You are on page 1of 8

ARTAUD, ROUCH, AND

THE CINEMA OF CRUELTY

PAUL STOLLER

Imagine the following scene. We are seated in the film challenge to racist European conceptions of Africa's place
theater of the Musee de l'Homme. It is 1954, and a select in the history of science?
audience of African and European intellectuals has been Perhaps Rouch's intent in Les Maitres Fous was naive.
assembled to see a film screening. Marcel Griaule is there The brutal images overpower the film's subtle philosophi-
as is Germaine Dieterlen, Paulin Vierya, Alioune Sar and cal themes. After other screenings to selected audiences in
Luc de Heusch. Jean Rouch, who is in the projection France, Rouch decided on a limited distribution — to art
booth, beams onto the screen the initial frames of Les theaters and film festivals.
Maitres Fous. Rouch begins to speak, but soon senses a Rouch was troubled by such criticism, for his prior
rising tension in the theater. As the reel winds down, the practices and commitments were clearly anti-racist, anti-
uncompromising scenes of Les Maitres Fous make people in colonialist, and anti-imperialist. Critics have suggested
the audience squirm in their seats. Rouch asks his select that the controversy surrounding Les Maitres Fous com-
audience for their reaction to the film. pelled Rouch to make films, especially his films of "ethno-
Marcel Griaule says that the film is a travesty; he tells fiction," that more directly confronted European racism
Rouch to destroy it. In rare agreement with Griaule, Paulin and colonialism. Such a view may well be correct, for after
Vierya also suggests that the film be destroyed. There is Les Maitres Fous Rouch mad e a seri es offilmsthat portrayed
only one encouraging reaction to Les Maitres Fous, that of the political and cultural perniciousness of European eth-
Lucde Heusch.1 nocentrism and colonialism in the 1950s. But Rouch's
This reaction clearly wounded Jean Rouch. Should he political films are not simply the result of his reaction to
destroy this film? In filming Les Maitres Fous Rouch's stinging criticism; they also embody, in my view, a cin-
intentions were far from racist; he wanted to demonstrate ematic extension of Artaud's notion of the theater of
howSonghay people in the colonial Gold Coast possessed cruelty. In a cinema of cruelty the filmmaker's goal is not
knowledge and practices "not yet known to us." Just as in to recount per se, but to present an array of unsettling
one of his earlier films, Les Magiciens de Wanzerbe1(1947), images that seek to transform the audience psychologically
in which a sorcerer defies common sense expectations by and politically. In the remainder of this essay I first discuss
vomiting and then swallowing a small metal chain of power, the Artaudian theories of the cinema and theater and
so in Les Maitres Fous, Rouch wanted to document the speculate about the contours of a cinema of cruelty. I then
unthinkable — that men and women possessed by the use those contours to analyze four of Rouch's more politi-
Hauka spirits, the spirits of French and British colonialism, cally and philosophically conscious films (Jaguar (1953-
can handle fire and dip their hands into boiling cauldrons 66), Mot, Un Noir (1957), La Pyramide Humaine (1959),
of sauce without burning themselves. Always the provoca- and PetitaPetit(\969). I conclude with a discussion of the
teur, Rouch wanted to challenge his audiences to think new contemporary philosophical and political importance of
thoughts about Africa and Africans. Could these people of Rouch's cinema — of cruelty.
Africa possess knowledge "notyet known to us," a veritable

