堤

Memory and photographic image :

Revisiting Siegfried Kracauer’s essay Photography with La Jetee

In this paper, I will focus on the distinctions and relations Siegfried Kracauer draws between memory, memory image and photography in his essay Photography, and show why, for him, it is important to maintain such distinctions and remain critical to photography. Then, by using Chris Marker’s short film La Jeteeas a typical experimental practice that integrates fragmented images to create new memory, I will show how Kracauer’s idea can be embodied in media objects, and reconcile Kracauer’s seeming self-paradoxical claims on photography and visual culture.

In photography, Kracauer emphasizes the differences between the nature of memory and that of photography, as “memories are retained because of their significance for that person”and “photography grasps what is given as a spatial and temporal continuum.” Comparing to photography’s record, “memory’s record is full of gaps” spatial-temporally: memory is not a spatial continuum because its “image” is fragmented and re-constructed based on the object’s significance to the person; memory is not a temporal continuum since “memory does not pay much attention to dates” that it skips time and place objects from different linear points of time on a same “surface” based on their importance to consciousness. However, from the point of view of memory, photography is partly consists of “garbage” irrelevant to the representation of consciousness. Memory-image can be understood as the visual component of memory; one shouldn’t confuse memory-image with memory itself, since memory is the multi-sensorialtotality that consists of visual data and that of other senses.

How does photography separate from memory-image, thus with memory in general? Does it prevent memory-image from functioning, or does it serve as a gateway to enter the dimmed areas of human remembrance? For Kracauer, in short, the liveliness of photography is determined by the consciousness that recognizes it, and “the more consciousness withdraws from natural-bonds, the more nature diminishes.”By “nature,” Kracauer is referring to the irreducible actual experience or history that the photography represents, as exemplified in the example of the grandma, in which the strength of the bond between grandma’s photography and children is determined by their actual memory of her. Photography, though itself merely a visual representation functions according to spatial-temporal relations, has the potential to evoke one’s memory of an object. However, photography can also be the death of memory, as “the flood of photos sweeps away the dams of memory.”In circumstances when memory precedes photography, photography acts like a reminder, a gateway toward the relating piece of memory across time and space; in situations when photography precedes memory, or there is no accessible previous memory that consciousness can relate photography to, photography acts like a strict manifestation of the real that the spatial-temporal relations it depicts dominate one’s imagination of history. Even in the first circumstance, photography has, to a certain extent, a destructive potential of memory since photography might replace memory’s integrity, turning it into a deviant of itself. To conclude, photography for Kracauer, in general, is the death of memory and its memory image, though it has a little potential to evoke the actual memory.

Comparing to photography, Kracauer seemed to believe in the potential of film, as he says “the capacity to stir up the elements of nature is one of the possibility of film.”Now, I will turn to Chris Marker’s short film La Jetee to analyse how this potential is realized. La Jetee, with its use of moving image in contrast to still image(photography), disjunctive editing and seemingly paradoxical narrative, blurs the line between memory and imagination, breaks the linear way of seeing history and offers a rich understanding on the intertwining relations between photographic image and memory.

La Jeteeis an experimental short film by French new wave director Chris Marker. It is a 30 minutes long “narrative slide show” consists mostly of still images, or photography, with an exceptional 8 seconds moving image. The story is set over the ruins of the third world war in Paris. The fascist regime won the war and reigns Paris with terror. The protagonist, a imprisoned man, is selected for a time travel experiment to obtain precious resources for the regime from past and future. The experiment operates on specimen’s bonds toward their memories and abilities to imagine----the reason that the man is selected since he has incredibly strong attachment to his childhood memory of a woman’s face and a man’s death at the airport. The film’s narrative time focuses on the course of the man’s investigationinto his memory, or perhaps imagination, under heavy surveillance of theexperimenters. The man revisits his childhood memories and relives his life with the woman of his dream. As he dives deeper into his memory-dream with her, the experimenter increases the dosage of shots. After the man is sent back and forth into the future and finally has the chance to be with the woman, he witnesses, or experiences, his own death.

The moment I want to focus on lasts from 18’50’’ to 19’50’’. The first 40 seconds of this moment is an assemblage of ten different photographs of the woman lying on her side in sleep. The camera takes the point of view of the man, as if he is lying before her and looking at her closely. These photographs’ varied camera distances and different duration times suggest the camera, and so the man, sees her in a intimate motion as he himself is lying on their shared soft bed. The fade-in and fade-outs between the photographs also contribute to the feeling of motion, though we know clearly that this is merely an assemblage of still images. When we reach to 19’34’’, the one and only 8 seconds moving image in the entire film appears--the documentation of the moment the woman opens her eyes. This is a crucial moment. If all the still images(photographs) before this point represent the man’s memory-images, this piece of moving image is trying to suggest that memory itself bursts out from this singular moment, breaking the shackle of any representation and shows its pure and clear form.

