« the decision to animate historic photos is really distracting, especially when the
image opens with something removed, like a crowd or building, only to have it grow
or skate into the frame. It’s very misleading » (Archinect, 2013).12 Cela n’est pas
sans rappeler, les déclarations faites par les historiens du visuel Georges DidiHuberman et Laurent Véray, au sujet des différents épisodes de la série télévisée à
succès Apocalypse (Isabelle Clarke et Daniel Costelle). À propos de la pratique du
remontage et de la colorisation des archives filmées de la Seconde Guerre
mondiale, le premier indique, « les documents de l’histoire deviennent des confettis
dans un montage qui veut ressembler à un feu d’artifice d’images » (2009). Le
second note au sujet du film sur la Première Guerre mondiale, « je voudrais montrer
comment les manipulations numériques constituent une menace pour la nature des
images et leur historicité » (2014). Ainsi, la suspicion d’une manipulation équivaut à
10
C’est uniquement à partir de cette période que la parole des acteurs de l’histoire et des
experts a progressivement pris une place plus importante.
11
Cette critique a été formulée à plusieurs reprises, notamment dans les commentaires des
usagers sur la plateforme, elle-même (cf. URL : www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/highrise/comments.html) ou sur YouTube (cf. note 6).
12
Il ajoute par la suite que cela est contraire aux usages de l’image prônés par le New York
Times.
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une disqualification de la capacité du film à porter un récit vrai (ce qui constitue la
prétention première de l’histoire comme discipline). Troisièmement, le court métrage,
comme la plupart des films historiques, repose sur le principe d’une absence de
contextualisation et de références concernant les sources mobilisées. Celui qui
regarde le film ne dispose d’information ni sur les conditions de production des
images, ni sur leurs conditions de conservation et la façon dont elles ont circulé
(Bentkowska-Kafel et al., 2012). Il s’agit là d’une différence avec les principes de
base de l’écriture de l’histoire en général et avec l’histoire du visuel en particulier
(About et Chéroux, 2001). Cela conduit à ce que les images d’archives soient
intégrées à l’intrigue voulue par le réalisateur de manière comparable à des images
de fiction (Blümlinger, 2014).
Si ces trois points peuvent être considérés comme des aspects critiquables à l’aune
du premier mode de médiation étudié (celui de l’écrit), il est possible de changer de
grille d’observation, afin de « prendre au sérieux le cinéma » comme invitait à le
faire, dès la fin des années 1980, l’historien américain Robert A. Rosenstone. Le
modèle dominant n’est plus ici celui d’une présence discrète de sources via des
références, mais celui d’une place centrale occupée par des reproductions de
documents d’archives. Cela constitue un gain d’intelligibilité potentiel pour le
spectateur qui a ainsi un accès plus direct aux traces du passé, que dans le cas de
la lecture d’un écrit historien. Le corps de la narration n’est plus assuré par les seuls
mots du chercheur, mais aussi par des archives visuelles, des documents écrits ou
encore des sources orales. Il s’agit d’un déplacement de l’archive du péritexte
jusqu’au centre de l’argumentation. Ce gain ne va cependant pas sans des pertes.
Le rythme rapide – quelques minutes en lieu et place de plusieurs centaines de
pages – conduit souvent à une simplification du contenu verbal. De plus l’intégration
à une nouvelle production culturelle va de pair avec une modification de la
matérialité et souvent de l’intégrité de la source. Enfin, il est vrai que les références
minimalement attendues par les chercheurs en sciences humaines sont souvent
absentes. On imagine d’ailleurs mal comment les faire figurer, alors que certains
plans durent moins longtemps qu’un battement de cils. Ces caractéristiques sont
moins à considérer comme des limites que comme des éléments propres à un autre
mode de médiation de l’histoire. Si celle-ci est considérée comme moins
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« scientifique », il est surtout inutile de la juger en le plaçant en regard d’un mode de
médiation qui est différent. Le remontage d’une séquence filmée, le recadrage d’une
photographie, l’animation d’une peinture, l’ajout d’une bande sonore, la
déstructuration d’un plan d’architecte sont autant de propositions formelles qui,
mettant en récit le passé, sont à étudier en tant que telles (Delage, 2014). Georges
Didi-Huberman ne dit pas autre chose dans l’article susmentionné, quand il ajoute
après sa critique du film de Clarke et Costelle, « il ne s’agit pas de purisme,
justement : rien n’est pur en ce domaine, et toute image – dès sa prise de vue – est
le résultat d’une opération technique, d’une médiation, donc d’une manipulation. »
Ce premier constat ne permet cependant pas d’appréhender les enjeux du
webdocumentaire dans leur ensemble. Adoptons à présent le troisième point de vue,
celui du web, afin d’analyser à nouveau A Short History of the Highrise.
A Short History of the Highrise comme webdocumentaire
Il s’agit à présent de porter une attention toute particulière non plus au contenu de la
vidéo principale, mais à l’interface-film (Di Crosta, 2009). Reprenons pour ce faire
les propos de la réalisatrice mentionnés plus tôt : « I wanted a very simple idea : you
could just watch the film and do nothing at all ». Elle ajoute immédiatement « but if
you were interested, you could swipe down and find out more » (loc. cit.). Ce
webdocumentaire a aussi été conçu pour permettre un parcours personnalisé à
l’usager de la plateforme. Celui-ci devient ainsi un spectacteur,13 qui peut, à tout
moment, cliquer sur le bandeau inférieur afin d’explorer les fonctionnalités
interactives de l’interface (comme cela est indiqué par l’interface, cf. ill. 1a).
13
On reprend ici la définition proposée par Barboza et Weissberg : « acteur de son
spectacle (en collaboration avec les logiciels installés par les concepteurs), spectateur des
effets de ces actes : telle est bien la posture de celui qui se confronte à ces dispositifs,
franchissant sans cesse la barrière sémiotique délimitant l’intérieur (la présentation) et
l’extérieur (le dispositif organisant l’accès) » (2006, p. 17).
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Ill. 2. Capture d’écran des « instructions » qui se lancent automatiquement au début du
webdocumentaire et qui sont accessibles en permanence via le menu (colonne de droite)
Par un simple clic, l’usager de la plateforme ouvre alors un menu, qui interrompt le
déroulement du film documentaire. D’un point de vue ergonomique, la forme
adoptée par l’interface est particulièrement pertinente, puisqu’à une compréhension
de la manière dont les villes s’élèvent dans le film, répond comme en miroir une
exploration qui correspond à une plongée par étage (cf. ill. 2). À chaque niveau, il est
ainsi possible d’aller plus loin (plus profond), de revenir en arrière (de remonter d’un
niveau) ou de revenir à la vidéo principale. De plus, si la voix off s’arrête
immédiatement, le bruitage se poursuit, si bien que le sentiment d’une continuité est
produit.14 Lors du retour à la vidéo, celle-ci reprend quelques instants avant
l’interruption, ce qui permet à l’usager de se replonger dans le récit. Le temps de
visionnement peut alors devenir sensiblement plus long que la vidéo. Il y a, en effet,
un menu pour chacune des sous-parties, soit en moyenne une interruption possible
toutes les vingt-cinq secondes.15 Par exemple, le premier complément de la
troisième partie correspond à une photographie d’un terrain vague, avec un icône
représentant un doigt pointant vers le ciel,16 invitant l’internaute à interagir avec
l’interface. Cette action – un simple cliquer-glisser – conduit à faire émerger du sol
un immeuble. Un texte s’inscrit alors sur l’image : « urban density is often proposed
as a way to curb commute times and contain urban sprawl (…) ». Le jeu continue, si
14
La réalisatrice explique, « In a YouTube video, if you click "stop," the sound cuts off
abruptly. But when you swipe down in "A Short History of the Highrise," I wanted you to feel
like you’re still in the piece. We did that by cross-fading the sounds of both experiences, to
create the sense of a more immersive world and for the user to stay in the mood » (Cizek et
Zax, 2013).
15
Composées de 44 sous-parties les séquences filmées durent au total 18 min.
16
Reproduction stylisée d’une manicule (Mabmacien, 2013), faisant ainsi signe depuis l’ère
du numérique vers les manuscrits les plus anciens.
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bien que par la suite d’autres immeubles apparaissent, ainsi qu’une bretelle
d’autoroute et une foule d’anonymes. Dans d’autres cas, c’est d’une à six
photographies montées dans le court métrage qui sont visibles. Celles-ci peuvent
être retournées, ce qui permet de consulter une version numérisée du dos de la
photographie pour celles du New York Times ou des métadonnées (date, lieu,
photographe, fonds d’archives…) pour les autres.
Ill. 3a et 3b. Captures d’écran du recto et du verso de la seconde photographie du menu
déroulant liée à la sous-partie « après-guerre » (partie 2)
Ces images et ces jeux sont régulièrement accompagnés d’un court commentaire
sonore – qui se déclenche automatiquement – proposé par un universitaire
spécialiste du sujet, Miles Glendinning (Université d’Édimbourg). Celui-ci ne
s’exprime pas à propos des sources consultables (les photographies), mais il vient
apporter un complément par rapport au court métrage.
Vers un type de mode de médiation syncrétique ?
Cette structure n’est pas sans rappeler les plus récentes évolutions dans les musées
d’histoire (Louvier, Mary et Rousseau, 2012). La gestion du son dans A Short
History… correspond à des choix muséographiques qui reviennent à insister sur la
dimension immersive d’une visite qui doit être vécue sur le mode de l’expérience
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polysensorielle. De même les interactions proposées ne sont pas sans rappeler une
forme de ludification (gamification en anglais17) à l’œuvre dans certains musées qui
proposent de plus en plus souvent des tables numériques et autres tableaux tactiles
afin d’impliquer les visiteurs non plus seulement par le regard, mais aussi par le
geste. Cependant, ce sont moins ces deux aspects que la présence de
reproductions de documents d’archives accompagnées de métadonnées qui
constituent un changement de mode de médiation. Il y a là, en effet, un élément de
syncrétisme entre les deux modèles (écrit historien et film historique) précédemment
étudiés, qui nous semble particulièrement intéressant à souligner. Les deux
principales critiques adressées par les historiens aux films historiques sont le nonrespect de l’intégrité des documents et l’absence de référence précise. Or, dans ce
cas, l’interface proposée intègre une reproduction du document non-modifié et des
métadonnées aussi précises que celles que l’historien fait figurer dans ses notes.
Reprenons à nouveau la distinction entre film et webdocumentaire afin d’insister sur
la différence de statut des documents archivés. A Short History of the Highrise
comme film s’inscrit dans la continuité d’un mode correspondant à une esthétique de
l’archive (Bénichou, 2014), qui équivaut dans le domaine de l’audiovisuel plus à une
mode qu’à une véritable réflexion épistémologique (à la différence de ce qui a lieu
dans le domaine de l’art contemporain). La plupart des iconogrammes de ce type de
production se trouve ici présent, inscriptions manuelles au feutre ou au crayon,
numéro de dossier, tampons officiels, volonté de montrer l’image comme un objet se
détachant sur un fond neutre, tirages argentiques avec cadre noir, agencement
superposant lesdits tirages (cf. ill. ci-dessous).18
17
Sur l’usage de « jeux sérieux » (serious games) dans le domaine de l’histoire et du
patrimoine, lire Mortara et al., 2014.
18
On reprend le terme d’iconogramme à Françoise Zammour (2009).
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Ill. 4a et 4b. Captures d’écran issues de la sous-partie « temps de guerre » (partie 2)
En fait, c’est en considérant la forme film comme partie d’une structure
informationnelle plus complexe (Peccatte, 2012) qu’il est possible de saisir le
changement de mode de médiation en cours. Le format du webdocumentaire en
sortant la reproduction du document du flux linéaire imposé par le film, offre une
possibilité à un récit réflexif. Les métadonnées absentes du film documentaire
classique sont, en effet, présentes. Plus justement, il offre, comme aime à le
souligner la réalisatrice, une consultation à deux niveaux, celle d’un film et celle d’un
film ayant des notes – littéralement située en dessous de l’espace de visionnement
de la vidéo – qui intègrent des reproductions des archives.
A Short History of the Highrise comme documentaire interactif
Au-delà d’un changement de structure (modèle immersif, ludification et réflexivité), le
documentaire interactif conduit à repenser le rôle du lecteur (mode 1), spectateur
(mode 2), et spectacteur (mode 3, jusqu’à présent), afin de le considérer également
comme contributeur d’une plateforme. L’archive visuelle est alors moins à penser
comme une trace du passé renvoyant à une origine inatteignable que comme un
objet qui, s’inscrivant dans le présent, fait signe vers le futur (Méchoulan, 2011).
Cette implication se traduit dans la quatrième partie de A Short History… par une
place centrale octroyée à des photographies amateurs soumises à Katherine Cizek
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par des internautes.19 Dans cette séquence d’un peu plus de cinq minutes, de telles
images se succèdent, une chanson du musicien québécois Patrick Watson ayant
remplacé la voix off présente dans les parties précédentes. Classées de manière
thématique – intérieur, extérieur, balcon, vue, etc. – elles constituent la modalité
choisie pour représenter le temps présent. Si l’esthétique de l’archive cède le pas à
une intégration plus classique, cela est plus lié au fait que les photographies ont été
communiquées dans un format numérique (sans tirage) et non à une quelconque
hiérarchisation des sources. La réalisatrice insistait sur ce point dès 2012, au sujet
de Highrise en général : « Tout ce qu’on fait sur le web est documentaire et tout le
monde y participe, le public à égalité avec les professionnels. C’est une
démocratisation du média » (Constantinesco et Cizek, 2012). Comme dans les
parties précédentes, le menu déroulant permet à nouveau d’apporter des précisions
sur certaines d’entre elles. Ainsi, un court récit proposé par la personne qui a soumis
la photographie est inscrit au dos des photographies, celui-ci portant à la fois sur les
conditions de la prise de vue et sur ce qui est représenté dans l’image.
Cette intégration de contenus produits par des amateurs ne se limite pas à cela,
puisqu’une galerie contenant 186 photographies et autant de courts récits est aussi
donnée à consulter. Elle est présente dans le menu du documentaire interactif sous
le titre Readers’ Stories et prend la forme d’un blog, chacun des billets pouvant être
partagé sur les principaux réseaux sociaux.20 Enfin, les usagers de la plateforme ont
pu commenter A Short History of the Highrise dans son ensemble. Cent vingt-sept
commentaires ont été publiés entre octobre et décembre 2013 rendant possible des
critiques positives et négatives sur la plateforme elle-même. Il s’agit alors de noter
que la forme produite se transforme encore pendant quelques semaines après sa
diffusion en ligne. Le principe directeur est celui du passage du mode de la
représentation à celui de la performativité. William Uricchio explique que l’implication
des usagers est recherchée « non pas seulement pour documenter le passé de la
communauté, mais pour jouer un rôle actif dans la construction de son futur » (2014,
p. 75). Si ces fonctionnalités ne sont pas particulièrement développées concernant
les photographies dans le documentaire de Cizek, il s’agit d’un des principaux
19
On regrette l’absence de données sur la plateforme concernant les modalités de la
collecte et sur le mode de sélection. De telles informations auraient renforcé le caractère
réflexif du documentaire interactif.
20
Les images sont classées par thèmes et par aires géographiques, c’est-à-dire en mettant
l’accent sur les mêmes aspects que dans le reste du webdocumentaire.
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enjeux du web 2.0 (Cardon, 2009), notamment dans le domaine de l’archivistique.
L’indexation sociale (crowdsourcing en anglais) – soit la possibilité pour les usagers
d’une interface de commenter, de poser des questions, de corriger des erreurs,
d’apporter de nouvelles informations – constitue un changement important. Ce type
de projet collaboratif, conduisant à la redocumentarisation de fonds d’archives
(Salaün, 2007), fait qu’il est possible de parler d’une seconde dimension du
troisième mode de médiation étudié. Celui-ci est, en effet, nouveau à la fois d’un
point de vue formel et dans le rapport au récepteur, ce dernier devenant un coconstructeur d’une production culturelle en perpétuelle évolution.
Conclusion
Pour conclure, revenons sur le statut de ce type de médiation entre passé et
présent. Toujours en cours de légitimation, la série culturelle documentaire interactif
n’est pas encore considérée comme un nouveau média à part entière. Il est donc
certainement trop tôt pour identifier l’avènement d’un nouveau paradigme (au sens
de Kuhn). Cependant, à travers une étude de cas, cet article a démontré qu’aussi
bien au niveau formel que social ce mode de médiation conduit à repenser en
profondeur notre rapport au passé. La place et la fonction des archives visuelles
(photographie et film, notamment) changent radicalement vis-à-vis de l’histoire écrite
et vis-à-vis des documentaires réalisés pour le cinéma ou la télévision. Au lieu d’être
des références confinées au péritexte, les archives visuelles acquièrent une forme
de centralité dans la mise en récit du passé. Au lieu d’être non-documentées, elles
sont accompagnées d’un ensemble, parfois important, de métadonnées. Enfin, le
lecteur/spectateur devient un spectacteur, voire le co-constructeur d’une forme qui
n’a de sens que dans la mesure où elle est actualisée.
Il reste à présent à adresser la dernière des limites soulignées par les historiens de
l’écrit à ceux qui travaillent avec du visuel, soit celle de l’appauvrissement du
contenu scripturaire/verbal. On fait ici l’hypothèse qu’il s’agit d’une dimension qui
manque à la légitimation des documentaires interactifs comme média et qui fragilise
leur devenir paradigme. Sur ce point A Short History of the Highrise ne constitue
visiblement pas une réponse tout à fait appropriée. Il semble ainsi que la très grande
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attention portée à la forme de cette médiation,21 que ce soit à l’animation des
photographies ou au caractère interactif de l’interface, ait correspondu à une
certaine légèreté aussi bien dans le ton, que dans le contenu de la voix off. Un
commentaire publié sur la plateforme le 8 octobre 2013, par un dénommé Devin de
Brooklyn, résume assez bien cela : « I love the idea of using nytimes archives to
create a comprehensive look at something, but honestly this seems like a
presentation made for an 8th grader… and it's not just the rhyming—though very
annoying and entirely unnecessary—but also the content. » Un tel constat revient à
poser à nouveau frais la question de l’articulation entre outsiders (dans ce cas une
réalisatrice) et chercheurs en sciences sociales et humaines. Ici, le rôle dévoué à
Glendinning est strictement celui d’un expert dont la parole d’autorité est intégrée
comme un complément d’information dans une forme médiatique sur laquelle il n’a
aucune prise. Il est possible d’imaginer à l’avenir que le rôle des historiens soit plus
important. Cela nécessite qu’ils s’approprient ces nouveaux modes de médiation du
passé, non pas seulement comme des possibilités de vulgariser leur savoir, mais
aussi comme autant de défis posés à leur usage des archives et comme des formes
renouvelant potentiellement leur manière de faire de l’histoire. Il s’agit là d’un des
principaux défis à relever par les humanités numériques – encore jeunes – et par les
études culturelles se donnant comme objet le visuel (Morra et Smith, 2006).
Rémy Besson est postdoctorant au LLA-CREATIS (Toulouse 2 - Le Mirail) dans le
cadre du Labcom Rimec.
21
C’est cela, en particulier, qui a valu à A Short History of the Highrise , un Peabody Award
(2013) et le Word Press (2013) dans la catégorie « Photographie et multimédia » (2014).
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histoire. Enjeux contemporains. Rennes : Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2014.
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Casa Ciné-cité : Images de Casablanca dans le cinéma (Maroc)
Par Souad Azizi
D
urant les trois dernières décennies,1 un grand nombre de films marocains
ont eu pour cadre et sujet, direct ou indirect, la métropole casablancaise.
Sur 124 films répertoriés comme ayant eu pour lieu de tournage et espace
diégétique Casablanca, pas moins de 112 ont été produits de 1990 à 2014. Certains
de ces films affichent d’emblée, dans leur titre, qu’ils ont pour objectif de brosser un
portrait de la ville et/ou de ses habitants.2 Il s’agit notamment des films suivants : Un
amour à Casablanca (Lagtaâ, 1992), Les Casablancais (Lagtaâ, 1998), Casablanca
Casablanca (Benlyazid, 2002), Casablanca By Night (2003), Casa Day Light
(Derkaoui, 2004), À Casablanca, les anges ne volent pas (Asli, 2004), Casa
(Benkirane, 2006), Casanegra (Lakhmari, 2008), Les Enfants terribles de Casa
(Derkaoui, 2010), et Casablancaises (Nejjar, 2010). Selon Mohamed Bakrim, l’usage
de ce toponyme urbain aurait une double fonction (2007). D’une part, il indiquerait
aux spectateurs que l’histoire mise en scène se déroule dans un territoire connu,
une métropole « marquée […] culturellement, économiquement et culturellement ».
D’autre part, il serait - pour le cinéphile confirmé - une sorte d’invitation à lire le film
en relation avec « l’incontournable » Casablanca de Michael Curtiz (1942), mais
aussi avec tous les autres films ayant pour cadre Casablanca. Pour Bakrim, ce choix
de titre est « le signe que le cinéma marocain fonctionne désormais comme
système » (Bakrim, 2007).
1
Durant cette période, le cinéma marocain a connu une dynamique de développement sans
précédent favorisée par le rajeunissement des cinéastes, la diversité de leur contexte de
formation, la diversification des fonds d’aide à la production, ainsi que le climat d’optimisme,
de confiance et d’ouverture suscité, tout d’abord par la mise en place du gouvernement de
transition d’Abderrahmane Youssoufi (1998-2000), puis par l’intronisation du jeune roi
Mohamed VI en 1999. Cette dynamique se traduit notamment par un accroissement de la
quantité de films produits par an, une plus grande diversité dans les choix thématiques et
esthétiques, et une plus grande visibilité des films marocains, localement et à l’étranger,
grâce à l’organisation de festivals locaux et à une plus importante participation aux festivals
internationaux (Bahmad, 2013-a, pp. 75-79 ; et Carter, 2009, pp. 187-278).
2
Parmi ces films, Casa By Love d’Amine Bennis (court métrage, 2005) occupe une place à
part. La ville, en tant qu’espace matériel, n’y est pas du tout représentée. Ce que l’on
observe à l’écran sont ses effets – en tant que matrice de culture - sur les esprits et sur les
relations entre les hommes et les femmes. Sur le mode de l’interview, plusieurs jeunes
casablancaises apparaissent alternativement, pour raconter leurs relations à l’autre sexe,
avec en toile de fond des tableaux abstraits, aux couleurs souvent vives.
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Plusieurs chercheurs se sont penchés sur cet usage filmique intensif de Casablanca
pour essayer de l’interpréter (Bahmad, 2013-b ; Jones, 2012 ; Orlando, 2011, pp. 71100 ; et Poussot, 2012). Valérie Orlando notamment attire l’attention sur le fait que
l’espace urbain moderne de Casablanca offre aux cinéastes « a sociocultural
microcosme, or a place of convergence – a time-space chronotope – in which to
develop their theories about and on the sociocultural and political transitions taking
place currently in the country » (2011, p. 72). Selon cette auteure, les cinéastes
marocains présentent les espaces urbains comme des « emblèmes publics de peur
et de désir », tandis que leur manière de filmer les « rues hostiles » et les « tensions
urbaines » encourage l’audience à réfléchir sur comment la cité marocaine
contemporaine influence l’individu et détermine son appréhension du monde et de
sa propre existence (2011, p. 73).
Ainsi, la plupart des chercheurs s’accordent sur l’idée que l’espace casablancais
fonctionne comme « un véritable opérateur de sens » (Bakrim, 2007), qui permet
aux cinéastes d’établir un diagnostic réaliste et sans complaisance des principaux
maux et travers de la société marocaine contemporaine, et d’explorer les nouvelles
identités urbaines en gestation (Bahmad, 2013-b ; Orlando, 2011 ; Poussot, 2012).
Car bien que Casablanca ait longtemps été considérée comme la moins marocaine
des villes du Royaume en raison de son passé colonial et de son caractère
cosmopolite, il semble que l’image majeure transmise par le cinéma contemporain
est celle d’une ville-nation représentative de la société marocaine globale. Toutefois
les analyses des chercheurs cités ne permettent pas vraiment de comprendre ce
statut particulier de Casablanca dans le cinéma contemporain. La plupart de ces
études étant plus centrées sur les « histoires urbaines » (Orlando) développées
dans les films que sur la manière dont les cinéastes utilisent la métropole comme un
personnage à part entière et son espace physique comme un élément dramatique
constitutif de l’intrigue.
Le présent article propose une contribution à l’étude des cinéreprésentations de la
ville marocaine à travers une focalisation sur les représentations spatiales de
Casablanca. L’objectif premier de cette contribution étant de dégager les images de
la métropole sécrétées par le cinéma, afin d’être mieux à même de comprendre
pourquoi ses territoires - plus que tout autre – constituent pour les cinéastes des
Synoptique, Vol 4, issue 1, été 2015
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espaces diégétiques privilégiés pour le développement d’un discours sur la ville et la
société marocaine dans son ensemble.
Quel « Nouveau Cinéma Urbain » ? : Du cinéma urbain au cinéma-de ville
Dans cette première section, je m’arrêterai tout d’abord sur les limites des
appellations « nouveau cinéma marocain » et « nouveau cinéma urbain » pour
rendre compte de l’émergence d’un cinéma-de ville3 proprement marocain. L’objectif
de cette section introductive est également de faire un rappel des principales notions
qui ont été forgées par les théoriciens du cinéma-de ville pour décrire les images de
ville dans les cinémas occidentaux.
Comment Casablanca est-elle représentée dans le cinéma marocain contemporain ?
Cette question a constitué le point de départ de mon intérêt pour les représentations
cinématographiques de la métropole, dans un corpus filmique qui a souvent été
qualifié de « nouveau cinéma marocain » (Carter, 2009 ; Orlando, 2011). Cette
expression est par bien des aspects un terme laudatif sans profondeur critique, voire
une étiquette à effet promotionnel ne permettant pas de comprendre, ni en quoi ce
cinéma est « nouveau », ni en quoi il est proprement « marocain ».
Dans un article récent, Jamal Bahmad (2013-a) développe une critique des usages
de ce terme et propose en remplacement l’expression « New Urban Cinema »
(Nouveau Cinéma Urbain), un appellatif auquel il essaye de donner une dimension
critique, en le présentant comme une notion plus apte à rendre compte des
évolutions du cinéma marocain, pour la période allant de 1992 à 2012.4 Selon
l’auteur, le « Nouveau Cinéma Urbain » n’est ni une nouvelle vague, ni une école de
cinéma, ni même un mouvement concerté, avec un programme commun et défini.
3
Les premières études du cinéma-de ville remontent à la publication par Siegfried Kracauer
d’essais critiques et théoriques dans les années 20 et 30 (Kracauer, 2008, Perivolaropoulou,
2009). De la même époque datent les premiers écrits de Walter Benjamin sur la ville et le
cinéma (Simay, 2005 et 2009). Ces deux grandes figures de la pensée allemande de
l’époque de Weimar ont développé une philosophie critique de la modernité et de
l’urbanisation accélérée de la société de leur temps, qui prend en compte la participation des
nouveaux modes de communication, de la photographie, et du cinéma en particulier, dans la
transformation des perceptions et représentations de la ville.
4
Bahmad retient la date de publication d’Un amour à Casablanca d’Abdelkader Lagtaâ
(1992), comme la date d’émergence d’une nouvelle façon de faire du cinéma au Maroc, et
comme une date marquant un rapprochement entre les cinéastes et le public local (2013-a,
p. 74).
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Utilisant le terme mouvement dans le sens large du terme, Bahmad le définit,
premièrement, comme une mouvance « historiquement déterminée » qui a émergé
en réponse aux changements socioéconomiques qu’a connu le Maroc, suite à
l’application du programme de réajustement structurel lancé en 1983 ;
deuxièmement, comme un mouvement « hétérogène » de par l’identité sociodémographique, l’expérience professionnelle, les codes et les référents esthétiques
de ses divers représentants (2013-a, pp. 75-79, 85). Les points communs relevés
par Bahmad entre ces divers cinéastes sont : le néoréalisme de leurs films, leur
politique de proximité avec le public local qui se traduit par l’usage des parlers du
quotidien (darija et tamazight)5 comme langues diégétiques, le choix de jeunes
citadins comme personnages principaux, et le mode de traitement de questions
sociales pressantes (pauvreté, violence, corruption, exclusion sociale, etc.). Tous
ces films ayant en commun le fait de présenter un diagnostic critique du Maroc
urbain et néolibéral, à travers une focalisation sur les effets néfastes de la
globalisation sur la vie quotidienne des populations défavorisées des grandes villes,
particulièrement dans la métropole casablancaise.
Le corpus de films sélectionnés par Bahmad mérite bien l’appellatif « nouveau »,
dans le sens où ils constituent une rupture avec « le mode métaphorique et
allégorique » des films réalisés avant les années 90 (Bahmad, 2013-b, p. 21). En
revanche, la démonstration de l’auteur échoue à montrer en quoi ce mouvement
constitue un « cinéma urbain » tout court. En effet, l’auteur se concentre plus sur les
représentations de la jeunesse marocaine, en tant que sujet et principal objet de ce
« Nouveau Cinéma Urbain » (Bahmad, 2013-a, p. 82),6 que sur les représentations
spatiales de Casablanca ou sur son statut de personnage à part entière, bien qu’il
admette que « shooting fictions on location allows the audience to appreciate the city
as more often than not the major character in the films » (Bahmad, 2013-a, p. 85).
5
La darija est l’arabe dialectal marocain, tandis que le tamazight est la langue berbère qui
présente au Maroc plusieurs variantes régionales.
6
Du même auteur, voir notamment l’article « From Casablanca to Casanegra », où il
analyse le portrait de la jeunesse marocaine brossé par Lakhmari dans Casanegra
(Bahmad, 2013-b, pp. 28-33), ainsi qu’un article plus récent (Bahmad, 2014), qui comporte
une analyse des représentations cinématographiques des jeunes acteurs de la contre
culture casablancaise, dans les films Casanayda ! (Benlyazid & Mettour, 2007) et Les Anges
de Satan (Boulane, 2007).
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Suffit-il qu’un film ait pour cadre la ville, développe une histoire urbaine, mette en
scène des citadins, pour pouvoir être qualifié d’urbain ? Utilisé dans un sens large, le
qualificatif « urbain » pourrait désigner autant les films ayant pour cadre de tournage
une ville réelle ou fictionnelle, que ceux réalisés dans un espace rural ou sauvage.
De par ses relations symbiotiques avec la ville, le cinéma est un phénomène
essentiellement urbain. Pour reprendre la célèbre formule de François Niney, « le
cinéma est un enfant de la ville » (1994). Pour le cinéma, l’espace urbain constitue,
non seulement la matrice de laquelle il a émergé, mais aussi son habitat « naturel »,
son territoire de croissance et de développement privilégié. De par le monde, c’est
dans les villes, et notamment dans les plus grandes (capitales et métropoles), que
se sont développées et concentrées les industries cinématographiques, les sociétés
de diffusion de films, les salles de projection et que se tiennent annuellement les
festivals nationaux et internationaux.7 Et, sur ce point, l’expérience marocaine ne
diffère de celles des pays occidentaux que par les conditions historiques de
l’implantation de cette industrie, et par ses conditions précaires de développement,
de production et de diffusion, depuis l’indépendance.8
7
Dans Le Cinéma dans la cité (2001), les auteurs interrogent – dans une perspective
pluridisciplinaire – les rapports qu’entretient le cinéma avec le territoire urbain, depuis les
premières décennies de son existence jusqu’à l’ère de la globalisation, et des
délocalisations accélérées des industries cinématographiques, vers le Tiers-Monde. Dans ce
collectif, François Béguin (2001) montre « Comment le cinéma a su habiter la ville », et
générer des interactions étroites avec l’espace urbain, au point que la représentation de la
ville est devenue un aspect fréquent et prédominant de l’activité cinématographique.
8
Plusieurs chercheurs, notamment anglo-saxons, se sont intéressés au développement du
cinéma au Maroc, en tant qu’industrie et en tant qu’activité esthétique, en adoptant
différentes perspectives et méthodes. Driss Jaïdi (2001), le spécialiste marocain, développe
une histoire du cinéma dans sa période coloniale. À travers une approche d’anthropologie
dialogique, Kevin Dwyer (2004) dévoile les déterminations d’ordre économique, politique et
idéologique qui ont jalonné « l’aventure du cinéma marocain », telle que vécue et racontée
par Mohamed Tazi, l’une de ses grandes figures. À travers une approche historique et
comparative, Roy Armes (2005) montre comment l’industrie du cinéma a été implantée dans
les pays du Maghreb durant la période coloniale et comment elle s’est développée depuis
leur indépendance, avant d’offrir au lecteur une analyse approfondie de dix films
maghrébins, retenus comme représentatifs du « cinéma national » de chacun de ces pays, à
différentes étapes de développement. Sandra Carter (2009) développe une étude historique
et critique des films marocains produits durant la période 1956 à 2006, à travers une
approche holiste prenant en compte dans l’analyse textuelle des films les contextes
politique, socioéconomique et institutionnel de leur production et diffusion, avec l’ambition
avouée « d’offrir une histoire du cinéma et des films marocains qui soit également une
histoire et une analyse du Maroc » (p. 5) [C’est moi qui traduis]. Enfin, Valérie Orlando
(2011), dont le souci est moins de faire l’histoire du développement de l’industrie
cinématographique au Maroc que d’analyser les principales tendances thématiques de ce
cinéma depuis 1999, date de l’accession au trône du « jeune » roi Mohamed VI. Cette date
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Le cinéma ne peut donc être pensé en dehors de la ville, sa matrice nourricière. Car,
même s’il met en scène des thématiques et des espaces ruraux, le cinéma est un
produit culturel typiquement urbain. Premièrement, du fait qu’il est l’œuvre de
citadins, dont il reflète forcément l’appréhension singulière du monde ;
deuxièmement du fait qu’il est produit pour – et vise en premier lieu – une audience
urbaine par sa résidence, son mode de vie et sa culture. À ce titre, on peut avancer
l’hypothèse que l’une des raisons pour lesquelles le cinéma marocain a été en
souffrance d’une audience locale durant les premières décennies de son histoire est
justement le fait que la majeure partie des populations des villes marocaines, fruit
d’un exode rural massif, a longtemps été urbaine par son inscription dans un
périmètre urbain, sans être citadine par sa culture et son mode de vie (Escallier,
1984 ; Naciri, 1985 ; Ossman, 1994, p. 23-24).
Mais que doit-on donc entendre lorsque l’on parle de « cinéma urbain » ? Cette
expression trop vague peut être gardée pour désigner tous ces films qui ont pour
cadre de tournage un espace urbain, quelle que soit sa catégorie (grande/petite ville,
quartier central/périphérique, espaces publics/privés, habitat intégré/non intégré,
etc.). Mais pour lever toute ambigüité sur mon propos, j’utiliserai plutôt la notion de
« cinéma dans la ville » pour désigner les films dans lesquels l’espace urbain ne
figure que comme toile de fond d’une énième histoire urbaine. Quant aux notions de
« cinéma-de ville » ou « film-de ville », elles sont réservées pour désigner les films
dont le propos implicite/explicite est de brosser une image de ville et d’offrir un
discours sur la ville et la condition urbaine.
Pour désigner ce dernier type de cinéma urbain, Thierry Lulle et Thierry Paquot
(2010) ont proposé la notion de « ville-sujet » qui recouvre deux catégories de films :
premièrement, le « film-portrait de ville »,9 « dont le propos explicite est de tracer le
portrait de la ville » et tend à « une objectivation de l’espace urbain » ; et,
deuxièmement, les films qui – de manière indirecte – expriment un discours sur la
est retenue par cette auteure comme le point de départ d’un « Maroc nouveau » et d’un
« nouveau cinéma marocain » plus libre dans le choix de ses contenus, codes esthétiques
et idiomes linguistiques, mais aussi plus audacieux et critique dans le traitement des
questions de société.
9
À ce genre cinématographique appartiennent les « symphonies des villes » des années 20,
qui montrent la vie d’une grande ville durant 24h, tels que Berlin, symphonie d’une grande
ville (Walter Ruttmann, 1927) ou L’Homme à la caméra (Dziga Vertov, 1929).
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ville et tendent vers « un jugement (positif ou négatif) de valeur ». Si les « filmportraits de ville » sont faciles à distinguer du fait du caractère explicite de leur
objectif, par contre la définition de Lulle et Paquot s’avère plus difficile dans son
usage pour distinguer le « film-de ville » du « cinéma dans la ville », lorsque cette
dernière est prise comme sujet de manière indirecte.
Dans un ouvrage majeur sur le thème de « la ville au cinéma », Jacques Belmans
(1977) a dressé une typologie plus fine et plus opérationnelle des différentes formes
de ciné-représentation de la ville. Dans un premier temps, par la notion de « villedécor » ou « Mégalopolis-décor », Belmans isole les films qui n’apportent aucune
information sur l’espace urbain. Puis, dans un deuxième temps, il propose la notion
de « ville-personnage » ou « ville-sujet d’analyse », pour distinguer cinq catégories
de films offrant une réelle réflexion sur la ville. 1) La « Mégalopolis-Moloch », ou ville
broyeuse d’hommes, qui se déploie comme un espace de solitude, d’exaspération
des vices et des passions, et un lieu de perdition pour les étrangers à la cité (ruraux
ou immigrants).10 2) La « Mégalo-Mégalopolis » ou « Rastignac-Mégalopolis », une
ville dominée par l’esprit de compétition et les combines des arrivistes de la
politique, des affaires ou de la spéculation immobilière.11 3) La « Mégalopolis de la
violence », un espace de violences (institutionnelles/illégales, publiques/privées,
matérielles/symboliques), un lieu de conflits (guerres, guérillas entre gangs, conflits
entre races et communautés) et de pratiques déviantes (drogues, prostitution,
etc.).12 4) La « Mégalopolis-satire » où l’existence des habitants des grandes villes
est tournée en dérision, à travers le comique, le sarcasme et l’exagération
caricaturale.13 5) Et enfin, la « Mégalopolis-fiction » des films de science-fiction qui
présentent souvent des dystopies urbaines, et expriment une vision très pessimiste
de la ville à travers la mise en scène d’un espace architectural gigantesque, où les
10
Entrent dans cette catégorie, des classiques tels que L’Aurore (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau,
1927), La Foule (King Vidor, 1928), ou plus proche de nous, Le Dernier tango à Paris
(Bernardo Bertolucci, 1972). Les films cités, dans cette note ainsi que les suivantes, sont
donnés en exemple par Belmans lui-même.
11
Des films tels que Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1940) et Main basse sur la ville
(Francesco Rossi, 1963) sont représentatifs de cette image de ville.
12
Les temps modernes (Charlie Chaplin, 1936), West Side Story (Robert Wise, 1961) et
Orange Mécanique (Stanley Kubrick, 1971) sont des exemples de « Mégalopolis de la
violence ».
13
Représentatifs de cette catégorie sont Zazie dans le métro (Louis Malle, 1959), Playtime
(Jacques Tati, 1967) ou encore Week-end (Jean-Luc Godard, 1968).
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hommes sont aliénés, asservis, quotidiennement soumis à la dictature ou à la
violence. Dans ce type de film, c’est le devenir même de la ville et par extension
celui de l’Humanité, qui sont remis en question.14 Ces cinq catégories de films se
distinguent donc du lot du « cinéma dans la ville » du fait que la ville y acquiert un
statut de personnage à part entière, et que l’espace architectural devient « un
élément constitutif de l’intrigue et du jeu des acteurs » (Paquot, 2003). Quelles sont
donc les images de Casablanca développées dans le cinéma ?
La Casa Glamour : La ville imaginaire du film-sans ville de Michael Curtiz
Cette section est consacrée au film matrice Casablanca de Michael Curtiz (1942),
non seulement parce qu’il a contribué à faire de la métropole une ciné-ville mythique,
mais aussi parce que nombre de films marocains entrent en dialogue – de manière
directe ou indirecte – avec ce film américain. Ce qui me porte à affirmer que
Casablanca (Curtiz, 1942) fait partie du patrimoine cinématographique marocain,
bien qu’il n’ait pas été tourné dans la ville réelle et malgré le fait qu’il ne développe
pas une histoire marocaine.
Le film de Curtiz (1942), aura sans aucun doute contribué à donner à Casablanca
une dimension cinématographique internationale,15 jusqu’ici inégalée par les autres
villes marocaines. Une dimension certes paradoxale si l’on rappelle que son
tournage a entièrement été réalisé en studio, et que sa « ville-décor » est faite de
carton-pâte. Selon Belmans, dans les films ville-décor, l’espace urbain n’est que
« pure convention servant de support soit au pittoresque, soit à l’imaginaire », et
14
Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1926), est l’exemple type du « monstre à visage urbain », selon
l’expression d’Abdelkader Benali (1996). Au sujet des dystopies urbaines dans le cinéma de
science-fiction, voir Pierre-Jacques Olagnier (2008).
15
Si la majorité des touristes débarquent à Casablanca avec les images de Casablanca le
film dans leur valise mentale, rares sont ceux qui connaissent l’histoire des relations entre le
Maroc et les USA. Encore moins nombreux sont ceux qui savent que les troupes angloaméricaines ont débarqué sur le sol casablancais l’année même du tournage du film (9
novembre 1942) et que l’année de sa sortie, Franklin Roosevelt s’est rendu dans la ville
pour participer à ce qui a été retenu par l’histoire sous le nom de la « Conférence d’Anfa »
(22 janvier 1943), du nom de l’hôtel où a eu lieu son entrevue secrète avec Winston
Churchill. Mais aussi qu’en marge de ces pourparlers entre les représentants des
puissances alliées, le président américain a donné un dîner en l’honneur de Mohamed V,
sultan marocain, où la question de la libération progressive du pays du joug du Protectorat
aurait été abordée (Bernard, 1963, pp. 47-48).
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« les grandes villes [y sont] exploitées [surtout] en fonction de leur pouvoir d’évasion,
de dépaysement, en guise d’arabesques décoratives ou tout simplement comme
buts de voyages ou de cadres jolis pour démêlés sentimentaux » (Belmans, 1977).
Pourtant, ce type de film reste chargé des représentations objectives et subjectives
d’une ville donnée à une époque donnée, qu’elle soit filmée in situ ou partiellement
reconstituée en studio. Il en est ainsi du film Casablanca, où la vieille Médina (Dar
El-Beida), à peine suggérée par des décors en carton-pâte, nous renseigne moins
sur la ville réelle que sur la vision orientalisante de la « ville arabe » chez les
Américains des années 40, et sur leur grande ignorance des réalités urbanistiques et
sociologiques du Maroc de l’époque.
Par ailleurs, ce film hollywoodien, un film-sans ville plus qu’un film ville-décor, a
réussi le tour de force de façonner l’imaginaire des touristes, américains et
européens, qui arpentent Casablanca à la recherche des espaces diégétiques du
film, notamment le mythique Rick’s Café. Ces attentes ont trouvé une première
satisfaction, dans les années 80, avec l’ouverture au Hyatt Regency d’un bar nommé
Rick’s Place. Cet espace où l’on peut demander au pianiste de jouer la musique du
film en dégustant la bière « Casablanca » reproduit les décors, les costumes et
l’ambiance du film. Il est fréquenté non seulement par les touristes en mal de
glamour, mais également par des habitants de Casablanca qui savourent ici des
moments de calme et d’évasion de la frénésie de la ville réelle.16 En 2004, l’espace
diégétique du film Casablanca devient un espace réel, dans l’ancienne Médina, avec
la fondation du Rick’s Café, par Kathy Krieger (ex-diplomate américaine).
16
Dans une note de terrain, Susan Ossman décrit ainsi le « Rick’s Place »: « When the
summer air is hot and grey with pollution, we can be as cool and as collected as any film star
by going to […] Rick’s Place, where the world of daily cares fades as quickly as the heat of
the city. People are cool, and most appear well-off. Unidentifiable songs play as we order
Heinekens. ‘Casablanca? Why it’s everywhere here; just look at Bogie laughing at us up
there!’ proclaims an Austrian tourist, pointing at one of the posters from the film Casablanca.
We all laugh at this comment; for we know that we are conversing in a world that has little to
do with the heat of the Casablanca summer. But perhaps we laugh too quickly. People from
all over the city and the world come to Rick’s Place to savor this Casablanca, with its airconditioning and cocktails. And although the experience is relatively affordable for foreigners
with European salaries, the success of this dream of the city is clearest when we see local
people here. They are paying a high price for Rick’s version of the place where they live.
Maybe it acts as an antidote to other versions of Casablanca » (1994, p. 26).
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L’impact de Casablanca, le film au contenu urbain factice, révèle l’importance du
cinéma dans la construction de notre imaginaire de la ville. Avec ce premier exemple
de film-sans ville, on observe comment la magie du cinéma peut créer une image de
ville-glamour qui vient se superposer à l’image de la ville réelle.17
Partout à travers Casablanca, l’appropriation par les Marocains de l’image glamour
du film sans-ville transparait dans un grand nombre d’espaces publics, populaires et
élitistes, où des affiches du couple mythique, joue contre joue, sont omniprésentes
comme décor mural, voire comme enseigne. Ce film fait également l’objet
d’appropriations d’ordre plus culturel que mercantile. Ainsi, des posters du film sont
utilisés comme couverture d’ouvrages spécialisés en cinéma (Jaïdi, 1992) ou en
anthropologie urbaine (Peraldi & Tozy, 2011). Par ailleurs, la référence au film
Casablanca (1942) peut être implicite dans certains des films marocains qui utilisent
le nom de la ville dans leur titre. Dans Casablanca Casablanca de Benlyazid, par
exemple, le redoublement du toponyme semble avoir pour fonction de distinguer ce
film marocain de celui de Curtiz, tout en indiquant que l’intrigue du film se passe
dans la ville réelle et non dans un décor de carton-pâte. Tel semble être le cas
également de Casablanca By Night de Derkaoui qui brosse un portrait sans
équivoque des dures réalités de l’ancienne médina et déconstruit l’image de carte
postale proposée par les agents de voyage aux touristes étrangers.
Tandis que dans Un amour à Casablanca (1992), Abdelkader Lagtaâ utilise
explicitement les posters du film comme un élément constitutif des dialogues et des
pensées de ses personnages. Dans une scène où les deux jeunes amants, Seloua
et Najib, prennent un pot au Rick’s Place (Hyatt Regency), le jeune homme raconte
le dilemme d’Ilsa, l’héroïne de Casablanca, amoureuse de deux hommes (son époux
et son ancien amant). Sans le savoir, Najib fait prendre conscience à Seloua de son
propre dilemme, au point que lorsqu’elle regarde les photos du film, l’image de Jalil,
son amant quinquagénaire, vient la hanter à deux reprises en se superposant sur la
17
Michel Raynaud souligne que « C’est principalement par le cinéma que nous connaissons
et partageons le réel des villes, même celles dans lesquelles nous vivons. Par le cinéma,
nous découvrons plus de villes que nous n’en visiterons jamais. Nous connaissons des villes
que nous n’avons jamais vues. Nous apprenons à découvrir des villes que nous
connaissons déjà. Nous avons en mémoire des villes qui n’existent pas. Que nous soyons
spectateur ou créateur, les villes existent d’abord dans notre imaginaire » (2010, p. 9).
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vitre à l’image de Rick. Lorsqu’elle demande à Najib lequel des deux hommes Ilsa a
fini par choisir, Nabil lui répond qu’elle est bien sûr retournée à son mari, parce que
le cinéma américain de l’époque se devait de préserver les traditions, pour ne pas
essuyer le couperet de la censure.
Dans Un amour à Casablanca, Lagtaâ réussit donc le tour de force à la fois de
donner l’image d’un cinéma marocain plus ouvert que le cinéma hollywoodien, et de
présenter la société américaine comme bien plus conservatrice que la jeunesse
marocaine contemporaine, représentée dans le film par les deux jeunes
personnages avides de liberté et en bute au carcan des traditions et de la bigoterie.
La Casa Ghoula (Casa Ogresse) : La ville symbole d’une modernité exogène
Si l’on considère le cinéma marocain depuis ses débuts, on observe qu’il a très tôt
développé une tradition fondée sur l’opposition ville/campagne, dominée par un
jugement de valeur négatif de la ville. Des films tels que Soleil de printemps (Lahlou,
1968), Vaincre pour vivre (Mesnaoui & Tazi, 1968), Les Cendres du clos (Collectif,
1976), Lalla Chafia (Tazi, 1982), et L’Impasse (Khayat, 1984) mettent en scène des
ruraux qui viennent chercher fortune (ou autre) dans la grande ville, ou des
néocitadins d’origine paysanne qui ont du mal à s’adapter au mode de vie urbain.
Bien que plus récents, À Casablanca, les anges ne volent pas (Asli, 2004) et Casa
(Benkirane, 2006) s’inscrivent dans la droite lignée de cette tradition
cinématographique, où la métropole est représentée comme un objet de désir, un
pôle d’attraction pour les migrants ruraux qui viennent s’égarer dans ses rues, au
propre comme au figuré. L’image majeure qui se dégage de ces deux films est celle
d’une « Mégalopolis-Moloch » ou selon l’expression marocaine, une Casa Ghoula
(Casa Ogresse). Une ville mangeuse d’hommes, lieu de débauche et de perversion
des âmes simples et vertueuses. Une ville de perdition, où se fracassent les rêves
des migrants ruraux, se dissolvent les identités paysannes, et avec elles les valeurs
ancestrales du Maroc traditionnel.
Dans ce traitement « classique » de Casablanca, l’opposition ville/campagne
recouvre l’opposition modernité/tradition. Nulle ambivalence quant à la
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représentation négative de la ville dans À Casablanca les anges ne volent pas d’Asli
(2004) ou Casa de Benkirane (2006). Dans ces deux films, l’image de la Casa
Ghoula est construite essentiellement à travers l’opposition de l’espace rural et de
l’espace urbain. Le premier étant représenté comme le lieu et l’ultime refuge de
l’authenticité marocaine, tandis que le second est montré comme un lieu de
perversion de l’identité, un espace de transgression des tabous sociaux et religieux.
Sous le discours négatif sur la métropole, transparaît en filigrane un discours
négativement orienté sur une modernité imposée et subie durant les quarante-quatre
années de Protectorat français (1912-1956). Dans ces films Casa Ghoula, qui
mettent en scène des ruraux en difficulté dans l’espace urbain moderne, l’espace
casablancais est pris comme terrain et prétexte au développement d’une critique
d’une certaine urbanité mal assumée, parce que toujours vécue comme exogène.
Pour comprendre ce rapport conflictuel des Marocains avec l’urbanité spatiale
moderne et aussi pourquoi Casablanca est érigée en symbole de cette forme de
modernité honnie, il est nécessaire de faire un bref rappel historique de la ville au
tournant du XXe siècle.
Dans la mémoire collective marocaine, Casablanca représente la « ville souillée »,
celle qui a abrité l’envahisseur en son sein18 bien des années avant la signature du
traité de Protectorat (Fès, 1912) ; celle par où le mal colonial a pénétré et s’est
répandu dans les plaines, villes intérieures19 et jusque dans les montagnes
18
En application du traité d’Algésiras (1906) qui plaçait l’Empire chérifien sous la tutelle des
treize puissances européennes signataires, un corps diplomatique entre en fonction à
Tanger et des corps consulaires sont établis dans les villes portuaires pour protéger les
intérêts des négociants et des propriétaires étrangers. Parmi ces villes déjà soumises aux
capitaux internationaux et assujetties au contrôle des puissances européennes, Dar ElBeida qui à la veille du protectorat abritait déjà, au cœur même de sa médina, une
communauté d’un demi-millier d’européens sur une population totale de 20 000 âmes
(Pierre, 2002, pp. 33-34).
19
En mai 1907, dans le cadre des travaux d’aménagement du port par une compagnie
franco-marocaine (« La Compagnie marocaine »), un cimetière musulman est profané par le
passage de la voie ferrée, provoquant l’indignation des gens de Dar El-Beida et des tribus
voisines qui envahissent la ville et la mettent à sac. Huit ouvriers européens sont massacrés
(30 juillet 1907), donnant ainsi au gouvernement français le prétexte attendu pour
bombarder la ville (4 août 1907), faire débarquer ses troupes pour contrôler la ville et
envoyer un corps expéditionnaire pour occuper l’ensemble de la Chaouia, l’arrière-pays de
Casablanca (Burke, 1976, pp. 97-98 ; Rivet, 1999, pp. 27, 53). À dater de la chute de Dar ElBeida, le sort du Maroc est scellé et son destin se confond avec celui de cette ville (Pierre,
2002, p. 63).
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berbères, qui ont au contraire « farouchement » résisté aux troupes françaises
jusqu’au début des années 30.
Dans cette représentation nostalgique de l’authenticité marocaine, Casablanca est
souvent considérée (à tort)20 comme la « première ville » occupée par la puissance
coloniale qui a propulsé le Maroc dans un vaste processus de changements qui a à
tout jamais bouleversé ses anciennes structures et hiérarchies urbaines : le
déplacement de la capitale politique de Fès à Rabat ; le déplacement du centre de
gravité du pays des villes intérieures multiséculaires (Fès et Marrakech) vers le
nouvel axe urbain, commercial et industriel, implanté le long du littoral (CasablancaKenitra) ; l’édification de « villes nouvelles » pour loger la population européenne, en
respectant « les principes les plus modernes et les plus raffinés de l’urbanisme »
(Lyautey) ; la séparation stricte de ces « villes européennes » des « villes
indigènes » (les anciennes médinas) déclarées dans leur totalité « monument
historique intangible dans [leur] forme et dans [leur] aspect » (Lyautey), ainsi
protégées de toute spéculation foncière ou destruction, mais du même coup
momifiées vivantes et interdites à toute évolution « naturelle » (Petermann, 2012, pp.
157-159 ; Arrif, 1994, pp.163-164).
Casablanca est également perçue comme la moins marocaine des villes du
Royaume, bien qu’elle ne soit pas la seule à abriter une « ville européenne »
construite par la puissance coloniale.21 Sans doute est-ce parce qu’en son sein
l’idéal de préservation de la médina historique, tout comme l’idéal de séparation des
deux communautés, ont très tôt été confrontés aux plus grandes difficultés de
réalisation, en raison de la morphologie du paysage et de l’existence précoloniale
d’une importante communauté européenne et d’un fort « lobby » de spéculateurs
20
Historiquement, la ville d’Oujda est prise la première par les troupes de Lyautey (27 mars
1907), donc plusieurs mois avant Casablanca, en représailles de l’assassinat du Dr
Mauchamp à Marrakech (Rivet, 1999, pp. 27, 53). Mais la réputation de cette ville de
l’Oriental n’en a guère été ternie. Et la mémoire collective a retenu Casablanca comme la
plaie par laquelle le mal colonial s’est insinué, en raison de la présence d’une importante
communauté étrangère en son sein, 1500 individus en 1907 (Garret, 2005, p. 27), mais
aussi du fait que la conquête militaire du Maroc s’est effectuée essentiellement à partir de la
côte atlantique, et non à partir des confins algéro-marocains, ainsi que le souhaitait Lyautey.
21
Huit autres « villes nouvelles » ont été édifiées par Henri Prost, à Rabat, Fès, Séfrou,
Meknès, Taza, Ouezzane, Agadir et Marrakech. Tandis qu’à Port Lyautey (actuelle Kenitra),
la « ville européenne » a précédé la « ville marocaine », qui s’est développée suite à la
fondation de cette ville militaire.
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(Garret, 2005, p. 27 sq.). Alors que dans des villes comme Meknès et Fès les
conditions topographiques et la situation du foncier étaient favorables pour une nette
séparation de leur médina historique de la « ville européenne », à Casablanca la
spéculation avait déjà fait tomber entre les mains d’Européens, ou de Marocains
sous protection consulaire, des pans entiers de la médina et de grandes parcelles de
terrain dans ses alentours. Contrairement à Rabat et aux villes de l’intérieur « où
l’administration pouvait imposer son schéma urbain à des colonies françaises moins
compactes et moins effervescentes et moins marquées par la frénésie de la
spéculation immobilière qu’à Casablanca », Henri Prost (l’architecte-urbaniste en
chef de Lyautey) eut bien du mal « à lacer dans un corset cette ville [Casablanca],
qui fait figure de Chicago à la française » (Rivet, 1999, p. 235). Ainsi à Casablanca
« des quartiers entiers de la petite médina furent détruits pour pouvoir construire de
grands boulevards et faire disparaître en même temps des ‘bâtiments insalubres’ de
la ville marocaine [qui] fut complètement confinée à l’intérieur de la ‘ville nouvelle’ »
(Escher, 2013, pp. 187-188). Après seulement douze années de protectorat, la
médina de Dar El-Beida est en effet complètement encerclée par la « ville
européenne » qui s’est étendue autour d’elle comme une gigantesque raie.22 Au
même moment, à 3 km de la « ville européenne », une autre « cité indigène », le
Quartier des Habous, inspirée de l’habitat des anciennes médinas marocaines
autant que des villes médiévales d’Andalousie, est édifiée par Albert Laprade afin
« [qu’] agriculteurs venant du bled, ouvriers du port et des usines [puissent] vendre
ou acheter, prier ou s’amuser sans aller encombrer la ville européenne », et afin de
« permettre aux caravanes, à tous ces troupeaux de chameaux et de bourricots, de
faire halte sans défiler dans les rues de la ville européenne, au milieu de l’agitation
des autos » (Laprade, cité par Chaoui, 2013, p. 221).
Casablanca a donc cette particularité d’avoir très tôt abrité deux médinas, l’ancienne
Dar El-Beida, espace sédimentaire dont la croissance « naturelle » a été contrariée
par l’établissement à ses portes de la Ville Nouvelle (quartier strictement européen),
et la « Nouvelle Médina » ou Quartier des Habous, héritage colonial qui inscrit sur
22
Voir une carte de la « Division de Casablanca en quartiers conformément à la planification
urbaine d’Henri Prost » (d’après Henri De La Casinière, cité par Escher (2013, p. 188) qui
montre cette formidable extension de la ville coloniale, ainsi que le Quartier des Habous
construit dans les années 20.