50 Volume 8 Number 2 Fall 1992 Visual Anthropology Review


ARTAUD AND THE CINEMA very flesh and blood of his thought" (Williams 1981: 20).
Artaud sawfilmas a possible means of escaping the perils of
Throughout his life Artaud (1896-1948) suffered from linguistic signification. Williams goes on to suggest a link
long bouts of incoherence — the result of schizophrenia between Artaud's cinematic theories and Christian Metz's
and drug addictions. Despite these difficulties, Artaud notion of the imaginary signifier.
broke into the theater as an actor in 1921. Between 1921 The notion of the immediacy of film, of its ability to
and 1924 he joined the experimental repertory company of bypass the usual coded channels of language through a
Charles Dullin for whom he acted and designed sets and visual short circuit that act 'almost intuitively on the
costumes. He also acted with Georges and LudmillaPitoefs brain,' is Artaud's attempt to rediscover what he terms
who produced plays by Blok, Shaw, Pirondello, Capek, and the primitive arrangement of things... For the film
Molnar. During this period, Artaud also began to write image, unlike an accumulation of words on the page or
plays, essays, poems, manifestoes, and film scenarios. In an enactment of these words in a theater, cannot be
1925 he joined Andre* Breton and other Surrealists contrib- pointed to as a thing that is actually there. In other
uting essays to the review, The Surrealist Revolution. Be- words, the film (as Christian Metz has shown, but as
tween 1926 and 1929, he, Roger Vitrac and Robert Aron the Surrealists had already intuited) is an imaginary
founded the Theatre Alfred Jarry, which briefly became a signifier... Briefly, the term refers to the paradoxical
center of the avant-garde stage in France. After three years fact that, although film is the most perceptual of all the
of meticulous planning in the early 1930s, Artaud opened arts and even though its signifier (the play of light and
his shortlived Theatre of Cruelty. The failure of this shadow on the screen representing objects of the real
experiment did not dampen Artaud's creative spirit, for world) gives a powerful impression of reality, this
Artaud traveled widely and continued to write plays, essays impression is only an illusion. (1981:21-22)
and manifestoes. In 1938 Artaud's influential book of As Artaud recognized, human beings are lulled into accept-
essays, The Theatre and its Double, was published. Critics ing the reality of the images in dreams and films; they
hailed it as an important work. This recognition, however, "misrecognize," following the terminology of Lacan and
did not exorcise Artaud's existential demons. He spent Williams, the illusion of the image. As a result the scenarios
much of the last part of his life in asylums and died in 1948 of Artaud and Desnos attempted to construct films that
(Bermel 1977: 113-19). would deconstruct our fundamental relationship to the
Once in Paris Artaud was quickly drawn to the magic image. In this way, film could be a means of unveiling the
of the cinema, the subject of many of his early essays, fundamental structure of the unconscious thereby liberat-
especially during his tenure as director of the Bureau de ing it from the tyranny of language.2
Recherches Surrealistes. Like Robert Desnos, Artaud penned
many film scenarios (only one was ever produced). He
wrote scenarios not to sell his ideas to producers, but to ARTAUD AND THE THEATER OF CRUELTY
explore his thoughts about the relationship between films
and dreams (Kunezli 1987; Williams 1981). Like other By the time of the publication of Andre Breton's Second
Surrealists, Artaud found an affinity between dreams and Surrealist Manifesto (1929), Artaud had become less enam-
the cinema, and his analyses of film, according to Linda ored of the cinema and its revolutionary possibilities.
Williams (1981), probed this relationship with great sensi- "Movies in their turn, murdering us with second-hand
tivity. Unlike Robert Desnos who unproblematically ac- reproductions which, filtered through machines, cannot
cepted a link between the experience of dreams and film, unite with our sensibility, have maintained us for ten years
Artaud focused upon how film signifies. in an ineffectual torpor, in which all of our faculties appear
In his writings on film Artaud's great enemy is lan- to be foundering" (Artaud 1958: 84).
guage, for it is language's arbitrary connection of things Perhaps Artaud realized that the seductive qualities of
(referents) to sequences of sound that stifles the human the cinema can also create a kind of anesthetized state that
imagination. "What Artaud wanted was a language that promotes inactivity (see Buck-Morss, nd.). Artaud may
would not only express, but also — impossibly — be— the have recognized that the cinema's immediacy was not

PAUL STOLLER, WHO IS CURRENTLY NEH RESIDENT SCHOLAR AT THE SCHOOL FOR AMERICAN RESEARCH IN SANTA FE, NEW
MEXICO, IS PROFESSOR OF ANTHROPOLOGY AT WEST CHESTER UNIVERSITY. HIS TWO MOST RECENT BOOKS ARE THE TASTE OF
ETHNOGRAPHIC THINGS: THE SENSES INANTHROPOLOGY {\9%9) AND THE CINEMATIC GRIOT. THE ETHNOGRAPHY OF JEAN ROUCH
(1992).

Visual Anthropology Review Volume 8 Number 2 Fall 1992 51


immediate enough for his revolutionary program of social wrote:
transformation. But by an altogether Oriental means of expression, this
In time Artaud turned more and more of his attentions objective and concrete language of the theater can
to the theater, specifically to his Theater of Cruelty. Con- fascinate and ensnare the organs. It flows into the
sidering the impact that Artaud's writings have had on the sensibility. Abandoning Occidental uses of speech, it
theory and practice of theater in the Twentieth Century, it turns words into incantation. It extends the voice. It
is ironic that his great dramatic experiment closed only two utilizes the vibrations and qualities of voice. It wildly
weeks after it opened in June of 1935- Like other aspects of tramples rhythms underfoot. It pile-drives sounds. It
Artaud's voluminous work, his writings on the Theater of seeks to exalt, to benumb, to charm, to arrest the
Cruelty are fragments, jagged pieces of puzzle that never sensibility. It liberates a new lyricism of gesture which,
form a coherent whole. by its precipitation or its amplitude in the air, ends by
Artaud's early experience in the Parisian theater disil- surpassing the lyricism of words. It ultimately breaks
lusioned him. He reviled so-called masterpieces. "One of away from the intellectual subjugation of language, by
the reasons for the asphyxiating atmosphere in which we conveying the sense of a new and deeper intellectuality
live without possible escape or remedy... is our respect for which hides itself beneath gestures and signs, raised to
what has been written, formulated, or painted, what has the dignity of particular exorcisms. (Ibid.: 91)
been given form" (Artaud 1958: 74). In fact, Artaud felt Although Artaud disassociated himself from the Surrealists
that the literary staidness of the cerebral arts was socially in the late 1920s, the influence of Surrealism twists its way
unhealthy. through his writing: the suspicion of logic, language and
Masterpieces of the past are good for the past: they are rationality; the use of the arts to liberate the power of
not good for us. We have the right to say what has been human vitality from the repressed unconscious; the promo-
said and even what has not been said in a way that tion of social revolution; the juxtaposition of "primitive"
belongs to us, a way that is immediate and direct, and "civilized" imagery to create transformative poetry (see
corresponding to present modes of feeling, and under- Breton 1929;Lippard 1970;Balakian 1986; Clifford 1988;
standable to everyone. (Ibid.: 74) andRichman 1990).
For Artaud, the Theater of Cruelty was the solution to Artaud's writings on the Theater of Cruelty also evoke
social asphyxiation, for it constituted aspace of transforma- spirit possession rituals. Albert Bermel, an Artaud critic,
tion in which people could be reunited with their life forces, suggests that the rites associated with the Corybantes, an
with the poetry that lies beyond the poetic text.3 More early Greek secret society, are quite similar to those pro-
specifically, the Theater of Cruelty posed for the Theater of Cruelty. Through music and
...means a theater difficult and cruel for myself first of dance the Corybantes initiates were whipped into a frenzy,
all. And on the level of performance, it is not the a crazed state that was expiated through purification rituals,
cruelty we can exercise upon each other by hacking at "an experience not dissimilar in kind to the one Artaud
each other's bodies, carving up our personal anato- seems to have had in mind" (Bermel 1977:40).
mies... but the much more terrible and necessary Bermel is not the only scholar to suggest links between
cruelty which things can exercise against us. We are ritual and theater. Gilbert Rouget (1980) argues that
not free. And the sky can still fall on our heads. And classical Greek theater evolved from the Corybantes, which
the theater has been created to teach us that first of all. he calls a possession cult. Other French scholars have
(Ibid.: 79) proposed links among possession, poetry and theater
In some respects Artaud yearned for the participatory (Schaeffner 1965;Leiris 1958;Gibbal 1988). TheArtaudian
theater of yore which foregrounded transformative spec- scenario outlined for the Theater of Cruelty also bears
tacle. According to Artaud, that idea of theater had long striking resemblance to many West African possession
been lost. He traced this loss to Shakespeare and Racine and rituals, including those practiced by the Songhay in the
the advent of psychological theater, which separates the Republic of Niger — the subjects of most of Jean Rouch's
audience from the immediacy of "violent" activity. The films.4
advent of the cinema compounded this loss.
It is clear from Artaud's comments about myth, spec-
tacle and "theatrical violence" that his vision for the Theater ROUCH AND THE CINEMA OF CRUELTY
of Cruelty was inspired by pre-theatrical rituals in which
powerful symbols were employed for therapeutic ends. In It is clear that Artaud believed that the Theater of Cruelty
his first manifesto on the Theater of Cruelty (1933), Artaud could not be transferred from stage to screen. Although he

52 Volumes Number 2 Fall 1992 Visual Anthropology Review


was fascinated by the cinema in his earlier writings, his only because he doesn't ignore colonialism, but because
interests gradually gravitated toward the more ritualized leaving constantly his own environs and exhibiting nature
framework of the theater. Given Artaud's dispositions, is a through the massive effects she produces elsewhere, it at no
cinema of cruelty possible? Like the sets and costumes of time allows the spectator to remain indifferent, but compels
Artaud's shortlived Theater of Cruelty, the images of the him in someway if not to take a position, at least to change"
great Surrealist films wage war against culturally condi- (Bensmaia quoted in Predal 1982: 55). Rouch's Les Maitres
tioned perception. Films like Un chien andoulou (1929) Fous evokes the meaning of decolonization: namely, that
and L'Age d'or (1930) play with generally recognized pat- European decolonization must begin with individual
terns of perception; namely, the illusion that that which is decolonization — the decolonization of a person's think-
patently unreal (the images of the cinema) is, in fact, real. ing, the decolonization of a person's "self." Such an effect
Surrealist film, following the argument of Linda Williams is clearly an element of a Cinema of Cruelty, a cinema that
(1981), exposes the illusion—some would say, delusion — uses humor as well as unsettling juxtapositions to jolt the
of the perceptual processingofimaginary signifiers. Artaud's audience.
scenarios, in fact, dwell on themes that expose the
"misrecognition" of the cinematic image. In this sense,
Surrealist film meets some of the criteria of Artaud's The- JAGUAR
ater of Cruelty. But are these films transformative? Do they
alter behavior? Do they purify the spirit? Do they release Jaguans not an insufferably "cruel"film;rather, it is infused
pent-up vitality? with what Italo Calvino once called the brilliance of "light-
Although the cinema can seduce us into a highly ness." I like to call Jaguar, " Tristes Tropiques, African style"
personalized but relatively inactive dreamlike states, its — with a very significant twist. Like Tristes Tropiques 2nd
culturally coded images can at the same time trigger anger, other works in the picaresque tradition, Jaguar is a tale of
shame, sexual excitement, revulsion, and horror. Artaud adventure, a story of initiation to the wonders of other
wanted to transform his audiences by tapping their uncon- worlds and other peoples. The protagonists, Damore, un
scious through the visceral presence of sound and image, petit bandit, Lam, aFulani shepherd, and Illo, a Niger River
flesh and blood. He wanted to revert to what Andre fisherman, learn a great deal from their adventures in the
Schaeffner (1965) called the "pre-theater," a ritualized colonial Gold Coast. The difference between Tristes
arena of personal transformation, a project for a ritualized Tropiques and Jaguar is an important one. We expect
stage. Claude Levi-Strauss to be enlightened by his voyage to
Although Jean Rouch has concentrated his artistic Brazil. But do we expect the same for three young Nigeriens
efforts exclusively on the cinema, his path shares much with from Ayoru? Can Others embark on philosophical jour-
that of Artaud. Like Artaud, he was very much influenced neys of Enlightenment? In Jaguar, Rouch forces us to
by Surrealism. In his various interviews, both published confront a wide array of colonialist assumptions: that in
and broadcast, he often pays homage to the Surrealists. their "backwardness" all Africans are alike; that in their
When Rouch witnessed hisfirstpossession ceremony among "backwardness" Africans have no sense of the wanderlust;
the Songhay of Niger in 1942, it evoked for him the that in their "backwardness" Africans do not extract wis-
writings of Breton and the poems of Eluard (Echard and dom from their journeys. With great humor, Jaguar shat-
Rouch 1988;Stoller 1992). Perhaps the vitality of Songhay ters our expectations. Along their journey to the colonial
possession rituals, a virtual pre-theater—compelled Rouch Gold Coast, the Others (Damore, I^m and Illo) confront
to make "cruel" films. In some of hisfilms,especially those their own Others: the Gurmantche whofiletheir teeth into
he refers to as "ethno-fiction," Rouch pursues an Artaudian sharp points and drink millet beer; the Somba who eat dogs
path. Rouch always tells a story in his films, but the and shun clothing. At the Somba market Damore' says to
narratives in these films are secondary to his philosophical Lam:
intent. In these films Rouch wants to transform his viewers. "Mais, il sont complement nus, mon vieux."
He wants to challenge their cultural assumptions. He wants "Completement," says Lam.
the audience—still mostly European and North American For Lam, Illo, and Damore' such a corporeal display is
— to confront its ethnocentrism, its repressed racism, its unthinkable. They have encountered the "primitive's
latent primitivism. primitive," thus affirming Montaigne's affirmation that
Anyone who has been assailed by the brutal images of "each man calls barbarism whatever is not his own practice;
Les Maitres Fous has experienced Rouch's cinema — of for indeed, it seems we have no other test of truth and reason
Cruelty. In Les Maitres Fous, "Rouch's path is correct not than the example and pattern of opinions and customs of

Visual Anthropology Review Volume 8 Number 2 Fall 1992 53


the country we live in..." (1948: 152). Later in Jaguar, their dignity. In this space of deprivation and demoraliza-
Damor^ becomes very "jaguar," (with it), Lam becomes a tion, we are touched by Oumarou Ganda's fantasies, ^ e
small time entrepreneur (nyama izo — the children of are saddened by his disappointments. We are outraged by
disorder), and Illo toils as a laborer in the port of Accra. At his suffering. We hear his sad voice. In this film one of the
all junctures in the film, difference is underscored: distinc- silent ones tells his sad tale. Oumarou Ganda's story
tions are made between northerners and southerners, Chris- enables us to see how the discourse of colonialism and
tians and Muslims, traditionalists and moderns. In Jaguar, racism disintegrates the human spirit. Are not the dreams
Africa is not a continent of sameness; it is rather a land of of Oumarou Ganda the dreams of the oppressed — the
finite distinctions, a space for the politics of difference. hope against all hopes that someday..?
Commenting critically on KwameNkrumaand his cronies, Like Jaguar, Moi, un Noir is a film that obliterates the
Damore says: boundaries between fact and fiction, documentary and
"Us sont bien nourris, ceux-la." (These ones are well story, observation and participation, objectivity and sub-
nourished) jectivity. Rouch calls Moi, un noir and Jaguar works of
A political commentary of visionary proportions, for the "ethno-fiction," works in which the "fiction" is based upon
leaders of newly independent Africa would become very longterm ethnographic research. In this way, both Jaguar
well nourished, indeed — fed by the political systems they and Moi.un Noir are biting critiques of the staid academi-
created. cism that pervades the university in Europe and North
And so in Jaguar, Africa emerges from the shadows of America. Imprisoned by eighteenth century intellectualist
sameness and is cast into the swift cross-currents of political assumptions in a postcolonial epoch, the academy was and
fragmentation. Rouch's protagonists, like Susan Sontag's is ill-equipped to deal with the complexities of the changing
Levi-Strauss, are heros — adventurers in a heterogenous world. These films, which are also indictments of European
Africa who confront their own primitives as well as the modernity, remind us that in a world in which expectations
stormy politics of their epoch. As such, these wise and are continuously subverted, the sky, to paraphrase Artaud,
articulate "Others" defy our expectations and make us can suddenly fall down on our heads. The intent of these
ponder our own categories of sameness and difference, films is clearly political; through the subversion of "re-
civilized and primitive. In this way, Rouch uses Jaguar to ceived" categories, they invite us, challenge us to confront
critically juxtapose Europe and Africa. our own ugliness — an exercise in Artuadian "cruelty."
Like the Artaudian wanderer, Rouch's "fictional" wan-
derers in Jaguar challenge the cultural assumptions of
viewers, forcing them to confront the centuries-old legacy LA PYRAMIDE HUMAINE
of European ethnocentrism and racism. Jaguar makes us
laugh as it subverts the primitivist imagery of Africa. True Rouch's early critique of European modernity does not end
to a cinema of cruel xy, Jaguar compels viewers to decolonize with Moi un Noir. As Rouch is fond of saying, "one film
their thinking, their "selves." gives birth to another." Moi, un Noir prompted Rouch to
make another film set in Abidjan — La Pyramide Humaine.
In this film, the title of which is taken from one of Paul
Moi, UN Norn Eluard's Surrealist poems, Rouch explores the relations
between French and African students at an Abidjan high
To make Jaguar, Rouch employed his friends as actors. school. Here viewers observe the divergent lives of impov-
Although Damore, Lam, and Illo acted well in thefilm,they erished African and affluent European students. Some of
had never been migrants. While he was editing Jaguar, the African students hate the Europeans; some of the
Rouch asked Oumarou Ganda to attend ascreening. Ganda, European students are unabashedly racist. The students
who badbeen a migrant in Abidjan, challenged Rouch to argue about colonialism and racism. The debate intensifies
make a film about real migrants like himself. Rouch took when a new female student from Paris begins to date an
up Ganda's challenge which resulted in Moi, un noir, one of African. This social act, which taps the fear of interracial
the first films, ethnographic or otherwise, that depicted the sexuality, unleashes a torrent of emotion and prejudice on
pathos of life in changing Africa. In the film, we follow both sides. While Moi, un Noirfocused upon the plight of
Ganda and his compatriots as they work as dockers in African migratory workers, La Pyramide Humaine sets its
Abidjan's port. We see how hard they work, how little they sights on the sexuality of interracial relations in a colonial
are paid, and how they are belittled as human beings. We state — a volatile topic in 1959- Not surprisingly, the film
see how work and life steal from them the last vestiges of was banned in most of Francophone Africa. And yet, even

54 Volume 8 Number 2 Fall 1992 Visual Anthropology Review


today, it speaks eloquently to issues of the repressed fear of observers, not the observed.
interracial sex and of liberal duplicity and racism in Europe Among the most memorable scenes occurs on the Place
and North America. Trocadero, between La Musee de l'Homme and the
La Pyramide Humaine is also very conscious of its own Cinematheque Francaise, a space filled with academic
construction. Rouch qua filmmaker appears in several significance. It is winter and Damore, posing as a doctoral
sequences of the film, using his presence to carefully weave student, approaches several French people armed with
a subplot through the text. The main story involves the anthropometric calipers.
confrontation of two worlds, two sets of prejudices; it is "Excuse me sir," he says to an elderly gentleman, "I am
about how confrontation can be transformative. The sub- student from Africa working on my thesis at the university.
plot recounts how the making of the film transformed the Would you permit me to measure you?" With the
lives of the actors. The subplot, then, subverts the specious gentleman's willing consent, Damore measures his skull,
boundary between fact and fiction and shows how film his neck, his shoulders, his chest and waist. Damore then
constructs and transforms, how film is "cruel" in the approaches a young woman, and again makes his request.
Artaudian sense. Shot in color, this film is "cruel," indeed, He measures her dimensions and then asks:
for it impels viewers to acknowledge in black and white their "Excusez-moi, mademoiselle, mais est-ceque je pourrais
culturally conditioned sexual fears and fantasies. voir vos dents?"
The woman opens her mouth.
"Ah oui. Tres bien. Merci, mademoiselle."
PETIT A PETIT There is much, much more to this film, but I describe this
scene to underscore Rouch's ongoing contempt of the
"One film gives birth to another." Mot, un AW gave birth academy's conservatism, its uneasiness with innovation and
to La Pyramide Humaine, which gave birth to Rouch's most change. Throughout his films Rouch casts aspersions on
famous work, Chronique dun Ete", afilmabout Rouch's own what he calls "academic imperialism." Such a theme blazes
"tribe," les Francais. In I960 how did the French deal with a "cruel" trail for scholars who believe in the superiority of
difference — with Jews, Arabs, and Africans? The film, Reason.
which was politically provocative, is considered a landmark And so, Rouch's films of ethno-fiction cut to the flesh
in the history of the cinema for two reasons: 1) it is among and blood of European colonialist being. His films compel
the first works filmed in synchronous sound; and 2) it us to reflect upon our latent racism, our repressed sexuality,
launched the Nouvelle Vague in French cinema. In the the taken-for-granted assumptions intellectual heritage. In
1960s Rouch continued to film in Africa. He completed so doing, Rouch's films expose the centrality of power
The Lion Hunters in 1964, and began to film the magnifi- relations to our dreams, thoughts and actions. Such
cent Sigui ceremonies of the Dogon of Mali in 1967.5 But exposure is a key ingredient to a cinema of cruelty.
he wanted to make yet another film in France and decided
on Jaguar II, which he called Petit a Petit, after the corpora-
tion formed by Damore, Lam and Illo in the original Jaguar. THE POET'S PATH
The scenario of Petit a Petitfocuses upon two entrepre-
neurs, Damore and Lam, who want to build a luxury hotel During my research on Rouch's oeuvre I wond ered why the
in Niamey, Niger, which would cater exclusively to Europe- philosophical aspects of his work — embodied in filmic
ans. But Damore and Lam know nothing about Europeans. images — are underappreciated in Europe and unknown
Like a good anthropologist, Damore decides to travel to in North America. Why is it that until recently contempo-
Paris to study the lifeways of the French tribe: to observe and rary critics in European and North America rarely, if ever,
measure them. How else would they know how to design considered the pioneering work of Rouch? The answer, I
the hotel's interiors? How else would they know how to think, is that most critics, philosophers and anthropologists
order sofas and beds of the correct dimensions? And so are still part of the academy that Rouch so skillfully re-
Damore1 flies to Paris, where he embarks on his study. But proaches for its conservatism. Academics are still bound to
Lam becomes quite so worried about the impact of France reason, to words, to plain style. Scholars seek the discursive
on Damore's being, he decides to join his friend in Paris. and eschew the figurative. Images are transformed into
With great humor, Rouch tells the story of Damore and inscriptions that form a coherent discourse. Poetry and
Lam's Parisian experience. As in Jaguar, Damore1 and Lam what Merleau-Ponty called "the indirect language" are out-
turn the tables of our expectations. Europeans are usually of-academic bounds.
the filmmakers, not the filmed. Europeans are usually the More than a generation ago Jean Rouch understood

Visual Anthropology Review Volume 8 Number 2 Fall 1992 55


the transformative power of poetry. Many of his films are Rouch's "cruel" path and confront the sometimes inspir-
poetic in the sense recently invoked by Trinh T. Minh-ha ing, sometimes fearsome world of incertitude.
(1992:86) The sky is lower than we think. Who knows when it
For the nature of poetry is to offer meaning in such a will crash down on our heads?
way that it can never end with what is said or shown,
destabilizing thereby the speaking subject and expos-
ing the fiction of all rationalization... So to avoid NOTES
merely falling into this pervasive world of the stereo-
typed and the cliched, filmmaking has all to gain when 1 This scenario is reproduced from Echard and Rouch
conceived as a performance that engages as well as (1988).
questions (itsown)language... However... poeticprac- 2 Williams' semiotic and psychoanalytic analysis of
tice can be'difficult' to a number of viewers, because in Surrealist film is an important contribution. Contrary to
mainstream films and media our ability to play with the uncritical analysis of the Surrealism and the cinema that
meanings other than the literal ones that pervade our preceded her work, Williams suggests that Surrealist films
visual and aural environments is rarely solicited. "are about the signifying processes of desire in the human
Literalness is the curse of the academy, and yet the strong subject." Her careful frame by frame analysis of Un chien
poetic undercurrents of a few films and ethnographies andalou is revelatory and demonstrates how Surrealist
somehow survive. filmmakers used formal cinematic devices to promote their
Because of their literalness, academics are often the last revolutionary ends.
people to stumble upon innovation. Such is the case in 3 Tyler (1987) makes a similar point in his analysis of
anthropology — visual or otherwise. One of my philoso- Paul Friedrich's poetry, some 50 years after the initial
pher friends admitted that professional philosophers are 50 publication of Artaud's manifesto.
years behind the times. For inspiration, he advised me, look 4 Influenced by Aristotle's writings on trance in The
to the arts. Indeed, for most of us the epistemology of plain Politics, a group of French scholars consider possession as a
style means that photography and film are, to use Jake kind of cultural theater (see Schaeffner 1965, Leiris 1958,
Homiak's phrase, "images on the edge of the text" (1991). and Rouget 1980). This hypothesis is a highly attractive
In Rouch's case, this means that his films are most often one, but my own suspicion is that while spirit possession is
judged in terms of technological innovation rather than doubtless a dramatic form, one cannot reduce such a
philosophical lyricism. complex phenomenon to "drama" or "theater" (SeeStoller
A generation before the "experimental moment" in 1989)- The great majority of Rouch's films are about
anthropology, scores of filmmakers, artists and poets evoked Songhay possession ceremonies, a ritual that has fascinated
many of the themes that define the condition of him since 1942 when he witnessed his first ceremony in
postmodernity: the pathos of social fragmentation, the Gangell, Niger.
recognition of the impact of expanding global economies, 5 For a detailed analysis of Rouch's Sigui films and their
the cultural construction of racism, the legacy of academic relation to the Dogon origin myth, see Stoller 1992.
imperialism, the quandaries of self-referentiality, the re-
wards of implicated participation, the acknowledgment of
heteroglossia, the permeability of categorical boundaries BIBLIOGRAPHY
(fact/fiction//objectivity/subjectivity). In one of his many
interviews Rouch said: Artaud, Antonin
For me, as an ethnographer and filmmaker, there is 1958 The Theatre andIts Double. (Mary Caroline Richards,
almost no boundary between documentary film and trans). New York: Grove Press.
films of fiction. The cinema, the art of the double, is 1956 Antonin Artaud: Oeuvres Completes. Paris: Gallimard
already a transition from the real world to the imagi- Balakian, Anna
nary world, and ethnography, the science of thought 1986 Surrealism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
systems of others, is a permanent crossing point from Bermel, Albert
one conceptual universe to another; acrobatic gymnas- 1977 Artaud's Theatre of Cruelly. New York: Taplinger
tics where losing one's footing is the least of the risks. Publishing Company.
(Rouch 1978) Breton, Andre*
Perhaps the way to the future of anthropology is to follow 1929 Manifestes du Surrealisme. Paris: Kra.

56 Volume 8 Number 2 Fall 1992 Visual Anthropology Review


Buck-Morss, Susan Anthropology, ed. Mark Manganaro, 183-215-
n.d. The Cinema Screen as Prothesis of Perception: A Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Historical Account. A paper read at the Annual Rouget, Gilbert
Meetings oftheAmerican Anthropological Association, 1980 La Musique et la Trance. Paris: Gallimard.
Chicago, Illinois, November 17-21, 1991. Schaeffner, Andre*
Clifford, James 1965 Rituel et Pre-Theatre. In Histoire des Spectacles, 21-
1988 The Predicament of Culture. Cambridge, Mass.: 54. Paris: Gallimard
Harvard University Press. Stoller, Paul
Echard, Nicole and Jean Rouch 1989 Fusion of the Worlds: An Ethnography ofPossession
1988 Entretien avec Jean Rouch. A Voix Nu. Entretien Among the Songhay ofNiger. Chicago: University of
d'hier a Aujourd'hui. Ten-hour discussion broadcast Chicago Press.
in July of 1988 on France Culture. 1992 The Cinematic Griot: The Ethnography ofjean Rouch.
Gibbal, Jean-Marie Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
1988 Les GertiesduFleuve. Paris: PressesdelaRenaissance. Trinh, T. Minh-ha and Nancy Chen
Homiak, John 1992 Speaking Nearby: A Conversation with Trinh T.
1991 Images on the edge of the Text. Forthcoming in Minh-ha. Visual Anthropology Review 8(1): 82-91.
Wide Angle. Tyler, Stephen
Kuenzli, Rudolph (ed.) 1987 The Unspeakable: Discourse, Dialogue, and Rhetoric
1987 Dada andSurrealist Film. New York: Willis, Locker in the Post-Modern World. Madison: University of
and Owens. Wisconsin Press.
Leiris, Michel
1980 LaPossession etsesAspects Theatraux Chez Us Ethiopiens
de Gondar. Paris: Le Sycomore. FlLMOGRAPHY
Levi-Strauss, Claude
1955 Tristes Tropiques. Paris: Plon. Bufiuel, Luis and Salvador Dalf
Lippard, Lucy (ed.) 1929 Un chien andalou. Paris
1970 Surrealists on Art. Englewoods Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Bufiuel, Luis
Hall. 1931 L'age d'or. Paris
Montaigne, Michel de (Donald Frame, trans.) Rouch, Jean
1948 The Complete Essays of Montaigne. Palo Alto,CA: 1949 LesMagiciens de Wanzerbe. Paris: Comite des Films
Stanford University Press. Ethnographiques (CFE).
Predal, Rene (ed) 1955 Les Maitres Fous. Paris: Films de la Pleiade.
1982 Jean Rouch, un griot Gallois. Special issue of 1957 Moi, un Noir. Paris: Films de la Pleiade.
CinemAction 17. Paris: Harmattan 1959 La Pyramide Humaine. Paris: Films de la Pleiade.
Richman, Michelle 1960 Chronique dun £ti. Paris: Films de la Pleiade.
1990 Anthropology and Modernism in France: From 1964 The Lion Hunters. Paris: Films de la Pleiade.
Durkheim to the College de Sociologie. In Modernist 1967 Jaguar. Paris: Films de la Pleiade.

Visual Anthropology Review Volume 8 Number 2 Fall 1992 57

You might also like