However, if we take a step back, reflect on how we arrived at this thought and think of the question “does photography generate memory, or does memory generate its photography,” we will see the underlying gap within this claim. From the base level, we are looking at nothing else but a sequence of photographs taken by Chris Marker. When Marker was interviewed by Libérationon the production of La Jetee, he said “It was made like a piece of automatic writing. I was filming Le Joli mai, completely immersed in the reality of Paris 1962, and the euphoric discovery of “direct cinema” (you will never make me say “cinema verité”) and on the crew’s day off, I photographed a story I didn’t completely understand. It was in the editing that the pieces of the puzzle came together, and it wasn’t me who designed the puzzle. I’d have a hard time taking credit for it. It just happened, that’s all.” Marker’s response suggests without doubt that for him the photographs precede his own memory in La Jetee, as the narrative was “pieced together” after the photographs were taken. However, once the narrative is established, it gains a life of its own. The man in the film generates the memory-images from his own memory, and the photographs that the viewers see are direct representations of his memory-images created by the film maker. In this sense, the originality of the man’s memory is desired by both the viewers and the film maker, as the film maker creates the montage of still images for the man’s memory to dwell on and reveal itself. The man’s memory structurally exists at the crossroad of this “co-desire” and reaches its extreme clearing when the moving image occurs, as if the man’s memory of the woman is so strong that it pierces through the photographic surface and illuminates itself. Thus, the relationship between memory and image(photography) is not a simple causation; instead, as exemplified by La Jetee, they are closely intertwined as the desires of the film maker, the viewers and the man unite to nurture the liveliness of the man’s memory towards to woman of his dreams through images’ mediation.

How is a sequence of photographic montage different from a singular photograph in terms of memory? For Kracauer, the singular photograph prevents memory from functioning because it is impenetrable by the actually history that it dominates what is understood as real, and it “attempts to banish the recollection of death”to grant eternity to the object. Photographic montage, with its motion and fleeting nature, is beyond one’s grasp and desire to possess the object. Photographic montage also has the potential to embody what the object feels like for one. For example, one can tell the “the significance in memory” emphasized by Kracauer based on each photographs’ duration times. In this moment of La Jetee, the duration times for each photographs are clearly disproportionate that it shows how the woman appears within the man’s memory as time lapses. The woman appears through the mediating effect of photographic montage can never be grasped to its totality, just as memory is a intimate connection to an object instead of eternal possession and banishment of death.

Kracauer is against historicism that seeks “complete mirroring of the temporal sequence”to recreate all meaning of history. La Jetee’s use of disjunctive editing style juxtaposes different time and space to create abrupt viewing experience, breaking the linear progression of time and history. At 19’40’’ of the film, right after the moving image of the woman opening her eyes, the image suddenly cuts to the cold and horrifying face of the officer. The contrast is so intense that the viewers might even experience a few seconds of disorientation, just like the man closes his eyes in disbelief right after that shot. A second ago the man, as well as the viewers, was spending sweet time with the lover of dream decades before; a few seconds later the man, as well as the viewers, is sent back in this cold and damp underground cell, being tortured like a dog. The juxtaposition of images in contrast here is also a juxtaposition of different time and space. Similar editing strategies are used throughout the film to create a non-linear temporal space, just as memory functions on its significance to consciousness instead of spatial-temporal relations. In this sense, La Jetee stands with Kracauer and provides an alternative practice against historicism.

In the last section of photography, Kracauer overturns his argument on photography to its Hegelian synthesis by saying that “the warehousing of nature promotes of confrontation of consciousness with nature,”and photography provides “the reflection of reality that has slipped from it.” Paradoxically, yet convincingly, the apocalyptic scenario generates its own immanent redemption. La Jetee, is the one of the astonishing outcomes of that reflective tradition Kracauer foresaw. La Jetee recreates human memory poetically on top of the spatial-temporal logic of photography. By using disjunctive editing and mixing the moving images together with still images(photography), Chris Marker revives the man’s memory image and memory, offering an striking anti-historicism practice. The fact that La Jeteeis set in a post war apocalypse is worth noticing. Under this imaginative apocalypse, memory, together with the human body it is bound to, is exploited as a resource. However, the man’s, the film maker’s and the viewers’ bond and desires towards the fading memory, mediated by creative use of images, penetrate through the iron shell of surveillance and control. Perhaps in apocalyptic scenarios, the bond to memory is our only connection to history and the oppressed dream. La Jetee, with its excellent use of experimental techniques, elevates photography to a height to contain memory under its static surface, whether from the imaginative future or reminiscent past, living up to Kracauer’s prophecy.

