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THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS - Filmic Historical Representation as Constructed through Antecedent Visual Techniques in Modern Hollywood Historical Film `History is a representation of the past, not the past itself`
To represent the past or an essence of an event in the past through any medium is an area that must be approached with caution. As perhaps becomes evident in Rosenstone`s statement, a recreation of the past is always necessarily subjective. These recreations are attempted for various reasons, ranging from a critique of the past to a commentary on contemporary events. However, the ideological and ethical viewpoints on historical representation are a matter that is too wide-ranging to focus on within the confines of this article. I will rather be focusing more thoroughly on how this historicity or the sense of history is created within the visual aspects of a film. |
| Saving Private Ryan and subjective realism Steven Spielberg and cinematographer Janusz Kaminski`s work on their WWII epic Saving Private Ryan (1998) is a good example of aesthetic historical recreation. The film recounts the fictional story of the rescue of Private Ryan (Matt Damon) from behind enemy lines during the Allied invasion of occupied Europe. Perhaps the most evident referential usage of these antecedent visual techniques is in the opening sequence of the film, the Omaha Beach landing. This is evident in both the narrative and visual structure of this 25-minute sequence, which for the purposes of this study will be read as a visual text on its own right. Indeed, the rest of the film consists of a rather classical, traditional narrative that focuses on the mission of the group of soldiers sent to rescue the Private Ryan of the title. An application to that of the `real` has to be made in order to recreate the past. Julie Hallam and Margaret Marshment`s concept of period referencing established in their comprehensive study Realism and Popular Cinema is useful here. In the context of Saving Private Ryan this signifies a visual reference to the techniques associated with a particular era, particularly the re-creation or re-application of visual elements from authentic documentaries and fictional films of WW II within its cinematographic style. This idea can be traced to the concept of verisimilitude, whereby the audience has to identify the visual conventions of what they associate as the historical past with what is presented to them on the screen. The recreation here is a form of realism that works by placing the viewer `into history`. I have deemed it subjective realism for the purposes of this study. It places the viewer into history (that is, history as a subjective re-creation of the past) through visual techniques. These techniques are employed in a conscious manner to create a textual field that emphasises the viscerality of the image in creating a sense of `what it must have been like`. In short, by associating the fictional footage with actual footage, a sense of `being there` is created. The opening scene of the film has a narrative structure and drive of sorts in the form of Captain Miller (Tom Hanks), who is even afforded a subjective point-of-view both in a visual and aural sense. The style of the image consists of a mixture of wholly fictional footage and ones that recreate authentic period documents (i.e. photographic evidence). The film is intent on achieving a sense of verisimilitude with the historical event by miming the surfaces of period documents and not veering too greatly from chronology and plausible causation of the event. It has to be remembered, though, that this only applies to the extreme battle scenes that bookend the film. Rather, the film as a whole belongs in the C.S Tashiro`s category of designer history. It creates `a self-sustaining artefact…historical references become secondary to design, although they are never entirely absent` (Tashiro, 1998, s. 95). The battle scenes mimic the surfaces of authentic documents thereby providing credibility for the narrative structure as a whole. This can be seen as a form of subjective realism; it concretely places the viewer into the text. When taken as a whole the film lures the spectator into the narrative through these antecedent visual conventions creating a form of subjective realism thereafter resuming a very traditional visual and narrative style. Hallen & Marshment see the film as epitomising `a critically contentious trend that is currently becoming apparent in contemporary Hollywood fictions…[that is] the… referencing of film style as part of a film`s claim on the truth of its depiction of antecedent realities` (Hallen & Marshment, 2000, p. 119). The visual techniques used in the battle scenes were highly influenced by primary evidence from the actual Omaha Beach landings, with several shots miming this in every facet of composure. The intent here is in using period referencing as a means of establishing a connection between the film`s historicity and the authenticity of the actual footage. As is perhaps evident from the pictures below, the shot texture and detail is almost uncanny to those of Robert Capa, a photographer, who landed with the Allied troops on Omaha Beach. While the shots from Saving Private Ryan are obviously single frames from the film, the mise-en-scene of the fictional footage is staged so as to be as reminiscent of Capa`s work as possible. This is further highlighted by the texture of the image, which draws from the chaotic and unrehearsed impression that Capa`s work exudes. This is very much in accordance to what Tashiro sees as realist history. It is the surface, that is, the visual appearance of reality that functions in placing the spectator into history.
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The visual look of the combat scenes was heavily influenced by the documentary tradition as is evident in Kaminski`s intentions: `I envisioned [the film] in a semi-documentary style, using hand-held cameras for images that were full of texture. My other idea was to subtract some of the colour from the film in a desaturation process done after the movie was shot. About sixty percent of the colour was subtracted from the final print…the images were slightly more defused and prone to flares and the skies were burned out. The whole image was softer without being out of focus` (Kaminski quoted in Sunshine, 1998, p. 78-79).
