The Cinema of Raúl Ruiz: Impossible Cartographies

216 Pages·2013·2.69 MB·English

by  Michael N. Goddard

the cinema of RAÚL RUIZ
DIRECTORS’ CUTS
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Other select titles in the Directors’ Cuts series:
the cinema of MICHAEL MANN:vice and vindication
JONATHAN RAYNER
the cinema of AKI KAURISMÄKI:authorship, bohemia, nostalgia, nation
ANDREW NESTINGEN
the cinema of RICHARD LINKLATER:walk, don’t run
ROB STONE
the cinema of BÉLA TARR:the circle closes
ANDRÁS BÁLINT KOVÁCS
the cinema of STEVEN SODERBERGH:indie sex, corporate lies, and digital videotape
ANDREW DE WAARD & R. COLIN TATE
the cinema of TERRY GILLIAM:it’s a mad world
edited by JEFF BIRKENSTEIN, ANNA FROULA & KAREN RANDELL
the cinema of TAKESHI KITANO:flowering blood
SEAN REDMOND
the cinema of THE DARDENNE BROTHERS:responsible realism
PHILIP MOSLEY
the cinema of MICHAEL HANEKE:europe utopia
edited by BEN McCANN & DAVID SORFA
the cinema of SALLY POTTER:a politics of love
SOPHIE MAYER
the cinema of JOHN SAYLES:a lone star
MARK BOULD
the cinema of DAVID CRONENBERG:from baron of blood to cultural hero
ERNEST MATHIJS
the cinema of JAN SVANKMAJER:dark alchemy
edited by PETER HAMES
the cinema of NEIL JORDAN:dark carnival
CAROLE ZUCKER
the cinema of LARS VON TRIER:authenticity and artifice
CAROLINE BAINBRIDGE
the cinema of WERNER HERZOG:aesthetic ecstasy and truth
BRAD PRAGER
the cinema of TERRENCE MALICK:poetic visions of america (second edition)
edited by HANNAH PATTERSON
the cinema of ANG LEE:the other side of the screen
WHITNEY CROTHERS DILLEY
the cinema of STEVEN SPIELBERG:empire of light
NIGEL MORRIS
the cinema of TODD HAYNES:all that heaven allows
edited by JAMES MORRISON
the cinema of ROMAN POLANSKI:dark spaces of the world
edited by JOHN ORR & ELZBIETA OSTROWSKA
the cinema of JOHN CARPENTER:the technique of terror
edited by IAN CONRICH & DAVID WOODS
the cinema of MIKE LEIGH:a sense of the real
GARRY WATSON
the cinema of NANNI MORETTI:dreams and diaries
EWA MAZIERSKA & LAURA RASCAROLI
the cinema of DAVID LYNCH:american dreams, nightmare visions
edited by ERICA SHEEN & ANNETTE DAVISON
the cinema of KRZYSZTOF KIESLOWSKI:variations on destiny and chance
MAREK HALTOF
the cinema of GEORGE A. ROMERO:knight of the living dead
TONY WILLIAMS
the cinema of KATHRYN BIGELOW:hollywood transgressor
edited by DEBORAH JERMYN & SEAN REDMOND
the cinema of WIM WENDERS the celluloid highway
ALEXANDER GRAF
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the cinema of
RAÚL RUIZ
impossible cartographies
Michael Goddard
WALLFLOWER PRESS london & new york
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A Wallflower Press Book
Published by
Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York • Chichester, West Sussex
cup.columbia.edu
Copyright © Michael Goddard 2013
All rights reserved.
Wallflower Press® is a registered trademark of Columbia University Press
A complete CIP record is available from the Library of Congress
ISBN 978-0-231-16730-7 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-231-16731-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-231-85050-6 (e-book)
Series design by Rob Bowden Design
Cover image of Raúl Ruiz courtesy of the Kobal Collection
Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent
and durable acid-free paper.
This book is printed on paper with recycled content.
Printed in the United States of America
c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
p 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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contents

Acknowledgements ix
Introduction: A New Cartographer? 1
1 Ruiz’s Cinema in the 1960s and 1970s
part 1: Beyond Socialist Realism: Ruiz’s Cinema in Chile 9
part 2: From the ‘Dialectics’ of Exile to the Tableau Vivant 31

2 The Cinema of Piracy, the Sea and Spectral Voyages: Ruiz’s Neo-Baroque
Cinema of the 1980s 61
3 Cartographies of Complexity: Ruiz’s ‘French’ Cinema Since the Mid-1990s 103
Conclusion: Ruizian Cartography from Chile to the Cosmos via the Littoral,
or The Film to Come 167
Appendix: Raúl Ruiz Interview (Paris, November, 2009) 171
Select Filmography 185
Bibliography 193
Index 199
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for Adriana Amaral, my impossible muse, who has led me,
like the protagonist of Mysteries of Lisbon, to Brazilian shores
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acknowledgements
Over the long period of researching and writing this book, there are numerous indi-
viduals and institutions who have been a great deal of help. Research was conducted
at the British Film Institute (BFI), London, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France
(BNF), Paris, the Bibliothèque du Film (BiFi), Paris and the Cinématek in Brussels.
Some of this research was supported by the William Hope award for Archival Research
at the University of Salford. Several individuals also helped me to locate rare and hard
to find Ruiz films including Alison Smith and Marco Grosoli. Useful advice was also
received from Laleen Jayamanne and Adrian Martin. Special thanks are also due to
Garin Dowd and Alejandra Rodriguez-Remedi. Not only did they participate with
me in the very helpful Ruiz panel at the Film and Philosophy conference in Dundee in
2009 but also helped my project in more practical ways; Alejandra through assisting
me in getting in touch with and interviewing Raúl Ruiz and Garin through reading
and insightfully commenting on a chapter draft. Both of them also generously shared
their writing and thoughts on Ruiz’s cinema, making me feel we were part of small
Ruizian micro-society. At Salford, Ania Kowalczyk also read and commented on a
draft chapter and conversations with Benjamin Halligan were always a productive
sounding board. The Ruizian annotated filmography compiled by Adrian Martin in
Rouge 2, and the Website Le Cinéma de Raoul Ruiz, maintained by Pierre-Alexandre
Nicaise were more than just useful resources, rather veritable guides in the labyrinth
of Ruiz’s work that frequently aided me in the orientation of this book. Thanks are
also due to the Network for European Cinema and Media Studies (NECS) at whose
conference in Lisbon in 2012 I was able to organise a panel on Ruiz with Garin Dowd
and Felicity Colman. Special thanks were due to Raúl Ruiz himself, who gave such a
generous interview, and to both he and Valeria Sarmiento for inviting me into their
home to conduct it. It goes without saying that I continue to be amazed by and appre-
ciative of Ruiz’s energy and creativity that continued up to, and arguably beyond,
the much too early end of his life, and which gave me so much fascinating cinema to
engage with.
This book has the strange and sad paradox of beginning life and being largely
completed as a work engaging with a living cinematic auteur, and being published as
being about one who has recently died. While changing tenses where necessary for
sense, I have tried to maintain the sense of Ruiz’s cinema as a living and contemporary
one, that is at the same time untimely and spectral, even while Ruiz was still with us;
then again, following the indetermination between life and death in many of his films,
and the concept of ‘cryptesthesia’ he describes so vividly in the the interview that
concludes this book, to a great extent he remains with us, pushing us to go further in
both creative practices and their theorisation.
ix
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