Mystifying Movies: Fads & Fallacies in Contemporary Film Theory

272 Pages·1988·15.985 MB·English

by  Noël Carroll

MYSTIFYING MOVIES

NOËL CARROLL
M Y S T I F Y I NG
M O V I ES
FADS & FALLACIES IN
CONTEMPORARY
FILM THEORY
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York 1988
Columbia University Press
New York Oxford
Copyright © 1988 Noël Carroll
All rights reserved
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Carroll, Noel (Noël E.)
Mystifying movies : fads & fallacies in contemporary film theory /
Noël Carroll,
p. cm.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-231-05955-8
1. Philosophy. 2. Film criticism. 3. Motion pictures. I. Title.
PN1995.C356 1988
791.43'.01—dcl9 87-36448
CIP
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, through a special grant,
has assisted the Press in publishing this volume.
Hardback editions of Columbia University Press books are
Smyth-sewn and arc printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper.
©
Printed in the United States of America
p 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 21
c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 21
Dedicated to Annette Michelson

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
INTRODUCTION 1
I. PSYCHOANALYSIS: METZ AND BAUDRY 9
Jean-Louis Baudry and "The Apparatus" 13
Metz's Imaginary Signifier 32
Metz's Daydreams 44
Conclusion 48
II. MARXISM AND PSYCHOANALYSIS:
THE ALTHUSSERIAN-LACANIAN PARADIGM 53
Althusser and Ideology: Marxism and the
Invocation of Psychoanalysis 56
Lacan and the Construction of the Subject 62
An Initial Questioning of the Presuppositions of
the Althusserian-Lacanian Paradigm 73
The Explanatory Power of Ideology 84
III. THE CINEMATIC IMAGE 89
Illusionism 90
Photography and the Cinematic Image 106
Perspective 127
An Alternative View of the Cinematic Image 138
Vili CONTENTS
IV. NARRATION 147
Enunciation 150
The Internal Structure and Function of Narrative 160
An Alternative Account of Movie Narration 170
V. CINEMATIC NARRATION 182
Suture 183
An Alternative Account of Cinematic Narration 199
The Power of Movies 208
A Contribution to the Theory of Movie Music 213
CONCLUSION. Problems and Prospects of
Contemporary Film Theory 214
Notes 235
Index 259
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I HAVE dedicated this book to Annette Michelson who has been my
teacher—both formally and informally—for nearly two decades. In fact,
this book grew out of an opportunity generously provided by Annette
Michelson when she invited me to review Stephen Heath's Questions of
Cinema for the journal October. She spent a long, hot summer in Vermont
listening to me work out my ideas about contemporary film theory. And
though she often strongly disagreed with me, she graciously shared her
wide knowledge of film and the French intellectual milieu, enabling me to
clarify my arguments. She has also made helpful comments about my
treatment of Metz, my responses to Heath, and my thesis concerning the
power of movies. She has always managed to be critical and encouraging,
even about views of mine of which she is extremely skeptical; a better
mentor would be hard to find.
P. Adams Sitney, Tony Pipolo, Stuart Liebman, Leger Grindon, Amy
Taubin, Gerald O'Grady, Bruce Jenkins, Tony Conrad, Douglas Gomery,
Ted Perry, Peter Lehman, Bill Luhr, Berenice Reynaud, Kristin Thomp-
son, Johnny Buchsbaum, Jerry Rabkin, Raymond Carney, Michael Ryan,
Robert Sklar, Vance Kepley, Janet Staiger, David Rodowick, John Belton,
Carl Plantinga, and Daryl Davis have heard or read parts of this text and
have made careful comments and supported the project in various ways.
Perhaps the person in cinema studies who has been most influential in
the progress of this book has been David Bordwell. For nearly a decade, we
have sustained an intense dialogue ranging, I conjecture, over every topic of
film theory. He has forced me to reconsider my interpretations of and
arguments against contemporary film theory on numerous occasions. He
has shared his vast research in film history with me, saving me more than
X ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
once from a historical blunder. He and I share a conviction that cognitive
models of film theory have advantages that the reigning psychoanalytic
models lack. He has pursued this topic in greater depth than I have; I wish
him good speed.
Through Wesleyan's splendid Center for the Humanities, I have had the
opportunity to discuss my research with scholars outside my own field,
including Richard Vann, Hazel Carby, Michael Denning, Hubert O'Gor-
man, Christina Crosby, Richard Slotkin, Susan Foster, Richard Ohmann,
Richard Stamelman, Leo Lensing, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Rena
Grant, Bruce Greenwald, Marylin Arthur, Neil Lazarus, and Ellen Rooney.
Some of these people will be stunned at finding their names in this acknowl-
edgment; but their criticisms, I feel, were both genuine and productive.
Most important, in this regard, are Elizabeth Traube and Khachig Tolol-
yan, who in my first semester at Wesleyan started a popular culture study
group that facilitated a great deal of lively and serious debate in a most
congenial atmosphere. Both Betsy and Khachig have also offered extensive
responses to my writings, from which I have benefited greatly. David
Konstan, late of Wesleyan, now at Brown, read large parts of the manu-
script and made pointed suggestions and comic asides.
I have many philosophers to thank for comments they have made after
hearing or reading parts of this manuscript. They include Marx Wartofsky,
Joe Margolis, Ted Cohen, Bruce Vermazen, Roger Shiner, Alex Sesonske,
Flo Leibowitz, Dale Jamieson, Richard Eldridge, Mary Devereaux, Allan
Casebier, George Wilson, Allan Weiss, Kevin Sweeney, Don Crawford,
Jack Glickman, Laurent Stern, Evan Cameron, Brian Fay, Joel Snyder, Jay
Bachrach, Chris Gauker, Annette Barnes, Sue Cunningham, Gary Shapiro,
Sam Kerstein, and Arthur Danto. George Dickie, Paul Guyer, Peter Kivy,
and the late Irving Thalberg, Jr., read the earliest stages of this project and
provided more than ample feedback. Stanley Cavell discussed my debate
with Heath with me insightfully, and Ian Jarvie, when I see him, has let me
bend his ear mercilessly.
My original editor at Columbia, Bill Germano, was immensely enthusi-
astic and expeditious. Jennifer Crewe and Joan McQuary have continued in
the same spirit.
Most of all, I have Sally Banes to thank for sharing her ideas, her life, and
her computer with me during the grumpy times in which such books are
composed. She not only tolerated the superstitious rituals I instituted while
writing, but was willing to examine critically the results as if a sane person
had produced them. Neither she nor anyone above is responsible for the
flaws in this text. I suppose I am.