779115

8/13/2019 779115

1/19

The Author as ReceiverAuthor(s): Kaja SilvermanSource: October, Vol. 96 (Spring, 2001), pp. 17-34Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/779115.

Accessed: 07/02/2014 11:43

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at.

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

The MIT Pressis collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to October.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 81.194.35.225 on Fri, 7 Feb 2014 11:43:33 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=mitpresshttp://www.jstor.org/stable/779115?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/779115?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=mitpress

8/13/2019 779115

2/19

The Author s Receiver

KAJAILVERMAN

Alain Bergala titled his 1985collection of Godard'swritings nd interviewsJean-LucGodard arJean-Luc odard.1 e thereby efined Godard as both thedis-cursivesubjectand the discursive bject of thattext.At leastfrom the vantagepointof1985, ean-Luc odard arJean-Luc odardmight lso have seemed themostappropriatetitleforGodard himself o use whenmaking n authorialfilm, incethere, oo,he wouldpresumablyerve both as theenunciator nd the enounced.However,whenGodardbeganhis 1994filmicnvestigationf himself s author,hechose instead the titleJLG/JLG.e also soughtto evacuatehimself rom heposi-tion of the enunciator. The slash separatingthe two sets of initials n the titleJLG/JLGs not a synonymor by, 'he told GavinSmith na 1996 nterview.Thereis no 'by'-I don't knowwhyGaumontput it in. If there s a 'by,' t means it's astudy f... myselformyself...which tabsolutelysnot. 2In the extra-cinematicdiscourse thathe has produced aroundJLG/JLG,Godard calls intoquestionnot onlyhisownauthorialagency, utalso the notionthat this film s about him.JLG/JLGs not an autobiography, e maintains ntheSmith nterview,ut rather self-portrait. nd a self-portraithas no 'me. '3Godard anticipatesthe first f these claims inJLG/JLGtself. Self-portrait,otautobiography, e insists ate in the film. n theclosingmomentsofJLG/JLG,ealso providesa baffling ersionof the second of these claims. I love, he says.That is thepromise.Now I have to sacrificemyselfo thatthroughme theword'love' meanssomething,o that ove exists n earth. 4

1. Jean-LucGodardparJean-LucGodard,d. Alain Bergala (Paris: Editionsde l'Etoile, 1985). Thesequel to thisvolume has recentlyppeared underthe titleJean-Luc odardparJean-Luc odard, ome :1984-1998,ed. AlainBergala (Paris: Cahiers du cinema,1998).2. Gavin Smith, Jean-LucGodard, inJean-LucGodard: nterviews,d. David SterrittJackson:UniversityfMississippi ress,1998),p. 183.3. Ibid.4. Here, as elsewherein thisessay, have been assistedbyJean-LucGodard,JLG/JLG:hrases(Paris:P.O.L., 1996).OCTOBER96,Spring001,pp. 17-34. ? 2001Octoberagazine, td. ndMassachusettsnstitutefTechnology.

This content downloaded from 81.194.35.225 on Fri, 7 Feb 2014 11:43:33 AMAll use subject toJSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

8/13/2019 779115

3/19

18 OCTOBER

All llustrations:Jean-Luc odard.Film tillsromJLG/JLG.994.

Whydoes Godarddistinguish isself-portraitn thiswayfromhimself?Whyshould thesacrifice f his me be theprecondition or ove on earth ?And howare we to understand the relationbetween the two sets of initials n the titleJLG/JLG?he openingshotof the film eems to provide n answer o the lastofthesequestions, fnotto the other two. tbeginswith slowdolly n on twoglassdoorsopeningontoa blue-lit oom nwhich blown-up hildhoodphotograph fGodard can be seen. At the beginningof the shot,the shadowof the photogra-pherfills he eft ide of the frame. ater, hephotographereansforward,astinghis shadowacross our field of visionand obscuringthe childhood photograph.Godard thenbegins speaking nvoice-over,ndicating o us that t s his hadowatwhichwe are looking.This shot s evocative f all of thoseself-portraitsn whichthepainter ppears not onlywithin heframeof the canvas,butalso as the onewhopaints t. tthereby uggests hatwhen Godardsays self-portrait,otautobiog-raphy, he is allying his cinematic project with painting, over and againstliterature.However,Godard quicklypulls the rugout fromunderthis nterpretation.Even before the first hotends,he beginsto conjure forthyetanotherformofself-portraiture:he theatrical. Cast the roles,begin the rehearsals, ettleprob-lemsconcerning hedirection, erfect heentrances nd exits, earnyour inesbyheart, Godardsays nvoice-over, ith n actor'sexaggeratedbreathing. Work oimproveyour cting,getundertheskinofyour haracter, ave therole of ... Do


8/13/2019 779115

4/19

TheAuthors Receiver 19

a rehearsal, r thefinaldressrehearsal.Do theopening night.Be, as the casemaybe, a success,a triumph, r-on the contrary--afailure, flop. Here Godardseemsto be characterizingLG/JLGs a spectacle n which he mustperform heleading role: the role of the filmmaker r artist.There is some question as towhetherhe will be adequate to thisrole,suggesting hat a certain distancesepa-rateshimas a man from heparthe willbe playing.However, t the end of the opening shot,as the camera focusesupon theblue-lit hotograph,Godard also dissociateshimself rom his heatrical ersion ftheself-portrait.n a markedly ifferentoice,whose ntonation s as orphic s thewords tutters, e relegates t to hisyouthfulelf.He also offers radically iffer-ent account ofwhat it means to produce an auto-portrait.One delineates orportraysneself s an artist,Godardsuggests, y makingmanifestowhomor towhatone belongs. He possessedhope, he says n voice-over f hisyouthfulelf,but theboydidn'tknow thatwhatcounts s toknowbywhomhe waspossessed,whatdarkpowerswereentitled olayclaimto him.Immediately fter hesewords,Godard cuts to an image of Lake Geneva.Thisbodyofwater orms conspicuouspartof the andscape nwhichhe has livedboth his childhood and much of his adult life. It also playsa starringrole inGodard's 1990film,Nouvelle ague. or both of thesereasons, tmight eem some-how to belong to the author ofJLG/JLG.odardhimself, owever,uggests heopposite.He citesLake Geneva as the first f thethings hatpossesshim.Godard


