Trusting photographs

Far from being objective reproductions of the world, photographs imply taking creative and ideological decisions that may bias or alter reality. Using photographs as sources, then, should require from us a skeptical and critical attitude.

The problem of representation has already engaged us in several class discussions. Some months ago we expanded one of these debates here (that time, concerning maps). A few meetings ago in L&C III, a new debate on representation took place, this time regarding photographs. One of the students was dealing with the topic of cannibalism in the novel Robinson Crusoe and reading on the controversy about the factual existence of anthropophagy, whether past or present. When looking for some images for his class presentation in Google, he came across the following photograph under the heading “cannibalism.”

After looking at this apparently self-evident portrait of reality, we posed this skeptic question –Can photographs lie?

The same we had done before with portraits and maps, but we must admit that even when we can easily accept the fabrication that underlies painting or cartography, we definitely tend to see objective reality in a photograph [1]. People seldom reflect or perceive that photographs are representations and fabrications as well, and that, although constrained in some way by objective reality, this constraint is to not avail enough to render photographs airtight reproductions of that reality. There are a few photographic and semiological concepts that can give us a hand in this respect.

The first one is the concept of frame. Reality is a continuum. There are no physical limits to reality. If we open our eyes and turn our heads around, we will perceive that reality is not fragmented. No camera can reproduce this perception (not even a cinematographic one). Cameras can only take discrete fragments of reality. They can only select small bits of it, and, in doing so, most of reality is left aside. When framing, the photographer is leaving aside everything that is beyond the four boundaries of the frame, plus everything that is behind the camera, and even everything that is hidden by other objects within the limits of the frame. Thus, any photography contains an extremely simplified view of reality. Can we trust photographs then? In the example above mentioned, for instance, some doubts could arise –Where was this photograph taken from? What is the situation around the main character? Can we really explain this photograph without its context?

The act of framing goes hand by hand with another concept, that of point of view. This concept emphasizes the presence of a subject, the photographer, with a particular understanding of the world and moved by particular interests. If the camera, as we said before, can only take discrete portions of a continuous reality, then it is the photographer who will decide what of this continuum to portray. And this choice will be determined by the photographer’s position, but also by his ideology, what he considers relevant to be photographed. Two people holding cameras in front of a singular event will not take the same pictures. What we see when we see a photograph is the result of a personal choice, somebody’s choice. We would ask then, going back to our previous example –Who took the photograph? Why? What was he trying to show? Can his choice condition, in any respect, our interpretation of the event?

Attempting to answer all these questions may help us see that photographs alone carry not much more than uncertainty [2]. Susan Sontag explains that “photographs, which cannot themselves explain anything, are inexhaustible invitations to deduction, speculation, and fantasy,” and she adds that “in fact, we never understand anything through photographs.” [3]

However, most people would still feel that they do get meaning from most of the photographs they daily come across with. In most of the cases, this is due to the fact that photographs rarely come along on their own, but they are usually immersed in a textual environment from which they also derive meaning. This leads to a third concept of interest, the concept of surround (context). Words, although not a part of the photographic art itself, are very much connected to the use of photographs, mostly in the press. Captions are the most typical ‘textual anchors’ for photographs, although headings, subheadings and articles can also function as such. Captions are explanatory words usually attached to photographs. These words are of utmost importance for the simple fact that they can completely bias the interpretation of an image, and, in doing so, serve us as proof of the limited capacity of evidence that photographs possess [4]. Cartoonist Quino reflects on this interaction between text and image through a cartoon in which completely different captions are attached to the same photograph, entirely affecting and transforming its meaning (click on image for full cartoon). But newspapers give us daily example of this relationship, providing we critically face the task of ‘reading’ images. As to our original example, we can still wonder whether we would still see an act of cannibalism had any other label been attached to it. What if the caption had read “Angian warrior celebrating their victory at Jartar”?

To all this, perhaps, we should even add the digital editing power of modern software, that can drastically transform an original picture without leaving visible traces of any transformation (click on image to compare). Photographs are, in the end, just representations of reality. And, as such, we cannot relay on them more than we relay on any other human product. If photographs can lie, or if people can make them lie, then doubt and skepticism, at least, should be two mental attitudes that always accompany their use.

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[1] This may be perhaps related to the everyday use we give to photographs. When we take photographs, we tend to look at them as objective reproductions of the moments we portray. We remain unaware of the many ‘artistic’ and even ‘ideological’ decisions we make before pressing the shutter.

[2] Even when they are not the only ones, these two first concepts –frame and point of view-, should serve to account for the artistic potential of photography.