(http://www.spielberg-dreamworks.com/savingprivateryan/Production_Notes_5.htm) Another source of inspiration for the visual aesthetics of the battle scenes was the work of George Stevens Sr, a combat photographer. The level of aesthetic verisimilitude with Stevens` work can be seen in Kaminski questioning: `If I was a combat cameraman in 1944, what would be the equipment, the photographic style?` (http://www.cinematographyworld.com/article/mainv/0,2108,23882,00.html) The illusion of reality is necessarily contrasted here with a distinct implication of authenticity. The need for the audience to feel as if they `were there` while watching the film is also of importance for the effect of realism: `To give the sequence its organic roughness, Kaminski took off the protective coating of his Panavision lenses. `Without the coating, the light doesn't go straight to the emulsion -- it bounces all around, creating moments of flares and haze.` Kaminski also experimented with a shutter-degree technique. The standard of a 180-degree shutter was changed to a 45-degree shutter during the beach invasion scenes, where objects blew up in front of the hand-held camera, giving the mechanized horror a feel of hyper-reality. `When things explode in front of the lens, the particles that fly through the frame are recorded sharper, so you automatically feel like you're there as well.` (my emphasis) (http://www.cinematographyworld.com/article/mainv/0,2108,23882,00.html) The use of these techniques to create an `in-your-face` feel of hyper-reality can be seen as part of bestowing the film with the impression that the camera operator is a participant observer, caught up in the thick of action and events. Hallen and Marshment see Saving Private Ryan as `breaking free from its generic intertextual frame, the Hollywood combat movie, through its spectacular use of realism` (Hallen & Marshment, 2000, p. 117). The film`s visual style is indeed highly referential of the combat documentaries of the 1940`s, which is in sharp contrast to the Hollywood combat film of the period. This has led Hallen & Marshment into crediting `the spectacle of realism` of Kaminski and Spielberg`s style as the film`s main achievement. Indeed, here the style of the film can be seen as more important than the narrative structure of the film, which follows a more established `boy`s own` story format. It is within the visual construction that the concept of hyper-reality is created. The writings of the influential theorist Jean Baudrillard and his concept of simulacra and the hyper-real become very useful here. As Byron Hawk sees it; `Baudrillard's concept of simulation is the creation of the real through conceptual or "mythological" models which have no connection or origin in reality. The model becomes the determinant of our perception of reality-- the real`. (http://www.uta.edu/english/hawk/semiotics/baud.htm) While his theories in his highly influential and controversial works such as Simulacra and Simulation refer to what happens to reality when it is transformed and transmitted through a camera, his thoughts must mainly form a starting point here. `Reality itself founders in hyperrealism, the meticulous reduplication of the real, preferably through another, reproductive medium, such as photography. From medium to medium…it becomes reality for its own sake, the fetishism of the lost object: no longer the object of representation, but the ecstasy of denial and of its own ritual extermination: the hyper real`. (http://www.uta.edu/english/apt/collab/texts/symbolic.html) The realist aesthetics of the authentic documents are taken out of context and applied to a fictional construction, in effect losing their original signification in the creation of this new fictional context, thereby creating a hyper-reality from where the film functions. The filmic reality here becomes reality for its own fictional sake, that is, the hyper-real. The simulacra that Kaminski and Spielberg have re-contextualised within Saving Private Ryan takes on a historical significance of its own within the contextual framework of the film. They create a hyper-reality of war and combat, one, which excessively relies on visual methods of representation.
