on memory and imagination in the cinema - marting lefebvre.pdf

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On Memory and Imagination in the Cinema Author(s): Martin Lefebvre Source: New Literary History, Vol. 30, No. 2, Cultural Inquiries (Spring, 1999), pp. 479-498Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20057547Accessed: 22-03-2015 03:32 UTC

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On Memory and Imagination in the Cinema*

Martin Lefebvre

In animo sit quidquid est in memoria1

Augustine

( Confessions 10.17)

Memory and Imagination

It is undeniable that memory, in the larger sense of the term, plays an important role in the act of spectating (the act of watching a film). For example,

in order to construct a narrative form and compre

hend the characters' actions, the spectator must be able to recall faces,

places, and situations from one segment of a film to another. Further,

cognitive science has shown us how greatly the understanding of

discursive forms depends on prior knowledge, memorized through such

knowledge structures as frames, scripts, MOPs (Memory Organization Packets), and so on. As a result, it is becoming more and more difficult

for semioticians to conceive of memory outside the artificial intelligence

paradigm. But one must be careful not to reduce memory in its totality to this model, which accounts only partially for the work done by human

memory and for its semiotic or representational function. In fact,

computer memory does not represent, it re-presents or reproduces data.

Information stored in computer memory is stable and not subject to

transformation. In contrast, human memory can represent, that is it can

translate data into a semiotic system and, by the same token, transform it

and render it more complex (even if this implies some forgetting). It is

able, in other words, to produce a memoria. Seen in this light, memory is no longer duplication but amplification, enrichment, complexification.

This way of looking at memory is not recent and has its roots in

ancient philosophy and rhetoric where it blends with imagination, the

two faculties being intimately connected. In fact, the story behind the

invention of the ars memoriae, as told by Cicero, clearly demonstrates the

role of imagination and of mental imagery with regard to memory.2

*I wish to thank and acknowledge the work of Ted Kendris of Universit? Laval who

translated into English the initial draft of this paper.

New Literary History, 1999, 30: 479-498



480 NEW LITERARY HISTORY

Moreover, the anonymous author of Ad Herennium points

out that the

images in one's memory are "figure[s], mark[s], or portraits] of the

object we wish to remember." They are signs produced by the orator's

imagination so as to stand in for the various things which he is

attempting to memorize.3 These signs

are situated in space, in a site, a

topos or locus memoriae.

As a result of the work done by the imagination, the orator constructs a memoria of the discourse or of the notions which he is trying to retain.

Consequently, the memoria is to be distinguished from the recollections

obtained by way of one's natural memory. For the memoria is not a simple

transposition or even duplication of "things" or "words," which might then engrave themselves, unchanged,

in one's mind; rather, it results

from a process of appropriation and integration which is simultaneously symbolic and imaginary.

At this point, one may wonder what benefit a semiotician interested in

the cinema and, more specifically, in film spectatorship may reap from

this conception of memory and from its association with the imagina tion. To put it simply, I believe the process described by the rhetoricians of antiquity to be equally applicable to the film spectator. It is not that

the latter tries actively to memorize what he is watching by means of a

consciously constructed mnemonic device, but rather that what he

retains from a film, what makes an impression on him while leaving a

trace in the "soft wax" of his memory, implies equally the work of the

imagination and the creation of a memoria or as I call it, a figure. The

figure corresponds to that which the spectator and, by extension, to

what a culture retains from a film. It relies on the aspect of spectating

which involves the integration of the cinematic text to the spectator's

imaginary, an

aspect which can be referred to as a "symbolic process."4

More precisely, the figure is the result of an interaction between the

film, on the one hand, and the memory and imagination of the

spectator, on the other. It pertains to the appropriation of the film by the

spectator for whom certain images, certain sounds make an impression

and bring out new (mental) images which organize themselves into a

network within the sites of memory. We each possess inside us a sort of

imaginary museum of the cinema where we keep the various films and

film fragments that have touched us deeply or made a profound

impression on us. The figure is therefore what one retains from a film,

manifesting itself as a sign or group of signs that open onto the

imaginary. In this sense, it is not without certain similarities to Eisenstein 's

idea of a generalized or global image (obraz), which he worked out during the thirties.



ON MEMORY AND IMAGINATION IN THE CINEMA 481

Imaginicity

It is important to remember that, as a whole, Eisenstein 's theories

presuppose the susceptibility of the spectator to be impressed.5 The

spectator, he wrote, is the "basic material" of the cinema.6 In this sense, Eisenstein recognized more or less implicitly what I refer to here as the

"symbolic process of spectatorship," most notably the ability of the

spectator to make associations, to create for himself a genuinely internal

cinema. This idea, in fact, empirically justified his continued research to

find those principles which would allow one to regulate and to predict the spectator's mental associations. In short, one could not try to

"plough . . . over the audience's psyche"7 as Eisenstein liked to say,

without first acknowledging the spectator's prerequisite faculties!

Eisenstein never ceased exploiting this fundamental presupposition

throughout the various ideas and concepts which mark the refinement

of his thought. One first finds it in the concept of attraction, which

originates in the young director's interest in the circus?a non-narrative

production that simultaneously presents a series of acts, more or less

separate, spread out under the big top. For Eisenstein, the attraction is

what characterizes the show and sets it apart at the same time; it is an

event, a privileged moment?indeed the main event (there can be

several) of the show. Thus, the primary characteristic of the attraction in

the theatre, and later in the cinema, is to be a sort of relatively autonomous act (atraktsia), a high point in the show which must attract

the attention of the spectator and somehow make an impression

on him.

Moving from attraction to attraction, the spectator, according to

Eisenstein, links together mental associations which end up constituting the conceptual and affective thematic-ideological network of the film.

What is interesting here, as far as I am concerned, is that the attraction seems to be put in the service of a figurai point of view based on the

spectator's imagination as well as on his susceptibility to be moved or

impressed. Yet, Eisenstein 's attraction ignores the full imaginative poten tial of the spectator, since it involves the practice of finding methods for

controlling the spectator's associative process. Hence, it appears that,

from the very start, what I call here the figurai constitutes for Eisenstein an area?that of mental associations?limited to the problem of (ideo

logical) efficacy.