[3] Susan Sontag, On Photography, quoted in Rocca and López (1995) Fotografía. Buenos Aires: Editorial Ars.

[4] Roland Barthes expands on most of these ideas in a classic study of press photography: “The photographic message.” Image Music Text, 1977.

Defoe and Swift: different critical insertions in early 18th-century England

It may be possible to use Defoe’s and Swift’s works to explore the more or less successful way in which both authors relate to and are inserted in their contemporary society.

Last class in L&C III we attempted a contrast between Daniel Defoe and Jonathan Swift, taking into account the particular insertion each author achieved in their social, literary and political context. We agreed that Swift’s relationship with early 18^th-century British society seemed more problematic than Defoe’s. We explored the acrid sense of failure and disappointment that signed Swift’s life, and the unresolved contradictions of his spirit. But -we noticed- even if we put aside the biographical data and only focused on the author’s literary production, it could be also possible to perceive the degree to which his mind seemed fit for his society. And the same seemed to apply to Defoe.

We noticed that Defoe’s social criticism was mainly oriented towards the fulfillment of Christian religious principles. Robinson Crusoe or Moll Flanders could function as examples of how social disruptions and personal flaws can be amended by commitment to religious values and rules. Even his caustic The Shortest Way with the Dissenters, which sent him to the pillory, was mainly a religious satire (although with deep political implications). 

Swift never got to the pillory, but still his clash with society went far beyond a mere religious stance. Swift’s criticism seems to have been directed against society as a whole. Gulliver’s Travels, his incontestable masterpiece, is a minute and comprehensive dissection of Western culture and an attack against everything that is dear to the English (and European) mind, its most salient object of scorn being humanity itself.

Perhaps, it is possible to understand this contrast between Defoe and Swift as originated in a definitely opposed conception of humanity. Defoe looks backwards, to the mythical origin of humanity, when man is still the image of the divinity, and he consequently strives for the recuperation of that original (Christian) man. Contrariwise, Swift looks forward. For Swift, there seems to be no mythical past. Humanity does not appear seriously linked to any divinity, but it is, instead, the mirror of the revolting Yahoos, the trifling Lilliputians, the insubstantial Laputians, or the useless projectors in Lagado. Rather than spiritual in essence, Swift’s man is seen in his utter animality. This is present in Gulliver’s horrified depiction of the Brobdingnagians, but also in Swift’s revealing treatment of bodily functions, of which The Lady’s Dressing-room is perhaps the most enlightening example. In Swift, it is possible to infer, humanity is not really ‘human,’ but still animal.

Thus, Swift’s ideal of humanity seems to be placed at the end of a forward movement from animality (the present) to a purified, improved ‘humanity’ (not yet achieved -and perhaps, even unattainable) [1]. Clearly, the means for this purification is reason. In fact, if there is one thing that all of Swift’s writings seem to condemn, that is irrationality, even under the disguise of rational and scientific thought. Accordingly, the Master Houyhnhnm reproves Gulliver’s depiction of the atrocities of war: “He seemed therefore confident,” Gulliver retells, “that, instead of reason we were only possessed of some quality fitted to increase our natural vices; as the reflection from a troubled stream returns the image of an ill shapen body, not only larger but more distorted.”

Hopelessly aware of this reality, Gulliver feels as an exiled in his own nation. He does not fit. Crusoe or Moll Flanders, on the contrary, are triumphantly welcome by their formerly adverse societies. Swift’s and Defoe’s creations can help us bring light on how the authors’ minds were suited to their own time. While Defoe’s characters manage to find their place in the world, Swift’s heroes and situations are in a constant state of clash and tension. Where Defoe’s works find a path towards light and hope, Swift’s, on the contrary, show a flawed, irreparable world. Where Defoe sees redemption, Swift understands condemnation; where Defoe sees humanity, Swift can only perceive a damned, debased, futile race.

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[1] It is possible to perceive in this argumentation a somewhat implicit, precarious Darwinist conception of humanity. Mankind would be no more than sophisticated and evolved animals. Just as the Yahoos look like degenerated human beings.

