Hello all! Here's the last batch of notes, this time for chapters 10 and 11 of Cinema 1. I'll post a compilation of all notes as pdf to the people in the mailing list after our last session this spring.
Cinema 1 – The Movement-Image Janne Vanhanen 16.4.2012
Chapter 10: The Action-Image; The Small Form
Deleuze presents straight away another type of action-image – that which corresponds to the “small form”. The “large form” (SAS’) moves from situation (S) to action (A), and this action modifies the situation (S’). Now, conversely, if we move from action to situation and then towards another action, we have an ASA’ structure (the small form of action-image).
The small form means that action is the element which discloses a situation, whereas in the large form it is the situation that engenders the action, the situation provides the conditions for the action’s emergence. The small form leads us from “action to action, [during which] the situation gradually emerges, varies, and finally either becomes clear or retains its mystery” (C1, p. 160).
In last chapter it was discussed that the large form is connected to Bergsonian or phenomenological conception of life as having two poles (like a developing egg): the vegetative infusion of energy towards saturation point (growth of the embryo) and the animal outward action resulting from the intake (breaking out of the egg shell). In this case life emerges from and is engendered in a situation (the milieu of the egg, providing an encompassing horizon for the entity within). An action is required to change this situation into another one, as the animal breaks the shell and steps out into a widened horizon with different (and expanded) set of conditions for its existence.
The small form reverses this sensory-motor schema and its sign is the index. Movement proceeds from action (a mode of behavior or “habitus”) to a partially disclosed situation which is deduced from the point of view of action. A detailed comparison can be made between the two types of action-image:
Action-Image:
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The Large Form
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The Small Form
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Movement:
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SAS’
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ASA’
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Sign:
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Synsign (S) / Binomial (A)
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Index (of lack or of equivocity)
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Representation:
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Global, spiral
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Local, elliptical
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Construction:
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Structural, organic
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Eventual, organizational
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Form:
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Ethical
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Comedic
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The originator of the term, C.S. Peirce defines index as a sign that is a “real reaction” to the denoted object. Index marks an object or event by virtue of being affected by it (such as smoke is an index of fire: smoke is not fire, yet it is caused by fire). Index draws attention to something else. A knock on the door is an index of somebody behind that door. Yet, indexicality need not be simultaneous with its object: a track is an index of frequent walking along that route.
Now, in the small form of action-image Deleuze notes two opposite cases of the index sign that is characteristic to the form. 1) The action (or its equivalent) reveals a situation that is not given beforehand. The situation is therefore understood on the basis of the action, it is deduced from the action, either by immediate conclusion or detailed reasoning. Because the situation is not given, its sign is the index of lack (a gap in the narrative, ellipse [French, meaning “ellipsis” in English]). In the example of Charlie Chaplin’s A Woman of Paris (1923, translated in Cinema 1 as Public Opinion) a gap of one year makes us infer the change in the heroine’s situation when her behavior and clothes have changed. Or then there can be reasoning-images where reasoning processes are situated in the image (index) itself. Something is shown that makes us deduce that it must mean this… Deleuze mentions Lubitsch as a frequent user of this type of reasoning-image.
2) Another type of index is the index of equivocity. This corresponds to another meaning of the French term ellipse – the geometrical “ellipse”. Equivocal index denotes to uncertainty or possibility of different interpretations. In this type of index reasoning-images do not lead to a singular conclusion, but retain at least two opposing interpretations. In A Woman in Paris we are left wondering whether the heroine – displaying indices of enigmatic quality – is really in love with the rich man or whether she loves him only for his fortune. Here the action (a mode of behavior) conceals a minute difference which relates it to (at least) two different situations. Or two actions are only very slightly different and yet lead to two opposing situations. We cannot decide… This device is very often used, for instance in the case of an innocent man assumed guilty (standard fare of detective stories: incriminating details lead a hasty police officer to declare X guilty, yet a more careful analysis of clues brings the master detective to a totally different conclusion). Deleuze names “the law of the new index: a very slight difference in the action, or between two actions, leads to a very great distance between two situations” (C1, p. 162).
To sum up: “in the small form [of action-image], we deduce the situation, or the situations, from the action” (C1, p. 162). Deleuze notes that this form leads to less “expensive” productions and is a distinct feature of “B movies” or low budget features – they have to rely on visual inventions and experimentation in creating cinematic representations and thus working within the parameters of a more limited form of ASA suits this method. Deleuze states that we can see divisions between action-image’s large and small forms in different film genres. Among those that have been discussed in previous chapters are the psycho-social film (SAS)/comedy of manners (ASA); monumental historical film (SAS)/costume film (ASA); Flaherty-style documentary (SAS)/English school of 1930s (ASA); crime film (SAS)/detective film (ASA)…
Deleuze devotes a longer look to the Western, from Hawks to neo-Western. Hawks uses the large “respiratory” form which starts from an encompassing, global milieu from which an action rises, which in turn modifies the global situation from within. Units of this great organic representation are 1) one or several fundamental groups [well-defined and homogeneous], 2) a makeshift group [together by chance, heterogeneous] and 3) a big gap between the situation and the action – the gap being there in order to be filled. The hero must actualize necessary powers inherent in the initial situation and become capable of action. He represents the “good” fundamental group, but needs the help of the makeshift group. Deleuze notes how Hawks already deforms this organic representation by, for instance, making the interior milieu become the source of the unexpected, violent event, instead of crisis appearing from the usual direction of exteriority (appearance of Indians on the top of the hill etc.). (C1, pp. 164–166.)
