The gap between seeing and understanding: Studium and Punctum in Film Narrative
Punctum:
Punctum is: sting, speck, cut, little hole—and also a cast of the dice. A photograph's punctum is that accident which pricks me (but also bruises me, is poignant to me).
A "detail," an addition.
Power of Expansion: a connection to the referent, annihilation of self.
no longer of form but of intensity , is Time, the lacerating emphasis of the noeme (" that-has-been"), the connection between past and future, live and death.
----Barthes 1982
Photography derives from the sense of realism. People obtain the desire to find this resemblance and realness in an image as if this frame could be a mirror to identify the facts and reality: their perfect face and body. These people are still alive or just a contingent memorable event. Photography thus keeps company with death. The noeme of photography is simple, banal; no depth: "that has been." (Barthes, 1982) Unlike paintings, photography is the index, the fingerprint or trace, of something that had existed, and this mechanical process in reproduction takes greater immediacy and authority to be regarded as existence without reservation. The desire for objective authenticity is rooted in the heart of photography and has been furthered in film production. "Cinema has not yet been invented."(Bazin, 2004), in the specific notion of total cinema, Bazin explains this illusion created in film production as a complete and perfect illusion of life. For both of them, photographic and cinematic images are the evidence of presence and a reference to the past reality.
However, this illusion of reality that photography created hinders us from identifying the living reality by producing a dominating ideology that conceals this subjectivity. In Marianne Hirsch's Familial Gaze, the perfect family frame is created and symbolises the dominant narrative of the family image. The same arrangement of seats, the same clothes, or the designed simile on the face --- all of these elements of the perfect family- ignore and invisibilize the individual's uniqueness and create a spectacle of family. The myth of image reversely dominates the living identity. The illusion of reality also works as a placebo that distracts one from what should be concerned. In Sontage's book, regarding the pain of others, she is against Woolf's notion that the picture of the war could speak for itself; instead, photographs are out of control, even from the photographers themselves. Photographs are objective records and personal testimonies, but their symbolization with the referent should not waive one's recognition of reality. "The pity and disgust that pictures like Hicks's inspire should not distract you from asking what pictures, whose cruelties, whose deaths are not being shown". Photographs of others' suffering and violence are spectacularized as a challenge of whether to look at it or not, and this overexposure is wearing out people's feelings and empathy toward the actual war itself. Spectators are distanced from caring about the suffering of others.
Punctum connect objective "that has been" with the subjective viewer through personal affection. Barthes's theory in Camera Lucida, The spectrum, which is the referent in the photograph, comprises two elements: studium, or the cultural knowledge that allows the spectator to understand what is captured in the photograph, and punctum, which in Latin means a wound, a mark left by a pointed instrument' and which 'breaks the studium'. These 'stings', 'specks' or random details in a photograph cut through the homogeneity of the studium and 'prick' the spectator. This punctum is the additional details, the intensity of time, and the madness and affection of pity. It could be a flaw in your dress, a wrinkle on your face, or the death that wounds you when you look at your mother's image. What matters is that it needs to be subjective against the objective cultural illusion. It is different from surprise as it wounds you. Punctum is the element for an immobilized image to emerge, to dream beyond what could already be seen. A "Blind field" is created by the punctum, which brings the image out of the stadium to create an emotional and personal meaning. (Barthes, 1982, ch23)
For Barthes, immobility is constructing the unique myth of photography: the presence of a referent is strongly connected to the image itself. While film characters could continue their life outside the frame, the immobility of the photographed is frozen in this moment. In other words, cinema creates a constitutive style of looking where you always look away. However, in photography, death, the representation is foreclosed and finite: there has been, and nothing else. ( Barthes, 1982) However, this paper would like to discuss the possibility of adapting the theory of punctum to illustrate the disruption of constitutive narrative in film itself.
Could film disrupt its constitutive narrative?
Could film force a kind of watching that “wounds” the audiences?
I am arguing that Barthes’s theory of studium and punctum could develop another perspective in film narrative which is multidimensional constructed and targeting on individual emotional reflection.
Anatomy of A fall
In the film, "Anatomy of a Fall" (Triet, 2023), the story begins when Samuel is found dead in the snow outside the isolated chalet where he lived with his wife Sandra, a German writer, and their partially-sighted 11-year-old son Daniel. An investigation leads to a conclusion of "suspicious death": it's impossible to know for sure whether he took his own life or was killed. Sandra is indicted, and we follow her trial, which pulls the couple's relationship apart. Daniel is identified as the key witness to give evidence for his parent's relationship and his father's suicide inclination. Through the trial process, recordings, blood spatter tests, witnesses, and all other evidence are gathered together to illustrate the "truth". T“ That recording, is not reality, It’s a part of it, maybe. If you have an extreme moment in life, an emotional peak you focus on, of course it crushes everything. It may seem like irrefutable proof, but actually wraps everything. It’s not reality, it is our voices, but not who we are.”This trail is not only an anatomy of Samuel's fall but a dissection of the family: Did he have depression? How do you prove you love him? How do you prove your innocence when all evidence opposes you?
“I don’t give a fuck about what is reality. You need to start seeing yourself the way others are going to perceive you. The trail is not about the truth.”
Family picture:
On the one hand, the Punctum disturbs the flat and immobile surface of the image, embedding it in an affective relationship of viewing and thus in a narrative; on the other, it arrests and interrupts the contextual and therefore narrative reading of the photograph that Barthes calls the studium.
Familial gaze and alternative narrative:
The film credits at the beginning are constructed by a series of photographs from Samuel and Sandra, and the sequence of photos in analogy with their life paths: separated in their pictures at the start, getting to know each other, and finally having a kid, Daniel. The completeness of family could only be perceived through images. This first present of their photographs embedded a studium: this is about an ordinary family, a woman falls in love with a man, and they have a kid. This series of presentation of photographs is consistent with what Barthes accuses cinema as different from photographs: there is no silence of contemplation. With a constitutive style of looking, this process is building singular photographs into a narrative whose function is to inform, to signify the concept we have toward family: complete and perfect.
However, this is a suspended film that is looking for murder. After a series of long and frustrating interrogations and questioning in court, these family pictures again are presented in Danile’s hand when he finds out that his father took aspirin before, proof of his suicidal inclination. This time, we are forced to look really close and focus on Daniel, who is partially sighted. Instead of showing the whole picture, the screen focused on their faces in photos: happy and smiling faces, but we could inevitably feel depressed. While posting the audience on Daniel's perspective, the story structure derived the punctum that pricks us. The death corpus and alive faces construct the doubleness in a photograph, which is consistent with how Barthes described the feeling in PORTRAIT OF LEWIS PAYNE (Alexander Gardner, 1865). "By giving me the absolute past of the pose (aorist), the photograph tells me death in the future" (Barthes, 1982, ch39). This sense of "that has been" is intensifying the passing of time and the powerlessness in doing anything. Forced close-up shots without music but Daniel's breathing, we are forced to contemplate with him, to steer at his father's death through his "has been", and to see the already broken marriage through their intimate and happy pose in photographs.
Between these two appearances of family pictures, it is the process from seeing to understanding. There is constantly a gap between the actual referent and the picture itself: Parents' happy faces in the picture and the fact that one is dead and another is accused. Punctum is the bridge that transform seeing to understanding, bystander to bearer. By relating and experiencing present affection with specific pictures, punctum is reconnecting what has happened and what one personally feel about it in the present. Punctum is created by the intensity of time, which tells the story that hides behind harmonized imagery.
Here, we could identify a potential possibility for the punctum theory established by film narrative. The first time we saw their family pictures, it meant nothing to the audience except what we already knew. However, through a film narrative that is about one hour long, their second appearance becomes meaningful and connective. Film is obtaining the possibility to develop intimate connections between viewers and characters in a close and inclusive narration.