原文链接

吉尔.德勒兹在《时间-影像》中断言所有电影都是 “时间电影”。假如电影是个有机体，那么它的细胞核就是：感知-运动符号（用帕索里尼的话说就是电影语言的语素），感知-运动经过剪辑（德勒兹称其为电影的核心行为）， 便成为了“隶属于运动的时间-影像”, 这种情况下，时间不再是运动的尺度，相反，运动成为了时间的视野。出现如此吊诡现象的原因在于影像本身是扁平的，所以它能在空间以外（在电影中，影像必须是运动的，空间是影像的第一维度）的维度上被呈现出来，舍费尔更是说“只有在电影里，我才感受得到时间。”

罗伯格里耶在他的新小说理论中提出，他只用尺度，点，线条来进行写作，简而言之，他试图让小说变成“可视”的小说，所以他会用20页的篇幅事无巨细地描述一座花园，直到最迟钝的读者也能想象出这座花园的每条阡陌。罗伯格里耶宣称，他摒弃了一切对声音和色彩的视觉描述，因为声音和色彩是“不能用来作为证明存在的条件”。再现声音和色彩的诉求正是发明电影这项技术的目的之一，但在今天，数码技术的出现让声音和色彩可以凭空再生，它们“原本要替代的客体”都被扬弃。格里耶认为，这种“语言擦拭被替代物”的现象甚至已经蔓延到了电影之中，影像不再是事物，而是一种试图取代事物的描述，比如戈达尔所说的“这不是血，而是红色。”总而言之，新浪潮最大的贡献在于让电影从“可看”变得“可看又可读”，结果便是，小说越来越像电影，电影越来越像小说。

以上这些理论在今天看来已经毫不费解和前卫，但是在1962年克里斯马克拍摄本片时，舆论仍然在特吕弗和戈达尔掀起的所谓视听革命中争论着何谓电影语言的现代化，《堤》已经悄然抵达了电影的边界，正如文明一样，电影也是在它的边界状态中最为眼花缭乱。

《堤》被很多评论家称为“图像-小说”(“photo-roman”)，注意这个用词，是“图像”而非“影像”，刻意突出了静止而非运动。母语为罗曼语系语言的人都很喜欢在日常谈话中使用 “moment”这个词汇，那么，一个“时刻”到底是一张“图像”还是“影像”呢？从语用的角度出发，当我们使用“moment”时，我们都是处在一种回忆的状态中，在回忆中， 我们必然把每个片段“标记”（皮尔士的术语：mark），再组织叙述。剪辑就是一种回忆的行为，在影片的开头，旁白说 “This is the story of a man marked by an image from his childhood.”作者开门见山，电影是对某段记忆的现实化的工程。电影中的支配者驱使男主角进入回忆，导演驱使观众进入针对这一段回忆的再现中。拥有记忆区分了生命和非生命，控制与反控制成为了生命这部电影的唯一情节。

对图像的大量应用看似颠覆了感知-运动的基本游戏规则，在导演的操控下，观众的视野被一张张光学摄影的图像所定格，观众的脑路被时隐时现的旁白反复旋转，空间被消散，时间似乎也断流了（14分钟时的旁白提到了“dateless”），正如男主角在被强迫的状态中，回忆起了女人的面孔，你也被强迫观看这些挑选出来的，有限的画面，然后男主角开始“记起”成年后的他和那个没有变老的女人在时间之外的某地的邂逅，这邂逅到底是梦境还是记忆？这个男主角还是片头提到的那个男孩了吗？

针对这些问题，镶嵌在蒙太奇中的图像已经不再可以提供任何解释，你只能服从叙事者的陈述。比如，片头那个女人目击男人死去的画面直到结尾才被解密：男主角的记忆中，似乎是他一直在凝视女人，可其实整个故事的真相是，他也一直在被女人，他的支配者们和童年的自己凝视着。莫薇说好莱坞电影中的凝视是一种反射，福柯说工业时代的凝视是一种规训，德里达说一个人唯一不变的就是他的凝视。假如“堤”象征着一种抵御时间波浪 (“wave of time”)的努力，而堤下那部永远没有起飞的飞机却又证明这种努力终究是徒劳的，男主角和观众听到飞机起飞的轰鸣声，轰鸣声下是女人惊恐的面容，然后，叙事结束，时间结束。这一切都是绝望的，却也是美丽的。