(http://www.spielberg-dreamworks.com/savingprivateryan/Production_Notes_5.htm) Every component of the visual image indeed instigates the `reality` of the film`s battle sequences. The simulacra, that are in this instance always associated with the historical `truth` of the authentic footage, place the viewer into history or what here is perhaps best described as a close re-interpretation of `what it must have been like`, thereby providing a sense of history for the text. |
| `The montage becomes the message`: JFK and the blurring of the boundaries of fact and fiction The period referencing of Saving Private Ryan can indeed be seen as creating a sense of `what it must have been like`, though the inter-textual referencing of Spielberg`s Schindler`s List (1993) and Stone`s JFK (1991) creates another sense of how history is constructed. JFK recounts the investigation of District Attorney Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) into the assassination of President Kennedy culminating with a very persuasive, but mostly fictional conspiracy theory of the involvement of various perpetrators in both the assassination itself and the ensuing cover-up. Much has been written on Oliver Stone`s manipulation of the events, mainly focusing on his extremely forceful method of implying his own version of the causes and effects of the events. Hayden White warns of a form of historical representation whereby `anything goes, history as you like it` (White, 1996, p. 19). Here, a historical event is treated as such that any form of manipulation of it is possible without regard for falsifying what constitutes the significance and the impact of the event at the time as well as for the present day. He has pointed out in relation to JFK that the film seemed to be treating the assassination of President Kennedy as if there were no limits to what could be legitimately said about it. Indeed, director Stone`s subjective vision of the events consists of a number of theories with no actual historical proof to validate them. It is not, though, the purpose of this article to examine these in detail. Rather, it is how this `false history` is constructed that will be the focus here. Hallam & Marshment see the problems with the history that the text is proposing arising from `the montage being the message` (Hallem & Marshment, 2000, p. 165). Whereas in Saving Private Ryan period referencing was used to create a hyper-real of the combat, the utilization of referencing in JFK is perhaps more complicated. The textual features of these montages within the film consist of a range of realist depictions, such as news footage derived from television reports, photographs and recreated verite documentary. In addition Stone uses various other forms of primary `evidence`, most of it factual. It is, though, in the montage of the fictional and the factual that the problems arise. These can be read as a concrete example of how fictional footage can be constructed as `real` through mainly visual means. As with Saving Private Ryan`s battle scenes, I intend to treat these montages as separate filmic texts in my analysis of the history that the film is proposing. Obviously it is the context of the filmic text that creates the importance of the historical reconstruction, though it is within these montages that the use of period referencing becomes most apparent. Stone`s reconstructed fictional footage is strikingly similar to its factual counterpart. The use of a handheld camera mixed with either black and white or bleached colour stock recalls the infamous Zapruder film footage of the event. Indeed, it is through one of the several assassination montages that this can be best clarified. Here, Stone and his editor Pietro Scalia intercut authentic footage from the Zapruder film, reconstructions of it and completely fictional footage into an aesthetically cohesive whole. The montage, for example, cuts footage of Lee Harvey Oswald (Gary Oldman) firing his rifle from the book depository window with the moment that the first bullet hits Kennedy. Another, perhaps even more controversial implication happens when Zapruder footage of Kennedy being hit again is intercut with a shot of smoke drifting from behind the fence on the grassy knoll. As these various fictional scenes are in a similar aesthetic form to the `real` footage of the Zapruder film, the distinction between what is fact and what is fiction blurs. The `reality` of this montage is underlined by a voice-over narration by Kevin Costner, the actor portraying Jim Garrison, mixing in verified facts of the event with fictional theories of `what happened` according to Stone. In addition, the recreation of the assassination at Deeley Plaza takes on `a fantasy of witnessing` in which the use of place as location recreates history as a public spectacle of remembrance` (Hallen & Marshment, 2000, p. 120). The actual setting of a historical event becomes part of the visual language through which to convey the sense that the representation portrayed is actual historical truth regardless of the authenticity of its origins. Here Kracauer`s theories regarding spectatorship and identification with the `staginess` of the image can be applied to the contextual structure of the film. Stone literally stages his fictional footage in the location of the assassination therefore providing a visual remainder of authenticity. This footage relies on verisimilitude with the visual appearance of the Zapruder film and when edited together with actual footage, the montage in association with the authenticity of the location and its position within the public spectacle of remembrance increases the truth claims of Stone`s particular version of history. Even though Spielberg employed a similar technique in Schindler`s List, using Auschwitz as a shooting location, the fact that his fictional recreation is not based on actuality footage lessens `the fantasy of witnessing` that Stone implied in his film. Staiger among others has argued that Stone`s recreation is problematic in terms of it being seen as an attempt to replace `real` history with a new, perhaps fictional one. It is not my intention to dwell so much on the extent that the film participates in the debate of popular versus official history. Instead the focus here