During the late twenties and early thirties Eisenstein all but dropped the term "attraction."8 He also abandoned the

strictly reflexological, indeed biomechanical, framework of the theory of attraction, while

nevertheless retaining two essential components of the attraction: associationism and the need for ideological and psychological efficiency.




Starting in the thirties, Eisenstein adopted a more anthropological and

psychological setting for his research. And it is with the doctrine of

imaginicity (obraznost), developed in that period, that Eisenstein 's think

ing most closely resembles what I call the figure. In fact, one need only read through "Montage 1937," "Montage

1938," or the earlier "Torito" to see just how much Eisenstein 's general ized image requires the combined work of the imagination (formation

of a mental image) and memory. In "Torito," Eisenstein offers a most

developed demonstration of the figurai experience. Analyzing the compo sition of a single framing taken from Que Viva Mexico!, Eisenstein seeks

to "untangle the knot of secondary associations, early impressions and

the facts of a previous experience"9 having inspired the composition and

determined the assembly of a series of precise elements: the "p?on with

his straw hat and his white "sarape" the "torito" and, in the background, the archway of a hacienda where one finds vats full of "pulque" The

associations, impressions, and elements of the experience mentioned by Eisenstein belong to different stages of his life and end up merging in

the frame: childhood images of Venice (the Doges Palace, the St. Mark's

lion) which Sergei Mikhailovitch's father had brought back from his

trips for his young son, works by De Chirico seen in Paris in 1930, a

surrealist montage by Max Ernst in an open book seen in the window of

a bookstore on the boulevard Montparnasse, the cover of a book read

when Eisenstein was a young boy (Nat Pinkerton), the opera La

Khovanchtchina, a dictionary page seen by chance where Eisenstein finds

the etymology of the word "candidate," a childhood daydream related

to the Dreyfus Affair. "In any event," notes Eisenstein, "these composi

tional associations, diametrically opposed though they were in form

and content, merged quite seamlessly with the Mexican models."10 In

short, Eisenstein underlines how the generalized image reunites and

reconfigures apparently scattered elements which already belong to

memory, the latter playing the role of framing the work of the

imagination.

As one can see, the generalized image comprises several of the

essential characteristics of the figure. Firstly, like the figure, it is an

internal image formed by way of the imagination from the contents of

memory. As such, it must be distinguished from the material image

depicted on screen by the film (what Eisenstein calls izobrazhenie), which

serves nonetheless to support it. Thus both figure and the generalized

image form internal (or mental) representations of cinematic content.

Secondly, the generalized image as well as the figure are perceived as

totalities, appearing as a whole to whoever experiences them and is

moved or impressed by them. But in spite of the obvious relationship between Eisenstein's generalized image and the figure, I want to




emphasize a fundamental divergence which results from a serious

conceptual gap between the two.

The idea of a figure is developed from the point of view of the act of

spectating. For Eisenstein, however, the generalized image emerges from his attempts to elaborate a method of film directing. In effect, Eisenstein is convinced that it is up to the filmmaker to direct the

spectator's imagination by transposing his own images and mental

associations to the screen. I believe, however, that the spectator is free to

reconfigure the impressions left upon him by a film, without it being necessary to grant to the filmmaker the primary responsibility for these

internal images.

I wish to present a final clarification regarding the connection

between Eisenstein 's generalized image and the concept of figure. For

Eisenstein, the generalized image often corresponds to the expression of an affect. May one say the same about the figure? I have already

mentioned that the figure emerges from what makes an impression on

the spectator. It should be emphasized that this implies, from the start, the participation of an affective process: to be impressed by something is

also to be touched, affected, or moved in one way or another by it. As

mentioned earlier, all of Eisenstein 's thinking rests on the susceptibility of the spectator to be impressed or affected. The figure, however, is not the

affect: it is the meaning an affect (but also a form, a segment, or a

percept) takes on within the spectator as a result of its integration into

other sign systems (that is, the result of the symbolic process of the act of

spectating). The figure, in other words, follows the integration of the

global or partial results of the act of spectating?to which affect

belongs?in and through the social and cultural spheres by way of

shared presuppositions among spectators. The imaginary involved in

the figurai experience, although subjective, is equally a social imaginary, for the imagining subject is not alone in the world and does not create

knowledge in a vacuum. The figure, in this sense, is not so much the

expression of an affect?to which Eisenstein 's generalized image re

fers?as its "translation" or its "repercussion" (retentissement) in an

imaginary which is simultaneously private and shared, intimate and

social.

A Case of Figure

The figure corresponds to what the spectator retains from a film or

film fragment which has made an impression on him. It is not the

property of a film. It is not something that one may discover by

examining the film frame by frame. The figure is a mental object, an




internal representation, which belongs to the spectator and whose

emergence rests on the way in which the spectator allows himself to be

impressed by a film, appropriates it and integrates it into his imaginary life and into the systems of signs he uses to interact with the world. Let

us now examine this more closely with an example. Some time ago as I was having dinner with a friend, the conversation

turned to my interest in Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960). At that point, and to

my amazement, my friend mentioned that it was after seeing this film

that she had decided to become a vegetarian. I was struck by her

comment, not so much because I thought it strange, but rather because

of its coherence. In a flash I understood what she meant. She had given

meaning to the film by integrating it into her imaginary and moreover

her memoria of Psycho was very close to mine. In other words, we shared

a similar figure; we had both seen the same thing in Psycho or, at least, an

aspect of the same thing. This is what, for lack of a better term, I call the

shower murder figure. Its expanse is far too great to be described here in its

entirety (the figure is an ever-open structuring of a film's content) and

so I will restrict its presentation to a single aspect of it in order to

illustrate the figurai process. To speak of the shower murder figure implies recognizing the

profound impression this scene from Psycho has made on me (as on

many other viewers of the film11). It also implies recognizing that the

scene in question constitutes the film's richest element for the imagina tion. Yet how does this scene that touches me so manage to

organize

itself within me? How does it integrate itself into my imaginary? What

network of images insures for me its imaginary representation? Of

course, almost everyone is familiar with the turn of events that underpin this figurai experience: Marion Crane, a young woman on the run, is

taking a shower in the bathroom of a motel room. She has just decided

to return a sum of money she has stolen from her boss on the previous

day. It is at this very moment that Norman Bates, the young motel

manager, enters into the bathroom disguised as his own mother. He

approaches the young woman in the shower, pushes aside the shower

curtain, and brutally stabs her. The figure's network comes to me?

