Cinepoetry

8/10/2019 Cinepoetry

1/21

Mallarm's Cinepoetics: The Poem Uncoiled by the Cinmatographe, 1893-98Author(s): Christophe Wall-RomanaSource: PMLA, Vol. 120, No. 1, Special Topic: On Poetry (Jan., 2005), pp. 128-147Published by: Modern Language AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25486149.

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2/21

f

PMLA

Mallarme's

Cinepoetics:

The

Poem

Uncoiled

by

the

Cinematographe,

1893-98

CHRISTOPHE

WALL-ROMANA

CHRISTOPHE

WALL-ROMANA

is

complet

ing

dissertation,

entitled

"French Cine

poetry:

Unmaking

and

Remaking

the

Poem in

the

Age

of

Cinema,"

in

the

De

partment

of French

at

the

University

of

California,

Berkeley.

His

work

has

ap

peared

in

Le

courrier du Centre

Interna

tional d'Etudes

Poetiques,

Sites,

Samuel

Beckett

Today/Aujourd'hui,

and French

Studies

Bulletin.

He

has translated

works

by

John

Berger,

Norbert

Wiener,

and

Philip

K.

Dick into French.

His

projects

include

editing

a

collection

on

literary

criticism

reconsidered

through

moving

image

media

and studies

on

French

impressionist

cinema and

on

televisual

culture

in

new

writing

in French.

ON

28

DECEMBER

1895,

THE

LUMIERE INEMATOGRAPHE

opened

commercially

in

Paris.1

As

expected,

the

new

spectacle

of

animated

photography projected by

the

reversible

Lumiere

camera

proved

perceptually entrancing

and thus

financially enticing.

A

journalist

taken

by

black-and-white

footage

of

"[la]

mer

...

si

re

muante"

'[the]

sea... so

agitated'

wrote

that

he

saw

it

"coloree"

'in

color'

(Rittaud-Hutinet

and Rittaud-Hutinet

350).

Georges

Melies

and

two

other

spectators

each tried

to

buy

the

Cinematographe

on

the

spot.

A

month

later,

on

27

January

1896,

seemingly

unconnected

to

this

event,

Stephane

Mallarme could be found

nailing

up

electoral

posters

in

the editorial

offices

of

poetry

journals,

in

literary

cafes,

and

at

the

Odeon theater.

His

friend

Paul Verlaine had

died

on

8

Jan

uary,

leaving

the honorific

position

of

Prince of

Poets

vacant.

Al

though

this title had

always

been

bestowed

by

acclamation,

the circle

of

Parisian

poets

to

which

they

belonged

decided?in

support

of the

"Third

Republic

of Letters"

(Compagnon)?to

stage

an

election

in

stead.

The

platform

posted by

the

front-runner,

Mallarme,

began:

Poetes,

Dun geste, se concoit, a Theure?ou prestige materiel evanoui, helas ?

en

lumiere

pure

se

resout

le fantome

humain,

autrefois

leve

sur

le

pavois,

de l'aede

designe

quel,

dune

presence

reclamee

des

lors,

doit

primer

dans

le

respect

et

ladmiration,

son

front barre

des

unanimes

palmes.

(Mondor,

Vie

723)

Poets,

By

a

gesture,

it

may

be

conceived,

at

this

hour?when,

material

pres

tige

having

vanished,

alas ?in

pure

light

s

resolved

the

human

ghost,

formerly

ifted

n

the

shield,

of the

designated

bard

who,

his

presence

128

?

2005

BY THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA

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3/21

i2o.i

Christophe

Wall-Romana

129

thereupon

called

for,

must

prevail

in

respect

and

admiration,

his forehead

lined

with

unan

imous

palms.

The translation is approximate because Mal

larme

makes

a

show

of

his

elliptical

writing,

in

which clauses

can

be

arranged

in

several

configurations

to

allow for what he

called

"la

comprehension

multiple"

(CEuvres [1945]

283).

By

leaving

it

up

to

the reader

to

parse

the

text,

ironically

in

this

case

the

electoral

pro

gram,

Mallarme

intimates that virtual

syn

tax?his

poetic signature,

that alone

on

which

he should

"prevail"?is

coextensive with

the

reader. He thus defines his poetic economy

not

as

the

private

property

of

a

prince

(e.g.,

the

pavois

used

to

hoist

a new

Frank

king),

but

as

respublica,

public

worth

acknowledged

by

the

republican

award

of

palms.2

What informs this subtext

of

poetic

suf

frage

is

the

virulent attack

launched

against

the

symbolists

around

Mallarme

in

1895-96

for their

alleged

obscurity, degeneration,

and

decadent

artificiality.

Such

accusations

were

is

sued

from

various

quarters by

the

likes

of

Lev

Tolstoy,

young

Marcel

Proust

(a

Mallarme

ad

mirer

nonetheless),

and life-force enthusiasts

who

partially

read

or

misread

Friedrich

Nietz

sche,

Walt

Whitman,

and

Henri

Bergson

(De

caudin

29-57).

Opposing

what

they perceived

as

elitist

decadence,

they loudly

propounded

an

optimistic

and

populist

vitalism. Mal

larme

bridges

this

aesthetico-political

divide

in

the

platform's

most

arresting

image,

"in

pure

light

is

resolved the human

ghost."

The

"pure

light,"

I

argue,

is not

only

a

metaphor

for the soul but

a

multiple

formula

tion

referring

also

to

the

new

age

of cinema.

While

clearly pointing

to

the

afterlife of

Ver

laine,

Mallarme

also

wants to

speak

more

generally

of the

"human,"

a

term

that

was

now

in

need

of

redefinition. The

two

jour

nalists

present

at

the

28

December

inaugural

projection

emphasized

how film

pushes

back

the

boundary

of

death.

"C'est la

vie

meme,

c'est lemouvement pris sur le vif" Tt is life

itself;

it ismotion

recorded

in

the

quick';

"la

mort

cessera

d'etre absolue

...

la

vie

laissera

une

marque

indelebile"

'death

will

cease

to

be

absolute

...

life

will

leave

an

indelible

trace';

"on

reproduit

la vie" 'life is

reproduced,'

they

exulted

(Rittaud-Hutinet

and

Rittaud

Hutinet

349-50).

Their excitement

sprang

from

the

same

realization

Mallarme

insists

on,

that the "material

prestige"

of

reality

is

now

supplemented by

film.

Quite

suddenly,

lifelike,

animated

projections

rendered

hu

man

life

posthuman.3

Cinema

thereby

imple

mented the

lifelong

obsession

of

Mallarme's

two

masters,

Edgar

Allan Poe

and Villiers de

ITsle-Adam: the dissolution of the material

barrier

between

life

and

death.

Moreover,

cin

ema

enacted

modernity's

resolve

to

embrace

technology,

and

as a new

mediation

between

artifice and

life

it

presented

an

unexpected

so

lution

to

symbolism's

resistance

to

mimesis.4

This

essay

documents

the

claim that

Mal

larme,

a

keener observer of

the

technosocial

field than he has been

given

credit

for,5

rote

or

planned

experimental

poems

as

cinematic

sublations of the

page

and the

book,

both in

Un

coup

de

des

(1897),

one

long

strip

of

visu

ally montaged

text,

and

in

the

project

around

the

notes

for

Le Livre

(1895-

),

a

commercial

reading performance using

electrical

projec

tions.