is in exploring how history of the past is being recreated through visual means. As Jean-Louis Comolli points out in reference to this relationship between fictional and factual footage: `We may distinguish fiction and document in the same film, [though,] we do not, on the other hand, lose sight of the fact that both are subject to the same filmic reality (or non-reality)…we look…at the effect and impression they produce-not independently of one another…but precisely within their contact and relationship, their values of contrast and exchange` (Comolli quoted in Williams, 1980, p. 235). This is precisely how the fictional footage gains its notion of authenticity. Within the montage the distinction between fact and fiction blurs. An overall sense of a `realistic` representation of history overcomes all of the montage-texts. This is in accordance to Tashiro`s concept of Realist history, the purpose of which is to provide a physically plausible backdrop to a narrative setting (Tashiro, 1998, p. 95). The visual hybrid, then, lends a sense of historical reality to the re-enactments, as it is next to impossible for a non-expert to decipher the distinction between these `polar opposites` in case of most of the montages of the film. The realistic `spectacle` of the montages, then creates a sense of a truth of the historical event, which concretely lies in the surfaces of the visual image. Much as was the case with Saving Private Ryan and its use of period referencing, Stone`s film uses similar hyper-real techniques to gravitate the rest of the narrative`s truth claims. It is these visual aspects of a film that then create `a sense of history` within the fictional footage of the text achieved through the notion of verisimilitude to the actual footage. While this increases the historical "truth" value of Stone`s claims in the overall fabric of the text, it also creates a sense that the historical event can be viewed in a mostly visual context. While this may be obvious as film is essentially a visual medium, it is perhaps the visual qualities of the image that are a prime means of access to an understanding of how historical representation functions here. Thus a recreation of a historical event can be analysed from this new perspective, one that comprises of the visual aspects of the filmic text. What Stone is doing is re-creating history, even though it may not be `true` as such. Fictional `history` intermingles with the factual footage creating a hybrid text where the actual documentary footage frames become simulacra and the montage becomes the hyper-real; one that is false in its content of `truth`, but still a `real` in filmic terms. The montage becomes the message once again through the impact of visual means of signifying a historical real. The creation of a hyper-reality of filmic representation within the context of the film can be seen as exemplifying a new form of historicity. Within the filmic text, then, `fiction is as true as document; and in return, document is as true as fiction. By right their value in film is equal, in practice it is determined by their usage- by what makes them the particular illusion which is film` (Williams, 1980, p. 235). By creating a contextual filmic real the film creates a version of the past that is true in its own terms. While its claims to authenticity may not be as valid as that of the Zapruder film it still remains a form of historicity. This is very much a concrete filmic example of Garrison`s words in the film: `We`re through the looking glass here. Black is white. White is black`. Indeed, within the context of JFK, fiction is fact and fact is fiction.
The fictional within factual: Forrest Gump As an interesting counterpoint, Robert Zemeckis` Forrest Gump (1994) uses several methods referred to in the above in blurring the lines between fiction and the historical real. In this instance the filmmakers have digitally inserted the hero of the story, Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks) into authentic news footage from the period the film is concerned with. Various scenes have Forrest shaking hands and interacting with real historical figures such as Presidents Kennedy and Nixon. The notion here, though, is not of confusing Forrest for a real historical figure or the events depicted as that of historical reality. As it is, Forrest becomes a hyper-textual factor within the image, his fictionality is `absolutely depending for its humour and irony upon historically (self-)conscious viewers` (Sobchack, 1996, p. 3). There are several instances within the film where Forrest inadvertently effects the course of history (as in the historical past) through his actions, which could provide a basis for an examination of historical representation on a narrative level. It is, though, more relevant for the purposes of this study to examine the placement of his visual image within authentic documents of the era. Obviously the visual methods employed in Forrest Gump do establish a sense of history within the context of the film. It is interesting, though, that they cannot be seen as claiming `factuality` on the fictional element of the image (the character of Forrest) as Stone was arguably intending with his visual construct in JFK. Rather the construct is one that showcases possibilities of filmic rethinking. By placing the fictional in the factual, the concept of the factual is changed or, rather, manipulated. The authentic footage again looses its original signifying power when recontextualised through the fictional `looking glass` as was the case with JFK. This is another instance of historical simulacra (the authentic footage) intermingling with a hyper-textual factor (Forrest) within a visual fictional context that is a form of the hyper-real. Here, though, the authenticity of the newsreel footage is undermined by the inclusion of fictionality within it. By visualising a conscious manipulation of the historical past Zemeckis is in a way enlightening the possibilities that revisionist historical writing (a filmic one) has; it can be seen as manifesting `ambivalent attitudes about the meanings of `history` and the historical event` (Sobchack, 1996, p. 2). While Stone was enforcing his theories through the visual montage, Zemeckis here can be seen as critiquing the notion of representing history via White`s concept of `anything goes, history as you like it`. Here, the authentic footage`s signification of the `real` is drastically altered, thereby showcasing the possibilities of manipulation of filmic `reality`. |
