In their articles "From the Imaginary Signifier" and "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," Christian Metz and Laura Mulvey, respectively, discuss the psychology inherent in an audience's identification with character, camera, filmmaker, and the human form. Metz begins his article with a discussion that combines various theories of film. He touches on the issues of "aura" that Walter Benjamin brings up in his article "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" and he brings up the idea of a voyeuristic audience that we have discussed in class with regards to Cache, a film by Michael Haneke.Metz contends that film is at once the most perceptual and the least perceptual art form. While cinema combines the visual and auditory perceptions like no other medium does, it is also, as the famous quote says, "a lie." Since nothing in film is an actual representation of the real, all the perceptions that the audience comes away with are false. He then uses psychoanalysis to compare an infant looking into a mirror to that of an audience watching a film. An infant sees itself as an object in the mirror, and it sees the world around it without identifying itself in the mirror. In the same way, when an audience watches a film, Metz contends that the film becomes a "glass mirror." We are able to constitute a world of objects without actual seeing ourselves in the world, and we are able to think of this world as real.
This definition of a "mirror-like" film brings up issues of identification in cinema. Metz details the various ways that the spectator can identify in film. Through the objects on screen, through the camera, and through the filmmaker. He explains that such things as strange camera angles, that is, those that are not of the norm in cinema, identify us with the filmmaker, rather than the character. These shots do not show how a "character" as we understand it, looks at the world, but how a filmmaker, who is present on the outside of these characters, looks at the world. In contrast, the shot-reverse-shot format is our understanding of the normal, character and object based world of cinema.
These issues of identification are interesting when discussing an animated film such as Wall-E. Wall-E creates a world that has virtually no aura of its original form. This digital world, although produced with the best special effects and animation technology that Hollywood has to offer, still looks nothing like our own world. We recognize that it is a representation of our world, yet we are continually reminded that we are identifying with a world that is not our own. This is magnified by the presence of live-action videotape in the film. What we would define as a "real representation of a human" is only present in Wall-E on a screen within a screen. Wall-E watches an old video of two actors singing "Hello Dolly," and on screen, the humans are not animated but are "real." Although these people are the kind we usually see, in the all digital world of Wall-E they seem out of place and unwelcomed. After spending most of the movie identifying with the animated world of this robot, these humans seem more lifeless and false than ever. However, at the same time, we identify with Wall-E, as he is the one watching the two characters dance and sing on screen, and we understand his fascination with the love that they share. We have been in his position a countless number of times, and we understand our fascination with the depiction of love on cinema. This contradicts Mulvey's assertion that "cinema satisfies the urge to identify with the human form." In Wall-E, we become accustomed to identifying with the animated world, and representations of humans are no longer satisfying for us, but rather they seem strange and foreign.
It's interesting that you bring animation into the discourse of film identification. What role does our perception of reality play in animation? I believe the balance between our self-awareness of a film's fictitious nature and our identification with the reality of film, it is offset, if not rendered null, in animation, because we waive our credulity to focus on the narrative itself instead of the representation of reality .
ReplyDeleteWhen watching Wall-E, I did feel like a voyeur, and Metz's argument that we identify with the camera as our eyes and ears was upheld. Mulvey, on the other hand, can be obviously disproved by animation because it is relatively gender-neutral. Well, let me specify: Pixar, Hollywood studio animation (Roger Rabbit, not so much). And as far as Mulvey's claim that we identify with human form, in Happy Feet, I was completely thrown off by the presence of humans outside of the tank. I believe we identify with the camera as individual beings, rather than as the collective idea of "human." We identify with penguins, rats, or superhero families, because we identify with their emotions and events that the camera presents on screen regardless of their humanity or gender.
Therefore in the theoretical context of Metz, Wall-E fits. We are the camera, and we identify (albeit I'll argue not sexually) with the image onscreen. Yet again, with Mulvey, the feminist deconstruction of film ideology does not apply to Hollywood studio animation.
Bringing in an animated film, especially one so intelligent and so grounded in cinematic history, is definitely an interesting choice, and also a challenging one. I second Rachel's statement that the reality the filmmaker attempts to achieve is much different when the filmmaker is operating in animation. Animation is in a different realm than normal films are. The filmmaker can get away with more (animated characters often survive deadly injuries and are oddly colorful), but also cannot stray too far from the human condition, as he / she must make the characters (often improbable non-human ones) and main themes relevant.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I think your choice of "WALL-E" is a fantastic one, especially when dealing with Metz's ideas of the mirror and self-definition. You hone in on the most salient scene of the film when addressing these ideas (along with those of love, humans etc).: the one where Wall-E (the character) views the hello Dolly video. Here, Wall-E watches with fascination as the two characters dance and hold hands: signs of affection. He recognizes himself in the characters on screen (he even gets his own trash can lid to dance with the characters), and longs to share emotion with another being (who ends up being Eve). I strongly agree with your contradiction to Mulvey's claim that "cinema satisfies the urge to identify with the human form." This scene in "WALL-E" clearly shows how cinema only displays emotion for the spectator to see. It does not satisfy the urges Wall-E has; it merely shows him what he lacks.
Ari-
ReplyDeleteI found it very interesting that you chose to apply concepts from the canon of film theory to a work of computer-generated images, a form only recently developed. Instead of working overtime to create a sense of versimilitude, this form embraces the gap between reality and the on-screen story, and to utilize it is to choose constantly remind your audience of this gap.
“Wall-E creates a world that has virtually no aura of its original form.” And yet, it was a box office hit. The fantastical delivery of this narrative was apparently neither jarring nor infuriating. I am interested to know if less traditional forms like cartoons and computer graphic films have to rely more heavily on methods of suture--like eyeline matches and shot-reverse-shot sequences—to make a convincing case and put its viewers at ease.
Since we are able to identify with Wall-E, who is not even human, it makes me question Mulvey's argument about how men need to identify with a male gaze. We are capable of identifying with a robot, yet we cannot identify with a female character?
ReplyDeleteI have not seen Wall-E, but what you discuss about "mirror-like" films seems like it would be especially applicable to this animated film, or other films that take place in worlds completely different from our own. In an unknown world, we are like the infant looking in the mirror. We see the world in the film and see how we fit into it, but the mirror still separates from actually being a part of that world.
Since I have not seen the film, I am wondering if any of Mulvey's explanations of how the patriarchal society we live in translates into films apply to it..