ROGER SHATTUCK
545
with wh a t it has become in film . " Facts fo r their own sake had no t yet
acq u ired tha t kind o f onto logica l autonomy, whi ch makes o f them a
success ion o f sea led o f[ monads, stri ctl y limited by their appea rance."
Does he rea ll y mean
to
suggest tha t facts alone, a stream of unprocessed
images, will constitute a film ?
Wh a t th en is a fact? I wo rk with thi s rough and deriva tive
def initio n : a fact is a verifi abl e sta tement about reality in the li ght o f a
hypo thes is. Without a h ypo thes is, everything o r an ything is a fact
cla iming equal time. ow a hypo thesis, a menta l frame whi ch reduces
the world to a managea bl e scale and permits us to sepa ra te facts from
irrelevancies, is the product no t of ma teri a l rea lity itself but o f an
independent sh aping mind. By conjuring away the agent, the shap ing
mind o f th e a rti st, Pano fsky pl aces himse lf in the pos ition of imp lying
tha t a film (pa rticul a rl y a documenta ry film , one supposes) genera tes
itself, grows na turall y out of ma teri al things.
T wo peopl e a t oppos ite ends of film hi story, h ave tri ed to make
reality itself th e director. Lumiere set up his camera in the street when a
factory was letting out; Warho l tra ined hi s camera on the Empire Sta te
Building. Mere passage o f time did th e res t. But it seem s almos t
unnecessa ry to point out tha t even thi s hands-of[, styleless approach
a ri ses from a set o f delibera te decisions about subj ect, selling, leng th o f
sho t, and camera placement. Ph ys ical rea lity cl amors on all sides. You
have to choose.
L ast Y ear at M arienbad
looks as if its th eme and style
were in spired di rectl y, virtu all y created, by the baroque spaces and
mag ic ga rdens of the cas tl e where it all ta kes pl ace. Yet the conception
came first; Ro bbe-Grill et defin ed the mood and formal compos ition o f
the film before he and Resna is di scovered Nymphenburg. Among
contemporary filmma kers, Frederi ck Wi seman could pl a usibl y lay
cl a im to a style tha t all ows events to tell their own sto ry without
commenta ry and without tri cks. Hi s self-know ledge g ives u s a second
truth to ma tch the sta rkness of hi s images. "My films are to ta ll y
subj ecti ve . . . my respon se to a certa in experi ence."
My
films,
the man
says. o t p roperty: accountability. He made them.
Ph ys ical rea lity will no t redeem itself or even revea l itself th rough
the mere exi stence of the camera wa iting there to record something .
Panofsky must have kn own belter, and one wonders tha t hi s brea thl ess
announ cement of a new era for a rt has gone so long uncontes ted .
'*'
*/\
grcat dea l of deba te has taken place in France o n topics dea lt with in th i, ,c([io n.
l \efu l ,1I1ll Illari e, of current thin king ca n be fou nd in Michel Mal ie. " L'illlpn',>,>ioll dc
la It'a lit,," (in
Lectures de
fi lm,
Ed, Albatross, 1976) and in M.
C.
Ropar,· \\' uil kulll il'l.
De 10 liUera lure au cinema,
Colin , 1970,
