Table Of Content

Georges Didi-Huberman and Film i Series Editors: L ú cia Nagib Professor in Film at the University of Reading Tiago de Luca Associate Professor in Film & Television Studies at the University of Warwick Advisory Board: Martine Beugnet , Universit é Diderot Paris Th omas Elsaesser , University of Amsterdam Catherine Grant , Birkbeck University D.N. Rodowick , Th e University of Chicago Á gnes Peth ő , Sapientia University David Martin-Jones , University of Glasgow Philip Rosen , Brown University Laura U. Marks , Simon Fraser University Film Th inks is an original book series that asks: how has fi lm infl uenced the way we think? Th e books in this series are concise, engaging editions written by experts in fi lm history and theory, each focusing on a past or present philosopher, thinker or writer whose intellectual landscape has been shaped by cinema. F ilm Th inks aims to further understanding and appreciation, through sophisticated but accessible language, of the thought derived from great fi lms. Whilst explaining and interpreting these thinkers’ ideas and the fi lms at their origin, the series will celebrate cinema’s capacity to inspire and entertain – and ultimately to change the world. Aimed at fi lm fans as well as specialists, Film Th inks is devoted to knowledge about cinema and philosophy as much as to the pleasure of watching fi lms. Published and forthcoming in the F ilm Th inks series: Adorno and Film: Th inking in Images By James Hellings No ë l Carroll and Film: A Philosophy of Art and Popular Culture By Mario Slugan Roland Barthes and Film: Photography, Myth and Leaving the Cinema By Patrick Ffrench Slavoj Ž i ž ek and Film: A Cinematic Ontology By Christine Evans Stanley Cavell and Film: Scepticism and Self-Reliance at the Cinema By Catherine Wheatley Queries, ideas and submissions to: Series Editor: Professor L ú cia Nagib – [email protected] Series Editor: Dr Tiago de Luca – [email protected] Senior Commissioning Editor at Bloomsbury: Anna Coatman – [email protected] ii Georges Didi-Huberman and Film Th e Politics of the Image Alison Smith iii BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2021 Copyright © Alison Smith, 2021 Alison Smith has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identifi ed as Author of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. vi constitute an extension of this copyright page. Cover design: Charlotte Daniels All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-1-7845-3984-9 ePDF: 978-1-3501-6040-8 eBook: 978-1-3501-6041-5 Series: Film Thinks Typeset by Refi neCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk To fi nd out more about our authors and books visit w ww.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our n ewsletters . iv Contents Acknowledgements vi Introduction 1 1 Images of the Holocaust 19 2 Th e Meaning of Montage 37 3 People, Passion and Politics 75 4 Anachronism, Survival and Filmic Firefl ies 113 Conclusion 145 Bibliography 149 Index 171 v Acknowledgements I would like to thank Liverpool University for providing me with a period of research leave and with general support in preparing and completing this manuscript. In particular, thanks are due to Lisa Shaw and Eve Rosenhaft for their careful reading of draft versions of the diff erent chapters and helpful suggestions for improvements. I would also like to thank the series editors, Lúcia Nagib and Tiago de Luca, who also read the fi nished draft and provided support and suggestions, and the publishing administration at Bloomsbury, Camilla Erskine and Veidehi Hans, who have been most helpful in navigating the manuscript through its fi nal stages in the very diffi cult circumstances of Spring 2020. vi Introduction Georges Didi-Huberman is a philosopher of images. In his early writings, these were photographs and paintings, in keeping with the discipline of art history to which he nominally owed allegiance; but over the course of an extremely prolifi c and rapidly-developing career, that initial disciplinary identifi cation has blurred as his subjects of study have widened and ramifi ed. Notably, to an ever-accelerating extent, the images with which he is concerned have taken on motion. Film has been an essential presence in Didi-Huberman’s writing for many years now; and although his early work on the subject was largely – although not exclusively – concerned with montage, from the start it went beyond an art-historical interest in fi lmic use of still images, recognising and refl ecting upon the importance and specifi city of fi lm footage in which movement, rhythm and gesture are an integral part of the image-phenomenon. Since 2008 (the period which will be of most interest to us in the following pages), fi lm has been central to an increasing politicisation of Didi-Huberman’s preoccupations. Th is book seeks to off er an introduction for English-speaking readers to the wealth of theoretical potential contained in Didi-Huberman’s writings on fi lm, which are as yet largely unknown to English fi lm scholars due to the continued lack of accessible translations of the author’s later work. In European scholarship Didi-Huberman’s place as a fi lm theorist is becoming more assured, and his role in bringing fi lm fi rmly to the forefront of debate on representation, political responsibility and the uses of the image is recognised. As Irene Valle Corpas put it in 2018, he has been instrumental in bringing cinema into the orbit of art history as a moving medium, rather than allowing the discipline to 1 2 Georges Didi-Huberman and Film ‘reconvert’ it into a mere study of ‘the images of History . . . dead and eternal’.1 He has also engaged in lively debate, notably with Jacques Ranci è re, over the understanding of political cinema notably in the context of its potential for infl uence on an audience, and he is a frequent interlocutor of contemporary fi lmmakers such as Vincent Dieutre, Laura Waddington, Alfredo Jaar or Sylvain George.2 His direction of thought fi nds parallels in some of the most dynamic theoretical currents in French (and international) fi lm thinking, for example Nicole Brenez’s work on montage, or (and increasingly) the area of fi lm-phenomenology pioneered in French scholarship by Raymond Bellour and in Anglophone studies by Vivien Sobchack and Laura Marks.3 In this study our primary focus will be on the work Didi-Huberman has produced on the formulation of a political philosophy of image practice – practice being understood as at once production, reception, and the organisation of reception, for example through curation. We will look at the foundations of this strand of Didi-Huberman’s work from his fi rst sustained theses on the importance of montage, through his writings on cinema and history in the context of a well-known exchange with the journal L es Temps modernes concerning the role of images in transmitting the memory of the Holocaust. Th rough a 1 Valle Corpas, Irene (2018), ‘Un cine impuro para salvar la Historia del Arte: algunas notas sobre el pensamiento de la im á genes del cine en Jacques Ranci è re y Didi- Huberman’, B olet í n de Arte , 39, 245–254. p. 249. 2 A recorded public discussion between Didi-Huberman and George (one of several which have taken place) can be viewed on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=pHHaoa7tJrc . An exchange with Jaar related to their mutual interest in fi lm and in Pasolini is available on DailyMotion here: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/ xro1dw . Most recently Didi-Huberman’s closest fi lm contacts have been with Alexander Kluge, whose memoir Chronique des sentiments he reviewed in Le Monde des images in 2016 (the review was republished in Aper ç ues as ‘Cent mille millards d’images’, op. cit. , 28–31). A dialogue between these two can be viewed here: https://www.lesauterhin.eu/ alexander-kluge-georges-didi-huberman-machtlos-impuissant-ou-sans-pouvoir/. 3 See Bellour, Raymond (2009), Le Corps du cin é ma: Hypnoses, Emotions, Animalit é s , Paris, P.O.L.; Sobchack, Vivian (1992), Th e Address of the Eye: A Phenomenology of Film Experience , Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press; Marks, Laura (2000), Th e Skin of the Film: Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment and the Senses , Durham NC and London: Duke University Press Introduction 3 sustained focus on the series of volumes collectively titled L ’Oeil de l’histoire (Th e Eye of History), published between 2009 and 2015, we will examine how his engagement with cinema has developed concurrently with a strongly marked turn towards political analyses of image-making; this important re-direction is, we will argue, in part traceable to the exceptional infl uence achieved by the philosophical essay S urvivance des lucioles (Survival of the Firefl ies) published independently of the L’Oeil de l’histoire series in 2009. Over the last decade Didi-Huberman has become an infl uential voice at the interface between visual culture, politics and philosophy, with his work an important reference for younger writers such as Marielle Mac é . Th e recent polemic with his long-standing friend and interlocutor Jacques Ranci è re over the audience reception of images clearly indicates the potential which Didi- Huberman’s contemporary production may have for contributing to the fi eld of fi lm-studies. As the most signifi cant parts of this body of work begin to appear in translation, 4 Anglophone students should increasingly become aware of the paths he is opening in the study of our medium. * * * Th e proliferation of Didi-Huberman’s interests derives from a writing practice which he has variously described as ‘papillonnement’ [fl uttering], 5 as a ‘travail aux travers,’ 6 or as a Borgesian project. 7 All 4 To date two volumes of the L ’Oeil de l’histoire series, on which this study is most focused, have appeared in English: Volume 1 as Th e Eye of History: When Images Take Positions (tr. Shane B. Lillis, Th ierry Gervais, Boston: MIT Press 2018); Volume 3 as A tlas, or the Anxious Gay Science (tr. Shane B. Lillis, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2018). Unfortunately for fi lm students, these are the two volumes of the series least concerned with cinema; the publishers’ choices seem to refl ect the general Anglophone perception of Didi-Huberman as a writer of interest primarily to art historians. 5 ‘Apparaissant, disparaissant, papillonnant’ (2006), fi rst published in Spanish in 2007 (L a imagen mariposa , Barcelona: Edici ó n Mudito, tr. J. J. Lahuerta). Full French publication as introduction to P hal è nes , Minuit, 2013, pp. 9–78. Quote p. 12. Th is essay recuperates a criticism which he had apparently attracted from certain academic colleagues. 6 ‘Travailler aux travers’, Aper ç ues , Minuit 2018, pp. 21– 24. 7 ‘Par marges et raccourcis’, A per ç ues , Minuit 2018, pp. 15–17.