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The 'myth of the good immigrant' in Argentina

Key words: immigration, Argentina, nationalism, education, Lilia Bertoni

The issue of immigration in Argentina arose last meeting in our L&C III class out of a contrast proposed by a student between today’s TV-mediated dissemination of foreign culture in our country and the one brought about in the past by Southern European immigrants. We noticed that we tend to have a somewhat idealized perception of the presence of immigrants in our past. Perhaps we can even talk about a ‘myth of the good immigrant,’ that may be connected to the important wave of immigration arriving in Argentina after the First World War and the Spanish Civil War. For us (who are, in great number, descendants of those old comers) the word 'immigrant' tends to be associated with hard-working people who left the miseries of their homeland to fulfill their dreams on our generous soil and help building our nation. However, it is possible to think that if the waves of immigration of the first half of the 20^th century were so successful and left such a positive impression in our social imaginary, this was because the Argentine State and the ruling elites were already strong enough and well-prepared to handle the tension and risks that any important immigration movement implies. But that hadn’t always been the case.

The problem of immigration (at least from the point of view of the ruling classes) is always the risk of social, cultural or political instability. This was made evident in Argentina by the end of the 19^th century. Lilia Bertoni (1992) [1] studies the internal tension generated by immigrant groups and how local rulers showed apprehension by the strong national pride and sense of unity some of these groups displayed. She quotes an 1888 article from La Prensa in which the Italian community was called to celebrate the (quite recent) Unification of Italy:

“Being far from your Motherland, you must keep the festivity uncorrupted, celebrate the glory and cultivate the love to deserve being called her children. So be willing to answer to these sacred duties celebrating September 20^th.”

Argentine ruling elites felt more troubled when, in Italy, the economist Gerolamo Boccardo included Buenos Aires among other Italian "spontaneous colonies," and advised the crown to occupy these offshore territories as the “natural consummation of a right (…) created through work and virtue by several generations of Italians.” In fact, the parliamentary debate in Italy during this time of European imperialistic growth was whether to advance on the conquest of new ‘artificial colonies’ in Africa or to pay attention to the ‘spontaneous colonies’ in the Rio de la Plata basin.

Bertoni’s thesis is that national celebrations together with an emphasis on national history and on patriotic feeling were consciously introduced in schools by this time as an ideological instrument to control and lessen the potentially harmful impact of foreign nationalism [2]. In this sense she quotes an 1887 regulation by the CNE (Nacional Council of Education) which establishes national celebrations at schools:

“The well-intended interests of the whole country require promoting a patriotic feeling, which gives cohesion to the constitutive elements of our nationality.”

An article appearing in La Prensa by 1983 seems to be even more representative of this perception when it declares that “in the Argentine Republic, more than in any other country on earth, public education must have a national purpose (…), to neutralize that atmosphere of foreignness the child has been breathing exclusively during his early years and which he continues breathing each day before going to school and after leaving it.”

After decades of strengthening and consolidating a system of cultural homogenization (and after decades of persecution and expulsion of deestabilising foreign groups), it seems easier to explain the effective integration of the immigration waves of the post-war periods and the positive feeling left in our national imaginary. But this should help us bare in mind that the natural reaction towards immigration tends to be tension and not straightforward acceptance. And this is telling a lot about ourselves (or about any cultural identity in the end), about our conception of the self and of the foreign, and about the limits we consciously or unconsciously draw between communion with the Other and maintenance of our cultural individuality.

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[1] All the quotations in this post are taken from Bertoni’s paper: Bertoni, Lilia (1992) “Construir la nacionalidad: héroes, estatuas y fiestas patrias, 1887-1891.” Boletín del Instituto de Historia Argentina y Americana Dr. E. Ravigniani, Tercera Serie, Nº5. Buenos Aires: Instituto de Historia Argentina y Americana Dr. E. Ravignani.

[2] Bertoni's proposition is coherent with Tedesco's thesis that education in Argentina was meant to primarily fulfil the political function of integrating different cultures within the values of the hegemonic groups rather than to be functional to the economic policies of the Argentine State. This would explain the choice of an encyclopedist rather than pragmatic education in the early Argentine education system. [Tedesco, Juan Carlos (1993) Educación y Sociedad en la Argentina: 1880-1945. Buenos Aires: Ediciones Solar. (The chapter dealing with the political function of education can be downloaded here)]

Reactions to Technology: past and present

Key words: technology, new technologies, computers, writing, Walter Ong, Plato

What we understand by technology is not always clear. Realising that most of the things that surround us are technology should help us consider new technologies from a more open and critical perspective.

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From an anthropological point of view, the word technology could be defined as “the body of knowledge available to a civilization that is of use in fashioning implements, practicing manual arts and skills, and extracting or collecting materials” (The American Heritage Dictionary).

Whenever we hear the word technology, however, we tend to instantly associate it with computers, electronic appliances, cell phones and the like. If we understand technology in its broader sense, we should also think of writing, books or pens as technologies. The difference between a pen and a cell phone is that cell phones are later technologies, but no doubt they’re both technologies in the end.

