540
PARTISAN REVIEW
sound track vo ice-o ver: " Grandet' s place." H e even labels th e mood o f
the who le passage: " picturesque." The book was written four yea rs
before Daguerre so ld hi s process to the Fren ch government. But Ba lzac
was obvio usly thinking of something beyond pretty pi ctures . T hi s
window on the wo rld , thi s mo ving eye-pi ece tra in ed on obj ective
rea lity, is a lready in sea rch of the sh eer ph ys ica l p resen ce o f a photo–
gra ph. The things o f this world are th ere, wa iting to be seen and
" ta ken " as they stand. They are a ll po tenti a l documen ts, a nd th e p rose
tha t record s them strains to create wha t the photogra ph fin a ll y seemed
to furni sh na tura lly, by its optics and ch emistry: certifi ca ti on that
things are wha t they a ppea r to be to the attenti ve eye. Our a prio ri
ca tegori es o f space and time do miracul o usly co rrespond , o n the
huma n scale, to the cha racteri sti cs o f a vi sibl e a nd pa lpa bl e uni verse
tha t will imprint itself on emul sio n . With every expos ure, the sea led
box o r camera reen acts the leng thy evo lution a ry p rocess th ro ugh
which the fund amental fea tures o f the " na tu ra l wo rld " h ave been
stamped into our gen eti c ma teri al. Furthermo re, th e mov in g pi cture
(unl ess it is run backwa rd s) seems to bear o ut our sen se o f causa ti on ,
the third a pri o ri ca tegory, a s somethin g belon g in g to the ph ys ica l
world around us. Sin ce radica l doubt h as become the compani o n o f
conscious tho ught in the modern wo rld , we sta nd in consta nt need o f
this o nto log ical reassuran ce. Like the rea list nove l since th e eighteenth
century, th e photograph , both still a nd moving, o ffers u s security and
comfo rt abo ut the o utside wo rld . Novel a nd film seem to embody a
bas ic documenta ry impul se, th e impul se
to
certify the world o ut there
as knowabl e, even famili a r.
In different h ands, however, Balzac's camera, hi s po rta bl e window
on obj ective reality, ch anges into a very di scon certing device. The
following quo ta tion s form a skeleton versio n o f th e op ening pages of
Robbe-Grill et's
In the Labyrinth.
I'm alone here, now, fully protected. Outside it's raining, people
are walking in the rain with lowered heads.. .. Outside it's
sunny. . .. Here the sun does not enter, nor the wind nor the rain nor
the du st. The fin e du st that clouds the polished hori zontal surfaces
... comes from the room itself. The lamp- shade proj ects a circle of
light on the ceiling. . .. Outside it's snowing.... But the clipped
sound of steel-tipped heels on the asphalt . . . cannot penetrate here,
nor any other sound from outside.. .. On the waxed wooden fl oor
the felt slippers have traced out shining paths, from th e bed
to
the
bureau, from the bureau
to
the fireplace, from the fireplace to the
table. And , on the tabl e, the shifting around of obj ects has also
disturbed the evenness of the film... . Outside it's snowing. Outside
it has snowed, it was snowing, it is snowing.