Yet, it is in the neo-Western where the small form replaces the organic unity of representation. Threats are internalized: Indians spring up from within enclosures, the fundamental group disappears to be replaced by a multiplicity of makeshift groups that lose their clear distinctions, oppositions shift constantly (one can think of the constantly double-crossing characters of Sergio Leone’s Westerns, where everyone is in turns the good, the bad or the ugly). Here, in the small form, “action can never be determined by and in a preceding situation – it is, on the contrary, the situation which flows progressively from the action” (C1, p. 167). Minute differences lead to logically very distant situations; doubts and fears are no longer justified as a necessary part of the process of filling the gap between situation and action – i.e. rising up to the challenge that the situation demands in the large form. In the small form there is no longer great action. A complementary space is defined: in contrast to the respiratory space of the organic large form, a “skeleton-space” appears, with missing intermediaries, composed of heterogeneous elements. (C1, p. 168.)
In the small form the situation no longer encompasses everything, as in a great contour around the life-world of a subject (like the contour of an egg, see notes for chapter 9). The genetic sign of the small form is the vector [“carrier” of something from point A to point B], rather than the large form’s impression.
Deleuze devotes some pages to analyze one genre that seems particularly devoted to the small form: the “burlesque” [French burlesque refers to the comic in general]. There the formula of AS is most developed – in the burlesque a minute difference in action (or between two or more actions) produce huge variations in resulting situations. These tiny differences in fact exist in order to bring about such distances. Examples of Charlie Chaplin films ensue: for instance, in The Idle Class (1921) a shot of deserted husband from behind his back shows the man shaking – perhaps sobbing uncontrollably? But no, when he turns to face the camera, we see that he’s shaking a cocktail for himself!
[See it all at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p80TPov7nNA – the cocktail shot at around 7 minutes.]
Thus, the burlesque process is as follows: “the action is filmed from the angle of the smallest difference from another action […] but in this way it discloses the enormity of the distance between two situations” (C1, p. 169). The sources of the small form appear: confusion, slight differences making the situation fluctuate, the instant as the critical moment leading to opposing situation – all incorporated in the zigzagging line of the universe. This is the law of the index: “the slight difference in the action which brings out an infinite distance between two situations” (C1, p. 170). Chaplin is nominated as the master of this in his way of evoking different situations from gestures that are very close to each other – his humanism brings laughter and deep emotion side by side, without diluting either. It is worth citing Deleuze at length on this matter:
It is a laughter-emotion circuit, in which [laughter] refers to the slight difference, [emotion] to the great distance, without the one obliterating or diminishing the other, but both interchanging with the other, triggering each other off again. No case can be made for a tragic Chaplin. There is certainly no case for saying that we laugh, whereas we should cry. Chaplin’s genius lies in doing both together, making us laugh as much as moving us. (C1, p. 171.)
Chaplin, then, utilizes the concept of the tool – the immeasurable variety of the uses of an everyday object. A similar gesture (action) in different situations produces an infinite difference between possible situations. In comparison, Buster Keaton brings about a machinic sensibility in his use of the burlesque small form: the absurdity of makeshift machinery. Deleuze compares the ”communist-humanist” vision of Chaplin with the “anarchistic-machinic” one of Keaton. Chaplin perfects the burlesque small form of action-image, Keaton transforms the small form action into the large form: the immense absurd situation, out of which the minuscule, keeping-up-with-the-crazy-machine-breaking-down action emerges.
Chapter 11: Figures, or the Tranformation of Forms
There are, of course, passages and transformations between large and small forms of action-image. These transformations take place by utilizing a deforming “original form”, the sign of which Deleuze calls Figure. [Deleuze uses the concept of the Figure in his book on Francis Bacon’s paintings, Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation (1981).]
Deleuze notes – going along with “Plato’s sense” – that the two terms of the large and the small correspond to both a) “forms of action” and b) “conceptions, ways of conceiving and seeing a ‘subject’, a story or a script” (C1, p. 178). What this means is that the forms of SAS and ASA do not only produce effects of cinematic narration, but function also on the level of suppositions and preconceived notions of what cinema is in the first place, the Idea of the film.