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son territoire toutes les contradictions de la politique urbaine du gouvernement
Lyautey, tiraillée qu’elle est entre d’une part la volonté de séparer les deux
communautés pour des raisons de sécurité, d’hygiène et de respect mutuel, et
d’autre part le souci de conserver et recréer pour les nouveaux migrants
« indigènes » « un habitat conforme à leur habitude, pensé comme une composante
d’une ville structurée selon certaines règles traditionnelles de l’espace du monde
musulman » (Chaoui, 2013, p. 220).
L’ultime paradoxe de cette politique urbaine en faveur du bien-être de l’indigène et
du respect de sa culture transparaît dans le fait qu’au cœur même du Quartier des
Habous a été édifié Bousbir, un quartier réservé à la prostitution institutionnalisée,
fréquenté essentiellement par les Européens en mal d’érotisme exotique, qu’ils
soient résidents ou de passage dans la ville.23 Historiquement, la Ville Nouvelle de
Casablanca aura également été le laboratoire à cœur et ciel ouvert
« d’expérimentations réglementaires, architecturales et urbanistiques » qui a donné
lieu à deux modèles architecturaux qui ont imprimé au Centre-ville de la métropole
son cachet si particulier : 1) le Mouvement d’arabisances, une architecture métissée
qui résulte de « l’emprunt et la réinterprétation de modèles locaux propres à la
société marocaine » ; 2) le Mouvement moderne et Art-déco, une architecture
d’avant-garde qui résulte de « l’application de modèles spatiaux et de composition
architecturale exogènes inscrits dans une logique d’universalité sans prise en
compte des réalités locales » (Arrif, 1993, p. 10).
Parce que Casablanca porte dans sa chair cette « logique [coloniale] de
juxtaposition voire de rupture avec l’ordre urbain qui lui préexistait » (Arrif, 1993, p.
6), elle symbolise plus que toute autre la « ville coloniale » et jouit dans l’imaginaire
collectif marocain d’une réputation très ambivalente. Elle est autant admirée et
23
Dans sa présentation de l’ouvrage ethnographique et critique consacré à ce « quartier
réservé » par les docteurs Jean Mathieu et Pierre Henri Maury, Arrif rappelle que le guide
touristique Casablanca et sa région (1943) invite expressément « les touristes, amateurs
d'études de mœurs, [...] ·(à) gagner la ville close de ‘Bousbir’, quartier neuf réservé aux
femmes publiques. Recluses entre des murs infranchissables et bien qu'évoluant dans un
cadre qui ne manque pas de poésie, ces dernières se trouvent là, obligatoirement
assujetties à la surveillance constante et vigilante de la police et des services sanitaires
(entrée gratuite, autorisée à tous les visiteurs, non recommandée aux enfants et aux jeunes
filles) » (Arrif in Mathieu et Maury, 2003, p. 11).
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désirée en tant que ville à la success story époustouflante qui place le Maroc urbain
des premières décennies du XXème siècle à l’avant-garde de la modernité, que
dénigrée et haïe en tant que trace indélébile de l’occupation française, de sa
politique d’apartheid urbain, de ses velléités de protection et de développement des
spécificités marocaines, et de la confiscation du droit des Marocains à décider de
leur ville et de leur destin.
Cet éclairage sur les grandes lignes de la fabrique de la ville durant la période
coloniale nous permet donc de mieux comprendre l’image négative de Casablanca
comme Casa Ghoula, c’est-à-dire comme symbole de la perversion de l’identité
marocaine par l’ordre urbain colonial.
La Casa Duale : La ville symbole du dualisme de la société marocaine
Dans la présente section, en prenant comme cas d’étude Un amour à Casablanca
(Lagtaâ, 1992), mon objectif est de mettre à jour l’évolution des représentations
spatiales de la dualité modernité/tradition dans le cinéma-de ville marocain, en
partant du postulat que ce film présente non pas un discours sur la métropole en tant
que symbole de l’empreinte de l’époque coloniale, mais un discours sur le difficile
accès de la société marocaine à une modernité endogène, une modernité dont
Casablanca est l’espace de fabrication et d’expression par excellence.
Considéré comme le film qui a réconcilié les cinéastes marocains et leur public, Un
amour à Casablanca est souvent défini par les chercheurs comme le point de départ
de l’émergence d’un « nouveau cinéma marocain » (Carter, 2009, p. 18) ou d’un
« Nouveau Cinéma Urbain » (Bahmad, 2013-a, p. 74).24 Ce film constitue certes une
nouveauté du fait qu’il traite d’un sujet tabou, les liaisons amoureuses d’une
lycéenne de 18 ans, et brise l’hypocrisie sociale en mettant en scène des pratiques
courantes mais cachées (alcool, relations sexuelles hors mariage, adultère, etc.).
Mais à mon sens, ce film est important dans le sens où il inaugure un nouveau mode
de représentation spatiale de l’opposition binaire modernité/tradition, ainsi qu’un
glissement de sens du contenu et de la valeur accordée à chacun de ces deux
24
Voir plus haut ma discussion de ces deux notions.
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pôles. Il inaugure également un glissement de sens dans le contenu symbolique de
Casablanca, qui de ville trop européenne symbole de la présence française et de
ses effets néfastes sur l’authenticité marocaine passe au statut de ville-nation
symbole et incarnation de la dualité de la société marocaine dans son ensemble
(Adam, 1968-b) et de l’ambivalence de l’identité marocaine.
Dans un récent article, Olivia Poussot conclut fort pertinemment que « pour traiter
des problématiques sociales émergentes et des inquiétudes liées à la dualité
permanente entre modernité et tradition, le lieu favori que privilégie l’imaginaire
collectif marocain reste Casablanca » (2012, p. 131). Toutefois, malgré l’objectif
clairement annoncé d’étudier les images de la métropole dans les films de Lagtaâ
(1992), Ayouch (2003), Marrakchi (2004) et Lakhmari (2008), cette auteure ne
propose aucune analyse de leurs représentations spatiales de la ville ; se contente
de faire une synopsis des films et de citer des propos de critiques, acteurs ou
réalisateurs qui ne permettent guère de saisir le bien-fondé des conclusions.
Dans Un amour à Casablanca, la dualité de la ville et par extension le dualisme de la
société marocaine sont spatialement représentés à travers l’opposition de deux
quartiers de la ville : le Quartier des Habous (ou Nouvelle Médina), où réside Seloua
avec sa famille, et le Centre-ville de la Ville Nouvelle où Jalil travaille et réside avec
son fils Najib. Le Quartier des Habous symbolise ici l’espace traditionnel marocain
avec tous ses interdits et ses blocages au plein épanouissement de l’individu qui
aspire à mener une vie moderne. Tandis que le centre-ville représente l’espace
d’anonymat et de liberté vers lequel s’échappe Seloua pour rencontrer ses amants
successifs.
Si l’on rappelle que le Quartier des Habous a été construit par l’administration
coloniale et qu’il représente une vision française de la « ville arabo-musulmane » et
du mode de vie qui est censé lui correspondre, l’on est un peu surpris que Lagtaâ
n’ait pas plutôt choisi l’ancienne Médina comme cadre de vie de la famille de Seloua.
Mon hypothèse ici est que cet usage cinématographique du Quartier des Habous
comme symbole du traditionalisme marocain reflète et signale l’achèvement du
processus de patrimonialisation de cet héritage architectural colonial. En effet, dans
les années 90, la marocanité de ce quartier était devenu une sorte d’aveuglante
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évidence, pour les habitants de la ville25 comme pour les visiteurs étrangers en mal
d’exotisme (Cattedra, 2003).26 Par ailleurs, le quartier Bousbir, « le plus grand bordel
des colonies françaises », fermé en 1953 est devenu depuis un quartier d’habitation
ordinaire. En 2004, il a été inscrit dans sa totalité sur la liste du patrimoine culturel
marocain « en raison de son architecture unique » (Escher, 2013, p. 193).
J’ignore les raisons, esthétiques et/ou logistiques, qui ont poussé Lagtaâ à choisir le
Quartier des Habous, plutôt que l’ancienne Médina comme lieu de résidence de la
famille traditionnelle d’une jeune fille libérée, mais il n’est guère étonnant que ce
fervent défenseur du « droit à la modernité » et des libertés individuelles27 ait choisi
pour représenter le traditionalisme, le bigotisme et l’hypocrisie sociale un espace de
représentation de la puissance coloniale, dont l’espace architectural est une vision
française de ce qu’est et doit être l’authenticité marocaine. En faisant ainsi, n’est-ce
pas le mythe même d’un retour à l’authenticité marocaine précoloniale qu’il
déconstruit, en représentant le dualisme de la société marocaine et son refus
d’accepter sa modernité à travers la mise en scène de deux visages néocoloniaux
de l’espace casablancais ?
25
Abdallah Zrika, poète casablancais, décrit ainsi le Quartier des Habous : « Sous ce soleil
prodigieux se dressent çà et là des portes monumentales. On croirait un immense temple de
plein air. […] L’étrange est que les ruelles alentour […] descendent et montent à l’image de
celles des très vieilles cités. Comme si rien d’ancien ne pouvait exister sans ces remontées
ni ces plongées. Quand on voit quelqu’un sortir d’une maison, aux abords du tribunal, des
bureaux d’adouls ou des bazars, il paraît surgir d’un cadre jauni par le temps pour peu qu’il
soit en djellaba. […] Je crois qu’il n’y a rien de plus beau que les Habbous, non parce que ce
quartier est d’une autre époque, mais parce qu’il est sis au plein cœur de la ‘modernité’
marocaine. C’est le contraste qui confère aux Habbous cette puissance dans la beauté et
l’on a du mal à y croire. On est en pleine antiquité… » (2012, pp. 81-82).
26
Dans cette étude du processus de patrimonialisation de l’héritage architectural colonial, à
travers l’analyse de guides de voyage et de documents d’urbanisme, Cattedra observe que
dans les années 90 « l’évidence patrimoniale » du Quartier des Habous est définitivement
assise, qu’il a acquis « le statut d’une véritable médina » au point de supplanter l’ancienne
médina dans les conseils donnés aux touristes « férus d’urbanisme » (2003).
27
« Mes personnages sont d’abord des individus, ce ne sont pas des clans ou des familles.
Ils aspirent d’abord à une autonomie. L’individu dans notre société est régi par la tradition et
par la religion. La société ne peut évoluer que si l’individu atteint l’autonomie nécessaire qui
lui permette de s’exprimer librement, s’exprimer sur le plan social, politique mais aussi sur le
plan de sa propre personnalité. [...] Les personnages qui m’habitent […] ont essentiellement
un projet moderne... » (Lagtaâ, in Mansouri, 2005).
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La Casa Negra : La ville mal aimée, la ville à aimer28
« Casa Negra » ou « ddar lkkeħla » (la Maison Noire en darija) sont les antonymes
des toponymes, ibérique (Casablanca) et arabe (Dar El-Beida), qui associent la
blancheur à l’identité visuelle de la métropole (La Maison Blanche). Ces deux antitoponymes crus comme une injure, cinglants comme une claque lancée au visage
de plein fouet, étaient déjà d’usage courant dans les milieux casablancais, bien des
années avant que Nour-Eddine Lakhmari n’adopte la version ibérique comme titre
de son second long métrage (2008).
Par ailleurs, bien qu’elle ait été popularisée par le film éponyme Casanegra, l’image
de la métropole comme ville noire ou Mégalopolis de la violence était déjà présente
dans des films antérieurs : de manière atténuée dans Un amour à Casablanca et de
manière beaucoup plus accentuée notamment dans Ali Zaoua, prince de la rue
(Ayouch, 2003), Casablanca Casablanca (Benlyazid, 2002), et dans le dyptique de
Derkaoui, Casablanca By Night (2003) et Casa Day Light (2004). Dans la plupart de
ces films, la représentation négative de la ville repose sur la description de la vie
quotidienne, précaire et sans espoir, de jeunes natifs de la ville : des enfants vivants
d’expédients dans la rue et confrontés à la violence de la jungle urbaine (Ali Zaoua),
des adolescents réduits à la prostitution pour survivre ou diabolisés injustement pour
leurs pratiques musicales (Casablanca By Night et Casa Day Light), de jeunes
adultes soumis à l’arbitraire des autorités ou victimes de la violence impunie des
nantis (Casablanca Casablanca), ou de jeunes chômeurs vivotant au jour le jour de
petites combines et survivant grâce à la folie de leurs rêves (Casanegra).29
Dans cette section, je ne traiterai pas de tous ces films qui manifestent une image
noire de la métropole. Je prends ici comme cas d’étude Casanegra, en partant du
postulat que ce film est plus qu’un énième diagnostic critique des questions urbaines
et plus qu’un énième portrait de la face sombre de Casablanca. Car la particularité
de ce film-de ville réside dans le fait qu’il a synthétisé et porté au plus haut niveau
28
J’emprunte cette formulation au titre d’un colloque organisé par Bernard Marchand et
Joëlle Salomon Cavin, qui s’est tenu à Cerisy-La-Salle (France), du 5 au 12 juin 2007.
29
Comme le souligne Orlando, « Casablanca as an overwhelming urban space of
gigantesque proportions […] allows the filmmakers to posit social-realist images that expose
the underbelly of Moroccan daily life, replete with poverty, exploitation and the hopeless
dreams of Moroccan youth » (2011, p. 73).
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d’expression esthétique la représentation de la métropole comme Mégalopolis de la
violence, tout en réussissant, comme nous allons le voir, le coup de force de brosser
en contraste l’image d’une ville violentée, à aimer et protéger.
Dans Casanegra, Lakhmari inaugure un nouveau mode de représentation spatiale
de la métropole qui se démarque de l’image de Casa Duale construite par Lagtaâ
(1992) à travers la mise en scène de sa dualité architecturale (marocain/européen ;
traditionnel/moderne).
Premièrement, l’image de ville de Casanegra se distingue par l’absence de toute
référence aux signes spatiaux de la tradition arabo-musulmane. Contrairement à
Casablanca By Night (Derkaoui, 2003) ou Casablanca Casablanca (Benlyazid,
2002), le film de Lakhmari n’offre pas de visite guidée des hauts lieux de la ville, tels
que le Marabout Sidi Abderrahmane, la Mosquée Hassan II, Bab Merrakch, le
Quartier des Habous et autres sites historiques et touristiques, perçus et vécus
comme représentatifs de la marocanité. Pas une seule rue de médina, ancienne ou
nouvelle, pas une coupole de marabout, pas un seul minaret, et pas un seul appel à
la prière ne rappellent au spectateur que l’action se déroule dans un pays de
tradition arabo-musulmane. Si l’on aperçoit à deux ou trois reprises le minaret de la
Mosquée Hassan II, c’est de loin, de haut, de nuit, comme un halo de lumière
difficilement identifiable pour toute personne ne connaissant pas le paysage
casablancais. Au contraire, dans Marock (Marrakchi, 2004) qui met en scène une
jeunesse dorée, totalement imprégnée du mode de vie européen, et vivant dans un
cadre architectural d’inspiration occidentale (villas de haut standing), la référence à
l’Islam est omniprésente par la visualisation de ses pratiques cultuelles (prière,
ramadan), de son patrimoine architectural monumental (Mosquée Hassan II), et par
la dramatisation du poids des tabous et des préjugés sur les relations
intercommunautaires et interconfessionnelles (Juifs/Musulmans).
Deuxièmement, Casanegra se distingue par la focalisation de la quasi-totalité de son
action dans un seul quartier. Les principaux espaces diégétiques du film, lieux de
résidence, de loisirs et de déambulations quotidiennes des deux personnages
principaux (Adil et Karim) sont tous situés dans le Centre-ville historique de la « ville
nouvelle » fondée par Lyautey, pour loger les colons français et européens (Arrif,
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1993 ; Escher, 2013). Lorsque les personnages de Casanegra se rendent dans
d’autres sites, la caméra ne les suit pas sur leur trajet hors des limites de leur
quartier. Il n’y a donc pas de description filmique des autres composantes
urbanistiques de la métropole. Casanegra présente une sorte d’ethnographie de
quartier dont le principal terrain est le site de prestige de la « ville idéale » de
Lyautey dont l’urbanisme « furieusement moderne » (Rivet, 1999, p. 233) et
l’architecture monumentale d’avant-garde ont été pensés, « pour montrer au peuple
protégé la puissance qui s’installe et la pérennité de son établissement » (Rivet,
1999, p. 229), « pour impressionner l’indigène » (Rivet, 1999, p. 236) tout autant que
« les petit-bourgeois [français] retirés des affaires dans un chef lieu de canton »
(Lyautey cité par Rivet, 1999, p. 233).
Troisièmement, la représentation spatiale de la ville dans Casanegra se distingue
par l’importance accordée à sa dimension verticale. La plupart des autres films ayant
pour sujet la ville mettent l’accent essentiellement sur le gigantisme horizontal de
Casablanca grâce à des vues panoramiques de sa prodigieuse extension dans
l’espace. Cela même s’ils intègrent des vues sur ses gratte-ciels et ses bâtiments
monumentaux (Orlando, 2011, pp. 74-75). Dans Casanegra, en revanche, le
gigantisme vertical de la ville est représenté par les imposants immeubles du
Centre-ville sur lesquels la caméra s’attarde souvent, bien que le minaret de la
Mosquée Hassan II, les tours jumelles du Twin Center et autres gratte-ciels
postcoloniaux leur aient depuis longtemps volé la vedette. La plupart des bâtiments
qui symbolisent Casablanca dans Casanegra appartiennent à l’architecture Art
Déco, une architecture représentative à son époque de l’avant-garde moderniste
occidentale, tant sur le plan architectural que sur le plan du mode de vie dont elle est
porteuse. Car ces immeubles cristallisent dans leurs pierres et leurs ornements le
« rêve d’un homme moderne, universel, s’élevant au-dessus des traditions »
(Verkindere in Casablanca, ville moderne).30
Lakhmari fait ici un usage intensif de la contre-plongée pour décrire un paysage
urbain phallique qui surplombe et écrase les individus, au propre comme au figuré.
30
« […] On définit généralement la modernité par opposition à la tradition. Être moderne,
c’est vivre en prenant ses distances par rapport à la tradition. La modernité est un passage.
Sortir d’un mode de vie, rentrer dans un autre… » (Verkindere, 2007).
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Les contre-plongées sur les immeubles Art-déco jouent deux rôles contrastés. Dans
de rares séquences, ces immeubles servent de faire-valoir à Karim, traduisent
spatialement sa maîtrise du territoire urbain et l’exercice de son « droit à la ville »
(Lefebvre, 1968), tandis que dans d’autres, les contre-plongées sur les immeubles
Art-déco servent à refléter l’état de démoralisation des deux jeunes gens après une
rude épreuve. Par un effet de « shifting lines »,31 les immeubles penchés comme
des tours de Pise paraissent prêts à s’écrouler les uns sur les autres et sur le dos
des personnages. Ce qui provoque chez le spectateur un fort sentiment d’angoisse
et d’inconfort. L’image de ville qui se dégage de cet usage particulier de l’espace
architectural est une vision pessimiste de ville broyeuse d’hommes, espace
d’aliénation dont le gigantisme vertical écrase et enferme les individus. Ainsi, pour
les deux jeunes protagonistes, le Centre-ville est à la fois un « écrin architectural »
(Lakhmari) dont ils ne peuvent apprécier la beauté que du haut de leur terrasse
refuge, dans les rares moments d’ivresse, et une sorte de ghetto dans lequel ils sont
emprisonnés et peinent à survivre.
Quatrièmement, Casanegra se démarque des autres films qui ont traité des
phénomènes de violence, de déviance, de précarité et d’exclusion sociale par le fait
qu’il les représente non pas comme des problèmes sociaux particuliers aux quartiers
populaires ou bidonvillois, mais comme une réalité constitutive du quotidien du
Centre-ville, l’espace par excellence de l’ostentation architecturale et de l’étalage du
pouvoir politico-économique, colonial et postcolonial. Karim et Adil, ces deux
« jeunes perdus » (Lakhmari), sans qualification professionnelle et sans avenir,
arpentent les rues du Centre-ville jour et nuit, à la recherche de combines et
d’expédients pour survivre. On suit ces deux jeunes gens dans leurs déambulations
quotidiennes, à travers l’ex-Casablanca européenne, une ville dont les Marocains
ont pris possession après l’indépendance comme d’un « trésor de guerre laissé en
héritage, arraché au colonisateur » (Arrif, 2012, p. 70). Leurs familles diégétiques
sont représentatives de ces ménages modestes, voire pauvres qui – contre des
31
L’effet « shifting lines » est une illusion d’optique résultant d’un cadrage trop rapproché
d’un sujet vertical. En photographie, cet effet a longtemps été considéré comme une erreur
de cadrage à corriger en faisant intervenir des logiciels comme Photoshop. Mais,
aujourd’hui, c’est devenu une technique recherchée dans la photographie urbaine artistique.
C’est le cas dans Casanegra, où cet effet est utilisé à la fois pour son esthétique et pour sa
capacité à exprimer visuellement un discours sur la ville et la condition urbaine.
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loyers modiques – vivent dans des immeubles32 qui représentent le fleuron
architectural de ce Centre-ville bâti par des architectes français et européens de
renommée internationale. Ainsi, leur présence dans ce cadre architectural d’avantgarde est en contradiction avec la précarité de leur mode de subsistance et signale
le « glissement sociologique qui s’est opéré au centre-ville historique de
Casablanca, un glissement significatif d’abandon et de déclassement » (Arrif, 2012,
p. 71). Car l’anomie sociale est ici inhérente au cœur même de la ville nouvelle, le
secteur historiquement représentatif de la modernité et de la réussite sociale.
Malgré le fait qu’il soit focalisé sur la partie la plus moderne de la métropole,
Casanegra présente deux images de ville contrastées : la Casa Blanca d’hier, dont
la splendeur passée est symbolisée par les immeubles Art-déco et dont seules les
vues panoramiques nocturnes permettent encore de faire l’expérience jubilante ; et
la Casa Negra des bas-fonds, la ville au ras des caniveaux, investie de nuit par une
multitude de marginaux et déviants vivant en marge de la société. Ces deux images
de villes opposées et pourtant une comme les deux faces d’une même pièce sont
construites à travers la mise en scène subtile d’une série d’oppositions binaires
spatiales (haut/bas ; vertical/horizontal ; plongée/contre-plongée), sociospatiales
(appartement exigu/villa de haut standing ; night-club élitiste/cabaret-bar populaire) ;
temporelles (jour/nuit ; diurne/nocturne) et chromatiques (blanc/noir ;
lumineux/sombre).
Les disparités sociospatiales inhérentes à cette ville-Janus sont figurées dans
Casanegra par l’opposition d’espaces de vie privés et d’« espaces de nuit » publics.
À la villa de haut standing de Rami, immense, luxueuse et éclatante de blancheur,
s’opposent les appartements exigus, pauvrement meublés et sombres des familles
de Karim et Adil. Au « Lime Night », boîte de nuit élitiste à l’architecture et à
l’éclairage ultramodernes, où l’on danse sur des musiques occidentales, s’oppose le
« Tout Va Bien », bar-cabaret populaire aux lumières vacillantes où se regroupent
malfrats, ivrognes et prostituées pour chanter et danser avec des Chikhat.33 Aux
32
L’immeuble Assayag, lieu de résidence diégétique de Karim et Adil, a été construit en
1932 par l’architecte Marius Boyer.
33
Véritable institution sociale, les Chikhat sont des femmes à la fois poétesses, danseuses
et chanteuses, dont les prestations sont très prisées à Casablanca et sa région, autant dans
les célébrations familiales que dans les cabarets populaires. Bien que leur répertoire musical
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grandes artères haussmanniennes richement illuminées que sillonnent les voitures
des nantis s’opposent les rues sordides et obscures, squattées par les sans-abris,
les buveurs d’alcools à bruler, les toxicomanes et les prostitués des deux sexes.
Comme l’a bien observé Arrif « le sombre de [la] nuit » de ce quartier « naguère
signe de distinction, de modernité et d’opulence […] est devenu un théâtre urbain
propice au vol, à la délinquance et à la prostitution, à l’errance des enfants de
rue… » (2012, pp. 69-70).
À travers cette série d’oppositions binaires, Lakhmari réussit à construire une image
de ville noire, la Casa Negra « dure et brutale », et dans le même temps une image
de ville violentée, la Casa Blanca « délibérément détruite pour des raisons
lucratives » (Lakhmari in Jemni, 2010), victime du « vide politique qui l’a rendue
propice à toutes les appropriations et réappropriations [naguère] réservées aux
espaces de la relégation et de l’exclusion : bidonvilles, périphéries populaires et
laborieuses » (Arrif, 2012, p. 69).
Ainsi, Casanegra peut être lu comme l’expression artistique du mouvement d’une
certaine frange de la société civile casablancaise militant depuis les années 90 pour
la réhabilitation de ce quartier historique (Garret, 2003). Un quartier qui a subi un
certain déclassement depuis l’indépendance, et dont un grand nombre d’immeubles
et villas de grande facture ont été soit démolis, soit abandonnés aux vicissitudes du
temps, des intempéries et aux dégradations incontrôlées des sans-abris. On ne peut
comprendre l’image de ville-violente mais elle-même violentée représentée dans
Casanegra sans prendre en compte d’une part la relation sentimentale que Lakhmari
a établie avec ce quartier depuis son enfance,34 et d’autre part son implication dans
soit reconnu comme partie intégrante du patrimoine culturel immatériel marocain, ces
femmes jouissent d’une réputation sulfureuse et sont souvent considérées, voire traitées,
comme des prostituées, en raison de leur vie libre et de l’exercice de leur art dans des
espaces de nuit essentiellement masculins.
34
Natif de Safi (1964), Lakhmari se présente comme un fervent amoureux de Casablanca :
ville-destination privilégiée pour les vacances en famille dans son enfance, ville-gratification
pour ses bons résultats à l’école. « J’ai une grande tendresse pour les immeubles art-déco
du centre-ville. Dans Casa Negra, j’ai voulu montrer le Maroc beau et délaissé, méprisé et
qui résiste aux vicissitudes du temps […] Casa a longtemps été pour moi la grande ville, à la
manière dont Paris l’a été pour d’autres… Et même après avoir vécu à Paris, en Norvège, j’y
ai retrouvé, pendant que j’écrivais le scénario, un sentiment d’injustice architecturale et
spatiale… J’aime cette ville dure et généreuse, dans laquelle les gens luttent pour vivre.»
(Lakhmari in Tel quel, 2008).
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le mouvement de sauvegarde du patrimoine architectural Art-déco initié par
l’association Casamémoire, dont le groupe d’architectes fondateurs lui « ont
transmis la passion de restaurer la mémoire et la beauté des lieux, surtout le Centreville de Casablanca, vestiges de l’ère coloniale ». (Lakhmari in Boukhari, 2009).
Conclusion
Au terme de cette étude des représentations spatiales de Casablanca dans le
cinéma-de ville marocain, il apparait évident que l’on ne peut comprendre les images
filmiques de la métropole sans les mettre en perspective, d’une part avec l’image de
la ville marocaine historique (Dar El-Beida) dans la mémoire collective, et d’autre
part avec les représentations sociales du processus historique de fabrication de la
ville nouvelle coloniale (Casablanca). Par ailleurs, il est difficile de comprendre ces
cinéreprésentations de Casablanca sans prendre en compte son rôle important dans
les processus croisés de fabrication des nouvelles identités urbaines et de
patrimonialisation de l’héritage architectural colonial, dans le Maroc contemporain.
Ville aux noms multiples, Casablanca s’est tour à tour appelée Anfa au temps de ses
fondateurs Berghouata35 (fin du VIIe siècle), avant d’être rebaptisée Casa Branca
par les colons Portugais (XVIe-XVIIIe siècles), Dar el Beida par le sultan alaouite
Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdallah (1770), puis Casablanca par les négociants espagnols
(XIXe siècle). L’adoption du nom espagnol par les Français, avant même
l’établissement du Protectorat et la construction de la ville européenne, inscrit la
dualité au cœur même de l’identité de la ville.
Casablanca est également une ville aux hypocoristiques et sobriquets multiples.
Pour ses habitants et admirateurs, elle est Lbouida (la petite blanche) ou Lkouiza (la
petite maison), petits noms affectueux qui témoignent de leur attachement
35
Tribu amazighe fondatrice du royaume du même nom, dont le territoire s’étendait sur les
plaines atlantiques centrales (du VIIIe au XIe siècle). Comme toutes les villes à l’histoire
tumultueuse, la date de naissance d’Anfa est un sujet qui prête à controverse entre
historiens, dont certains font remonter sa date de fondation à l’antiquité, en l’an 42, sous
l’occupation romaine, tandis que d’autres en attribuent la paternité aux Berghouata (fin du
VIIe siècle), auxquels elle a servi de capitale économique et politique durant les quatre
siècles de souveraineté de leur royaume (VIIIe au XIe siècle). Pour l’histoire de Casablanca
des origines à l’établissement du protectorat français, voir André Adam (1968-a).
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indéfectible à cette métropole. Tandis que ses détracteurs l’affublent de sobriquets
tels que Lghoula (l’ogresse), la Negra (la noire), Aħlig n-wučen36 (le ventre du
chacal). Tous ces surnoms péjoratifs soulignant la dureté de la vie quotidienne dans
ce « monstre à visage urbain » (Benali, 1996), où les disparités sociospatiales
s’étalent au grand jour.
Ville multiséculaire, Casablanca est représentative de la ville marocaine par
excellence, de son authenticité historique comme de ses évolutions les plus
modernes, bien qu’elle ait fort souvent souffert d’un déni de citadinité (Adam, 1968b, p. 637) et de représentativité historique et patrimoniale.
En tant que descendante d’Anfa, capitale de l’empire Berghouata, elle est
représentative de la cité autochtone amazighe, soucieuse de préserver ses
spécificités culturelles au risque de porter à travers les siècles le stigmate de
l’hétérodoxie, voire de l’hérésie (Dernouny et Léonard, 1987, pp. 19-20). Et dans le
même temps, elle est représentative de toutes ces villes marocaines contrariées
dans leur croissance naturelle, détruites par des puissances militaires étrangères ou
par l’hégémonie dynastique. Contrairement à ses consœurs recouvertes du linceul
des historiographies des vainqueurs, Casablanca s’est toujours relevée de ses
cendres telle un Phénix, que sa destruction soit l’œuvre des humains ou de la
nature.37
En tant que descendante de Dar El Beida, l’arabo-musulmane, elle est devenue le
symbole de la ville violée lors du débarquement des troupes françaises (1907) et
36
Ce sobriquet amazigh renvoie d’une part à l’hétérogénéité de la population de Casablanca
qui est composée de tous les déshérités des quatre coins du Maroc venus chercher du
travail en son sein, et d’autre part il comporte un jugement de valeur négatif sur les valeurs
et les pratiques de ses habitants. En tant que charognard, le chacal représente la fourberie
et l’opportunisme dans la tradition orale amazighe.
37
En 1050, la prise d’Anfa par le sultan almoravide Youssef Ibn Tachfin signe la fin de
l’empire Berghouata et le début d’un processus de destruction/renaissance de la ville qui va
se prolonger sur plusieurs siècles. Elle est prise et détruite par les Almohades en 1188.
Reconstruite par les sultans Mérinides (1258-1471), elle est à deux reprises ravagée par les
Portugais (1468 et 1515) qui établiront sur son territoire leur Casa Branca. En 1755, elle est
complètement anéantie par un séisme. Reconstruite par le sultan alaouite Sidi Mohamed
Ben Abdellah (1770) sous le nom de Dar El Baida, elle connaîtra un peu plus d’un siècle de
prospérité avant d’être de nouveau bombardée et occupée par les troupes françaises en
1907.
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trace indélébile du marquage du territoire marocain par la puissance coloniale.
Pourtant des films Casa Ghoula aux films Casa Negra, en passant par les films
Casa Duale, on peut relever une évolution de ses images filmiques de ville
empreinte de la présence coloniale au statut de microcosme socioculturel
représentatif de la ville marocaine moderne, et par extension au statut
d’« expression de la situation de la société [marocaine] actuelle » et de « miroir
grossissant de tous les problèmes sérieux que pose et qui se posent à la société
urbaine » (Dernouny & Léonard, 1987, p. 6). De même que l’on peut également
identifier un glissement de sens de la symbolique du centre historique de la « ville
nouvelle » qui passe du statut de trace de la perversion de l’authenticité marocaine
au statut de patrimoine architectural marocain à protéger de la destruction par les
spéculateurs immobiliers et des multiples formes de dégradation résultant de son
déclassement suite au départ de sa population aisée vers de nouveaux quartiers,
représentatifs des nouvelles réussites urbaines.
Observer l’évolution des images filmiques de Casablanca revient ainsi non
seulement à observer une image grossie de la société marocaine contemporaine
dans toute sa complexité et ses contradictions, mais aussi le long processus de
reconnaissance de sa part de modernité, si ce n’est de son droit à la modernité.
Souad Azizi est enseignante chercheure à l’Université Hassan II-MohammediaCasablanca et anthropologue de formation (EHESS, Paris).
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Références
Adam, André. 1968 (a). Histoire de Casablanca des origines à 1914. Paris : Éditions
Ophrys.
-----. 1968 (b). Casablanca. Essai sur la transformation de la société marocaine au
contact de l’Occident. Paris : Éditions du CNRS, 2 t.
Armes, Roy. 2005. Postcolonial Images: Studies in North African Film. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press.
Arrif, Abdelmajid. 1993. « La ville coloniale au Maroc : objet de savoirs, objet de
projets. Sciences sociales, Architecture, Urbanisme », Communication au
séminaire « Architectures exportées : transferts, expérimentations,
métissages », Laboratoire Urbama (Université de Tours), équipe LAA (EA
Paris-La Villette), laboratoire Ladrhaus (l’EA Versailles), Tours. Disponible
sur : https://www.academia.edu/2552461/Abdelmajid_Arrif_La_ville_coloniale
_au_Maroc_objet_de_savoirs_objet_de_projets._Sciences_sociales_Architect
ure_Urbanisme_The_colonial_city_in_Morocco_subject_of_knowledge_subje
ct_of_projects._Social_Sciences_Architecture_Urbanism_, (consulté le
12/02/2013).
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Ruttmann, Walter. 1927. Berlin, symphonie d’une grande ville.
Tati, Jacques. 1967. Playtime.
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Vidor, King. 1928. La foule.
Welles, Orson. 1940. Citizen Kane.
Wise, Robert. 1961. West Side Story.
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Where Have the Good Old Naughty Days Gone? Curating an
Exhibition on Moving-Image Pornography
Exhibition Review by Troy Bordun
T
he moving-image pornography archive is grossly inadequate for scholarship
and curatorship. I came to this conclusion while completing research for, and
subsequently curating, a small exhibition on the history of moving-image
pornography. Despite the widespread proliferation of the genre, e.g., the uploading of
thousands of materials onto the Internet and the possibility for global consumerism on
websites such as eBay, I nevertheless faced considerable challenges in making a
particular strand of its history available to the public. “[T]he history of filmed
pornography,” writes Eric Schaefer, “remains fragmentary, frequently unreliable, and as
much the stuff of whispers and folklore as of fact” (“Gauging a Revolution,” 370).
Schaefer’s comment is made evident by the fragmentary and unreliable organization of
porn websites such as Youporn and Redtube. The end of this article will briefly consider
these sites because they are unfortunately the best collections currently available. I will
first describe the exhibition and the research it required. Following this, I will note the
difficulties in accessing and presenting the locatable materials, and why I was unable to
find other materials. My amateur curatorship also involved an experiment in spectator
participation that regrettably fell flat. Based on this failure, the missing archive, and the
difficulties in presenting the materials, I will provide some advice for future curators of
porn exhibitions.
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Where Have the Good Old Naughty Days Gone? (Review)
Troy Bordun Fig. 1 Viewing stag films (photo courtesy of the author)
Stags, Sexploitation, and Hard Core: Moving-Image Pornography up to 1972 was held
from August 28th to 30th, 2014, at Artspace, an artist-run center in Peterborough,
Ontario. The budget was minimal,1 funded by Trent University’s student group Trent
Film Society, and admission was free. The research on pornography was conducted for
my doctoral special field examination in Cultural Studies at Trent University. During this
research I found several authors whose work proved influential for the exhibition. Most
significantly, I was inspired by Linda Williams. Williams’s writing is well-researched and
offers theoretical insight into particular films, trends, and aspects unique to the genre.
Richard Corliss’s accessible article on 1970s pornography, “That Old Feeling: When
Porno Was Chic” (2005), written for Time, was also useful. I appreciated the cinephilia
and historical situatedness provided by Corliss, a man in the thick of early 1970s
artistically inclined porno chic. Although there has not been enough consensus amongst
porn scholars to accurately construct a porn canon, due in large part to the current porn
archive consisting mostly of private and/or unorganized collections, (Williams,
1
As I will explain later on, the minimal budget became an issue, especially regarding the
materials and formats selected for projection.
Synoptique, Vol. 4, No. 1, Spring 2015
139
Troy Bordun “Pornography, Porno, Porn,” 31), Corliss’s account does provide an interesting personal
one.
The films discussed by Williams and Corliss therefore comprised the bulk of my
exhibition. Additionally, since the exhibition was more or less a history of pornography in
the American context, Schaefer’s texts were consulted. A thorough exhibition requires
enough materials to paint an accurate picture of the cultural context of the identified
period. Although I achieved this to some extent, a larger and more readily available
collection–and, as I am now discovering in writing this piece, more research on my part–
would have helped to fully achieve historical and cultural accuracy.
In Gallery 1 I traced pornography’s move from the late 19th centuries to 1972: Eadweard
Muybridge’s photographs, French stag films of the 1920s, nudie cuties, sexploitation
flicks and art cinema of the 1960s, and feature-length hard core in the early 1970s.
Alongside projections of individual films I created panels with film stills, promotional
materials, posters, and text. The texts were brief accounts of a film or trend, easy to
digest theoretical treatments, film reviews, and filmmakers’ commentary. Gallery 1 also
held an encased set of 8mm films and an 8mm projector for display purposes only.
Fig. 2 8mm Projector on display (photo courtesy of the author)
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Troy Bordun The Media Lab housed a disappointing selection of gay pornography. Thomas Waugh
has noted the difficulties in accessing this subgenre (The Fruit Machine, 272-296). His
struggles to view and publish images from the Kinsey Archive speak to the lack of pre1972 materials available for public consumption. Fortunately, Gorilla Factory
Productions has released a selection of Wakefield Poole’s early films and I screened his
most important work of the period. Boys in the Sand (1971) was the first gay sex
positive and artistically-inclined porn to hit the big screen and the film was also a huge
success in the home market, abroad, and with celebrities such as Hugh Hefner and
Sammy Davis, Jr. Nevertheless, Poole is unacknowledged as a major director in early
hard-core pornography. Jim Tushinski contends that the LGBT community wished to desexualize their history, and particularly as the AIDS virus took so many lives in the
1980s, “pre-condom porn” has remained marginalized (“Who is Wakefield Poole…”).
Hopefully, with the releases by GF Productions, Poole will find his rightful place in porn
history.
Gallery 2 projected the most well-known and widely discussed pornographic feature film
of the 1970s, Deep Throat (Gerard Damiano, 1972), a recent documentary on the film,
and panels and posters relating to porno chic. Concluding the exhibit with Deep Throat
seemed appropriate as the film inaugurated the mainstreaming of hard-core
pornography. Porn culture and porn aesthetics, critics and scholars contend, changed
with the success of Damiano’s film (Williams, Screening Sex). My curatorship was thus
focused on a mainstream or above ground history of moving-image pornography. Aside
from the French stags, whose exact audiences and circulation are more challenging to
precisely identify, the films from 1959-1972 I curated were, at one point, collectively
viewed in a theatre.
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Troy Bordun Fig. 3 Collectively viewing pornography in public (photo courtesy of the author)
An alternative and more difficult to curate exhibition would have turned to the home
market reels from about 1930 to 1970, but the audiences and works that constitute the
collections discussed by Schaefer, in his short piece on this topic, are of a different
variety. These reels were made cheaply with 16mm and 8mm equipment and sold by
the foot, from 20-foot “quickies” to 400-foot “featurettes,” and were available in either
black-and-white or colour (Schaefer, “Plain Brown Wrapper”). These films were also
less concerned with narrative while the above ground porn was largely invested in it.
On the surface, I was able to visually display one strand of the history of moving-image
pornography; however, much of this history was physically inaccessible and at times,
surprisingly, virtually absent. Despite the apparent surplus of materials on display, my
process in curating the exhibition was proof that much work is yet to be done in
developing a scholarly porn archive, which is of a different type than the somewhat
accessible DVDs for purchase online. The small selection of DVDs that are available,
from what I believe to be mainstream films of the time, was manageable. In addition to
some sexploitation flicks and 1960s art cinema, I was able to locate: a DVD of French
142
Troy Bordun stag films (The Good Old Naughty Days), a DVD bootleg of a VHS copy of Mona
(Howard Ziehm, 1970), and a copy of Deep Throat. I was enthused about Russ Meyer’s
The Immoral Mr. Teas (1959), the first nudie cutie, and hoped Meyer’s low-budget flick
would be a centerpiece of the exhibition. It is available on laserdisc, VHS, and part of a
$200 13-DVD Meyer collection. The latter option would have been ideal, but its price
was well beyond the small budget of the exhibition. I explain below why the other
formats of Mr. Teas were not used. I was also interested in Torgny Wickman’s
Language of Love, a.k.a. Swedish Marriage Manual (1969), and M.C. Von Hellen’s
Sexual Freedom in Denmark (1970). These titles were important works in the early 70s
and helped usher in the porno chic era. Their pseudo-scientific lens made them less raw
than more generically pornographic films. Although the former is available on DVD in
Amazon, I couldn’t arrange the shipping with the seller. I would also have liked to show
Paul Gerber’s School Girl (1971), a fun film from the porno chic era, but was unable to
find a projectable copy. Some other films considered for exhibition were available in digital copies or up for
streaming on porn websites, but I decided at the time to discard this possibility for
hypothetical reasons as well as practical reasons such as Internet connectivity and
budget. My hypothetical reason was that the authenticity of streaming or digital copies
of films seemed difficult to assess. I accepted Mona, a DVD bootleg of a VHS tape,
because it was clearly the VHS version distributed by Something Weird Video in 1996 –
the company’s logo as well as trailers for other releases appeared on my DVD bootleg. I
suspected, then, that this distribution company had closer ties to the original work than
an uploaded video without any scholarly or historical verification. The practical reason
for DVDs was that the gallery space was already equipped with DVD players and, from
my years of film programming at Artspace, it was simpler to work with this medium. In a
prior exhibition on non-narrative film, I brought a VCR only to have it malfunction
(additionally, my last personal experience with the technology involved irreparably
damaging a tape). I could have turned to laserdiscs, but I did not have immediate
access to a laserdisc player, and not enough budget to secure one. Thus, for simplicity
and out of fear of wasting time and possible funds, I chose DVDs. I now realize this was
143
Troy Bordun a mistake; the exhibition could have benefitted had I branched out to other formats.
However, if I expanded the exhibition, I would have also needed to turn to reels and
projection, and this would have provided yet another challenge for an amateur curator
on a budget. Dimitrios Otis, who has researched the history of adult film venues in
Vancouver, lent me some reels for display but he felt certain they were too old to
project—the film would likely be damaged during use. In addition to the problems associated with locating and presenting the materials,
curating an exhibition that fosters spectator engagement also proved difficult. Recently I
have been researching porn aesthetics, movement, and tactility as it relates to this
exhibition. My claim, simplified here, is that porn aesthetics attempts to enhance or
produce spectators’ haptic visuality and tactile engagements (Marks, The Skin of the
Film, 185; Barker, The Tactile Eye, 23-26; Paasonen, “Grains of Resonance”).
Reception of porn is therefore determined, in large part, by these haptic and tactile
engagements, ranging from a renunciation of control over the image, which fosters a
“tactile eye,” to a user who controls and manipulates the images according to his or her
prurient interest. I find the former to be a productive foundation when assessing softcore and hard-core pornographies from 1959 to 1972 and the latter for studies of precinema and early cinema as well as on the Internet.
In pre-cinema and in early cinema, according to Williams, porn presupposes
“corporealized observers,” which means “the plunging of the observer’s own body into a
transparent immediacy of eroticized self-presence” (“Corporealized Observers,” 36).
She provides examples of photographs and stag films which, through their style and
form, turn the viewer back on him- or herself to have a sensuous experience. This
sensorial experience is fundamentally due to the user grasping photographs or cranking
devices for projection. Although Williams wrote the essay prior to Internet
pornographies, its implications for current porn consumption are straightforward. As one
would crank a mutoscope to see erotic images in order to then “crank” oneself
(Williams, “Corporealized Observers,” 18-19), today’s consumers of online
pornographies employ a “grab” of the mouse to click and touch images and videos. The
144
Troy Bordun user’s interactivity with mouse, screen, and content achieves a heightened sense of
“intensity, potentiality and affectation” and, if desired, the user can grab him- or herself
as well (Paasonen, “Grains of Resonance,” 356-357). Provided that the contemporary
media consumer is familiar with the touching and grabbing of online pornographies, and
with William’s argument in mind, I edited several “Teasers” from digital copies of films
and arranged them on a DVD. I set up a projector and DVD player in Gallery 1, and with
well-placed signage, indicated that viewers could use the remote to select and scan the
clips.
Fig. 4 Visitors to the exhibition, next to signage and digital projector (photo courtesy of the
author)
Very few participants took me up on the offer. My desire for interactivity, to bring the
public spectator into what I assumed to be familiar movements with his or her apparatus
at home, was unsuccessful. I failed to incite viewers’ “somatic archives,” i.e., linking
them to their own habits and practices, and their own nudity and sexual encounters
(Paasonen, “Grains of Resonance,” 360). Instead, as in a museum, spectators
145
Troy Bordun remained “disembodied, distanced, and centered” rather than “decentered, fragmented,
vulnerable to sensation, and directly engaged” (Williams, “Corporealized Observers,”
36). Indeed, one surveyed spectator of my exhibition enthusiastically wrote, “it is all
historical like going to a museum,” missing the sensuous experience altogether.2
No one wanted to physically touch the materials, which perhaps suggests that
pornography and sex are relegated to certain sites—the privacy of the home or
specialized theaters—and inappropriate for others. I take it as evident that people with
Internet access can and do consume pornography in private. During the exhibition,
however, spectators were reluctant to 1) come to the exhibition alone, and 2) spend too
much time in the relative privacy of the smaller rooms. Most wandered about the bright,
main gallery, and kept their distance from the materials, both spatially and temporally.
Fig. 5 Reception of the exhibition (photo courtesy of the author)
In an effort to bring the exhibition online, I uploaded the Teasers and a video
walkthrough to Vimeo and Redtube—the latter is an eyesore and is nearly unnavigable
2
Kelly Dennis found much the same at the Museum of Sex in New York (Art/Porn, 159-181).
Due to the amount of reading required, the exhibition NY SEX was a scholarly procedure rather
than one filled with pleasure(s).
146
Troy Bordun (Bordun, “Troy Bordun”; “Mr. Teas”). Tim Dean, editor of Porn Archives (2014),
proposes that the Internet is an archive for pornography while Linda Williams argues
that it is not. An archive, she maintains, consists of materials that are accessible,
“collected, identified and preserved” (“Pornography, Porno, Porn,” 31). Websites such
as Redtube and Youporn are none of these, and it is disastrous for scholarship that
porn sites are the most accessible place to find materials.
On these sites, pornography is organized according to acts and fetishes, while
occasionally featuring a “Vintage” section. The emphasis on acts and fetishes recalls
the organizational principle of the Kinsey Archives. Two photos from different time
periods and geographical locations could be grouped together for their observable
“behavioral data.” Waugh suggests that this biological and anthropological
categorization is a questionable archival practice, calling it an “intrinsic denial of the
cultural and political valence of an image,” which also makes it difficult for scholars to
thoroughly do their research (The Fruit Machine, 274-275). We can see the similarities
between the Kinsey Archive and porn sites. As an additional strike against their
organization, porn sites carry no information about the cultural or political valance of the
uploaded videos. Thus the most accessible websites for a study of pornography clearly
map onto Schaefer’s observation about the genre’s fragmentary and unreliable history.
This is a problem for curators and scholars. An exhibition on the history of pornography
would need to distance itself from this sort of behavioural data; it would bring attention
to the history and contexts of the films themselves.
Pornography is a field of study to be sure, although I have noted the paucity of historical
materials. First and foremost, pornography is a genre of pleasures and heightened
interactivity (if we follow the arguments made by Laura U. Marks and Jennifer Barker,
porn can touch us even in our theatre seats). My advice for future pornography curators
is, first, to be aware of the problematic modes of porn organization and collection and,
as best as possible, not reproduce them. Second, if pornographic materials presuppose
a “corporealized observer,” an exhibition should therefore solicit tactile engagements.
147
Troy Bordun However, given this aesthetics, experimentation and trials should be conducted before
installation.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Dimitrios Otis and Artspace for help with the exhibition, and
Brandon Arroyo and the reviewers at Synoptique for assistance with this article.
Troy Michael Bordun is a doctoral candidate in Cultural Studies at Trent University.
148
Troy Bordun Works Cited
Barker, Jennifer M. The Tactile Eye: Touch and the Cinematic Experience. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2009. Print.
Bordun, Troy. “Mr. Teas.” Redtube. Aug. 2014. Web. 8. April 2015.
<http://www.redtube.com/Mr.Teas>.
-----. “Troy Bordun.” Vimeo. July 2014. Web. 8 April 2015.
<https://vimeo.com/troybordun>.
Corliss, Richard. “That Old Feeling: When Porno Was Chic.” Time. 29 March 2005.
Web. 11 April 2013.
<http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1043267,00.html>.
Dennis, Kelly. Art/Porn: A History of Seeing and Touching. Oxford and New York: Berg
Publishers, 2009. Print.
Gorilla Factory Productions. N.d. Web. 08 Apr. 2015. <http://www.gf-productions.com/>.
Marks, Laura U. The Skin of the Film: Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment, and the
Senses. Durham: Duke University Press, 2000. Print.
Paasonen, Susanna. “Grains of Resonance: Affect, Pornography and Visual Sensation.”
Somatechnics, vol. 3, no. 2 (2013): 351-368. Print.
Schaefer, Eric. “Gauging a Revolution: 16mm Film and the Rise of the Pornographic
Feature.” In Linda Williams (ed.), Porn Studies. (Durham: Duke University Press,
2004): 370-400. Print.
-----. “Plain Brown Wrapper: Adult Films for the Home Market, 1930-1970.” Oldfilm.org.
2001. Web. 18 September 2014. <http://oldfilm.org/content/plain-brown-wrapperadult-films-home-market-1930-1970>.
The Good Old Naughty Days. Dir. Michel Reilhac. Strand Releasing, 2002. DVD.
Tushinski, Jim. “Who is Wakefield Poole and Why Haven’t you Heard of Him?” Bent. 28
July 2014. Web. 28 October 2014. <http://blogs.indiewire.com/bent/who-iswakefield-poole-and-why-havent-you-heard-of-him-20140728>.
Waugh, Thomas. The Fruit Machine: Twenty Years of Writing on Queer Cinema.
(Durham: Duke University Press, 2000): 272-296. Print.
Williams, Linda. “Corporealized Observers: Visual Pornographies and the ‘Carnal
Density of Vision.’” In Patrice Petro (ed.), Fugitive Images: From Photography to
Video. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995): 3-41. Print.
149
Troy Bordun -----. “Pornography, Porno, Porn: Thoughts on a Weedy Field.” Porn Studies, 1.1-2
(2014): 24-40. Print.
150
UbuWeb de Kenneth Goldsmith : une archive issue du web de
documents
Par Agnès Peller
C
réé en 1996 par Kenneth Goldsmith, un artiste new-yorkais, UbuWeb
(http://www.ubu.com/) s'est construit par strates. Cette construction évoque
la logique d'une collection singulière, telle une Wunderkammern, ces
inventaires intimes, chambres des merveilles qui précédèrent l'ordonnancement des
musées. L'ancienneté du site UbuWeb dans le paysage des archives en ligne en fait
un poste d'observation privilégié pour évaluer l'histoire des documents numérisés :
l'évolution de leur valeur, de leur mode de fabrication et des conditions de leur
circulation. De plus, aussi singulière que soit l’expérience éditoriale UbuWeb, elle fait
partie d’un ensemble d’archives qui lui est contemporain. Autonome mais non
solitaire, le site est tout entier tissé dans une histoire collective qui regroupe des
chercheurs, éditeurs et artistes nord-américains engagés dans des pratiques
archivistiques proches dont les implications, forgées empiriquement à l'époque du
web 1.0, le web de documents, se consolident aujourd'hui dans le mouvement outillé
des Humanités numériques. Cet ensemble prend la forme d’un réseau intellectuel et
artistique partageant des activités et des buts communs dont le centre de gravité est
le courant Language, une pratique de la poésie contemporaine. Utilisant notamment
des techniques de remploi, de déplacement et de réécriture, cette pratique produit
des œuvres et des textes mais aussi des archives en ligne dédiées à la préservation
des traces de son activité. Enfin, l’épaisseur historique d’UbuWeb permet de retracer
comment une collection singulière et en partie hors-la-loi, puisque rassemblée sans
tenir compte des droits d’auteur, a pu devenir une archive de référence qualifiée et
acquérir son autorité. Nous verrons à ce titre le cas problématique de sa collection
de films.
Concernant l’histoire du courant artistique dans lequel s’inscrit le créateur d’UbuWeb
Kenneth Goldsmith, nous y repérons trois générations dont les passages de relais
restent visibles à l’intérieur des archives qu’elles produisent : Collaboration,
compagnonnage, transmission ; nous décrivons ici à grands traits le panorama
archivistique qui en atteste. Le courant artistique Language est né en Amérique du
151
UbuWeb de Kenneth Goldsmith
Agnès Peller
Nord sur les brisées de l'engagement critique d'une génération à la fin des années
soixante-dix ; « Contemporain du marasme idéologique des années Reagan, ce
tournant relance la veine protestataire de la poésie américaine, par la mise en
évidence de l’idéologique qui sous-tend tous les types d’énoncés. »1 La poésie n'est
plus considérée comme un genre littéraire mais devient plutôt un espace où
expérimenter, interroger les catégories, déplacer les désignations pour voir ce qui
résiste.
Chef de file de la première génération du courant, Charles Bernstein, fut le rédacteur
en chef de la revue L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, qui, à partir de l'année 1978, fut l'un des
premiers lieux d'expression des Language Poets. Bernstein est aussi à l’origine,
avec Al Filreis, de l’archive en ligne Pennsound
(http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/) à laquelle Goldsmith participe à l’Université de
Pennsylvanie. Un immense corpus autour de la poésie et des pratiques littéraires est
rassemblé sur ce site, avec une vision historique (par la mise en ligne de documents
anciens) et une fenêtre sur le foisonnement contemporain (avec l'enregistrement
d'événements, de discussions, d'essais et de lectures). De cette première génération
expérimentant les conditions concrètes de production du langage est issue
également Johanna Drucker, dont l’archive Artists' Books Online recueille une
histoire indexée des livres d'artistes (http://www.artistsbooksonline.org/).
Les membres de la génération suivante dont fait partie Goldsmith, tous nés dans les
années soixante, se sont particulièrement investis dans la préservation des traces
éditoriales de leurs aînés. Artistes mais aussi théoriciens, éditeurs et enseignants,
les membres de ce groupe se fédèrent autour de ce qu’ils nomment le Conceptual
Writing, « une description fourre-tout » selon Darren Wershler, « qui rassemble des
techniques d'écriture variées utilisées par des gens intéressés par l'impact des
médias numériques en réseau sur le processus créatif, la fonction sociale de
1
Hélène Aji, « Politique de la nouvelle phrase, quel engagement pour les Language
Poets ? » Transaltantica : Revue d'études américaines 1 : l'Amérique militante (janvier-juillet
2008). Web, consulté le 21 mai 2015 <http://transatlantica.revues.org/3733>
152
Agnès Peller
l'auteur, et l'économie de l’édition. »2 Dans sa définition du Conceptual Writing,
Wershler mentionne notamment Day (Goldsmith, 2003), une œuvre qui, en
réutilisant indifféremment toute la matière écrite contenue dans un exemplaire du
New York Times sous la forme d’un livre, expérimente les conditions techniques de
production d’énoncés et intègre les possibilités de transformation des textes alors
même que le remploi en est à la source. Il en va ainsi pour les archives bâties par
les membres du groupe, utilisant à plein les capacités du web pour exploiter les
ressources informationnelles des documents numérisés.
Parmi eux, Craig Dworkin a créé, par exemple, l'archive Eclipse
(www.eclipsearchive.org), motivée par la sauvegarde d’un corpus de revues fragiles
lié à l'écriture expérimentale américaine des vingt-cinq dernières années et dont la
disparition progressive était crainte (e.g. la revue L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E présentée à
la fois sous la forme de fac-similés et de fichiers PDF prêts à être téléchargés ou
imprimés). Parallèlement, Wershler s’est consacré, avec Lori Emerson, au poète
canadien bpNichol (www.bpnichol.ca), et s’est investi dans Spoken Web
(http://spokenweb.concordia.ca/), une histoire de la littérature orale sur la poésie en
Amérique du Nord entre 1966 et 1974 (Beat, Black Mountain Poets, bpNichol, etc.).
Enfin une archive plus récente, Reissues (http://jacket2.org/reissues) de Danny
Snelson, met en ligne, cette fois-ci en haute définition, des collections complètes de
revues de poésie et des publications au format singulier. On y retrouve aussi bien la
revue Secession pour les années 1920 que des revues Language comme
M/E/A/N/I/N/G, et des publications telles In-folio (1986-1991) de Ted Raworth ou
Alcheringa (1970-1980) le journal de l'ethnopoésie de Jerome Rothenberg et Dennis
Tedlock. Snelson, qui s'est formé en partie en éditant UbuWeb, Eclipse et
Pennsound auprès de Dworkin et Goldsmith, représente la troisième génération des
archivistes du courant Language.