值得一提的是，克里斯马克在全片中避免了运用镜面，反射这些烂俗的手法来把图像变成马德莱小蛋糕。对核大战的恐惧催生了反时间的妄念，或许是为了奚落这种布尔乔亚的白日梦，克里斯马克设计了一场记忆的悖论，在这个故事中只有凝结的图像，图像取代了世界，一张图像出现又被另一张图像取代，对时间的回忆取代了时间，其实不存在时间旅行，男主角经历的和你在这28分钟里经历的一样，你头脑中的自动识别系统成为了这场记忆的悖论的帮凶，你不妨把全片看成是一出精心设计，却又在逻辑上不可调和的三段论。假设古典三段论是： 因为男主角必须活着，必须说话，悲剧才能继续，所以他不说话了或者死了，悲剧就结束了。这个故事的结尾表明男主角在开头就已经死去。你看到的又是什么？时间不是内容，不是框架，只是一种感受。电影是时间的伪造者。

早在实验开始前，博士便告诉男主角，“实验后，在另一个时间中醒来的是另一个成年人。”“如果你能够想象或者梦到另一个时间，那你就能在里面生活。”实验开始后的第十天，男主角看到了一些断断续续的画面，出现了一张“和平时代的儿童”的面孔，这个儿童不太可能是童年时代的男主角，毕竟人最难回忆起的面孔就是自己的面孔。第十六天，男主角开始接近目标：空无一人的奥利机场的桥墩，然后是一张女子的面孔，不是停机坪上那位的面孔。此时的解说词是 “一张幸福的面孔，却是另一个人的”。在这张面孔出现之前的是湖泊上的一条孤舟，解说词“有时，他回忆起幸福的日子”。此时，男主角似乎尚能辨别哪张女人的面孔才是让他在寻找的，这说明他的记忆在觉醒。

实验继续，他离目标越来越近了，他终于在桥墩上遇到了那个女人，也终于掉进了实验者们为他准备的陷阱。没错，他想起了那个女人的面孔，伴随着女人面孔的是一些破损的女人的雕塑。然后，叙事回到实验者，他们用德语低声交谈，再接着就是叙事中的第三十天，男主角和女人相遇了，因为实验者们多次把他投放到有女人出现的场景中，而每个场景都被精妙地伪造。

全片第17分钟时，男主角已经接到了墙的警告，而在叙事内的第五十天，男主角和女人在博物馆里观赏动物标本，他没有意识到这些标本就是在暗示他自己的命运。然后，实验者把他传送到未来，借未来人（其实就是这些实验者自己，如果有未来，也就只有他们能存活到未来）之口讽刺他“你说人类不应该拒绝过去，这不过是因为人类不能抵挡宿命才找的借口。”未来人给了男主角一条明路：把万能能量单元带回去，然后加入他们未来人的行列。男主角拒绝了，他不顾一切地要在最后一次实验中赶到奥利机场的桥墩来见女人，他以为女人在那里等他。结果是，当他第一次要进行真正的时间旅行时，他就被从时间中永久地驱逐。“童年的图像只是一个诱饵。”时间就像一卷胶片一样永不停止地转动，不管过去还是未来，都是被完成而且不可更改的情景。

正如很多人注意到的，在第三十天男女主角相遇之后，男主角开始出现在“过去”的影像里，他的出现带来了某种外部的介入，时间似乎至此才流动起来。我前不久看了罗伯格里耶的《美丽的女俘》，其中有一个比较类似的场景：一名通灵师和医生监控，重现着男主人公的梦境，男主人梦到了海，梦到了雷内玛格丽特的《美丽的女俘》，梦到了一个勾引自己的女人，和自己都先后出现在玛格丽特的画中。

相似的桥段，克里斯马克和罗伯格里耶的共同之处在于，他们的主人公都在不自知的情况下坠入了镜像之中，区别在于，克里斯马克让镜像服务于叙事，被伪造成男主角视角的叙事始终在观赏着镜像中的男主角，文字成为了唯一不变的矢量，而在《美丽的女俘》中，男主角在镜像中的挣扎却因为多重的叙事结构事实上变成了一种对叙事本身的延异。

另一个有趣的细节是，在格里耶更有代表性的《说谎的人》人中，所谓的闪回镜头本质上都是一些刻意混淆界限的换称游戏。在格里耶的《欲念浮动》和《美丽的女俘》中，对应大量空洞的肉欲明喻和有限空间内扭曲人物的，是多次被抛出的女人高跟鞋的意象。高跟鞋和皮鞋触地时发出的响声成为许多镜头中唯一的活物，格里耶对声音和色彩的运用几乎使得剪辑的行为在镜头内部完成，他示范 了如何光运用叙事把电影变成拓扑空间。与格里耶相比，克里斯马克要严肃一些，在拯救人性的时代主题之下，他更多保留了对人性中审美和爱欲的嘲弄。