| Schindler`s List and the deployment of inter-textual referencing In my analysis of Schindler`s List and its use of both period and intertextual referencing I intend to take a similar approach to the one utilized in the chapter dealing with JFK. This is done in order to demonstrate how history, even one as significant and problematic as that of the Holocaust, is recreated through visual means. The historicism of the visual style of the film is very much a part of Realist history; it provides a physically plausible backdrop to the narrative setting. The use of monochrome as the text`s main film stock creates a filmic temporality associated with the past. Hallen & Marshment see the film as being a rather obvious example of period referencing as `its interior shooting style [is] informed by the classical framing and lighting typical of the studio period, [while] its exterior sequences [owe] a debt to Italian neorealism` (Hallen & Marshment, 2000, p. 119). The use of the contrast between full colour and black and white has had a very prominent role within film in establishing a more realist level of filmic space. Films as diverse as Victor Fleming`s The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Lindsey Anderson`s If… (1968) use the technique to portray the difference between fantastical and realistic elements of their respective narratives. In the first example upon Dorothy`s (Judy Garland) entrance to the magical land of Oz the film suddenly blooms into full Technicolor, whereas in the case of If… the changes of colour film stock signify the blurring of boundaries between reality and fiction on several occasions. These examples provide a way of understanding the significance that filmic colour (a cinematographic technique, it has to be pointed out) can have on a film`s claim to realism. Indeed, as established in the introduction of this study, the use of a rather jarring cut from very vivacious colour to a rather grainy black and white transports the viewer into what may be interpreted as the historical past, though necessarily a filmic interpretation of it. This can be seen as another instance of period referencing, while also working on the level of subjective realism; it concretely establishes the film`s temporal space as that of the past. While Spielberg does not explicitly state through visual means of transference from a fantastical setting to a more realist one, his use of the method does imply that the manipulation is done in order to convey a sense of reality for the sequence. It may have to be supposed here that the ideal spectator of the film is aware of the artifice on screen and a form of suspension of disbelief can be seen at work here. This is in accordance to what Staiger sees as the spectator`s acknowledgement of the rules of representation: `[the audience] can read the movie as a dramatic narration…it is the reading strategies of the viewers who recognize that the movie is a subjective version of the past` (Staiger, 1996, 52). A similar, but more problematic transcendence of filmic temporality takes place in the conclusion of the film where a similar technique of colour stock transformation is employed, though in reverse. The scene is set after the liberation of the remaining Jews from the camps by the Allied Forces. A long shot of the `Schindler Jews` walking in a horizontal line fills the screen. Here the film`s temporal space is that of the filmic past. The survivors are portrayed by actors, while the film stock is monochrome. Suddenly the scene fades or more accurately blooms into full colour while the real Schindler Jews replace their fictional counterparts. While the scene is authentic in a way a documentary would be, it is still a mimesis of a fictional shot that did indeed exist first as a piece of fictional material. The next scene transfers the film from this semi-fictional setting into what can be seen as documentary footage. The scene consists of the last remaining Schindler Jews gathered at the grave of Oskar Schindler walking past the camera accompanied by the actors who played them respectively. Captions indicate the identity of the survivors, which gives the scene an even stronger claim to documentary. The scene climaxes with Liam Neeson, the actor who portrayed Schindler in the film, standing over the grave, uniting the fictional counterpart with the factual, thereby establishing a final visual connection that enhances the film`s status as a `realistic` representation. Hallen & Marshment see this as a `Brechtian quotation [that] both underlines the film`s status as a fictional representation whilst authenticating its status as dramatised documentary` (Hallen & Marshment, 2000, p. 172). Here the authors are more concerned with the use of authentic survivors interacting with their fictional counterparts in what can be seen as an honorary memorial rather than with the form of the film stock. A similar quotation, though, does happen within the cinematographic image. This indeed transcends the final scene of the film to what may be seen as documentary footage, but interestingly set in the present day. As it is in full colour, Spielberg`s intentions in the use of colour become somewhat clearer. The opening scene and the use of colour in it further enhance this notion. As was pointed out previously it can be read as reliant on period referencing in its temporal transition from an unspecified time and place into that of the filmic past. By indicating that the reality of the present day is indeed in colour, he seems to be in turn implying that the past can only be accessed through monochrome. Schindler`s List achieves a form of intertextual referencing within its ideological and contextual structure through textual means. The representation of the past it is constructing is enhanced by several un-acknowledged quotes from previous Holocaust films. Alain Resnais` influential Nuit et Brouillard (1955) is referenced several times, both in the construction of the mise-en-scene within the frame as well as