emerges within me?from the moment I try to understand how this

piece of film touches me, how it reconfigures itself within me as a result

of the joint work of memory and imagination which insures its semiotic

translation. The figure and its network of images thus become the

symptom of my appropriation of the shower scene and my integration of

it into my imaginary. Yet the question remains of how one can describe

the figure and its network. Here one has to examine the different

cinematic traits which, as they

are grasped by

a particular spectator, form

the basis for the imaginary representation of the film.12




It is thus that while watching Psycho, I take notice of both the place of

the crime and the weapon used by the murderer: a bathroom and a

knife. The latter, and this must be emphasized, is a kitchen knife. Already, with this detail, a first aspect of the figure emerges, which will guarantee,

along with the bathroom, its imaginary cohesion. I will thus start by

considering the knife. The knife used in the shower scene is not just any knife or some generic knife,13 rather it is a kitchen knife, that is, an object used for the preparation of food and whose name indicates the very

place where one prepares and consumes food: the kitchen. One finds

therefore, at first glance, a sort of misappropriation or d?tournement of an

object: an object meant to be used for a specific purpose (the prepara tion of food) in a certain place (the kitchen) takes on another function

(the commission of a murder) in a different setting (the bathroom). This misuse, one may note, does not function on the formal, argumen

tative, or narrative level where the value of the knife is only related to its

role as a prop for the act of murder. It follows that narratological

investigations will be incapable of accounting for the singularity of this

object which, instead of being used to cut food in a kitchen, is used here

to cut the body of a young woman in a bathroom. On the contrary, the

singular nature of the weapon takes on great importance for the figurai

experience and serves to enrich the murder which thus appears under

the guise of a culinary act. In fact, from the point of view of the figure, the kitchen knife retains its original function (culinary function) to

which is added the murderous function, the two functions integrating themselves on the imaginary level in the cannibalistic practice: only a(n)

(imaginary) cannibal would commit a murder and feed himself at the same time! (One now

partly understands my vegetarian friend's re

sponse to the film!) The place in which the murder is situated is not excluded from this

culinary reconfiguration and in turn further enriches the figurai object constructed by the act of spectating. The new amplification stems from a relationship between the kitchen knife and the bathroom, a relation

ship which necessitates on the part of the spectator only the most basic

physiological and cultural knowledge. In effect, by linking two distinct

places?the kitchen and the bathroom?around a tool used for the

preparation of food, I immediately recognize the tie which binds them

together, namely the digestive tract. On the one hand, therefore, there

is the kitchen where one prepares and consumes food and, on the other, the bathroom where one eleminates from the body those organic wastes

related to the consumption of food. Between the two, one finds

digestion, or the belly, which ensures the connection between the

mouth and the anus. Hence, the juxtaposition of the kitchen knife

and the bathroom adds an additional dimension to the culinary




reconfiguration of the shower murder by mobilizing the set of organic functions which are related to it while mutually implicating each other:

eating, digesting, and defecating. But it is not only the screen presence of the toilet which, by its

association with purging or draining, relates to the digestive system: the

shower and all its plumbing are equally involved insofar as the body's interior plumbing is reflected in them. The body, in effect, seen from

the inside, looks like an immense pipe. As Georg Groddeck points out:

"On the inside, a connection remains in the empty space between the

openings of the head and the anal and urethral openings; this empty

space is covered by a sort of inverted skin; it is part of the overall human

being, but possesses the ability to be able to admit within itself external

objects and to return objects to the outside. The resemblance of the

human being .to a bag, or, better, to a pipe with rigid walls, is thus

produced. The empty space is an essential part of the human being."14 An analogy between this "body-pipe" and the shower concerns in the

first instance their spatial orientation: in both cases, the entrance is

located at the top (upper orifice) and the exit below (lower orifice). This analogy is partially supported by the terminology which ties the

shower both to the body and to its verticality: to the human being's mouth corresponds, in French, the bec de douche ("shower mouth") or

the pomme de douche ("shower's apple" as in Adam's apple), and, of course, the "shower head" in English. As for the lower orifices, it is true, the

terminology does not support the corporeal analogy quite as well; one

may nevertheless notice that in French the syntagma trou du bain ("bath

hole") is often used to denote the drain hole and trou du cul ("ass hole") to denote the anus.- A similar connection exists in English where one

uses the terms "plughole" and, more

familiarly, "asshole" for the anus,

both expressions employing the same radical. Finally, how can one not

think at this point of certain myths analyzed by L?vi-Strauss in The Raw

and the Cooked which all "belong to the same dialectic of opening and

shutting, which operates on two levels: that of the upper orifices

(mouth, ear) and that of the lower orifices (anus, urinary canal,

vagina)."15 In the same way, the shower murder moves us from one

orifice to the other by the constant cutting between the lower and upper orifices: shower head, Marion's open mouth, plughole. Such movement

entails a concept of the "body" where the cavities are freely interchange able, the mouth and the anus being, "among all the orifices engaged in

the organic adventure, those most favourably disposed to mutual

substitution"16 since they address each other and complement one

another in the digestive process. In the same fashion, the family names of the characters involved can

also become figurai traits. Raymond Bellour17 has already pointed out




the relation of Marion to a bird since her last name, Crane, is also that

of a bird. This connection seals her fate: in Norman's hands birds are

killed and stuffed. There is no doubt that the Psycho universe is filled

with birds: Marion lives in Phoenix and, as it should, her death is

marked by the symbolic downfall of a bird: upon seeing Marion's dead

body, Norman, horrified, accidentally unhooks from the wall the framed

image of a bird (Marion's room is full of them) which falls at his feet.