This

statement

may appear

paradoxical:

Mallarme,

the absolutist of

pure

verse,

seeking

a

prosthesis

for

poem,

page,

and

book?

Putting

aside this absolutist

myth, cogently

debunked

by

Henri

Meschonnic,

we

may

bring

to

bear

on the discussion the two poles of

specularity

at

play

in

Mallarme,

according

to

Leo Bersani.

One

pole

is

synoptic

immobility,

as

a

Hegelian

and

orphic

summation

of

the

world;

the

other

engages

the

flowing

present

of desire

in

the

"mobility

of its

images"

(Bersani

11),

as

in

La

derniere

mode,

the

fashion

magazine

written

by

Mallarme

in

1874

((Euvres

[1945] 705-847).

This dualism

betrays

not

so

much

a

highbrow

lowbrow dialectic

as

the

quest

for

a

capa

cious and synthetic work that combines "la



4/21

130

Mallarme's

Cinepoetics:

The

Poem

Uncoiled

by

the

Cinematographe,

1893-98 PMLA

comprehension multiple"

and

a

direct

engage

ment

with material

experience.

With

the

advent

of

free

verse

in

the

mid-1880s,

new

rhythmic

and visual

patterns

on

the

page

tended

to

fore

ground

the

corporeal, spatial,

and

temporal

immediacy

of

the

poem.6

Cinema

may

have

evoked forMallarme

a

potential integration

of

the

artwork with sensorial

experience

and

per

formance,

across

page

(2-D),

folio

(3-D),

and

reading

time

(4-D).7

In

his

single

reference

to

cinema,

Mallarme

characterized this

principle

of

integration

as

"deroulement"?unfolding,

uncoiling, unreeling,

or

unscrolling:

a new

to

pology

for

text

and

images.

After

a

detailed

analysis

of Mallarme's

cinema-like

poetics,

I

briefly

look

at

Walter

Benjamin's

"moving

script"

and

Jacques

Der

rida's

"spacing,"

both of which

come

tanta

lizingly

close

to

a

cinematic

reading

of

Un

coup

de

des.

In

conclusion,

I

point

to

the

large

corpus

of

experimental writings

permeated

by

the film

apparatus

(among

canonical and

noncanonical

poets),

at

a

tangent

to

orga

nized

groups

and

avant-garde

aesthetics. This

corpus

is

sufficiently

extended and diverse to

warrant

the

name

of

cinepoetry.

Mallarme

and

Early

Cinema

Much has been

written

about

Mallarme's

fas

cination for the

stage

(dance,

theater,

mime;

see

Shaw),

and

recent

work

in

early

film

studies

suggests

that

we

may

place

his

inter

est

squarely

in

the heuristic

perspective

of

precinema.

Precinema refers to the devices

and

epistemological

conditions of

postpho

tographic

vision

and

motion research

that

converged

with

mass

media

expectations

be

tween

1870

and

1900,

resulting

in

new

prod

ucts,

practices,

and

spectacles

as

diverse

as

international

fairs,

Richard

Wagner's

operatic

light

shows,

comic

strips,

moving

dioramas,

and celluloid

and

short-exposure

film stock

(Schwartz;

Mannoni,

Great Art

320-415).

Loi'e Fuller's

"serpentine

dance," after 1892,

exemplifies

precinema

for

our

purposes,

since

her

choreographic

innovations

play

an

im

portant

role

in

Mallarme's

theorizing

poetry

as

cinematic

(Shaw

52-68;

McCarren

113-71).

Her

dancing,

imitated

in

early

films,

has

re

cently

been

placed

at

the

juncture

of

precin

ema

and

early

cinema

(Iampolski; Gunning,

"Loie Fuller" and

"New

Thresholds";

Lista

638-48

[filmography]).

Mallarme learned of cinema

from

an

1893

article about Thomas Edison's Kineto

scope.

On

8

May,

Le

Figaro

ran

on

the

front

page

"Une visite

chez Edison"

'Visiting

Ed

ison's

Laboratory,'

the earliest

account

of

a

picture

show

in

a

leading

French

newspaper.

The

author,

Octave

Uzanne,

recounts

how,

"sans

voix,

sans

expression possible,

presque

sans

croyances"

'voiceless,

incapable

of the

slightest

expression,

in

sheer

disbelief,'

he

viewed the short

movie

of

a

Tyrolian

male

dancer

through

the

peephole

of

a

Kineto

scope

box

(with

a

rotating

cylinder).

Uzanne

adds that

these shots

"reproduisent,

avec

toute

l'expression

de la

vie

et

de l'acceleration

du

mouvement,

le

geste

humain

methodique

ment

enregistre"

'reproduce,

with

all

the

expression

of life

and

the

acceleration of

movement,

the human

gesture

methodically

recorded.'

We

can

be

sure

Mallarme read

this

article,

for

three

reasons.

First,

he

was a

regu

lar subscriber and

contributor

to

Le

Figaro,

the

main

center-left,

prosymbolist,

and,

later,

Dreyfusard

newspaper.

Second,

Uzanne

was a

correspondent

and close

friend ofMallarme

s;

along

with Octave Mirbeau and Edouard

Manet,

both

men

attended

small

mysterious

"diners de

l'occulte"

'dinners

of the occult'

held

in

1890

(Mallarme,

Correspondance

4:

94).

Third,

and

crucially,

Edison's

laboratory

is the locus

of Villiers

de

l'lsle-Adam's

sym

bolist

novel-manifesto

L'Eve

future

(1886),

in

which

Edison

uses

chemistry,

chronophotog

raphy,

and

a

"quatrieme

etat

de

la

?Matiere?,

l'etat

radiant" 'fourth

state

of

"Matter,"

the

radiant state' (307) to instill life in a female



5/21

i2o.i

Christophe

Wall-Romana

131

automaton

(or

cyborg).8

Villiers,

who

died

in

1889,

was

among

Mallarme's

and also

Uzanne's closest friends

and

inspirers;

Mal

larme

and Uzanne

exchanged

letters about

thewelfare of Villiers's widow.

Uzanne

could

hardly

have

visited Edison's

laboratory

without

thinking

of

Villiers;

he

probably

made

the

visit

because Villiers's

fic

tion

was

about

to

become

reality.

Around

the

time

of

his 1893

trip

to

New

Jersey,

Uzanne

may

have discussed

this invention with Mal

larme,

who

would have

begun thinking

about

how the

cinema

to

come

would affect litera

ture;

Uzanne

quotes

Edison's

correct

estimate

that

production

was "dix-huit mois a deux

ans"

'eighteen

months

to two

years'

away.

With

Verlaine's death

so

close

on

the heels

of

the

inauguration

of

the

Cinematographe,

Villiers's

poetic

prefiguration

of

cinema

may

have

assumed

a new

relevance

forMallarme.

Uzanne's

shock

at

the

cinematic

"human

ges

ture"

may

be

directly

cited

in

the

"gesture"

that

opens

Mallarme's declaration

that

the "human

ghost"

is

transubstantiated

into

"pure

light."

Cinema's transition from

peephole

(Ki

netoscope)

to

screen

projection

took

shape

the

following

year,

in

1894. In

November,

articles

in

La

nature

and

Le

monde illustre indicated

Edison's

plan

to

use

"un

grand

ecran

blanc"

'a

large

white screen'

with "un

appareil

de

pro

jection"

'a

projection

apparatus'

and

even

"un

phonographe"

'a

phonograph' (Meusy

20).

Emile

Reynaud,

the

inventor

of the Praxino

scope

in

1877,

pioneered

the

electrical

projec

tion of hand-drawn, painted, and animated

images

on

the

back

of

a

transparent

screen

at

theMusee Grevin

in

October

1892.

In

No

vember

1894,

Arthur

Meyer,

the

owner

of the

Musee Grevin

and the

newspaper

Le

gaulois,

asked

Reynaud

to

start

using

"des

projections

de la

photographie

instantanee"

'instanta

neous

photography projections'

(Meusy

39).

Mallarme

met

Meyer

in

December

1895

at

the

latest

(Mallarme,

Correspondance

7:

311-12;

8: 140, 145), and Meyer may have told him

of

Reynaud's

animated

projections

such

as

Pauvre Pierrot?a

figure

dear

to

Mallarme

(see

"Mimique"

[CEuvres (1945)

310]).

In

Au

gust

1894,

a

poem

by

Henri

de

Regnier,

a

close friend and

disciple

of

Mallarme's,

was

staged

by

Aurelien

Lugne-Poe

at

the

Theatre

de

l'CEuvre,

with

"fantocini"

'ghosts'

mov

ing

"derriere

un

voile de

gaze"

'behind

a

veil

of

gauze'

and

"mimant

les

paroles

pronon

cees

par

les acteurs"

'mimicking

the words

pronounced by

actors'

("Theatre" 381).

This

encounter

of

poetry

and

screen

may

be

the

earliest

attempt

to

remediate the

poem

with

the

cinematic

apparatus,

if

shadow

puppetry

isnot the sole influence.9

Mallarme and cinema

cross

paths

on

23

April

1896,

three

months after

his

elec

tion

as

Prince

of Poets.

The back

page

of

Le

Figaro

of that

day

reads,

"Grand

succes

hier,

au

Theatre

Mondain,

pour

Stephane

Mal

larme

et

pour

Charles Morice.

Dans

sa

serie:

Les

Poetes

francais,

Charles

Morice

donnait

une

lecture

consacree

au

nouveau

?Prince

des Poetes?"

'Great

success

yesterday,

at

the

Theatre

Mondain,

for

Stephane

Mallarme

and Charles Morice.

In

his series

French

Po

ets,

Charles Morice

gave

a

lecture

on

the

new

"Prince

of

Poets."' Four

paragraphs

later,

the

author

of the

column,

Jules

Huret,

writes

that

the

"Cinematographe-Lumiere"

recorded

"de

2

a

6

heures

. . .

plus

de douze

cents

entrees"

'between

two

and

six

o'clock

...

over

twelve

hundred

admissions'

("Courrier").

Huret

was

also

a

correspondent

and

close

friend

ofMallarme's and the author of an influen

tial

literary

survey

in

1891

that

helped

define

symbolism,

in

no

small

part

through

Mallar

me's

transcribed interview

(CEuvres

[1945]

866-72).

In

1896

Huret

gave

regular

news

of

the

Lumieres'

cinema,

its

expanding

venues,

and

its

competitors:

the

Kinetograph

of

Me

lies,

the

Isolatographe

of

the

Isola brothers

(whose

hall

Camille

Mauclair

had

tried

to rent

for

a

lecture

on

Mallarme

in

1893

[Mallarme,

Correspondance 6: 37-38]), and others.10 In a



6/21

132

Mallarme's

Cinepoetics:

The

Poem

Uncoiled

by

the

Cinematographe,

1893-98

PMLA

May

1896

letter,

Mallarme

chides his friend

Paul

Nadar,

the

son

of Felix

Nadar,

for

over

exerting

himself

(Correspondance

8:153):

on

24

June

1896,

Paul

Nadar took

a

patent

for

a

reversible

camera

whose

prototype

he had

been

feverishly

constructing.11

We

have

no

direct evidence that

Mal

larme

ever

went to

the

movies,

although

the

cinematic

inspiration

behind

Un

coup

de

des,

this

poem

of

a

radically

new

genre

begun

in

earnest in

1896,

strongly

invites

us

to

think

he

did.12

A

work

without

precedent?the

hallmark of

radical modernist

experimental

ism?it

was

published

in

April

1897,

in

the

new

trilingual

journal Cosmopolis.

In

late

April

and

early

May,

several

notices

about

Cosmopolis

and Mallarme's

poem

came

out

in

the

press,13 including

one

in

Le

journal

on

4

May

1897

(Marchal

447-52)?a

fateful

day

in

the

history

of

early

cinema.

On

that

day,

the film

projector

in

a

tent

of the

Bazar

de la

Charite

ignited

into

a

fire

ball,

killing

128

spectators

in

a

few

minutes,

mostly

women

of

high

society

(Meusy

53-62).

Commentators

wondered whether this disaster

would

bring

about

the

end

of cinema.

Indeed,

sales

plummeted,

but

in

part

they

did because

programs

stayed

the

same

too

long

(60).

Be

tween

5

May

and

14

May,

Mallarme

wrote

two

sets

of

letters:

to

several

friends

(Jean-Francois

Raffaelli,

Jose-Maria

de

Heredia,

Regnier)

whose

wives

or

daughters

were

injured

in

the

fire14

and

to

journalists

and friends

who

re

acted

to

and

publicized

Un

coup

de

des

(Paul

Megnin,

Andre Gide). The

poem

was then be

ing

printed by

Didot for the edition

planned by

the

publisher

Vollard.

On

10

June,

Mallarme

wrote two

more

letters,

to

his

disciples

Regnier

and Robert de

Montesquiou,

who

fought

a

duel

over

false

(and

homophobic)

allegations

that

Montesquiou

had

escaped

the fire

by wielding

his

cane

(Correspondance

9:

224-25).

On

31

June

1897,

on

the heels of this

loaded

intertwining

of

cinema with his

pri

vate and literary life,Mallarme wrote his sole

statement

on

cinema. In

response

to

a

sur

vey

by

Andre Ibels

asking

prominent

writers

whether

they

favored

illustrating

books with

photography,

Mallarme answered:

Je

suis

pour?aucune

illustration,

tout

ce

que

voque

un

livre evant

se

passer

dans

Pesprit

du

lecteur; mais,

si

vous

[employez]

la

photogra

phic

que

n'allez-vous

droit

au

cinematographe,

dont le

deroulement

remplacera,

images

et

texte,

maint

volume,

avantageusement.15

I

am

in

favor

of?no

illustration,

since

all that

a

book evokes

must

take

place

in

the readers

mind;

but,

if

you

[use]

photography,

why

not

go straight to the cinematograph, whose un

reeling [unfolding]

will

replace, images

and

text,

many

a

volume,

advantageously.

Alone

among

the

twenty-four

writers

sur

veyed (including

Emile

Zola, Rachilde,

Georges

Rodenbach,

Uzanne),

Mallarme

men

tions cinema?then

certainly

at

its

most

un

popular.

Ibels

finds this mention

sufficiently

noteworthy

in

the

1898

introduction

to

the

published survey

to

draw

a

pointed compari

son

between

the

"cinematographe"

and "le

Livre"

'the Book'

(101).16

The

term

deroulement denotes the

tempo

ral

unfolding

of

events,

as

well

as a

mechanical

operation

of

circular

unrolling.

This dual de

notation,

abstract and

concrete,

temporal

and

technological,

is

crucial forMallarme's

cine

poetics.17

The

Cosmopolis

editor's

preface

to

Un

coup

de

des,

actually

written

by

Mallarme,

informs

the

reader,

"Une

espece

de leitmotiv

ge

neral

qui

sederoule constitue l'unite du

poeme:

des

motifs

accessoires

viennent

se

grouper

au

tour

de lui"

'A

sort

of

general

leitmotiv

that

unfolds

constitutes the

poem's

unity:

accessory

motifs

are

grouped

around

it'

(CEuvres [1998]

392).

In

directly

pitting

cinematic

"unfolding"

against Wagner's

cultic

exploitation

of the leit

motiv

("Richard

Wagner"

[CEuvres

(1945)

541,

546]),

Mallarme

appeals

to

the

fin

de

siecle

epis

temology

of deroulement

as

a new

dimension

of

multiplicity and virtuality forhis poetics.



7/21

12 o.

i

Christophe

Wall-Romana

133

Unfolding, nfurling,

ncoiling,

Unrolling,

nreeling,

nscrolling

The

terms

in

French

equivalent

to

those

in

the

heading?deroulement, dtpliement, deploie

ment,

developpement, debobinage?denote

centrifugal

motion

and

connote

technological

advances

culminating

in

the

1890s.

Rotational

motion is

the basic translation

offeree

in

ro

tors

and

motors

of

trains,

trams,

automobiles,

and

plants powering

such electrical

devices that

implement

modernization

as

the

telegraph,

cinema,

and

telephone.

As

Mary

Ann Doane

reminds

us

in

The

Emergence

of

Cinematic

Time, according

to

the

second

law

of

thermo

dynamics,

entropy

(lit.

"turn

inward")

increases

with the

radiating

propagation

of

equilib

rium?that

is,

the

centrifugal

dissipation

of

energy

or

the

flattening

of difference

(115-17).

Mechanical

and

theoretical

rotation

is

thus

co

extensive

with modernization

and

modernist

epistemology,

binding

together

a

"hybrid

net

work"

(Latour

6-11)

of relations

among

forms of

energy:

steam,

gas

combustion,

electricity,X-ray, human muscle

locomotion and

reproduction

devices:

train,

phonograph,

camera,

radio,

typewriter,

bicycle,

automobile,

cinema,

airplane

mechanical

motions

and

patterns:

rotation,

cam

ellipsis, spiral,

vortex,

helix,

electrical

circuitry

psychological

and

corporeal

states:

fatigue,

neurosis,

bodily proximity,

sexual

orientation,

hypnosis,

attention

and

distraction, depression, shock18

The

question

for

Mallarme's

experimental

poetics

is

partly

where

to

locate

writing,

po

etry,

and the Book

in

this

new

continuum

of

force,

apparatus,

form,

and affect.

Friedrich

Kittler's

Gramophone,

Film,

Typewriter

dem

onstrates

the

broad

entanglements

of

mod

ernist writers

with

emerging

technologies.

Mallarme's

technological

interests,

which

Kittler

addresses

unevenly,19

appear

to

reach

the foundations ofpoetry and poetics. In "L'ac

tion

restreinte" 'Restricted

Action'

(1895),

for

instance,

Mallarme

muses

on

whether

words could

rival the

bicycle

in

satisfying

the

younger

generation's

"souci

d'extravaguer

du

corps"

'yearning

to evade the

body.'

He

pre

sents

the

bicycle

as an

entrancing

device

offer

ing

"la

monotonie,

certes,

d'enrouler,

entre

les

jarrets,

sur

la

chaussee,

selon l'instrument

en

faveur,

la fiction d'un eblouissant rail continu"

'the

monotony

of

reeling,

between

one's

calves,

on

the

roadway, according

to

the

instrument

in

favor,

the fiction of

a

blindingly

continuous

rail'

(CEuvres

[1945] 369).

How

does

writing

measure

up

ii

eblouissant

means

"blinding"

or

"mesmerizing"

but also "beautiful" and "re

vealing"?

Does

the

blindness

and

insight

of de

roulement

create

a new sense

of

continuity?

Is

not

cinematic

intermittence

just

such

a

fiction

of

continuity?

Can

the

visual

poem's

alternat

ing

blanks and

text

mimic,

or

at

least

give

a

sense

of,

this

mesmerizing

fiction

of

continu

ity?

These

are

Mallarme's

tacit

probings.

From various

horizons of the

1890s,

other

precinema

thinkers also

sought

to

graph?

write,

draw,

or

trace?this

new

continuous

materiality through

the notion

of deroulement:

Henri

Bergson

with

the

analysis

of

duration,

Etienne-Jules

Marey

with

chronophotogra

phy,

and Lo'ie

Fuller

with

choreography.

Let

us

briefly

examine how

each

can

help

us

under

stand Mallarme's

cinematic

experimentation.

With Essai

sur

les

donnees immediates

de

la conscience

(Time

and

Free Will:

An

Essay

on

the

Immediate

Data

of

Consciousness

[1889])

and Matiere etmemoire 'Matter and Mem

ory'

(1896),

Bergson

launched

a

Copernican

revolution

by exposing

qualitative

duration

as

the

irreducible

ground

of

any

unification

of

apperception.

In

the

concluding

words of

the

Essai,

psychological

states

"se

deroulent

dans le

temps,

ils

constituent

la

duree"

'unfold

in

time;

they

constitute

duration'

(146).

The

point

is

that these

states

are

coextensive

with

one

another

and

dynamic,

thus

unquantifi

able. Rather than nondiscrete

concepts,

they



8/21

134

Mallarme's

Cinepoetics:

he

Poem

Uncoiled

by

the

Cinematographe,

893-98 PMLA

are

intensities

akin

to

"un

fil

enroule,

comme

un

ressort"

'a

wire

coiled

up

like

a

spring'

(7),

a

feel

more

than

an

image.

Later

he defined

in

tuition

as

"comme la tension d'un ressort" Tike

the

tension

of

a

spring,'

in

the

penultimate

sen

tence

oiLapensee

et

le

mouvant

'Thought

and

Mobility'

(1432).

Kinesthetic

coiling

and

un

coiling

inform

numerous

key

notions

in

Berg

son,

including

the

exceptionality

of human

life

in

L'evolution

creatrice

'Creative

Evolution':

[L]a

vie

apparait

globalement

comme

une

onde

immense

qui

se

propage

a

partir

d'un

centre et

qui,

sur

la

presque

totalite de

sa

cir

conference, s'arrete et se convertit en oscil

lation

sur

place:

en un

seul

point

l'obstacle

a

ete

force,

1'impulsion

a

passe

librement.

C'est

cette

liberte

qu'enregistre

la

formehumaine.

[L]ife

appears

on

the

whole

as

an

immense

wave

that

is

propagated

from

a

center

and

that,

on

the

quasi-totality

of

its

circumfer

ence,

stops

and

converts

itself

into static

os

cillations:

at

only

one

point

was

the

obstacle

breached and the

impulsion

allowed

to

pass

freely through. The human form registers

this freedom.

(720)

The central

intuition of duration

as

freedom

involves

a

modern

(and

modernist)

primacy

of

the

active

present,

as

temporal synthesis,

over

the

past.

Matiere

et memoire indicates

this idea

painstakingly:

"1

orientation

meme

de

notre vie

psychologique

[est

un]

veritable

deroulement

d'etats

ou nous

avons

interet

a

regarder

ce

qui

se

deroule,

et

non

pas

ce

qui

est

entierement deroule"

'the

very

orienta

tion of

our

psychological

life

[is

a]

veritable

unfolding

of

states

amid

which

our

interest

focuses

on

what

actually

unfolds

and

not

on

what

is

entirely

unfolded'

(291).

The

subtle

contrast

between

the

present

reflexive

(se

derouler)

of

process

and

agency?the

hu

man?and

the

transitive

past

(est

deroule)

of

reified

result shows

the

crucial

nuance

Berg

son

invested

in

the contrastive

senses

of the

word deroulement.

With

Marey

it

is

the

opposite:

he

values

mechanical

process

over

agency.

Marey's

1891

innovation

over

Eadweard

Muybridge's

multiple

cameras

and

Pierre

Janssen's

photo

graphic

gun

was

the

use

of

a

continuous

film

strip

that

recorded,

separately

but

on

the

same

medium and thus with

quantifiable

time

in

tervals,

"une

serie

d'images photographiques

pour

representer

les

phases

successives

d'un

phenomene"

'a series

of

photographic

im

ages

representing

the successive

phases

of

a

phenomenon'

(123),

his

definition of

chrono

photography.

Marey's

mechanical

talent

lay

in

making

compatible

two

opposite

motions

of the film.

On

the

one

hand,

he needed

to

en

sure

"la

regularity

de l'enroulement

et

du de

roulement" 'the

regularity

of the

rolling

and

unrolling'

of

the

off

reel

and

on

reel

(137).

On

the

other

hand,

it

was

imperative

that "la

pel

licule

se

deroule

d'un

mouvement

saccade"

'the film unrolls with

an

intermittent

mo

tion,'

so

that

it

stops

when

taking

the

shot,

moving only

in

between takes

(135).

This

in

termittence

allowed

not

only

the

stroboscopic

recording

of

motion but

also,

crucially,

its

synthesis?that

is,

its

projection

in

real

time.

The two-stroke

uncoiling

of the

filmstrip

for

both

recording

and

projecting

is

the

sine

qua

non

condition

for

Edison's

1894

Kinetograph

and the

Lumieres'

1895

Cinematographe

(Mannoni,

Great

Art

320-63,

395).

Marey

was

motivated

by

a

broader

project,

according

to

Francois

Dagognet's

Etienne-Jules

Marey:

La

passion

de la

trace

'Etienne-Jules

Marey:

A Passion for

Tracing':

rendering

motion

visible

and

legible?that

is,

quantifiable

(62-73).

From

graphing

blood

and

pulmonary

pressure

to

finding

the

precise

pattern

of

horse

or

human

steps

or

of

wing

beats

in

birds

or

flies,

Marey developed

appa

ratuses

tracing

organic

motion,

according

to

a

method

he

theorized

in

La

methode

graphique

dans

les

sciences

experiment

ales

et

princi

palement

en

physiologie

et

en

medecine

'The

Graphic

Method in

Experimental

Sciences



9/21

12 o.

i

Christophe

Wall-Romana

135

and

Principally

in

Physiology

and

Medicine'

(1878).

Trained

as a

doctor,

he

saw

corporeal

motion

as

inherently

discontinuous,

a

series

of

jerks,

falls,

and breaks

of different cadences

in "1animal-machine"

(Dagognet

37), in di

rect

contrast,

according

to

Dagognet,

to vi

talists

such

as

Bergson,

who insisted

on

the

unanalyzability

of life

as

elan

vital.

Dagognet

interprets Marey

as

producing

a

representa

tion

of

the

neuromotor

unconscious,

"fait

de

rythmes,

de

pulsions

sourdes

et

de flux

qui

parcourent

la

machine

corporelle

...

bref

l'ecriture

automatique

de

la

Nature

meme"

'made

of

rhythms,

of inchoate

pulsions

and

fluxes that traverse the corporeal machine

...

in

short,

the

automatic

writing

of

nature

itself

(102).

For

Bergson,

however,

any

repre

sentation of life

as a

discontinuous

mechani

cal

process

is

a

simulation

and

a

falsification,

especially

cinema's

chronophotography:

C'est

parce que

la bande

cinematographique

se

deroule,

amenant,

tour

a

tour,

les diverses

photographies

de la

scene

a

se

continuer les

unes

les

autres,

que

chaque

acteur

de

cette

scene

reconquiert

sa mobilite_Le

procede

a

done

consiste,

en

somme,

a

extraire

de

tous

les

mouvements

propres

a

toutes

les

figures

un

mouvement

impersonnel,

abstrait

et

simple.

...

Tel

est

l'artifice du

cinematographe.

Et tel

est

aussi

celui de

notre

connaissance.

(753)

Because the

cinematographic

strip

unfolds,

causing

the different

photographs

of

the

scene

to

prolong

one

another

in

succession,

each

actor in

the

scene

reconquers

his

or

her

mobility.... The process thus consists, in

short,

in

extracting

from all the

movements

that

are

specific

to

all the

figures

an

imper

sonal

motion,

abstract and

simple_This

is

the

artifice

of

the

cinematograph.

And

so

too

is it

that

of

our

cognition.

Neuro-

optical

synthesis

studies

having

only

just

begun,

Bergson

is unable

to

read

cinema

as

other

than

a

mechanical instance

of

Zeno's

par

adox

(spatializing

movement),

thus

a

false

no

tion ofduration invented by our cognition.20

What

is

intriguing

in

Marey's

and

Berg

son's

use

of

deroulement

is

their

common

fail

ure

to

stay

on

either

side of the divide between

human and mechanical.

Bergson

discounts

cinema's inhuman

unreeling only

to

appeal

to

the

uncoiling

of

intuition,

while

Marey, reject

ing

elan

vital,

finds the technical

inspiration

for

rolling

and

unrolling

the

filmstrip

in

an

el

lipsoid

cam

whose

two-stroke

motion mimics

the

human

gait,

which,

since

Aristotle's

"feath

erless

biped"

quip,

defines

the

human.21

The

synthesis

of human

and

mechanical

deroule

ment

was

achieved

or,

rather,

performed

by

a

third

innovator,

Loi'e

Fuller.

Mallarme saw Fuller's celebrated

serpen

tine

dance

during

the

1892-93

season

of the

Folies-Bergeres. Hiding

her

body

under

over

size

robes

and veils and

using

prosthetic

arm

extenders,22

Fuller invented

a

dance whose

aesthetic

pleasure

devolves from

the dissolu

tion

of

the human

body?and

its

gait?into

pure

kinetic

patterns

of

light

and color.

Mal

larme

was

fascinated

by

dance

and

pantomine,

both

of them

temporal

rather than

spatial

art

forms inGotthold

Ephraim

Lessing's

dichot

omy

of the

arts.

Traditionally,

poetry

was

associated

with

music,

thought

to

be the

para

digmatic

temporal

art.

But

Mallarme claimed

that

themusic

of his

time

was

Wagnerian

and

that

Wagner's

operas

relied

on

language

and

myth deriving

from

poetry

and

thus could

not

represent

a

new

paradigm

for

it.

Dance,

pan

tomime,

and

very

early

cinema,

on

the other

hand,

were

wordless

arts

of

time

with

a

po

tential to renew poetry. Devoid of narration,

melodrama,

supporting

cast,

or

decor

but

us

ing

complex

arrangements

of

mirrors,

electri

cal

lighting,

and

even a

radium-tipped

dress,

Fuller's dance

exemplified

in

his

eyes

not

just

kinesthetic

artistry

but

also

the

spectacle

of the

human

in

the

new

materiality,

what he

called

"un

accomplissement

industriel" 'an

indus

trial

accomplishment,'

fusing

"[des]

nuances

veloces"

'nuances of

velocity'

and

"passions...

prismatiques" 'prismatic

...

passions'

into a



10/21

136

Mallarme's

Cinepoetics:

The Poem

Uncoiled

by

the

Cinematographe,

1893-98 PMLA

"fantasmagorie oxyhydrique" 'oxyhydricphan

tasmagoria'

("Les

fonds dans le

ballet" 'Foun

dations

in Ballet'

[CEuvres

(1945)

307,308]).

Already

in

the

1887

"Crayonne

au

thea

tre,"

Mallarme had reflected

on

the

projec

tive

corporeality

of

dancing.

The

dancer,

he

wrote,

retains

her

"feminine

apparence"

'feminine

appearance,'

while also

disappear

ing

into

a

kind

of

"impersonnalite" 'imper

sonality'

when

embodying

the

"objet

mime"

'mimed

subject

matter' of her dance. Between

the

corporeal

woman

and the

incorporeal

mime

lies

the

crux

or

"point philosophique"

'philosophical point'

of the

dance,

at

which

she

"deroule

notre

conviction

en

le chiffre

de

pirouettes

prolonge

vers

un

autre

motif"

'unfolds

our

conviction

in

a

cipher

of

pirou

ettes

prolonged

toward another motif.'

The

ballet,

which

Mallarme

termed

"allegorique,"

relies

on

the

efficacy

of kinesthetic transfer

ence:

the

dancer's

body

evinces

a sense

of

movement

in

the

spectator,

whose

own em

bodiment

is

revealed?moved

(296).

In

the

1893

"Les

fonds dans le

ballet,"

about

Fuller,

Mallarme

similarly

celebrates "la solution

qu['elle] deploie

avec

l'emoi seul de

sa

robe"

'the solution

[she]

unfurls with the sole

emo

tion

of

her

dress'

(308).

Again,

the solution

is

a

dissolution

through

movement.

In

both

cases,

the

female dancer instills

in

Mallarme

a

sensorial

uncoiling

experienced

as

both

in

ner

body feeling

and

outer

visual

movement.

This

projection

through

deroulement

suggests

to

him

a

"poeme

degage

de

tout

appareil

du

scribe"

'poem

free of

any

scribal

apparatus'

yet

not

a

disembodied

poetics,

since it

pro

ceeds

through

"une

ecriture

corporelle"

'cor

poreal

writing'

(304).

A

similar

kinesthesis

is

found

in

the

1895

"Le

mystere

dans

les

lettres"

'Mystery

in

Literature,'

where

the Book

is

an

imated

by

"enroulements

transitoires

...

en

argumentation

de lumiere"

'transitory

coils

...

in

argumentation

of

light'

(385).

The

ara

besques

of

"corporeal writing"

uncoil

visually

and

aurally?as

in the

subtly

redundant and

oddly

sibilant alexandrine

of Un

coup

de des:

"insinuation

simple

/

au

silence enroulee"

'simple

insinuation

/

coiled

around silence.'

This

kinesthetic

image lying

at

the

geometric

center

of the

poem

acts as its

motor,

bracketed

between

"comme

si

/...

/

comme

si" 'as

if

/

...

/

s

if'

(466-67)?two

electrodes

generat

ing

its

alternating

current

of

text

and blanks.

The deroulement of dance like music

in

"Crayonne

au

theatre"

suggests

thatMallar

me's

poetics

already

functions

in

the

(meta

phoric)

model of

chronophotography:

Seul

principe

et

ainsi

que

resplendit

le

lustre,

c est-a-dire lui-meme, Texhibition prompte,

sous

toutes

les

facettes,

de

quoi

que

ce

soit

et

notre

vue

adamantine,

une ceuvre

dramatique

montre

la

succession

des exteriorites de Facte

sans

quaucun

moment

garde

de realite

et

quil

se

passe,

en

fin

de

compte,

rien.

(296)

Unique

principle

and

as

the chandelier

shines,

that is

to

say

itself,

he

quick display,

under all

its

facets,

of

anything

whatsoever

and

our

diamond-like

vision,

a

dramatic

work

shows the

succession

of

an

act's

exteri

orities

so

that

no

moment remains

real and

nothing,

in

the

end,

happens.

This

1887

formulation

of

dance

as

glass

op

tics

("luster"

[lustre],

"facets,"

"diamond-like

vision"),

optical

motion

("shines,"

"quick

dis

play,"

"succession

of

an

act's

exteriorities"),

and

performance ("display,"

"dramatic

work,"

"act,"

"happens")

anticipates

the

preface

of Un

coup

de

des,

which

develops

this

chronopho

tographic model into a fully cinematic theory

of

poetic

composition.

We

can

now

turn

to

the

preface's

key

sen

tence

(I

italicize the

most

likely

main clause

for

clarity):

Le

papier

intervient

chaquefois

quune

image,

d

elle-meme,

cesse

ou

rentre,

acceptant

la

suc

cession

d'autres

et,

puisqu'il

ne

sagit

pas,

ainsi

que

toujours,

de

traits

sonores

reguliers

ou

vers?plutot,

de subdivisions

prismatique

de l'idee, Vinstant

deparaitre

etque dure leur



11/21

12

o.

i

Christophe

Wall-Romana

137

concours,

dans

quelque

mise

en

scene

spiritu

elle

exacte,

cest

a

des

places

variables,

pres

ou

loin du fil

onducteur

latent,

en

raison

de

la

vraisemblance,

que

s'impose

le

texte.

(CEuvres [1945] 455)

Paper

intervenes

each

time

an

image,

of

its

own

accord,

ceases

or

withdraws,

accepting

the succession of

others

and,

since

it

is

a

mat

ter

not,

as

usual,

of

regular

sound

features

or

verse?rather,

of

prismatic

subdivisions

of the

idea,

in

the

instant

of

appearing

and

so

long

s

their

concourse

lasts,

in

some

exact

spiritual

staging,

it

is at

variable

places,

near

to

or

far

from the latent

conducting

wire,

because of

verisimilitude, that thetextimposes itself.

The "succession" combined with

"prismatic

subdivisions

of

the idea"

corresponds

to

chronophotography's

"successive

phases

of

a

phenomenon"

and

to

the musical-balletic

"succession

of

an

act's exteriorities."

More

over,

the

play

of

"image"

and

"text" directed

by

"some

exact

spiritual

staging"

at

"variable

places"

recalls

rather

pointedly

Mallarme's

statement

on

cinema. In

it,

we

will

recall,

the

book's

virtuality

("all...

must

take

place

in

the

reader's

mind")

is

as

if

sublated

by

the

play

of

images

and

text in

cinema.23

The

re

semblance between

the

preface

of

Un

coup

de

des and the

declaration

on

cinema

is

not

for

tuitous. Two

recently

published

drafts of the

preface suggest

thatMallarme

conceived it

in

close

parallel

with his

statement

on

cinema.

On

cinema,

he

writes,

in

June

1897:

...

mais,

si

vous

employez

la

photographic

que

n'allez-vous droit

au

cinematographe,

dont le

deroulement

remplacera, images

et

texte,

maint

volume,

avantageusement.

(emphasis

added)

...

but,

if

you

use

photography,

why

not

go

straight

to

the

cinematograph,

whose

unfold

ing

will

replace,

images

and

text,

many

a

vol

ume,

advantageously.

In

two

drafts

of the

preface

of Un

coup

de

des, hewrites,

early

in 1897:

...

mais

si,

pour

quelque

motif

elle

[la

parole]

requiert

le

papier,

depossede

de

sa

fonction

originelle

de

presenter

des

images,

alors

ne

doit-elle

pas

remplacer

celles-ci

a sa

facon,

idealement etfictivement.

...

or

que

dans

un cas

elle

[la

parole]

requiere

la

blancheur du

papier,

depossede

celui-ci de

sa

fonction de surface

ou

presenter

unique

ment

a

l'oeil des

images,

alors

la

parole

ne

doit

elle

pas

remplacer

celles-ci

a

sa

facon,

moins

tangiblement

par

un

texte

ou

litter

airement.

(CEuvres [1998]

403;

emphasis

added)

...

but

if,

for

some

reason

it

[speech] requires

paper,

devoid

of

its

original

function of

show

ing images, then should itnot replace them in

its

own

way,

ideally

and

fictionally.

...

whereas

it

[speech]

might

require

the

pa

per's

whiteness,

itself evoid

of its

function of

surface

or

presenting

solely

to

the

eye

images,

then

should

not

speech

replace

them

in its

own

way,

less

tangibly

by

a

text

or

literarily.

With the

mention,

elsewhere

in

the

preface,

of the

"avantage

...

litteraire"

'literary

...

advantage' of this new poetics of Un coup de

des

(CEuvres

[1945]

455),

there is

little

doubt

that

deroulement

in

the

manner

of

the

cin

ematograph

constitutes

a new

literary

advan

tage

Mallarme

was

experimenting

with

in

Un

coup

de des and

even more

performatively

in

his

notes

on

Le

Livre,

a

sketchy

project

of

po

etic

spectacle

left

unfinished

at

his death.

Cinepoetics

of

Le

Livre

For

deroulement

to

remediate

in

Mallarme's

poetics

not

just

the cinematic

but cinema

per

se,

it

must

apply

to

the

projection

of text.We

need

not

wait

for

1892

for

Mallarme

to

discover

screen

projection

(at

the

Musee

Grevin,

as men

tioned

earlier),

since in

1882

Villiers

published

his Contes

cruels

'Cruel

Tales,'

which

Mallarme

admired

(Villiers

de

l'lsle-Adam,

Contes

8)

and

which

includes

a

tale

titled

"L'affichage

celeste"

'Celestial

Billboard.'

It

is

a

futuristic satire

about

night-sky

advertising

with a

powerful

electrical



12/21

138

Mallarme's

Cinepoetics:

he

Poem

Uncoiled

by

the

Cinematographe,

893-98

PMLA

lamposcope,

"le

projet

lumineux

d'utiliser les

vastes

etendues

de la

nuit,

et

d'elever,

en un

mot,

le ciel

a

la hauteur de

l'epoque"

'a

luminous

proj

ect

of

using

the

vast

expanses

of

the

night,

and

raising,

to

coin

a

phrase,

the

sky

to

the

height

of the

era'

(91).24

Curiously,

when

describing

his first

impression

of

Un

coup

de

des

in

1897,

Paul

Valery

echoes Villiers's

projective

fancy

almost

term

for

term:

"il

me

semblait

mainte

nant

d'etre

pris

dans

le

texte

meme

de

l'univers

silencieux_Ou

Kant,

assez

naivement,

peut

etre

avait

cru

voir

la

Loi

Morale...

[Mallarme]

a

essaye,

pensai-je,

d'elever

enfin

une

page

a

la

puissance

du ciel

etoile"

'it

seemed

to

me now

that

I

was

caught

in

the

very

text

of

the silent

universe-Where

Kant,

rather

naively,

per

haps,

thought

he

saw

theMoral

Law

...

[Mal

larme]

tried,

I

thought

to

myself,

to

raise

at

last

apage

to

the

power

of

the tar-studded

sky

(626).

It is

worth

noting

that

1898

marks the debut of

outdoor

film

shows:

a

screen

was

placed

at

the

ice rink

of

the Palais

des Glaces

for

night

projec

tion,

while the

Lumiere

brothers and Melies be

gan

projecting

advertisements

on

street

screens

(Crafton

244;

Meusy

72-73;

Sadoul

256).

Although

the

preface

of

Un

coup

de

des

proposes

"une

vision

simultanee

de la

Page"

'a

simultaneous

vision

of the

Page'

as

a

kind

of

projective

background

for

the

poem,

the

po

em's

central

inspiration

is

"l'espacement

de

la

lecture" 'the

spacing

of

reading,'

reflecting

"la

mobilite de

l'ecrit"

'the

mobility

of

writing'

(CEuvres

[1945]

455).

Between

motile

words

and

synoptic

whole,

the

spectatorial

exegesis

takes

place.

In

1895,

in "Le

mystere

dans les

lettres,"

Mallarme

wrote

of

"[l]es

mots

...

a

mainte

facette"

'words

...

with

many

a

facet'

perceived by

"l'esprit,

centre

de

suspens

vibra

toire"

'the

spirit,

center

of

vibratory

suspen

sion,'

as

"projetes,

en

parois

de

grotte,

tant

que

dure leur

mobilite

avant

extinction"

'projected,

on

cave

walls,

as

long

as

their

mobility

lasts

...

before

extinction'

(386).

The

reference

to

Plato's

cave

is

citational

and

metaphoric.

In

the

notes

on Le Livre, the

projective

poetics

is

by

contrast

performative

and mechanical:

"II

faut

que

d'un

coup

d'oeil

par

la

succession

des

phrases...

tout

apparaisse"

'In

one

glance

through

the

succes

sion

of

sentences

...

everything

must

appear'

(CEuvres [1998] 562 ["Livre" 47B]). Words are

no

longer

simulacral

projections

of

archetypes;

instead,

contra

Plato's

idealism,

projected

words

give

the

Book

its

substance

of

light:

Defaire idee

en

livre

son

mecanisme

operateur

la

lTdee

y

est

visible

la

cest

net

lueur

en

titres

transparence

(595

[141])

Undoing idea as book

its

operating

mechanism there

the

Idea

in it

s

visible

there

it

s

clear

glow

within

titles

transparence

It is

possible

that the last

line

refers

directly

to

cinematographic

titles.

The

notes

for

Le

Livre,

a

project

Mal

larme

began

in

1893

and worked

on

earnestly

in

1895,

amount

to

a

detailed

if

sketchy

re

configuration

of

the

book

through

a

read

ing performance

that,

unnoticed

by

Jacques

Scherer and other

commentators,

closely

re

sembles

a

cinematographic

projection.25

The

similarities

are

striking.

First,

the

performance

is

structured

as a

"seance,"

which

is

double

and

directed

by

an

"operateur"

'operator'

(618-19

[192A]).

Seance

and

operateur

are

the

exact

terms

used

for,

respectively,

the

cinematographic

projection

and the

projectionist

or camera

operator.26

The

dual,

reversible function

of

a

camera-projector

brings

a

crucial

technological

implication

to

"la double seance"

(559,614,619

[132A,

184A,

192A]),

which

Derrida

famously

read

as

a

met

onym

of

deconstruction

in

La

dissemination.

Second,

the

seance

relies

explicitly

on

elec

trically projected

images. Electricity,

used

by

Wagner

and

Fuller,

materializes

for

Mallarme

the

new

condition

of

poetry

as

fictive sub

stance.27 In "Ballets," he calls for



13/21

i2o.i

Christophe

Wall-Romana

139

je

ne

sais

quel

impersonnel

ou

fulgurant

regard

absolu,

comme

l'eclair

qui

enveloppe...

la

dan

seuse

d'Edens,

fondant

une

erudite

electrique

a

des blancheurs

extra-charnelles

de

fards,

et

en faitbien Letreprestigieux recule au-dela de

toutevie

possible.

(CEuvres

1945]

306-07)

I

know

not

what

impersonal

or

fulgurant

absolute

gaze,

such

as

the

flash

that

envelops

...

the Edens

dancer,

infusing

an

electrical

starkness

into

the extracarnal

whites of face

powder,

and makes

her

indeed the

prestigious

being

receding beyond

any

possible

life.

Mallarme

sees

electricity

as

the ideal

lighting

forperformance because itpreserves the het

erogeneity

of its

artifice.

In Le

Livre,

he

writes

of the

operator

that

"il

a vu

clair,

la

lueur electr.

a

ete

son

esprit"

'he

saw

clearly,

the electr.

glow

was

his

spirit'

(CEuvres [1998]

582

["Livre"

110A]).

The

preface

of Un

coup

de des

mentions

a

"fil

conducteur

latent"

'latent

conducting

wire.'

Third,

in

this electrical

poetic

sentience,

Mallarme's claims

are

rigorously

indistin

guishable

from those of

Edison,

the

Lumiere

brothers,

or

early

film critics

(such

as

Uzanne).

His

performance,

like

cinema,

brings

lifeback

to

the frozen

punctum

of

photography:

purete

lumiere electr

?

?

le

volume,

malgre

1'im

pression

fixe,

devient

par

ce

jeu,

mobi

le de

mort

il

devient

vie

(1046

[191

])

purity

electr

light

?

the

volume,

despite

the fixed

im

pression,

becomes

with

this

play,

mo

bile? fromdeath itbecomes life

Fourth,

the

projection

constitutes

a screen

in

the

most

cinematic

passages

of

the

notes:

l'arabesque

electrique

s'allume

derriere

?

et

les deux

voiles

?

sorte

de dechirure

sacree

du

voile, orchestre ?ou dechire

?

et

deux

etres

a

la fois

oiseau

et

parfum

?

semblable

aux

deux d'en

haut...

(956

[21A])

the electrical

arabesque

lights

up

behind

?

and the

two

veils

?

a

kind

of

sacred

tearing

of the

veil,

orchestra

?

or

tears

?

and the

two

beings

at

once

bird

and

perfume

?

akin to

the

two

from

up

there

...

The

context

of

this

passage

is

neither

a

play

set

nor

a screen

projection

exactly;

rather,

it

is

a

theatrical

stage

with mobile

veils

used

as

screens:

"rideau

dioramique

s'est

ap[p]rofondi

?

ombre

de

plus

en

plus

forte"

'dioramic

curtain

deepened

?

stronger

and

stronger

shadow'

(554

[24A]).

Mallarme

is

thinking

of

the

use

of

an

image-projection

device

to

gether

with

a

dance

or

pantomime

perfor

mance. In 1896

cinematographic

projections

combined with

still shots

were

used

onstage

for

the first

time,

in La

biche

au

bois

'ADoe

in

the

Woods.'28

Fifth,

early

films

were

hand

cranked,

and

operators

utilized this feature

to

heighten

dramatic effect

by

starting

the

pro

jection

slowly,

so

that

a

still seemed

to

come

to

life,

and

by slowing

down

or

accelerat

ing?even

reversing?the

film

antirealistically

(Gunning,

"New

Thresholds"

95).

The

preface

to Un coup de des appeals to the same visual

mobility

"d'accelerer

tantot

et

de

ralentir

le

mouvement" 'to

accelerate

at

times

and

to

slow down

the

movement' of

reading

(CEuvres

[1945] 455).

Among

films

shown

backward

was

Ecriture

a

Venvers

'Reverse

Writing'

(Lumiere

no.

42,

1896

[Sadoul

126]),

a

single

shot of

writing

erasing

itself?a

filmic

double

seance

of

sorts,

since

the

filming

of the

act

of

writing

is

shown

only

as

the

writing

trace is

undone.29

Sixth and finally,Mallarme conceived of the



14/21

140

Mallarme'sCinepoetics:

The

Poem

Uncoiled

by

the

Cinematographe,

1893-98

PMLA

performance

of

Le

Livre

as

public,

commercial,

repetitive,

highly

profitable,

and

containing

advertisements?which

are

mentioned

three

times

(CEuvres

[1998]

606, 612,

622

["Livre"

169A, 182,

201A]).

His

entrepreneurial

drive

is

unambiguous:

"operation

financiere

pure

a

travers

le

livre

sinon

mil"

'pure

financial

opera

tion

through

the

book

otherwise

nothing'

(594

[139A]).

Moreover,

his

predicted

receipts

from

the

seances

compare

in

magnitude

with the

staggering

revenues

of

cinema's first

year.30

I

believe that

in

the

project

of

Le

Livre

Mallarme

contemplated

basing

a

popular

spectacle

on

mechanized

reproducibility,

reaping large financial benefits, and putting a

Cinematographe-like

apparatus

at

the

service

of

poetry.

I

extrapolate

from

Jacques

Ranciere's

reading

of

Mallarme's late

politico-aesthetic

project

inMallarme:

La

politique

de

la sirene.

For

Ranciere,

Mallarme

envisaged

the

poem's

performance

as a

rebirth

of

social

participa

tion,

the

poem

performing nothing

but

its

own

production,

in

a

Hegelian

fusion of the

real

and the

ideal.

Nothing

would result

from the

performance?no social mystification,

no

new

Wagnerian myth?but

a new

collective

origin

countersigned

by

the

power

of

poetry,

a

power

desacralized

with

money

and

thus

able

to

mobi

lizewithout

danger

mass

economic realities

and

dreams

(62,98-108).

Cinepoetics,

however,

pre

cludes

a

Hegelian

"poem

about

nothing"

(106),

since the

materiality

of

the

apparatus

and

the

technological

contamination of

the

sensorial

experience

of

viewing

or

reading

remain inte

gral

to

cinepoetics.

Mallarme

would

Cinepoetry

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