The Art of Pure Possibility

by Edward Moore

Susan Sontag wrote of the cinema that it "remains the century's likeliest candidate for the title of master art" (1973, 1976: p. 31). But what does that mean exactly: "master art"?

She goes on to write of the contrasts between cinema, poetry, and theatre: "Unlike poetry, an art made out of one material (words), theater uses a plurality of materials: words, light, music, bodies, furniture, clothes. Unlike cinema, an art using only a plurality of languages (images, words, music), theater is carnal, corporeal .... But theater does not become a master art merely by the abundance of its means, however. The prevailing tyranny of some means over others has to be creatively subverted" (p. 31).

Sontag is, of course, writing about Antonin Artaud and his theory of the theatre: a Theatre of Cruelty. For Artaud, the "text" needs to disappear from the space of the stage in order to allow a greater space to open up. The text, being the product of the playwright, who acts as God (the wielder of the Logos, the supreme power of creation), only serves to hinder "original representation" by forcing the actors and the director to serve in the space or realm of "the living present of God" (Derrida, 1978: p. 237). This new space would not be a progressive realization of an Idea, but rather an opening of true or original representation, "the unfolding of a volume, a multidimensional milieu, an experience which produces its own space ... that no speech could condense or comprehend" (Derrida, p. 237).

So why is cinema considered the greatest candidate for the title of master art? Possibly because, in Artaud's theory, "[s]peech will cease to govern the stage, but will be present upon it. Speech will occupy a rigorously delimited place, will have a function within a system to which it will be coordinated .... Speech and ITS writing will be erased on the stage of cruelty only in the extent to which they were allegedly DICTATION: at once citations or recitations and orders" (Derrida, p. 239). So the opening up of the new space will in fact be the birth of a new God, a god who is not yet fully active, but emerging in the form of a Word that is self-generating. Indeed, it was Artaud who wrote: "Me, Antonin Artaud, I am my son, my father, my mother, and me."

Therefore, the theatre, which is "carnal, corporeal," finds it necessary, in a movement of true cruelty, or life (Artaud declared that he spoke of "cruelty" as he would of "life"), to place itself in a position of obeisance to a ruler who has not yet been born, who is always in the process of being born in the space of the stage. This is because it was necessary for the Theatre of Cruelty, being a THEATRE, not to allow the stage to be "forsaken," or "given over to improvisatory anarchy," and for everything to be "PRESCRIBED in a writing and text whose fabric will no longer resemble the model of classical representation" (Derrida, p. 239). When the wielder of the Logos is always not yet present in the space of his birth, the existing "bodies," the actors, who are always about to speak, become representative of nothing but themselves; and any meaning will be added from the outside -- from the direction of the audience. This is possible because, in the Theatre of Cruelty, "the LOGICAL and discursive intentions which speech ordinarily uses in order to ensure its rational transparency, and in order to purloin its body in the direction of meaning, will be reduced or subordinated" (Derrida, p. 240).

So then, the language of Artaud's theatre is a language of materiality, of the present body, of original representation. Yet, again, theatre is not the master art. Is the presence of a body, of unmediated representation, not an ideal possibility for the manifestation of art? Perhaps it is too primitive, too undeveloped? It does not fully escape the operations of the Text. The possibility of an art of original representation is always the possibility of a new (birth of) God. The rebirth of the Wielder of Words.

What, then, of Music? I do not believe that cinema, which relies on text, on discursiveness, is capable of being a master art. Music relies on no text; but it enters texts, allows itself to be appropriated by texts. Does music have a true identity? I believe that music defies "identity and difference," by producing effects that are not dependent on language or culture-based signifying systems. The process of reception of music is original representation, a birth out of pure possibility. This is a movement which I feel is anterior to the development not only of a theatre but also of a LANGUAGE ....

August 25, 1997

Works Cited:

Susan Sontag, Introduction to _Antonin Artaud: selected writings_ (California 1988). Introduction copyright 1973, 1976 by the author.

Jacques Derrida, _Writing and Difference_ tr. Alan Bass (Chicago, 1978).


Appendix: "Film Theory," or The Cinema of Safety

* this short text appeared pseudonymously, and in slightly altered form, on Majordomo's "Film theory" list *

There is a tendency among academics to carefully circumscribe their space or "realm" of discourse in order to keep out that which they either refuse to discuss, or simply cannot, for whatever reason, "grasp." I do not mean certain topics that may go "over their heads," for we all know that the mission of the academic is to pull down violently from the air those things that fly above them.

Let's take Hollywood films, for example, and the reviews about them. Certain intellectual "film theorists" (a title that is, as I will show, completely absurd), refuse to take popular films into consideration as they "theorize." Now I am not defending Hollywood films -- quite the opposite: I am stating that film theory only picks apart bodies that die as soon as they are born. Films, as works, are corpses. Theory of film embraces the corpse, and enters it -- but sows no seed. Film theory is always doomed to the strangest kind of "phallo-centric" necrophilism. The only thing that is worse than this, is the circumscription I mentioned above.

Film, as an art form, and as entertainment, is incapable of APPROPRIATING the world of matter: the always external world in which film passively glows.

Film is not material: it is made up of images -- pretty flashes of light -- and sounds both meaningful and emotive. If someone were to run up to the screen during the showing of a film and slice the screen to ribbons with a great blade, that action would not be part of the film. In theatre, however, the case is different. A similar action, either violent or less openly disruptive, would be appropriated by the action on the stage, even if -- and I stress this -- EVEN IF THE BOUNDARY SEPARATING THE STAGE FROM THE "REAL WORLD" WERE TO BECOME COMPLETELY OBLITERATED. You see, the problem with film is: there is no boundary, no agreement -- because there doesn't need to be. Film holds no Danger, and therefore takes no part in Becoming; it possesses no Being. Film is a carcass that can only rot. And film theory, to paraphrase de Sade in a different context, merely embuggers dead bucks.

There is no hope for film, as there was, and is, for theatre. There will never be a Cinema of Cruelty, for there has to be a boundary on which Cruelty can establish itself. The primal energy of Cruelty requires Danger; and, as I said above, without a border there can be no Danger. Death, in itself, is not dangerous. So, I say to the film theorists, "theorize in safety."

August 21, 1997


Fragments of Gnosis

Textual Encounters with Ligotti & Lovecraft: essays by :

Edward Moore

monsieurtexteem@hotmail.com



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