This is an critical review I wrote for college autumn 08. I'm posting it merely as a reference for any other poor student who might be doing something on some of this material and is sitting googling at the last minute for references. Of course this would mean that the intended audience will not have read this since they will have pushed Ctrl + f already
Here Lies in film...
Venue: Temple Bar Gallery
Producer : Al Curran
Cinematographer : Christopher Doyle
Performance and initial concept: Olwen Fouere
Music: Roger Doyle and General Practice
Editor: Simon Hudson
Walking in to the Temple Bar Gallery during this exhibition one is first confronted with two standard flat screen TVs on which are shown loops of two old ocean liners going about their journeys (actually the same set of images set up as mirror images of one another). Inside the main space is projected a series of dark, disjointed images of a cold, dirty interior full of hard metal edges, infinitely vacuous, dark spaces and sudden bursts of intense white light. The atmosphere's tension is heightened by a darkly ambient sound track sprinkled with harsher, louder accidentals and background noises.
One is made aware, at first by glimpses of a silhouette and an incoherent whispering sound, that someone is present. As the piece progresses the viewer is confronted with fragments of a narrative voice-over at the same time as witnessing the throws of a human body in extreme distress. The voice protests over it's treatment at the hands of the gardai and explains lucidly it's dissatisfaction at having it's request to meet with Eamon De Valera denied, among other things.
The appearance of the figure becomes more frequent and more distressing, the voice's protests less distinguishable and the cutting of the camera shots more violent as the piece goes on. The music and background noise swell only minimally before the entire piece fades to black. This piece, Here Lies in film... is a filming by Christopher Doyle of an original performance installation by the Operating Theater group with Olwen Fouere playing the part of Antonin Artaud, a French actor and writer of the 1920s and 30s and noted surrealist figure of the time. The goings on in the film relate to an episode in Artaud's life when, in August 1937, he traveled to Ireland after a premonition which had led him to believe that the end of the world was imminent and that he must travel to Inis Mor1. Accounts seem to vary about exactly what he wanted to do there but St Patrick and JM Synge feature prominently. After traveling the country for some weeks, leaving a trail of unpaid debts, Artaud was eventually arrested in Dublin after causing a disturbance on the grounds of the Jesuit Monastary in Milltown. After a short incarceration in Mountjoy Jail, he was deported as a “destitute and undesirable alien”.2 On his return to France, he was held for nine years in various mental asylums, undiagnosed and generally considered incurably insane, although his friends in Paris considered his situation an unfortunate one; his eccentricities having been more acceptable in that city at that time.3
“...the camera is a gentle voyeur, lingering in corridors while people speak outside the frame, reflecting characters in mirrors, swimming in from behind as if eavesdropping, offering all the while iconic portraits of sorrow and solitude.”4
This is what the Observer's Gaby Wood said of another of Christopher Doyle's works and it becomes useful in contextualizing this work. Here Lies in film... uses similar tactics intensified to the point where one feels not only as if they are within the same confines as Artaud but are drawn in the end into his madness and frustration. In contrast to In The Mood For Love (film referred to here) Here Lies in film... puts the viewer in an immediately uncomfortable position – no softness afforded.
As a piece included in the Dublin Theater Festival, Here Lies in film... is interesting because of the decision to film the original performance piece in a markedly cinematic and very stylized manner and then exhibit it a contemporary art space. This is made all the more remarkable since it also the first filmed piece released under the prolific and long running Operating Theater group.5
At this point, it is worth referring back to the subject of the piece, Antonin Artaud, since he is generally accepted as the only one of the French surrealists to have developed a theory of cinema.One must assume that, as a truly groundbreaking cinematographer, known for his departure from predominant film making practice, Christopher Doyle must have made himself aware of Artaud's theory in preparation for the making of this film. In any case, comparing this piece with the surviving ideas of it's subject proves an interesting critical method.