The problem seems to be that we tend to naturalise those technologies that have been with us for a long time and look at them acritically. Nobody, for example, sees anything wrong in a book; but new technologies like computers are commonly looked at with distrust and apprehension. Many people see books as natural elements, while they consider computers openly artificial things. Or, what is even less clear, they think books are less artificial than computers, as if there was anything natural in a book. They would attack computers by dubbing them cold and impersonal, but nobody would say the same of books, even though the way of approaching text is essentially the same, and books –unlike computers- are not suited for real-time communication.

Negative reactions towards new technologies have always been present throughout history, although in different extents. The Luddites in 19^th century England charged against textile factories sabotaging and destroying their machinery. Even today, Amish communities try not to rely on modern technologies that can alter their simple lifestyle and promote individualism. Current environmentalist movements plan mediatic demonstrations to boycott technologies that are considered harmful, like nuclear energy or GMOs. In education, current technologies like notebooks, ball pens and calculators have also had to go through harsh criticism when first introduced in the classrooms [1].

Walter Ong, in a book subtitled "The Technologizing of the Word," writes that “most persons are surprised, and many distressed, to learn that essentially the same objections commonly urged today against computers were urged by Plato in the Phaedrus and in the Seventh Letter against writing” [2]. The author explains:

Writing, Plato has Socrates say in the Phaedrus, is inhuman, pretending to establish outside the mind what in reality can be only in the mind. It is a thing, a manufactured product. The same of course is said of computers. Secondly, Plato’s Socrates urges, writing destroys memory. Those who use writing will become forgetful, relying on an external resource for what they lack in internal resources. Writing weakens the mind. Today, parents and others fear that pocket calculators provide an external resource for what ought to be the internal resource of memorized multiplication tables (…)

Ong also quotes Hieronimo Squarciafico, who in 1477 expressed similar misgivings towards print. But, just as Squarciafico still promoted the printing of books, Plato also wrote. This paradox can prove even greater if we agree with Ong, who -citing Havelock- goes on to affirm that Plato’s analytical thought was only possible because of the effects that writing was beginning to have on mental processes. This means that Plato could articulate his thought the way he did only because his mind was not the mind of an oral person. Writing affects our mental structures, as any technology does. If technologies transform our societies and our minds, then, the question seems to be: How positive or negative can these transformations be?

Of course, together with the pessimistic views on new technologies, we also have the optimistic ones. Some people during the 18th century and later thought power engines would make labourers’ life easier, turning the world a better place. Before that, some thought print would make everyone wiser. Similar ideas were also heard about television during the aftermath of the Second World War, and can still be heard about computers.

The pessimistic and optimistic views on technology usually fall under the terms technophobia and technophilia –dislike or love for new technologies. Placing ourselves on any of these extremes implies avoiding the task of consciously pondering and analysing technologies. I have for me that if we really want to arrive at a sensible perception of a particular technology, we should get to know it, use it, apply it, see its benefits and disadvantages, and be critical about it. No technology is hundred per cent good or bad [3]. Sometimes it is us who either feel unconsciously charmed by new fashionable things, or who can’t be flexible enough to challenge our habits and try something that is not what we’re used to.

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[1] Fisch’s What if… presentation gives a clear survey of this reluctance to new technologies in education. I’ve already included this video in a previous post.

[2] Ong, Walter (2002) Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. London: Routledge. (Chapter 4 can be consulted here.)

[3] Langdon Winner (1983) analyses whether certain values and power relations are inherent to some technologies. In his article Do Artifacts have Politics? the author answers positively to the question in the title.

Lost and the hyperbole of mystery

Key words: Lost, TV series, mystery, time, flashback, fast forward

The TV serial Lost is built on mystery. The nature of this mystery, however, seems qualitatively different from more traditional enigmas due to the complex relationships arising from the interaction of three different temporal planes: past, present and future.

No, I don’t watch much TV. However, I’ve become quite fond of the series Lost (2004-onwards). I’ve devoured the three first seasons in a few months and I’m still deeply engaged during this fourth season. I’m anything but an exception; most of the people I know have become equally addicted to the series. Are we so conventional then, or is there really something about this TV show?

I’ve always seen the series as the hyperbole of mystery. Mystery is a narrative strategy; a fine strategy to hook the audience to a story. More specifically, a mystery is an enigma, an unresolved question, a puzzling and incomprehensible thing, something whose meaning and reality is hidden from us [1]. From the very first chapter, Lost begins overwhelming the viewer with questions. Every single element in the story gives rise to an increasing number of enigmas; and, whenever an answer arrives, it comes along with more and more perplexing questions.

