Cameraman: Manel Muntaner
Defense part 1/2
Defense part 2/2
Oriol Diez Ferrer's Thesis Defense (Video and Translated transcription)
March 21, 2011, Sala de Graus, Faculty of Communication
Autonomous University of Barcelona
The title of the thesis is as you know "Cinematographic situations: Debord, Bresson, Cinéma 68."
Cinematographic situations. Situations, the concept of situation comes from Situationist theories, the Situationists, Guy Debord. Cinematography, Robert Bresson, Robert Bresson's cinematographer, "Notes on the cinematographer". In front, cinema spectacle. The cinematographer - the cinema, as understood by Bresson. Situations - spectacle, as understood by Debord.
In any case, these are relational concepts. That is concepts as a place for relationships. Therefore it is not exactly a thesis on Debord, nor on Bresson, but on something else. Even though the starting point is obviously Debord and Bresson. And these are concepts or conceptual tools. So the aim is to build a group of concepts, from books and films of these two filmmakers, that can then be extended to the study, or research, or analysis of other films, or even other communicative, or social, or yet human phenomena.
In social sciences, it is important to take into account not only the object of study but also the attitude of the researcher. Who studies, who investigates. How to investigate, among other issues. Unlike perhaps on physical and natural sciences, where not much attention is paid to this kind of issues.
I personally came to this university fifteen years ago, when I entered the Faculty of Sociology, which is right down there. And I was there several years studying sociology. Then I remained here studying, working, researching. I studied Sociology, then I also got a Communication degree, and began a PhD in Social and Audiovisual Communication. And here we are now, inside this research process. So my main background is on one hand sociological theory, and on the other film theory. And at the same time, some training in sociology of culture, sociology of communication, sociology of art, linked to practical and applied aspects of film analysis. This, in my case, results in a framework, a theoretical and methodological framework, which would basically proceeds from a sociological perspective. One might even speak of a sort of sociology of film, despite people usually think about other things when using this therm. And essentially qualitative methodologies, the type of methodologies habitual in this field and in this area of study.
The sociological perspective, within sociology, of social constructionists, is quite popular in Autonomous University of Barcelona. Although there are others, like critical theory. Social constructionism and critical theory. The methodologies: qualitative. Discourse analysis as studied in sociology. But not limited to content analysis. Also, very important when confronting filmic works, formal analysis, stylistic analysis, iconographic analysis, critical analysis, theoretical analysis... Then from this theoretical and methodological framework, of a general nature and, important to say also, adapted to the object of study, an attempt to approach these two authors, Guy Debord and Robert Bresson.
In fact the starting point and primary reference works are films and books of both Debord and Bresson. For Debord, three shorts and three feature films, more or less dated between 1952 and 1978, and also the book "La Société du Spectacle", other articles and writings, and other activities. For Bresson, these thirteen films, dated between 1943 and 1983, and also his very important book "Notes sur le Cinématographe", published in 1975, and several monographs, and interviews with him.
That said, the particular theoretical framework, the specific theoretical framework, for Robert Bresson, comes from "Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer." This is a 1972 book by Paul Schrader, influenced by Bazin and Sontag in a way. A book which itself represents a major contribution of this author, that we also know as prominent screenwriter, film director, film critic, film theorist, and so. This is a reference book in the world of film studies. It is a book in which Mr. Schrader essentially talks about transcendental style as a form that develops in three steps, which are presentation of the everyday, disparity, and ecstasy. These three steps lead to a particular style, which he calls transcendental. One might then try to contrast it with other papers on Bresson. Because in fact what interests us here is not just Bresson, or Schrader's book, which does not cover Bresson's complete filmography. Presentation of everyday life, is therefore contrasted with Arnaud's notion of negativities and latencies. Disparity, with Reader's theoretical analysis. Ecstasy, with Zunzunegui's eminently "materialistic" analysis. In any case, we were very interested by this, because everyday, presentation of everyday life, disparity, and ecstasy, recall so much Debord. Then this structure was a structure that fitted so well with Debord's approach. Presentation of everyday life: situationist theories basically seek observation and application in everyday life. Disparity: situationist concept of separation. Ecstasy: situationist concept of unity.
On Guy Debord, the main background comes from legacy of twentieth century political, and artistic, and of course filmic avant-gardes. Criticism of these vanguards towards separation of life and politics, life and art, and by extension life and film. On separation between life and politics, some authors recurrently mentioned are Marx, Bakunin, Pannekoek and Lefebvre. One could also cite others, halfway, like Lukacs, Adorno, Horkheimer, Gramsci, and Benjamin, usually referenced in these field. In any case, criticism linked to councilist and gradually libertarian currents, in the case of Situationists. And for separation between life and art, it is important to take into account the starting point of Debord with lettrists, and his subsequent work within situationists, at once claimed or self-proclaimed real heirs of previous artistic avant-gardes, especially Dadaists and Surrealists. In any case, an indisciplinar perspective, in the sense that that it is not intended to recluse itself to a specific domain, like film study, but instead to find means of unification, to avoid any separation between life, art, politics, film, etc..
