Godard, Rohmer, and Rancire's "Phrase-Image"

Author(s): Aime Israel-Pelletier

Source: SubStance, Vol. 34, No. 3, Issue 108: French Cinema Studies 1920s to the Present
(2005), pp. 33-46
Published by: University of Wisconsin Press
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Godard, Rohmer,
and Ranci re's
Phrase-Image
Aimee Israel-Pelletier
According
to
Jacques
Ranciere,
we are in the midst of a seminal
aesthetic
regime.
The
paradigm
of this new
regime
is
hybridity.
Everywhere
we
look, Ranciere
explains,
we witness continuous and
unfettered
border-crossings
between
genres,
between
high
and low
art,
art and
non-art,
art and
commodity.
These
border-crossings
are not
evidence that differences have been reduced to
sameness,
but are the
sign
of a
capacity
to maintain identities at the heart of
pluralism.
What
appears paradoxical
is not. Pluralism is manifest in aesthetics as well as
in the
larger
cultural and
political spheres. Jurgen
Habermas
writes,
"la
reconnaissance des
diff6rences,
la
reconnaissance mutuelle de l'autre dans
son
alt6rit6
peut
aussi devenir la
marque
d'une
identit6
commune."
And
Tzvetan
Todorov,
writing
in
praise
of a united
Europe,
states in Le Nouveau
Disordre
mondial,
On
pourrait
se demander dans ce contexte si
l'unification
de
l'Europe,
se
produisant
de surcroit
A l'age
de
la mondialisation,
ne menace
pas
cette diversite culturelle.
Je
crois
pour
ma
part que
le
danger
est
surestime. Les etres humains ont su de tout
temps
faire
la
diff6rence
entre identit6
civique,
ou
administrative,
et
identit6
culturelle;
a
cet
egard,
I'Etat-nation
est
plut6t l'exception que
la
regle.
Poss6der
un
passeport europien
ne vous
emp&che
nullement de vous sentir
espagnol
de
coeur,
et meme andalou.
(133)
Ranciere
argues
that the work of
contemporary
artists,
without
being
indifferent to
distinctions,
reflects the
collapse
of difference we
perceive
in the world at
large.
The new aesthetics
acknowledges
and celebrates
multiplicity
without
reducing
it to sameness. It undermines
homogeneity
and similarities while
asserting
consensus,
diversity,
and
hybridity.
In
Le Destin des
images,
Ranciere
observes that
contemporary
art
forms,
like
installation art and
conceptual
art,
are sites where the new
paradigm
is
expressed
and
promoted.
These works
may
not
always
be
recognized
as
art because
they
seem
(and
often
are)
random and makeshift
constructions. But this is
only
because we are in a
period
of transition
when both
paradigms
exist side
by
side.
Ranciere reminds us that the new
paradigm explains
the
collapse
of
distance between words and
images.
He
points
out that
although
we
?
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Regents, University
of Wisconsin
System,
2005
33
SubStance #108, Vol..34,
no.
3,
2005
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34
Aim6e
Israel-Pelletier
have
long recognized
the
tight relationship
between
them,
we
generally
do not
grasp
how
thoroughly
words and
images
have become
integrated.
We
understand,
for
example,
their
relationship
as one of resemblance
and
equivalence,
based on the notion that words
conjure up images
and,
as the
saying goes,
an
image
is worth a thousand words. But this under-
standing
does not
go
far
enough;
to use the terms word and
image betrays
the fact that we are still
thinking
of their
separate
and distinct attributes.
By
their
collapse,
Ranciere
suggests
that artists no
longer
see a difference
between
images
and words. He
writes,
... 1'
image
n'est
pas
une exclusivite du visible.
II
y
a du visible
qui
ne
fait
pas image,
il
y
a des
images qui
sont toutes en mots. Mais le
regime
le
plus
courant de
l'image
est
celui
qui
met en scene un
rapport
du dicible au
visible,
un
rapport qui joue
en meme
temps
sur
leur
analogie
et sur leur dissemblance. Ce
rapport n'exige
aucunement
que
les deux termes soient materiellement
presents.
Le visible se
laisse
disposer
en
tropes significatifs,
la
parole diploie
une
visibiliti
qui peut
etre
aveuglante.
II
pourrait
sembler
superflu
de
rappeler
des choses aussi
simples.
S'il
faut le
faire,
pourtant,
c'est
que
ces choses
simples
ne cessent de
se
brouiller,
que
l'alt6rit6
identitaire de la ressemblance a
toujours
interft6re
avec le
jeu
des relations constitutives des
images
de
l'art.
(15-16,
italics in
original)
To
identify
and to
explain
how the
collapse
of difference works in
aesthetics,
Ranciere introduces the term
phrase-image,
an
expression
that
implies
more than the
joining
of words and
image.
The
phrase-image
is a
rhetorical
figure, something
like Flaubert's orchestration. It is formed when
heterogeneous
elements reach the
point
of
greatest expression.
The
phrase-
image
is the orchestration and
representation
of
potential
chaos-that
is,
of
multiplicity, dissimilarity, paradox,
and contradiction.
Images,
words,
and sounds have
expressive potential
when
they
coexist. The
phrase-image
is the unit of
expression
that evokes their
confluence,
their cohesion and
commonality,
their commune mesure.
(44) By phrase-image,
Ranciere is also
suggesting
the
coming together
of more than words and
images;
he is
suggesting
the
convergence
of an
array
of
genres
and
styles.
He writes in
Le Destin des
images,
La
phrase
n'est
pas
le
dicible,
l'image
n'est
pas
le visible. Par
phrase-
image j'entends
l'union de deux fonctions
'
difinir
esthetiquement,
c'est-a-dire
par
la
maniere
dont elles defont le
rapport representatif
du
texte a
l'image.
Dans le schema
representatif,
la
part
du texte
6tait
celle de
l'enchainement iddel
des
actions,
la
part
de
l'image
celle du
suppl6ment
de
pr6sence
qui
lui donne chair et consistance. La
phrase-
image
bouleverse cette
logique.
La
fonction-phrase y
est
toujours
celle de
l'enchainement.
Mais la
phrase
enchaine desormais
pour
autant
qu'elle
donne chair. Et cette chair ou cette consistance
est,
paradoxalement,
celle de la
grande passivite
des choses sans raison.
SubStance #108, Vol.
34,
no.
3,
2005
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Godard, Rohmer,
and
Ranciere's
Phrase-Image
35
L'image,
elle,
est devenue
puissance
active,
disruptive,
du
saut,
celle du
changement
de
regime
entre deux ordres sensoriels. La
phrase-image
est
l'union
de ces deux fonctions.
(56, my italics)
The
phrase-image
is not a
simple equation
or
relationship
between words
and
images. By collapsing
their traditional
distinctions,
the
expressive
potential
of the work of art
expands.
This is because their interaction
produces
a
surplus,
des choses sans raison -what
Ranciere
calls elsewhere
la dimesure. The
phrase-image
is in a
position
to
generate
new
ideas,
new
relationships.
In this new
regime,
differences are not erased or flattened. The
individual and the
particular
have no
priority
and no set
place.
In a
sense,
they
do not know their
place,
are free to
occupy any place
and
are,
therefore,
apt
at
border-crossing.
This
border-crossing
is at work in the
phrase-image
and the force
(imaginative
and
stylistic)
that
conjoins things,
both different and
similar,
is what
Ranciere
refers to as le commun de la
dimesure,
the
unleashing
of
heterogeneous
elements,
of
surplus
-the source
of art's
power
over
reality. (55) Importantly
for
Ranciere,
the
phrase-image
represents
a
vigorous
and
timely response
to the
flattening
of
individuality,
of
language,
and of
images
that have made their
way
in
the dominant culture
through
the mass media and
through
the
commercialization of human
activity.
Ranciere
suggests
that the
only
way
artists retain their subversive effect on culture is
by creating
and
disseminating
forms of aesthetic
expression
that cannot be
readily
co-
opted
and
homogenized by
inevitable
globalization.
Therefore,
to be
effective,
these
newly
created forms need to
incorporate
disorder,
heterogeneity
and
inclusiveness,
as well as a sense of
community,
all of
which are attributes not
easily co-opted.
The
phrase-image
is a measure of
the desire of
individuals,
"des
corps
ivres de
communautl,"
to resist "la
grande egalite
marchande et
langagiere"
in order to force a
response
in
the heart of "la
torpeur
du
grand
consentement."
(56)
Godard's Films
For
Ranciere, Jean-Luc
Godard's films
represent
an excellent
example
of the
phrase-image
at the core of the new
paradigm.
This is not
surprising.
Godard's work
displays
a
predilection
for
mixing categories,
media,
registers, experiences,
communities,
languages,
and histories. Deleuze
writes,
"Godard is
constantly creating categories:
hence the
very special
role of discourse in
many
of his films where ...
one
genre
of discourse
always
leads to a discourse of another
genre" (185).
In Godard's
early
films,
montage
and mise-en-scene were
preeminent conveyers
of
narrative;
in the
1970s,
as
Jacques
Aumont has
put
it,
"le verbal etouffe le
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36 Aimee Israel-Pelletier
visuel ...
C'est
la
periode
de
grande
defiance envers
l'image
comme
inadequation
ou tricherie"
(45).
From Passion
(1981)
to Notre
musique (2004),
Godard returns to
montage-extreme montage.
These later films can be
described as a series of
lengthy fragments
of
significant
events and
experiences pulled together by images,
words,
and music in
montages
that evoke a unified vision of events and
experiences-a
narrative not so
much obscure as irreducible.
Godard's films as a
whole,
the
early
and more recent
films,
celebrate
diversity, heterogeneity
and inclusion without
losing sight
of the
singular.
In Passion
(1981),
to take one
example, advertising messages
and television
images
coexist with
images
from
high
art;
characters who are
factory
workers
pose
as characters from
paintings by
Rembrandt, Delacroix,
Ingres,
and
Goya;
the world outside the studio is different from the
fictional and lush interior world of the studio. Godard underscores these
differences but does not measure one
against
the other.
