The Invisible Narrator: A Critique of the Opposition of Gaze and Illusion In Dialogue with Jean-Luc Nancy’s “The Evidence of Film”
https://doi.org/10.58186/2782-3660-2023-3-3-84-118
Abstract
This article offers a polemical interpretation of Jean-Luc Nancy’s philosophical text, “The Evidence of Film: Abbas Kiarostami” (2000), from a narratological perspective. Jean-Luc Nancy posits that Kiarostami’s art develops a particular view of cinema as reality, which replaces the view of cinema as illusion. The dichotomy of perception and illusion revolves around not only Kiarostami’s experiments with the film medium but also his directorial “new use” of narrative figures traditionally defined within narratology as metafictional (in particular, mise en abyme).
Kiarostami’s narrative is directly dependent on “invisible” instances in the film medium. First and foremost, this concerns the very organisation of audiovisual material, which is subject to a narrative sequence. Secondly, it is related to a specific way of constructing a point of view, which in Kiarostami’s films coincides with the point of view of the ‘invisible’ intradiegetic narrator. The third aspect of the controversy is related to Nancy’s claim that Kiarostami’s films are devoid of fiction: there is no mise en abyme, which supposedly serves only an illusionist effect. However, the functional potential of the narrative figure mise en abyme, which is the basis of most of Kiarostami’s films, is much broader: this figure creates an optical trap effect that allows the viewer to oscillate between reality and fiction. By polemicizing with Nancy on the narrative structure of Kiarostami’s films, the author tries to show how reflection on the look is actualized in the film narrative and what role “invisible” narrative instances play in this.
References
1. Branigan E. Point of View in the Cinema, New York, Mouton, 1984.
2. Carracciolо M. The Experientiality of Narrative: An Enactivist Approach, Berlin, Boston, De Gruyter, 2014.
3. Chatman S. Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film, Ithaca, London, Cornell University Press, 1978.
4. Dällenbach L. Le récit spéculaire: Essai sur la mise en abyme, Paris, Seuil, 1977.
5. Fludernik M. Towards a “Natural” Narratology, London, New York, Routledge, 1996.
6. Gaudreault A., Jost F. Le récit cinématographique: films et séries télévisées, Paris, Armand Colin, 2017.
7. Genette G. Povestvovatel’nyi diskurs [Discours du récit]. Figury: V 2 t. [Figures: In 2 vols], Moscow, Izdatel’stvo im. Sabashnikovykh, 1998, vol. 2, pp. 60–280.
8. Ishaghpour Y. Le réel, face et pile: le cinéma d’Abbas Kiarostami, Belval, Circé, 2007.
9. Keating P. Point of View (Cinematic). The Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory (eds D. Herman et al.), London, Routledge, 2005, pp. 440–442.
10. Kozloff S. Invisible Storytellers: Voice-Over Narration in American Fiction Film, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, University of California Press, 1988.
11. Lessons with Kiarostami (ed. P. Cronin), New York, Sticking Place Books, 2015.
12. Métalepses: Entorses au pacte de la representation (dir. J. Pier, J.-M. Schaeffer), Paris, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 2005.
13. Murav’eva L. Mise en abyme i mediarefleksiya v kinonarrative: sluchai Kiarostami [Mise en abyme and Media Reflexivity in Film Narrative: The Case of Kiarostami]. Kinema.Science, 2022, no. 4, pp. 49–60.
14. Murav’eva L. Mise en abyme v fokuse intertekstual’nosti [Mise en abyme in the Focus of Intertextuality]. Kritika i semiotika [Criticism and Semiotics], 2017, no. 1, pp. 311–328.
15. Murav’eva L. Mise en abyme: variatsii znacheniya [Mise en abyme: Variations of Meaning]. Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie [New Literary Review], 2023, no. 1 (179), pp. 133–150.
16. Nancy J.-L. L’Evidence du film: Abbas Kiarostami, suivi d’une conversation entre Abbas Kiarostami et Jean-Luc Nancy transcrite par Mojdeh Famili et Téresa Faucon et d’un cahier d’images choisies par Téresa Faucon, Bruxelles, Y. Gevaert, 2001.
17. Nancy J.-L. Ochevidnost’ fil’ma: Abbas Kiarostami [Eyewitness to the Film: Abbas Kiarostami] (tr. A. Garadzha), Moscow, Muzei sovremennogo iskusstva “Garazh”, 2021.
18. Nelles W. Embedding. The Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory (eds D. Herman et al.), London, Routledge, 2005, pp. 134–136.
19. Niederhoff B. Focalization. The Living Handbook of Narratology (eds P. Hühn et al.), Hamburg, Hamburg University. URL: http://www.lhn.uni-hamburg.de/article/focalization.
20. Pavel T. Univers de la fiction, Paris, Éditons Points, 2017.
21. Pier J. Narrative Levels. The Living Handbook of Narratology (eds P. Hühn et al.), Hamburg, Hamburg University. URL: http://www.lhn.uni-hamburg.de/article/narrative-levels-revised-version-uploaded-23-april-2014.
22. Pogodin I. Psikhoterapiya, fokusirovannaya na perezhivanii [Experience-Focused Psychotherapy]. Psikhologiya. Zhurnal Vysshei shkoly ehkonomiki [Psychology. Journal of the Higher School of Economics], 2012, no. 1, pp. 62–75.
23. Prust R. C. The Phenomenology of Film Narration. The Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory (eds D. Herman et al.), London, Routledge, 2005, Р. 425–426.
24. Ryan M.-L. Story/Worlds/Media: Tuning the Instruments of a Media-Conscious Narratology. Storyworlds Across Media: Toward a Media-Conscious Narratology (eds M.-L. Ryan, J.-N.Thon), Lincoln, London, University of Nebraska Press, 2014, pp. 25–49.
25. Schaeffer J.-M. Pourquoi la fiction? Paris, Seuil, 1999.
26. Verstraten P. Film Narratology, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2009.
27. Wolf W. Illusion (Aesthetic). The Living Handbook of Narratology (eds P. Hühn et al.), Hamburg, Hamburg University. URL: http://www.lhn.uni-hamburg.de/article/illusion-aesthetic.
Review
For citations:
Muravieva L. The Invisible Narrator: A Critique of the Opposition of Gaze and Illusion In Dialogue with Jean-Luc Nancy’s “The Evidence of Film”. Versus. 2023;3(3):84-118. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.58186/2782-3660-2023-3-3-84-118
Views:
435
Email this article 