Here is the explanation of the framework. According to transcendental style, the film begins with an observation of everyday life, an observation intended to notice the tedious and monotonous character, seemingly insignificant, of everyday life, where everything goes unnoticed. This is the world of common sense, the intersubjective world of everyday, as widely understood in sociology. It is a very solid concept in sociology. The gradual growth of disparity. As the film progresses, a number of hidden forces, giving a feeling of some sort of mediation, which gradually suggests a more and more urgent need for change. Here lies the problem of separation, of disparity or separation. The film's conclusion is confrontation. Confrontation of the unity that, according to Schrader, leads to ecstasy, to unification, to situation, in Debord's words.
From Debord's point of view, in the practical level as seen before, this entails in everyday life creation of lived situations, of cinematographic situations. On a disparity level, social contestation, contestation or transformation of the film milieu. And on a unity level, unification of everyday experience, unification of cinematographic experience. In any case, the original idea when choosing these two authors was in addition to detach them from their habitual categorization. A categorization of which Zunzunegui speaks in his monograph on Bresson. A dogmatic or doctrinaire approach, emanating from a religious approach in the case Bresson, and from a revolutionary one in the case of Debord.
Throughout the thesis, in the first part, we basically juxtapose paragraphs on Debord, with others one on Bresson, and yet others on Debord, and others on Bresson, alternately... So it is the reader who by himself has to construct and participate building links between the two. This is done through three main sections, corresponding to the three steps of transcendental style. In fact the structure of the thesis, as one might have noticed, is basically provided in sections with three or six subsections, corresponding these to three steps of transcendental style, in a more or less accurate way. Three steps, correlated wit cinematographic and everyday activity. Hence, this structure in typologies.
In the first of these sections, when undertaking an in-depth analysis on construction of these typologies, we talk about life and existence, desire and time, singularity and uniqueness. Here what we are essentially speaking about, is the question of everyday life in film, and the question of film in everyday life. These three sections, and the next three sections, would be therefore correlative to each other. The central issue here, is recognition of subjects involved in communication, and a sort of play or tension between presence and absence of subjects taking part in communication.
For disparity, we begin with social environment, and then we progressively move to cinematographic milieu. In social environment, the predominant factor is social class. And in cinematographic environment, we progressively put more and more emphasis, as we move forward into the chapter, into conditions of in-communication. In this sense then, we start with something rather material, which is money, money as a medium of exchange, as an abstract universally recognized exchange value. Next we talk about merchandise, objects and image objects, and their occupation of almost entire social scene. And then, a further step into abstraction to the question of ideologies, systems of values and moral systems, hermetic, from which people judge and intervene in social life, or by which social life is conditioned, as a whole. The issue of exchanges, exchanges that separate, according to Debord mercantile or monetary exchanges as well as those lead by ideology, but also other exchanges that unify, those that according to Bresson take place among all beings involved in a film, and furthermore exchanges between images and images, images and sounds, sounds and sounds, sounds and images ... Within representations, their importance in social life, in exchanges, not so much of material issues, but more and more of abstract ideas and abstract forms of consumption, based on image objects, merchandises that are nothing but representations, in the sense that "re-present" something, and in this cinematography obviously takes part. And finally, spectacles, understood as an autonomous movement of the nonliving, in Debord's words, and as a photographed reproduction of life, in Bresson's.
And following the second, the third step of this style we are trying to define. The step of unity or unification, for which we firstly speak of lived situations, situations experienced by the two filmmakers we are dealing with. Here we talk about essay and retrocession, reversal and irremediable, and research of the unknown. In any case, the issue of reaching unification in everyday life. All theories, and real problems found in everyday life, at the time they are to be put into practice. And all together cinematographic situations, as attempts of unification of spirit and matter, of the spiritual and materialist edges. Theory and practice, theories as instruments designed to be implemented, in particular in everyday activity. Form and substance, the correspondence or non- correspondence in Bresson and Debord of form and content issues, that is the inseparability of form and substance in two authors that precisely focus on the concept of unification.