Quotidian
reality
is neither more nor less banal than the
painterly posing.
If
anything,
Passion
appears
to invite a kind of silent
dialogue
with
painting; suggesting
that
by
virtue of their inclusive nature and their interest in the human
and social
subject,
both
painting
and film communicate facets of character
and of
society.
Aumont
points
out,
"Godard
suggere
donc
que
l'invention
du scenario de Passion a
repose
sur
l'exploitation
deliberie des
impressions
procurees par
des oeuvres
visuelles,
contenant
djli
de
l'histoire
et du
germe
narratif et aussi sur
l'accueil
de
l'imprevu"
(47).
Godard seems to
suggest,
further,
that film welcomes the
opportunity
to collaborate with
painting,
to
acknowledge
it and
transport
it to cinematic life -that
is,
to
make
painting
enter the field of movement. But at no moment do we
get
the sense that Godard vaunts cinematic
language
at the
expense
of
painting.
Neither does he seem to be
saying
that film
completes painting,
by, say, adding
movement. If we think he
does,
this is
only
a factor of our
point
of view.
Kaja
Silverman remarks about the scenes of
posed
paintings,
that
Godard is less interested in
duplicating
this
painting [Rembrandt's
Nightwatch]
than in
reconceiving
it in filmic terms. The fixed
vantage
point
of the
painter gives way
to the mobile
camera,
which can
adopt multiple positions, pan
across the surface of the
image,
and
even invade the
spectacle
itself. Rembrandt's
figures
are released
from their frozen
poses,
and
begin
to move and
breathe,
and the
banner
draped
in the
background
blows in the studio wind. Passion
also cuts back and forth between the Rembrandt
scene,
and shots of
Isabelle
performing factory
work,
reminding
us that
montage
is
another feature of cinema which
distinguishes
it from
painting. (173)
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Godard, Rohmer,
and
Ranciere's
Phrase-Image
37
Yet
Jean-Luc
Godard's and Eric Rohmer's
painterly
scenes -for
example,
Rohmer's use of
painterly images
in La
Marquise
de
O-act
more like
homage
than
reconceptions, contrary
to what Silverman
suggests.
Film
and
painting
both focus attention
(and art)
on human
forms,
on
color,
and on the lives of individuals both in the
present
and in
history.
One
might say
of Godard and Rohmer that their desire is like Christo's
wrapping projects-the
desire to
pull together
in one
gesture
and in one
glance things intensely
seen and loved.
As with
painting,
Godard's references to
language
and literature are
akin to
homage-to
the desire to include and
explore
affinities.
Again,
they
are not acts of
one-upmanship,
but an invitation to
dialogue
and
collaboration. Characters in Godard read
Baudelaire, Poe, Chateaubriand,
and others. References are made to
German, Danish,
English,
Italian,
American and Greek
languages
and cultures. In Le
Mepris (1963),
a film
with
Brigitte
Bardot about the
filming
of the
Odyssey,
Godard follows the
plot
of Moravia's A Ghost at Noon. He does so not to rewrite Moravia or
Homer,
nor to ask that we
compare
them. As with the
paintings
in
Passion,
Godard seems to want to celebrate their art and his own side
by
side -
to
bridge
the distance between artists. Translation is an
apt metaphor
for that
type
of
relationship.
Leo Bersani and
Ulysse
Dutoit
write,
"What
does seem to interest Godard is the
possibility
of a
non-interpretive way
of
relating
to The
Odyssey.
In
Contempt,
this means
subordinating
the truth
about The
Odyssey
to an interest in the kind of relations we can have to it"
(57, original italics). Throughout
Le
Mepris,
characters
speak
in several
languages;
translations are
given
for
most,
but some are untranslated or
incorrectly
translated,
without
any
obvious
consequences.
Godard
celebrates contact between
cultures, cinemas,
and
languages.
Yet he is
not
all-embracing.
Pluralism is not
indiscriminate;
his treatment of
American
culture, manner,
and
accent,
and of
Hollywood
films is
caricatural and
negative.
To be
sure,
Godard is sensitive to the
interplay
of
images
and
words;
his narratives are dense. It is in moments when the
phrase-image
is at its
most
saturated,
most rich with
connections,
that we are able to see
just
how
expressive
his work can be. One of the best
examples
of what
Ranciere
calls the new
regime-inclusive, expressive
and
open-is
Godard's
extraordinary Eloge
de
l'amour
(2001).
As the title
indicates,
the
film is about love. It is about two holocaust survivors who sell the
rights
to their
story
to
Hollywood,
but who also
propose
it to the film's main
character,
who searches for the
right
actors,
then looks for
ways
to write
and
produce
the film. To relate the
story
of
Eloge
de
l'amour
this
way
is
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38
Aim6e
Israel-Pelletier
really
to
say
little about the film. It is to reduce it to its least
interesting
aspect,
to a narrative that is
anything
but clear. The film has
many
characters,
many
scenes, time-frames,
and
spaces,
so that to summarize
the
plot
is to miss the real
point.
