08 RECASTINGS:SURVEILLANTSUBVERSIONS 578
|NotleastsinceOrwells1949visionofanaggressively invasive
authoritarian 1984, oursense of the future and increasingly of
thepresenthasbeenmarkedbythefearofbeing watched, controlled, and
robbed of ourprivacy. Indeed, one could argue that one
ofthehallmarkcharacteristicsoftheearlytwenty-first century is
precisely the realizationofOrwellsworstnightmare(andthisevenwhere,
as in the United States post 11
Sep-tember,itisbeingincreasinglywelcomedwith enthusiasm rather than
alarm). In formsranging from the more obvious
closed-circuittelevision (CCTV) observation to the more in-sidious
(because largely unrecognized) digitalinformation tracking known as
dataveillance(whichcoverseverythingfromsupermarketpurchases to
cell-phone usage and
internet-surfingpatterns)surveillancehasbecomean issue that is not
only increasingly a part ofThomas Y. Levin__ Rhetoric of the
Temporal Index:Surveillant Narration and the Cinema ofReal Time|
5791 _ Yet another print ad points out that Only 1 out of every 10
New Yorkers who owns a telescope isinterested in Astronomy. 2 _ An
Appraisal of Technologies for Political Control, European
Parliament: Directorate Generalfor Research, Luxembourg; Scientific
and Technological Options Assessment, February 1998.used to examine
civilian targets as well.As the report explains, all five
participatingcountriesprovidedictionariesofkey-words,phrases,andnames,andarethen
automatically provided with full-texttranscriptions of all tagged
intercepts
usefulnotonlyincombatingterroristsbutalso,forexample,whennegotiatingtrade
agreements.Evenseeminglyharmlesstechnologysuch as traffic control
systems can be
easilyrefunctionedforsurveillantpurposes,aswasevidencedbytheaftermathoftheclashes
on Tiennamen Square. The Siemens-Plessy video-traffic monitoring
system thatserved operation on the square was used toidentify
virtually all of the student leaders,in that the images from the
video cameraswere broadcast on state television until
alltheindividualshadbeendenounced.Asimilar traffic control system
was
recentlyexportedtotheTibetancityofLhasa,althoughithasnotrafficcongestionproblems
whatsoever. The key
conclusion,asarticulatedinthereport,issimplythatdemocraticaccountabilityistheonlycriterionwhichdistinguishesamoderntrafficcontrolsystemfromanadvanceddissident
capture technology. Such
trafficcontrolsystemsareinnocuous,however,when compared with the
newest generationof gadgets, such as the Danish
stroboscopiccameraJai,whichcanshoothundreds
ofphotographsinsecondsandthuscaneasilyproduceindividualrecordsofallparticipants
in a demonstration; new para-bolic microphones can clearly capture
con-versationstakingplaceuptoakilometeraway, and the German firm PK
Elektronikhas recently introduced a laser version thatcan pick up
any conversation in the line ofsight even through closed windows.
As
arecentarticleintheNewYorkTimesputit:ifyoucanseetheEmpireStateBuilding,wecansee,hear,andaboveall
record you.
Lesssecret-agentincharacterbutequallydisturbingisthefactthattele-everyones
daily life, but is even embracedas such. Advertising always a very
sensi-tivesocialbarometerhasnotfailedtonote this fact, as evidenced
by a Manhattanbillboard touting clothing that reads:
OnanaveragedayyouwillbecapturedonCCTV cameras at least a dozen
times; areyou dressed for it?1Thesedynamicsofomnipresentvoy-eurism,
observation, and data tracking areby no means limited to the United
States,as was detailed in the fascinating report AnAppraisal of
Technologies for Political Controlpresented to the European
Parliamentin1998.2Reading this sober and
systematiccatalogueofawiderangeofdevicesandpractices used to
maintain power the ex-tended treatment of surveillance is just
onechapterofthislengthydocumentonerealizesthatwhatmightpreviouslyhavebeen
dismissed as wild conspiracy
theoryisoftennotonlytrue,butinmanycasesmoreextensivethanonecouldeverhaveimagined.Inthewakeoftheendofthecoldwar,soitisexplainedhere,formermilitary
suppliers have begun increasinglyto furnish the so-called private
sector, justas new technologies combined with intra-state
arrangements have made it
possibletoautomaticallyscantelexes,telegrams,faxes,e-mailandeventelephoneconver-sations
for key words and then store themselectively. A task that
previously as in theGerman Democratic Republic required500,000
secret informants of which up
to10,000wereneededjusttolistenandtranscribetelephoneconversations,cannowbedonefullyautomatically.Indeed,thisispreciselythemissionofthein-famous
ECHELON Project, a
cooperativeglobalsurveillanceventureoftheUSA,Great Britain, Canada,
New Zealand, andAustralia (discussed in detail elsewhere
inthisvolume),thatsniffsallthedatatraffic i.e., virtually all
satellite-telephone,internet, fax, and e-mail traveling
betweentheIntelsatsatellites.Initiallydevelopedfor military
purposes, it is today routinely08 RECASTINGS:SURVEILLANTSUBVERSIONS
580 |Thomas Y. Levin __ Rhetoric of the Temporal Index3 _ The Super
Bowl story was first reported by Robert Trigaux (Cameras scanned
faces for crim-inals, in St. Petersburg Times, 31 January 2001) and
then picked up by the Los Angeles Timeson 2 February 2001 (Criminal
Faces in the Crowd still elude Hidden ID Cameras Security). Fora
useful introduction to the subject, see the special section on
Biometrics: The Future of Identi-fication in the February 2000
issue of Computer, esp. 46.IKONOSsatelliteimagingservice:whilethis
new generation of devices does indeedincrease the resolution of