in the cinematographic style. Resnais` film mixes authentic footage with contemporary location shots, though this is executed in a manner that cannot be seen as fictionalising the event. Obviously the film as a whole is a subjective construct, though it does not re-create or fictionalise actual footage of the event, showing only the post-Holocaust remains. Spielberg`s film recreates several shots of Resnais` documentary footage to the extent that it can almost be seen as mimicking them. There are perhaps too many instances of these to cover here, though some of the most striking images of Spielberg`s film, such as the night arrival in Auschwitz and the left luggage of the deported Jews piling up in a storage room, have their visual roots in the aesthetics of Nuit et Brouillard. Miriam Bratu Hansen sees this as the film`s reality effect; it recycles images from previous Holocaust films, but does so without quotation marks, it pretends that it is telling the story for the first time. She points out that this may be done in the context of `a post-modern aesthetics that has rehabilitated such syncretistic procedures in the name of popular resonance and success` (Hansen, 1997, p. 206). The ability to recognize a representation of the past through visual signifiers is what triggers this conscious manipulation. Once again, it is the relationship between the spectator and the antecedent visual methods of realism that create the text`s claims of authenticity. While the above are examples of direct filmic references perhaps the most problematic example of inter-textual referencing in the film is a visualisation of a scene from Claude Lanzmann`s Shoah (1985), a film consisting of `anti-narrative, non-stories` (Lanzmann`s term), therefore a concrete example of White`s concept of modernism. In Lanzmann`s version a survivor recounts the tale of a trainload of prisoners being transported to a death camp. One of the prisoners notices a small child in a field doing a symbolic gesture of a throat being slit. Spielberg uses the same visual gesture in an uncannily similar situation, even using slow motion to repeat the shot for full impact. Here the historicity of the image is quite obviously constructed through filmic means; the origin of the scene may indeed be a subjective oral account of a historical event, though through Spielberg`s camera it has become part of the historical `real` that the film is recreating. This inter-textual reference may be quite obscure for the general public and may therefore lose some of its significatory effect. The scene, though, remains a vital part of the contextual framework of the film. It is an example of how a real event can be manipulated through visual means to create a subjective view of the event. The notion that it is not only the story of a single man, but also a wider representation of the context of the Holocaust that is represented here is also evident in the much-criticised narrative structure of the film. Hallen & Marshment refer to the episodic structure of the film, which can be seen as implying an attempt to construct a rather comprehensive account of the tragedy. Obviously the film later changes to a more character-focused structure narrating the events mostly from the point-of-view of a handful of characters of whom Oskar Schindler is the most prominent one. In constructing an episodic work, though, Spielberg can indeed be accused of fictionalising the `unrepresentable` by creating the superficial appearance of a documentary both in visual and narrative terms. This is in opposition to what White sees as the limits of representation of a modernist event. After all, Schindler`s List does narrativize and aestheticize. Therefore it is perhaps important to examine in brief how the film can be seen as overcoming these obstacles. What is being created in Schindler`s List is Frederic Jameson`s concept of `the meaning effect`. He notes that `the signified…is now rather to be seen as a `meaning effect`, as that objective mirage of signification generated and projected by the relationship of signifiers among themselves` (Jameson quoted in Tomasulo, 1996, p. 73). Here, of course, lies the danger of what Friedlander and Tomasulo warn of; that is, the total replacement of event with its writing. The variety of signifiers, be it visual or narrative, generate a relationship where the real of the event may lose its truth-value. It is here though that Elsasser`s concept of mourning work becomes useful. The event can still retain its signification, perhaps as part of the affect of concern, whereby emotional reaction is the significance of the work. The techniques employed in Schindler`s List are post-modernist in nature due to the extent that it relies on inter-textual referencing in constructing its historicity and may therefore pass this burden of history as modernism sees it. While these techniques are perhaps insufficient to represent a totality of a historical event, they can through pastiche and spectator identification create an essence of the historicity of the event. Therefore it is arguable that the film may be seen as attempting to portray an essence of the event through emotional connection with what is portrayed on screen, a form of realism that is perhaps best termed emotional. An example of this is the massacre of the Krakow Ghetto, which will be focused on in more detail below. |
The realism created in Schindler`s List works on various levels of historical realism. The period referencing and the visual techniques adhere to the category of subjective realism, whereas inter-textual referencing provides a sense of artificiality to the construction. The utilization of various areas of realism in the film is perhaps exemplified by one of the most visually striking scenes of the film; that is, the appearance of the girl in the red coat. The Ghetto massacre as a whole contains one of the most explicit manipulations of the image within the film. It is shot in a very grainy stock, which alternates within shots and scenes, while the lighting is at turns highly expressionistic and even naturalistic. The deployment of expressionistic textures is most evident within internal shots where the constant play of light and shadow against each other create a highly detailed look.