For instance, when the veil on the nature of the hatch was finally lifted at the beginning of the second season, this new knowledge came together with a plethora of new enigmas: Why was the hatch inhabited? How did these other people arrive on the island? How long have they been there? Why didn’t they go outside? What was their function? What would happen if they didn’t comply with their obligations? Who did they work for? And so...

This hyperbolic nature of mystery in Lost, however, is not based on mere accumulation. It’s not only adding one enigma over the other. In fact, the structure of mystery in the series is a bit more complex. What I’ve found particularly interesting is the different levels on which the enigmas work. During the first seasons, the enigmas in Lost worked on two different planes: the present and the past. Questions and doubts not only arose regarding the events on the island, but also about events prior to the plane crash. Here it is important to notice that the past in Lost is not inferred through present actions and dialogue, but concrete, and brought forward through the regular use of flashbacks.

To the question “what is happening?” it is added the one “what happened?”

In relation to this, I consider of particular interest the way the real nature of the characters becomes itself a mystery. The characters in Lost are not only qualified through their present actions, but also through their past behaviour; and, by showing that past actions sometimes contradict present ones [2], the series screenwriters are able to build both new and more complex mysteries and characters.

To the traditional question “who are they?” (answered by what the characters are doing in the present), it is added the new “who were they?” (answered by what the characters are doing in the past).

The convergence of past and present complicates the nature of the mysteries. Some mysteries arise from present events and situations (What will Sayid find in his self-exile from the camp?), some from past events and situations (How did an Iraqi torturer end up in a Los Angeles bound flight?), and some from the relationship between both past and present events (Will Sayid torture and kill the false Henry Gale?)

But this is not all. This plural-plane strategy seems to have found its apex during this fourth season, when the future is added to the levels on which actions and enigmas work [3]. As with the past, this future is not a predicted but a concrete one (this time brought up through flash forwards). As such, the future acts as a new plane in which specific enigmas are posed (Why is Sayid killing people? Why does Hugo regret having gone with Locke?) while generating a new reading about the present (Has Ben been always speaking the truth? Is Locke leading his group to death?)

The convergence of these three planes and the complex relationships they establish turn mystery in Lost qualitatively different from more traditional uses of it. Mystery is not only a present question about the past that will be answered in the future (the typical detective mystery), nor a present element that we can’t understand yet (the usual fantastic mystery); mystery, in Lost, is provided by the three planes simultaneously –past, present and future. There is no solid ground then, no certainty in Lost. The present poses questions about the past and the future; future and past pose questions about the present. We don’t know what’s happened yet, nor do we know what is happening, or what will happen. It is the hyperbole of mystery. We’re facing the past, the present, the future, but any of them gives us certainties, just more and more questions.

This is perhaps one of the reasons why Lost proved so addictive, even to those who were not much interested in this type of series before. Lost is a huge open question and natural curiosity forces the viewer to sit in front of the TV screen to get some answers. And, provided some answers are delivered from time to time, those who feel hooked by mystery seem to have found in Lost the right place to feed their endless hunger for uncertainty.

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[1] Not by chance, etymologically speaking, the word is derived from the Greek verb muō (to shut or close lips or eyes).

[2] For example, characters who seemed dull, naïve, spoiled or mischievous in the past can acquire a new heroic dimension in the present.

[3] Lost is not the only TV series rediscovering the flash forward technique. Read here.

Re-thinking Maps

Key words: Maps, cartography, Keith Jenkins, History, ideology, representation

Although apparently objective representations of the world, maps are rhetorical tools which express, like any other portrayal of reality, the values and ideology of those who design them.

Last meeting we went on talking about Keith Jenkins’ critical perception of History[1]. We recalled that the British historiographer had gone as far as to state that History was a literary construct. For him, no matter how much constrained historians are by historical evidence, when interpreting and writing about the past, they cannot do away with their own values and ideology. The work of the historian is, in consequence, contaminated with his personal views and ideology.

Of course, Jenkins arguments (which follow authors like Foucault, Lyotard and Eagleton) do not only help us establish a critical relationship with History, but with the entire body of representations about reality, whether past or present. As we discussed in class, the principles to which Jenkins refers can be easily applied to documentaries, journalism and any other type of portrayal of reality. Any representation is always mediated by individual perceptions, interests, values and ideology. It’s impossible to face reality without our own personal and cultural bulk. And this, as we agreed in class, also applies to cartography.