More
accurately, Eloge
is made
up
of a
series of
tightly
constructed
phrase-images, segments
whose visual
density
and narrative drive create in the viewer a sense of bewilderment and
wonder
accompanied by only fleeting
moments of
intelligibility.
What
makes this film remarkable is the
impact
it makes both on the mind and
the senses. The
phrase-image
is the net effect of a
scene,
its
impact
on the
mind,
on the
imagination,
and on the senses. In
Godard,
the
phrase-image
is
montage
taken a notch above the
capacity
of our mind and our senses
to
process meaning
in accustomed
ways.
Writing
about
Godard, Rancikre
points
out that "Le cinema
qu'il
nous raconte
apparait
comme une serie
d'appropriations
des autres arts.
Et il nous la
presente
dans un entrelacs de
mots,
de
phrases
et de
textes,
de
peintures metamorphosees,
de
plans cinematographiques melanges
'
des
photographies
ou bandes
d'actualite,
ventuellement relies
par
des
citations musicales."
(52)
Ranciere is
describing
Histoire(s)
du
cinema,
but
could
just
as
easily
be
talking
about
Eloge
and other recent Godard films.
Godard's work is
special
because it
appears experimental
and anarchic
and
yet,
at the same
time,
it
brings meaning
to and humanizes lived
experience.
What makes
Eloge
a
masterpiece
is that the film's
montage
(its
radical
look,
its visual and verbal
density)
takes
nothing away
from
its characters and their
histories,
but on the
contrary heightens
the
expression
of love between Perceval and
Eglantine
and that of the
Bayards
for each other. It also
heightens
the
ideological
stance of the film. It tells
us about
history
and
politics;
it tells us a
great
deal about the film business
and about the art of
film;
it tells us as much about Godard's attachment
to
individuals,
to
characters,
and to
community
as
any
of his nouvelle
vague
films
do,
or as much as
any nineteenth-century
realist narrative
does.
For
Ranciere,
cinema lost
something
when it
quickly gave way
to
nineteenth-century
narrative interests instead of
capitalizing
on the
potential
of a
language
of
images.
In
saying
this, Ranciere
imagines
a
kind of cinema described
by
Jean
Epstein
as
moving images
that not
only
replace
the art of
imitating
the
visible,
but make the
sensory
and the
invisible visible
("l'acces
ouvert a une verite interieure du sensible 'oji
s'abolira' toute
opposition
entre les
apparences trompeuses
et la
r6alite
substantielle.").2
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Godard, Rohmer,
and
Ranciere's
Phrase-Image
39
Rohmer's Films
For
Ranciere,
Godard
represents
the finest
example
of the
contemporary
artist
who,
using
the
phrase-image, expresses
modern
experience freely, densely
and
movingly.
I want to
argue
that Eric
Rohmer
is another
good example.
Rohmer's films
exemplify
the notion
expressed
by Epstein
of an art that makes the
sensory
and the invisible visible. He
achieves this
by evoking
the
quotidian
as the
multi-layered experience
of events-what Rohmer refers to as ambiance. In
Rohmer,
the act of
speaking plays
a
significant
role. But often at
important
moments in his
films,
speech
is but one of
many
elements.
Talking only appears
to be the
main
attraction;
so much
happens
in scenes where
nothing
but
talking
seems to be
taking place. Many
of his films are inhabited
by
a massive
agitation
and an
instability positioned alongside
the verbal
sparring.
It
is
only
thanks to the
rolling
din of words that his films maintain an
appearance
of
continuity
and coherence.
In an interview
taped
in 1993 and
published
in 2005
by
Andre Bazin
and Andre
Labarthe,
Rohmer tells
Jean
Douchet that before
writing
the
scenario of a
film,
he decides on its dominant colors- the overall visual
tonality.
He warns us in the same interview not to focus too much on the
literary aspects
of his
films,
saying
that he is less and less interested in
dramatic effects and more interested in ambiance-the
presence
of all
that surrounds the
narrative.3
To the
suggestion
that his work is
un
cinema
bavard,
Rohmer
responds testily
that his work is influenced
by
German music of the late
eighteenth
and
early
nineteenth centuries. He
asserts,
"Pour moi et
pour
les cineastes de la nouvelle
vague, qa passe
moins
par
la litterature
que par
la
musique."
He is careful to
explain
that
by
music he is not
referring
to
background
or
accompaniment
music.
The music he has in mind is an
organizing system,
a structural
concept,
une
harmonie,
that orchestrates the visual and the narrative. It sets the
nouvelle
vague
filmmakers
apart
from films influenced
by jazz
or
rock,
Rohmer
points
out. In the same
taped
interview he
suggests,
"Je
suis un
cineaste du muet." Whether this is meant to be
provocative
or
not,
he is
in effect
asking
critics to correct the dominant view of his work as
heavily
reliant on
words,
since to continue to focus on the verbal side of Rohmer's
art is to
neglect
the films' other
significant aspects. Unquestionably,
conversations are
important
moments. But
they
must not be allowed to
eclipse
other cinematic
qualities.
If we
only momentarily stop listening
to the characters'
words,
Rohmer's films reveal themselves to be inhabited
by
a rich and
edgy
sensibility.
Rohmer's vision of
reality
is that of a tumultuous and all but
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40 Aimbe Israel-Pelletier
unhinged
world. An
example
is the
long
scene between
Francois
and
Lucie at the Butte de Chaumont in La Femme de
l'aviateur
(1980).
This is a
scene of veritable movement and
variety.
Like much of the
film,
it is a
noisy
scene. In the
foreground,
Francois
and Lucie are
talking. They've
just
met;
and we've
just
met them. Yet
they speak
as if
they've
known
each other for a
long
time.
He,
an anxious
lover,
is
spying
on a
couple,
and
she assists
him,
playfully.
He cannot be bothered
by
her;
his nervous
attention is elsewhere. As
they
walk and
talk,
the
camera,
not content to
follow
Franqois's
obsession,
pursues
the
many
visitors in the
park.
When
it is not
framing
the beautiful face of Lucie
alongside
lush
trees,
the camera
often moves
away
to
give
us a
lengthy
look at various
pedestrians
-a
woman
pushing
a
baby carriage,
two
separate fragments
of old men
with
canes,
an old woman with a
dog,
school children
running,
a
young
girl jogging,
an
amusing
Asian-American man and his Canadian friend
taking photos,
a
group
of school
children,
and a
variety
of other
people
who traverse the
park.
These characters are
potentially
as
interesting-
if not more so-than
Franqois,
as is
Lucie,
left
largely unexplored.
We
would be
happy
to follow Lucie and a number of these
anonymous
passers-by
if we
could;
and that's the
point.
Rohmer in no
way
undermines the narrative or the words that his characters cannot seem
to live
without,
and that we
enjoy.
Yet,
the narrative and the moral that this and other Rohmer films
offer are a side-show to various interests on the
part
of Rohmer and the
camera. The
phrase-image captures
that
variety,
that
overflow,
thereby
representing
the fullness of the real.
By
side-show,
I do not mean a minor
show,
playing second-billing
to the main
interest,
but rather that in
Rohmer,
as in
Godard,
there is no
hierarchy
established
among
elements
of
interest;
so much
happens
on the
screen,
so
many
related and unrelated
things
occur,
that the side show is one of several shows all
equally
compelling
because all
equally
attended to
by
the
camera,
and conse-
quently, duly
noted
by
the viewer. The narrative serves to reveal
character.
But,
alongside
the
words,
there are
spaces,
sounds,
and
poses
so
strongly emphasized
that
they
can-and
frequently
do-command
sustained interest and at least
temporarily
dominate the show. We have
for
example
Paris and its
streets,
lush and
busy parks,
seaside
towns,
intimate
interiors,
gestures
and faces. Rohmer's films are filled with sound
and movement
and,
with the
possible exception
of Ma nuit chez Maud
(1969),
are
packed
with
characters,
both
anonymous
and identified -the
faces that make
up reality.
All these features are not the
backdrop
to the
narrative,
but constitute the
very
fabric of social discourse and Rohmer's
vision of
contemporary
life,
the illusion of the real. The
phrase-image
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Godard, Rohmer,
and
Ranciere's
Phrase-Image
41
communicates this abundance and this
surplus.
Ranciere's
term for it is
dimesure,
and
Rohmer's
is ambiance.
Images,
words,
and music work
together
to
help
establish the
characters'
identity
and the film's moral lesson. One cannot
imagine
Ma
nuit chez Maud in the summer instead of the dead of winter. The winter
landscape
contributes to the
austerity
of the
philosophical
discussion. In
Le Genou de Claire
(1970),
what better
setting
than the Lac
d'Annecy,
with
its connection to
Rousseau,
to accentuate
Ger6me's
fetish,
his
perversity?
What better
setting
to
expose
this fetish than in summer
when,
heavily
clothed,
he contrasts with the bare
young
bodies around him?
Rohmer is a
great
creator of characters. The characters have a
penchant
for
using
words to understand
themselves--they
are
great
talkers-but
they
are not all versions of the same character. This
individuality
is a factor of how
closely they
fit in or fail to fit
specific
spaces.
The Paris of
L'amour
l'apres-midi (1972)
is not the Paris of La Femme de
l'aviateur or of Les Nuits de la
pleine
lune
(1982).
Characters in these films are
different,
and
approach
their
problems differently.
The words that
Rohmer's characters cannot seem to live without are a constitutive
part
of their
identity
and of the
spaces they
inhabit;
we see how the intricate
web of words and
images tightens
around them
throughout
the film.
But
paradoxically,
we also
see,
especially
when the seduction
by
words
weakens
(as
in
repeated viewings),
that when characters are
speaking,
the camera often
lingers
on other features of the
surroundings,
on ambient
things
that do not
necessarily
serve narrative
ends,
that seem to have
little to do with
advancing
our
knowledge
of the characters.
Rohmer has a
penchant
for characters whose emotional
register
and
self-knowledge
can be
gauged
not
only by
what
they say,
what
they
do,
and what others
say
about
them,
but also and
especially by
what
they
hide--what
others
generally
do not
suspect,
but which we
do,
by
virtue
of the fact that we follow the camera's
eye.