Deleuze discusses the transformation of forms in Eisenstein’s work, where he uses caesuras in organic representation, marking out crises which produce qualitative leaps between situations. The small form (qualitative leaps) is situated within the large (the whole related to a cause). In terms of signs, transformation passes between synsign (duel) to index. These transformations occur in what Einstein called the “montage of attractions” – insertions of special images, theatrical (scenographic) or sculptural (plastic) images, which seem to interrupt the flow of the action. Deleuze gives examples from Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible, Part 2 (1946), speaking about theatrical images which either replace the action or prefigure the action to come. Similarly, action can be extended in sculptural representations which distance the viewer from the situation at hand. Clear example of this is in Eisenstein’s The General Line (1929), where the action is halted in suspense when a peasant collective wait anxiously whether the new cream separator works or not. A drop of milk falls, then a flood – along with general rejoicing.
The point is: Eisenstein makes here a formal qualitative leap, passing “from one image to a quite different mode of image which has only an indirect reflexive relationship with the initial image” (C1, p. 181). There are distinctions to be made: 1) in theatrical representation the action-to-come is replaced by fictitious action; instead of S-A we have S-A’, with A’ functioning as an index sign to the real action A, which is being prepared meanwhile. 2) In plastic representation the action does not disclose the situation toward which it is projected, but it is encompassed in a more grandiose situation; instead of A-S we have A-S’, with S’ functioning as a synsign (encompasser) of the real situation S, which is relayed only through its intermediary.
Schematically, in theatrical representation the small form is injected into the large form, in plastic representation the large form is inserted into the small one. In both cases there is an indirect relation between a situation and an action: “between two images […] a third intervenes to ensure the conversion of the forms” (C1, p. 182). Here the fundamental duality of action-image takes a leap towards a “higher” instance – we are in the presence of reflection-image whose sign is the Figure. This attractional image circulates through the action-image.
Deleuze then brings up Werner Herzog, who in his films makes the figures of the Large and the Small pass into each other. Large and small are, in addition to being forms and conceptions, also Visions, which feature heavily in Herzog’s films.
In Herzog there are two obsessive themes: 1) A “man who is larger than life frequents a milieu which is itself larger than life, and dreams up an action as great as the milieu”; this is a special kind of SAS’ form, “a crazy enterprise” of action that is not required by the situation, dreamed up by a visionary who seeks to rival the whole milieu. This action divides in two: 1a) the sublime action, reaching to the beyond, a hallucinatory dimension of the acting spirit raising itself on par with nature’s infinity; and 1b) the heroic action, confronting the milieu and breaching its limits, a hypnotic enterprise of the acting spirit running up against the limits of nature.
These two have a figural relationship. For instance, in Aguirre, Wrath of God (1972) the heroic action of Aguirre is the consuming trek through the mountains and forest, and the descending of rapids. This reflects the sublime action of Aguirre the Traitor, in his quest to betray everyone and found an incestuous regime with his daughter, “the Large is realized as pure Idea, in the double nature of the landscapes and the actions” (C1, p. 184).
Another, complementary theme of Herzog is 2) “the Small which becomes the Idea”. Here the hero is no longer a heroic conqueror of the useless, but the protagonists are rather reduced to the state of retards and other beings that are so diminished that they have no use any longer. No more visionaries, they are “weaklings and idiots”. Also landscapes are dwarfed and flattened, even disappear. Vision is reduced to elementary tactility, walking close to the earth. This is an ASA’ form, but “reduced to its most feeble aspect”. (C1, pp. 184–185.)
What we encounter in the films of Herzog concerns: 1) the sublimation of the large form (going beyond the situation’s requirements in a visionary way) and 2) the enfeeblement of the small form (enfeeblement almost to the point of disappearance). These extremes are metaphysical and Deleuze nominates Herzog as the most metaphysical of cinema directors. We are talking about the absolutely Large and Small, opening each other up in their extremes.
To end the chapter, Deleuze then sums up the different domains where the large and small forms manifest their real distinctions and which act as spaces of possible transformations between the forms (leading us already somewhere beyond the action-image). This categorization comes up rather suddenly in the book, but it serves as a general exposition of how situation and action can be brought into relation with each other – and how the established large and small forms can be transformed and varied. Deleuze brings up Japanese cinema and especially Akira Kurosawa and Kenji Mizoguchi as forerunners in this transformation between forms. Different modes of variation take place in terms of:
1) Physico-biological domain (milieu): 1a) an encompassing milieu surrounding the body and acting upon it (SAS’); 1b) an interval between two bodies, the fluid which transmits intensities (actions) between bodies (ASA’).
2) Mathematical domain (space): 2a) global space (univocal, defined set; ambiance-space, SAS’, the limit of which is the empty space); 2b) local space (fragmentary, forming immediate surroundings, ASA’, the limit of which is the disconnected space whose parts can be linked together in infinite number of ways). Both spaces’ limits are brought into contact in the any-space-whatever.
3) Aesthetic domain (landscape): 3a) primordial void and the breath of life (unites all things in Oneness, presence of things is in their appearing; encompassing synsign, SAS’), Kurosawa; 3b) median void and the skeleton (articulation, joints, the wrinkle, moving from one being to another; the zigzag line of the universe, presence itself lies in its disappearing; transforming vector, ASA’), Mizoguchi.
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