Arrived at this point, what we do is try to construct two antithetical concepts. Of course, one must take this as well with a grain of salt. When defining closed rigid categories, we know things are not totally black or white. In this occasion we speak about separating style and unitary style. Separating style would have a number of attributes, that have been grouped here into these typologies. Unitary stile, would have the opposite ones. In front of abundance of sounds, images and movements, subtraction. Instead of figuration, abstraction. Instead of prevalence of image, prevalence of sound. In front of a contemplative attitude of the speaker, participation... And here we reach the matter of cinematographic situations. Because when a film is screened, when we go to the movies, when we experience or live any sort of cinematographic experience, it is very important not only who made the film, but also conditions of filmic communication. In this new technologies are introducing a lot of changes, crossplatform. And obviously conditions or predisposition of the person who reads the film.
PART 2 / 2
So we talk about reading conditions. If Bresson speaks of cinematographer as writing with moving images and sounds, we choose to use this nomenclature, that other authors use as well. In any case here is cinema spectacle, cinema as a distraction, cinema spectacle as an artificial kinetic distraction, an autonomous reproduction of reality, in the way we mentioned before. And here is cinematographic situation, a cinematographic and everyday present where there is unification of form and content. On the one hand, a device that re-presents something not present, something not material. On the other a series of meetings between living beings and an unknown. Nobody really knows what is unification, since it can't be known a priori, as stated by Bresson. One must discover it by oneself, as he or she gets involved or participates in reading this film, or these book... Therefore, here is the closure of the circle. Circularity of a proposal that, within the films we have started from, always begins in everyday life, always departs from everyday experience of the person making the film, and invariably ends as everyday experience of a person confronting or attending a screening of this film.
Here we have defined three areas, which are those of the subjective, objective and unification, referring to life, environment and links. The common problem is always separation, isolation, dissociation, alienation, isolation, dispersion, fragmentation, and so on. This results in a series of films, and a series of books, and also a way of life, markedly personal, critical, and consistent, in the sense of being framed in a fairly homogeneous style throughout much of Bresson's and Debord's filmography. This personal, critical and coherent character, also pervades experiences of the filmmakers themselves, as with his films. His position towards social and cinematic environments in which they are immersed in their daily lives, and finally his films and his consequent style. Unification of the everyday, issues, unification of cinematic forms: here come writing, conditions, and reading of the film. Unification of life, an attempt to live otherwise, which in turn leads to an attempt to arise a different film experience, a different way of relating to the films. Unification of the environment, recomposition of the social environment and regeneration filmic milieu. And film unification, unicity of life, uniqueness of a cinematographic writing, a unique cinematographic style. Why these two individuals, specially Debord who was doing many other things, but also Bresson who had began as a painter, why do they come to cinematic device? Well, in part precisely because of this potential, of the cinematographic milieu, of observing and tracing links between whatever happens, the invisible, these deep currents between people in the social environment, between beings and objects, between beings and beings...
Those would be the conclusions of the first part of the job. Close observation of everyday life, to notice the character a priori distracted -I do not know if you need me to read it all-. These are the three steps of the style we have tried to define here: observation of everyday life to indicate its a priori distracted character, concern about separations that give it an interchangeable and separated nature, the question of exchange value, unification attempts, claim for a writing style, willingness to incorporate in the proposal receiver's predisposition and context of interlocution, presence and absence of the subject.
Once exposed the whys, the interest this kind of concepts or conceptual structures might have, it is a bit more justified, better understood, our interest to approach or get into the biofilmography, the filmic works, and the filmic-researching career, of Debord and Bresson. And here we enter a more descriptive part of the work, along which we move at all times between everyday and filmic activity.
Biography, filmography, description of the films, in-depth description of a film, beyond the films, all works, especially Debord's paper writings, works in fields like architecture, unitary urbanism, the question of sound, conferences, interventions, direct actions, etc. As you see these sections are also divided into three parts. Film according to Debord and the lettrists, art according to Debord and the lettrists, the end of cinema, the end of art, reduction of poetry to letters, appropriation of cinema, direct intervention on film, etc... The films of the lettrists, the evolution they undergo, involving material interventions on the film and directly on projection attendees. The détournament, this concept is important because it is a central concept for the Situationists, which refers to taking two objects directly from reality and putting them in contact to see what kind of relationship, what kind of friction they give. The end of art and film in Debord's films, he who constantly spoke about the end of film and against cinema, of a cinema and life too insignificant, and so on, in almost all his films and in many writings about filmmaking. The films of the Situationists, beyond Debord, Vienet's films for example, with the soundtrack détournament. From art and film criticism spectacle criticism, how this criticism towards art and film is directly linked, is attached to a critique of the society of the spectacle. And Debord's filmic-researching career, at the confluence of these factors.