Pucntum in Film: Suspension of Reality
Films are generally viewed as a medium of entertainment for satisfaction and fetishment. From the train coming into the station to modern Hollywood movies, its ultimate goal is to construct what André Bazin would call "total cinema", spectacles that look like reality and fantasies beyond reality. Cinema "is simply an illusion; its vision is oneiric, not ecmnesic." (48). Conversely, Barthes's Punctum is constructed by authentic and emotional wounds and pathos. When watching a film, audiences expect to know something: the complete and intriguing storyline, straightforward conversations, and intuitional camera angle. All of these elements are enacted to create a sense of control. For example, in Jack Halberstam's arguments on the transgender look, he criticized The Crying Game for establishing film "through the fetishistic structure of cinema itself, with, in other words, the spectator's willingness to see what is not there and desire what is." (2005, p.81). This film's transgender character lacks the subjective and can never control the gaze. Oppositely, her transgenderism is positioned in a binary and fetishistic gaze to control her appearance and expression. The sense of control is created through the domination of characters' subjectivity. This sense of control could never create punctum beyond the constitutive studium. Thus, when we consider applying punctum in the cinematic narrative, the paradox lies that it should both construct a fictional narrative and, at the same time, connect to authentic pathos. Cinema builds up punctum through the disruption of constitute narrative and the ambiguity for active searching.
In the process of trial, with different witnesses presented, Danile and possibly everyone listening to it (including audiences) is constantly imagining what had happened to his father. Could it be his mother that pushed his father down? Could he fall down the window by himself ? Did they have a fight? All these are presented like it had happened before, the scene that perfectly fit the recording, the camera angle as peeking that potentially implying someone seeing Sandra pushed Samuel down. This is objective and perfect evidence that proves Sandra is guilty.
However, the punctum which is the seemingly imperfectness that disrupts the mainstream narrative and its effectiveness is Danile’s statement about his memory of a conversation that happened between him and his father. Different from all scenes that illustrate evidence before, it is a scene where voices impair the picture. This is a pure personal and subjective statement, yet it feels more authentic. How do you prove who he is? Answer to this question is not objective evidence or credentials from the therapist, but personal and seemingly unreliable testimonies from an 11 years old kid. The fetishistic searching for “truth” is actually just searching for dramatic climax: “I don’t think it matters how he died. The fact is, the idea of a writer killing her husband is far more compelling than a teacher killing himself”(2:08:42). Danile’s imperfect testimony is a subversion to all perfect evidence — personal experiences against objective evidence. And Punctum is caused by Danile’s subjectivity. It is him who hold the ability to decide what is true, and neither audiences nor those recordings obtain this ability. Spectator's dominance in controlling the gaze is disrupted.
After watching the film, many video analyses on youtube are showing the title like: details tell you who actually killed the husband or what is the truth. To the ending, Sandra Hüller said in one of interview that Sadra is innocent, or any of this movie would make any sense. Although the court had made judgment toward Sandra’s case, the ending of the movie did not give a straightforward answer to who killed Samuel, what had happened is still undercover. What she said is also truth as if Samule did not take suicide what I argued at the last paragraph would not making any sense. However, I believe that this ambiguity on what “that has been” is inspiringly creating another punctum on the spectator's need of control on truth. This ambiguity intrigue spectators to look deeper and search it further. Do not look away. This suspension is asking spectators to open the pandora box themselves, to make the decision like Daniel: do you believe or not.
Truth is suspended: it matters but also does not matter.
You need to be involved in the process of looking, not as mere receiver, but as an active researcher.
See it and Understand it.
Conclusion:
What punctum represents is the connection between objectivity and subjectivity, to see through the outside illusion and relate to the most individualized pain and wounds underlined in every past moment. For Barthes, this connection is death, like the wounds he felt when watching his mother’s picture in the winter garden. He saw the death of his mother and, at the same time, faced his own death. Death is such a topic that strongly connects and wounds everyone, which breaks the flat death of immobility. The film differs from photography in that it is not what happened but a constructed illusion of reality that seeks to comfort and cheat audiences. However, this film, Anatomy of a Fall, presents a possibility for creating punctum in the film narrative to deconstruct the medium and identify the lie of realness and the constitutive look in the narrative. By creating a stadium of realness in the theatre, the punctum of the film exists in this disruption, this confrontation with the audience. Films, therefore, could be more than mimics of reality, but questioning and engaging for further exploration from spectators themselves.
The closer you see, the less you know.
See again,
not as recipient, but as explorer.
References:
Barthes, R. (1982). Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. United Kingdom: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Bazin, A. (2004). What Is Cinema? Volume II. United Kingdom: University of California Press.
Triet, Justine. (director). (2023). Anatomy of a Fall [film].Les Films Pelléas, Les Films de Pierre.