In addition to that of mourning work the scene works on the three levels of historical realism that I am proposing, though they necessarily overlap as forms of realism. The subjective realism of the film is heavily reliant on the manipulation of the image in the pursuit of hyper-reality within the textual image that is similar to the effect of these realist techniques in the combat scenes of Saving Private Ryan. The hyper-textuality of the girl contrasts with the simulacrum that is the background action for an emotional effect much in the same way as the fictional Forrest contrasted with authentic footage. While the background is rooted in rather more traditional methods of realist representation of historical truth, the hyper-reality is a visual creation that calls attention to itself as a form of identifying the fact that it is `history` played in the details of the background. Meantime, a textual feature, that is, the girl`s coat and its garish, symbolic colour, establish a link with the spectator, whereby an access to the historical setting is created. This concretely tells audience that this is history, perhaps not one that is factual as such, but a more symbolic one played out within the textual structure of the film. Therefore while these scenes employ what may be seen as hyper-real techniques it is perhaps the emotional impact that is most significant here. Thus it engages in what may be seen as emotional realism, a form that is perhaps not as historically true (that is, in a factual sense) as the previously mentioned examples. The significance of using this form of realism in historical representation can be seen as lying in `the affect of concern` that Elsaesser proposes; one is `recognising oneself to be emotionally called upon to respond, act, react` (Elsaesser, 1996, 173). This again is a part of the mourning work that the film encourages. It can be seen as creating public awareness of the Holocaust, thereby contributing to the ongoing debate about the subject matter. As the film was immensely popular during its release, authors such as Bratu Hansen see this as one of the most significant qualities of the film. These two forms of realism, then, create a sense of history that relies on antecedent methods of filmic representation thereby establishing the notion that these conventions have indeed become a form of filmic historical real. The use of hyper-textuality within the visual structure establishes the `realness` of the background image as a means of accessing `history`. In summary, then, the inter-textual referencing within the film provides a sense of artificial realism to the text, which is conducted through the use of subjective realism in establishing the temporal space of the film. The hyper-textual features construct a sense of emotional connection with the event, whereby emotional realism creates a sense of the tragic proportions of the event. This hyper-textuality, on the other hand, creates the hyper-reality of the film through the textual factors, whereby the subjectivity of the construction becomes apparent. It is, though, through the utilization of artificial realism that the text as a whole forms a historicity, albeit one that is filmic. |
Conclusion In conclusion, then, it is perhaps appropriate to contemplate on Rosenstone`s concept of film as a new form of historicism or perhaps more accurately how this new form manifests itself. After all, film has an immediacy to it that may not be possible in other forms of historical representation. As is evident from the filmic examples in this study, film constructs its sense of historicity in a wide variety of methods. The manipulation of realist techniques within the visual construction is always conscious and has therefore to be approached as such. The historicity of the text relies on various visual conventions that have a fundamental claim to realism; that is, they have their origins in the aesthetics of authentic footage. These conventions, then, establish an assertion of realism within the text, which, when appropriated within the textual construct, generate various forms of filmic realism. These are in turn applied to a text as is seen suitable for the type of historicism that the filmmakers are constructing. While these conventions may form the realistic aspirations of texts such as Saving Private Ryan and JFK through period referencing, it is the use of inter-textual referencing that provides a method to examine film`s status as a new form of historicism through the more post-modernist aspects of this visual re-creation. Hence, through a more detailed analysis of this form of representation it will become evident that filmic representation of the past becomes excessively reliable on past forms of filmic representation. (This article originally appeared as a part of my dissertation project for MA Film Studies at the University of Southampton, 2001) teksti: © Pietari Kaapa
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BIBLIOGRAPHY: Elsaesser, Thomas: Subject Positions, Speaking Positions: From Holocaust, Our Hitler, and Heimat to Shoah and Schindler`s List in Sobchack, Vivian (ed.): The Persistence of History; Cinema, Television and the Modern Event. New York & London, Routledge, 1996. Friedlander, Saul (ed.): Probing the Limits of Representation: Nazism and the Final Solution. Cambridge, Massachutes, Harvard University Press, 1992. Hallam, Julia with Marshment, Margaret: Realism and Popular Cinema. Manchester and New York, Manchester University Press, 2000. Hayward, Peter and Wollen, Tana (eds.): Future Visions: New Technologies of the Screen. London, British Film Institute, 1993. Kracauer, Sigfried: Theory of Film; The Redemption of Physical Reality. London, Oxford University Press, 1960. Landy, Marcia: Cinematic Uses of the Past. Minneapolis, The University of Minnesota Press, 1996. Landy, Marcia (ed.): The Historical Film; History and Memory in Media. New Brunswick, New Jersey, Rutgers University Press, 2001. Loshitzky, Yosefa (ed.): Spielberg`s Holocaust: Critical Perspectives on Spielberg`s List Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1997. Rosenstone, Robert: The Future of the Past: Film and the Beginnings of Post-modern History in Sobchack, Vivian (ed.): The Persistence of History; Cinema, Television and the Modern Event. New York & London, Routledge, 1996. Sorlin, Pierre: The Film in History; Restaging the Past. Oxford, Blackwell, 1980. Staiger, Janet: Cinematic Shots: The Narration of Violence in Sobchack, Vivian (ed.): The Persistence of History; Cinema, Television and the Modern Event. New York & London, Routledge, 1996. Sunshine, Christina (ed.): Saving Private Ryan. New York, New Market Press, 1998. Tashiro, C.S.: Pretty Pictures; Production Design and the History Film. Austin, University of Texas Press, 1998. Tomasulo, Frank: `I`ll See It When I Believe It`: Rodney King and The Prison House of Video in Sobchack, Vivian (ed.): The Persistence of History; Cinema, Television and the Modern Event. New York & London, Routledge, 1996. White, Hayden: The Modernist Event in Sobchack, Vivian (ed.): The Persistence of History; Cinema, Television and the Modern Event. New York & London, Routledge, 1996. Williams, Christopher (Ed.): Realism and the Cinema: A Reader. London, Routledge and Kegan Paul for the British Film Institute, 1980.