2
Darren Wershler, « Conceptual Writing as Fanfiction » in Fic: Why Fanfiction Is Taking
Over the World. Ed. Anne Jamison. Dallas : BenBella Books, 2013, p. 364.
« In more general terms, conceptual writing is a catch-all description for a mixed bag of
writing techniques used by people who are interested in the impact of networked digital
media on the creative process, the social function of authorship, and the economy of
publishing. »
153
Agnès Peller
Snelson a notamment analysé l'histoire de l'archive Eclipse à partir de ses traces
sédimentées dans Internet Archive, dont le moteur Wayback3 permet de remonter
dans l’historique des sites jusqu'en 1996.4 Cet exemple met aussi en évidence un
réseau de compétences qui se crée à mesure que le médium internet comme lieu
d'édition et de préservation se spécialise, apprend de ses erreurs et se qualifie en
fonction de ses contributeurs. Il rend compte de l’évolution des formats et des
conditions techniques et esthétiques de création qui y impriment leurs marques
formelles et cognitives.
Un travail théorique réflexif collectif est en cours. En étudiant les conditions de la
pérennisation des archives en ligne, avec l’intention de les rendre solidement
héritières de la longue tradition archivistique, Drucker est devenue une des figures
importantes des Humanités numériques. Dans SpecLab: Digital Aesthetics and
Projects in Speculative Computing, elle décrit la mise en oeuvre de modèles
d'indexation, de conservation et de participation permis par les outils numériques et
les ressources éditoriales du web. C’est cet aspect des Humanités numériques que
nous retenons ici. Si UbuWeb semble s’y opposer dans un premier temps en
souhaitant rester un objet sauvage qui n’établit aucune stratégie d’indexation ni de
conservation, sa longévité et son implication créative dans l’utilisation des
documents numérisés en font malgré tout un acteur singulier de ce mouvement.
Comme les autres archives issues du courant Language, UbuWeb se consacre
aussi à la poésie, mais rassemble plus largement des documents variés autour des
pratiques expérimentales et des diverses avant-gardes artistiques. Sur UbuWeb, un
document peut être un texte, un fichier sonore ou encore un fichier audio-visuel.
Dans l’article « The Bride Stripped Bare: Nude Media and the Dematerialization of
Tony Curtis »5 (La mariée mise à nue: le média nu et la dématérialisation de Tony
Curtis), Goldsmith expose le concept de Nude Media (le média nu). Ainsi sont
3
Moteur de recherche Wayback sur Internet Archive. Web, consulté le 21 mai 2015
<http://archive.org/web/>
4
Danny Snelson, « Archival Penumbra. » Eclipse. Mars - avril 2013. Web, consulté le 21
mai 2015 <http://eclipsearchive.org/Editor/SnelsonPenumbra.pdf>
5
Kenneth Goldsmith, “The Bride Stripped Bare: Nude Media and the Dematerialization of
Tony Curtis, New Media Poetics : Contexts, Technologies, and Theories. Eds. Adalaide
Morris et Thomas Swiss. Cambridge : MIT Press, 2006. pp. 49-64.
154
Agnès Peller
désignés les fichiers arrachés au contexte qui leur conférait leur autorité et leur sens
et qui transitent ainsi « défroqués » à travers les systèmes d'échanges de fichiers
pour se distribuer dans des collections nouvelles. Mais avant même cette collecte
d’un nouveau genre permise par l’expérience du p2p, Goldsmith a pu numériser sa
propre collection de documents analogiques consacrés à la poésie concrète. En
effet rappelons nous que si le web a été neuf un jour, ce fut avant tout comme un
lieu d'archivage. Le document y est un artefact numérique et pour le manipuler le
collectionneur devient alors un éditeur.
Ce travail d’éditeur s’exprime de plusieurs façons sur UbuWeb. Le document peut
être entièrement créé pour le site comme c’est le cas pour de nombreux textes,
éditions originales ou rééditions numériques des œuvres Language que nous
pouvons trouver répertoriés sous l’onglet /ubu Editions (http://www.ubu.com/ubu/).
Ou bien, il peut être simplement hébergé et exposé, parfois amélioré dans sa
présentation lorsqu'il s'agit d'un document extérieur, trouvé ou offert. Nous pouvons
citer dans cette catégorie des revues emblématiques de leur époque comme Aspen
Magazine pour les années soixante (http://www.ubu.com/aspen/index.html) ou
encore la pionnière du dadaïsme américain, 291, pour les années dix
(http://www.ubu.com/historical/291/index.html). La curation relève alors du
ravaudage, un arte povera, activité de chiffonnier (selon l'expression de Walter
Benjamin6) rassemblant des ressources documentaires éparses ou négligées pour
leur donner une visibilité et un usage neufs.
Autre élément de la constitution du site, son ancienneté fait que la nature des
documents mis en ligne a suivi le développement du web, expérimentant ainsi ses
ressources au moment même de leur découverte. Ainsi, de 1996 à 1998, Ubuweb
propose uniquement des contenus textuels, à partir de 1998, s’y ajoutent des
contenus audios puis, à partir de 2005, des contenus audio-visuels (par
comparaison le site YouTube a été créé en février 2005). Beaucoup de plaintes
d'éditeurs et d'avocats ont motivé la fermeture de la section audio-visuelle à cette
époque, suivie de sa lente reconstruction sans les contenus incriminés. À cette
6
Walter Benjamin, « Chiffonnier ou poète — le rebut leur importe à tous les deux. » Charles
Baudelaire : Un poète lyrique à l'apogée du capitalisme. Trad. Jean Lacoste. Paris : Payot,
2002 (1974), p. 118.
155
Agnès Peller
période, il est aussi arrivé que les serveurs soient suspendus sans même que les
contenus incriminés soient identifiés.7 Ce sont les technologies d’échanges de
fichiers qui furent surveillées et bridées quelle que fut la promesse de leur usage et
de leur développement au-delà du piratage.8
Au cours de son histoire, UbuWeb a dû adapter son comportement en fonction de sa
visibilité accrue dans l'espace public, à mesure de l’évolution du web, son média et
matériau. L'exemple de la collection de films, contenu particulièrement sensible dans
une telle perspective, en indique les implications pratiques. Le problème du support
audio-visuel peut être pris par deux bords opposés sur UbuWeb. Soit on le
considère du point de vue de l'archivistique, c'est-à-dire comme un gain pour la
préservation : la connaissance d'un film même sous une forme dégradée s'ajoute
alors à ses autres modes de distribution et contribue au rayonnement de l'œuvre et
du cinéaste. Soit on le considère du point de vue de l'édition audio-visuelle
traditionnelle, comme une concurrence déloyale car non assujettie au nécessaire
investissement qui précède à l'établissement de nouvelles copies plus
représentatives des œuvres.
D'après Goldsmith, certains cinéastes, notamment la génération des cinéastes
structurels,9 en raison de leur travail mené sur le médium filmique, estiment leurs
œuvres dévalorisées par les copies pauvres qui transitent sur Ubu et leur retrait est
parfois demandé. Par exemple, les films de Peter Kubelka, héraut du support
argentique, ont été enlevés en raison de ce problème d’infidélité. Notons cependant
que ces cinéastes se rassemblèrent dans les années soixante autour de nouveaux
lieux et fonctionnements tels la Film-makers Cooperative ou la revue Film Culture.
7
Darren Wershler, « UbuWeb and Aggressive Fair Dealing » 2008, non publié.
Voir à ce sujet l’histoire du p2p proposée par Francesca Musiani, Nains sans géants.
Architecture décentralisée et services Internet. Paris : Presses des Mines, Collection
Sciences sociales, 2013.
9
On peut retenir la définition donnée par Raphaël Bassan dans Cinéma expérimental :
Abécédaire pour une contre-culture. Crisnée (Belgique) : Yellow Now, 2014, p. 39 : « Au
début des années 60, quelques artistes, surtout américains (Paul Sharits, Ken Jacobs, Hollis
Frampton, Tony Conrad, Michael Snow et Peter Kubelka), proposent une alternative qui met
en crise la figuration en partant de paramètres filmiques (reproduction en boucle de motifs,
épaississement du grain de la pellicule). Paul Adams Sitney appelle cette "école" : "cinéma
structurel" ».
8
156
Agnès Peller
Autour de Jonas Mekas, ces artistes sont à l’origine d’une archive particulièrement
importante pour l’avant-garde cinématographique : l’Anthology Film Archive
(http://anthologyfilmarchives.org/) fondée à New-York en 1970. La logique de leur
présence sur UbuWeb s’explique aussi par leur importance historique parmi les
avant-gardes que Goldsmith recense.
Outre les inquiétudes liées aux questions de fidélité au matériau d’origine d’une
œuvre, la crainte de la dévalorisation commerciale des œuvres éditées en dvd a
également marqué une étape houleuse dans l’histoire du site. En 2005, par
exemple, UbuWeb fut débranché pendant deux mois suite à une réclamation pour
les films de Bruce Conner10 qui eut pour effet de bloquer l'hébergement universitaire
dont le site bénéficiait à l'époque. Pourtant, les films de Conner furent eux-mêmes
réalisés à partir de films trouvés, ce qui permet de rappeler que les pratiques du
remploi, l’un des champs d'expérimentation fécond des films d'avant-garde,
constituent l’une des sources de la collecte agrégative des matériaux effectuée par
Goldsmith. Les formes du remploi ont des fonctions diverses dans les films
expérimentaux. L'historienne des avant-gardes filmiques Nicole Brenez11 en décrit
les occurrences élégiaques, critiques, structurelles, matériologiques ou analytiques à
travers des exemples dont quelques uns figurent dans la filmographie d'UbuWeb :
des films de Paul Sharits, de Ken Jacobs et de Malcom Le Grice, ou encore les
détournements de René Viénet. Ces derniers sont également cités dans l'un des
écrits théoriques de Goldsmith12 décrivant le tour de force qui consistait à détourner
des films de série B pour soutenir un discours politique revendicatif sur l'exploitation
des femmes et des travailleurs en changeant la bande son. Plusieurs films de Viénet
sont en ligne sur UbuWeb, parmi lesquels La dialectique peut-elle casser des
briques (1973) (Fig. 1) et Les filles de Kamare de 1974 (Fig. 2). L'expérimentation
formelle à partir du remploi est ici un agent de la critique sociale.
Wershler, « UbuWeb », mai 2008, non publié.
Nicole Brenez, « Montage intertextuel et formes contemporaines du remploi dans le
cinéma expérimental. » Cinémas : Revue d'études cinématographiques 13, 1-2 (2002)
Montréal. Web, consulté le 21 mai 2015 <http://www.erudit.org/revue/cine/2002/v13/n12/007956ar.html>
12
Kenneth Goldsmith, Uncreative Writing: Managing Language in the Digital Age. New York:
Colombia University Press, 2011, p. 38.
10
11
157
Agnès Peller
Fig. 1 René Viénet, La dialectique peut-elle casser des briques (1973)
(Source : http://www.ubu.com/film/vienet_dialectics.html)
Fig. 2 René Viénet, Les filles de Kamare (1974)
(Source : http://www.ubu.com/film/vienet_kamare1.html)
158
Agnès Peller
Autre jalon du positionnement d’UbuWeb dans l’espace public, en octobre 2010,
Goldsmith publie une lettre ouverte en réponse aux discussions en ligne d’une
communauté dédiée au cinéma expérimental peu après le hack qui avait fait tomber
le site.13 Dans cette lettre, il répertorie une somme d'évolution et d'arrangements vis
à vis de ceux qui conservent, restaurent, éditent et détiennent les droits
d'exploitation des œuvres. On y apprend par exemple qu’EAI (Electronic Arts
Intermix) a envoyé une liste d'artistes qui refusent de figurer sur UbuWeb. Certains
au contraire le souhaitent, comme Leslie Thornton, Peggy Awesh ou encore Peter
Gidal qui « a senti un intérêt accru autour de son travail de la part des étudiants et
des chercheurs grâce à la possibilité de voir et d'étudier ce qui était indisponible
auparavant. »14 D’autres affirment des approches mixtes, tel Michael Snow qui
autorise seulement deux films. Goldsmith réaffirme ensuite le caractère transitoire et
imparfait du site, et sa vertu éventuelle à provoquer la création d'archives en ligne
mieux documentées, de meilleure qualité, et répondant à des critères plus précis :
Vous avez les outils, les ressources, les œuvres, et la connaissance pour
le faire mieux que je ne le fais. Ubu a grandi de manière organique (nous
le faisons car nous pouvons le faire) et je ne suis clairement pas la bonne
personne pour représenter le cinéma expérimental.15
Sur UbuWeb, la filmographie s'offre à partir d'une liste alphabétique d'auteurs (Fig.
3). La liste ne contient pas seulement des cinéastes, mais aussi des plasticiens, des
compositeurs ou des intellectuels. On peut cependant sérier la collection de films en
deux grands corpus : « Les films de », et « les films sur » ; mais tous sont
accessibles par la même entrée du nom classé par ordre alphabétique, taxinomie
qui a pour effet de redistribuer le statut des films proposés dans cet ensemble.
13
Kenneth Goldsmith, « An Open Letter to the Frameworks Community. » UbuWeb. 18
octobre 2010. Web, consulté le 21 mai 2015
<http://www.ubu.com/resources/frameworks.html>
14
« [Peter Gidal] felt there was a big uptick from students and scholars by virtue of being
able to see and study that which was unavailable before. » Ibid.
15
« You have the tools, the resources, the artwork and the knowledge base to do it so much
better that I'm doing it. I fell into this as Ubu as grown organically (we do it because we can)
and am clearly not the best person to be representing experimental cinema. » Ibid.
159
Agnès Peller
Fig. 3 Extrait de la liste alphabétique de la filmographie d'UbuWeb
(Source : http://www.ubu.com/film/)
L'œuvre comme document
Contrairement aux éditions textuelles, on ne trouve ici aucune édition nouvelle : la
collection est constituée par trouvailles, en récupérant les « nude medias » de
provenances diverses, avec le principe d'agréger une somme de documents en
fonction de ce qui est disponible, d'une manière imparfaite, incomplète, parfois
transitoire. En ce sens, il n'y a plus d'œuvres mais des documents. Le passage de
l'œuvre au document permet de prétendre désengager les ressources de leur verrou
juridique.
Selon UbuWeb, si les droits des films et des documentaires étaient demandés pour
chaque mise en ligne, l'archive n'existerait tout simplement pas. Sa vitalité vient en
grande en partie de son mode de constitution. Le site se revendique de la gift
economy (économie du don) : on n'y paie rien et on n'y vend rien. Il s'appuie sur la
disposition gracieuse des sources, des compétences et des moyens techniques. On
peut souligner ici comment la « gift economy » du web 1.0 des éditeurs pionniers du
web de documents, avec l'exemple d'une expérience radicale de distribution comme
UbuWeb, trouve une correspondance aujourd'hui avec le travail gratuit (free digital
labor16) des usagers du web 2.0 donnant de la valeur aux services vénaux qui
établissent le maillage de l'espace public dans le web de données contemporain.
En effet, la zone grise expérimentale du premier web a, depuis lors, rejoint des
usages de plus en plus normés et surveillés, au milieu desquels une archive
constituée sans la permission des ayant-droits a pu devenir un exemple alors que
16
Trebor Scholz, ed., Digital Labor: The Internet as Playground and Factory, New York :
Routledge, 2013.
160
Agnès Peller
s’ouvraient de nouveaux enjeux pour le partage des documents et des
connaissances. Comment, finalement, une archive pirate devient-elle une ressource
qualifiée et utilisée dans le milieu éducatif ? Entre autres, il y eut des étapes et des
aménagements comme nous l’avons vu pour la collection de films. Les règles de
l’espace public sont en négociation constante et elles ont été bouleversées par une
mutation massive des supports d’inscription et de distribution. En devenant, au cours
de ces bientôt deux décennies d'existence, une archive documentaire largement
consultée, UbuWeb est bien une proposition d'usage qui participe à créer un sillon,
comme celui ouvert en leur temps par les lieux alternatifs du cinéma tel l’Anthology
Film Archive en 1970. L’enjeu de cette proposition d'usage est de mettre en œuvre,
dans un paradigme neuf, sa propre forme de militantisme pour l'ouverture et la
circulation des documents. À l'échelle de l'espace public, il s'agit de maintenir en
circulation une masse significative de documents, disponibles pour l'étude, mais
aussi pour la contemplation, les échanges et les débats, ou encore, comme une
forme possible d'appropriation culturelle. Si l’exposition et la mise en valeur des
documents mis en ligne sur UbuWeb rendent compte des pratiques artistiques et
éditoriales de leur collectionneur, le statut d’archiviste de Kenneth Goldsmith reste
relié aux strates de l’histoire du web comme terrains d’expérimentation, et fait écho à
la manière dont les avant-gardes artistiques s’emparent des questions de leur temps
pour en éprouver les contours.
Agnès Peller a complété un master recherche Cinéma et audiovisuel de l’Université
de Paris 3 – Sorbonne Nouvelle. Cet article est issu du mémoire de recherche de
l’auteure : « UbuWeb de Kenneth Goldsmith, un geste artistique dans les Humanités
numériques » (“Kenneth Goldsmith’s UbuWeb: An Artist’s Contribution to the Digital
Humanities”).
161
Agnès Peller
Références
Aji, Hélène. « Politique de la nouvelle phrase, quel engagement pour les Language
Poets ? » Transaltantica : Revue d'études américaines, 1 : l'Amérique
militante (janvier-juillet 2008). Web. <http://transatlantica.revues.org/3733>
Anthology Film Archives. 2015. Web, consulté le 21 mai 2015
<http://anthologyfilmarchives.org/>
Artist’s Books Online. Web, consulté le 21 mai 2015
<http://www.artistsbooksonline.org/>
Bassan, Raphaël. Cinéma expérimental : Abécédaire pour une contre-culture.
Crisnée (Belgique) : Éditions Yellow Now, 2014.
Benjamin, Walter. Charles Baudelaire : Un poète lyrique à l'apogée du capitalisme.
Trad. Jean Lacoste. Paris : Payot, 1974.
bpNichol Archive. Web, consulté le 21 mai 2015 <http://www.bpnichol.ca/>
Brenez, Nicole. « Montage intertextuel et formes contemporaines du remploi dans le
cinéma expérimental. » Cinémas : Revue d'études cinématographiques 13, 12 (2002), Montréal. Web, consulté le 21 mai 2015
<http://www.erudit.org/revue/cine/2002/v13/n1-2/007956ar.html>
D'Alonzo, Claudia et Marco Mancuso. « UbuWeb, archives vidéo à l'ère numérique :
Interview de Kenneth Goldsmith. » MCD : Musique et culture digitale n° 68,
La culture du libre / The Open Future (2012): 30-33.
Drucker, Johanna. SpecLab: Digital Aesthetics and Projects in Speculative
Computing. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2009.
-----. The Century of Artists’ Books. New York : Granary Books, 1995.
Dworkin, Craig. Language to Cover a Page: The Early Writings of Vito Acconci.
Cambridge : MIT Press, 2006.
-----. No Medium. Cambridge : MIT Press, 2013.
Dworkin, Craig et Kenneth Goldsmith, eds. Against Expression: An Anthology of
Conceptual Writing. Evanston : Northwestern University Press, 2011.
Eclipse Archive. Web, consulté le 21 mai 2015 <http://www.eclipsearchive.org/>
Emerson, Lori. Reading Writing Interfaces: From the Digital to the Bookbound.
Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 2014.
Emerson, Lori et Barbara Cole, eds. Kenneth Goldsmith and Conceptual Poetics.
Strathroy : Open Letter, 2005.
162
Agnès Peller
Emerson, Lori et Darren Wershler, eds. The Alphabet Game: a bpNichol Reader.
Toronto : Coach House Books, 2007.
Goldsmith, Kenneth. « An Open Letter to the Frameworks Community. » UbuWeb.
18 octobre 2010. Web, consulté le 21 mai 2015
<http://www.ubu.com/resources/frameworks.html>
-----. Day. Great Barrington / Berkeley : The Figures, 2003.
-----. Fidget. Toronto : Coach House Books, 2000.
-----. « Je ne me tourne vers la théorie qu'après avoir réalisé que quelqu'un a
consacré toute sa vie à une question qui m'avait à peine traversé l'esprit
jusqu'alors. » Trad. Nicolas Garait. Ed. Mathieu Copeland. Paris : Galerie
nationale du Jeu de Paume, 2013. [Édition bilingue fr/eng.]
-----. « The Bride Stripped Bare: Nude Media and the Dematerialization of Tony
Curtis. » New Media Poetics : Contexts, Technotexts, and Theories. Eds.
Adalaide Morris et Thomas Swiss, 49-64. Cambridge : MIT Press, 2006.
-----. Theory. Paris : Jean Boite Editions, 2015.
-----. Uncreative Writing: Managing Language in the Digital Age. New York :
Columbia University Press, 2011.
Internet Archive. 2015. Web, consulté le 21 mai 2015 <http://archive.org/web/>
Musiani, Francesca. Nains sans géants : Architecture décentralisée et services
Internet. Paris : Presses des Mines, Collection Sciences sociales, 2013.
Pennsound, Université de Pennsylvanie. Web, consulté le 21 mai 2015
<http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/>
Reissues : Inventory of digitized magazines. Web, consulté le 21 mai 2015
<http://jacket2.org/reissues>
Scholz, Trebor, ed. Digital Labor: The Internet as Playground and Factory. New York
: Routledge, 2013.
Snelson, Danny. « Archival Penumbra. » Eclipse. Mars - avril 2013. Web, consulté le
21 mai 2015 <http://eclipsearchive.org/Editor/SnelsonPenumbra.pdf>
Spoken Web, Université Concordia. Web, consulté le 21 mai 2015
<http://spokenweb.concordia.ca/>
UbuWeb. Web, consulté le 21 mai 2015 <http://www.ubu.com/>
Wershler, Darren. « Conceptual Writing as Fanfiction. » Fic: Why Fanfiction Is
Taking Over the World. Ed. Anne Jamison, 333-375. Dallas : BenBella Books,
2013.
163
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-----. Free as in Speech and Beer: Open Source, Peer-to-Peer and the Economics of
the Online Revolution. Toronto : Prentice Hall, 2002.
-----. The Iron Whim: A Fragmented History of Typewriting. Ithaca : Cornell University
Press, 2007.
-----. « UbuWeb and Aggressive Fair Dealing. » Mai 2008. Non publié, texte confié
par l'auteur.
164
Interview with Rick Prelinger
By Sophie Cook, Beatriz Bartolomé Herrera and Papagena Robbins
Rick Prelinger wears many hats: he is an archivist and an activist, a writer and a
filmmaker; he has preserved the eccentricities and banalities of American cultural
heritage and projected them back to the world via both Open Access digital repositories
and carefully curated programs of ephemeral and orphaned films. He is perhaps best
known as the founder of the Prelinger Archives, a collection of about 60,000 industrial,
advertising, educational, and amateur films, which encourage and facilitate not only
preservation, but appropriation by allowing free access, downloading and reuse of its
materials. Prelinger founded the archive in 1982 in New York, and the original collection
was acquired by the Library of Congress in 2002. As a board member of the Internet
Archive, he has made over 6,000 of these films available for free online. He also cofounded an appropriation-friendly workshop, the Prelinger Library, with Megan Shaw
Prelinger, in San Francisco in 2004. The library houses an unusual collection of 19th and
20th century American vintage ephemera, periodicals, maps, and books; and—along
with the Prelinger Archives—it has become an important research and reference center
for those interested in vernacular American history. His passion as a collector has led to
the production of several archival compilation films, including 2004’s Panorama
Ephemera and 2013’s No More Road Trips?, as well as several multi-part film
programs—Lost Landscapes of San Francisco (2006-2015), Lost Landscapes of Detroit
(2010-2012), Yesterday and Tomorrow in Detroit (2014 and 2015), Lost Landscapes of
Oakland (2014), and the forthcoming, Lost Landscapes of Los Angeles (2015).
Prelinger has been a tireless advocate of open access practices, fighting to make
cultural and intellectual property universally and freely available to the public, and (with
Brewster Kahle and Internet Archive) helped to organize the Open Content Alliance. For
this special issue Sophie Cook, Beatriz Bartolomé Herrera, and Papagena Robbins
reached Prelinger virtually to talk about his work, bridging the distance between
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Interview with Rick Prelinger
Cook, Bartolomé Hererra and Robbins
Montreal, Quebec, and Santa Cruz, California, where he currently works as an
Associate Professor of Film and Digital Media at the University of California.
Sophie Cook, Beatriz Bartolomé Herrera & Papagena Robbins: How did you get
started in collecting moving image materials and ephemera? What did you do before?
What ideas influenced you in the early 1980s when you started your collection?
Rick Prelinger: Even in childhood I was interested in the physicality of film. In seventh
grade I projected The Mouse that Roared (1959) for a benefit in the school gym. The
film broke, and I grabbed a foot or so of the damaged 16mm Technicolor print. The tiny
images fascinated me -- each bright and saturated, differing by a miniscule degree from
the one preceding it, bordered by the sharp squiggles of the soundtrack. The next year
we all wrote short plays in English class. Mine was called "Acetate." Its setting was a
movie shoot piloted by an autocratic director (even then, I knew directors were control
freaks), who alienated cast and crew as snafus piled up and the production got out of
hand. As the film and the play ended in a huge explosion, a crewmember addressed the
audience. "They used nitrate film. They should have used acetate." I wasn't especially
interested in movie production, but somewhere I'd heard about the flammability of
nitrate film and written a play about it.
And as a college student I'd go to the local office of Audio Brandon Films, a distributor of
16mm documentary, art and international films, and ask for scrap footage cut out of
rental prints. I used some material for found footage films I made and gave the rest to
friends.
As a young person I was mesmerized by the historical documentaries on television. I
tried not to miss CBS's Twentieth Century with Walter Cronkite, though almost all the
episodes were about wars and disasters. The raw footage and the theatricality of the
newsreels and documentaries from which the series drew was fascinating, and I
resented the editor's hand; I wanted to see the source material in its entirety. When I
166 Interview with Rick Prelinger
fled New England to attend UC Berkeley, I quickly discovered the Pacific Film Archive,
and within a few months was caught up in the classic cinephilia syndrome characteristic
of the early 1970s: taking film classes, reading film history and theory, watching three or
four films a day and keeping a detailed record of what I saw and thought. For a time
everything I thought seemed to filter through a cinematic prism. While the 1970s
ferment in film studies didn't focus on archives, my mentor Bertrand Augst (a professor
of comparative literature whose interests had shifted to cinema) taught me to think of
films not as seamlessly knit, self-contained narratives but as loose assemblies of
semiautonomous segments. This may well have created the preconditions for my
thinking of films as spines on which images and sounds hang, waiting for reuse.
But I had gone to college too early, and needed to catch up with life. So I dropped out
and became a typesetter, working on advertising, mail order catalogs and the
occasional book. Ultimately I returned to college, participated in film and cultural theory
study groups, got swept up in the punk movement, and almost graduated.
I moved to New York City in 1980, hoping to work as a crewmember in feature film
production. This effort was unsuccessful, but as it turned out my housemates were
working on an archival documentary called The Atomic Café (1982). One of a number of
significant non-narrated documentaries of the late 1970s and early 1980s that may have
influenced the postmodern turn in nonfiction film, it achieved great success, and after its
release the producer Norman Lear funded Pierce Rafferty and Obie Benz to make a film
entitled Heavy Petting (1989), an archival documentary on sexuality and romance in the
post-World War II period. I was hired as Director of Research, supervising 16 film
researchers who plumbed archives all over North America. My particular field of interest
was the films produced to construct well-behaved, patriotic, consuming and compliant
subjects after World War II, and I compiled a list of hundreds of possible sources where
these films might be. After some time the film went into turnaround and work ceased,
but I continued to track down films for what had become my own collection.
Figure 1 The Atomic Café
My collecting at that time was somnambulistic rather than mission-driven. The mixture
of didacticism, evidence and emotional power embodied in these films convinced me
they were important to collect, but it took me a few years to develop a communicable
rationale for this project. Learning that many of these films were rare or no longer
extant, and realizing that there were only two or three others collecting educational and
sponsored film material also contributed to my sense of urgency. In 1986 I was
introduced to Bob Stein, co-founder of The Voyager Company, a pioneering interactive
multimedia producer that invented, among other things, the Laserdisc supplement
(which became the DVD supplement). Conversations with Bob helped me realize that I
was really practicing public history, and our talks ultimately led to the production of
fifteen interactive anthologies of films and collateral material in Laserdisc and CD-ROM
formats. In 1987 I started doing public screenings and image-based lectures around the
US and elsewhere, and public reaction also helped me elaborate my perspectives on
the importance of these films.
Film gave way to videotape during a long moment of platform transition in the 1980s.
Actually this transition is still in process in the archival space, but it's forked: both film
and videotape are now giving way to files, and a mad orgy of digitization and
reformatting that, despite the assurances of custodians, may one day lead to the
disposal of many original materials is currently in progress. Film's first wave of
obsolescence beginning roughly in the early 1980s freed up release prints, preprint
materials, outtakes, original elements, and I was quite often given what I asked for.
The combination of these three activities—sleuthing, vernacular public history practice
and media transition—coalesced into collecting on a fast and massive scale. By the
early 1990s the collection totaled over 100,000 items (including some 60,000 edited
films), and by the time of its acquisition by the Library of Congress there were over
200,000 distinct cans/reels in the archives.
SC, BBH & PR: The Library of Congress acquired a significant part of your ephemeral
film collection in 2002. How did this move affect the public perception and value of the
Prelinger film collection? What role have institutional archives played in the preservation
and distribution of ephemeral films? Have institutional archives adapted well to the
current economies of digital distribution and sharing?
RP: The Library of Congress acquisition was a great legitimization event for the
Prelinger film collection, and confirmed the combined efforts of many others to move
ephemeral film material from the cultural periphery towards the center. Within a few
years after our collection came to the Library, they also acquired the majority of film
holdings from the American Archives of the Factual Film at Iowa State University,
including some unique material; and the large, diverse collection of ephemeral films,
television programs, TV news and broadcast advertising assembled by J. Fred
MacDonald between the 1970s and early 2000s. In combination with other collections
already at the Library, these materials contributed to growing a critical mass of material
for researchers, scholars, producers and (hopefully at some future time) online users.
While the Library's acquisition is of immense symbolic importance, I believe our decision
to make thousands of films available freely online through Internet Archive has more
dramatically affected the public perception of the collection's value. Since Internet
Archive respects user privacy by not retaining logs, I can only offer approximate metrics,
but I'm confident there have been over 100 million downloads and views through
Internet Archive and other sites that mirror our films, and an uncountable number of
derivative works in many media. The Library of Congress has not been in a position to
afford greater access to their moving image collections through mass digitization,
though I believe it will be in the future. I hope that it will ultimately become a major
distribution node for orphaned and public domain films.
Outside of a few distinguished efforts, and I speak principally of the National Film
Preservation Foundation in the US, institutional archives have not yet led in this area.
The National Film Preservation Foundation has enabled the preservation of over 2,223
"historically and culturally significant films", many of which fall under the rubric of
ephemeral film. Reading the National Film Preservation Foundation's list of preserved
titles is at once highly gratifying and a bit of a tease. There is relatively little public
access to most titles; you can't download most of them to project at home or school, and
you can't grab the footage to reuse in your own work. While I believe this situation will
likely evolve as generational succession and friendlier technologies bring about greater
openness within the contributing archives, each film on the list brings to mind countless
others as yet unpreserved. Perhaps we'll see a broad-based campaign to digitize
orphaned and out-of-copyright works (to say nothing of in-copyright works with little or
no commercial value) and make them fully accessible online, but I doubt such a project
is happening any time soon.
Innovation tends to happen most dramatically not at the center, but at the periphery.
Regional archives, specialized collections and private collectors are typically nimbler,
more imaginative and less constrained than major national-level institutions. In the field
of ephemeral films, smaller entities have done the most to propagate these documents
in the world. They are much less wary of the digital turn and often hold less strict
constructionist views on copyright. I’m sure major institutions will come closer to
opening up their holdings, but I have no idea what the context of archival openness will
be in years to come. It is hard to predict in what direction copyright law and everyday
copyright practice will evolve; there are indications both of Draconian tightening (see the
drafts of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty) and relative loosening (see the
series of publications on Best Practices in Fair Use published by American University).
We may be moving towards an online distribution ecosystem that is more heavily based
on permissions mediated through electronic enclosure, and in such a framework we
don't know what archival openness may mean.
To speak of the evolving public perceptions and value of the Prelinger collection is to
describe a process not unlike what has occurred with cult and genre film and television.
Over time, our materials have transitioned from oddity status to cultural materials of
recognized value in what constitutes a kind of move from the cultural periphery closer to
its center. I sometimes speak of the growing public, scholarly and archival acceptance
of ephemeral films as a kind of gentrification. I've previously advanced one provisional,
if schematic summary of the trajectories of this "gentrifying" process:
1. The 1976 (U.S.) Copyright Act, taking effect on 1 January 1978, dramatically
increases public consciousness of copyright and the public domain. Producers
and artists begin to plumb repositories for collectible and usable public domain
films (1978-present);
2. Films of evidentiary value emerge as cultish alternatives to conventionally
accepted cinema genres (1970s-1980s) and are included in such films as The
Atomic Café (1982);
3. Underground fans and scouts delight in the recontextualization (and
détournement) of works once produced to persuade along very specific lines;
films and clips appear on USA Network's Night Flight (1981-88), on Nickelodeon
and within MTV's on-air promos (ca. 1981-ca. 1987);
4. Ephemeral films make their way into the stock footage market; a handful of stock
footage companies (Archive Films, Streamline Film Archives, Prelinger Archives,
MacDonald & Associates) take on task of collecting and disseminating them
(1979-present);
5. Historians and social scientists (before cinema and media scholars) begin to
work with these materials (mid-1980s);
6. I publish Laserdiscs and CD-ROM anthologies (1986-97);
7. Ephemeral films conditionally embraced by cinema scholars as legitimate
research objects after much delay (early 1990s);
8. Dismissal of “representational transparency” as an attribute of ephemeral films
gives way to more functional and representational analyses of “how they work”
(ca. 2000-present);
9. Highly-curated DVD releases occur (AV Geeks, National Film Preservation
Foundation, Other Cinema) (1990s)
10. Orphan Film Symposium legitimizes these and other genres (1999-present);
11. NYU Cinema Studies class on sponsored films (2007), taught by Anna McCarthy
and Dan Streible;
12. Today: these formerly cultish and “counter-hegemonic” films become privileged
objects of study; over 400,000 itching to be analyzed; new research careers
await outside the overcrowded fields of fiction film and television. The Canadian
Educational, Sponsored, and Industrial Film Archive, a research group led by
Concordia's Charles Acland, begins to build its database in the 2010s (see
http://www.screenculture.org/cesif/); similar efforts are under discussion in the
United States.
SC, BBH & PR: You mentioned in an interview with Katie Bennett that since relocating
from New York to San Francisco, you’ve moved from collecting mostly industrial and
advertising films to collecting personal films and home movies. Why this switch? As a
filmmaker who appropriates and re-uses home movies, what is it like to work with
footage that, more often than not, was not meant to be seen by anyone outside a small
circle of family and friends?
RP: I mostly "termed out" on educational and sponsored films after the Library of
Congress acquisition in 2002, three years after I moved to San Francisco. While I still
find many of them fascinating, and while I still collect sponsored films of special merit
(e.g., films produced by AT&T/Bell System; electronics and technology companies;
silent-era advertising and industrial films; 35mm prints of sponsored films) I found
myself focusing on amateur and home movies by the middle of the first decade of the
new century. Since 2006 I've collected an estimated 13,000 home movies, all on film.
(My bias towards film shouldn't be read as a judgment on or dismissal of home video;
it's just that collecting video requires collecting equipment and committing to constant
reformatting and migration, something I don't have the bandwidth or budget to do.) The
home movie collection is quite dynamic and encompasses a broad breadth of
experience as documented by North American vernacular filmmakers.
Why home movies? I am often asked this question, and find I can only answer it
provisionally. Home movies embody many dramatic and fascinating contradictions.
They are ubiquitous and were produced in great numbers, but almost every home
movie exists as a single unique copy; no two are alike. They are infinitely repetitive, but
infinitely variable as well. They're rich in evidentiary data, constituting detailed
documentation of the contours, events and design of everyday life, but they are all too
often poorly made and photographed. They are full of often agonizingly explicit detail,
but frequently enigmatic. Premeditation and chance often collide. But above all they are
unpredictable, surprising, full of warmth (and distance) and, I think, far tastier and more
actionable than their feature counterparts.
I am trying to assemble as complete a picture as possible of daily life, culture, industry
and ceremony in the 20th century. Home movies afford an ethnographic documentation
opportunity of great import, and I aim to create a large collection and will do my best to
assure its survival. While home movies have been popular with artists, documentary
makers and collagists and while their vernacular is now an accepted component of the
familiar representational landscape, we are only beginning to understand how they
work, how they produce meaning, what they can and cannot record, and how we might
use them.
While home movies were generally not made to be shown publicly, I frequently show
them to large audiences. For me the importance of staging encounters between
contemporary audiences and personal historical materials outweighs theoretical
considerations of privacy, especially when the events shown in the films do not seem
terribly private. This is no doubt presumption on my part, and in order to live with what I
do I have often made decisions not to share certain films online, include them in public
screenings or make them part of my films. Some choices are fairly obvious, others more
subtle. Families or lovers sometimes shoot one another in intimate (not necessarily
sexually explicit) contexts, and some images seem too private to share. In a few
instances I have felt that certain films are most properly exhibited within and to
communities associated with them before they're injected into the scrum of the Internet.
Issues of privilege and respect for cultural and spiritual sensitivities also arise. In my
2013 film No More Road Trips?, I chose not to include images of Native people (or
possibly white people dressed in Native-derived costumes) performing dances and
ceremonies for public viewing, as has happened throughout the Western United States
subsequent to the displacement and extermination of Native populations. While such
images are part of the historical tourism experience, I didn't feel as if this aspect of the
experience was mine to document, especially if I were to use offensive or insulting
images. Similarly, I chose not to include racially stereotypical footage of African
Americans that had been shot by white people. I felt that these images were also
insensitive and insulting, that most audiences were already familiar with them, and that I
did not have standing to use them even in a deconstructive or critical manner. Instead I
included a title at the end of the film welcoming collaboration with Native or African
American artists or scholars who might seek to work with them.
To position oneself as a filmmaker is to assert certain privileges, and it's important to
consider what privileges are embedded in the reuse of images created by others,
whether inside or outside of a market context.
Figure 2 No More Road Trips?
SC, BBH & PR: By asking your audience to ”be the soundtrack” in the spirit of “the
Elizabethan Theatre, a boxing match, or question time at the House of Commons,” you
have chosen a unique strategy for engaging your spectators in your Lost Landscapes
(2006-present) and No More Road Trips? (2013) live archival screening events.
Because much of what you present on-screen at these events is silent home movie
footage, audiences have ample opportunity to participate. How does the invocation of
these particular modes of interactive spectatorship influence the way your audience
experiences the archival material? How does it influence the way they experience
history?
RP: Many experiences have come together into my decision to turn film screenings into
participatory events. I first did an audience-participation screening in 1991, in Britton,
South Dakota, where I showed Ivan Besse's films of the town in 1938-39 to an audience
(many of whom appeared in the films as children) in the theater where they first were
shown days after being shot. I'd been at screenings where spectators played an active
role and talked back to the screen, notably in downtown Brooklyn and Times Square,
but vocal engagement wasn't something one expected from senior audiences in
heartland America, especially when I hadn't solicited it. In this case localism was the
critical link: rediscovery and recognition of familiar places and faces, and the presence
in the audience of people who appeared in the films or their kin. In fact my current tenyear-long run of "interactive" events took the lead from the audience for my first Lost
Landscapes show in San Francisco in December 2006, when viewers responded more
volubly than I would ever have imagined. This event was originally planned as a
"passive" screening, and in fact my partner Megan had selected music to run in the
background. Led by a noisy group of local historians, the audience spoke often and
loudly, and I realized that the event had found its own form. It turned into an annual
screening with a ceremonial character (I describe it as the "new Nutcracker"), and as
the audiences expanded from 90 to 1400 people, hearing the audience's voices seemed
ever more important.
Figure 3 Lost Landscapes of San Francisco
There are some obvious conclusions. The attraction of these shows recalls the allure of
rephotography, the juxtaposition of views of the same place made at different times.
Both the pleasurable shock of dissociation occasioned by the defamiliarization of a
known scene and the memory triggers of places previously lived in draw in audiences.
Change in scale, though infrequently discussed, is also key to a form of spectatorship
that diverges from normal moviegoing. When you take a film made for projection in a
fairly close domestic environment, such as a living room, and enlarge it to the scale of a
large theater, new details engage viewers who might otherwise not notice them. I
contend that the scale change enables viewers to assume new roles, such as
ethnographers concerned with deciphering kinship relations, kinesics (in the manner,
let's say, of Ray Birdwhistell's 1969 film Microcultural Incidents at Ten Zoos) and
configurations of material culture; cultural geographers investigating the organization of
human-inhabited landscapes, the appearance and workings of cities, towns and rural
areas; even critical gender and race theorists. The evidence expands from peripheral
content to core topic, and spectators take on new responsibilities. History trades its
traditional academic rarefication for evidence-based populism, though audiences tend
not to tackle complex or divisive topics while assembled for a screening.
I tried to influence No More Road Trips? audiences to address big ideas: to muse and
comment on the question of changing mobilities, "peak travel" and the obsolescence of
the mythical road trip as a route towards self-discovery and personal reemergence. I
also hoped to testify to the historical condition that the road trip was not the same
experience for everyone: while some people traveled as tourists, others migrated under
economic or racial duress, and the landscape that African Americans navigated was not
the same territory that white people experienced. Generally this has not happened,
though often audiences return to these large questions in the post-film Q&A. I made No
More Road Trips? to function as participatory cinema, but several dozen screenings
have made me realize that it might work as well or even better as contemplative
cinema. The corollary realization is that perhaps there is little difference between
contemplative and participatory cinemas aside from the particulars of the contract
between maker and audience. Could we productively talk our way through films by
Chantal Akerman or James Benning (and do we, if we're not in a room full of
disapproving cinephiles)? This would be audience transgression at its best, and in fact
my No More Road Trips? audiences are as influenced by transgressive motives as the
wildly verbal Lost Landscapes crowds. Sometimes the excitement of making noise in
the movies outweighs (or transcends) whatever specific goals the maker might aspire
towards: permission is granted the audience, they eagerly accept it and run in whatever
direction they choose. So to the extent that we pose the proposition that audience =
soundtrack, the results of the experiment are inconclusive.
While No More Road Trips? hasn't prompted widespread discussion on the end of
automobility, I do view it as an unqualified success in one respect: it successfully
demonstrates an idea voiced most cleanly by the eminent (and maverick) cultural
geographer John Brinckerhoff Jackson: that "landscape is history made visible." I'd
been wanting for years to make a film that proved this assertion, and No More Road
Trips? does.
Figure 4 No More Road Trips?
It and my Lost Landscapes events also invoke, without necessarily resolving, questions
of history, its production and reception; the conflict between problematization and
celebration; the realms and arenas in which historical consciousness is exchanged; and
the flight from conflict. I have previously mentioned "evidence-based populism." While
the role of film in presenting relatively pure evidence is usually disparaged or discounted
because it rests at least partly on the presumption that there is some shred of
unimpeachable truth among the ambiguities and overdeterminations flooding all images,
my films aspire to reclaim some sort of authority for the archival image. When most
spectators have relatively little training or experience in deep viewing (competency in
which is expected of every visitor to a photography gallery or avant-garde/experimental
film screening) I consider it essential not simply to encourage viewers to look but to
emphatically maintain that there is something specific to be seen through the foggy
residues left by power and the corrupted representational toolbox. While we may (and
should) interpret evidence in different ways, I believe evidence exist and needs to be
admitted as probative.
Home movies are wonderful to invoke as evidence because it is easy to see how
subjectivity, ambiguity, error and lack of cinematic competence all introduce noise into
the production of meaning. The change of scale to the big screen makes this clear to
almost all viewers, who interpret the familiar role of amateur photographer as one who
does the best job he/she can without necessarily being conclusive. As with
photography, so it is with history. Home movie viewers acknowledge the shooter was
present at the scene but don't necessarily accept his or her point of view as definitive or
even accurate. We've all seen home moviemakers pan right by what we imagine to be
the gist of an event.
Figure 5 The Castro Theatre hosts Lost Landscapes of San Francisco annually
But viewer skepticism doesn't always equal a skeptical attitude toward received
historical ideas. Like amateur historians, home movies can be paralyzingly granular,
and it's tempting to view them in that way: it's easier to identify movie palaces appearing
in the background of street scenes than it is to discuss how theater owners practiced
racial discrimination. I have noted that some members of the white Detroit diaspora find
scenes of Black Detroiters unsettling because they blame Detroit's decline more on
those who stayed in the city rather than on those who left. The evidence must be
considered in context, and the context (at least in my screenings) depends on who feels
freest to speak. I strongly believe that home movies are, or at least can be, effective and
vivid means for historicizing public perceptions of the world, but not necessarily by
themselves.
Figure 6 Lost Landscapes of Detroit
At a minimum, showing old home movies and amateur film to contemporary audiences
creates a sense of entitlement regarding their own histories. They realize that their own
family images might have value when shown to others, and draw a link between
personal records previously deemed of little interest to others and a broader, shared set
of histories. I only hope that the look and style of home movies will continue to interest
audiences as long as it takes for all of us to understand some of the many ways they
can be used and experienced.
SC, BBH & PR: Your Lost Landscapes programs have now featured three cities, San
Francisco, Detroit, and Oakland, with over thirteen versions. Where do you see this
work going in the future? Will you be expanding the scope of the project in any ways?
RP: As of the end of 2015, I will have made and shown nineteen urban history events.
I'm currently making one about Los Angeles to screen at the REDCAT Theater in
November 2015. My current perspective about these projects is to turn them into
community efforts researched by, produced within and screened at the neighborhood as
well as the metropolitan level. Lost Landscapes depicts a sum of social relations as well
as the collision of human design blended with physiography, and it is most productive to
think about these events as social encounters rather than simply movie nights. What if
local makers scouted out images in their communities, screened them and produced
neighborhood-level events that then coalesced into film events about the city or metro
area as a whole? What if the screenings were not the end of the process but a means
for training people, especially emerging makers, in archival and production skills, and
for connecting younger and older people who shared an interest in local and community
history?
Figure 7 Lost Landscapes of Oakland
I have already spun off the Oakland/East Bay (California) event to Alex Cruse, an
Oakland maker who hopes to pursue it along lines like these, and I strongly aspire for
the Detroit event to become a project under the full control of Detroiters. The future of
the San Francisco event, which will happen the tenth time in December 2015, is
indeterminate, but it is a hard project to stop. I am also slowly working on another urban
history film, quite different in form and emphasis, which may or may not involve
audience participation.
SC, BBH & PR: All of the films you’ve made deal with Americana and national
mythmaking in some way, but Panorama Ephemera (2004) and No More Road Trips?
(2013) are especially concerned with these themes. Through your filmmaking practice,
what have you learned about the potential for ephemeral film to preserve and
communicate the American mythological landscape that has surprised you?
Figure 8 Panorama Ephemera
RP: American mythologies infect all of us despite the degree to which we might like to
resist. It is perfectly possible to view Panorama Ephemera or No More Road Trips? from
a positivist or uncritical perspective. I would however hope that my attempts to interrupt
and problematize received mythologies can reach most people who watch the films.
Despite what a few people thought, Panorama Ephemera is not simply an anthology of
ephemeral film segments, and No More Road Trips? doesn't celebrate the mythological
open road. The tension between the normative messages in ephemeral films and the
substance of the images themselves, and the rearticulation of received myths by a
constantly refreshing troupe of non-actors in home movies and amateur films are what
make these films interesting, if and when they succeed.
I should say that making films out of preexisting footage is one thing and finding evernew ways of presenting films another; both are equally valid ways to work with these
kinds of material. You can do as much with performative projection, with changing the
conditions of spectatorship or with contextualizing objects in novel ways as you can do
in a dark editing room with months of effort. There are many possible realms of moving
image authorship, and we don't necessarily just have to make films to rock the viewers'
worlds.
SC, BBH & PR: How has digitization changed your archival practices/collecting
methodology? You said in an interview with Steven Heller that the Prelinger Library is
“designed to enable serendipity and discovery” and, as Gideon Lewis-Kraus has said,
it's where “you go to find what you're not looking for.” Do you think this same spirit of
accidental discovery holds with online archives? How has digitization altered your own
filmmaking process or that of the artists who rely on your archive? Do you now work
completely with digital files in your artistic practice?
RP: Digitization became a practical alternative for our archives in 2000, prompted by
Internet Archive's offer to help us build an online downloadable film collection. At that
time MPEG-2 encoding (the same process then used for satellite TV and building
burnable video files for DVD) was a fairly expensive proposition, but we figured out how
to do it more cheaply and at scale. It is much easier to produce and move files than to
copy and ship videotapes, and moving image material moves faster, further and more
freely than it did in the film and video days. The implications for increased access are
clear, but not definitive. While digitization implies access in theory, it doesn't enable it in
practice without the conscious decision to expose and share digitized materials. TV
network news archives (at least their recent material) are all digital, but remain
inaccessible to the public. Many moving image archives hold large reservoirs of digital
video that they cannot or will not expose online. Access to archival materials is not
simply a function of format.
In this regard it's interesting to compare the differing natures of accidental and
serendipitous discovery in libraries and archives. In libraries, accidental and
serendipitous discovery is easier in the physical realm, where books are generally
shelved by subject and spines serve as metadata in its simplest form; it's much harder
with digital catalogs, where the blinking cursor in a search box on the screen of a
terminal stares patrons in the face, asking for a query. As we often say at our catalogfree library in San Francisco, query-based librarianship is inherently reductive, tending
to limit accidental discovery. And since digital simulacra of library shelves have not yet
made it to the Web in all of their complexity, digital searching still organizes itself around
choosing targets and posing verbal queries. In archives the situation is reversed. The
public is rarely allowed into the storage areas of archives, but if they were, they would
find it quite an enigmatic experience, as records are arranged according to the
organizational or biographical structure of the entity that created or collected them.
Labels on archival containers often reveal little of what they may contain, and
serendipitous discovery is attenuated by the high-latency processes of retrieval (one
box or folder at a time by request only). When archival materials are digitized, they
suffer from the same issues that library catalogs do, but worlds once hidden within
boxes expose themselves as text and picture in the browser and often contain
hyperlinks to similar counterparts elsewhere.
I wish our online materials were easier to discover by accident or by a different kind of
structured search. At present you need to instantiate a playback event by selecting a
moving image item and clicking on it, at which point a player takes over and imposes its
own interface rules. One day I hope we can escape the tyranny of the on-screen
glowing rectangle with its own deeply embedded codifications. And the time-based
nature of moving images makes them very hard to graze in the same way we can graze
(that's to say "surf") webpages, idly flip through books or look at photos with rapid
seriality. The shortcut has quite often been to make textual metadata searchable as a
kind of surrogate for images that are still too complex to search. (Of course, even if
purely image-based search techniques were perfected, the cognitive adaptation we'd
have to make to use them might be quite difficult for some of us.)
I do think we'll solve the UX [user experience] and technical problems that currently limit
our abilities to work with different media types. But this won't resolve what I call "moving
image exceptionalism"—the widely held sense that moving image materials are not the
same as other cultural materials. In the archival domain, they languish behind higher
fences of enclosure than other media types. Their preservation is prohibitively
expensive and their reuse carries higher fees. The odds and term of their survival is
framed along a spectrum ranging from the indefinite to the unlikely, and their custodians
are typically motivated by cinephilia. Their power to move audiences is almost
universally cited, but their preservation is funded at a pitifully low level. As the world
experiments with presenting video in a host of environments, established film archivists
lament what they perceive as the end of the 120-year-long classic cinematic
experience.
Digitization often brings a sense of closure or finality—that once a film is digitized it
moves into a new realm of accessibility, it becomes part of a novel and more public
sphere of which it was not previously a part. This isn't necessarily true. As I have said,
so much depends on the regime and degree of enclosure surrounding the files. And I
am learning that digitization is not a one-time affair; it will have to be repeated, often
many times, as standards of encoding and presentation change.
All of that said, digitization has changed my world. I'm thrilled how films from our
collection have propagated and how they are used. A YouTube search of the word
"prelinger" yields an unimaginably full bucket of reuses and remixes. Digitization has
enabled me to make my lightly-produced works at great speed, and has furthered the
circulation of moving images from our archives to users. It's moved objects that resided
on the periphery of mainstream culture closer to the center, and tickled historical
consciousness in many whom would not otherwise have much occasion to think
historically. It has turned moving images (which once enjoyed the status of unusual
objects riding on top of .html and .txt, the backbone of the early Web) into infrastructure
on which people build services and, all too rarely, tools.
SC, BBH & PR: In April you Tweeted: ”May I just say it again: Loss is to be avoided
when possible, but it's also formative. New histories arise around loss.” Obviously an
enormous percentage of moving images have already been lost, and we would imagine
an even larger percentage is being lost in the digital age. However, an archivist who
embraces loss feels like the ultimate oxymoron. Can you expand upon this idea of loss
as a productive force?
RP: My Tweet is provocative but pragmatic. I would never support the intentional
destruction of cultural materials, as has happened countless times in the 20th and 21st
century and is happening right now in the Middle East. But we need to be real about
this. The density and bulk of the current historical record is too great to save, even
though some technologists believe we are technically capable of doing so, and the more
we save from the present the less bandwidth we have to touch and interact with the
record of the past. One of the core functions of archival work is appraisal: not appraisal
in the sense of marketplace value, but the determination of whether records have
permanent (thus archival) value. The passage of time causes us to see many, perhaps
most appraisal decisions in a different light. As the civil servants who junked footage of
Levittown in favor of retaining scenes of presidential travel unwittingly taught us, we
cannot fully anticipate the future uses of records. Accident, as I will address in the next
question, plays a significant role in determining the survival (and use) of the archival
record. We can (and should) privilege what we consider important, but we need to
understand the contingencies, prejudices and hierarchies that cause us to privilege
certain records over others.
Loss is an absence of the record that can speak as loudly and eloquently as the records
in place. Like an empty chair at a holiday dinner, missing or absent records testify to
memory gaps that demand investigation even if we're unable to fill them. Loss, or its
perception, drives historical investigation. Many of the emergent histories of the last
half-century (women's, African American, the Black Atlantic, queer and gender, labor
and working people, post-Communism, disability studies, to mention just a very few)
have been driven by senses that the record is absent or suppressed.
Should archivists fear loss? I'm not certain. Could we try to avert the possibility of loss
without fear? Or is loss unavoidable?
SC, BBH & PR: Recent media scholarship has identified a pressing need to discuss
media in terms of ecological impact. Efforts to “green” media studies have focused on
discussions around technological waste, the media‚ carbon impact, and sustainable
forms of production, as well as other sustainability issues. How have archival studies
and archivists joined this conversation? In your opinion what are the most pressing
issues to be discussed if we see archives through the lens of ecocriticism?
RP: This discussion is just beginning, and it will be a difficult one. We have already seen
the destruction of archival collections by climate extremes (Hurricanes Katrina and
Sandy, to mention two), and there will obviously be more, as many collections are
located at or near current sea levels. And it is hard, at least for me, to imagine that we
will always be able to count on electricity to spin the disk drives upon which archives are
increasingly dependent. But I would take an optimistic perspective on this issue and
hope that human adaptability extends to human recordkeeping, and that long-term
means of storage and preservation emerge. In fact we already have them (engraving
microscopic bits or human-readable characters on metal, storing data in DNA, etc.), but
they don't yet scale.
Stimulated by the writings of the speculative fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson, I'm
also fascinated in the basics of permaculture and how attractively its design principles
remap not only into archival practice but into media production as well. (See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture or http://pickardsmountain.org/wpcontent/uploads/2014/01/permaculture-principles-icons-1.png) I will leave this exercise
for readers, but I think these principles can pique the archival imagination and influence
the redesign of archival workflows.
SC, BBH & PR: You have called for a rethinking of the archive as an open space,
rather than just as a repository, and of the archivist as a producer. But how can we
rethink archives in relationship to users? What can archives and archivists learn from
what we know as today’s Internet Participatory Cultures? And how can we reimagine
the role of the user beyond those of researcher, filmmaker, or fan-collectors?
RP: While it's tempting to see the archives as a place apart from the world whose
records it tries to collect, I find this divide quite unproductive. Are the core archival
missions of permanently preserving and providing access to records of permanent value
so incompatible with the rhythms and practices of daily life? Why can't we regard the
historical record as infrastructure that informs consciousness and behavior in the
present? Is it such a stretch to suggest that we already more or less consciously
perform the histories within which we have been raised, and that we might take more
care to acknowledge, sustain and (most importantly) critique the records that embody
these histories? However interesting, these questions fall short of elaborating an action
agenda for reuniting archives and users, or archives and the communities they
represent, and such an agenda will have to be elaborated through iteration and
experiment.
Archives have changed a great deal in the last twenty years or so; they have exposed
great quantities of materials to the public, principally online; and many have rejected
their historical legacies as accessories to power. The proliferation of community-based
archives and archives documenting resistance and change has also helped engender a
great deal of re-modeling in the field. My personal bias is to think of the archives as a
social arena in which every conceivable kind of interaction might find a place: the
archives not only as a commons, but like a city, with inputs and outputs of energy,
materials, people and information. To consider models of this sort involves
understanding and challenging how power and hierarchies function within collecting and
memory institutions—not simply in terms of what is or is not collected, but how the daily
work is done.
SC, BBH & PR: Discussions around copyright disputes, collecting licences, and
archival policies have framed many of the conversations around archives and archival
materials within the public domain. What is your take on these issues? Is it possible and
convenient to move the conversation beyond these controversies? How do these issues
affect the civic function and educational potentialities that archival film collections could
offer to the public?