8/13/2019 779115

5/19

20 OCTOBER

returns epeatedly o Lake Geneva inJLG/JLG,s wellas to the fields nd woodsaround it,and each time this andscapeasserts tspriorityvertheone whoshowsit.Godard himself raws ttention o thisodd reversal ater n the film. IfJLG sbyJLG, he asks, n a sentence n which he accepts the preposition by, utdis-places its meaning, what does this byJLG' mean? It will concern childhoodlandscapes both ofyesteryear, ithno one in them,and also more recentones,wherethingswerefilmed.

Godard punctuates the opening sequence ofJLG/JLG ith the names ofyearsfromthe FrenchRevolutionary alendar,written n hand on lined paper.These by-now rademarkwords signify starting gain, beginningfrom ero. 5Surprisingly, hough,whatfollows s not a new attempt t self-portraiture,utrather a series of uninhabited mages of the interior nd exterior of Godard'sapartment nd the landscape ofRolles,again intercutwithtitleswritten n linedpaper.Over these images,Godard says: Usually tbeginslike this: death arrivesand we puton mourning. don't knowexactlywhy, ut did theopposite.Firstput on mourning.But death nevercame, neitheron the streets f Paris nor onLake Geneva's shores. As he speaks, dog barks nd a funerealbell tolls.Lestweunderestimate he importanceof thiscrypticmonologue to the largerprojectofthefilm,Godard tellsus once again a moment aterthathe is in mourning oradeath. He also specifies hepersonwho has ostensibly ied; it is not a friend r arelative,but ratherhimself.Finally,Godard intimates a second time thathismourningmayhave been premature.As he puts t: I wasalready nmourning ormyself,my ole and unique companion. And ifhe is in mourning or omethingthathas not transpired,Godard maintains,he has bent the rules of some imag-ined LastJudgment.SinceJLG/JLGs a DecemberSelf-Portrait,hedeath towhichGodard herealludes might eem to be the one thatpresumably waits him a fewyearsfromnow.However, hesweepingreference o thestreets fParisand to Lake Geneva'sshoressuggests hattheperiod ofauto-mourningxtendsbackmanyyears, othetime ofGodard'sresidence n France.Godard also defines hedeathaboutwhichhe speaks in the opening monologue in oddly textualterms.The purpose ofJLG/JLG,odard maintains, s to establishwhether r not he will also be said tohavemourneda deaththathasnotoccurred n thefinal nalysis.The mortal event to whichGodard refers n thissequence of the film sclearly he death ofhimself s an author.This is an eventthat he first xplicitlyproclaimed in Weekend1967), withthe attributionof thatfilm to the scrapheap. However,even in his earliestfilmsGodard mightbe said to be working5. Godardfirst efers n thisway otheFrenchRevolutionaryalendar n Weekend1967).


8/13/2019 779115

6/19

TheAuthorsReceiver 21

toward n authorialdivestiture, ithhis relianceupon natural ight,objetsrouves,and documentary etail.DuringtheDzigaVertov eriod,Godard embarkedupona much more sustainedand self-conscious econstruction f himself s author,substitutingor heenunciatoryI a collective we. 6 he subsequentNumeroeux(1975) represents n even more concertedattempt t authorialdivestiture-anattempt o create a film n whose productionnot onlyAnne-MarieMievillebutalso the actors participated, nd which is at least to some degree spoken byafemalevoice.7Althoughthe films hat follow re much lessovertly oliticalthanthose of the late '60s and early 70s, theycontinue the assaultupon traditionalauthorship. n them,Godard cedesmoreand moreresponsibilityor hedialoguetoquotationand becomes even more fanatical bout natural ight.In a 1983 nterview, e made explicithis continuing versionto the classicnotion of the auteur:

I find t useless to keep offering he public the auteur. n Venice,whenI gottheprizeoftheGolden Lion, I said that probablydeserveonlythe mane of this ion,and maybethe tail.Everythingn the mid-dle should go to all theotherswho workon a picture: hepawsto thedirector fphotography,heface to theeditor, hebodyto theactors.don't believe n the solitudeof... theauteurwith capitalA.8However, t thebeginningofJLG/JLG,odard openlyattests o the failureof all of his previous ttempts o bringabout his own demise. He also castigateshimself orhaving aid claim to an action thathe has not succeeded in perform-ing.Finally,Godard signalshisdetermination o try gain to engineerhissuicide,and he makes clear that the realizationof his auto-portrait epends upon theaccomplishment fthis vent.