In our positivist world, we tend to mistakenly see geographic maps as objective representations of physical, static territories. However, the word ‘representation’ alone should make us doubt of this seeming objectiveness. Although the cartographer is also constrained by reality, the creative freedom he enjoys is not so far from that of the realist portrait artist. The cartographer is supposed to portray the physical reality in the best possible way, but which is the best possible way? This sole question implies that there is more than one way to portray the world. It’s just that since cartographers are used to follow a certain number of conventions, we tend to think of them as natural, as if there were no alternatives. But if we did away with these conventions, it would be possible to see how much arbitrariness and ideology is contained in maps. Let’s consider some examples.

• One of these conventions could be the European centrality. Europe appears at the centre in most maps of the world. Actually, there’s no reason –other than historical and political prominence- to place Europe at the centre. Why not China, Australia or America? Or the Pacific Ocean? Having Europe at the centre and top of the map is saying a lot about western history, politics and power relationships. This consideration must have crossed somebody’s mind when the Chicago Daily Tribune published, during the peak years of the Second World War, a map with the US at the centre and top. The map was overtly entitled America–the Real Center of the World Today [map 2]. Maps of this sort are still published nowadays, mostly –of course- in the US.

• Another convention, although in a slow process of being changed by other alternatives, is the use of the Mercator projection [map 1 and 2] as a way to represent the spherical globe on a flat surface. The problem with this projection is that it distorts the relative size of regions, showing an increase in size according to the proximity to the poles. Consequently, Greenland appears to be similar in size to Africa, although the continent is thirteen times bigger than the island. The result of this projection is a world in which the territories in the northern hemisphere –closer to the pole- look bigger than those round the Equator. German historian and filmmaker Arno Peters noticed that this distortion favoured the look of the developed countries, while giving a belittled perspective of the developing ones. Thus, in 1974, he devised a new flat projection that aimed at producing a proportional map of the world [map 3]. The result –widely controversial- shows a very atypical view, with a huge, vast African continent below a small, dwarfed Europe.

© 2007, www.ODTmaps.com

• Perhaps, the most naturalized and widespread convention is the North-up orientation. There are no geographical or astronomical reasons why North must be on top and South at the bottom. However, the political and ideological implications of this arrangement can be many, mostly when most of the poor countries lie South of the developed ones. In 1979, Stuart McArthur, a ‘resentful’ Australian, published what he called McArthur’s Universal Corrective Map of the World, showing Australia at the top and centre [map 4]. Different South-up maps have been published since then, but they have always implied an act of transgression. For us, people from the South, these maps bring a definite new perspective. How would we see the world today if we had been taught that we were on top? Doesn’t it make a difference? [map 5 -click on the map to enlarge]

© 1979, Stuart McArthur

© 2008, www.ODTmaps.com

All in all, nothing seems to be innocent. In all human productions there’s always somebody –consciously or unconsciously- expressing his values and culture. Ideology speaks through any representation of reality. Our task, I infer, would be to look at those representations critically, and to pick up for us the one that better goes with our own values and beliefs.

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[1] Jenkins, Keith (2003) Re-thinking History, Routledge, Londres.

In defense of Shyamalan

Key words: M. Night Shyamalan, authors, Hitchcock, criticism, critics

M. Night Shyamalan is one of the most curious, imaginative and stylish filmmakers of current American mainstream cinema. Throughout his filmography he shows himself as an expert narrator of fantastic, neat, short stories with carefully delineated plots and perfect endings[1]. He adds to this a rare awareness of the grammar of films. Such is his usage of narrative devices, that he could be easily found an oddity, at least within commercial standards.

From the very beginning, I was one of the many who found a resemblance to Hitchcock’s cinematic language. Jeet Thayil put it this way: “Like Hitchcock, Shyamalan is in express control of his tools. He uses music, sound and expert manipulation of human psychology.” Michael Agger would add “the point-of-view editing, the emotional close-ups of actors, the fixation on detail, and the eerie score,” together with a compliance with Hitchcock's definition of terror: "If you want the audience to feel the suspense, show them the bomb underneath the table."

Curiously, Shyamalan’s ties to Hitchcock’s style do not seem to have acted as a shield from the critics’ attacks. Even those who acknowledge his utter dexterity with films charge against him with violence and contempt. Personally, I understand Agger makes a point when he accuses M. Night’s films of being “fragile, sealed-off movies that [fall] apart when exposed to outside logic.” I think it’s just so, provided you do away with the ‘fragile’ qualifier.