satellite imagesavailable on demand to the civilian popu-lation
from the previous ten-meter standardof the SPOT satellites to a
long-awaited onemeter resolution, it should be kept in mindthat the
military reserves for itself levels
ofresolutionthatareordersofmagnitudemore precise than what is
available to thepublic (some experts speculate that it couldnow be
as low as 3cm).One should also
trytoimaginetheconsequencesofthenextgenerationofterrestrialsurveillancetechnologieswhichwillcapitalizeontherapidlydevelopingfieldofbiometrics,allowing
for the automated recognition
ofindividualsbymeansoffacialorocularanalysisthefamousretinalscanal-readyintrialuseatsomebank-tellermachines.Combinedwiththevideosur-veillancesystemsalreadyinplace,suchtechnologywillallowfortheautomatic,continuousremoteidentificationandtracking
of individuals in nearly all spaces,both public and private, a
distopian scenariowhose consequences were already exploredin detail
in Gattaca (Andrew Niccol,
1997).Whilethistwenty-first-centurypanopticscenarioisnotyetquiteareality,itmaybecome
that much sooner than one
mighthaveimaginedonlymonthsago:inthewakeofthe11Septemberattacks,thejustified
controversy that accompanied
thetrialintroductionsofautomatedfacial-recognition technology at
the Super Bowland in Tampa in early 2001 has given way toa more
uncritical embrace of such systems.3In this context, the
legislative debates
abouttheproliferationanduseofostensiblyneutralsurveillanceareofcrucialand
growing importance. Regulation
ofsuchsurveillancediffersdramaticallyfrom country to country: while
the use ofCCTV systems in public space is
severelyconstrainedinsome(suchasDenmarkandGermany),inothers(suchasGreatBritain)itremainsvirtuallyunchecked.phone
systems based on the ISDN
protocolarenotonlyoptimizedtodeliverdatatoECHELON-likesniffersystems,butalsoallow
one to take any phone off the
hookwithoutitringinginordertolistenintoany domestic or office
space.Credit cardsand new machine-readable passports havelong
allowed for the possibility of keepingtabs on however
intermittently the geo-graphicmovementsofindividualsre-vealing as
utterly warranted the paranoidinstinct that fueled a German
grass-rootsmovement years ago protesting the
intro-ductionofbar-codesontheirID-cards.Morerecently,theabilitytotrackindivi-duals
has undergone a significant increasein terms both of accuracy and
of what onecouldcalltherefreshrateofthedata,thanks largely to the
proliferation of mobiletelephones and their proletarian
beepercousins.Thisfactwasconfirmedinanoddly unstrategic manner by
the
advertise-mentcampaignforthethen-new(andnow-bankrupt)Iridiumglobalsatellitecellulartelephonesystemwhichread:Trackingapackageshouldntbeeasierthantrackingaperson.WhilemanypeopleintheUSwereawareof,orevenfamiliar
with, a very useful service offered,for example, by Federal
Express, that
allowsonetofollowon-linetheprogressofapackagefrompick-uptodelivery,fewrecognizedthepotentiallysinisterconse-quences
of the constant location
mappinginvolvedincell-phoneusepriortothenewsoftheassassinationofChechnyasrebelleaderDudayev:areclusivenomadwhose
only contact with the outside worldwas by means of mobile
telephone, he waspinpointed and killed by using the triangu-lating
location signals of his cell phone asa very effective homing signal
for a rocket(a conceit subsequently taken up as a
keynarrativedeviceinthefilmCharliesAngels [McG, 2000]).If this
seems disturbing, consider
theimplicationsofthemuch-publicizedlaunching in the summer of 1999
of the| 581certain rhetorical functions of surveillancein recent
cinema, is proffered as an exem-plary case study of a dynamic that
can andshould be explored across numerous othermedia as well.The
relationship between cinema andsurveillance is both long and
complicated.Indeed one could argue that employee sur-veillance
plays a key role in the very birthof the medium since, no matter
what elseitis,LouisLumieres1895LaSortiedesusinesLumire
isalsothegazeoftheboss/owner observing his workers as
theyleavethefactory.Earlycinemaisrepletewith micro-dramas of
surveillance in whichpeoplearefollowedandrecordedusingboth visual
(photographic/cinematic) andacoustic (gramophonic) means. In light
ofthePanopticonsarticulationofpowerinfundamentally ocular terms, it
is also hardlysurprisingthatsomeofthebestdocu-mentation of carceral
spaces can be foundinHollywoodscenesshotonlocationinfamous prisons,
foremost among them thelegendary sequence in Call Northside 777
ofJimmy Stewart walking along the rampartsof the Illinois State
Penitentiary in State-ville.Besidesamerelythematic concern,however,
as narrative means gain in struc-tural sophistication surveillance
becomesone of the topoi of a certain kind of
inter-medially-displacedcinematicreflexivity,asisevidentforexampleinFritzLangsDr.Mabusefilms,inAlfredHitchcocks1954
Rear Window or in Michael
Powells1960PeepingTom.IfinPowellslong-unrecognized masterpiece one
can alreadysee the beginnings of a slippage
betweenthediegeticsurveillantgaze(theviewthrough the photographers
super-8
view-finder)andtheluridscopophiliaoftheSimilarly,theabilityofthird-partycyber-entrepreneurstotrackoneson-lineactivitiesandsellsuchdatatopotentialadvertisers
and other vendors is currentlythe basis for a major regulatory
dispute onthe politics of data privacy between
Europe,wheresuchactivityismuchmorehighlycircumscribed,andtheUnited
States,where the government of cyberspace
isleftlargelytothedynamicsofanun-restrained market logic.