And how can one not also see in the woman's name the anagram of

carne, the Latin word for meat? Further, why not cut up Norman's last

name in the following way: B-ate-s, in order to highlight the action's

culinary and devouring nature (let's not forget the kitchen knife . . .)? Even Norman's mother fits into this imaginary network. Many have

referred to the Oedipal nature o? Psycho: Marion's murder is presented as being caused by Norman's unresolved Oedipal conflict. However, it is

in fact the "mother"?the one constructed by Norman in his insanity? who commits the murder. As soon as one considers this aspect of the

cinematic argument,18 a new dimension of the figure appears, the

coherence of which rests once again

on the murder weapon. Thus, from

the relationship between the kitchen knife and the "mother" emerges an image which is so common from one culture to another and from one period to another, so permanent in the history of art and so deeply anchored in everyone's experience, that it constitutes?if one believes

Jung and his followers?the representation of a true archetype. In effect, who could not identify, through these figurai traits consisting of the

kitchen knife?a tool used in the preparation of food?and "mother,"

the primordial image of the nourishing mother?

For the Greeks, this maternal image was incarnated in the three great

mythological goddesses linked to the earth and fertility: Ga?a, Rhea, and

Demeter, respectively the mother of the gods, the mother of the

Olympians, and the maternal goddess of the Earth; three telluric

incarnations of the Great Mother. Now, each of these goddess-mothers is

both simultaneously "good" and "terrible." The most interesting incar

nation for my purpose here is Demeter, the goddess of wheat, to whom is attributed, in the distribution of roles of the Greek Great Mother, the

nourishing dimension of the Earth-Mother. The legends which accom

pany the initiation into the mysteries of Eleusis clearly demonstrate the

dual aspect?positive and negative?of the goddess. One learns, among

other things, that Demeter can refuse to carry out her divine functions

(which consist in ensuring the fertility of the earth and the abundance of the harvests); this results in sterility, famine, and death.19 This is the

terrible aspect of the Great Mother, the image of a mother who refuses to nourish and thus kills. This terrible aspect of the nourishing mother is particularly useful in understanding the maternal component of the




shower murder figure. For it is not with the good nourishing mother?

the one standing in the kitchen using her knife to prepare a meal?that we are dealing here, but rather with the terrible, murderous mother

who uses her kitchen cutlery?that is, her nourishing power, her power over food?to kill. This is, from the point of view of the figure, a

Demeter from the bowels of the Earth who kills Marion after having refused to nourish her (one recalls the words heard by Marion during the fight between Norman and "mother":

" Go tell her she'll not be appeasing

her ugly appetite with my food or my son!").

Finally, it is no longer just "Norman-the-mother" who comes down on

Marion, but nature in its different guises: the storm which lets loose and

forces the young woman to find refuge in the Bates Motel; the water of

the shower and of the infernal swamp which patiently awaits her; the

rural, nocturnal countryside around the motel which contrasts with the

images of Phoenix. Is it not, in fact, with all the suddenness and violence

of a storm (let us not forget that the sound made by the shower is

identical, in the film, to the sound made by the falling rain) or of a

tempest?that is of an irrational, natural, blind act?that Marion will be

struck down? Here then are all the aspects of the Great Mother?

negative nature whose image will be present up to the end of the film, with the revelation of the dry, blind cadaver, a veritable Demeter from

the depths, hidden underground in the fruit cellar (food again!) of the

maternal house.

I could continue describing and enriching the figure on several levels,

including that of sexuality. How many commentators, for example, have

seen the shower murder as a sexual act (a rape, in fact)? Of course, it is

not difficult, at least from the point of view of the imaginary, to slip from

cannibalism to sex. Both are "acts of the flesh" of sorts which are

forbidden, in our Western cultures, by serious taboos: forbidden acts

dealing with death (and murder) and those which have to do with

sexuality. Language, moreover, gives witness to such relationships by

tying together metaphorically things having to do with eating and with

sex in such ways that lovers seem no more, or less, than cannibals. Does

one not say that one "consummates" a marriage

or that someone has a

great "sexual appetite"? Of a beautiful person, the French will say that he

or she is beau or belle ? croquer ("good enough to eat"). Finally, isn't the

sex act, just like the act of eating (followed by its evacuation) all about

orifices, flowing liquids, and pipes? I could also discuss the excremental

aspect of Marion's fate as she finds her way to the murky swamp behind

the motel20 (the young woman's journey running from carne to feces). Moreover, is not Crane also the brand name of North America's leading manufacturer of toilets and plumbing supplies? I could just as easily




discuss the figurai nature of water, of impurity, and so on. The figure, as

one can see, takes off in several directions.

Lastly, one may wonder, at this point, if the figurai experience, as a

memoria, does not simply correspond to an unbridled and idiosyncratic

interpretative practice, a sort of

interpretative "free-for-all" or laisser-faire.

From Film Semiology to the Semiotization of Film

The question that remains to be debated here is whether or not the

figure, as I have described it, constitutes a case of overinterpretation. For

the figure to emerge there is no doubt that the spectator must interpret the film he is watching and, more specifically, interpret that which

impresses him in the film. But what exactly is meant here by

interpretation? Because most film semioticians have adopted the continental (or

structuralist) perspective, much of the work done in this field has

reduced interpretation to a secondary role. This of course need not be

the case, especially if one adopts

a Peircean point of view on representa

tion and interpretation.

According to Peirce, interpretation is that which ensures the relation

ship between a sign (representamen) and its object (immediate object). And in this respect, Umberto Eco sums up Peirce's thinking when he

writes: "According to the process of unlimited semiosis founded and

described by Peirce, it is impossible to establish the signified [sic] of a

term, i.e. to interpret this term, without translating it into other signs (whether or not they belong to the same semiotic system) in such a way

as for the interpr?tant to account for the interpreted in some respect all

the while enabling a better knowledge of it."21 Interpretation thus

constitutes an essential aspect of all semiosis understood more or less as an infinite process whereby each interpreted sign is in turn translated

(that is, interpreted) into another system of signs and so on indefinitely. For Eco, Peirce's unlimited semiosis justifies the development of an

encyclopedia-like model of meaning.22 Yet, while readily accepting the

fundamental semiotic principle of such a model, Eco also raises the

specter of overinterpretation. Hence, his well-known attempts to regu

late unlimited semiosis and avoid any "cancerous type of connotative

growth"23 and thus to distance himself from a usage of the text akin to

that of deconstruction and reader-response fundamentalism, whose

roots he sees as going back to medieval hermetism (ars memoriae,

alchemy, mysticism, doctrine of signatures, and so on).