Shyamalan’s films are soundly structured -every line, every element, proving crucial to the final development of the plot. However, it is true that they all have a logic of their own that works only when the film is running. The important thing is that it does work when the film is running. Even when seeing Shyamalan’s films for the second time, even after having already exposed his plots to a killing ‘outside logic,’ the films prove catching, thrilling and sensible again.

In this sense I find Shyamalan’s films have the logic of dreams, which prove moving and effective until we wake up and rationally dissect them. But again we dream, and again we believe what is impossible under other conditions. Fantasy itself calls for some rational withdrawal. Sometimes also cinema does[2].

On the other hand, I’ve got the impression that some critics’ attacks on Shyamalan do nothing but show their own –perhaps unconscious- attraction towards his films. Some arguments against his work look as if the critics were pretending from the filmmaker more than he can really give. This pretension implies a hidden liking of his work. They see and understand that Shyamalan is an expert and creative director –they even compare him with Hitchcock- so they ask him an ambiguously defined “Cinema” (with capital letters) that perhaps he’s not able to give. He’s no more –and so far no less- than a creator of little, suggestive, fantasy stories for the mainstream taste. Critics seem to even forget that Hitchcock himself furnished a name and a legend by filming a majority of dull, conventional arguments. It’s just that Hitchcock filmed expertly, and, from time to time, gave birth to an incredible masterpiece. What would critics say if M. Night brought us another The Sixth Sense?

Nowadays, The Sixth Sense (1999) seems to have become the critics’ reference point when approaching any of Shyamalan’s later films. The problem is that even critics appear to have liked that film so much that they are frustrated when new Shyamalan’s attempts prove unable to retrieve the original thrill experienced with it. People like Agger, when questioning the author’s last films, seem to forget that The Sixth Sense contains the same logical problems than all of M. Night’s other films. Perhaps they were so involved with the plot that they didn’t realise it. Or perhaps, since the author was not yet famous, they decided to by-pass it.

I think the soundest criticism comes from those who question the author’s trademark ‘twist endings’. It is true that I do not see ‘twists’ in Shyamalan’s endings. A twist makes reference to a surprising sudden change of direction in the plot. Instead, I find Shyamalan’s films are structured as multiple lines that logically converge in a single final point where their true meaning is realized. So there is no sudden change, but logical realization. How surprising this realization can be seems to be the problem with the later films. And this is the product of redundancy, the problem derived from resorting to the same narrative structure film after film. Here is where I agree M. Night is facing a weakening point. His problem –being an author who always attempts at surprising- seems to be that you cannot really surprise the audience when the audience is waiting for a surprise, and knows exactly when and of what kind it will be. But this is a minor problem for a creative and young director. It is a problem that can be, in theory, easily corrected. Perhaps it’s just a question of time; perhaps, a question of maturation. Shyamalan can still learn to surprise in other ways. He can also learn to quit being surprising. He has got all the necessaries to go on growing, improving, and why not, redeeming himself.

Although irregular, his filmography is wholly recommendable (Wide Awake excepted). I list the films I’ve seen according to my personal liking (I haven't yet seen his first film, but I'm on it):

-Unbreakable (2000)

-The Sixth Sense (1999)

-Signs (2002)

-The Village (2004)

-Lady in the Water (2006)

-Wide Awake (1998)

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[1] Of course this is not to say that his films are perfect (in fact, they seem to be getting less and less perfect every time). But I’ll refer to this more in detail later on.

[2] Cinema and dreams have of long been related by authors and theorists. See here.

What not to do to a new school subject

Key words: Construcción de Ciudadanía, education

This time I'm just writing to invite you all to read a post on education. More precisely, about the still brand new school subject Construcción de Ciudadanía. I'm particularly interested in this truly innovative subject, and I felt moved to write something about how terribly wrong its implementation in Buenos Aires’ schools is going. Since I wrote this post in Spanish I didn’t think it right to publish it here. That’s why I’m inviting you to my Spanish blog to take a look at it. Just click here.

Till next time.

March’s recommended film - Professione: Reporter (1975)

Key words: Professione: Reporter (The Passanger), Michelangelo Antonioni, Jack Nicholson, cinematic codes, expectation, films.

I’ve just got this idea –quite obvious, isn’t it?- of writing a short review to each recommended film. So let’s get into this before the month is over.

This month’s film is Professione: Reporter [AKA The Passenger] (1975), by Michelangelo Antonioni, starring a 38 year-old Jack Nicholson as a journalist who changes the direction of his life by assuming the identity of a dead stranger.

