The Face (KV)


Is the human face the essence of cinema? What, to us, is a face? The 20th century French philosopher Levinas writes,

  « Firstly there is the straightness of the face, its directness, its defencelessness. The skin of the face is at its most naked and defenceless. The most naked even though this nudity is decent. The most defenceless too: the face carries within it a certain poverty; the proof of that is that we try to mask this poverty by assuming poses, an attitude. The face is exposed, vulnerable, as if inviting an act of violence. At the same time, the face is what prohibits us from killing.
(…) The face is meaning, and a meaning without context. I want to say that the Other, within the rectitude of the face, is not an individual in a context. Usually a person is a “character”: a professor at the Sorbonne, the VP of the State Council, the son of so-and-so, everything that you can see in a passport, the way one is dressed and presents oneself. And all meaning, in the usual sense of the term, is relative to a specific context: the meaning something has in relation to something else. However the face gives priority to the self. You are you. In this sense, you could say that the face is not “seen”. It can only be embraced by your thought processes: it is uncontainable, it takes you beyond. […] But the relationship with the face is immediately ethical in nature. The face is what you cannot kill, or at least in the sense that says: “thou shalt not kill”. Murder is, of course, a banal fact: one can kill another person; the ethical requirement is not an ontological necessity. Being forbidden to kill does not mean murder is impossible, even if the authority behind the sanction remains in the guilty conscience of the evil that has been done – the malignancy of evil.” (Emmanuel Levinas, Ethics and Infinity)

“The face resists possession, resists my powers. In its epiphany, in expression, the sensible, still graspable, turns into total resistance to the grasp” (Totality and Infinity, p. 124)



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Noriko and Neglect by Sylas Davidson

Image
     Noriko is highlighted throughout the film and by its viewers for her kindness, her compassion.  She is the only person to take a genuine interest in Tomi and Shūkichi, seemingly outside  of obligation and without patronization.  However, she also seems to rely on tradition to guide her behaviour, taking guidelines as strict rules, to the point of possibly sacrificing her personal happiness. This is most obvious with her continued devotion to her husband, Shōji, and his photo. It’s a little hard to see, but Shōji’s photo appears to be on the top of a simple cabinet or wardrobe with a candle to one side. There doesn’t seem to be anything else, at least not anything easily identifiable, that would  make this a family altar. This appears to be a shrine to Shōji, instead of an altar for worship. Noriko  might not be particularly religious, but she still appears to havecreated an altar, and instead of it being  a place for ...
Read more

The editing skills in Chungking Express

 Editing Tempo: The editing of the film is strange. Wang’s camera looks like time-lapse photography, which creates a weird tempo of the film. The camera moves really fast when the blonde woman and the first cop are running. The fast running, neon light, and time-lapse effect create a dizzy feeling. The opening shot closely follows the blonde woman. After the fast shot, it is a still shot of some chimneys. Only clouds are moving. Then, we have a fast shot of the first cop, 233 runs. He bumped into a man that carries a fake blonde woman. 233 starts to pay attention to the blond fake man. Suddenly, he starts to chase a man whose head is covered by a paper bag. The camera moves to the opposite street and the audience can only see 233 running but the side walkers are all blended into a time-lapsed blurry background. When the camera follows the running 233, it moves very quickly; when the shot is taken across the street, it moves very slowly. These two points of view are alternating...
Read more

Why Watch Movies Anyway? An illustrated double feature. Lozuaway McComsey

Image
Why do we even watch movies? Shouldn’t we be reading, or making something, making love, eating or, best of all, sleeping? What is it about movies that keeps me awake? Literally, why do I lose sleep to watch them (and also, to be fair, the occasional novel)? There is something magical, and more encompassing, than say, looking at a painting or photograph or, yes, reading. And which is the nearest thing to a movie? Pictures, paintings or photos, as a movie is made of a bunch of them (and yes, there is a movie that is entirely painted frames—it’s about van Gogh.) Or novels with their stories? Or is it a soundtrack?  Because the first thing is, movies have audio, which of course, music also has. But I’m not one for listening to music. It’s background noise. I'd rather nap or let my mind wander for 90 seconds before starting something. Ozu, generally, uses music like the 90s food pyramid said to use fats and sugar: sparingly. It’s awesome. Sometimes it adds to the...
Read more