As for Robert Bresson, we also move between everyday and cinematographic activity. We start with biography, filmography, description of films, not so deep because this has already been widely done, there is much literature on it, an in-depth description of a particular film such as this one, at the zenith of the phenomenology, beyond the films, recognitions, awards, etc... and also production problems, funding problems he must face, and sometimes incomprehension of his cinematographic work. Bresson's anti-system, as he calls it, following Zunzunegui's analysis of forms and relationships between them, the end of art in Bresson, when he talks about new diffusion media as an end of art or a possible revival. Isolation from existing arts, that is from contamination of literature, music, painting, photography, and especially theater, because the end of cinematographer for Bresson begins with irruption of theater, and in this sense the end of cinema could be given by a cinematographer who fully separates theater from its domains, the domains of the cinematographer, where lies the central question. The question, this is the title of a 1967 debate between Godard and Bresson, the question of cinema from the moment of the entrance of actors or theater performance techniques. And the question not only of actors or models, but also of other filters apart from the performance: the plot, planning, etc... that also influence the relationship of the person who is regarding the film with the film itself, that is that condition someone at the time of tracing relationships among whatever is seen. And transformation, which has to do with the situationist concept of détournament, a transformation that occurs, and that is the essence of the true potential of cinematographer, which is given by the assemblage, with the contact or clash of images and images, images and sounds, sounds and images, sounds and sounds, etc... Bresson's filmic-researching career, and here are also other sections dedicated not only to speak of the confluence of everyday and cinematographic activities, but also to talk about the historiography of cinematographer in the context of French cinema, the influence it has now, at the present time, on emerging cinematographies around the world, in Asia, Africa or any other place. Bresson, its main role in European modern cinematography, and specifically in French cinematography, which by itself already has a very important weight in modern cinematography. The Bresson model and modernism in America, here we rely on a very specific job by Oudart, which has been reinterpreted years later, to discuss the influence on new American directors, which generation after generation attempt in some way a renewal of cinema in the U.S., but also on those who try to take a different route.
Debord and Bresson. After an in-depth study of the two authors one can draw these conclusions: an extremely discreet and consistent life, highly coherent films and personal; disappointment regarding the exhaustion of art and cinema, and concern or disappointment, that is highly critical position on the course that follows humanity; and finally parallel filmic-researching careers, this requires a little more in depth explanation, how the two come out of the avant-garde, how they relate to contemporary filmmakers, how they end up headed to misunderstanding, and to a concrete project of unification of the cinematographic and the everyday, which is also where issues of the first part are retaken.
In any case, apart from many other aspects such as fragmentation, predilection for banished beings, the use of sound, and other specific features, here are generally pointed three main issues that define cinematographic situations, as we understand them, as we try to present them here. Renouncement of cinematic spectacle, as inheritor of photographed theater and autonomous movement of the nonliving. Transformation through editing-détournament, of elements directly taken from reality and put in contact, a priori insignificant elements this is also important, and cleansed from all artificial expressiveness, being the contact, the relationship between these elements, what leads to transformation of these a priori insignificant elements. Integration into cinematographic situations, an organic whole which could accommodate real encounters between individuals involved and present in communication.
That said, a small section is dedicated to social and cinematographic contextualization. Because obviously, it is important, when talking about unification of cinematography and everyday, to take into account the everyday context in which these cinematographic and everyday activity takes place, for both Debord and Bresson: the Paris of the second half of the twentieth century. Circumstances of emergence, here we build a kind of genesis for cinematographic situations. In order to explain a new concept it is also good to explain or construct somehow its possible emergence circumstances. Here we review French film theory, until late 1960's-1970's almost all prevailing theory in the world of film theory comes from France, from then on it comes with more force Anglo-Saxon theory. Film practice of the sixties, basically the Nouvelle Vague as a phenomenon characteristic of cinematic modernity not only in France but throughout the world. The Nouvelle Vague as a new wave of reference for all new waves arising at that time throughout Europe and the world. And a review on Modern and Contemporary French cinema, up to current blockbusters, niches, and co-productions with countries in Asia, Africa, etc. Secondly a study of the specific historical context, the Paris of 1968, the specific activity of Debord and Bresson, Bresson's not so well known and Debord's sometimes a bit mystified 1968 activities. Mai 68 born in Nanterre and then in Sorbonne, and so on. Cinematographic Mai 68, with the precedent of the “Cinémathèque affair” and subsequently the interruption of the Cannes Film Festival and the États généraux du cinéma... And here we construct a series of typologies: direct chronicles, militant groups, author fictions... where we look at French cinematography of the moment, not all authors obviously, but in this case those who deal somehow or approach somehow Mai 68... It is not necessary to have them all ... up to the cinematographic situation. There are omissions in this section because French film, both at a theoretical and practical level, is huge, with its large amount of phenomena specially at that particular time, a golden or glorious epoch. And finally a graphical representation, simply indicative, of the level of applicability of these variables, these concepts we have been building throughout the work. Here we make a sort of simulation, quantification, which of course is mainly by way for guidance, obviously it must not be considered literally.