Thereisalso,however,anotherarenainwhichthepoliticsofsurveillancearecurrently
being negotiated and that is,
notsurprisingly,thedomainofculturalpro-duction.Whileatleastonewidelyusedclass
of surveillance devices the
EMHC(electronicallymonitoredhomeconfine-ment) ankle or wrist
bracelets used to
trackthemovementofpeopleunderhousearrestwasinventedbyajudgeinNewMexicowhofreelyadmitsthattheideacame
from a 1979 Spiderman comic
book,fewanalystsofsurveillancehaverecog-nizedthedegreetowhich,parallelwiththese
crucial regulatory disputes, popularopinion i.e., general attitudes
toward sur-veillanceanditsdangersisalsobeingarticulated through,
and in important waysalso being shaped by, various forms of
so-called high and low culture. Indeed,
asocio-politicalunderstandingofsurveil-lance at the dawn of the new
millenniummust also include an analysis of the strik-ing
proliferation of the rhetorics of
surveil-lanceatboththethematicandtheformal level in virtually all
contemporarymedia ranging from cinema and televisionto cyberspace.
As this is obviously
beyondthescopeofthisparticularessay,thefollowing analysis, which
concentrates onCall Northside 777USA: Henry Hathaway1948,
black-and-white,111 min videostills from LaserDiscTwentieth Century
Fox 08 RECASTINGS:SURVEILLANTSUBVERSIONS 582
|engagingin(mostlyaudio)surveillance,thisdeeplyparanoidmansuddenlyismadeawarethathisownspacehasalsobeenbugged.Desperatetofindthetech-nological
implant that has made it
possibletodotohimwhathenormallydoestoothers,heliterallydeconstructshisplaceobject
by object, floorboard by
floorboard,untilfinally,havingfailedtolocatethedevice,wefindhimsitting,exhausted,amidstthetrashedruinsofhisviolatedprivacy.
Although he has dismantled everysingle artifact, tested every
appliance, andripped down every piece of wallpaper, thebug he so
desperately seeks has
eludedhim.Butitisrightthereinthefilmsfinalsequence,anextendedhigh-angleshot,
that slowly surveys the extent of
thefutiledamage.Beginninginanemptycorner, it pans slowly and
methodically tothe left until it captures the broken,
saxo-phone-playingman,andthencontinuesonpasthimuntil,havinghitanothercorner,itsuddenlyandsomewhatjerkilyreversesitselfandpansback,andthenback
again. Just as the sound is a
semio-ticallyconfusingblendofthediegetic(Harryssax)andtheextra-diegetic(thepiano
which is accompanying him), thestructure of this shot itself stages
a similarblurring in that its formal signature theframe narration
itself, the two are neverthe-less always clearly distinguishable
thanksto various consistent cues such as the grainand patina of the
image, the visible frameoftheviewfinder,thewhirringsoundofthe
camera, etc. This decidability, the abilitytodifferentiate
diegeticsurveillancefrom(for lack of a better term) an
extra-diegeticbutalsosurveillantnarration,becomesincreasingly
undermined over the next fewdecades until, by the late 1990s, for
reasonsthat will become clearer below, cinematicnarration could be
said, in many cases, tohave effectively become synonymous
withsurveillant enunciation as such.A most striking and proleptic
instanceofthemoveawayfromathematic toastructural
engagementofsurveillanceoccursinthefinalsequenceofwhatisperhapsthe
classicsurveillancefilmperse:FrancisFordCoppolasmagisterialTheConversation,madein1974.Inthisexplorationofpanopticalhermeneutics,surveillanceisnolongersimplyanocca-sional
formal strategy used to
differentiatecertainimagesfromothers,buthasbe-comethemoviesprimarynarrativeconcern.InthefilmsverylastsceneweencounterthemastersnoopHarryCaul(playedbyGeneHackman),playinghissax
at home. Having spent the entire filmThomas Y. Levin __ Rhetoric of
the Temporal IndexThe ConversationUSA: Francis FordCoppola1974,
color, 113 minvideostills from DVD Paramount Pictures | 583more
significant of these is a major changein the rhetorical claims of
the photograph.Over the last two decades the status of
thephotographwhichwas,atleastuntiltheveryrecentintroductionofall-digitalprojection,
the material basis of cinemassemiosis has undergone a radical
trans-formation.Justasthephotographwas(andinsomesensestillis)apowerfulsignifyingartifactbecauseitisanimageof
which one can usually say that it is animageof
something,sotootheepiste-mologyoftherealism,oftheeffectofthe real
produced by classical continuityediting in film is fundamentally
based
onthereferentialsurplusvalueofphoto-chemicalindexicality.Butintheageofdigital
imaging, the basis of that
compel-lingbutadmittedlynotunproblematicreferentialityhascomeunderseverepressure:
to put it succinctly, if in previouseras, photographs could be
introduced
asunproblematicevidenceinacourtroom,intodayspost-Photoshopera,nophoto-graph
would dare to claim such
unabashedevidentiarystatus.OfcoursePhotoshoponly made more easily
and widely availablethe manipulation of photographic
signifi-cationthatwasalwaysalreadypossible(and which is amply
evident in the
historyofpoliticallymotivatedphoto-imagere-mechanical
back-and-forth pan reveals itto be the surveillant device that
Harry is sodesperatelytryingtouncover.Butwhereis this thing
located? It cant be in hisapartment since the veteran expert
wouldhave long since discovered it: indeed
Harrywillneverfindthesurveillantdevicebecause it resides in a space
that is episte-mologically unavailable to him within
thediegesis:surveillancehasbecometheconditionofthenarrationitself.
Inotherwords,thelocusofsurveillancehasthusshifted, imperceptibly
but decidedly, awayfrom the space of the story, to the very
con-dition of possibility of that story. Surveil-lance here has
become the formal
signatureofthefilmsnarration.Andindeed,itisthisambiguitybetweensurveillanceasnarrative
subject, i.e., as thematic
concern,andsurveillanceastheveryconditionorstructureofnarrationitself
thatwillbecomeincreasinglycharacteristicofthecinema of the
1990s.Besidesobvioussocio-politicaldevel-opments such as the Cold
War or Water-gate that have sparked renewed interest
inissuesoftrackingandcontrolatvarioushistorical junctures, there
are also a
numberofmedia-historicaloverdeterminationsthatgoverntheshifttosurveillanceasaformofcinematicnarration.Oneofthe08
RECASTINGS:SURVEILLANTSUBVERSIONS 584 |to crop up in numerous more
commercialfilmsofthesameperiod.Revisitingthelong standing question
of the
documentaryandthereferentialstatusofthephoto-graphthatwassodelicatelyexaminedinAntonionis
Blow Up (1966), a 1999 JoelSchumacher film entitled 8mmagain
takesupthekeyquestionofreferentiality,butnowdisplacednotontothestillphoto-graph
but onto the small-format
celluloidstrip.Theissueisraisedwhenawealthyoldmandiesandhiswidowfindsinthehome
safe, alongside various other
docu-ments,amysteriouscanisterofasthetitleindicates8mmfilmwhich,toherhorror,seemstobeaninstanceoftheapocryphal
genre of the snuff film,
thatultimateinstanceofphoto-chemicalref-erentialityinwhichactsoftortureandmurder
are supposedly caught on film.The challenge for the films hero, a
privateinvestigator played by Nicholas Cage, is
toestablishwhetherthisparticularfilmisfact or fiction, whether the
images have
anactualbasisintheso-calledrealworld,whetherthegirlshownbeingmistreatedand
ultimately killed in these frames, andher masked brutalizers, were
all actors or,infact,asthefilmrepeatedlyexplains,real. The films
central narrative
concern,inotherwords,iswiththeissueofcelluloidreferentiality.Notsurprisingly,NicholasCagesextensiveforaysintothesado-masochisticpornographicunder-worldonlyconfirmthatwhatthefilm-within-the-filmseems
todepictisinfactreal,i.e.,thatfilmisnotonlyavehicleforstorytellingbutalsoamediumthatdocuments,thatchronicleswhatactuallyhappensintheworld,howeverhorrific.And
of course this discovery, in turn,
cannotbuthaverhetoricalsurplusvalueforthereality effect of the
frame narrative.If, as seems to be the case,
contempo-rarycinemahasclearlyregisteredtherhetoricalconsequencesofthesemioticdeflationofitsphotogrammaticindexi-cality,
one of the most striking (and
oddlyvisionismsuchasthatpracticedbyair-brush masters on both ends
of the politicalspectrum). Still, the rhetorical
consequen-cesofthenowincreasinglywidespreadrecognition of the
photographic surface asa text, as a construct that is (if at all)
onlyoccasionally and by no means necessarily involved in strict
indexical reference, arenot to be ignored. Indeed, they are
nothingshort of an obsession in that locus of thesocial
construction of vision which is con-temporary commercial cinema.
For if
oneofthemanythingsatstakeinso-calledHollywoodfilmiswhatonecouldcallacontinuousandconstantlyre-negotiatedgeneralizedpedagogyofverisimilitudefilms
both teach us how to see the
worldandregisterageneralsenseofhowourculture
isdoingexactlythatthenonecanlookatthedevelopmentofrecentcinemaasthelatestchapterinalonghistoryofthechangingtechnologicalrhetorics
of simulation. As an example of the increasing
anxietyaboutthedecliningrhetoricalstatusofphotographicreferentiality,considerthemuch-toutedDogma95projectwhoseonlyoccasionallyironicandoftenquitehumorlesslyneo-vritdiscoursemustbe
understood against the background
oftheriseofspecialeffects,itselfanothername for the
aesthetico-semiotic
specificityofthepost-indexicalimage.Norshouldone forget that Dogma
95 is almost
exactlycontemporarywiththethorough-goingappropriationandunderminingoftheformal
vocabulary and characteristics
(thesignaturejerky-cameralook)ofcinemavritbytheBlairWitchProject
(DanielMyrick&EduardoSnchez,1999).Thelure of this fascinating
recasting of vritas thriller idiom was precisely the
undecid-ability, the unreadability of the genre: is itvrit or isnt
it? But this question is
effec-tivelythequestionaboutthereferentialstatusofthecinematicimage,ofhowtoread
an image, a style, a formal signature.Not surprisingly, similar
issues also beginThomas Y. Levin __ Rhetoric of the Temporal Index|
585JustasinBlowUp thetruthofthephotograph is in some sense a
function
ofitsnon-orextra-intentionalstatus(thephotographerdoesnotwitnessthemurderthathiscamerahappenstocapture
on film), there is a type of surveil-lance invoked by cinema whose
narrativefunction depends on its status as a record-ing produced by
an automated device, i.e.,one not governed by any sort of
intentionalagency.Amoststrikingexampleispro-vided by the opening
scene, even prior to thecredit sequence, of the 1993 film by
Allen& Albert Hughes called Menace II
Society:twoyoungmenofcolorenteraKoreangrocery in South Central L.A.
to get a
drinkandareimmediatelykeptundervigilantscrutinybythemistrustfulstoreowners.Annoyed
by what they perceive to be a racistpractice of interpersonal
surveillance,
theygettheirbeersandareontheirwayoutwhenthemanbehindthecashregistermuttersaninsultthatenragesoneofthem,
provoking an altercation that culmi-nates with the kid shooting him
to death.However, before then going on to also
killthewife,theyouthforceshertogowithhim to the back room of the
store where hecommands her to give him the videotapefrom the
surveillance camera. It is
worthnotingthat,withtheexceptionofapara-overlooked) responses is
the increasing turnto another regime of visual
representationwhichdoesnotseemtosufferfromthesamereferentialundermining:surveil-lance.
When one sees what one takes to bea surveillance image, one does
not usuallyask if it is real (this is simply assumed)but instead
attempts to establish
whethertherealthatisbeingcapturedbythecameraisbeingrecordedorissimplyaclosed-circuit
real time feed. This is pre-ciselywhatgivesthesesortsofimagestheir
semiotic appeal. If the
unproblematicreferentialityofcinematicphotogramsisunder siege, it
makes great sense to startappropriatingatypeofimagingcharac-terized
by definition (at least according toa certain popular
understanding) in
termsofitsseeminglyunproblematic,reliablereferentiality.Surveillanceimagesarealwaysimagesof
something(evenifthatsomethingisveryboring)andthustheturn to
surveillance in recent cinema
canbeunderstoodasaformofsemioticcom-pensation.
Itisimportant,however,tounderstand the specificity of this
rhetoricalresponse, since the history of the invoca-tion of
surveillance in narrative cinema isitself marked by a theoretically
significantshift from surveillance as recorded observa-tion to
surveillance as real-time transmission.Menace II SocietyUSA: Allen
& AlbertHughes1993, color, 104 minvideostillsNew Line
Productions 08 RECASTINGS:SURVEILLANTSUBVERSIONS 586 |and white
snuff film. Leaving aside the factthat the obvious success of this
fixed high-angle single-take film provokes the leadto insist that
he is going to start selling
itfor$59.95surveillanceeffectivelypro-vidingJedermann
withtheirmomentofmediafamealaWarhol,albeitreducedfrom fifteen
minutes to fifteen seconds what is crucial is that the footage
functionsas a form of diegetic flashback that
buttres-sesthefilmsownnarrativeoperations.Therealityoftheopeningsceneisestablished
later by the fact that we see itagain, but this time through the
eyes of theunseen but implied diegetic
surveillancecamerawhichnowshowsusdifferentaspectsofthesameevents.Butthissur-veillant
perspectivalism, this revisiting
orplaybackofanearliermoment,isonlypossible because of the specific
materialityofthesurveillanceasarepeatable,co-modifiable
videotape.The function of surveillance in a scenefrom Ridley Scotts
1991 film Thelma andLouise
isatoncedifferentyetstrikinglysimilarinitsnarrativeoperationtothissequencefromMenaceIISociety.Thescene
begins when the two women
namedinthefilmstitle,alreadyontherunbutinneedofsomebasicsupplies,stopatagrocerymarketoutinthemiddleofnowhere.
While Thelma takes care of theshopping,Louisewaitsinthecarandbolic
mirror in one corner of the
establish-mentandatightlytrackingcamerathatfigures a general
atmosphere of suspicion,therehasbeennoindicationwhatsoeverthat the
space is under surveillance: at nopoint do we see a camera or a
monitor. Inanelegantexemplificationoftheinter-nalization of a
culture of surveillance,
late-twentieth-centuryurbanstreetliteracysimply requires that one
take for grantedthat such places always have a
panopticalapparatusandthisiskeythatthisdevice is not simply a
closed-circuit TV
butisactuallysendingitsimagestoaVCR.Andindeed,astheyoungmanrobsthedead
shopkeeper on the floor, we see thevideo tape that he has extracted
from
themachinejammedintothebackofhispants.Quiteabitlaterinthefilm,thisvideo
then becomes a spectacle of
bravado,re-playedattheyoungmanshomewithgreatsuccessforaselectaudienceoffriends,
one of whom is very eager to geta dub of what is effectively a
silent blackThomas Y. Levin __ Rhetoric of the Temporal IndexThelma
and Louise Ridley Scott1991, color, 129 minvideostillsMGM|
587obviouslymuchlatersurveillantspec-tatorship is then intercut
with the rest ofthe recorded scene until, to emphasize
itsmateriality as a recorded video tape, it
endsinthevisualequivalentofwhitenoiseoften referred to as snow
before then cut-ting back to the two women driving downthe road
(the temporal space in which
thescenebegan).Thesurveillantimageishere functioning as a memory
that is bothpersonal (itisintroducedasThelmasnarrated flashback)
and, qua tape, as public(since as a tape it can also be seen by
others here the police and at different
timesandplaces).Inotherwords,thematerialspecificity of the
surveillance tape (with
thecrucialadditionofsynchronizedsound)herecondensesinanarrationallyhighlyefficientmannerwhatDavidBordwellwould
call an enacted recounting (a
visual-izationofwhatweimagineThelmaistellingLouise)andanenactedflashbackwhichtakesplaceatalatertime(themoment
when, after the robbery, the tapehas been given to the authorities
who areshown watching the evidence of this
pasttransgression).IfbothMenaceIISociety andThelmaandLouise
exploittogreatadvantagethenewnarrationalcapacitiesofferedbyre-suddenly
notices that she is the object
ofthequietlysurveillantgazeoftwoolderwomen staring at her through
the window.Thisonlyslightlydiscomfortingsocialpanopticism (a mild
country version
ofthemoreaggressivelysuspiciousgazeoftheKoreangrocerintheghetto)issuddenlyinterruptedbyThelmawhocomesracingoutscreamingthatLouiseshoulddriveoffasquicklyaspossibleasshehasjustrobbedthestore.When,astheyaredrivingaway,anincredulousLouise
asks just how she went about doingthis, Thelma responds that she
just walkedright in and said at which point the filmcuts to a
black-and-white sequence shot
bythesurveillancecameralocatedbehindthegrocerycounter.Thisfootage,whichshows
us what transpired inside as Louisewaited in the car outside,
suddenly changesitsnarrativevoicemidstreamwhichitcan do only
because of its status as a video-tape. After only a few seconds,
and withouta break in the sound, we cut away from
thesurveillancefootage(whichbeganasavisualization of Thelmas
recounting of theimmediate past) to a group of astonishedlaw
enforcement officers and her Thelmashusband who are watching the
(now longpast) event as it unfolds on the tape. TheirSliver USA:
Phillip Noyce1993, color, 108 min videostillsParamount Pictures 08
RECASTINGS:SURVEILLANTSUBVERSIONS 588 |banal quotidianity of the
sliver-buildingsoccupants. Recorded surveillance has beendisplaced
here by the cinematic
exploitationofthefascinationofreal-timetrackingfrom the secret
diegetic panoptical
controlbooth.Thesortoffantasmatichyper-panopticsystememployedthereis,ofcourse,
increasingly prevalent in shoppingmalls, high-end apartment
buildings, andvirtually all gambling establishments. It
isthushardlysurprisingtofindthatBrianDePalma(whoseappropriatelyentitledfilmBlowOut
hadexploredforsoundrecordingin1981thesurveillantissuesraisedearlierbyBlowUp),setshis1998thriller
Snake Eyes in a New Jersey
casinooutfittedwithmassivelyredundant,re-mote-controllablePTZsurveillance.Thisstate-of-the-artsystemgetsemployedinthe
film as the means by which,
followingwhatseemslikeaterroristattack,theslightlycorruptimpresarioplayedbyNicholasCagetracksanelusivefemalecorded
surveillance, more recent cinematicappropriations of surveillance
tend increas-ingly to harness the narrative dynamics ofa very
different sort of monitoring: that
ofrealtimeobservation.Thetransitionbe-tweenwhatonecouldcalltwodifferentregimes
of surveillant narration is
evidentinafilmsuchastheMabuse-remakeSliver
(PhillipNoyce,1993)where,unbe-knownsttothedwellersofahigh-classManhattanhigh-rise,theentirebuildinghasbeenwiredforcontinuous,remotePTZ(pan-tiltandzoom)surveillance.Whiletheevilyuppieprogrammerwhoinstalledandexploitsthissystemmain-tains
a collection of clandestinely recordedsurveillance tapes of his
various amorousconquestsindeeditisjustthesevideorecordings which,
as material traces of hissurveillant transgression, ultimately
bringabout his demise the bulk of the
filmsnarrativetitillationliesinitsbrazenlyscopophilicinvasioninrealtime
oftheThomas Y. Levin __ Rhetoric of the Temporal IndexSnake
EyesUSA: Brian De Palma1998, color, 98 min videostillsParamount
Pictures | 589recastintermsof classicalHollywoodnarrative, as is
most immediately obviousin the surveillant variation on the
familiarshot-reverse shot in which Nicholas Cage,who is down in the
casino,is seen from
ahighanglelookingup(intothesurveil-lancecamera),whilehiswalkie-talkieinterlocutor
in the surveillance booth over-looking the gambling floor is shown
in thereverseshotfromalowanglelookingdown into his surveillance
monitor. Evenmore striking is the surveillant renderingof one of
the most self-consciously
artifi-cialdevicesinthearsenalofclassicalnarration: the highly
stylized
impossibleomniscienceshotwhoseparadigmaticinstanceistheonethatcapturesloversgazing
into the flames from a perspectivelocated inside the fireplace. In
Snake Eyes,
atapointwhereboththeheroandthebadguyareclosinginonthegirlbuthavelostherinadeliriousmazeofendlesslyidenticalhotelhallways(actuallyshotinsuspect,usingthefullresourcesofthecasinos
surveillance control
booth.HerethesurveillantnarrationthatwasalmostinvisibleinthesubtlefinaleofTheCon-versation
becomesforegrounded butinanimportantly ambiguous manner: the
filmconstantlyshiftsfrommoreclassicallyomniscient narration to what
one could calla diegeticized surveillant omniscience thatis, a
spectacle of real-time CCTV tracking. While it could be argued
that, becauseit places the spectator in the very
pleasur-able(becauseveryempowering)positionoftheCCTVoperator,SnakeEyes
servestolegitimate surveillancethroughsubtle,formal means, one
could also insist,
con-versely,thatbecauseherethespectatorsnarrativedesireissatisfiedbyacameralogicthatisexplicitlysurveillant,thisex-poses
a certain regime of narrative
cinemaasfundamentallycomplicitwithcertainaspectsofthevisualeconomyofsurveil-lance.
Of course, surveillance here is
alsogenreofrealityTVasauteuristmega-production, this drama of the
encounter ofcontingency and intention, is a most
strik-ingexampleofthedegreetowhichcon-temporary cinema is
registering and beingtransformed by questions of
surveillance,boththematicallyandstructurally.Inyetanother variation
of the surveillant
recast-ingoftraditionalnarrativeomniscience,herethatdiegeticizedsurveillantomnis-cience
is itself a thoroughly foregroundedcomponent of the diegesis the
real pre-sentedasaspectaclemanagedinrealtime. Like many others of
late, this filmeffectivelycreates(andtosomedegreeendorses) a
spectatorial position that is
inlargepartidenticaltothatofthesurveil-lanceoperator.Indeed,Iwouldsuggestthatthisharnessingofsurveillanceascompellingnarrationalrhetoricisanim-portantandsociologicallysymptomaticpartofitsappeal.Asanonlyminimallyscripted
televisual production governed bythe conditions of the
live-broadcast, thediegetic Truman Showcan be read as a
pro-lepticvariationonthereality-soapidiomwhose status as a global
phenomenon wasquickly confirmed by the contagious
successoftheBigBrother formatpioneeredbyEndemol Productions in
Holland less
thanayearlater.TrumansshowisclearlyTheVenetianhotelinLasVegas),thecamera
suddenly embarks on what
couldonlybecalledawetdreamofsurveillantomniscience,craningupandoverthewallsofthehallwayinanimpossibleshotthattracksacrossoneroomafteranother
as if the ceiling had been lifted
off,peeringdownintoeachuntilfinallyitlocates the object of
narrative desire.
Whatisstrikinghere,ofcourse,isthatwhatrenderstheshotimpossibleisnot
thecrassviolationofprivacy,butonlythesequences diegetically
implausible struc-ture as a track, an impossibility that
fore-groundstheall-toodiegeticallyplausiblecharacter of most of the
films other
usesofclearlysurveillantnarration.Inotherwords,whatweseehereisthedegreetowhichthestylisticsofsurveillancehasenabled
contemporary cinema to
displacethehighlyartificial(i.e.foregrounded)classical structures
of omniscient narrationinto the diegesis itself in the form of a
nowincreasingly diegetically plausible surveil-lant
omniscience.WhilesurveillanceplaysasignificantnarrationalroleinSnakeEyes
itseemsnegligiblewhencomparedwithTheTru-manShow,the1998PeterWeirfilmchronicling
a life subjected to continuousreal time observation. This recasting
of the08 RECASTINGS:SURVEILLANTSUBVERSIONS 590 |Thomas Y. Levin __
Rhetoric of the Temporal IndexThe Truman ShowUSA: Peter Weir1998,
color, 103 min videostillsParamount Pictures | 591which one has no
control.Furthermore,by limiting the panoptical environment
tothatofthemega-studiowheretheshowtakes place, the film
simultaneously in-vokes a world of total panopticism but
alsoinsists that it is not our world, but only thatof the
(hubristic) televisual
simulacrum.Whatismostmedia-historicallyim-portant,however,aboutthisparticularmobilizationoftherhetoricsofsurveil-lanceistheclaimthatTheTrumanShowisbroadcastlive.Thefilmsrepeatedemphasis
on its real time character is ofcourse a response to a particular
conditionoftelevision:indeed,whatmarksthistypeofsurveillanceistheforegroundeddiegetic
recasting of cinematic narration
asaliveandthoroughlytelevisualmulti-camera production. Moving far
beyond thecomparatively primitive surveillance
vanusedinTheConversation
(andevenitsmorehigh-techvariantinEnemyoftheState
[TonyScott,1998],therecentGPS-era remake of the Coppola film), the
sur-veillance mothership in The Truman Showisaliterallypanoptical
televisionproduc-tion studio. It is here that Christo
directsthevastteameffortwhichisresponsiblefor the continuous, real
time drama that isTrumanslifeanditsliveglobalbroad-cast. One can
begin to understand why thefilm goes to such lengths to point out
thatitsproductiontakesplaceinrealtimewhen one recalls that there is
a televisualequivalentofthedigitalunderminingofphoto-chemical
indexicality: one could
callittheanxietyofpost-production.Inthedomainofcommercialcinemathiswasarticulated
most ironically in Barry
Levin-sonscorrosive1997filmWagtheDog,different in scale: his
container admittedlyconsiderably larger (a vast and domed
gatedcommunity bounded by water rather
thansimplyacarceralapartmentboundedbyfences)andthenumberofparticipantsdecidedly
greater (a cast of thousands, asit were, rather than simply a dozen
cross-sectional,consentingcompetitors).Moreimportantly, however, it
differs in kind: thekey difference, of course, being that unlikethe
Big Brother participants, Truman is un-aware and only slowly comes
to suspect that his is a life under constant surveil-lance. As the
story of his coming to gripswith a fundamentally paranoid world
view(the insight that everyone is in fact watch-ing me), The Truman
Showfunctions as anallegory of surveillant literacy. But surely
itisnotthatwhichmakesthestagingofalife under surveillance such a
compellingspectacletotheenthusiasticandworld-wide televisual
audience that is
repeatedlydepictedinthefilm?Besidestheclassicvoyeuristpleasureofbeingabletowatchsomeonewhodoesnotrealizetheyarebeing
observed, what marks the specificityof the attraction of the Truman
Show quaspectacle,Iwouldargue,isinfactitssimultaneousflaunting
andcontainmentof surveillance. By means of various
fore-groundingdevicesirismasksontheimagethatsignalhiddencameras,voice-overnarrationthattellsuspreciselywhichdevice(button-cam,sidewalk-cam,crane-cam)isbeingused,etc.surveillancehereisrevealedtotheeagerdiegeticspectators(andthusalwaysalready
also to us) as readable, as recogniz-able and thus assuages the
anxiety of aninvisible,unreadablesurveillanceoverWag the DogUSA:
Barry Levinson1997, 97 min videostillsNew Line Cinema08
RECASTINGS:SURVEILLANTSUBVERSIONS 592
|happeninginso-calledrealtimeandthus by virtue of its technical
conditionsof production is supposedly not
suscep-tibletopost-productionmanipulation.Thefundamentallyindexicalrhetoric
ofcinemaspre-digitalphoto-chemicalpastthus survives in the digital
age, albeit nowre-cast in the form of the temporal indexi-cality of
the real-time surveillant image.The fact that the temporal
indexicalityofrealtimesurveillancehasbecomeanimportant new idiom of
cinemas realityeffect in the early twenty-first century isevident
not only in the transformation thatthis has effected in the
narrative structuresoffilmssuchasEnemyoftheState andThe Truman
Show. It has also spawned
anentirelynewcinematic,orperhapspost-cinematic,paradigmofsurveillantnar-rationofthesortexemplifiedbyMikeFiggis
remarkable film Time Code (2000).Pushing the real-time question
already ex-plored decades earlier in Hitchcocks
Ropetoanastonishingnewlimit,thefeature-lengthfilmdividesthemoviescreenpermanently
into four real-time quadrantsaformalinvocationoftheby-nowfamiliar
multiple-monitor surveillance set-up each of which contains a
more-or-lessautonomous narrative conveyed by
meansofacontinuousninety-minutetake.Eliminatinganytraceofacut,TimeCodeeffectively
recasts the cinema as a surveil-lance station where we watch the
activitiesof four temporally synchronized real
timefeeds.Thefilmwasconstructedusing,asthepublicitymaterialsannounce,4cameras.
No edits. Real time. At 3pm
on19November1999,sothefinalcreditsexplain,fourcameramenstartedtheirsynchronizeddigitalvideocamerasandeachfollowed(putundersurveillance?)oneofthefourcentralcharacters(orcharacter
groups) who, over the course
ofthenextuninterruptedninety-minutes,encountereachotherbothacoustically(cell-phone/audio
surveillance) and visuallyinwaysthatoftenlinkandsometimesThomas Y.
Levin __ Rhetoric of the Temporal Index4 _ Mary-Ann Doane,
Information, Crisis, Catastrophe, in Logics of Television, Patricia
Mellen-camp (ed.), Indiana UP, Bloomington 1990, pp.
222-239.whicheffectivelyunderminedanuncriti-cal belief in the
referential veracity of TV byexposinghowthetelevisualimageitselfcan
be constructed piece by piece in theage of digital effects. This
further explainsthe rhetorical urgency behind the shift inthe
cinematic exploitation of surveillancefrom videotape to real time:
by means ofits appropriation of the rhetorics of livetelevisual
broadcast, cinema has recast itssurveillant images from their
earlier statusas recordings which could, of course, besubjected to
all sorts of manipulation andwould, as such, not provide the
rhetoricalsurplus needed in the wake of the declineof celluloids
photogrammatic
referential-ity.Oneshouldrecallthat,asMaryAnnDoanehaspointedoutsocompellingly,while
cinemas primary category is that ofspace (pro-filmic space,
photographic space,narrative space), the semiotic signature
oftelevisionis,ofcourse,thatoftime.4Byadopting the rhetorics of
real-time broad-castsocharacteristicoftelevisionandacertain economy
of CCTV not to mentionthat of webcam culture cinema has
dis-placedanimpoverishedspatialrhetoricofphoto-chemicalindexicalitywithathoroughlycontemporary,andequallysemiotically
motivated rhetoric of tempo-ral indexicality. Just as previously
one com-ponent of the photographs claim to truthwas the belief
that, thanks to its mechani-cal conditions of production and its
photo-chemical basis it was (unlike other
media)notsubjectinthesamemannertothedictatesofagencyorintention,andthatthis
lack of intervention within the photo-graphic space at some level
guaranteed theveracity of the representation, so too, now,a similar
claim of non-intervention
couldbesaidtogovernthesurveillantimagebroadcast in real-time. What
has happenedhereisthatthespatial
indexicalitythatgovernedtheearlierphotographiccondi-tion has here
been replaced by a temporalindexicality, an image whose truth is
sup-posedly guaranteed by the fact that it is|
593ofitsconditionsofproduction:Forthefirst time, a film shot in
real time boaststheslickwebsiteatwww.sony.com/time-code. The films
very title not only invokesthe technical means employed to
achievethesyncofsoundandimage(and,inthiscase,ofimageandimageaswell);italsopointstothefactthatheretimeisthe
key, or code, to both the multi-taskingchallenge
posedbythefourimagesandtheir coherence as a quartet. If the
rhetori-calpowerofthisfilmalongwiththeother instances of real time
surveillancediscussed above are any indication,
whatwearewitnessinghereintheshiftfromspatial to temporal
indexicality is nothinglessthanafundamentalrecastingofthecinematic
medium in terms of what couldbe called a rhetorics of
surveillance.brieflymergesome oftheirrespectivequadrants. The
product of this remarkablechoreography of real time camerawork
andsemi-improvised acting effectively a
new(literal)takeonthehackneyeddocu-drama genre and a redemption for
a certainauteurismofthealeatoryfascinationofwatching any
surveillance installation isa spectacular excess of visual
information.Whileonesocularattentionisatsomelevel guided by the
soundtrack whose shift-ing volume levels across the quadrants
cuetheviewerastowhichisnarrationallysalient at any given moment,
the film as
awholeneverthelessremainsthoroughlyoverwhelming.InacuriousrecastingofAndr
Bazins argument about the
truthoflongtake,however,theunambiguouscelebrationofsemioticexcessinTimeCode
is explicitly justified as a new form
ofrealism,incontrasttothefakerealitysupposedlycreatedbythedistortingselectivity
of montage. Despite (or
perhapsbecauseof)theseeminglyheterodoxcharacter of its more-or-less
independentdigital-video quadrants a visual challengeeven for
graduates of the spectatorial bootcamp of MTV hyper-montage Time
Codesrealistclaimsarebased,asthefilmspublicity materials never fail
to remind us,on the unprecedented temporal coherenceTime Code USA:
Mike Figgis2000, color, 97 min videostills from DVDScreen Gems