Since authorial suicide signifies slightlydifferentthings at differentmoments n Godard'sfilmmakingareer, t s not mmediatelyvidenthow we areto construe there.However,ater nJLG/JLG,n the scenewherehe pondersthemeaningof thewords byJLG, Godard offers clue. He suggests n voice-overthat each of us has twohomelands:the one that s givento us at birth, nd theone that we create throughnegation.AlthoughGodard providesno overtglossupon the first f these homelands,he associatesthe second with the negative

6. Godard discusses his attemptto divesthimself of authorship during thisperiod in DeuxHeuresavecJean-LucGodard, njean-LucGodardarJean-Luc odard, . 335.7. For a furtherlaboration ofthisreadingofNumeroeux, ee Kaja Silvermannd HarunFarocki,SpeakingboutGodardNewYork:NewYorkUniversityress,1998),pp. 141-69.8. Gideon Bachmann, The CarrotsAreCooked: A ConversationwithJean-LucGodard, nJean-LucGodard:nterviews,. 132.


8/13/2019 779115

7/19

22 OCTOBER

that Kafkaspoke of,whichwas to be created. 9As he speaks,he also cuts first othe childhoodphotographofhimself,nd thento an image ofa clapboardheldover a table with reels of filmon it. He thereby mplicitly onnects the givenhomeland withhischildhood,and the one createdthroughnegationwith hecin-ematicsignifier.Godard firstntroduces the metaphor of a homeland in the interveningsequence inwhich he walksfully lothed in Lake Geneva,and Eddie Constantineutters he wordsfromGermanionno Z4ro1991): Ah,myhomeland: is it true?have imaginedyouthiswayfor long time.Happycountry,magicand dazzling-oh beloved land, where are you? In the immediately ollowing equence, thecamera tracksto the leftalong a row of books in Godard's study, itwiththeorange lightofa lamp.As the camera tracks, oices in threedifferentanguagesspeak over the image about theworld of ideas. In so doing, theyretrospectivelycharacterize the beloved homeland thatEddie Constantine apostrophizes inGermania nnoZiroas the homeland of books. This sequence, thusonce again,equates negationwith the signifier,lbeitnow of a linguistic atherthana cine-maticsort.Whydoes Godard associate the signifierwithnegation,and whatpreciselydoes the signifier egate?If the shot of the clapboard and tracking hotof theshelfofbookswere the onlyreferences o negation nJLG/JLG,wouldbe confi-dent n providing psychoanalyticnswer o thisquestion. n ordertooccupythehomelandof anguage, wouldargue,theartistmustnegatethehomeland ofthereal; like the subject of whom Lacan speaks, his being must fade away.'0However,Godard embeds theconceptofnegationwithin series ofreferences oMallarm Whenthesereferencesre factoredn,the inguistic r cinematic igni-fier eems to eclipse not the referent ut ratherthe artist s an individual.Thedeath ofGodard as an authorthuscomes to signify is demiseas a biographicalpersonage.The first f the references o Mallarm6takes the formofthe intertitlesnwhite ined paper,whichGodard intersperseswithother images inJLG/JLG,swell as themanyblankpages ofsuchpaper throughwhich he riflesnear theendofthe film.Mallarm is fascinatedwith hewhitepage as thematerial upportofwriting, nd-as a consequence-with the arrangement fwordsacross it as agraphicdesign. One does notwriteluminously,n an obscurefield, e writesnL'Actionrestrainte, ather, man pursuesblack on white. 11or Mallarm6, hewhitepage also signifies potentialityfwritingnexcess ofanywords hat an be9. Godardrefers ere toKafka'sTheMetamorphosis.variant fthis ine alsoappears nNouvelle ague.10. For Lacan's mostextendeddiscussion of the eclipse of being nduced by anguage,see FourFundamentalConceptsfPsychoanalysis,rans.AlanSheridan NewYork:Norton,1978),pp. 203-29.11. Stephane Mallarme, L'Action restrainte, uoted fromShoshana Felman, Education andCrisis:Or theVicissitudes fTeaching, n Shoshana Felmanand Dori Laub, M.D., Testimony:rises fWitnessingnLiterature,sychoanalysis,ndHistoryNewYork:Routledge,1992),p. 23.


8/13/2019 779115

8/19

TheAuthor s Receiver 23

::::::::::::::::::l::i:::i::::i::li:~:~~::l:i:~:SO:::: ~ : ?~I:ier~-:::::i_:_ii:?~~~:iu:~~~::.....-_:::-:::::::j:::::::::i:::::::_:j:i:i:::-. -:::::-::~:-::-:::_::i::_:_::i;:_::::::::::i:~::::~:-::i:_:::::i:-:::::_:::ii:i:il:X:::L:'~:::::::::-::::::::?::::::::::':::':::::::i:::::::::i:i:i:i:ii^i:::::ii::::: :: 8i::;:::'::'i'?::::r-::-_~?r?'? : ::~:l . :::_:__:::_:_:_::::::;:::_:j:::i:4:1:j-,~~:i'~:8;::BL:-i: : :L::j::::::j:::::::-:i::::?::i::::l::i:::i::-::::i:::=?:r:ii:i:~--:r:: :::::_--::?: -:::--:?-::::::::':?:_:'_::::::-i:::ija::iii~:iiii~ii:i:i-:i