To be honest, I chose this film because I had seen it for the first time and couldn’t believe I had been going through my cinephile life without having ever seen it (I’m a lazy cinephile I must admit –the film had been in my ‘to-be-seen’ list for almost a decade).

You know, many films have acted as turning points in the history of cinema (Citizen Kane, Breathless, The Idiots, just to mention a few). They have all introduced new elements to the language and grammar of films after which the ‘state of the art’ has never been the same. Well, Professione: Reporter is not the case. Not because there’s nothing new in it. On the contrary, the film is a beautiful bunch of narrative and cinematic reformulations. As Martin Walsh (1975)[1] put it, Antonioni tests “the limits of cinematic codes.” His strategy seems to be “a consistently varied deflection of the normative transitions from shot to shot.” That is, Antonioni subverts our logical expectations, and, in doing so, he questions most of the traditional narrative codes of cinema. All traditional ideas about continuity (spatial, temporal, narrative [2]) and even about the “diegetic centrality of the plot” (where the attention of the camera is –Walsh again) are put at risk.

At the very beginning of the film, after we see Locke (Nicholson) struggling with his language in the Sahara desert, we follow him through rocky hills in search of something. He seems to have found it -a pack of Bedouins at the foot of a mountain. Cut to Locke’s Landrover making its way through the desert, back to his hotel.

What has happened? Who were these men? That was not important. We, as traditional viewers, would expect some answers, but they will never come –not as answers at least; if anything, they’ll arrive later on, as personal inferences. Thus, Antonioni is violently submerging us in a world where the expected is never realized.

Antonioni’s narrative, however, could not incarnate in many later filmmakers –leaving aside the intentionally experimental ones. In consequence, Professione: Reporter remains, as much of his filmography, no more –and no less- than a profound cinematic experiment. A beautiful one I would say.

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[1] Walsh, Robert (1975) “The Passenger, Antonioni’s narrative design.” Jump Cut, no. 8 [on line]

[2] I’m already writing a post on Antonioni’s use of off-screen space. I hope it will be published soon.

Has liberty failed?

Key words: freedom, Modernity, humanism, slavery, Ilha das Flores (Isle of Flowers), Jorge Furtado.

We’ve just began our 2008 L&C III course in IPES Almafuerte. Our first meeting intended an eagle’s eye view on the three-century period we’ll be dealing with this year. Our focus was on the 18th century and how it became the converging point of different social and philosophical ideas that changed the direction of humanity. We noticed that many of the beliefs, ideologies and institutions we still hold dear nowadays had their origin as part of the great cultural, philosophical and technological movement that we now call Modernity.

When looking at the present, however, we were able to see that many modern structures and institutions are undergoing a crisis. Among other things, we referred to the crisis of some traditional modern values, within which we mentioned the possible failure of one particular modern principle –traceable to the French Revolution-, the principle of individual inborn freedom.

We agreed that there is nothing ‘natural’ in being free, just as there is nothing ‘natural’ in being a slave. Both are just social and cultural choices (or impositions). The important thing was to acknowledge that the discourse of humanist enlightenment –which still nowadays works as the basis for human rights- is just another historical construct, conceived by people who would see a personal benefit from it. Of course, humanism was supposedly designed for the benefit of all; nevertheless, it’s worth wondering –after two centuries of humanist philosophical rule- whether this change really benefited everyone. One of the questions we posed in class was thus -“Does everyone benefit from being free?” [1]

Brazilian filmmaker Jorge Furtado makes a point in his appalling and beautifully disheartening documentary Ilha das Flores (Isle of Flowers, 1989). With sincere irony, Furtado shows freedom is the problem of many people in a world in which only money and property count. When people don’t have money or property, how can they survive? Their problem seems to be they don’t have an owner. Just as dogs, or pigs, they wouldn’t die of hunger, nor live a life of the worst humiliation if they had somebody to provide them.

Does this mean we should revive slavery then? Reality is not that simple, and this we know. But perhaps it’s good to start acknowledging that abstract modern principles like ‘freedom’ or ‘equality’ were imaginations that –so far- have in very little solved people’s problems, guaranteed happiness or changed the world for the better.

This is, of course, a nice controversial issue to begin this school year with. So I’m inviting you all to see Furtado’s film (it’s only 13 minutes), and to write and exchange your ideas and impressions on the topic. In the end, when discussing freedom, we’re pondering what we are, what we want to be, and what we can be as human beings.

View the film here or at DailyMotion, or download it from this folder:

Ilha das Flores-sub Eng
Cargado por Simud

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[1] The other question was “Are we actually free?” (but let’s only deal with the first one today)