RP: For some years I was an active participant in campaigns and legal initiatives to
reform copyright law and to strengthen that portion of cultural heritage that is considered
public domain. While I still support such initiatives, I no longer spend as much time
focusing on the details of law, licenses and access policies. This is fascinating territory
for many people and there is no shortage of engagement. My focus, however, has
turned towards issues that quite likely will outlast current controversies, which are
largely kindled by conflicts between monopolistic corporate rights holders/distributors
and advocates of free expression as mediated through emerging technologies. I believe
that questions of respect—for creators as well as for potential audiences—are longer
lasting and much more difficult to resolve than contemporary legal questions. As the
scholar Mary Murrell has suggested, it is also possible that efforts to protect traditional
and nonpublic cultural expression which began with Indigenous and Aboriginal peoples
may spread to other communities in time, and the resonances of these efforts may far
outweigh the influence of today's "copyright wars."
I do not wish to minimize the importance of resisting current efforts to monetize every
cultural trace and utterance, nor do I disrespect the many experiments in progress to
rethink and monkey wrench the distribution of culture. Rethinking the cultural economy
can (though not inevitably) affect and defamiliarize received ideas about the distribution
of resources and property. But I am personally more concerned with the long view.
A final note on the distinction between “archives” and “the archive”
RP: May I conclude by raising a question of vocabulary? You may have noticed I've
been using the term "archives" rather than "the archive." I don't think those terms are
interchangeable.
I'm fascinated by the imprecision that exists between "archives," which most archivists
define as formally recognized and/or "outsider" places of collecting, preservation,
access and archival labor, and "the archive," which I consider an umbrella for
conceptual, philosophical, artistic, literary, even psychoanalytical constructs centered
around archives and/or archival process.
Most writers and artists use the terms interchangeably without interrogating the
difference between them, but the imprecision surrounding "the archives" and "the
archive" vexes archivists. An unstable amalgam of the unconscious and quotidian, the
"archive" is an undemanding construct. It serves the critical disciplines as they interact
with history and memory without necessarily requiring deep engagement. For artists,
writers and theorists, "the archive" is terra nullius, open for unchallenged occupation.
"The archive" invites flirtation; the "archives," on the other hand, could not be more
demanding. Though their workplaces may seem quiet and their workflows may pretend
to appear apolitical, "archives" overflow with contention. To collect is to commit to the
survival of certain records over others; to arrange and describe is often to enclose; to
preserve is to resist power, violence and constraint; to proffer access is to invite
misunderstanding and aggression. And yet "archives" yearn for praxis; even the
quietest archival labor is practice in search of theory.
I hope you'll excuse my rather polarized treatment of these terms, because I hope we
can move towards reuniting these terms and the practices to which they refer. Could we
try to draw connections between artistic, academic and archival labor? And could we try
to link the conceptual umbrella we call "the archive" with the more quotidian work of "the
archives"? This might mean listening harder to the people who perform archival labor—
thinking of it as cultural work or research rather than simply wage labor—and
incorporating a more materialist sense of the meaning and importance of archival work
based on the work itself, not simply the externalities that influence most decisions
archives make. For some time we have considered access to information to be a prime
metric for assessing degrees of power and agency. But what kind of social and power
relations are embedded in archival workflow? How do our often unexamined
assumptions about how archives should be administered and worked affect the position
of the archives in society? I would hope that this question echoes back on some of the
questions discussed throughout this interview.
Thank you for the opportunity to answer these great questions.
Sophie Cook, Beatriz Bartolomé Herrera and Papagena Robbins are doctoral students
in the Film and Moving Image Studies Program at Concordia University.
191 Compte-rendu : L'archive-forme. Création, mémoire, histoire.
Pisano, Giusy (dir.). L'archive-forme. Création, mémoire, histoire. Paris: L'Harmattan
Éditions Distribution, 2014. 364 pages.
Compte-rendu par Annaëlle Winand
D
irigé par Giusy Pisano, l’ouvrage est issu des interventions du VIIIe Congrès
de l’Association française des enseignants et chercheurs en cinéma et
audiovisuel en 2012. Cette collection d’articles explore, des points de vue
esthétique, historique et sociologique, les archives utilisées dans les processus créatifs
cinématiques et audiovisuels. Les démarches, études et projets sont regroupés autour
de quatre grandes thématiques qui reflètent nombre de préoccupations actuelles sur le
sujet et proposent de nouvelles approches pour étudier l’histoire du cinéma et des arts
audiovisuels.
Partie 1. L’archive-matériau
Dans le premier chapitre, l’esthétique du réemploi est mise en avant à travers des
travaux d’artistes utilisant le found footage, pour en révéler les dimensions politiques,
culturelles et historiques. Le réemploi est tout d’abord politique et écologique pour
Marta Alvarez (« Entre écologie et militantisme : les réécritures audiovisuelles de María
Cañas, l'Archiviste de Séville »), avec l’utilisation d’images « déchets » par l’artiste
Maria Cañas. Celle-ci pose la question de la propriété affiliée aux images en les
recyclant. Alvarez interprète ainsi son œuvre comme un geste politique, en traçant un
parallèle avec le travail de Craig Baldwin. Dans le même esprit, le texte de Livio Belloï
(« L'archive comme espace de re-création (II) : du recyclage d'images disqualifiées
(Peter Tscherkassky, Coming Attractions, 2010) ») propose une lecture du film de
Tscherkassky, sous l’angle du processus de la transfiguration. Le found footage utilise
l’image « si commune, obscène ou insignifiante soit-elle » pour la re-créer et la
maintenir dans un « espace de conservation » (Belloï, p. 39).
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Annaëlle Winand
L’esthétique du found footage passe également par la perception de ces images.
Parfois, celles-ci font appel à un imaginaire ou à des souvenirs précis pour mieux les
tromper et les manipuler, amenant le spectateur à une confusion perceptive. C’est le
cas des films d’horreur qualifiés de found footage, pseudo-archives semant le doute sur
la possible réalité des évènements filmés grâce à l’autorité présupposée du document
(Charles Quiblier, « Film d'horreur et found footage : jouer à se faire peur, avec des
images qui jouent à faire vrai »). Jouant également sur les codes du cinéma de genre
avec l’œuvre Long Live the New Flesh (Eugénie Zvonkine, « Long Live the New Flesh
de Nicolas Provost, une analyse du spectateur contemporain ») l’artiste Nicolas Provost
propose un équivalent contemporain des altérations et coupures de pellicules en
manipulant les pixels des images pour questionner les habitudes perceptives des
spectateurs. Toujours en faisant appel au même registre d’une esthétique désignée,
Julien Péquignot (« Clip, archives et création audiovisuelle : le cas d'Iron Maiden »)
illustre l’usage minoritaire, mais significatif, des documents d’archives dans les vidéoclips. À partir de l’analyse de The Trooper, l’auteur conclut que les images considérées
comme des archives appellent à deux lectures, l’une documentaire et/ou moralisante et
l’autre renvoyant à une trace du passé, comme « substrat du réel ».
Deux films, mêlant images d’archives et images tournées, sont ensuite analysés. Il
s’agit de Forrest Gump (1994) de Robert Zemeckis (Sylvain Louet, « Intriguer l'archive :
l'écriture cinématographique de l'Histoire comme rite d'orientation ») et Cinéman de
Yann Moix (Chloé Delaporte, « Entre stock-shot et found footage : les archives à
l'épreuve dans Cinéman »). Ces incrustations d’archives parfois considérées comme
des intertextes citationnels (Delaporte, p.129) confondent les frontières de la fiction et
l’archive (Louet, p. 117) en renvoyant vers une réflexion sur la perception de l’histoire et
du temps par le spectateur.
Outre les perspectives spectatorielle et temporelle, du point de vue de l’éthique, ce sont
les manipulations esthétiques des archives audiovisuelles qui préoccupent les auteurs.
C’est ce que souligne Philippe Roger (« Les enjeux de l'archive filmée : positions et
propositions (à propos du documentaire Le récital de Besançon) ») en posant la
193
Annaëlle Winand
question : est-ce que tout est archive? En appuyant son argument sur le documentaire
Le récital de Besançon, il décortique les surexpositions et les surexploitations des
documents et des « images d’archives violables à merci » (Roger, p. 94). Cette idée de
l’exploitation des images et du passé est également évoquée par Viva Paci (« Cinéma
en galerie… »), mais cette fois-ci dans l’optique de l’exposition. Elle compare ainsi une
vision plus vidéographique des œuvres construites à partir de fragments de l’histoire du
cinéma, exposées dans des musées et une autre vision plus cinématographique, qui
utilise pourtant les mêmes matériaux.
Partie 2. L’archive-symptôme
Le deuxième chapitre évoque la dimension affective et personnelle des archives, ainsi
que la fragilité des archives non-institutionnalisées. Comme le souligne Maxime
Cervulle (« Archives affectives, genre et délibération critique. La réception d'Irréversible
par la presse française »), il s’agit en effet de nouvelles pistes d’interrogation et sources
nouvelles d’analyses esthétiques du cinéma qui ne laissent pas indifférent. En
questionnant les coupures de presse autour de la sortie du film Irréversible (2002) de
Gapsar Noé, Cervulle récolte l’affect provenant de l’expérience spectatorielle et met en
évidence son influence sur le jugement des journalistes. L’émotion n’est pas seulement
présente dans le film projeté mais se retrouve également dans les archives
personnelles, accumulées dans le cadre du travail de création. Le réalisateur Guy Gilles
a conservé différents types de documents autour de projets artistiques : films, images,
peintures, mais également des cartes postales et des photos de famille que Mélanie
Forret interprète comme de « multiples formes de souvenir » (« Les photographies de
Guy Gilles, traces et repères d'un cinéaste » p.6.) renforçant l’aspect émouvant des
films.
Plus loin, Claudine Le Pallec Marand se penche sur les archives cinématographiques :
archives « malgré elle[s] » elle interroge leur qualité de preuve dans une analyse
esthétique. En étudiant le film Anatomie d’un rapport (Luc Moullet et Antonietta
Pizzorno, 1975) à partir de l’analyse de sources orales et d’un corpus de critiques, Le
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Pallec Marand développe alors l’idée d’archive adéquate comme « orientation
revendiquée du travail sur/pour les archives pour faire reconnaître la pratique
esthétique d’un film » (« De l'usage de l'archive adéquate dans une analyse filmique »
p. 179).
Partageant une préoccupation liée aux archives orales, Yannick Pourpour (« "Que
reste-t-il de nos cabines ?" Vers un nouveau gisement archivistique ? ») s’intéresse aux
archives des projectionnistes, source fragile de l’histoire du métier, car la pratique se
situe dans une tradition principalement orale. Il réussit néanmoins à récolter des
documents tels que les cahiers de bord, des notes et autres informations sur les copies
de films, qui deviennent obsolètes avec le passage au numérique.
Différentes initiatives ont été mises en place pour révéler et supporter ces documents
personnels. Il s’agit des premiers pas vers une institutionnalisation des archives
affectives, comme le remarque Mirco Santi (« La famille en un clic : étude d'une archive
en ligne de home movies »), en présentant un projet de mise en ligne de films de
famille, monté par L’Archivio Nazionale del Film di Famiglia (ANFF) en collaboration
avec des universités et Camera Ottica, un laboratoire de restauration. Selon l’auteur,
les plateformes numériques encouragent en effet la conservation et le partage de ce
genre de film, « unité minimale d’une manière renouvelée de lire le monde » (Santi, p.
197).
Partie 3. L’achive-réseau
Les nouvelles technologies et leur accès nous plongent actuellement dans une phase
de « post-cinéma » hors salle, qui entraîne de nouvelles formes de cinéphilies, passant
par le numérique et les réseaux. Pour Leonardo Quaresima (« Du cimetière des
éléphants au parc thématique ? L'archive à l'époque de la numérisation »), ces
changements transcendent la distinction traditionnelle entre valeur performative et
valeur muséale des films et amène le cinéma à l’aube d’une « nouvelle histoire »
(Quaresima, p. 230). Cependant, en matière de valeur, quand on évoque le réseau et le
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partage, il est rapidement question de matières légales. C’est sur ce sujet que se
penche Caroline Renouard (« Les "pirates" du web : archives de films rares et réseaux
illégaux ») en l’analysant dans une perspective cinéphile. En effet, nombreuses sont les
plateformes en ligne proposant des films de manière illégale : de véritables
communautés de partage sont créées, tissant un lien intime entre les films, les
spectateurs et les personnes qui les distribuent. De la transmission naît la préservation
et ces sites de partage deviennent dans certains cas de véritables institutions
archivistiques, effectuant non seulement le téléchargement et l’identification des
œuvres, mais, parfois même, leur restauration. Toujours ancré dans le contexte
particulier du web, l’article de Clément Puget traite du webdocumentaire en tant que
source pour étudier un évènement (« 17.10.61. Webdocumentaire, archives et
événement »). Adapté au cadre de l’internet, ce type de documentaire peut servir, selon
Puget, de remède à l’absence de certaines sources documentant le passé évoqué dans
l’œuvre filmée.
Partie IV. L’archive source
Ce dernier chapitre porte sur les sources secondaires et les archives indirectes qui
entourent les films et leur culture. Que nous révèlent en effet ces indices externes sur
l’histoire du cinéma ? Des archives gouvernementales, par exemple, peuvent témoigner
d’une facette particulière de l’histoire du cinéma d’un pays. C’est ce que démontre Alina
Popescu (« Les dossiers de la Securitate, de nouvelles sources pour comprendre le
fonctionnement de la cinématographie roumaine à l'époque communiste ») en
analysant les dossiers de la Securitate roumaine durant l’époque communiste. Ces
derniers nourrissent en effet des biographies non officielles des cinéastes surveillés,
parfois même jusqu’à un certain degré d’intimité.
Quand les documents proviennent du domaine culturel, ce sont des pratiques
cinéphiliques qui peuvent être mises en lumières (Delphine Chedaleux, « Les
magazines populaires, des archives au service d'une histoire culturelle du cinéma
français. L'exemple de Cinémonde 1946-1950 »). En se penchant sur le magazine
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populaire Cinémonde après la Deuxième Guerre mondiale, Delphine Chedaleux met le
doigt sur des pratiques souvent peu étudiées, comme le culte des vedettes.
Toujours dans le domaine de la pratique spectaculaire, il est question des archives de
l’art magique dans le texte de Frédéric Tabet (« Les Archives de l'art magique, ou, pour
en finir avec le mythe de la source enchantée »). Il suggère qu’il faudrait réévaluer cette
pratique de la même manière que cela a été fait pour le cinéma des premiers temps.
Or, cette action est rendue difficile par l’éclatement des sources pour étudier l’art
magique, sans compter le secret professionnel inhérent à cette profession. Le
chercheur doit dès lors avoir recours aux archives d’autres disciplines (théâtre, cirque,
music-hall, etc.) pour pouvoir cerner son étude. En outre, ces indices externes peuvent
dévoiler l’histoire de projets cinématographiques avortés. C’est le cas de L’Enfer (1964),
d’Henri-Georges Clouzot, qui n’a jamais été tourné. Jean-Christophe Olive (« Analyse
génétique et reconstruction scénaristique d'un film : dans "L'Enfer" des archives ») en
analyse les traces du processus de fabrication, en constituant un corpus (à partir d’une
version annotée du scénario) lacunaire, mais révélateur de la démarche du réalisateur.
Enfin, c’est dans une perspective pluridisciplinaire que Vincent Dussaiwoir, Alexandre
Estaquet-Legrand et Stéphane Tralongo envisagent la réalisation d’un projet de
catalogue des relevés de mises en scène dramatiques de l’Association de la régie
théâtrale (« Mise en scène et mise en archives. Une collaboration entre chercheurs et
conservateurs à la Bibliothèque historique de la Ville de Paris »). Auparavant
considérés comme secondaires, ces nombreux documents techniques constituent une
source importante pour l’histoire du théâtre et des arts du spectacle. Grâce à une
collaboration active entre chercheurs et conservateurs, le travail de catalogage a permis
de faire ressurgir des nouvelles approches de l’histoire du théâtre et de redécouvrir des
répertoires représentés dans le fonds traité.
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Conclusion
Les textes réunis dans l’ouvrage couvrent un très large éventail d’intérêts et de sujets
autour de la question centrale des archives au sein de l’audiovisuel et du cinéma. Du
réemploi engagé et esthétique du found footage, aux réseaux développant de nouvelles
perspectives cinéphiles, à la dimension affective et personnelle des archives noninstitutionnalisées, en passant par les sources secondaires du monde du spectacle
révélant de nouveaux aspects de l’histoire du cinéma, ces articles permettent de tracer
un panorama interdisciplinaire des études et projets qui se font en la matière. Si
l’ouvrage impressionne par sa diversité, le nombre d’articles et leur court format d’actes
de conférence donnent cependant au lecteur l’envie de poursuivre les réflexions
engagées au-delà de leur conclusion.
Même si le terme d’ « archive » se situe au cœur des débats, les bibliographies des
différents auteurs ne font que peu référence à des ouvrages archivistiques. Arlette
Farge1 semble toutefois être une des seules sources en la matière. Par ailleurs, l’on
remarquera également que les références citées n’évoquent pas (ou peu) les travaux
plus récents de Christa Blümlinger, de Catherine Russell ou de Jaimie Baron. Ces
auteurs, en analysant en profondeur des intérêts émergents du réemploi (les archives
dans un contexte des nouveaux média et en relation avec l’expérience audiovisuelle)
enrichissent de manière conséquente la théorie dans cette discipline, tout autant
qu’elles interrogent le rôle et la nature de l’archive dans le monde du cinéma.
Annaëlle Winand est étudiante au doctorat à l’Université de Montréal.
1
Farge, Arlette. Le goût de l’archive. Paris : Le Seuil, 1989.
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Références
Farge, Arlette. Le goût de l’archive. Paris : Le Seuil, 1989.
Pisano, Giusy (dir.). L'archive-forme. Création, mémoire, histoire. Paris: L'Harmattan
Éditions Distribution, 2014.
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Celebrating 50 years of film archiving: Edition Lamprecht and Fünfzig
Jahre Österreichisches Filmmuseum
Rolf Aurich, Wolfgang Jacobsen, and Eva Orbanz, eds. Edition Lamprecht. Munich:
Edition Text + Kritik, 2013. 568 Pages.
Alexander Horwath, ed. Fünfzig Jahre Österreichisches Filmmuseum 1964-2014.
Vienna: FilmmuseumSynemaPublikationen, 2014. 768 Pages.
Book review by Philipp Dominik Keidl
S
ince the 1990s, the study of film archives and their policies and practices of
preservation has become a notable subfield within the discipline of film and
moving image studies. Scholars and archivists have researched and discussed
the cultural, political, technological, aesthetic, and financial impact and implications of
film archives and preservation on various platforms, ranging from specialized journals
like The Moving Image to general conferences like the annual meeting of the Society for
Cinema and Media Studies. Yet, what has remained relatively understudied are the
institutional histories of key film archives themselves, as well as the biographies of
individuals working on a daily basis to guarantee and improve the safeguarding of
moving image heritage for the future. Studies by Penelope Houston (1994), Haidee
Wasson (2005), and Paula Amad (2010), among others, have illustrated how the study
of archival infrastructures enlighten the development of film culture in the 20th century,
while works by Richard Roud on Henri Langlois (1983) and Robert Sitton on Iris Barry
(2014) have brought us closer to the mindset of some of the archive movement’s most
recognized, glamorous, and fabled representatives. In light of the diverse archival
landscape that has emerged since the mid-20th century, however, those examples
represent the exception to the rule. Two German-language editions significantly
contribute to filling this gap by covering the histories of two key institutions in Germany
and Austria that have had a lasting impact on both germanophone and international film
culture: the Deutsche Kinemathek–Museum für Film und Fernsehen in Berlin and the
Österreichisches Filmmuseum in Vienna.
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Celebrating 50 years of film archiving (Review)
Philipp Dominik Keidl
In 2013, the Deutsche Kinemathek–Museum für Film und Fernsehen celebrated its
fiftieth anniversary, using the occasion to honor its founder Gerhard Lamprecht (18971974) with the three-volume Edition Gerhard Lamprecht. Lamprecht, who directed 70
films between 1918 and 1957,1 was also a passionate film collector and historian whose
personal collection laid the foundation for one of Germany’s most important film
institutions. For three years after the initial establishment of the former Deutsche
Kinemathek e.V. in 1963, Lamprecht served as the archive’s director. He continued his
historiographical work after his retirement and completed a comprehensive reference
book on German silent cinema. Edition Gerhard Lamprecht emphasizes these roles
Lamprecht took on throughout his life by dedicating each of the three volumes to one of
his distinct yet interconnecting roles as filmmaker, archivist, and historian. Mosaikarbeit:
Gerhard Lamprecht und die Welt der Filmarchive by Rolf Aurich investigates
Lamprecht’s activities as a collector, while Zeit und Welt: Gerhard Lamprecht und seine
Filme by Wolfgang Jacobsen is dedicated to his filmic oeuvre. Miteinander und
Gegenüber: Gerhard Lamprecht und seine Zeitzeugengespräche, edited by Eva Orbanz
complements the edition with eight transcribed interviews Lamprecht conducted with
contemporary filmmakers. This stimulating conceptual structure enables unique access
to the cinematic thinking of Lamprecht in his different positions without ever
compromising one role over the other.
However, Aurich’s Mosaikarbeit stands out with its diverse and meticulously researched
primary archival sources, including Lamprecht’s daily planners that offer an intimate
glimpse into the collector’s ambitions to establish purposeful collections of German film
heritage. In 39 chapters, Aurich investigates Lamprecht’s focused collection of movies
and film ephemera, tracing his passion for cinema from his childhood in Berlin to his
efforts to bring his collection safely through the Second World War, and finally its
institutionalization in the politically and culturally heated atmosphere of post-war
Germany. Moving effortlessly between anecdotal descriptions of Lamprecht’s love for
1
Buddenbrooks (Germany 1923), Die Verrufenen (Germany 1925), Menschen untereinander
(Germany 1926), Der Alte Fritz (1927/1928), Emil und die Detektive (1931), Irgendwo in Berlin
(Germany/East 1946), among others. For a full filmography, see:
http://www.filmportal.de/person/gerhard-lamprecht_9ae397d8bde1412c93062002b529801d.
201
cinema and rational analysis of the bureaucratic challenges inherent in establishing an
archive for the depreciated medium of film, Aurich’s lively account rigorously
contextualizes Lamprecht’s extraordinary accomplishments in national and international
developments in the archive movement.
What falls short with this focus on Lamprecht, however, is a discussion of the activities
of the Deutsche Kinemathek after Lamprecht’s retirement. Despite some excursions into
more recent developments of the Deutsche Kinemathek—its move to the Potsdamer
Platz and the opening of a permanent museum exhibition on the history of film and
television, for example—the volume falls short when it comes to the institution’s history
of the past thirty years. Nevertheless, Edition Gerhard Lamprecht is a rich and
captivating account of Lamprecht’s biography and his profound role in Germany’s film
history and historiography.
Avant-garde filmmaker Peter Kubelka and cinephile Peter Konlechner founded the
Österreichisches Filmmuseum in Vienna, Austria in 1964. Known for its innovative
programming and publications, today it is one of the most prestigious institutions of its
kind. Edited by the museum’s current director, Alexander Horwath, the three-volume
collection Fünfzig Jahre Österreichisches Filmmuseum 1964-2014 offers a more ample
survey of its fifty-year-long history than is allowed for by Edition Lamprecht’s focus on its
founding father. Aufbrechen: Die Gründung des Österreichischen Filmmuseums by
Eszter Kondor is a thoroughly researched history of the museum’s first ten years and
the cultural milieu that supported, challenged, and sometimes obstructed Kubelka and
Konlechner’s curatorial objectives. Their main goal was to offer an alternative cinematic
culture to the mainstream Hollywood fare and trivial German-language productions that
swept post-war Vienna. In nine chapters, Kondor positions the Österreichisches
Filmmuseum in the socio–political and cultural struggles of the era, which included
conflicting ideas of film as apolitical entertainment or as progressive art. Her careful
study of primary sources covers the development of the museum, beginning with an
overview of related clubs and institutions established in the 1950s and Kubelka and
Konlechner’s involvement in the Cinestudio and the Technical University of Vienna that
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initiated the foundation of the museum, and ending with the museum’s role as both
forum for and target of the antiauthoritarian protest movements at the end of the 1960s.
This remarkably rich history of 10 years reminds the reader that the museum emerged
out of often-heated debates about national film culture and identity when Austria was
still torn, traumatized and at times undiscerning in its repudiation of its role in Nazism.
Framed by a preface and afterword by Horwath, the volume is enriched by plenty of
visual materials, such as programs of the Cinestudio, images of screening locations,
posters of films, exhibitions and retrospectives, and graphics developed in the longstanding collaboration with artist Gertie Fröhlich.
Das sichtbare Kino - Fünfzig Jahre Filmmuseum: Texte, Bilder, Dokumente, edited by
Horwath, complements Kondor’s study of the museum’s first decade through an eclectic
selection of 50 historic essays, newspaper articles, and personal correspondences, as
well as 30 texts written on the occasion of the museum’s birthday that form an intimate
insights into the patron’s relationship to the museum. Although presented in
chronological order, the volume does not aim to represent a complete survey of the past
50 years. Rather, it offers poignant and often very personal access to the museum’s
function as a cultural platform through the eyes of filmmakers, curators, visitors, and
politicians. The wide range of authors represented in the volume offer equally diverse
approaches to the task of describing their relationship to the museum, to Kubelka and
Konlechner, to the medium of film, and to the institution of cinema in general. Short
essays, letters, and notes written or reproduced by Groucho Marx, Don Siegel, Michael
Snow, Enno Patalas, Eric Rohmer, Ulrich Seidl, Peter Tscherkassky, Chuck Jones,
Eileen Bowser, Serge Daney, Ken Jacobs, Harun Farocki, and Paolo Cherchi Usai,
among others, form a dynamic, poetic, and often humorous mosaic of the museum’s
history that has been enduringly shaped by its guests as much as by its personnel. The
texts are accompanied by an energetic selection of visual materials and a complete list
of the thematic programs of the museums since its foundation.
Finally, Kollektion - Fünfzig Objekte: Filmgeschichten aus der Sammlung des
Österreichischen Filmmuseums, edited by Paolo Caneppele and Horwath, offers rare
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insights into those collections of the film museum that remain stored away in archives.
Besides its vast moving image collection, the Österreichisches Filmmuseum’s archives
also hold an enormous collection of film-related materials that are as necessary for a
comprehensive historiography of cinema as moving images themselves. 50 selected
objects from the museum’s different collections—each introduced and described by an
employee of the museum—are represented in the edition’s third volume with one or
more images. This concise selection includes Edison Company’s Unfinished Letter
(1911/1913), a Zsigmond film camera (1920), images for a magic lantern (1860-1880),
concept art by Chuck Jones (1983), Amos Vogel’s diaries, photos from Josef von
Sternberg’s The Case of Lena Smith (1929), Michael Haneke’s director’s script for
Amour (2012), Dziga Vertov’s storyboard and notes for Čelovek s kinoapparatom
(1929), as well as lobby cards, press clippings, film journals and fan drawings from the
silent era, among others. Each text introduces the objects, but also contextualizes them
in a wider net of cinema’s material culture that often remains locked away in museum
vaults. This brief but entertaining glimpse into the museum’s different collections forms
a valuable conclusion to this exemplarily edition, which has the potential to serve as the
model for similar endeavors for other archives and museums in the future.
Edition Lamprecht and Fünfzig Jahre Österreichisches Filmmuseum contribute
significantly to a better understanding of the emerging archival landscape in post-war
Germany and Austria, as well as the expanding international film archive movement.
The scope of sources, contemporary witnesses, text genres and visual materials offer a
vivid variety of perspectives on the hurdles that visionary collectors and curators like
Lamprecht, Kubelka, and Konlechner had to overcome to establish those institutional
structures that are integral parts of film culture today. As such, they are also a reminder
that the financial support of film archives is not a given, but that they remain sites where
the past, present, and future of film and cinema history is shaped, renewed, and
reinvented.
Philipp Dominik Keidl is a doctoral candidate in Film and Moving Image Studies at
Concordia University.
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Works Cited
Amad, Paula. Counter-Archive: Film, the Everyday, and Albert Kahn's Archives de la
Planète. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010. Print.
Houston, Penelope. Keepers of the Frame: The Film Archives. London: British Film
Institute, 1994. Print.
Roud, Richard, and François Truffaut. A Passion for Films: Henri Langlois and the
Cinémathèque française. London: Secker & Warburg, 1983. Print.
Sitton, Robert. Lady in the Dark: Iris Barry and the Art of Film. New York: Columbia
University Press, 2014. Print.
Wasson, Haidee. Museum Movies: The Museum of Modern Art and the Birth of Art
Cinema. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. Print.
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Experiences of “Pastness”: Locating the Archive Effect
Jaimie Baron. The Archive Effect: Found footage and the audiovisual experience of
history. London and New York: Routledge, 2014. 200 pages.
Book review by Rachel Webb Jekanowski
O
f the various formal strategies filmmakers use to represent the past, or to
signal a film’s status as an historical document, using ‘found’ or archival
images is probably the most recognizable. The reliance on grainy, black and
white footage of a long distant past, or alternatively, on sun-bleached home movie
footage that recalls one’s youth, has ascended from a mainstay of documentary cinema
to the level of pop culture cliché. As this appropriation of archival and recognizably “old”
footage to signify history can be found across filmmaking modes and media—including
avant-garde cinema, Ken Burns documentaries, videogames like Call of Duty: World at
War (2008), and commercial television dramas such as ABC’s The Astronaut Wives
Club (2015)1—our fascination with such visual traces of the past continues unabated.
Jaimie Baron, an assistant professor at the University of Alberta, seizes upon this
thriving interest in archives and the audiovisual records held within them in her recent
book The Archive Effect (2014). In it, Baron interrogates the ways in which found (or
what she calls ‘appropriated’) film and video footage are used for historical and narrative
purposes across an array of media, and the questions of documentary representation
and historical meaning-making that theses practices raise. The linchpin of her inquiry is
what Baron defines as the “archive effect.”2 The archive effect, Baron argues, enables
1
The Astronaut Wives Club is an historical television drama about the wives of the first American
astronauts, nicknamed the Mercury Seven. ABC Studios launched the first season, developed
by Stephanie Savage, in June 2015. The show adopts the technique of digitally compositing
contemporary characters into archival news footage, popularized by Forrest Gump (Robert
Zemeckis, 1994). By creating fictionalized ‘archival’ footage of the protagonists and intercutting
it with recognizably archival imagery, and the show establishes itself as fictionalized account of
the American-Soviet Space Race, while offering viewers (the majority of which did not witness
these events first-hand) the experience of being ‘inserted’ into American history.
2
Baron in fact borrows the phrase “archive effect” from Roger Hallas, who first suggested it to
her at the 2007 Visible Evidence Conference in Bochum, Germany.
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Experiences of “Pastness” (Review)
Rachel Webb Jekanowski
us to theorize how sounds and images from one time and context are appropriated by
films, videos, games, and television programs from a later period in order to convey an
experience of history for the viewer (Baron 11). A spectator may experience an archive
effect when watching a found footage or appropriation film when she senses both a
“temporal disparity” between the film’s sounds and/or images (the evident gap between
the “then” of the document’s production and the “now” of the film’s production) and an
“intentional disparity,” that is, the “disparity based on our perception of a previous
intention ascribed to and (seemingly) inscribed within the archival document” (20-21).
Because both of these experiences can be subjective, since they require the viewer to
recognize multiple levels of disparity functioning at once, the archive effect is never
guaranteed. Instead, it is determined by a viewer’s reception of a film; it can exist in
different forms for different spectators and may change over time. By linking the archive
effect to a film’s production as well as its reception (and by extension a viewer’s
individual affective spectatorial experience), Baron cleverly re-conceptualizes the
audiovisual “archival document” as an “experience of reception,” rather than as an
object ontologically defined by “the authority of place” based on its storage location (7).
Significantly, this shift has implications for the ontology of indexical archival documents
as well. The archival film document can only be “archival,” she claims, if it fosters a
“relationship […] between particular elements of a film and the film’s viewer,” and the
viewer invests it with “various evidentiary values” when repurposed into a new film (ibid).
The archival document, like the archive, therefore becomes a conduit for a spectatorial
“experience of pastness” (1). By shifting the archival value of an appropriated moving
image or audio recording away from its point of origin (archive, attic, museum, the web)
to its subjective link to the past, we are encouraged to think more critically about how
appropriation films may be used to experience history.
After introducing the concept of the archive effect in her introduction and Chapter 1,
“The Archive Effect,” Baron dedicates the following chapters to the ways in which
filmmakers have mobilized appropriated footage from the 1990s to the early 2000s to
narrativize alternative histories and even, occasionally, to fabricate them. She seeks to
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theorize this titular phenomenon through a variety of different media, each of which she
locates under the umbrella category of “appropriation film.” Deeming “archival images”
and “found footage” to be ontologically unstable categories, Baron prefers this term
which, like the archive effect, depends on the viewer’s recognition that a film includes
images repurposed from a prior context or intended use (9). In Chapter 2, “Archival
Fabrications,” Baron analyzes several “mockumentaries,” including Forgotten Silver
(Peter Jackson and Costa Botes, 1995) and The Blair Witch Project (Daniel Myrick and
Eduardo Sanchez, 1999), arguing that they simulate the archive effect by falsifying
documentary footage. In Chapter 3, “Archival Voyeurism,” Baron next examines
documentaries that appropriate home movies in order to narrate highly personal
historical experiences, proposing that these films further expand the definition of an
archival document by transforming originally private images into public documentary
evidence. Two documentaries that Baron discusses at length in this chapter are
Capturing the Friedmans (Andrew Jarecki, 2003) and Standard Operating Procedure
(Errol Morris, 2008), which she uses to demonstrate how the act of drawing private
stories into the public eye by appropriating home movie footage can contest or
complicate official histories, while also revealing a voyeuristic desire to watch these
“hidden” histories.
In Chapter 4, “The Archive Affect,” Baron switches her attention from appropriated
images’ evidentiary value to an analysis of how filmmakers use archival fragments to
convey affective responses to the passing of time and the material traces of it that
remain. Addressing experimental films such as Decasia: The State of Decay (Bill
Morrison, 2002) and okay bye-bye (Rebecca Baron, 1998) which self-consciously
explore the archive, Baron describes the affective experience of viewing these films,
which seek a feeling of history over its meaning, as the archive affect. Her terminology
becomes somewhat slippery in this chapter, as the archive affect—which she aligns
with a feeling of nostalgia for the unreachable past—is in fact a type of archive effect. In
her last chapter, Baron turns to what could be described as the elephant in the room in
any contemporary study of archives: the digital archive. Addressing the shift from
analog methods of archival storage and record keeping to digital databases—and the
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parallel movement from celluloid to digital cinema—she proposes that digital archives
offer a very different type of archive effect. This digital archive effect encourages the
spectator to reflect upon the ways in which digital platforms (including video games and
web-based interactive films) mediate our experience of history in the present.
The most significant contribution of The Archive Effect is the link between archive
studies and reception studies that Baron establishes through her study of the affective
experiences of viewing archival, found, and appropriated audiovisual documents. In
doing so, this book aims to fuse these fields to scholarship on affect and
phenomenology, all within the larger context of film and media studies. The Archive
Effect therefore sits comfortably next to preexisting found footage and experimental film
scholarship, including Jay Leyda’s Films Beget Films (1964), William Wees’s Recycled
Images (1993), Catherine Russell’s Experimental Ethnography (1999), and Jeffrey
Skoller’s Shadows, Specters, Shards (2005), as well as documentary film scholarship
(including that of Stella Bruzzi, Michael Renov, and Bill Nichols). Furthermore, by
drawing heavily upon Vivian Sobchack’s work on phenomenology and history and
Svetlana Boym’s The Future of Nostalgia (2001), Baron engages with subjective
experiences of film viewing to connect affect to memory studies and historiography.
Despite the important contributions The Archive Effect makes to the study of historical
film and historiography within popular culture, the book succumbs to a level of generality
in its theoretical framing that at times weakens Baron’s arguments. One troubling
concern that Baron never successfully resolves, for instance, is whether the concept of
the archive has become evacuated of meaning following the “repositioning of the
archival from the authority of place to the authority of experience” (10). The archive,
Baron states in her introduction, “is the point of access to what counts as evidence of
past events” (ibid). Her theorization of the archive purposefully expands upon more
stringent definitions of archives as institutional repositories so as to include non-official
or personal storage sites (such as a family’s home movie collection) as equal reservoirs
for historical experience. As YouTube mash-ups, digital databases, pop culture imagery,
and other not-strictly “archival” documents become increasingly recognized within
209
academia and North American culture as documentary traces, Baron’s commitment
tore-articulating what constitutes an archival document is clearly germane. At the same
time, however, The Archive Effect does not always attend to the historical, material, and
cultural specificities of these disparate archival entities. In Chapter 5, “The Digital
Archive Effect,” for example, she gestures towards examples of the digital archive—
suggesting YouTube, web-based database films, even the whole of the Internet—yet
she avoids concretely defining this term. This becomes problematic because in order to
theorize a distinction between the archive effects produced by “the material archive and
the digital archive” (141), one must first understand what the digital archive actually is. If
we are to stretch the definition of the digital archive as wide as to include any and all
digital structures that may collect or categorize data, what types of specific claims about
the digital archive effect can we even make once specificities between digital
organizational structures are removed? Expanding the digital archive as broadly as to
include all digital databases provides very little traction to theorize particular digital
structures or digital archive effects.
Finally, by implying that the digital archive is in fact distinct from the “material archive”
(that is to say, pre-digital, analog forms of archival storage), Baron erroneously casts
the digital archive as being immaterial. Although she acknowledges the structural and
ontological importance of digital archives’ code, she neglects to seriously theorize digital
archives’ materiality: the hardware that supports this code, servers’ energy consumption
and carbon footprint, computer technologies’ commercially-motivated planned
obsolescence, the human labor and social infrastructure that sustains these systems,
etc. Given the parallel proliferation of digital databases and born-digital audiovisual
documents and massive funding cuts to public-sector archives across Canada (where
Baron works) and the United States, the material differences between archival
structures and political economy that governs them cannot in good faith be ignored. The
final chapter, as well as The Archive Effect as a whole, could have benefited greatly
from a sustained discussion of these material concerns and their potential influences on
the production and longevity of digitized and born-digital records. In order to understand
digital appropriation films’ potential effects on our experiences of history, it is necessary
210
to paint a more complex picture of the interactions between commerce, politics, and
culture that enables the creation, circulation and reception of these films, in addition to
the archival effects that arise from them.
A second serious limitation of The Archive Effect is Baron’s reliance on American films
from the 1990s and early 2000s as her case studies for the book. Although she seeks to
establish a broad theoretical framework for thinking through spectators’ reception and
affective responses to archival documents, by limiting the geographical and historical
focus of her study to contemporary Western culture she does not offer any evidence to
support her claim that the archive effect operates “across national and linguistic
boundaries” (174). Baron is quite transparent about the subjective nature of the archive
effect, pointing out that it is not universally experienced when viewing appropriation
films. Nevertheless, by frequently skirting around the national, racial, and gender
distinctions within audiences that help shape our experiences as spectators, Baron
presumes a universal philosophy of history in her readings of these films.3 Fortunately,
Baron recognizes this concern in her conclusion, pointing out that the historical and
local specificity of the archive effect does remain to be theorized (175). Given the
relatively truncated nature of this study—spanning a quick two hundred pages—the
reader is nevertheless left with a sense that Baron’s theorization of the archive effect
does not go far enough. Even with these shortcomings, however, Jaimie Baron’s study
offers scholars and graduate students alike a productive tool for theorizing how we
experience both history and the archive through appropriation films in the twenty-first
century.
Rachel Webb Jekanowski is a doctoral student at Concordia University and one of the
guest editors for this journal issue.
3
In Chapter 4, Baron offers an important reading of Cheryl Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman
(1996), and the ways in which her film visualizes lesbians’ and African Americans’ absences
from most official archives. However, Baron does not extend her analysis of racial and gender
politics within the film to an analysis of its potential audiences.
211
Works Cited
Baron, Jaimie. The Archive Effect: Found footage and the audiovisual experience of
history. London and New York: Routledge, 2014. Print.
Further Reading
Boym, Svetlana. The Future of Nostalgia. New York: Basic Books, 2001. Print.
Leyda, Jay. Films Beget Films: A Study of the Compilation Film. New York: Hill and
Wang, 1964. Print.
Russell, Catherine. Experimental Ethnography: the World of Film in the Age of Video.
Durham: Duke University Press, 1999. Print.
Skoller, Jeffrey. Shadows, Specters, Shards: Making History in Avant-Garde Film.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005. Print.
Sobchack, Vivian, ed. The Persistence of History: Cinema, Television, and the Modern
Event. New York: Routledge, 1996. Print.
---. “Toward a Phenomenology of Nonfictional Film Experience,” in Collecting Visible
Evidence. Ed. Jane M. Gaines and Michael Renov. (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1999): 241-254. Print.
Wees, William. Recycled Images: The Art and Politics of Found Footage Films. New
York: Anthology Film Archives, 1993. Print.
Zryd, Michael. “Found Footage Film as Discursive Metahistory: Craig Baldwin’s
Tribulation 99.” The Moving Image 3.2 (Fall 2003): 40-61. Print.
212
Amateur Filmmaking: The Home Movie, the Archive, the Web
Rascaroli, Laura, Gwenda Young, and Barry Monahan, eds. Amateur Filmmaking:
The Home Movie, the Archive, the Web. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014.
392 pages.
Book review by Enrique Fibla Gutiérrez
I
n an article originally published in 1998 and later reprinted in 2003,
Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke recalls being asked by Sight & Sound
about “the driving force for the development of films in the future,” to which
he replied “the age of amateur cinema will return.”1 Although his intervention is
situated within the Chinese context and the popularization of mini-DV filmmaking, it
does reflect upon a series of practical and theoretical developments regarding the
democratization of filmmaking culture and the troubling of professional/nonprofessional boundaries it entails. It is in this context that Amateur Filmmaking: The
Home Movie, the Archive, the Web intervenes, looking back and rescuing historically
neglected amateur traditions, but also focusing on this current “return of the amateur”
as a key component of today’s film and media environments.
Deemed unworthy of “serious” academic interest, amateur filmmaking has not
received much scholarly attention until quite recently. The publication of Patricia
Zimmermann’s Reel Families: A Social History of Amateur Film (1995) changed this,
slowly building an academic momentum, coupled with a growing interest in unofficial
archives, preservation of orphan films, home movies and found footage work—
epitomized by Rick Prelinger through his writing, films, and archivist role.
Subsequent collections such as Efrén Cuevas’ La Casa Abierta, el cine doméstico y
sus reciclajes contemporaneous (2010), and Karen I. Ishizuka and Patricia R.
Zimmermann’s Mining the Home Movie: Excavations in Histories and Memories
(1998) have continued to reflect on non-professional filmmaking practices in
1
The original article, “The age of the amateur will return” was published in Chinese for the
book Yigeren de yingxiang: DV wanquan shouce, edited by Zhang Xianmin and Zhang
Yaxuan (Beijing: China Youth Publishing, 2003). Yuqian Yan translated it for the digital
magazine dGenerate Films.
Zhangke, Jia. “The Age of Amateur Cinema Will Return”. dGenerate Films. 3 March 2010.
Web. 8 December 2014. <http://dgeneratefilms.com/critical-essays/jia-zhangke-the-age-ofamateur-cinema-will-return>.
213
Amateur Filmmaking (Review)
Enrique Fibla Gutiérrez
relationship with micro-histories, memory, identity, and the construction of the filmic
self. In 2010, for instance, Dr. Annamaria Motrescu-Mayes founded the “Amateur
Cinema Studies Network” (ACSN), an open and transnational research collective
and website (http://amateurcinemastudies.org) devoted to the study of amateur film.
In 2008, Laura Rascaroli, Barry Monahan, and Gwenda Young (of University College
York), along with Kasandra O’Connell and Sunniva O’Flynn (of the Irish Film
Institute) began a two-year collaborative project titled Capturing the Nation: Irish
Home Movies, 1930-1970. The project’s goal was to recover Irish amateur movies
from a period in which the lack of domestic professional film production resulted in a
depiction of Irishness from the outside, mainly through the perspective of England
and the United States. As part of the project, an international conference on amateur
cinema was held in 2010—“Saving Private Reels”— from which the present
collection stems.
As such, Amateur Filmmaking is certainly a widely varied and eclectic collection of
articles, but also delightful in its discovery of a territory largely ignored by scholars
until very recently. Indeed, the book’s table of contents reveals there is much to talk
about and suggests many exciting and thought-provoking avenues for further
research. But the varied nature of the collection does not mean that the book is a
chaotic mixture, since the editors have divided the twenty-three articles into six
chapters, each gravitating around a particular approach to amateur cinema:
“Reframing the Home Movie”; “Private Reels, Historiographical Concerns”;
“Nonfictional Recontextualizations”; “Amateur Auteur”; and “New Directions: The
Digital Age”. Although each can be consulted separately, throughout all six there is a
common aim to rescue amateur film from the outer margins of Film Studies,
reworking established categories in the field such as ‘archives’, ‘national cinemas’,
‘circulation’, ‘vernacular’, ‘auteurism’, ‘the self’, ‘imperial visual culture’, and ‘microhistory’ among many others.
Take, for example, Liz Czach’s “Home Movies and Amateur Film as National
Cinema”, in which she shows how non-professional films can become a national
cinema in the absence of a strong professional film tradition (as in the case of
Ireland, Wales and Luxemburg). Moreover, Czach points to the mistake of
214
acknowledging only professional film as official national film production—since it
allows key cultural artifacts to slip into oblivion—and calls for scholars to devise
methodologies and models that draw out the significance of these texts in innovative
ways. Her claim resonates with Heather Norris Nicholson’s “Cinemas of Catastrophe
and Continuity” in which she suggests that we approach amateur film as an underrecognized twentieth-century vernacular art form. Both articles involve a move from
the scholarly consideration of amateur films as mere historical artifacts to an
assessment that includes their aesthetic and affective qualities.
Given the young age of this new area of interest, a concern for finding adequate
methodologies for the study of amateur film is consistent throughout the volume.
Roger Odin uses a semio-pragmatic method, theorizing a “space of communication”
created by home movies, both in their private viewing and subsequent public
circulation. It is interesting to contrast this communicative approach with the
negotiation of the self put forward in most of the articles dealing with the digital age
and the amateur as auteur. This space of communication and the negotiation of the
self leave aside the political and cultural economy of amateur film, which is the
approach put forth in the closing chapter. These last three articles look at how
amateur films can circulate as commodities, but also provide an alternative political
economy for film. Despite these differing methodological approaches, all
contributions consider amateur films worthy cultural and historical objects of study. In
this, they follow the work of Giovani Levi (2001) and Ranajit Guha (2003), among
others, who approach microhistories as an alternative to hegemonic historiography.
Throughout the book, there is also an attempt to engage with what exactly “amateur
film” is, and where to locate it in media histories. Without supplying a definitive
answer to this question—which is certainly not the objective of the book—the
different articles move between the private and public realms, considering in each
step the wider social, political, and cultural inscriptions that amateur films carry with
them. Indeed, in the first article, Roger Odin locates the place of amateur films—
especially home movies—in the private and intimate space of the family, looking at
what happens when they circulate through public channels such as TV shows and
archives. In this vein, Maija Howe suggests a transmedia reading of amateur film as
a mass cultural phenomenon, linking it with the previous tradition of snapshot
215
photography. Her article links the amateur gesture to issues of travel, leisure, and
the impulse to capture the “everyday”, as in Mark Neumann’s piece on the Jackson
family’s road trip films.
But this relationship between amateur film and leisure can hide much deeper sociopolitical considerations, as in Annamaria Motrescu-Mayes’ exploration of
“uncensored” British imperial politics in home movies made by colonists in India.
When analyzed closely, apparently trivial films of excursions and gatherings reveal
troubling logics of exclusion/inclusion. These logics also appear in Janna Jones’s
analysis of Tad Nichols’ film Navajo Rug Weaving (1939), in which a close personal
relationship between white and Indian neighbors disappears when the latter become
filmic objects of the former.
Moving beyond the private realm, chapter four, “Amateur Auteur”, considers amateur
films that inhabit the margins of professional film, produced with very little means by
authorial figures such as Joseph Morder or Peter Forgács. Continuing this move
towards the public sphere, the last section analyzes the status of amateur films in the
current media-pervasive societies, exploring the increasing reuse of archival material
(Patricia R. Zimmermann and Susan Aasman), the negotiation of the self (Tianqi
Yu), and the commoditization of private life through profitable Youtube videos and
viral pranks (Lauren S. Berliner and Abigail Keating). The collection ends with Max
Schleser, who brings our attention to the possibilities of amateur film as an
alternative cultural production system in the 2.0 age of user-based histories and
mobile media. This statement certainly resonates with Jia Zhangke’s prediction of a
“return of the amateur film”, urging scholars to direct their attention towards
emergent non-professional media ecosystems.
Indeed, the recent explosion of multiple non-professional technologies of expression,
distribution and exhibition—digital cameras, phones, editing software, Youtube,
social media and sharing platforms, mobile apps such as Instagram, etc—calls for
further engagement with the figure of the amateur. But it is important to remember
that this is a “return”, not a new phenomenon. This is precisely the biggest virtue of
Amateur Filmmaking; to look into the future of amateur film by looking back first,
216
highlighting what scholars have missed until very recently, and tracing from there
new avenues of research.
Enrique Fibla Gutierrez is a doctoral student at Concordia University.
Works Cited
Cuevas, Efrén. La casa abierta: el cine doméstico y sus reciclajes contemporáneos.
Madrid: Ocho y medio: Ayuntamiento de Madrid, 2010. Print.
Guha, Ranajit. History at the Limit of World-History. New York: Columbia University
Press, 2003. Print.
Ishizuka, Karen L. and Patricia R. Zimmermann, eds. Mining the Home Movie:
Excavations in Histories and Memories. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 2008. Print.
Levi, Giovanni. “On Microhistory,” in New Perspectives on Historical Writing, 2nd
edition. Ed. Peter Burke. (University Park: Pennsylvania State University
Press, 2001): 97-119. Print.
Rascaroli, Laura, Gwenda Young, and Barry Monahan, eds. Amateur Filmmaking:
The Home Movie, the Archive, the Web. New York: Bloomsbury Academic,
2014. Print.
Zhangke, Jia. “The Age of the Amateur Will Return”. Trans. Yuqian Yan. dGenerate
Films. 3 March 2004. Web. 8 December 2014.
<http://dgeneratefilms.com/critical-essays/jia-zhangke-the-age-of-amateurcinema-will-return>.
Zimmermann, Patricia R. Reel Families: A Social History of Amateur Film.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995. Print.
217
Know-Show: Lisa Gitelman’s Paper Knowledge
Lisa Gitelman. Paper Knowledge: Toward a Media History of Documents. Durham:
Duke University Press, 2014. 224 pages.
Book review by Alex Lussier-Craig
L
isa Gitelman's work explores the contingent positions of old and new media as
simultaneous subjects and instruments of history. She is the author of Always
Already New: Media, History, and the Data of Culture (2006, MIT Press) and the
editor of the collection “Raw Data” is an Oxymoron (2013, MIT Press). Interest in the
patterns of meaning-making that emerge out of reading the new against the grain of the
old is very much present in her latest book, Paper Knowledge: Toward a Media History
of Documents (2014, Duke University Press).
Paper Knowledge offers a glimpse at the ways in which the broad category of print
culture may be rethought in light of contemporary digital texts. In order to do this,
Gitelman constructs a selective media history of the document. At the outset the
document is identified as a genre recognizable by its “know-show” function: a function
that binds knowledge to its demonstration in a dialectic of printed pages (Gitelman 1-2).
An object may only become a document once it is mobilized as evidence - knowledge is
confirmed as such by documentary evidence, and documentary evidence is then
confirmed by the “known facts” to which it refers (3). According to Gitelman’s argument,
the mobilization of documentary evidence is linked to the reproduction of the objectdocument. Indeed, duplication and circulation of documents is central to Gitelman’s
discussion as she describes “a confusion of mobilities” (22). These are mobilities and
movements confused, in part, by a simultaneous inertia. While documents themselves
move and record the movements of people and things through time and space, they are
at the same time preservative and often kept as part of “permanent” records designed
to be consulted in an imagined future (22).
While Gitelman does not make it explicit, it seems that the method outlined in Paper
218
Know-Show (Review)
Alex Lussier-Craig
Knowledge is closely linked to media archaeology. This is particularly apparent in the
selection of unconventional uses of documentary media in order to bring their attendant
protocols under scrutiny. Media archaeology has been loosely defined by scholars such
as Wolfgang Ernst, Jussi Parikka and Erkki Huhtamo as both a method and analytic tool
used to reclaim aspects of media technologies and cultures that would have otherwise
been forgotten or excluded from cultural histories.1 While there is agreement on this
cursory definition, Ernst and Parikka each engage distinct approaches to the work of
media archaeology. Ernst, in the German tradition, focuses much more on the
technology itself, while Parikka, in a more American fashion, is more concerned with the
cultural influences on and implications of media technology. Gitelman's work is most
closely related to the American form of media archaeology. As Huhtamo and Parikka
note in their introduction to the influential anthology, Media Archaeology, “[d]ead ends,
losers, and inventions that never made it into a material product have important stories
to tell” (Huhtamo and Parikka 3). Although Gitelman engages with enormously popular
technologies such as the Xerox machine and the PDF file format, her focus on their
unconventional uses places Paper Knowledge within a media archaeological mode.
The document in Paper Knowledge is described as self-evident and familiar. As
Gitelman argues, the identification of a document as such “is collective, spontaneous,
and dynamic”—a document should be instantly recognizable to anyone familiar with
North American bureaucracy (Gitelman 2). The document in this sense is unremarkable
and overlooked because its formal properties have been naturalized. It is this familiarity
that Gitelman seeks to address in the comparative readings of her four case studies blank books and job printing, the typescript book, xerography, and the PDF. Though the
case studies are arranged chronologically, they do not participate in a teleological
narrative of media progress. Rather the case studies in all their specificity are
juxtaposed in order to call attention to the “ruptures in media historical narration” (19).
To that end, Gitelman organizes her chapters around the activities of eccentric subjects,
subjects who represent irregularities in media history. These juxtapositions and offbeat
1
For more detailed explanation of Media Archaeology see Ernst’s Media Archaeology (2011),
Parikka’s What is Media Archaeology? (2012), and Parikka and Huhtamo’s introduction to
Media Archaeology (2011).
219
Know-Show (Review)
Alex Lussier-Craig
characters make the document as a genre just strange enough to be newly intelligible.
Elsewhere Gitelman has commented that focusing on anomaly reveals the frustrated
assumptions of the norm (Always Already New, 130). In juxtaposing selective histories
and using eccentric characters as the framing device for each case study, Gitelman
makes the familiar strange in order to better understand the naturalized meanings and
assumptions that are bound up in the reproduction and circulation of documents.
Paper Knowledge does a good job of exploring the workings of paper documents, but
leaves something to be desired in its discussion of digital texts and documents.
Gitelman makes many gestures throughout the book towards a rethinking of digital
texts, but these never seem to land. There is no sustained analysis of digital documents
as such, and even the discussion of PDF files only engages the digital inasmuch as it
reproduces or resists the assumptions of printed paper documents. The protocols and
assumptions about the functioning of PDFs and digital texts are read against the grain
of the older documentary media in order to better understand the latter. This seems to
be an extension of the media archaeological approach of Gitelman’s earlier book,
Always Already New, and is quite revealing of the ways that paper documents operate,
but leaves digital texts behind.
One of the more interesting threads throughout the book is the equation of reproduction
to access. The decentralization of records and the consequent increase in access is
central to Gitelman's discussion of the debates over how best to reproduce research
materials in bulk, and the transformation of office records with Xerox and PDF
technologies. It is perhaps an extension of Gitelman’s present argument, but it seems
important to note that the logics of digital databases and archives recall the logic of
reproduction and access at work in the creation of indexes of research materials as
discussed in the second chapter. The creation of these indexes involved the recollection of records and lists of holdings into a single volume to be reproduced and
redistributed. Similarly, online databases such as Google Books collect together
endlessly reproducible materials in order that they may be more widely accessible.
220
Know-Show (Review)
Alex Lussier-Craig
It is also worth noting that documents and records are the stuff of archives and that the
“know-show” function that Gitelman describes is very much the way archival records get
taken up as evidence in the writing of histories. Records may be used as evidence of
history because they are found in archives, and records are kept in archives because
they are evidence. Though as the work of historians such as Ann Laura Stoler (Along
the Archival Grain 2009), Luise White (Speaking with Vampires 2000), and MichelRolph Trouillot (Silencing the Past 1995) has demonstrated, there is nothing self-evident
about the evidence found in archival records. Gitelman briefly touches on this issue in
her discussion of the nature of the research materials to be documented and
disseminated that is part of the larger discussion of the typescript book (Paper
Knowledge, 58). This goes beyond the scope of Paper Knowledge, but is a thread
perhaps worth taking up in later projects. In calling attention to and historicizing the
intuitive self-evidence of the document, Gitelman’s Paper Knowledge provides a good
basis for further investigation of the ontological assumptions bound up in historical and
archival documentary evidence.
Alex Lussier-Craig is a master’s student in the Department of Communication Studies at
Concordia University.
221
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Alex Lussier-Craig
Works Cited
Ernst, Wolfgang. “Media Archaeography : Method and Machine versus History and Narrative of
Media.” Media Archaeology: Approaches, Applications, and Implications. Ed. Erkki
Huhtamo and Jussi Parikka. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011. Print.
Gitelman, Lisa. Always Already New: Media, History, and the Data of Culture. Cambridge: The
MIT Press, 2008. Print.
-----. Paper Knowledge: Toward a Media History of Documents. Durham: Duke University Press,
2014. Print.
Huhtamo, Erkki and Jussi Parikka, eds. Media Archaeology: Approaches, Applications, and
Implications. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011. Print.
Parikka, Jussi. What is Media Archaeology? Malden: Polity Press, 2012. Print.
222

Introduction: “Out of the Dark Stacks and into the Light: Re

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