inscribedupon it: a kind of purity hatwrittennotations could onlysully.12nJLG/JLG,hesheetsof inedpagessignifyven moreemphaticallyhanMallarme'swhitepages a surfaceforthewriting fwords. n their nvocationof childhoodschool days, hey lso speak to a certain mmaturityn thepartofthe writer-tohisdependencyupon preexistingines to avoidgoing astray.Butat a crucialmoment n thetext, hewhitepages cease tobe a metaphorfor the material and formal support of Godard's writing,and grow into ametaphorforGodardhimself.mmediately eforethesequence inwhichGodardponders themeaningofhis own authorship,he shows us first n intertitlewiththewords Whitepaperis the truemirror fman, nd thenan imageof the and-scape around Lake Geneva,shrouded n snow.With the intertitle nd theshotofthesnowyandscape,Godarderases himselfs a bodilypresence.12. In a draft fa letter o CharlesMorice,Mallarmewrites: The intellectualrmature fthepoemconceals itself nd-takes place-holds togethern the space that solatesthestanzasand amidst hewhite f thepaper; significantilence that s no less beautiful o compose thanpoetry. n Un Coupde des, he makesan evenstronger laim on behalf ofwhat s generally ssumed to provideonlythematerial upport f anguage: The.blankspaces, neffect,ssume mportance, trike irst... Both ofthese passagesare isolated and translated yMarionZwerling ugano in her excellentdiscussionofMallarme and the blank page, upon which I draw here. See The Poeticsofthe Occasion: Mallarmi and thePoetryfCircumstanceStanford: tanfordUniversityress,1992), pp. 83-95. Other relevant extsbyMallarme re La Declaration foraine nd Prose.


8/13/2019 779115

9/19

24 OCTOBER

Ultimately,anguage also manifestlymerges s the agencyforGodard's de-individuation. ate in thefilm,we glimpsehimwritingn black ink on a piece ofSon/Image letterhead tationery. he image is litonlybythe flame of a seriesofmatches,whichGodard holds in his other hand. A montageof Lake Geneva andits environs follows, nterspersedby titles writtenon lined paper. Over thissequence,Godardsays n voice-over:

When we expressourselves,we saymore thanwe wantto.We expresstheindividual, utwe speak the universal. am cold. It is I whosays: Iam cold. But itis not I whoam heard. I disappearbetween these twomomentsofspeech.All thatremainsofme is the man who iscold, andthisman is everyone.... In speaking, throwmyselfntoan unknown,foreignand, nd I becomeresponsible or t. have to become universal.Here, too,Godard is in dialoguewithMallarme. n a May14, 1967, etter oHenri Cazalis, Mallarmeannounced the death of himself s the Sttephane ouknew and his rebirthas an impersonal capacity possessed by the spiritualUniverse to see itself and develop itself, through what was once me. 13Interestingly, allarme characterizes his relationshipto the spiritualuniversethrough he same verb thatGodard uses in the opening sequence ofJLG/JLGocharacterize his relationshipto the landscape of Rolles: the verb to possess.Moreover, e toorepresents imself otas thepossessor,utrather s thepossessed.Biographical rasuremight eemradicallyncommensuratewith he idea ofan artistic elf-portrait,ut it is Godard's veryphenomenological idea thattheartist s not properly creator, ut ratherthe sitewherewordsand visualformsinscribeor installthemselves.I have recourseto themetaphorofinscription swell as thatofinstallationbecause Godard himself ometimes hinks f theartistas a receptacle, nd sometimes s a writingurface.)Neitheroftheseactions canoccurwhere the authorialego reigns upreme, ince thisego thenoccupies theplace where the world should be. It is consequently nly nsofar s the artist uc-ceeds in negatinghimself s a biographicalpersonagethathe can truly e said tobe an artist.Godardprovides n explicit rticulation fthis dea in an interviewnLe Monde. LG/JLG,e claims, san auto-portrait,n thesensethat hepaintershavepracticedthis xer-cise; notbynarcissism,utas an interrogationn painting tself.., artisgreater hanmen,greater ven thanartists.... Me, I always egarded

13. StephaneMallarme, electedetters,rans.Rosemary loyd Chicago: UniversityfChicagoPress,1988), p. 74. PhilippeSollers also notesthatGodard is in dialoguewiththis etter romMallarm6 nJLG/JLGn JLG/JLG,n cinema de l'Ftre-lA,n Cahiers u Cinima 89 (1996), p. 39.


8/13/2019 779115

10/19

The Author s Receiver 25

cinema as greater than I. JLG/JLGs an attemptto see what cinema cando withme, not what I can do with t.14As Godard helps us to understand through a montage sequence early inJLG/JLG,a self-portrait should consequently show not the artist himself, butratherwhat he perceives. his montage begins with a shot of an illuminated lamp inGodard's apartment. A moment later the camera dollies first o the lamp's wateryreflection n an adjacent glasswindow, nd then-after several intervening ntertitlesand shots from the interior of his apartment-to a video camera standing onGodard's dining-room table. The same scene is reflected in the viewfinder,whichcan be glimpsed through the window behind: the window and walls of the build-ing across the street. This shot replicates the formal structureand colors of theself-portraitwith whichJLG/JLG egins; it, too, shows a reflexive mage-within-the-image, and it too is suffused with blue. Here, however, Godard as biographicalauthor is present only through his absence, both from the larger frame of theimage, and from the frame within the frame.We see neither theJLGwho repre-sents, nor the one who is represented, onlywhat he sees.

