Plastic Recognition: The Politics and Aesthetics of Facial Representation from Silent Cinema to ...

214 Pages·2013·6.03 MB·English

by  Abraham M Geil

Plastic  Recognition:  The  Politics  and  Aesthetics  of  Facial  Representation  from  Silent  
Cinema  to  Cognitive  Neuroscience  
by  
Abraham  Geil  
Program  in  Literature  
Duke  University  

Date:_______________________  
Approved:  

___________________________  
Mark  B.N.  Hansen,  Co-­‐‑Supervisor  

___________________________  
Gregory  Flaxman,  Co-­‐‑Supervisor  

___________________________  
Fredric  Jameson  

___________________________  
Jane  Gaines  

___________________________  
Inga  Pollmann  

Dissertation  submitted  in  partial  fulfillment  of  
the  requirements  for  the  degree  of  Doctor  
of  Philosophy  in  the  Program  in  
Literature  in  the  Graduate  School  
of  Duke  University  

2013
ABSTRACT  
Plastic  Recognition:  The  Politics  and  Aesthetics  of  Facial  Representation  from  Silent  
Cinema  to  Cognitive  Neuroscience    
by  
Abraham  Geil  
Program  in  Literature  
Duke  University  

Date:_______________________  
Approved:  

___________________________  
Mark  B.N.  Hansen,  Co-­‐‑Supervisor  

___________________________  
Gregory  Flaxman,  Co-­‐‑Supervisor  

___________________________  
Fredric  Jameson  

___________________________  
Jane  Gaines  

___________________________  
Inga  Pollmann  

An  abstract  of  a  dissertation  submitted  in  partial  
fulfillment  of  the  requirements  for  the  degree  
of  Doctor  of  Philosophy  in  the  Program  in  
Literature  in  the  Graduate  School  of  
Duke  University  

2013
Copyright  by  
Abraham  Geil  
2013
Abstract
Plastic  Recognition  traces  a  critical  genealogy  of  the  human  face  in  cinema  and  its  
afterlives.  By  rethinking  the  history  of  film  theory  through  its  various  investments  in  the  
face,  it  seeks  to  intervene  not  only  in  the  discipline  of  film  studies  but  more  broadly  
within  contemporary  political  and  scientific  discourse.  This  dissertation  contends  that  
the  face  is  a  privileged  site  for  thinking  through  the  question  of  recognition,  a  concept  
that  cuts  across  a  range  of  aesthetic,  political,  philosophical,  and  scientific  thought.  
Plastic  Recognition  examines  this  intimate  link  between  the  face  and  recognition  through  
a  return  to  “classical”  film  theory,  and  specifically  to  the  first  generation  of  European  
and  Soviet  film  theorists’  preoccupation  with  the  face  in  silent  cinema.  In  the  process,  it  
recasts  the  canonical  debate  over  cinematic  specificity  between  Béla  Balázs  and  Sergei  
Eisenstein  as  an  antagonism  between  two  opposing  conceptions  of  the  face  in  film:  
transparent  universalism  versus  plastic  typicality.    Of  these  two  conceptions,  this  project  
contends  that  the  “Balázsian”  idea  of  a  transparently  expressive  face  assumes  cultural  
dominance  in  the  latter  half  of  the  20th  century  by  virtue  of  its  essential  
commensurability  with  the  political  and  social  ideal  of  mutual  recognition  that  has  come  
to  prevail  in  the  United  States  and  Western  Europe  in  the  context  of  neoliberalism.  
Alongside  and  against  this  dominant  tendency,  the  “Eisensteinian”  insistence  upon  the  
plasticity  of  aesthetic  form  provides  a  radical  alternative  to  the  idealist  metaphysics  of  

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immediacy  underlying  both  the  “Balázsian”  notion  of  the  cinematic  face  and  the  ideal  of  
mutual  recognition  it  exemplifies.  That  insistence  forces  into  view  the  ways  that  
recognition  itself  is  always  contingent  upon  aesthetic  and  technological  practices,  even  
(or  especially)  when  it  is  brokered  by  that  seemingly  most  immediate  of  images—the  
human  face.  By  adopting  this  approach  as  its  basic  critical  orientation,  this  dissertation  
attempts  to  restage  the  problem  of  recognition  as  fundamentally  about  the  historicity  of  
plastic  form.  The  project  concludes  by  turning  to  a  scientific  scene  of  recognition  in  
which  the  “Balázsian”  conception  of  the  face  makes  an  uncanny  reappearance.  The  final  
chapter  examines  several  studies  in  contemporary  neuroscience  that  use  representations  
of  the  human  face  as  experimental  stimuli  in  an  effort  to  establish  a  neurophysiological  
basis  for  the  mutual  recognition  of  empathy.    

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Dedication

For  Laura,  Dominick,  Raphael  

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Contents
Abstract  .........................................................................................................................................  iv

List  of  Figures  .................................................................................................................................  x

Acknowledgements  .....................................................................................................................  xi

1.  Introduction  ................................................................................................................................  1

2.  Static  Recognition:  Physiognomy  in  Béla  Balázs’s  Visible  Man  .........................................  13

2.1  Introduction  .....................................................................................................................  13

2.2  Between  History  and  Expressivity:  Balázs’s  Paradox  of  Form  .................................  16

2.3  Cinema’s  Universal  (Anti-­‐‑)  Language  .........................................................................  23

2.4  Balázs’s  Romantic  Physiognomy  ..................................................................................  30

2.5  Goethe  on  Film?  ...............................................................................................................  39

2.6  Lavater  and  Physiognomy  as  Nature  Morte  ...............................................................  43

2.7  Transcendental  Physiognomy:  Balázs’s  Laocoönism  ................................................  48

2.8  Balázs  and  Agamben  ......................................................................................................  55

2.9  Alien  Races  /  Nature’s  Faces  ..........................................................................................  61

3.  Eisenstein’s  “Formal  Ecstasy”:  Typage  and  Plasticity........................................................  68

3.1  Introduction  .....................................................................................................................  68

3.2  Infinite  Types:  Typage  as  Comedic  Anagnôrisis  ........................................................  71

3.3  Typage  as  Caricature:  A  Juncture  of  Opposites  ..........................................................  81

3.3.1  From  “Living  Man”  to  “Image”  [Obraz]  .................................................................  86

3.3.2  Galton’s  Composite  Photography  ...........................................................................  92

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3.4  Dynamic  Typicality  .........................................................................................................  97

3.4.1  Physiognomy  as  Self-­‐‑generalizing  Form  ................................................................  99

3.5  Animal  Typicality  in  Strike  ..........................................................................................  104

3.5.1  Superimposition  .......................................................................................................  112

3.6  Mimesis  and  The  Politics  of  Form  ..............................................................................  115

3.6.1  Eisenstein  and  Balázs  at  La  Sarraz  .........................................................................  115

3.6.2  Beyond  Forgotten  Scissors:  Cinematic  Movement  ..............................................  123

3.6.3  Shklovsky:  False  Movement,  Thought,  and  Defamiliarization  .........................  129

3.7  Eisenstein’s  Spectator:  From  Calculability  to  Ecstatic  Form  ...................................  131

3.7.1  Typing  the  Audience  ...............................................................................................  135

3.7.2  Expressive  Movement  and  Contour  Drawing  .....................................................  141

3.8  Conclusion  ......................................................................................................................  149

4.  Neuro-­‐‑Recognition:  Mirror  Neurons,  Empathy,  and  the  Face  ........................................  154

4.1  Introduction  ...................................................................................................................  154

4.2  The  Naturalization  of  Empathy  ..................................................................................  156

4.3  Experimental  Design  and/of  Spectatorship  ...............................................................  162

4.3.1  The  Mimetic  Gap  ......................................................................................................  171

4.3.2  Neural  Mechanisms  for  Empathy  in  General  ......................................................  177

4.3.3  “Both  of  Us  Disgusted  in  My  Insula”  ....................................................................  178

4.4  The  Heteronomy  of  Affect  ...........................................................................................  180

4.5  Pavlov’s  Return:  Mirror  Neurons  and  Associational  Conditioning  ......................  185

4.6  Conclusion:  Mirror  Neurons  Beyond  Good  and  Evil  ..............................................  185

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Coda:  “A  Gesture  Can  Blow  Up  a  Town”  ..............................................................................  189

Bibliography  ...............................................................................................................................  193

Biography  ....................................................................................................................................  203

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List of Figures
Figure  1:  Machine  for  drawing  silhouettes.  From  the  1792  English  edition  of  Johann  
Kasper  Lavater'ʹs  Essays  on  Physiognomy.  ..................................................................................  45

Figure  2:  Skull  and  Mask  from  Lavater’s  Physiognomische  Fragmente  ..................................  47

Figure  3:  The  Literal  Animism  of  the  “Rogues  Gallery”  in  Strike  .......................................  106

Figure  4:  Superimposition  of  Animal  Types  in  Strike  ...........................................................  108

Figure  5:  Eisenstein'ʹs  "ʺIn  the  World  of  Animals,"ʺ  Riga  1913-­‐‑14  ..........................................  110

Figure  6:  Grandville'ʹs  "ʺLe  loup  et  le  chien"ʺ  ...............................................................................  111

Figure  7:  Facial  detail  of  Laocoön  sculpture  and  Duchenne'ʹs  "ʺcorrection"ʺ  .......................  127

Figure  8:  Mantegna’s  The  Dead  Christ  or  The  Foreshortened  Christ  (1467)  ...........................  146

Figure  9:  The  Foreshortened  Kulak  in  The  General  Line  .......................................................  146

Figure  10:  Eisenstein'ʹs  Contour  Drawing  ...............................................................................  147

Figure  11:  "ʺStimulus  material  and  camera  view."ʺ  From  Barbara  Wild,  et  al.,  "ʺWhy  Are  
Smiles  Contagious?"ʺ  ..................................................................................................................  165

Figure  12:  From  Laurie  Carr,  et  al.,  "ʺNeural  mechanisms  of  empathy  in  humans."ʺ  ........  165

Figure  13:  Nana  (Anna  Karina)  mimics  the  tears  of  Joan  (Maria  Falconetti)  ....................  169

Figure  14:  Asta  Nielsen  .............................................................................................................  169

Figure  15:  "ʺBoth  of  Us  Disgusted"ʺ  Stimuli  and  Response  ....................................................  179

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