As
viewers,
we see the
characters in all their
contradictions,
all their
blindness,
and all their
banality.
The ambiance created in Rohmer's films
imparts
the
knowledge
we have of the
characters,
but
ultimately
we are
only slightly
interested
in their
dilemmas;
their concerns are narrow and often
commonplace.
Like the tourist and the
happy few
in
Stendhal,
we are distant from
them,
and are
merely
amused
by
them. This
position parallels
the
position
of
the
camera,
busy showing
us much more than what interests the
character,
or what
they
themselves see. This is true even in
tight
and
closed
spaces,
like
apartments,
where the
wallpaper
or a mirror
might
draw more attention than the
person speaking.
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42 Aimee Israel-Pelletier
In Le
Rayon
vert
(1986),
for
example, Delphine's
anxieties about
spending
her summer vacation alone are
heightened by
scenes of
bantering
and
pleasure
that we know she is too anxious to
notice,
let
alone
enjoy.
These scenes are made
up
of
phrase-images,
cinematic moments
filled with
activity
and affect. The scenes tell us as much about
Delphine's
dissociation from those around her as
they
underscore,
through
the
camera's
eye,
the
beauty
of a certain moment and
place-moments
and
places
that are noted and
enjoyed by
others
(her
Swedish
acquaintance,
the children at
play,
the hosts at the
table,
etc.).
And we are invited to
find
pleasure
in the flow of
words,
the musical
phrases,
the sounds all
around,
and the
density
of visual moments. The
impact
of
Delphine's
sentiments,
her
anxiety tinged
with boredom and
loneliness,
would be
sad for us were we not
kept delighted by
these
places (the
streets of
Paris,
lunch and conversations in the
outdoors,
seascapes
like
Cherbourg
and
Biarritz,
the
slopes,
and even moments
spent
in
dreary private
apartments).
So here the
phrase-image
serves as a kind of rhetorical
figure
expressing
the
totality
of
Delphine's experience.
It is made
up
of what we
know
Delphine
is unaware
of,
as well as what we know she feels.
Another
example
of the
phrase-image
is the scene in
Cherbourg
when
Delphine goes
for a walk. The sea is at a
distance,
barely
visible,
but we
hear the waves
distinctly
and we hear and see the trees in the
foreground
tossed
by
the wind.
Delphine
is
caught by
the thorns of a branch. When
the camera zooms in on her
face,
the
script
describes what we
see,
"Elle
ne
peut
retenir les larmes
qui
lui
brfilent
les
yeux.
Elle
regarde
le
ciel,
baisse les
paupieres, pleure
en
silence."4
We know
Delphine
and we feel
pity
for her. But not
much,
considering
how difficult she has been to
please.
When,
at the end of the
film,
only days
before the end of her
vacation,
she meets a man she likes at the train station and decides to
spend
her
remaining
time with
him,
we are
pleased
for
her,
but this
encounter does not mean
very
much,
since it does not
change
our
feelings
or
understanding
of her.
Though
she
occupies
cinematic
space
and is the
central
character,
she has not been central to
us;
at the same time we
were
following
her,
we were
preoccupied by
the
many
other rich moments
made available
by
the camera. This
way
of
positioning
the character
between her own
self-importance
and our
general
indifference to her is
prevalent
in
Rohmer,
and
explains
our
feeling
of detachment from
many
of his characters. We are not meant to like
them,
because
they
are flawed
and
morally
weak.
The
phrase-image
works on a different level as well. Rohmer's films are
traversed
by
movement. For all their
talking,
his characters are almost
always
on the
move,
criss-crossing space
and
visually agitated.
Train
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Godard, Rohmer,
and
Ranciere's
Phrase-Image
43
rides and car
rides,
common in his
work,
evoke the
mobility
of characters
who talk their
way
in and out of
situations,
ever
seeking
to find
themselves
(Les
Nuits de la
pleine
lune,
is an excellent
example).
Characters
stroll,
pace,
drive
cars,
ride
trains, buses,
bicycles; they
cover a lot of
ground.
Rohmer is not subtle about this. This
movement,
at times
enjoyable
and at times
edgy,
is an
evocative,
recurring phrase-image.
The
scene between Anne and
Francois
outside the
caf6
in La Femme de
l'aviateur
is a
typical example.
Characters
travel,
but
always
come back to one
particular place.
That
revisiting
of
places
mirrors the characters'
equally
persistent
return to fixed ideas. Rohmer's characters are obsessive and
tenacious. The
phrase-image
underlines this
all-consuming
trait,
intensifying
it in
conversations,
images
and music.
Sabine in Le Beau
mariage (1982)
is a case in
point. Throughout
the
film,
she
relentlessly pursues
Edmond,
whom she wants to
marry.