14. This isquotedfromGodardbyJean-Michelrodon n hisessay JLG/NYC,n LeMonde, 0May,1994.


8/13/2019 779115

11/19

26 OCTOBER

In The Death of theAuthor, Roland Barthessuggeststhatafterhis bio-graphicaldeathMallarmewas rebornas a scriptor. ike Flaubert'sBouvardandPecuchet,he could only imitate gesture hat was] always nterior .. mixwrit-ings, [and] counter the ones with the others. 15 s should be clear bynow,withthisnotionof thescriptorwe reachtheexplanatoryimit fJLG/JLG'sariousref-erences to Mallarme. The Godard who liveson afterhis authorialdeath is not ascriptor,but rathera receiver.What he receives is language itself,which nowemerges s theveritable gentbothofspeech and writing. inally,nJLG/JLGan-guage enjoys radically xpanded meaning. t includes notonlythe inguisticndcinematic ignifier,utalso sensory erceptionofall sorts.JLG/JLGeginswith ringing elephone,and thissound is a repeatedoneelsewhere n the film.The first imewe see the adult Godard in the film, t isshortlyfter heprolongedringing fone telephone, nd thesound of himspeak-ing to the caller. As the camera cuts to an extreme ong shot ofhim sitting t adesk,the telephoneagain beginsto ring.Godard's apartments also the site forthereceptionof an enormousamount ofotherstimuli.Television nd videotapesplayconstantlyn largevideomonitors,nd at one pointwe aremade privyo theorganizingprinciplesofthevastvideo library. odard also repeatedlyhowshim-self reading aloud frombooks he has pulled offthe shelf, and gazing atreproductions f famouspaintings. urprisingly,he imagesofLake Geneva andthesurroundingandscape,whichwouldseem to be themostpersonal images nthefilm, lso came toGodard from omeone else-from a photographerhe paidtoshootfootageofhis ownchildhoodlandscape.16In a 1983interview, odard demonstrates remarkable elf-consciousnessabout his aestheticproject. I am a person who likes to receive, he saysthere;thecamera,forme,cannotbe a rifle, ince it s not an instrument hat endsoutbut an instrumenthatreceives.And itreceiveswith he aid oflight. 17 odard isequallyexplicit bout hisstatus s a receiverinJLG/JLGtself.Attheend ofone ofthe sequences in whichhe readsaloud fromotherpeople's texts,he drawson alarge piece ofblankpaperhisownversionofthetwosuperimposed riangleswithwhich Lacan schematizes the field of vision in FourFundamentalConcepts fPsychoanalysis.iththisdouble triangle, acan helpsus tovisualizethesecondari-ness of the viewer to whathe sees-to understand that perception is not in[him], but rather in the objects that [he] apprehend [s]. 18 Bymeans of light,asLacan puts it elsewhere n thesamework, hingspaintthemselves n thespecta-tor's yes.19

15. Roland Barthes, The Death of theAuthor, n Image-Music-Text,rans.StephenHeath (NewYork:Hill andWang,1977),p. 146.16. Smith, Jean-LucGodard, p. 185.17. Bachmann, The CarrotsAreCooked, p. 137.18. Lacan, Four undamentalConceptsf sychoanalysis,. 80.19. Ibid.,p. 96.


8/13/2019 779115

12/19

TheAuthorsReceiver 27

AlthoughGodarduses thesuperimposed riangles oclarifyhetransmissionofsound rather han ight,he too emphasizestheprojectivenatureofthepercep-tual stimulus, and the receptive position of himself-as-perceiver.Godardintroducesthissequence witha rhyme hatincludes his own childhood name:And nowJeannot,Jeannot-which rhymeswith tereo. He thengoes on to sug-gestthat the phonetic similarityf jeannot and stereo s indicative f a moreprofoundrelation. I, who listenand watch, he says, n obviousreference o hisstereo, amhere,because I receive hisprojection s I face t.The notion of the artist s a receiver epresents muchmore radicalrecon-ceptualization of authorship than might at firstappear. Since Brecht, thepredominantmetaphor throughwhich alternateforms f authorshiphave beenimagined s the producer.20 recht-and, byextension,politicalfilmmakersndcritics f the 60s and '70s,forwhom Brechtwas a crucial reference oint-privi-leged thismetaphorfor tsmaterialist amifications. he notion of the artist s aproducer,which s also the tropeGodard himself ses in Numeodeux, lignsartwithworkrather han nspiration r creation;relegates heartist othe status f alaborer;and allows for a more collective nd at times evende-anthropomorphicnotion ofthe conditionsunderwhich n artwork omes tobe. The authoras pro-ducer is nevertheless till a molder, shaper, maker.The artist s receiverdoesnot act in anyof theseways. ndeed,he seems not to domuch ofanything.The production metaphor derives much of its polemical force from tsopposition to the metaphorof consumption,which has dominatedtwentieth-century iscussions faestheticreception. n Brecht's wnwritings, ourgeoisartis a culinary r confectionaryrt: it invites tsspectatorsto eat it.21His ownepic theater, n the otherhand,notonlymakesproducersoftheactors, hedirec-tor, nd the setdesigner, ut also ideallydoes the same with tsspectators. Ourrepresentationsmust take second place towhat s represented, rechtwrites nA ShortOrganum for the Theatre, and the pleasure felt n theirperfectionmustbe converted ntothehigherpleasurefeltwhen therulesemerging rom hislife in societyare treated as imperfect nd provisional. n thiswaythe theatreleaves tsspectators roductively isposedeven after hespectacle sover. 22The notionofreceptionhasbeenrendered roblematic ithin olitical heoryand practicebecause of tsapparent ssociationwithresignationswell as inactivity.To be in a receptiverelation to externalstimuli s assumed to imply passiveacceptance in thefaceof the given. Not onlywithin hewritings fBrecht,but

20. Brecht peaksin AShortOrganumforthe Theatre of his passionforproducing BrechtnTheatre,d. JohnWillett NewYork: Hill and Wang,1957],p. 185), and in generaluses metaphorsofproduction frequently.WalterBenjamin also titles his essayon Brecht The Authoras Producer(Reflections:ssays,Aphorisms,utobiographicalritings,rans.EdmundJephcott NewYork:SchockenBooks,1978],pp. 220-38).21. See Brecht, The ModernTheatre s theEpic Theatre, nBrechtnTheatre,. 35.22. Brecht, AShortOrganumfor heTheatre, pp. 204-5.