INTERNET RESOURCES: Baudrillard, Jean: "Symbolic Exchange and Death" http://www.uta.edu/english/apt/collab/texts/symbolic.html Bulow, Louis: "The Little Girl in Red" http://auschwitz.dk/redgirl.htm Hawk, Byron: "Simulation" http://www.uta.edu/english/hawk/semiotics/baud.htm Nguyen, Tommy: "Janusz Kaminski, ASC, Talks Shop at CineVegas" http://www.cinematographyworld.com/article/mainv/0,2108,23882,00.html http://www.spielberg-dreamworks.com/savingprivateryan/Production_Notes.htm http://www.artchive.com/artchive/ftptoc/de_la_tour_ext.html http://editorsnet.com/article/convert/0,7224,768622636,00.html http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/studio/1327/onavasup001p1.jpg
FILMOGRAPHY: Triumph Des Willens [Triumph of the Will] (Leni Riefenstahl, Leni Riefenstahl Studio Film, NSDAP- Reichsleitung, Germany, 1934) The Wizard of Oz (Victor Flemyng, MGM, USA, 1939) Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, Mercury Productions, RKO Radio Pictures Inc. USA, 1941) Nuit et Brouillard (Alain Resnais, France, 1955) The Rise to Power of Louie XIV [La Prise de pouvoir par Louis XIV] (Roberto Rosselini, ORTF, France, 1966) If… (Lindsay Anderson, Memorial Enterprises, United Kingdom, 1968) The World at War [TV-Series] (Ted Childs, Michael Darlow etc. Imperial War Museum, Thames Television, United Kingdom, 1974) Shoah (Claude Lanzmann, French Ministry of Culture and Communication, Historia, Les Films Aleph, France, 1985) JFK (Oliver Stone, Alcor Films, Camelot, Ixtlan Corporation, Le Studio Canal+, Regency Enterprises, Warner Bros. USA, 1991) Schindler`s List (Steven Spielberg, Amblin Entertainment, Universal Pictures, USA, 1993) Forrest Gump (Robert Zemeckis, Paramount Pictures, USA, 1994) Saving Private Ryan (Steven Spielberg, Amblin Entertainment, Dreamworks SKG, Mark Gordon Productions, Mutual Film Company, Paramount Pictures, USA, 1998) |
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The use of a bleached
look can indeed be traced back to a number of historical sources. A significant one in
terms of authentic references is the documentary series World At War (1974).
The series used authentic footage of the period shot mostly in colour, which resulted in a
distinct aesthetic seen by Kaminski as very desaturated and low-tech. 
This is evident in
Kaminski pointing out; `we used a different shadow degree to achieve a certain staccato
in the actors movement. We got a crispness of explosions. Everything we shot became
slightly, just slightly, more realistic`
The style here, that
is evident throughout the whole film, is highly reminiscent of the work of Gregg Toland on
Citizen Kane (1941). This deployment of inter-textual referencing is a form
of artificial realism; the cinematographic style is an artificial signifier of realism
that has no ideological connection with the original historical event of the film. The
naturalistic visual style, on the other hand, is perhaps best evident in the external
footage. A tracking shot through a door to the street highlights the contrast of the
varying styles as the lighting transforms to a style that is perhaps best described as
naturalistic. The camera is consistently handheld with an occasional emphasis on heavy
pans while the light is natural without any added textures. The combined effect of these
visual techniques is a style that can be associated with newsreel footage. Most of the
massacre is shot in this way, though several cuts to Schindler and his companion observing
the scenes of chaos from a hilltop disrupt the flow. These shots comprise of static camera
shots, which further emphasise the `reality` of the action below. The spectator is given
access to the scenes through them; viewing the massacre through the subjective gaze of
Schindler.
The appearance of
the girl in the red coat transports the scene to a hyper-textual level. As she is clearly
the focus of Schindler`s gaze the massacre is relegated to the background. (