According to Eco, overinterpretation

occurs when the interpreter uses




a text, that is, when the reader distances himself from the Model Reader

elaborated by the text and which constitutes the text's intention. Proper

interpretation, for Eco, is a process whereby the reader is constantly

guided by the text in the construction of a plausible explanation. There

is no doubt that the epistemological framework for such a conception is

found in communication theory: Eco's interpreter (or Model Reader) is someone who wonders what the text wants to communicate to him.

It must be clear by now that what I am proposing here is rather

different from Eco's notion of interpretation. And in all honesty I have

to say that the figure is not an interpretation (in Eco's sense), even though it is a representation (and therefore an interpretation in the Peircean

sense). The fact is that I am not trying to explain Psycho nor to explain how Psycho and its shower murder construct some Model Spectator, nor

am I attempting to describe how the film signifies or how it "communi

cates" its signification: the figure does not participate in the study of

cinema as a form of communication, as a language,

or as a semiotics (in

the Hjelmslevian sense)?which was, as we know, the project of structur

alist film semiology. The perspective adopted here is rather that of the

semiotization of the cinematic object through the act of spectating. Thus, while structuralist semiology?to which Eco still belongs?persists in

studying literature or cinema from the point of view of a communicative

exchange, the bias adopted here is to examine rather how the spectator turns the

film into a sign in order to comprehend it and see in it some meaning. We should

keep in mind that semiotics, whose object of study is semiosis, does not

deal solely with communicative or language acts: the symptoms of a

disease, the smoke produced by fire, the weathercock which turns in the

wind; all are phenomena susceptible to being turned into signs, to being semiotized by

someone. To be more precise,

we can say that there exist

contexts in which human beings use signs to interpret all of the above

mentioned phenomena. None of these phenomena constitute in them

selves signs (nor do they literally communicate). Similarly, what can be

said of everyday objects can also be said of a film, which does not literally communicate (it is impossible for me, while I am watching it, to

communicate with a film, or with its author!). Now, a corollary to this

bias is that, from the point of view of the act of spectating, not everything in a film is a sign, although everything may become one. It is through the

act of spectating that a film is translated or interpreted?a process I call

mise en signe. The figure, in this respect, is only one of many aspects of

the spectatorial semiosis, an aspect which pertains to the symbolic

process mentioned above. Its interpretative or semiosic specificity is

found in the way it relies on the translation of that which impresses the

viewer into imaginary terms, hence enabling the emergence, within

him, of a cinematic memoria. Thus the figure is not a mnemotechnic




device, as was the case with the memory palaces or theatres of antiquity and the Renaissance: it is not a tool for the willful remembering of a

film, since the spectator is not necessarily trying to memorize the film

while he is watching it and does not choose what will make an

impression upon him. However, the figure implies recognition?as do

the ars memoriae?that memory (what one may call "cinematic memory"

in this instance) also implies the work of the imagination. The figure is

therefore an imaginary representation of the film (initiated by the

spectator through the act of spectating), which stands in for that which

has made an impression upon him. It is an interpretation in the strict or

semiotic sense of the term: an imaginary representation of the content of

a film.

Of course, one might ask whether such an imaginary representation constitutes a

symbol of sorts, or a private usage of a film. Eco, for one,

defines the symbol as a plurivocal, semantically open, inexhaustible, and

undecipherable sign. Its signified is blurred, imprecise, to the point where it constitutes a veritable "nebula of content," that is, a series of

semantic properties which refer to various aspects of a given cultural

encyclopedia whose structuring is almost impossible. Thus the inter

preter can react to a symbolic expression by filling it with those

properties which most agree with him, without there being any semantic

rule to regulate a "proper" interpretation. The symbolic use of a text

consists therefore in making a symbol of it, precisely what the mystic

accomplishes in the face of the Sacred, but also the hermeneut whose

practice, as is well known, finds its origin in the religious encounter with

the Sacred. To use a text symbolically is thus to find in it that which one

projects upon it (God, for example). On the one hand, I readily accept that feeding and digestion are

obsessions of mine. In this, let me restate that the figure emerges from

the integration of the results of the act of spectating within the imagina tion of the spectator: through the figure, then, I appropriate the film

(making it my own) and construct a memory image out of it. On the other hand, the figure possesses certain characteristics of the symbol (in Eco's sense), notably the open, inexhaustible aspect. The figure, in

effect, defines itself by means of a potentially unlimited sequence of

interpr?tants: feeding and digestion are only one aspect, one partial way of describing it. But, in spite of all of this, the shower murder figure does not result from a symbolic (or hermetic) use of Psycho. And the reason

for this is very simple: the figure is not to be understood as the films (proper) meaning nor does it pretend to be such. There is no attempt here to look for some indirect, hidden, or concealed (by God, Hitchcock, Destiny, and so

on) signification which would then be a property of the film itself: the

figure does not constitute an unravelingo? the film's meaning. Contrary




to the symbolic experience, the figurai experience is not, for the

spectator in whom it emerges, that of finding an indirectly transmitted

truth?be it "in," "behind," or "under" the text, immanent or transcen

dent.24 Could it be then that the figure, rather than being the result of a

symbolic usage of a film, simply relies on another?nondescript?form of text use?

When we use a text, notes Eco, we conceive of it as a "stimulus for the

imagination."25 As I have previously shown, this is a fundamental aspect of the figure; here then is where it most closely relates to Eco's notion of

usage. There are texts, films, which touch us?make an impression upon

us?and make us dream. The figure is simultaneously the memory (memoria) and the pursuit of this dream, while the film finds meaning

within us. But in Lector in fabula, where he first developed the opposition between text interpretation and text use, Eco characterized the latter as

a sort of free-for-all where anything is possible: nothing prevents the

reader?or the spectator?from doing what he wants with the text.