8/13/2019 779115

13/19

28 OCTOBER

also within ll of those discoursesthat can be ranged under the rubric ofpost-structuralism, he predominant impulse has been a directlycontraryone: tochallenge givenness t every urn.Those of us who have labored within hefieldofpost-structuralistheoryhave been at pains to demonstrate he culturalderiva-tion of even what smost eemingly atural.And what s of culturalderivation,wehavebeen hasty oadd, can be completelyransformed.InJLG/JLGodardradically econceives hecategory fthe given. He sug-geststhatwhatpresents tself o us in thiswaymay ometimesbe not theproductofour ownnaturalizing ctivity,utrather gift.As has alreadybeen pointedoutbyHeidegger,whom Godard invokes everal imes nJLG/JLG,hisunderstandingof givenness s inherentn the German anguage.23n German, ne does notsaythere s, or there re, but rather esgibt, hich iterallymeans itgives. his isnot a theological account of Being. When a German speaker says esgibtdieBlumen, hichwewould translate s there re flowers, he does notimputetheexistenceoftheflowers o an external gent.The es n esgibt sempty. Es gibtdieBlumen means thattheflowers re n the form f a giving, erhapsevenin theform fa self-giving.In addition to invokingBeing nd Time,nd therebyHeidegger'saccount ofBeinginJLG/JLG,odard also puts nto the mouthofhisblindnegative-cutternedited amalgamationof a number of passages fromMerleau-Ponty'sThe Visibleand the nvisible. his cluster fpassages,which he deliversn theform fa mono-logue late in the film, s devotedto the concept throughwhichMerleau-Pontyconceptualizeshisown versionofBeing:whathe calls the flesh fthe world. Ifmy efthand can touchmyrighthand,as ittouchesthings, hepassage quoted bythenegative-cuttereads,

touch it touching, why, ouchingthe hand of another,will I not betouching the same power of oining the thingsthat I touched withmine?Now,the domain,we quickly ealize, s limitless,fwe can showthatflesh s an ultimate dea, that tis neitherunion nor compositionof twosubstances,but can be conceived in itself. f the visible has arelation to itselfthat traversesme, that constitutes me as I watch,watching hiscircle,which do not create,but whichcreatesme, thiswindingof the visiblewithinthe visible can traverse, nimate otherbodies,aswellas mine. And if could understandhowthiswave s bornin me, how the visibleover there is also my andscape, I can under-stand thatelsewhere too it closes on itself, nd that there are otherlandscapesthanmy wn.24

23. See, for nstance,MartinHeidegger, The Nature of Language, in On theWay oLanguage,trans.Peter D. Hertz (San Francisco:Harper& Row,1971), pp. 87-88.24. For thepassagesthatcomprisethebasis forthismonologue,see Merleau-Ponty,heVisiblendthenvisible,rans.AlphonsoLingis Evanston:Northwesternniversityress,1968),pp. 140-41.


8/13/2019 779115

14/19


With thismonologue,Godard suggests nce again thatthe seen precedesthe seer-that our perceptions re a gift rom lsewhere.Extraordinarily,e alsomaintains hatthe seerhimself mergesout ofwhathe sees: thatthe visibleworldnotonlygives tselfohim,butgiveshim ohimself.

Godard also reconceptualizes he given nJLG/JLGhrough series ofref-erencestohisown1990film,Nouvelle ague.25 lreadyn theopeningsequence heplays fewbarsfrom he musical core of thatfilm,nd thesubsequentvisual,ver-bal, and musical citations are vast. Godard cites thisfilmso often because itprovides n extended meditationupon giving. n the first alf ofNouvelleVague,Elena showersLennox withgifts, nd in the second half he does the same withher. Most of the time these giftswork to debilitate and indebt the recipient.However, n two occasions a pure gift s given-a gift hatbankruptsneitherthegivernor the receiver nd standsoutside thepsychodynamicsfpower.The firsttime thisgift s given swhen Elena saves Lennox fromhis automobileaccident.The second of theseoccasions occurs at thevery nd of the film,when LennoxsavesElena from rowning.The most mportant eference o NouvelleVaguenJLG/JLGccurs duringthe twilightcenewhen Godard reads aloud from woJean-PaulTouletbooks.Ashe moves fromhisbookshelves o hisdesk,at which he will sitwhenreading,wehear the central haracter romAndreBresson'sTheDiary f Countryriest1951)describinghis lastconversationwiththedead Countess,presumably rom n off-screenvideo monitor. I said toher,Go inpeace, ' he recounts, and she receivedthispeace on her knees.O miraclethat one can givewhat one does not oneselfpossess. Godard providesa variantof these lines in the scene in NouvelleVaguewhereElena rescuesLennox fromhis trafficccident. As Lennox,who is lying nthe ground,reacheshis hand up to that of thewomanstanding bove him,shesays: Howwonderful o givewhatyoudon't have, nd he responds: Miracleofemptyhands. 26As these two charactersspeak, Godard shows the twohandsreachingtoward ach other n close-up gainsttheblue,brown, nd greenof thelandscape behind.The imageofone hand reachingout to another recurs n theseconddrowningcene and is the centralmetaphor nNouvelle ague.Godard also reconceiveswhat tmeans to receivenJLG/JLG,nd here,too,Nouvelle ague igures entrally. odard re-semanticizesheact ofreceivingnpartthroughthe already-cited assage from TheDiary ofa Countryriest,where toreceive means to die in peace. He also reverts requentlyo themusical theme

25. Foran extendeddiscussion fgiving nd receivingn Nouvelle ague,ee Silvermannd Farocki,Speaking boutGodard,p. 197-227.26. Here and elsewhere I have consulted the text of NouvelleVaguepublished in L'Avant-ScneCinima, 96/397 (1990).


8/13/2019 779115

15/19

30 OCTOBER

thathe plays n the scene in Nouvelle aguenwhichElena danceswithLennox inthe livingroom of her house. In thisscene,Elena describeseverythinghatsheplans to offer ennox. I'll workforyou the livelongday, he promiseshim, Atnightyou'llreproachme formyfaults. However,t s notLennox who thenmani-festsgratitudeto her,but rathershe who manifests t to him. Thank you forreceiving, he quietly says.A moment aterGodard showsElena on her kneesbeforeLennox, reachingup to himin gratitude.Here, toreceive paradoxicallyemergesas a giftn itsownright--perhaps he greatest ift nyofus can conferupon another. t also emerges s an action,n thevery trongestense of thatword.Toreceive stherebyivested f tsfalse ssociationwithnactivitynd resignation.

But we have not yet accounted forall of the transformations o whichGodard attempts o subjecthimself nJLG/JLG. e seeks not merely o acceptwhathas been givento him,but also to promote loveon earth. What are we tomake of thispuzzling ambition?An extraordinary assage fromGodard's 1983interviewwithGideon Bachmann seems at first lance to clarify ow an artistmightpromulgate arthlyove. The cinema is the love,themeeting, he loveofourselves nd life, he ove ofourselves n earth, t'sa very vangelicalmatter,ndit'snotbychance that hewhite creen s a canvas, he says here. Inmynextfilm,I wantto use it in thisway, he screen as the linen ofVeronique,theshroudthatkeeps the trace,the love,ofthe lived,oftheworld. 27 odard here characterizescinema in termsvery imilar o those throughwhichAndre Bazin describes thephotograph n The OntologyofthePhotographicmage. Because oftherecep-tiveproperties ffilm mulsionand thesilver creen, inemabears the mprint fwhat t records. t is consequently ble to pierce the spiritualdustand grimewithwhichour eyesnormally overwhatthey ook at and topresent t n all of tsvirginal nd loveable purity. 28However, t is important o rememberthatGodard is speakinghere aboutHail, Mary 1985),notJLG/JLG.lthough n the later filmGodard continuestoelaborateupon theethics ofreception,whichhe mightbe said to introducewiththefirst, e goes one stepfurther. atherthanusingfilm mulsionand thefilmicscreen as the linen ofVeronique inJLG/JLG,e attempts o become himselfotmerely he blankpage wheretheworldwrites tself nd the receptaclehousingsensorydata, but also the reflecting urfacethatallowsothers to see what hasbeen written.Througha seriesofadditionalreferences oNouvelle ague,LG/JLGalso redefinesworld ove tselfna way hat ncludesthehumansubject.

27. Bachmann, The CarrotsAreCooked, p. 132.28. AndreBazin, The OntologyofthePhotographic mage, n Whats Cinema?,rans.Hugh Gray(Berkeley:UniversityfCalifornia ress,1967),p. 15.


8/13/2019 779115

16/19


The largerfigure racedbyNouvelle agues neither giving or receiving,but rather reciprocity. ennoxmight e said togivebackto Elena in theseconddrowning cene thegift hat he giveshim n themuchearlier ccidentscene. InJLG/JLG,odardattempts orespond n a similar ashion o thegift f the world:to reflect ack,as he puts t n theJeannot/stereomonologue,what sprojectedonto him.However,whereas nNouvelle aguehegiftsreturned unctuallyothesender,nJLG/JLGtbouncesoffnthe direction f an infinityf other eers.The scene nwhichGodardelaboratesmost ully pon thereciprocityfgivingand receivings the one in which henegative-cutteruotesfromMerleau-Ponty'sThe Visiblend thenvisible.hroughhermonologue,Godardbringstogether hetwo enses that re generallymostopposed to one another-seeing and touching.To see comes to signifyto touch, nd to touch, to see. Godard also insistsupon thereversibilityfevery ctofseeingor touching. In touching notherper-son I touch someonewhopossessesthe samepowerto touchme, ust as in seeinganother I see someone capable of seeing me, he in effect ays. In addition,Godard communicatesthroughthe various passages he quotes fromMerleau-Ponty he idea thatthere re otherseersthanhimself,nd otherprospects;whatis true ofhimself s therefore rueofall othersubjects.Finally,Godard suggeststhatwhat s apprehended byone seer need not be closed off o others;cinema

-IFPi:::

............... z . ........ ...... .

Ii~~iiiiiii ..........

. .....


8/13/2019 779115

17/19

32 OCTOBER

and other art forms an send offwhatone seerhas seen in the direction fotherseers. He metaphorizesthe looping of the visible fromone viewerto anotherthrough close-upof a roll of negativefilmmovingaround the bobbins of hisediting able,nowovertlyonnecting twith inema.

Does Godard succeed in becominga pure receiver, eceptacle, nd reflectorofstimuli,whichhave theiroriginelsewhere?He himselfuggestsnot. Late in thesequence inJLG/JLG,nwhich he writesn the llumination rovidedby match-stick,he looks at a Rembrandtimage on a video monitor. He then says: Torealize,withhumility, ithprecaution,bymeans ofmyownflesh, heuniversalityintowhich carelesslyhrewmyself,hat smy ole possibility, y ole command.said that I love. That is the promise. Afterutteringthese words,he cuts toanothersnowy mage of the landscape around Rolles, n a reference ack to thewhite aper is the true mirror f man ntertitle. owever, hecompeting nterti-tles the temptationto exist and I am a legend show up shortly efore thissequence, and even as Godard looks at the Rembrandt ainting tgivesway o theimageofhimselfighting match.Godard as biographical uthoralso makes a series ofadditionalcomebacks,and must be repeatedly banished. A few shots after his image replaces theRembrandtpaintingon the video monitor,Godard appears once again on thesamemonitor. ince on thisoccasion the real Godard extinguishes ismatchatthe same time as hisvideo counterpart, e ismuchmoremanifestlyresentbothas authorialrepresenternd authorialrepresentation. ike the shot withwhichJLG/JLGegins, his hotconsequently pproximates conventional elf-portrait.Godard thenannihilateshimself nce more. In voice-over, e stagesa con-versationbetweentwo men.The firstman advisesthesecond to askhimselfwhata governments.The secondresponds: Agroupofpeople whogovern. No, saystheother, a governmentsyour cceptingto letyourself e governed. Butthat'sridiculous, ays hesecond, thatwouldmean there s nothingup there.Nothingat all. Exactly, espondsthefirst.With the lastpartof thisexchange,thevideomonitorgoes blank. Godard then uttersthe words self-portraitn voice-over,makingevident thatthe oke constitutes n allegoryfora verydifferent indofauthor thanthe one he has ust revealed himself o be-for whatmightbe calledtheauthor-as-no-one. 29A moment ater, hough,we see Godardplaying ennis, gamewhichoccu-pies a centralplace in the filmmaker'segend, and whichconsequently ignifiesbiographical uthor. Godard furtherhematizes he tennis equence through29. Godard isalso ineitherwittingrunwitting ialoguewithMerleau-Pontyere,whosays ta keymoment n TheVisiblend thenvisible,ina sense,as Valery aid, anguageis thevoice of no one, sinceit sthevery oice ofthethings, hewaves, nd theforests p. 155).


8/13/2019 779115

18/19

TheAuthor s Receiver 33

series of references o NouvelleVague,n whoseclosingmoments tennisoke isalso made. One of these references akes the formof twointertitleswiththewords thepast sneverdead, ithasn'tevenpassedyet,whichfunction imultane-ouslyto evoke therepetitivetructure f Nouvelle ague's arrativend to suggestthat Godard has notyetdivestedhimself fhisauthorial mantle.The scenewiththeLatin-speaking omanfollows,n whichGodard expressesproprietary ightsoverhercoat,and inwhichfirsthe and then he lays laim to an artistic amethatwill astthroughoutternity.mmediatelyfter his cene,an intertitlemakes venmoreexplicit hepremature ature f Godard's claimtobe dead as a biographicalauthor: Hehasn'tevenpassed yet my mphasis].Over the turning ages ofhislinednotebook,Godardrepeatsthe words Isaid that love.That is thepromise. Althoughwith he words I love Godardlaysclaimto an achievedcondition, he word promise eemstosignal omething tillto come. Then, as the camera cuts to a shot of greenfields nd trees,Godardopenlyacknowledgesthat he is not yet readyforthe LastJudgment.The lovewhichhe seeksboth topractice nd topromotedoes notyet xist, nd hisauthor-ial death stillawaitshim. Godard nevertheless ssuresus that what has not yetbeen accomplished iesin the mmediate uture. Now have to sacrificemyselfothatthroughme the word love' means something, o that ove existson earth,he says n voice-over: In recompense, t the end of this ong undertaking, will

: .:;i~i~-iiii-iE~i-ii~iiiiii~iii~ii~:iA w


8/13/2019 779115

19/19

34 OCTOBER

end up beinghe who loves. That is, willmerit he name I gavemyself. uteventhis ssertion eemsunsustainable.The future annotauthenticate n thepresenta claim thatone has alreadymade in thepast.But perhapsit is wrongto see Godard's failure o achieve his goal foronceand for ll as the discreditation itherofhimself r hisproject.Aswe learnfromNouvelle ague,ll receiving nd giving uickly uccumbs o the ogicofpowerandexchange;thegift fthe world s consequently omethingwe must earn overandoveragain toacceptand toreturn.0oikeall egoic structures,iographical uthor-ship is also not somethingfromwhichanyonecan definitivelymerge;as Lacantells us in his first eminar,we can enter the imaginary egister, ut we cannotleaveit.31 he deathoftheauthor sthusbetter nderstood s an ongoingprocessthan as a realizable event. Once we make thissemanticadjustment, he crucialquestion to ask of Godard is no longerwhetherhe succeeds in layinghis ghostdefinitivelyo rest nJLG/JLG.t is, instead,whetherhe is able to sustain himselfthere and elsewhere n themode fdying.n spiteof his repeatedremissions ndeventemporary ecoveries, heprognosis s clear: here is a patientwho will lwayshave at leastone foot n thegrave.

30. Foran extendedelaborationof the theoretical ssumptions pon whichthisessay sbased,seemyWorldpectatorsStanford: tanfordUniversityress, 000).31. For Lacan's mostextendeddiscussion of the imaginary egister,ee his TheSeminar fJacquesLacan, Book I: Freud's Papers on Technique, 1953-1954, trans. John Forrester (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversityress, 988).

779115

Documents