Casebier Kurosawa Framework.pdf

8/13/2019 Casebier Kurosawa Framework.pdf

1/12

Quar.Rn\ ofFilm&Video, Vol. 12(3), p p 9-1 9 1990 Harwood Academic Publishers GmbHReprints available directly from Ihe publisher Printed in the United States of AmericaPhotocopying permitted by license only

The Phenomenology of Japanese CinemaA Husserl ian Intervention in the Theoryof Cinematic Representation llan Casebier

Given Edmund Husserl's enormous influence on the development of phenomenol-ogy, any d iscussion ofaproductive relationship between phenom enolo gy and filmtheory ou ght to involveaconsideration of how his phenomenoiogical system couldbe utilized to model the film experience. In what follows, an explication will begiven of Husserl's account of representation in general, together with an indicationof how his theory would, m utatis m utandis,be applied to the pheno meno n ofcinematic representation. As will become app arent, many of the essential elem entsof the Husserlian system come into play in accounting for the specificity of cine-matic representation.Currently another paradigm, that of post-structuralism, dominates thinkingwithin the field of film theory about the nature of cinematic representation. Thepost-structuralist modeling of filmic representation differs markedly from themodeling which results from applying a Husserlian conceptual framework to thetask of conceptualizing the experience wherein spectators grasp what a motionpicture depicts and portrays.In order to focus the issue between post-structuralism and phenomenology, itwill be useful to juxtapose the views of a leading post-structuralist author, NoelBurch, with the Husseriian approach to representation. Burch's writing about theJapanese cinema has a central place in current thinking about a most importantfi lmic tradition. In his To the Distant Observer: Form and Mea ning in t lie JapaneseCinema, ' Burch utilizes a post-structuraiist framework for analyzing the film workof Akira K urosawa, amo ngo thers.In the following pa ges, this Burchean an alysis ofKurosawa will be juxtaposed with Husserlian analysis of representation in thesame body of work. Out of this juxtaposition should arise the basic elementsinvolved in any ad equate theory of cinematic representation. A Husserlian analysisof cinematic representation wil co nstitute a significant intervention in film the o rybecause the post-structuralist account of cinematic depiction and portrayal has thusfar gone largely unchallenged.Husserl's notions about artistic representation are contained in section 111 ofIdeas.^ For Husserl, the perceptual act in which spectators grasp what a pictureA LLA N CASCBIKRpossessesa PhD inPhilosophyam i is A ssociateProfessorat TheSchoolo fCiitetria-felei ision at


2/12

10 A . Casebier

Figure 1. Edmund Husserl .

depicts or portrays involves intentionality.^ The Latin root term for intentionality isintentio,meaning a stretching out to or extending toward so mething. Husserlcontends that consciousness is always intentional; by this claim he means thatconsciousness is always consciousness 0/something. The implication is that per-ceivers transce nd their perceptu al act in grasping the objects of their perceptio n; theobject of perception is, therefore, not contained within the act of perception but hasan existence wholly independent of the act.For Burch, the absence of intentionality is at the heart of his post-structuralistanalysis. In Burch's schema, perceivers have ideas (i.e., perception is conscious-ness of ideas which exist only in the mind); perception do es not consist in graspingobjects which exist indepe nden t of the mental act. According to thisview,when weexperience a film such as Kurosawa'sThe Seven Satnurai , we are perceiving only aseries of images (and sounds). Out of this set of images, spectators construct the


3/12

Phenomenology ofJapaneseCinema 11Kikuchiyo the warrior, village, countryside, etc. This construction is ostensiblyaccomplished via codes deriving from cultural and cinematic sources.As Burch p uts it, "The spatio-tempo ral audio -visual co ntinuum which we call amotion picture . . . may be regarded as a flux/field of signs."'' He continues bydelineating the nature of these signs:. . . the sign has tw o asp ects, significr and signified . . . The signifier is the sign in itsmater ia l i ty; i t may be a pictor ia l c lemen t . . . or a set of sou nd s . . . we m ay say that a l lsubs tance s of expression are ult imate ly visual or auditory , they may be tran spo sed to film ineither pictor ia l or auditory representation ( i .e . , codes of c lothing) .^He then enunciates the relativity of representation: Areferentis 'that w hich refers alinguistic sign to extra-linguistic reality as it has been articulated by a humangro up .'"'' Burch ha s already explained that; "The signified is the con cept . . .wh ich, deno tatively or conno tatively is signified. T he signified is not the referent."^Burch disting uishes the material with w hich the perceiver deals in literature ve rsusfilm: "In the cinema, of course, the sign/referent relationship is clearly very differ-ent from what it is in a written text, since we are dealing with an audio-visualfacsimile of the referent."" In the section on Ozu, Burch then describes how thespectator constructs the space from the images, in short, how an act of "reading" isrequired.*^ He contrasts the way in which the Western mode of filmic constructionfosters an aud ience's sense that they are an invisible relay'"in aconversation am o ngcharacters portrayed across cuts; by contrast, Ozu arranges his images so as toundermine this deeply entrenched habit of organizing the images.

figure 2. The Seven Sam urai .


4/12

12 A . CasebierHusserl finds no such construction process occurring. In explaining the experi-ence in which spectators perceive what a picture represents, Husserl uses anillustratio n, D urer's "Knight, D eath, and the Devil" (Fig. 3). Husser co ntends thatperceivers transcend the mental acts involved in experiencing the engraving; indoing so they reach the depicted objects (e.g., the flesh and blood knight). He

expresses it this way:. . . we distinguish the perceptive consciousness in which, w ithin the black, colorless lines,therea ppe ar t o us the figuresof the'kn ight on his ho rse,' 'death, ' and the 'devil. 'Wedo notadvert to these In aesthetic contemplation as objects. We rather advert to the realitiespresented 'in the picture'more precisely stated, to the 'depictured' realities, to the fleshand blood knight, etc."In reaching the flesh and blood knight, spectators experience the l i t t le figures

discernible within the picture space (Husserl cal l s them figuret tes) ; experience of

Figure3. Dure r, K night, Death, and the Devil .


5/12

Phenomenologi/ ofJapanese Cinema 13the figurettes guides perception to the knight, death, and the devil. For Husserl,con sciousness of the small grey figurettes is consciousness of the picture; thro ughexperience of them and by means of what he calls "founded noesis"^^ somethingother, through similarity, "presents itself as depicted," namely, the knight.Central to this phenomenoiogical account of representation is Husserl's use of thetraditional concept of apperception.'^ By apperceived, Husserl means that theimages, the signs, that Burcb refers to (shapes, size relationships, color relations,direction s, etc.), are "lived thro ugh ," not m ade the objects of experience. They are"passed thro ugh " in grasping the flesh and bloo d k night; they are not focused upo nas the objects of perceptio n. It is, of cou rse, possible to make a spatial relation shipin a film the object of perception, but this has nothing to do with the experiencewherein we realize what a motion picture depicts; in such latter cases, we passthrough the sensa (subjective images, rather than objective objects) to grasp anindependently existing entity, such as the flesh and blood knight.Grasping the representational content of the engraving is taken to be very muchlike normal perception. There is, however, a difference. Spectators engage in twoacts at the same time while grasping what the picture represents: they eventuallymove through the sensa to the actual object of the perception, and their act ofperception has neutrality-modification as a crucial feature. Normal perception hasasitsobject, say in the case of the Durer engravin g, the physical thing , tbe engravedprint. Husserl wants to point out that consciousness of the picture as having adepiction involves an alteration of the perceptualact;"This depicting picture objectstands before us, neither as being nor as non-being nor in any positional modal-ity."'** Husserl's point is that in normal perception the perceiver posits the appear-ing physical thing as actually existing. However, in the case of the neutrality-modification of normal perception, this process is suspended. Husserl describesthe differences as follows;The actuality of positing factualexistence is. . . neutralizedinperceptual picture conscious-ness.Advertedto the'picture'(not totbe de-pictured),we donotseizeupon anything actualas object, but instead preciselyapicture, a fictum, 'Seizing-upon' has the actuality pertain-ing to advertence, but it is not 'actual' seizing-upon . . A ^

Husserl's theory may then be regarded asacritical realist o ne involvingacomplexset of acts of mediation. This mediation is very different from that assumed by apo st-structuralist such as Burch. For Husser , appreciators engag e in multiple actsof appercep tion as part of the who le perceptual process which has as its object anindependently existing object (e.g., the flesh and blood knight). First, they apper-ceive sensa and images, then they apperceive appearances (the figurettes in theDurer example). On the basis of these two mediations, which arise together withthe perception of the flesh and bloo d kn ight as what is depicted by the picture, theact of intending what the picture depicts is accomplished. Husserl described therelationship between these apperceptions and tbe perceptual act as one involving"founding." When an act is founded, it is an act which essentially involves con-sciousness of another act.' ' 'A basic difference between the Burchean approach to representation and theHusserlian alternative may be pinpointed with respect to the locus of apprehen-sion. For Husserl , spectators who grasp what a picture represents do so using


6/12

14 A . Casebierintuitio n. W hen we intuit, we directly ap preh end.Wedo not, for example,infer thatan objectisyellow;wedirectlyapprehendthat itis,utilizing intuition. In recognizingwhat the Durer engraving depicts, we apprehend intuitively the highly complextexture that mediates our experience, tbat guides our perception to the flesb andbloo d kn ight the figurettes. For Burch, by contrast, all that we are directly aw areof are images, what Husserl calls sensa. Where Husserl contends that we passthrough the sensa in perceiving what the picture depicts, Burch makes the sensathe objects of our perception; the object represented becomes then a constructionmade by the spectator out of the sensa according to conventions, codes, and otherculturally conditioned categories.

Crucial also for assessing a cinematic practice such as that of the Japanese ingeneral and Kurosawa in particular is provided by the concept of diegesis. Thediegesis is conceptualized as the fictional world of the film. As Burch describes it,"the diegesis is for instance the 'world of Balzac' which his readers 'enter': thoseimagined drawing rooms . . . those imagined characters."'^It has been the tendency of Western cinema, according to Burch, to create acinematic practice that aims to absorb spectators in the diegesis. Accordingly,Kurosawa is praised by Burch for those aspects of his film style that removespectators from their customary absorption in the diegesis and is criticized forthose instances where his cinema maximizes the diegetic effect.Kurosawa's "rough-hewn" geometry"* in some of his well-known films such asRashortion(1950) comes in for special praise by Burch. In earlier films Kurosawa hadaimed to have the organic form characteristic of the dominant Western cinemaaccompanied by the usual absorption in the diegesis and cultivation of a story senseof diegetic illusion. Elements in the rough-hewn geometry are: use of the hard-

edged wipe for transitions, the180degree reverse-angle cut, and sharply contrast-ing (and frequent) juxtapo sition s (e.g., clo se-up and lo ng shot, mo ving and station-ary shots). The effect of this approach is to expose the process of articulation andreveal the making of the diegetic illusion, while correspondingly inhibiting thesense of strong diegetic illusion.On the other hand, Kurosawa is criticized for such stylistics as the way in whichhe "never in any way disrupts the unambiguous definition of spatial relations."'' 'Occasionally, as inIkiru,there will be a mismatch that could, if coo rdinated withfollowing shots, disclose the illusion-making character of the filmic practice.Kurosawa, however, instantly resolves the mismatch inIkiruby placing bo th charac-ters on the screen together, clarifying the spatial geography for the spectatorsbefore they have time to "see through" the illusion of the cinematic making ofspace. Kurosawa also adheres always in an underlying way to Western linearity.As Burch puts it, "Ambiguity in Kurosawa . . . is an element of tension to beansweredbyo ne of resolution. . . neverisitacategorical indifference to u nivalenceor linearity as it is in Ozu."^' Kurosawa's manner involves combining signifyingelements: in Ikiru, in a content of "wholly unam bigu o us narrative claim," forinstance, Watanabe progresses from foreknowledge of death to the "petty bour-geois" realization that he can do something meaningful himself. -Burch notes that even the mo st mo dest picture from japan often displays a moreor less systematically decentered compo sition.^^ When Kurosawa do es use decen -tering, as in Tlie LowerDe pths, he is praised, but when he does not, he is criticized


7/12

PhenomenologyofJapanese Cinema 15

Figure 4 . Ikiru,

for his participation in and furtherance of diegetic illusionism. Burch concludeswith a chilling assessment of Kurosawa; "It would seem that (the Japanese filmindustry's) stiflingly repressive structures have ultimately broken the one truemaster which the post-war Japanese cinema has known."^*Burch is led to look back on the silent period in Japanese dnema as a "GoldenAge. " ^ In this perio d, the cinematic ap para tus was foreg rou nded, and the effect ofthis cinematic practice was that of inhibiting diegetic illusionism and sensitizing theaudience to the con structed ness of all filmic articulatio n. The period in whichKurosawa gained international fame, the post-World War II era, is regarded byBurch as one in which K urosawa (and o thers) com prom ised w ith W estern-inspireddiegetic illusionism.In that earlier silent Go lden Age of Japanese cinem a, film s bore the m arks of theirown inscription. For example, Ozu consistently mismatched conversations acrosscuts;^*^ Kinugasa utilized presentational forms of exposition wherein the manner ofpresentation obtrudes upon spectator experience, rendering the image opaquerather than transparent.^^ Burch praises Kurosawa for those stylistics that make afilm bare the marks of its own inscription, such as the rough-hewn geometry ofRashomon. Where Kurosawa is criticized, it is for adherence to Western forms that"hide" the filmwork while correspondingly cultivating spectator absorption in thediegesis.

With an understanding of(1) the distinction between perception and appercep-tion and (2) recognition of the intentionality of representational consciousness.


8/12

16 A . Casebierhowever, one can see that reflexivity is only one of many ways in which thecinematic experience can be meaningfully obtained. With representational con-sdousness transcending the mental acts involved in perception and founded onsensations, representationper sedoesnotbecomeafeature of a filmtobe demeaned,as it does for a post-structuralist such as Burch. If representation involves theintentional grasping of independen tly existing objects while images are only ap per-ceived, judgments of value about a film should have their locus in the qualities ofthe objects grasped, not in an alleged spectator participation in or inhibition froman alleged illusion-making activity.Where Kurosawa represents events developing according to cause and effect inlinear fashion, as in Watanabe's growth under the influence of an extreme situation(foreknowledge of his ow n death) inIkiru, it is notper seadeficiency of the film thatthis part of the film involves linearity. Rather than being properly described asdiegetic illusionism, as Burch wants, this part of the film involves, according to theHusserlian perspective, a transcendence to objects, events, and persons foundedon an apperceptive mass. Thus, it is not the case, according to a Husserlianana lysis, that there are just images there wh ich because of their proffered relationsinvite spectato r co nstructio n of an illusion of reality. ** O n the con trary, o bjects ofreality are there to be grasped in a way involving intentional transcendence, i.e.,feelings and emotions coincident with having foreknowledge of death.In this light, the em phasis that Burch, inTothe DistantObseri er, places upon theformal characteristics of Kurosawa's films is misguided for the Husserlian. Therough-hewn geometry serves the end of intentional transcendence, not the aim ofdisrupting spectatorial absorption in the diegesis. Measuring the nature of cine-matic representation in terms of bow it affects spectators involves conflating twodifferent relationships, in recognizing whatafilm represents, spectators engage inmental acts which are the proper locus for analyzing representation; it is quiteanother matter to isolate the affective relationships that occur coincident with aninstance of representation. Indeed, a recognition of what a film depicts and/orportrays can occur in a context where there is no appreciable affective relationobtaining at all.The way Burch ask s us to co ncep tualize the basic film exp erience biases the issueagainst Kurosawa.Weare askedtoaccept the assumptio n thatinthe exp erience of afilm such asThe Seven Samurai there is only a set of images. T hese images may bepresented to us in a way which will make us sensitive to facture,^^ the (supp o sed)con structedness ofallfilmic articulatio n, or they can be p resen ted so as to cultivateabsorption in the diegesis by hiding the constructedness and fostering our ten-dency to posit them as constituting a linear exemplification of events. The Hus-serlian notion of apperception, however, directly counters this picture of the filmexperience. Before us, in our experience of a Kurosawa film, are not just a set ofimages. There are images in our experience to be sure, but tbey are apperceived;there are also objects to which we have transcenden t access thro ugh intentionality.Moreover, it is not the case, according to Husserl's model, that facture marks allfilmic expression and that various manners of presentation foster spectator con-struction of illusions of reality while others inhibit this tendency. Some filmsprovide experiences in which objects of reality may be intentionally grasped byprepared observers (documentaries); other films offer fictional events as their


9/12

Plienomenology ofJapanese Cinema 17representational content (a fiction film like TheSeven Samurai) ; still others offerexperiences that involve representations ofa mixed character (e.g., Chris Marker'sSansS oleil). If there is such an entity as the diegesis and some films foster anabso rption in it while others inhibit such abso rption , it do es not carry any implica-tions for the nature of cinematic representation, at least according to the Husserlianparadigm.Moreover, the hard-e dge d wipes inThe Seven Samurailend a quality of sim plid tyto the film that would appeal to the sensitivities of the Japanese audience.^ In theJapanese aesthetic, simplidty is accorded paramount significance owing to itsstatus asacrucial element insiiihui, the Japanese co ncept of beauty. For the Japaneseaudience, this simplicity in editing practice does not disrup t the diegesis, wh ereas adissolve or fade would conceal film practice and tend to absorb the audience in thediegesis. O n the contrary, for the Japanese audience, attuned to thisS/I/^H/-makingfeature, the hard-edged wipe could well be expected to seem quite natural andabsorb the audience in the action of the film.

The same may be said for the 180 degree reverse-field editing practice used byKurosawa. It certainly hasa different psychological effect upon spectators than so-called "invisible editing" wherein spectators may more easily form a sense of thegeo graph y of the action. It is, however, a non-se quitur to conclude that the reverse-field editing will make the audience confront facture. The audience may simplyhave to deal with more complex sensations in being guided to their intentionalgrasp of the events and o bjects being po rtrayed. If, as in som e avant-garde films, th ereverse-field editing practice is sustained over a lengthy portion of the film's time,then articulation itself m ay well becom e the o bject of perce ptio n. But in the case ofKurosawa's use of this device, it seems more likely that the intentional grasp oftranscendent objects remains thecontent of perception, not a shift to images andtheir relatio nship s. A s Burch no tes, Kurosawa moves rather quickly, in instance s ofreverse-field editing, to reinstate a coherent spatial geography. It seems likely thatKurosawa is aiming to foster audience transcendence to fictional events rather thanto cultivate a vivid sense of facture.Burch and other post-structuralists also tend to utilize the ccmcept of transpar-ency, so central to realist film theory, in an inconsistent fashion. As we have seenabove, the Husserlian epistemology may be utilized to expose the insufficiency oftransparency in analyzing representation. Post-structuralists like Burch have adifferent way of criticizing any realis tview.They believe that the inadeq uacy of anyrealist view is entailed by the truth of the doctrine of facture. That is, if the filmexperience ultimately resolves into the sensations of images which are then fash-ioned by the spectator into objects via codes and other "transactional" categories oftbe mind, then a realist notion of spectators seeing throug h transpare nt p ictures tothe things themselves is false to our actual experience of film.It is, however, a curiosity of post-structuralist theory that there has been a"paradox of transparency" within the theory.^' On the one hand, realist theory iswrong because it fails to grasp the constructedness of all filmic articulation. Butthen, on the other hand, when discussion centers on the dominant cinema (thestandard Hollywood product being paradigmatic), the concept of transparencysuddenly has application. The so-called "bourgeois realist film"^^ is denigrated forits transparency, in contrast to valued films (such as Oshima's) which engage the


10/12

18 A . Casebieractive spectator in a transactional process at a site where the film itself isconstructeda site where codes, industrial impact, and audience imaginativelyand ideologically gro unde d activity obtain. Po st-structuralist theo ry do es not seemto realize that it canno t have it bo th ways; either tran sparen cy is unacceptab le or it isnot. It cannot be imported when needed to criticize the dominant cinema and thenabandoned as naive when praising the transactional cinema of an Oshima.An appreciation for the full ran ge of possible theoretical po sition s, including thatof a critical realist like Husserl, helps in understanding how a theory of film maymo re fruitfully deal with transparency. The Husserlian notion of the neutrality-modification of perception as the locus of representation serves as the grounds foroverturning the realist doctrine of representational transparency for all films,whether they be thought to be bourgeois-realist or paradigmatically transactional.From the above juxtaposition of Burchean analysis of Kurosawa and an Hus-serlian account, it should be apparent that the criticisms of Kurosawa made fromthe post-structuralist standpoint do not stand up. The Husserlian distinction be-tween appe rception and p erception and the concepts of the neutrality-modificationof normal perception and the intentionality of representational consciousness pro-vide substantial theoretical gro un ds for overturning the chillingly negative assess-ment of Kurosawa's postwar film work.

NOTES1. Noel Burch, To the DistantObserver:Formand Meati ing int}w lapatwscCinema (Berkeley: University of

California Press, 1979), Chapter 2 4.2 . Edmund H usserf , Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenonwnologyaiui to a Plu nomcnologicalPhihsoptjy, tra ns . F.

Kersten (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1982), section 1 1 1 .Consult alsothetranslation by W. R.Boyce GibsonLondon: G. George Allen &Unwin, 1931).

3 . For an understanding of intentionality, se e Dallas Willard,Logic and theObjectivity ofKnowledge: AStud}f il lHusserl s Early Phiiosoph\f (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1984), 35.4. Burch, Distant Observer, 18.

5. Ibid.6. Ibid,7. Ibid.8. Ibid., 19,9. Ibid., 174.

10. Ibid.. 159.1 1 . Husserl, Ideas , s e c. I l l , 2 6 2 .12 . Founded noesis refers to themental process arising from correlative acts, e.g., perception arising

from apperception. The termnoesisderives from th eGreek term for intelligenceor understanding.Noesis is that which confers intentionality o n sensa.

1 3 . Willard, Logic andObjectivity,80 , note # 4 3 .14. Husserl, Ideas , sec . U l , 262 .15. Ibid.16. See Husserl, la^^icai Investigations, trans. J. N. Finlay (New York: Humanities Press, 1970), 7 38 -39.17. Burch, Distant Observer, 1 9.18. Ibid., 298.19. Ibid., 299.20. Ibid.2 1 . Ibid.2 2 . Ibid., 3 0 1 .


11/12

Phenomenology ofJapanese Cinema 1923. Ibid., 318.24. Ibid., 321.25. Ibid., 143.26. Ibid., 154-87.27. Ibid., 123-40.28. Elsewhere I have discussed the ways in which this "nominalist" assumption is ungrounded; see

"Representation of Reality and Reality of Representation in Contemporary Film Theory," PersistenceofVision no. 5 (Spring I987):36-43.29. On facture, see Michael Renov, "Re-Thinking Documentary: Toward a Taxonomy of Mediation,"Wide Angle8 il9lib):75.30. On simplicity as appealing to the Japanese mind and tasle, see Charles Moore, "The EnigmaticJapanese Mind ," in The JapatieseMitid:Essentials ofJapanese Philosophyand Cu lture (Tokyo: Tutlle Co. ,1967),29 )tf., and M asaharu A nesaki , A r t, L i fe , and Na ture inJapan (Tokyo: Tuttle Co. , 1973) , 32ff.

3 1 . See D udley A ndrew , Concepts in Film The ory(Oxford: O xford University P ress , 1984) , Ch ap ter 5,especially 91ff.

3 2 . Ibid.


12/12

Casebier Kurosawa Framework.pdf

Documents