Contrapuntal Close-up: The Cinema of John Cassavetes and the Agitation of Sense

Abstract

According to Jean-Luc Nancy the essential condition for the existence of sense is the 'otherness' of our being-together. For John Cassavetes being-together makes sense only there where it escapes sense.

It will be shown that in fact that both propositions derive from a qualitative distance at the heart of our being-together. This qualitative distance triggers the circulation of sense and leaves sense always open. It is in this way that being-together responds of sense absolutely (responding to its content – the acquired meanings – and its structure – sense’s referentiality) by foreclosing any absolute sense, maintaining itself as it were as the moving horizon of sense.