在这幅标志性的画面中，男主角带着眼罩，头斜靠着，他身下的更像是吊床而不是死人床，他仿佛一个酣睡的儿童那么安逸。 唯独被蒙起来的双眼在暗示他在承受酷刑。很容易就能看出，这位男主角和现在那些观看VR电影的观众高度神似。特别讽刺的一个情节是，未来的人居然还跑到集中营告诉男主角，到了未来，要时空穿越就容易了许多。假如作者的本意就是想很严肃地告诉观众，在时间和回忆中的旅行的感受类似欣赏一部他人为你执导，并且由你本人出演的电影，那么死亡到底是最后的一个剪辑，看电影看到死，看到你自己的死。

在结尾的这张图像中，男主角倒下的身躯遮盖了前景，远处唯一一个可见的身影，很多人都认定那个人影就是那个女人。那个从头到尾都没有出现过的男孩呢？是否被男主角后仰的身体挡住了？或者说被挡住的是行刑者的身体？抑或是那个疑似女人的身影就是行刑者呢？还是说倒下去的男人根本就不是男主角？（他的左手带着手套，之前从没有看到他带过手套）。

有一篇影评文章中提到，作者在第一次观看《堤》后以为上面这张图像中的观察塔上站着手持镰刀的死神。多年后，他重看《堤》时才意识到自己错了。这位作者说，《堤》这部作品最神奇的地方在于一种持续制造错觉的能力。而全片最大的错觉就是那个男孩从头到尾的缺席，于是作者找到了下面这幅画面

影片的开头也一闪而过了一个男孩，他在家人陪同下来到奥利机场的桥墩看飞机，他只留下了一个背影，然后在影片最后出现了这个女孩，这个女孩是在代替片头那位没有交代清楚身份的男孩吗？ 在全片的最后一幕中，唯独只有上文提到的那个模糊不清的黑色人影支配了我们的视线，图像是强权的，也是欺骗性的。男孩的缺席，或者说镰刀死神的缺席不应该掩盖一个事实:这些看似巧合的错误在向观众灌输一种印象：文本内外的观察者都同时陷入了一种对于似曾相识(dejavu)的不详预感之中，一种意识到已有记忆被篡改的后怕。在《堤》中，这种恐惧深藏在核大战制造的毁灭之下，直到历史的末日和个人的末日先后降临，艺术和很多东西一样，终于显得 “与生俱来得毫无意义”。

上文的作者拿《堤》中的停机坪和一幅Hugo Simberg 1889年的画作作比较， 图下的这幅画作名叫《堤上的舞蹈》

不过，我认为让上面那位作者产生死神出现的错觉的是同一位画家的同一幅以堤为背景的画作

“Dancing with Death”

我一直看不出在第一幅画右边角落的究竟是一个人还是两个人。这位芬兰画家 Hugo Simberg 最有名的作品是下面这幅 《受伤的天使》，巧合的是画中的这位天使和《堤》中的男主人公一样被蒙住了眼睛。2007年，夜愿发行了一首名叫 “Amaranth" 的单曲的MV，便取材于这幅画。当然，这首歌曲和《堤》没有任何关系。

很奇怪，第一遍看完《堤》之后，我独自在一座计划经济时代遗留下来的办公楼的安全通道里面站了3,4分钟，可能抽掉了5，6支香烟。楼道里没有灯光，没有窗户，我周围的环境就类似《堤》中人类栖息的地下管道。当然不会有人请我去做时间旅行的实验，如果有，我希望我能带着手机里的《堤》的资源回到2008年，然后不再看任何别的电影。不看那100多部没任何意义的电影，我可以做很多别的事情，比如练练电竞，学学金融，实在不行好好写几个段子也比做什么搞“风格化”，“先锋”电影的梦强，毕竟这个星球上已经有人在1962年拍出了这样的杰作。人这辈子总会有几个瞬间，发自内心地意识到自己根本不可能追上前人。以前，我把写出一首诗，拍出一部电影的快感比做扒窃得手，考试作弊；在看了《堤》之后，我发现这种快感，洛特雷阿蒙在《马尔多罗之歌》里面已经有了描写，“在点燃了大火之后，一言不发地推开惊恐的人群离开，都不回头看一眼。”

2012年7月29日，克里斯马克死亡，当天是他91岁生日。1962年2月16日，《堤》首映。7+2+9=18，2+16=18。18，在第18天看到的应该只有废墟。