This desire
is
expressed visually through space, by
a
crossing
of his and her
spaces
(by
car and
by train), by
her
words,
which are
always hurrying
to
complete
or
replace
his,
as well as
by
her
irritating
variations on the
phrase "je
vais me marier." This
criss-crossing
and insistence reflect
Sabine's determination to
bridge
the two distinct
spaces,
the flat and
dreary landscape
that surrounds her
family
home,
on one
hand, and,
on
the
other,
the warm and
hilly
homes of the old French
bourgeoisie
into
which she
aspires
to
marry.
There is a
great
deal one can
say
about how
spaces
here-both visual and
social-impart meaning,
reflect
character,
articulate
goals
and histories.
We learn
through
Sabine's
words,
gestures,
and her
past
who she is
and
why
she wants Edmond. We also understand in
many ways
who
Edmond is and
why
her
persistence
will not work. The decision to
marry
Edmond was
initially
not her
own,
but devised
by
Clarisse,
who
perversely
orchestrates this
unlikely
match. We watch their
plan
insinuate itself both
innocently
and not so
innocently.
We see this
slippery slope visually (literally
the
slope
of the old
quartier
where Clarisse
and Sabine discuss the
plot);
we see it in the cars that at times seem to
float on air and at others to
grind
their
way noisily through streets);
we
catch it in the
screeching
theme music of the
film;
and we hear it in the
phrases
that characters
say
to each other
(as
in the
impeccably
rendered
meeting
in Edmond's
office,
where we
suspect
an
awakening
of Edmond's
interest in Sabine
just
as she is
gradually detaching herself).
Rohmer is a master of nuance and of
ambiance;
many
of the
scenes,
in this and other
films,
appear
at once
staged (seemingly
calculated to
suggest
a
meaning)
and
innocently
casual
(suggesting none).
In Ma Nuit
chez
Maud,
we have an
example
in the scene at the end of the film
when,
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2005
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44 Aimbe Israel-Pelletier
after
many years,
Maud and
Jean-Louis
run across each other at the
beach. Winter scenes in Clermont-Ferrand at the
beginning
of the film
have made
way
for the
concluding
summer
scene,
snowy slopes
have
been
replaced by sandy slopes,
as the characters assess the
changes
in
their lives in a flash of
recognition-and certainly
of
curiosity
and of
confusion. What are
they thinking?
What is Rohmer
thinking?
What are
we to think? It is not clear.
Yet,
we are struck
by
a
profusion
of
signs.
The
phrase-image
is a dense
expression
which,
like
metaphor, suggests
connections and creates effects.
But,
perhaps
unlike
metaphor,
it cannot
conceivably
account for and connect all the
signs.
Elusive
Meaning:
"I1
faut donc entendre"
Ranciere traces the
phrase-image
all the
way
back to Flaubert. He
writes,
"Si Flaubert
'n'y
voit
pas'
dans ses
phrases,
c'est
qu'il
&crit
i
l'age
de la
voyance
et
que l'age
de la
voyance
est
precisiment
celui
oih
une certaine
'vue' s'est
perdue, oh
le dire et le voir sont
entr6s
dans un
espace
de
communaute sans distance et sans
correspondance" (58, original italics).
And
so,
Flaubert uses the
gueuloir,
"il faut donc
entendre,"
and the
montage.
As an
example
of
montage,
Ranciere offers the famous scene of
the Comice in Madame
Bovary,
"comme mesure du sans-mesure ou
discipline
du chaos."
(58)
The
phrase-image
is not a
phrase
that allows us
to visualize a
meaning;
it is not an
image
that carries
meaning,
but
something
closer
to,
but not
exactly
the same as cinematic
montage
-
words, sounds,
and
images
set
up
in such a
way
as to create an
impact
and/or
a
meaning.
Though
Rohmer,
unlike
Godard,
is not known for
stylized
cinematic
montages,
his films have
many
moments where
meaning,
or the effect of
meaning,
manifests itself
by
means of
montage.
"Je
veux br iler
d'amour"
says
the sensuous Marion in Pauline
ai
la
plage (1983),
and at that
very
moment,
Pauline
gets up calmly
and sits
by
the cold
fireplace.
It is as if in
this
montage
Rohmer were
offering
us a
glimpse
of Pauline's
desire,
or
her
disposition-her curiosity
or lack thereof to
experience
what Marion
means
by
these words. It is
open
to
interpretation.
We cannot even be
sure that Rohmer is
pointing
us in the direction of
meaning,
let alone
that he is
directing
this or that
interpretation,
and it does not
really
matter.
There is also an
exquisite
scene in Le Beau
Mariage
that
joins meaning
and effect so well that we are seduced both
by
the
density
of
potential
meaning
and the innocence of the whole set
up
-
the fact that it
may
not
have an intended
meaning.
At the
picturesque
restaurant,
a former mill
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Godard, Rohmer,
and
Ranciere's
Phrase-Image
45
in the
country,
where Sabine and Edmond lunch after
they
return from
the chateau where he
bought
the
Jersey pitcher,
Edmond sits with his
back to the tall window where a warm
golden glow envelops
him. This
shot is
strikingly
different from the dark rich
background
that sets Sabine
off in the same scene.
They
are both
beautifully
set and
maybe
even
complementarily
so. But
they
are worlds
apart,
and we see this. His look
and words exude ease and
calm,
and her
eyes
and words are tense and
eager.
No words
alone,
no
metaphors
or
images,
could
convey
what is
taking place
in this scene with
any degree
of
subtlety
or truthfulness.
These two
scenes,
and
many
others like
them,
work so well because the
words and the
images
cannot be
parsed;
the
variety
and
density
of clues
cannot be
articulated,
without
crushing
their
artistry, undermining
their
power
of
suggestion,
and
ultimately, trivializing
their
meaning-if
in
fact
meaning
were offered as a
possibility
at all.
To illustrate the elusiveness
and,
at the same
time,
the
power
of the
phrase-image,
Ranciere
uses a film
sequence
from the Marx brother's
Une
Nuit a Casablanca
(1946),
...
un
policier regarde
d'un air
soupqonneux
la
singuliere
attitude
d'Harpo,
immobile et
la
main tendue contre un mur.
I1
lui demande
donc de sortir de lI. D'un
signe
de
tkte,
Harpo indique qu'il
ne le
peut pas.
"Vous allez
peut-
tre me faire croire
que
c'est
vous
qui
soutenez le
mur",
ironise le
policier.
Par un nouveau
signe
de
tSte,
Harpo indique que
c'est
exactement le cas. Furieux
que
le muet se
moque
ainsi de
lui,
le
policier
arrache
Harpo
'
sa faction.
Et,
bien
siur,
le mur
s'6ffondre
a
grand
fracas. Ce
gag
du muet
qui
soutient le mur
est
la
parabole
la
plus propre
a nous faire sentir
la
puissance
de
la
phrase-image qui separe
le tout se tient de
l'art
du tout se touche de
la
folie
explosive
ou de
la
betise consensuelle.
(57)
Recall Rohmer's assertion in the interview with
Douchet, "Je
suis un
cineaste du muet." The illusion of the real is not created
by
words alone.
Words are
only
a
part
of the effect of the real which is evoked
by
ambiance.
A rhetorical
figure,
the
phrase-image,
is the
opposite
of a modernist art
of
impoverishment.5
Rather,
it is an
example
and a manifestation of the desire
on the
part
of directors like Godard and Rohmer to celebrate the
plenitude
of life
through
arts of
inclusion,
arts that overload the senses and the
mind, "C'est
le commun de la demesure ou du chaos
qui
donne desormais
sa
puissance
h
l'art."
(55)
My juxtaposition
of Godard and Rohmer is motivated
by
a sense
that
film,
like
video,
television
and,
more
generally, technologies
that
mix
words, sounds,
and
images,
are suited for a culture
that,
as
Ranciere
points
out,
is
already perhaps
"after
post-modernism"
-that
is,
a culture
of inclusion and of
community busy reframing
the
relationships
between
SubStance #108, Vol. 34, no. 3, 2005
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46 Aimee Israel-Pelletier
the self and
society by
means of
images,
words and
anything
else that
can
produce
the most
impact,
the most
affect,
and
perhaps,
advance the
most
meaning.
Flaubert had started that
project
in literature. It remains
to be seen if an
upgraded
version of the
phrase-image
will
emerge
in
literature,
enabling
words on the
page
to offer new
opportunities
for
generating expression
without
sacrificing intelligibility.
University of
Texas at
Arlington
Notes
1.
Quoted
in
Todorov,
132.
2.
Jean
Epstein, Bonjour
cinema
(Paris:
Editions de la
Sirbne, 1921).
Cited
by Jacques
Rancibre in La
fable cinematographique (Paris: Seuil,
2001), p.7.
3. Andre S.
Labarthe,
Eric Rohmer. Preuves a
l'appui, (Paris:
MK2. Cinema de notre
temps,
2005).
4. Eric Rohmer.
Rayon
vert in
L'Avant
scene
cinema, (Paris:
Decembre
1986. Numero
355),
p.
28.
5. The
expression
is from Leo Bersani in his
book,
Arts
of Impoverishment.
Beckett,
Rothko,
Resnais,
(Cambridge,
MA: Harvard
University
Press,
1993).
Works Cited
Aumont,
Jacques.
Les theories des
cindastes.
Paris: Nathan
Cinima,
2004.
Bersani,
Leo and
Ulysse
Dutoit.
Forms of Being.
Cinema, Aesthetics,
Subjectivity.
London:
British Film
Institute,
2004.
Deleuze,
Gilles. Cinema 2. The
Time-Image. Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota
Press,
1989.
Rancibre,
Jacques.
Le Destin des
images.
Paris: La
Fabrique
editions,
2003.
Silverman,
Kaja,
and Harun
Farocki.
Speaking
About Godard. New York: New York Uni-
versity
Press,
1998.
Todorov,
Tzvetan. Le Nouveau disordre mondial.
Riflexions
d'un
Europeen.
Paris: Editions
Robert
Laffont, S.A.,
2003.
SubStance
#108,
Vol.
34,
no.
3,
2005
This content downloaded from 129.12.11.80 on Thu, 6 Mar 2014 08:31:44 AM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions