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This content downloaded from 128.122.230.148 on Fri, 31 Mar 2017 10:07:31 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms SCREEN/PLAY This content downloaded from 128.122.230.148 on Fri, 31 Mar 2017 10:07:31 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms This content downloaded from 128.122.230.148 on Fri, 31 Mar 2017 10:07:31 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms SCREEN/PLAY Derrida and Film Theory Peter Brunette and David Wills Princeton University Press Princeton, NewJersey This content downloaded from 128.122.230.148 on Fri, 31 Mar 2017 10:07:31 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Copyright © 1989 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, NewJersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Oxford ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Brunette, Peter. Screen/play : Derrida and film theory / Peter Brunette and David Wills. p. cm. Bibliography: p. Includes index. ISBN 0-691-05572-6 (alk. paper) ISBN 0-691-00846-9 (pbk.) I. Motion pictures. 2. Film criticism. 3 Derrida, Jacques. I. Wills, David, 1953- . II. Title. PN1995.B764 1989 79i.43'oi—dc20 89-33404 CIP Earlier versions of portions of this book origi nally appeared as "Toward a Deconstructive The ory of Film," Studies in the Literary Imagination 19, ι (Spring 1986), 55-71; "Un Ecran dechire," Hors cadre, no. 4 (Spring 1986), 75-91; and "Theories of Spectacle/Spectacles ofTheory," Iconics (1987), 65-82. Permission to reprint sections of these ar ticles is gratefully acknowledged Publication of this book has been aided by the Whitney Darrow Fund of Princeton University Press This book has been composed in Linotron Bembo Clothbound editions of Princeton University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and binding materials are chosen for strength and du rability. Paperbacks, although satisfactory for personal collections, are not usually suitable for library rebinding Printed in the United States of America by Princeton University Press, Princeton, NewJersey This content downloaded from 128.122.230.148 on Fri, 31 Mar 2017 10:07:31 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms To Lynne, finally, and to the memory of three good friends: Gianfranco DeLisio (1945-84), Frank DiFederico (1933-87), and S. Eric Molin (1929- 87) —P.B. To Roberta —D.W. This content downloaded from 128.122.230.148 on Fri, 31 Mar 2017 10:07:31 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms This content downloaded from 128.122.230.148 on Fri, 31 Mar 2017 10:07:31 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms CONTENTS Preface ix CHAPTER ONE Introduction 3 CHAPTER TWO Derrida and Contemporary Film Studies 3 3 CHAPTER THREE Film as Writing: From Analogy to Anagram 60 CHAPTER FOUR The Frame of the Frame 99 CHAPTER FIVE Black and Blue 139 CHAPTER six Cinema and the Postal 172 Works Cited 199 Index 207 VLL This content downloaded from 128.122.230.148 on Fri, 31 Mar 2017 10:10:03 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms This content downloaded from 128.122.230.148 on Fri, 31 Mar 2017 10:10:03 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms PREFACE The pages that follow constitute an attempt to apply the work of French philosopher Jacques Derrida, generally restricted thus far to lit erary and philosophical questions, to considerations of film theory. We want to make clear at the outset, however, that despite the fact that what has come to be known as deconstruction in America has been primarily concerned with the interpretation of texts, we have not been especially interested, at least not in the present volume, in producing a series of deconstructive readings of films. It is our experience that un less they are elaborated or understood in a theoretical context, many so-called deconstructive interpretations do not ultimately differ greatly from their New Critical counterparts. We wish rather to begin the process of "translation" of Derrida's work to Anglo-American film theory by offering a certain reading of his texts, especially those writ ten since Glas (1974), that have, for a variety of reasons, been largely neglected by English-speaking literary theorists. Hence, with the ex ception of chapter 5, in which we offer readings of two films (readings that are, however, in no way meant to be "how-to" demonstrations of a normative deconstructive methodology), we have for the most part chosen to avoid discussing individual film texts. We have preferred in stead to offer a tentative rationalization for a certain perspective on contemporary film theory, and for a certain novel way of approaching film texts anagrammatically, as it were, that has been repressed because of the challenges it offers to the traditional institutional supports for interpretation. We hope that as the argument proceeds, the reasons for such decisions will become clearer. In any case, we have been con scious throughout of having perhaps the first or, more likely, the sec ond or third word on the relation of deconstruction and film, but hardly the last. It is our hope that in the future we or others, in other books, will be able to apply more specifically the general, somewhat abstract elaborations of Derrida's work offered here. This book had its beginning, one lovely spring day in 1984, on the bright, tidy lawn of one of the colleges at the University of Toronto. We had met earlier in the week as participants on what may very well have been the first panel on deconstruction and film theory ever held This content downloaded from 128.122.230.148 on Fri, 31 Mar 2017 10:10:23 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms