Film-Philosophy
Journal | Salon | Portal (ISSN 1466-4615)
Vol. 6 No. 12, June 2002
Craig Tepper
The Cavell Cavil
William Rothman and Marian
Keane _Reading Cavell's The World
Viewed: A Philosophical Perspective on Film_ Detroit, Michigan: Wayne
State University Press, 2000 ISBN
0-8143-2896-2 320 pp. Stanley Cavell, an American
philosopher, Walter M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics at
Harvard since 1963 and Professor Emeritus since 1997,
famously began his career while still a graduate student at
the University of California at Berkeley. In 1957 he
delivered a paper titled 'Must We Mean What We Say?' that
was widely viewed as taking to school eminent Berkeley
professor of logic Benson Mates's quibbles about the
availability, the ordinariness of ordinary language. His
revision of that essay, and Cavell's subsequent wide-ranging
work -- 'readings' of Emerson, Thoreau, Shakespeare,
Beckett, Kierkegaard, among others -- attest to the contest
with language he has been engaged with in the last four
decades. Cavell's second book, _The
World Viewed: Reflections on the Ontology of Film_, was
published in 1972. A seemingly radical departure from his
first book (titled after his famous essay), Cavell's new
work required an audience able to appreciate his personal
brand of late Wittgensteinian thought and Heideggerian
hermeneutics, one that might perhaps even be startled by the
aptness of his choice of film (as it turned out, the
traditional, 'Hollywood' film) as his originating point.
Further complicating matters, _The World Viewed_ sought that
audience at the same moment feminist, semiotic and Lacanian
theory were sweeping across academia with film studies as
their leading edge. From the outset, Cavell's
book was met with puzzlement. So much so that he was
prompted to publish an addendum, 'More of _The World
Viewed_', as part of an Enlarged Edition in 1979. He
explained that many friends had told him he had written 'a
difficult book, a sometimes incomprehensible book'.
[1] Nevertheless, _The World Viewed_ has slowly
found not only readers, but disciples; not the least reason
being that two chapters have been reprinted in Mast and
Cohen's widely-used _Film Theory and Criticism _
text. _Reading Cavell's The World
Viewed: A Philosophical Perspective on Film_, co-written by
William Rothman and Marian Keane, is a fittingly paradoxical
testament to both the influence and obscurity of the book it
purports to help film students and other readers 'read'. The
Preface states that: 'The pages that follow present a
consecutive reading of _The World Viewed_' (9). This is true
enough. The introduction sets out the plan -- a reading
divided into eight sections that deal sequentially with
Cavell's text and clearly and concisely lays out the context
in terms of film studies. Yet even here, the chief
difficulty that plagues Rothman and Keane's book surfaces.
They offer a 'reading' of Cavell's book that does so by
means of Cavell's considerable philosophical/literary
output, and by means of a similarly totalizing
technique. Since Cavell's own way of
proceeding is determinedly totalizing, one soon notices that
the Rothman/Keane book's aim is never simple clarification
where clarification might entail any narrowing of Cavell's
'meaning'. If Wittgenstein suggested that an explanation is
what satisfies, [2] Rothman and Keane, like Cavell,
are not offering anything like 'explanations'. Read on, read
further, meanings are to be deepened and widened is their
tact. In due course, all nine of Cavell's other works, eight
written subsequent to _The World Viewed_, are copiously
cited. Though the authors' reasons
may be valid, more pertinent is that the clearest, most
intelligible account of Cavell's approach comes after the
book concludes. In the Appendix to Rothman and Keane's book
the reader gets a more complete view as to why the authors
refer to _The World Viewed_ in their Preface as a
'Metaphysical Memoir'. In no sense an 'ordinary'
ordinary language philosopher, the contortions required of
Cavell in answering Mates's deceptively naive query, as to
how ordinary language philosophers had recourse to ordinary
language, set Cavell's sails early on. Rothman and Keane
here provide a context for understanding Cavell's
philosophy: 'By registering differences
that elucidate the diverse roles particular words play in
our lives -- the logic underlying the ways we use these
concepts, what Wittgenstein calls their 'grammar' -- an
ordinary language philosopher makes claims whose own grammar
is closer to that of aesthetic judgments than to ordinary
empirical judgments.' (264) After Wittgenstein, one
wants to call a person who makes aesthetic judgments about
film a 'film critic'. Though, indeed, Cavell is not (or at
least only occasionally). At other times he resembles a
'film theorist'. But the inadequacy of both terms leads us
to see how the 'grammar' of Cavell's enterprise most nearly
shares a 'grammar', an underlying logic, with that of a work
of art. It is a performance, 'a path of philosophy, a path
of self knowledge . . . an uncharted path' (259). Like an epic poem or novel,
or even a Hollywood movie (narrative works whose conclusions
ideally ramify back across all that has gone before),
Cavell's performance withholds its fullest aspect, at once
the goal and source of the 'obscurity of [its]
promptings', [3] until its end. Likewise, so do
Rothman and Keane. Consequently, reading their book is like
reading Cavell's. The host of provisional views and
judgments offered -- that readers have found it by turns
provocative, wrong-headed, odd, or just counter-intuitive --
often get no explication. More often they are amplified upon
by reference to Cavell's other works. Furthermore, Rothman
and Keane are generally either tone deaf to, or uninterested
in giving voice to, the difficulties Cavell's book presents
outside those difficulties Cavell's method presents to
itself. An exception that proves the
rule is to be found in Section II of _Reading Cavell's The
World Viewed_. Here, the book treats one of the chapters
reproduced in Mast and Cohen's popular _Film Theory and
Criticism_ -- Chapter 3: 'Photograph and Screen'. On pages 68-69 Rothman and
Keane air objections philosopher Alexander Sesonske raised
in a 1974 review. They were objections of enough merit to
incite Cavell to respond in 'More of _The World Viewed_'.
Because this passage quotes Sesonske's review, Cavell's
paraphrase of it, and the rejoinder, for clarity's sake I've
taken them separately and abbreviated them slightly.
Sesonske's objection is this: 'What is 'the world' that
Cavell says photographs, and therefore movies, are of? It it
not clear . . . Spade and Archer never shared an office in
San Francisco; Jules and Jim never shared a girl in prewar
Paris.' [4] And Rothman and Keane quote Cavell's
reply: 'it may seem to follow that this issue of reality is
settled, that movies are something on their own; the only
things they *could* be recordings of . . . have simply never
taken place.' (69) [5] Rothman and Keane then say,
'Cavell's response in 'More of _The World Viewed_' to
Sesonske's objection merits careful attention.' (69) The
core of what they quote from Cavell is this: 'it does not follow that
reality has played no essential role in the origin of that
projection. All that follows is that any role reality has
played is not that of having been recorded. But reality is
not so much as a candidate for that role, because the
projections we view on screen are not in principle aurally
or visually indistinguishable from the events of which
they're projections -- what could be more distinguishable.'
(69) [6] 'Having disarmed the
objection', Rothman and Keane then say, 'Cavell does not
simply let it drop' (69). They emphasize how Cavell soldiers
on, turning the objection into his own question; then quote
his assertion that: 'I describe the role of reality as one
of being photographed, projected, screened, exhibited and
viewed . . . The significance I attach to these terms can be
assessed, I believe, by nothing short of my book as a
whole.' (69) [7] Again, Cavell asks the
reader to wait for his view to be seen in *total*. However,
has Cavell really disarmed the objection? One would hope the
authors of a 'reading' would closely attend to Cavell's
response themselves. They do not. Central to Cavell's view
of our relationship to movies is that the world we view in
movies shares an identity with the world that provides the
scene for our lives. For Cavell, it is not that there aren't
differences, it is that their likenesses, their
resemblances, are so pervasive and transparent they are
missed. When Cavell's book succeeds in revealing their
correspondence it provides readers with the thrill of
insight, the exhilaration of seeing something clearly
obvious. It is this quality that has won him adherents and
earned him a companion reading. But, to return to Sesonske's
objection, was 'reality' never so much as even a candidate
for what was recorded in, say, _Casablanca_? Maybe not,
though certainly it was at least a *candidate* for recording
in _Battle of Algiers_. It seems fair then to go on to say,
as he does, that the events recorded for _Casablanca_ are
indistinguishable from the movie. And there's no arguing
Cavell's next move -- that nothing could be more
'distinguishable' from 'Casablanca' than 'reality'. The
unvoiced argument runs something like this: since the movie
was never in competition with reality, was never something
that could be confused with it, and since reality was never
put before the cameras, all it makes sense to say about
reality in terms of _Casablanca_ is that *reality wasn't
what was recorded in making it*. This is a peculiar kind of
language game that gives the meaning of 'reality' just one
context, Cavell's at this point, in the service of making a
general assertion. (It is also a game that has benefited
from a clever substitution, 'reality' for 'world' --
Cavell's admitted paraphrase.) For example, might not
Michael Curtiz have maintained there was some 'reality'
_Casablanca_ was after in its filming? Would Curtiz have
meant something else by 'reality'? A huge number of uses
(meanings) of the word 'reality' could be instanced as true
statements about the 'recording' of the film. Cavell's dismissal of
Sesonske's objection implies that any objection about
'reality' in this context could be disarmed this way. Either
Cavell thinks it fair to use 'reality' extremely narrowly
and/or, conversely, all uses of the word share an essential
thread. As an assertion the last idea is probably false.
Cavell, however, doesn't make this *as an assertion* and the
potentially fatal objection, like many others that could be
offered along the way, must be treated as a mere
cavil. However, Wittgenstein is
suspicious of this kind of essentialism. In _Philosophical
Investigations_ he suggested that it helped to picture
language as a rope woven of many strands *none of which* ran
its entire length, while Cavell avers in his book's Preface
that: 'Memories of movies are strand over strand with
memories of my life'. [8] At the heart of Cavell's
metaphysical memoir, his philosophical practice, is this
curiosity: his attempting to have it both ways from a
Wittgensteinian perspective. In _The Blue and Brown Books_
Wittgenstein writes: 'Our craving for generality
has another main source . . . the method of science.
Philosophers . . . are irresistibly tempted to ask and
answer questions in the way that science does. This tendency
is the real source of metaphysics, and lead the philosopher
into complete darkness . . . Instead of 'craving for
generality' I could also have said 'the contemptuous
attitude towards the particular case''.
[9] For Wittgenstein, this led
to a practice meant to *demystify* our thinking by appealing
to the particular meaning of a word in a given context.
However, Rothman and Keane consistently draw our attention
away from how Cavell, in demanding adherence to his meaning
in each *particular case*, simultaneously appeals to *our
craving for generality* -- how, for example, when Cavell
speaks of 'the world viewed' he conflates the world viewed
in a movie with the world itself. This central issue is
adverted to in the very next passage. In characterizing a
movie screen as a barrier, Cavell in part states: 'That the
projected world does not exist (now) is its only difference
from reality.' (70) [10] Perhaps recognizing the
puzzlement the remark has undoubtedly engendered in film
theory classes, Rothman and Keane explore this
characterization by making the following restatement with
two clarifications: 'the projected world is separated from
reality by the fact, and only the fact, that it does not
exist (now) . . . The projected world does not differ from
reality by being, for example, two- rather than
three-dimensional', and, after explaining how this is so,
they focus at greater length on how Cavell understands film
temporality, how 'his parenthetical 'now' may seem to
suggest that in the past the projected world really
existed'. (71) What is dumbfounding here
the authors seem not to see, or are affecting not to. The
far more likely confusion Cavell's statement generates is
that we ordinarily think a movie *differs* from reality in
*a host* of ways. They pretend Cavell's most startling claim
-- that there is no difference between a movie and reality
besides time -- is, literally, unremarkable. But, if I stand
up in front of the projector's beam don't I see my own head
in silhouette? Either Rothman and Keane
have been reading Cavell too long, or they are struggling
here to preserve an illusion of naturalness about Cavell's
words. It is the loss of a similar illusion which Cavell
confesses to having been a source of his own promptings to
write about cinema. But readers would have been better
served by a less faithful imitation of their model. Cavell's
claim is a startling one. Acknowledging it would have done
more to advance our understanding than pretending to its
transparency, which leaves the reader, again, to discover
it. Rothman and Keane could themselves have pointed out that
when you *stand up in front* of a projector beam you are no
longer watching a movie -- but interrupting one. The spell
of the illusion is broken. In fairness, Rothman and
Keane always alert the reader. Their insights are sharp, and
they are close, if closed, readers. Where Cavell's other
works are cited their allusion most often seems apposite and
of a length that allows some hope of comprehension. But the
authors are much too concerned with preserving, even
weaving, his spell. Proceeding less by
explication than by quotation, restatement, and
self-referral, the book tends to apotheosize, rather than
open Cavell's mysteries. (For example: his seemingly
arbitrary choice of categories from Baudelaire's _The
Painter Of Modern Life_ applied to stars and types; or his
stretching photographic 'automatism' to account for genres
-- though here they work manfully and shed greatest light on
Cavell's over-all position.) If _The World Viewed_
attempts to show that movies provide a world complete
without me, that is present to me, it does so in hope of
bringing the reader along to realize its fullest statement,
that, as the authors quote Cavell: 'A world complete without
me which is present to me is the world of my immortality.
This is an importance of film -- and a danger. It takes my
life as my haunting of the world . . .' (254)
[11] Perhaps a book that hopes to
present so breathtaking a view, that so deftly invites the
reader to occupy the exact same space as its author, to
assume his language as well as his vision, is doomed to
hermetic enshrinement, to be available only to those who
initiate themselves by way of its difficulties. Cavell may
deserve this, but the audience for _Reading Cavell's The
World Viewed_ will in the main be his disciples. Those who
turn to it in frustration, looking for a way in to _The
World Viewed_, will remain so. Santa Monica, California,
USA Footnotes 1. Stanley Cavell, _The
World Viewed_, Enlarged Edition (Cambridge, Massachusetts:
Harvard University Press, 1979), p. 162. 2. Ludwig Wittgenstein,
_Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough_, trans. A. C. Miles, ed.
Rush Rhees (Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities
Press, 1979), p. 2. 3. Cavell, _The World
Viewed_, p. 162. 4. Alexander Sesonske,
Review of _The World Viewed_, _Georgia Review_, vol. 28,
1974, p. 561. 5. Cavell, _The World
Viewed_, p. 182. 6. Ibid., p. 183. 7. Ibid., p. 184. 8. Ibid., p. xix. 9. Ludwig Wittgenstein, _The
Blue and Brown Books_ (New York: Harper and Row, 1960), p.
18. 10. Cavell, _The World
Viewed_, p. 24. 11. Ibid., p.
160. Copyright ©
_Film-Philosophy_ 2002 Craig Tepper, 'The Cavell
Cavil', _Film-Philosophy_, vol. 6 no. 12, June 2002
<http://www.film-philosophy.com/vol6-2002/n12tepper>. Also see: Willam Rothman, 'Response to
Tepper', _Film-Philosophy_, vol. 6 no. 13, June 2002
<http://www.film-philosophy.com/vol6-2002/n13rothman>.
Save...Print...Read...Recycle
Back to the Film-Philosophy homepage