Stephen Barber summarizes Artaud's theory thus:
“It was a cinema backed by a theory intended both to exact a radical obliteration of all cinematic history up until that point and to create a reinvention of spectatorship by negating the basis of the film in the rapport between illusory and pacifying patterns of light and their incorporated, enmeshed spectator.”6
Here Lies in film... deviates from this idea in a number of ways. Artaud, developing his theory at a pivotal point in cinematic history - the end of the silent movie era with the advent of sound in film - initially opposed the use of sound in the scenarios he was writing since he thought sound would dominate and detract from the imagery, which was his main focus. Here Lies in film... uses a powerful but subtle soundtrack which complements without dominating the imagery, if one takes the music as separate from the narrative elements. The narrative elements on the other hand dominate to a degree by forming connections between the images and separate events, drawing one's attention ultimately away from the imagery and communicating ideas which are not addressed visually.
Olwen Fouere's powerful performance and Christopher Doyle's handling of this raw material is however certainly in keeping with Artaud's preoccupation with the use of the human body as a central material and subject in film. There are images in this film which definitely remind one of “The Sea Shell and the Clergyman”, the first of the three great surrealist films (the other two being Luis Buñuel's Un Chien Andalou and L'Age d'Or) which is difficult to interperate since Artauds attitude toward the film is hard to pin down. The film is the only one of Artaud's many written scenarios ever to be realised on celluloid but was filmed without his involvement and vehemently criticized by him upon completion. Some years later Artaud's view of the film seems to lighten in view of it's preceeding Buñuel's more well known films.7
One of the main problems Artaud had with the film was the disparity between his theoretical concern of trying to convey the inner workings and structure of dreams and what he saw as director Germain Dulacs's simple representation of the dream's narrative content. In Here Lies in film..., the images themselves convey a real sense of understanding how to represent the kind of metaphysical breakdown down that can seem to afflict one suffering from mental illness with intuitive focus on the body and the physical space it inhabits edited in such a way as to convey psychological collapse which is then elaborated upon by the voice over narrative.
In my opinion, and I feel that Artaud would have agreed at some point in his working life, this film would be more successful as a visual piece if the voice over narrative was not included since, by it's inclusion, it grounds the visual in specifics of the background story and narrows one's understanding of the of the piece. The visual elements and the musical portion of the sound track are in harmony due to the non-narrative nature of both, something which can also be seen in Christopher Doyle's feature films as dreamlike interludes which do not further the story but offer one time to reflect on and understand the complexities of the events that make up the films' narrative premise.
According to Barber, Artaud's ideal for the cinema would be for it to be as ephemeral as a stage production which only exists in the memories and reactions of the audience who sees the performance. This would of course mean that films would ideally only be shown once to a limited number of people and then destroyed. An interesting contrast exists between this idea and the fact, as mentioned above, that this is the first attempt by the performance art group behind this production to present one of their many ephemeral works in the more permanent media of film.
What this says about the creator's interest in the specifics of Artaud's theory of cinema is – not much. Fouere's concern seems to be with a personal identification with the character of
Artaud himself and with the difficulties associated with this period of his life. Acting out behavior which is used here by the cinematographer and editor in an effort to break down and reveal the inner workings of the state of mind which could cause such behavior.
The performance's inherent power can be understood in the context of Fouere's long experience, not only as an actor but also in contemporary dance. If instead of seeing this as a dramatic performance, one sees it as a contemporary dance piece, leaving the more traditional narrative devises aside for a minute, it can be appreciated as an incredibly mature example of this craft, with a minimum of stylization and much genuine expression.
Even in the context of Christopher Doyle's often experimental output, this film is uncompromising in it's transcendental nature and we can hope that it will be seen by future film historians as one step in a total departure from the dominant cinematic trends by an increasingly influential artist at his height. It is also possible that this kind of work will remain in the background of Doyle's larger projects.
It might be worth finishing off by admitting that to assume Doyle and the rest of the production team's consideration of the theory of Antonin Artaud may be entirely misguided since Doyle himself is known as the man who photographed a shot for shot remake of Psycho without ever seeing the original.
References
1Barber, Stephen; The Screaming Body. Creation Books, 1999, p35
2Exhibition Press Release
3 Barber, op-cit, p37
4Wood, Gaby, The Observer, Sunday July 17th 2005 ( HYPERLINK "http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2005/Jul/17/features.review"http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2005/Jul/17/features.review)
5Exhibition Press Release
6 Barber, op-cit, p13
7 Barber, ibid, p7
Photos : http://www.olwenfouere.com
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