Usage here differs from symbolic usage in that the reader is not trying, by his reading, to find the intention of the text or of the author. For

example, I can read The Trial as a detective novel or do like Proust and

"read a train schedule [to find] in the names of localities from the Valois

the soft and labyrinthine echoing of Nerval's journey in search for

Sylvie" (78). But as long as I avoid believing that such a "reading" uncovers the indirect, yet "truthful," meaning of Kafka's novel or of the

train schedule, as long as I avoid seeing in it the intent of the text or of

the author, I also avoid the charge of symbolism (or hermetism). But, Eco maintains, such "readings" have little to do with interpretation

altogether. Reading The Trial as though it were a detective novel is of

course legally allowed, he explains, "but textually speaking it produces poor results" (78). As for the "Proustian reading" of the train schedule, "it did not correspond to an interpretation of the schedule, it was rather one of its legitimate uses, almost psychedelic" (78). However, unlike

these examples?and this cannot be stressed enough?the figure is also

based on a "literal" understanding o? the film. It is in this that it requires the joint effort of the other processes of spectating alluded to previ

ously26 which, if they are also subjective, are no less subject to sharing

according to the type of knowledge and skills which they bring into play. The stuff from which the figure emerges is thus the cinematic text as it

also develops by means of the perceptual-cognitive-argumentative pro cesses which ensure the comprehension of the film (the spectator's construction of a narrative, for example) and by the affective process

through which a film touches, or makes an impression, on its spectator. In this fashion, the figure bases itself on the film's formal or "literal"

content (information segments, narrative developments, and so on)




construed through subjective and individual skills which are both

natural (knowledge structures) and socio-cultural (the content of knowl

edge structures). Segmentation and form therefore constitute a con

straint for the figurai experience in the same way that, with Eco, literal

signification constitutes a constraint on interpretation. The figure, in

other words, must be "supported" by elements of the film, what I have

called "traits." These traits act as representamen for the figurai semiosis.

They are interpreted by an open and indefinite series of interpr?tants which define the figure and which are provided by an imagination whose span is determined by the spectator's memory. These interpr?tants

present themselves in the form of memory places or topics, which are

evoked by the imagination in order to interpret the various traits which

represent the imaginary version of the cinematic text. Thus, as we have

seen, if the feeding and digestive topics are evoked by the figure of the

shower murder, it is because: (a) the murder weapon is a kitchen knife, that is, an object whose principle function is to be used for the

preparation of food; (b) the murder takes place in a bathroom, a place where one eliminates the organic waste related to the consumption of

food; (c) the name Crane is an anagram of carne, and so on. The filmic

traits (name of the victim, murder weapon, place of action) find here an

imaginary coherence?a meaning?starting from the mnemonic topics that they evoke. As one can see, the literal content of the film leads the

spectator's imagination to employ a more or less vast portion of his own

encyclopedia corresponding to both personal and cultural knowledge of

the world. This knowledge includes that of knives, bathrooms, linguistic

competence, and so on. It enables the development of one's cinematic

memoria and helps the spectator in taking possession of a film by

representing it to himself in the form of a figure. Finally, there still

remains the question of figuring out what portion of the encyclopedia the spectator should use.

In principle, there is absolutely no restriction. This is why the figure is

theoretically open and why its expanse is unlimited. The only true

restriction is the extent to which the spectator actually uses the encyclo

pedia to elaborate his memoria of the film. In practice, however, the

spectator pursues the semiosis until he is satisfied with the results and

decides to interrupt it. Moreover, I must emphasize that there are no

instructions to follow in using the encyclopedia: only the spectator's

memory and imagination control the use of it and ensure the figurai semiotization of the film. Because of this, the figure constantly wavers

between the intimate and private universe of the spectator's memory and imagination and the public universe of social memory and imagina tion. When it is very private, the figure resembles the Barthesian

punctum. Of the punctum, Barthes said that it is that "which rises from the




[photographed] scene, shoots out of it like an arrow, and pierces me"

and that "to give examples of punctum is, in a certain fashion, to give

myself up."21 Moreover, the punctum seems, by all evidence, to be linked to

memory.28 Does this imply that one may say whatever one wants about a

photograph ? Not at all. Moreover, Barthes himself recognizes that the

punctum must first base itself on the text or, in this case, on the image: "Last thing about the punctum: whether or not it is triggered, it is an

addition: it is what I add to the photograph and what is nonetheless

already there. To Lewin Hi?e's retarded children, I add nothing with

regard to the d?g?n?rescence of the profile: the code expresses this

before I do, takes my place, does not allow me to speak; what I add?and

what, of course, is already in the image?is the collar, the bandage."29

Using a notion such as the figure, we canbegin both replacing the

semiology of film with the semiotization of film and^trtinking the spectator film relationship: thus instead of the text producing its^fModel) spectator, we

now find the (real) spectator producing his text. Of course, there is no doubt

to my mind that the figure possesses an "experimental" side. In effect, there exists an "experimental" dimension to the act of spectating from

the moment the spectator lets his imagination work without knowing in

advance where it will lead him (but still knowing nonetheless that it will

not lead him to discover the author's or the text's intention, but his

own). Yet, the figure also possesses certain formal constraints: it is, after

all, an interpretation (that is, a representation or translation) of the

parallel, concomitant results of the other spectating processes which

ensure film comprehension. Also, the figure rests on a principle of

coherence: it gives a coherence to certain film traits (such as the ones

mentioned above) and offers itself as a structuring (albeit an imaginary one) of that which has impressed the viewer: together, "Mother's"

kitchen knife and the bathroom give a new coherence to the name

"Crane," and make plausible the anagrammatic meaning I can draw

from it, and so on.

The figure is one of the ways in which a film exists in the mind of the

spectator as a result mainly of the work done by his memory and by his

imagination. Bringing it to light is part of a desire to situate the act of

spectating, and the spectator who performs it, at the center of the

semiotic problematic. However, this necessarily entails abandoning the

structuralist/communicative epistemology and replacing it with a semiotics

of experience. Since its popularity is currently on the decline and since

many see the "semiotic adventure" as pass?,

the semiotics of the cinema

can no longer avoid addressing issues raised by the actual carrying out of semiosis in both its personal and subjective aspects. A true applied semiotics must now examine how a human being uses signs in order to




interact with the world: to examine how he translates the world and its

things into signs, and how he represents them to himself.

Concordia University (Montreal)

NOTES

1 "All that is in memory is also in the soul."

2 The story which Cicero relates takes place during a banquet. Its main character is a

poet by the name of Simonides. Asked by his host?a rich and noble Thessalian named

Scopas?to compose an ode in his honor, Simonides avails himself of the situation to sing, in one passage, the praise of Castor and Pollux. As soon as the poem is finished, Scopas informs the poet that he intends to pay for only half the poem, proposing Simonides obtain the other half from Castor and Pollux whom he had also praised. Shortly thereafter Simonides is summoned outside where two young men have asked to meet him. The poet goes out, but finds no one. At that very moment, the room where the banquet is being held collapses and all the guests are killed. They are so mutilated that their relatives,

wishing to bury them, are unable to identify the corpses. Only Simonides, saved by the

Dioscuri, can identify them, having memorized the place occupied by each of the guests

during the meal. Thus the poet had invented the "art of memory," an art founded, as Cicero notes, on images and places (Cicero, De oratore, Book II, tr. E. W. Sutton, completed by H. Rackham [Cambridge, Mass., 1976]). 3 Rhetorica Ad Herennium, Book III, ?29, tr. Harry Caplan (Cambridge, Mass., 1954). 4 The term is used here in reference to Gilles Th?rien's description of the five processes of the act of reading, which can also be applied to the act of film spectating. The other four processes are: the perceptual (called neurophysiological by Th?rien), the cognitive, the argumentative, and the affective. These processes delimit the boundaries of spectatorial activity as such, that is, of the encounter between the spectator and the film. The symbolic process comes from the integration of the partial or global results of the other processes with theoretical or practical knowledge, with ideologies, and with spectators' imaginary. In other words, it is in this way that the spectator constructs the cinematic text by integrating it with other systems of signs that he already uses and which form the whole of his

spectatorial presuppositions. The latter are thus redirected or compromised, reinforced or weakened by the cinematic text: for example, a film can undermine a theory or interrupt a practice or, on the contrary, consolidate and reaffirm a belief (about cinema, life,

capitalism, the unconscious, and so on). The symbolic process accounts for the fact that the act of spectating is not an isolated and closed act and that through it a film is able to achieve a greater meaning by integrating itself with the symbolic or imaginary life of a

spectator and of a culture. See Gilles Th?rien, "Pour une s?miotique de la lecture," in

Prot?e, vol. 18, no. 2 (1990), 67-80.

5 In this, Eisenstein's thinking is in agreement with that of Lev Kouleshov who says, "to meet this or that demand an art must have the power to impress" (Lev Kouleshov, Selected Works: Fifty Years in Film [Moscow, 1987], pp. 54-55; italics mine). 6 Sergei M. Eisenstein, "The Montage of Film Attractions," in Selected Works, vol. I,

Writings, 1922-34, ed. Richard Taylor (London, 1988), p. 39. 7 Sergei M. Eisenstein, "The Problem of the Materialist Approach to Form," in Selected

Works, vol. I, p. 62.

8 According to Jacques Aumont, the abandonment of the concept of attraction comes

principally from a tension between its aggressive and functional sides. This tension would




have seemed a veritable contradiction in the Soviet context of the period (Jacques Aumont, Montage Eisenstein [Paris, 1979], p. 63). It is worth noting, however, that the word

resurfaced in his work during the mid- and late thirties.

9 Sergei M. Eisenstein, "Torito," in Selected Works, vol. IV, Beyond the Stars: The Memoirs of

Sergd Eisenstein, ed. Richard Taylor (London, 1995), p. 743.

10 Eisenstein, Selected Works, vol. IV, p. 751.

11 In fact, from the opening of the film in the spring of 1960, the shower murder has

been tied directly to its great financial success. As stated in the New York Times at that time:

"Any number of teenagers have gone to see this movie several times over and the word is

out in the suburbs that 'the blood in the bathtub scene' is hot stuff (cited in Robert A.

Kapsis, Hitchcock: The Making of a Reputation [Chicago, 1992], p. 60). Thanks to the shower

scene, for the most part, the film, as is well known, rapidly took off with the speed of a

social phenomenon: it is reported, for example, that certain moviegoers fainted during the film, others were repulsed and left the theater, while others returned to see the film

several times.

12 The traits support or document the figure. These traits are important insofar as they serve both as support and as evidence (what Peirce would call indices) with respect to the

figure. This double role of the traits is in itself a symptom of the difficulties which await

someone who wishes to describe the figure. On the one hand, one must know how the

characteristics in question materially support the figurai network; this is done with images,

sounds, actions, locales, and so on, which determine in a way the figurai experience; without them, the figure could not be activated or representated. On the other hand, the

very existence of these characteristics as such?that is, in what sets them apart from other

cinematic components?attests to the activation of the figure, to the point where they constitute the traces of this activation; it is the imagination which seizes certain aspects of

the film in order to develop itself and then to enrich itself from them while ensuring the

emergence of the complex object which is the figure. But there is nothing which by itself

predisposes a cinematic trait to play the role of a figurai characteristic. The figure cannot

therefore be reduced to characteristics which are simultaneously the catalyst and the

effect; the traits serve rather to identify those places where the film and the spectator's

imagination meet.

13 It is difficult to envision the image of a generic knife in the cinema, even though it is

possible to hide certain details about almost any given object: the image of the knife's

shadow, for example, can make it difficult to identify with certainty the type of knife which

is used. This is certainly not the case in Psycho. 14 Georg Groddeck, "Du ventre humain et de son ?me," in Nouvelle revue de psychanalyse, "Lieux du corps," no. 3 (1971), 217; italics mine.

