Relationship To Reality

While I am unsure that Hitchock’s Suspicion fits all the analysis Stephen Heath projects onto it, I find the value he puts into the study of space gratifying. Yet I think this sort of questioning of space is better suited to films that use it more specifically to create a mood. It is telling that the only point in Hitchock’s Suspicion that Heath examines is one that breaks away from the classical: “Out of the action, breaking the clarity of direction, obstinately turned away, one of the inspectors is pulling to the left, gazing abruptly at something hidden from us, without reason in this scene” (Heath 21). Here Heath turns away from expected Hollywood form just as the inspector Bensen turns away from the narrative action of the scene – and they both find themselves examining an abstract piece (moment) of art. Perhaps it is a “Hitchcock joke” as Heath says – though I believe that in this case it might be fair to say that the joke is on him – as Hitchcock forces the critic to stand in a position mirroring that of subject.

Yet I believe that it is from this perspective that one can truly appreciate the ability of space. “[F]or Vertov, cinema could be made to challenge that vision by constructions of dissociations in time and space that would produce the contradictions of the alignment of camera-eye and human-eye in order to displace the subject-eye of the social-historical individual into an operative-transforming-relation to reality” (Heath 33) In other words, cinema has the ability to open the viewer to new ways of experiencing – challenging one’s “relation to reality.”

This ability to challenge is a valuable one but, in his essay, Heath limits the ability of space solely to it’s communication of traditional narrative space: “…scenographic space, space set out as spectacle for the eye of spectator.” (Heath 30) this is the basic point on which I find myself disagreeing with Heath. His continuous references to the “Quattrocentro system,” based on the above definition of it assumes the system’s reliance on the artist to create space “as spectacle” for a “spectator.” Yet I believe this is a boundary to the abilities of the camera’s relationship to space which have been overcome (in experimental film such as Michael Snow's Wavelenth – as is cited in Cooper’s essay “Narrative Spaces”). While the camera is very good at presenting the classical Hollywood spectacle for the viewer, the camera also has the distinct capability of creating a space without spectacle – it can create a mood – the camera itself can be an actor (such as in the early work of Stan Brackage) and the portrayal of space does not have to be dominated by a plot..

There is one other note that I would like to make in addition to Heath’s examination of the visuals of narrative space. Heath admits that “film is said to destroy the ‘ordinary laws’ of pictorial organization because of its moving figures which capture attention against all else” (32) This claim is in a certain context undeniable – our eyes are programmed to follow movement as the most identifiable –most traceable – element of film, yet I believe this perception is one perpetuated by a classical film industry, and it is one I would like to challenge.

To harness the powerful attraction of the human I towards movement, a director must use continuity editing to guide the audience. I believe, however, that spectators are used to director’s reliance on editing space that the expectations of the movie-goer depend mostly on this visual language to communicate influence. I also believe this is crippling to the active awareness of an audience. For example: we typically rely on the opening sequence of a film to introduce us to the figure who will be our main focus for the majority of the film. Yet this expectation is not always fulfilled. In the 1967 film Playtime by Jacque Tati, our opening scene is in an airport that we enter by following two nuns through one shot into another, crossing from left to right. The first temptation is to assume we will continue to follow them until we are greeted with the magically audible voices of the couple at the front of the room. The first pair we attach too through the cuts and action within space (following Heath’s claim about action through narrative space), and in the second case we pick up on the couple nearest us in the frame through their voices – the only clue given in this static visual composition. And soon enough we realize we are wrong as we begin to hear our way around the image – searching for one character’s path to hold onto: from a noisy cart, to an officer’s clicking heels, to a baby’s cry, to a woman with a carriage.

We sit expecting a cut to divide the broad space we are confronted with and to take up an actual narrative by following one of the many creatures we hear and see pass through the screen, and when the cut finally occurs new characters entirely are followed and our ears pick up on a new pair: two women talking who too soon exit the screen to loose our attention again. Our ears place us in different spaces throughout this first scene – ignoring the usual hierarchy of visual composition – but taking up not the absolute supremacy of moving figures as Heath says, but by taking interesting the dichotomy between our fixed visual perspective and our dynamic audio perspective. Here, the viewer’s relationship with reality is challenged mostly by the film’s distinctive presentation of sound “within” a space rather than by the space itself but similarly calls to mind the questions posed about the relationship between the spectator and world they project themselves into.