15 Claude L?vi-Strauss, The Raw and the Cooked, tr. John and Doreen Weightman (New

York, 1969), p. 135.

16 No?lle Ch?telet Le corps ? corps culinaire (Paris, 1977), p. 95; my translation.

17 Raymond Bellour, L'Analyse du film (Paris, 1979). 18 The spectator is led to believe that it is really Norman's mother who is responsible for

Marion's murder, so as to delay the film's denouement and insure the final shock.

19 According to legend, Demeter had come down from Olympus to find her daughter

Persephone, who had been kidnapped by Hades and taken away by him to the

underworld. Once on the ground, the goddess, disguised as an old woman, decided to stay

there and to abdicate her divine functions until her daughter was returned. Demeter's

absence rendered the earth sterile and deadly. Zeus had to intervene and a compromise was reached between Demeter and Hades: once Demeter had returned to the sky,

Persephone would divide the year between her mother and the underworld. The result is

the cycle of seasons which ensures the fertility of the earth in the spring and during the




summer (when Persephone and Demeter are reunited), and sterility during the winter

months.

20 I am reminded of the commentary by Raymond Durgnat: "the bathroom scene, very

glossy and white, and devoted to the theme of cleanliness, is followed by a scene in which

everything disappears into a black sticky cesspool. Norman has pulled the chain"

(Durgnat, The Strange Case of Alfred Hitchcock [London, 1974], p. 326). In fact, Marion's

excremental status shows up in several incidents spread out through the film. First of all, one notices that Marion suffers the same fate as the stolen money: the two are found in the

trunk of a car at the bottom of the excremental and muddy waters of the swamp. Further, without venturing out too far into the area of psychoanalysis, it is agreed, since Freud, that

money and feces can be related: money replaces for an adult what excrement represents to a child, an object of worth and personal property. The parallel which reveals itself

between Marion and the money, through the destiny which they share, serves therefore to

reinforce the connection made by the imagination between Marion and excrement.

Finally, beyond the connection allowed by psychoanalytic insight, the excremental status

of the young woman is confirmed later in the film by the discovery made by her sister Lila

in the bathroom of the motel room formerly occupied by the victim. While searching

through the room in question with Sam, Lila discovers a piece of paper on which can be seen some numbers: "Lila: 'Figuring! It didn't get washed down! Look. Some figure has

been added to or subtracted from forty thousand! That proves Marion was here! It'd be

too wild a coincidence.'" From the point of view of the development of the story, this

discovery constitutes a clue about the presence of Marion in the Bates Motel. In effect, the

finding confirms the report of Detective Arbogast and sends the action off to its final

outcome. So much for the argument. The figurai capture of the deictic "here" allows

nevertheless a slight diversion of the meaning: the referent is no longer the motel, but

indeed the bathroom toilet! The piece of paper becomes the clue to Marion s passage through the

toilet, to the swamp behind the motel Taken in its strictest sense, given by the figure, the statement "Marion was here" no longer signifies simply "Marion was here, at the Bates

Motel" but more specifically "Marion was here, passing through the toilet bowl"!

21 Umberto Eco, S?miotique et philosophie du langage (Paris, 1984), p. 109; my translation.

22 The advantage of such a model over semantic models conceived of in dictionary fashion?which are limited by term-to-term correlation between signifier and signified?is that it includes within the definition of a term its various interpretations (and interpreta tive contexts), interpretations which in return sanction the relationship between the sign and its object. Thus, the dictionary?unless it is unwittingly an encyclopedia?cannot, or

at least, does not intend to define a term across its various contexts of usage, even though

they may play an important role in its signification (one has only to think of the ironic use

of a term, which obviously changes its meaning). This is why dictionary-type semantics are

inconsistent and, in short, of limited use. What encyclopedic semantics recognizes, however, is that a term defines itself by the usage (s) one makes of it.

23 Umberto Eco, Les Limites de l'interpr?tation (Paris, 1992), p. 372; my translation. I cite

here the French text which differs considerably from the English version.

24 I am using Eco's formulation when he writes: "For he who lives through the symbolic

experience, the latter always being in one way or another the experience of a contact with truth (whether transcendent or immanent), it is the non-symbolic sign which appears as

both imperfect and useless since it always refers to something else with regard to the

unlimited flight of semiosis. On the other hand, the symbolic experience seems different to he who lives it: it is the sensation that what is conveyed by an expression, as nebulous and rich as it may be, is actually living within the expression itself.

Such is undoubtedly the experience of one who symbolically interprets a work of art, of one who lives a mystical relation (in whatever form symbols appear to him), and of one




who engages a text in the symbolic mode" (Eco, S?miotique et philosophie du langage, p. 218;

italics in original text, my translation).

25 Eco, Lector in fabula (Paris, 1985), p. 76; my translation; hereafter cited in text.

26 See n. 4 above.

27 Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida, tr. Richard Howard (New York, 1981), pp. 26, 43.

28 As Barthes explains: "Nothing suprising, then, if sometimes, despite its clarity, the

punctum should be revealed only after the fact, when the photograph is no longer in front

of me and I think back on it. I may know better a photograph I remember than a

photograph I am looking at, as if direct vision oriented its language wrongly, engaging it

in an effort of description which will always miss its point of effect, the punctum. Reading Van der Zee's photograph, I thought I had discovered what moved me: the strapped

pumps of the black woman in her Sunday best; but this photograph has worked within me,

and later on I realized that the real punctum was the necklace she was wearing; for (no

doubt) it was this same necklace (a slender ribbon of braided gold) which I had seen worn

by someone in my own family, and which, once she died, remained shut up in a family box

of old jewelry (this sister of my father never married, lived with her mother as an old maid,

and I had always been saddened whenever I thought of her dreary life). I had just realized

that however immediate and incisive it was, the punctum could accommodate a certain

latency (but never any scrutiny)" (Barthes, Camera Lucida, p. 53).

29 Barthes, Camera Lucida, p. 55. Following this quote, Barthes explains that the process

he is describing is unique to photography and does not apply to film. In this respect, it

seems to me, he is wrong.



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