Film-Philosophy
Journal | Salon | Portal (ISSN 1466-4615)
Vol. 6 No. 16, July 2002
An van Dienderen
This Special Mystique of Interview Politics
A Flow Between Fact and Fiction
Trinh T. Minh-ha _Cinema Interval_ New York and London:
Routledge, 1999 ISBN 0-415-92200-3 (hbk)
0-415-92201-1 (pbk.) 274 pp. 1. Introduction Vietnamese filmmaker and
feminist thinker Trinh T. Minh-ha is an articulate voice in
independent filmmaking. In her writings and interviews, as
well as in her film scripts, Trinh explores what she
describes as the *infinite relation* of word to image.
_Cinema-Interval_ brings together her recent conversations
on film and art, life and theory, with Homi Bhabha, Deb
Verhoeven, Annamaria Morelli, and other critics. Together
these interviews offer a broad presentation of her ideas.
_Cinema Interval_ covers a wide range of issues, many of
them concerning *the space between* -- between viewer and
film, image and text, interviewer and interviewee, lover and
beloved. How Trinh uses the concept of *interval* is
explained at different passages in the book. In one such
passage, she writes: 'I would say that creating
rhythm is a way of working with intervals -- silences,
pauses, pacing -- and working with intervals means working
with relationships in the wider sense of the term.
Relationships between one word, one sentence, one idea and
another; between one's voice and other women's voices; in
short, between oneself and the other. What you are creating
in relationships is not the mere product of an accumulative
process, but rather, a musical accuracy -- the precise
rhythm and tuning that allow what you say and don't say to
find its reverberation in other people.' (38) Extensively illustrated in
colour and black and white, the book also offers a visual
trajectory within her work. Not reducing the images to mere
illustrations, the viewer is invited to enter her work
simultaneously from a textual and a visual perspective. As
an added bonus, the complete scripts of Trinh's films _Shoot
for the Contents_ (1991) and _A Tale of Love_ (1995) are
also included in the volume. 2. The Politics of the
Interview Explored Why a book with interviews?
Trinh dealt with the 'special mystique' (247) of interviews
at length in her films and writings. According to her, what
is at stake in the politics of interviews is not only the
unavoidable question of truth and information, but also the
*burden of representation*. For her, the French terms
*entrevue* and *entretien* are revealing both mutuality,
betweenness, and a *third ground*, concepts which are most
apt in dealing with the notion of interview (248). In this
book she presents another exciting layer in her exploration
of the politics of interviews. She collected several
interviews in which she herself is interviewed. As such, she
offers the reader a vulnerable and personalised take on the
politics of interviews, in which she ingeniously transforms
the discourse on her films into one on interviews. As Trinh
explains: 'the interview is, at its
best, a device that interrupts the power of speaking, that
creates gaps and detours, and that invites one to move in
more than one direction at a time. It allows me to return to
my work or to the creative process with different ears and
eyes, while I try to articulate the energies, ideas and
feelings that inspire it. It is in the *interval* between
the interviewer and the interviewee, in the movement between
listening and speaking or between the spoken word and the
written word, that I situate the necessity for interviews.'
(4) Additionally, she offers the
script of _Shoot for the Contents_ in which she also
explored the politics of interview: 'I was working with a
body of interviews that had been carried out in Vietnam by
another woman of the Vietnamese diaspora, translated and
published in French, retranslated by myself into English and
then re-enacted in the film' (29). As such, she emphasises
the fictive nature of oral testimonies, 'because language
itself is fictional by nature. An image of a reality or a
word used to point to a reality, has to address its
*fictive* reality as image or word.' (56) In dealing with
this pseudo *truthfulness* in representation, Trinh offers
again the complexity of the politics of knowledge, and
refuses to reduces it to a mere representation of
authenticity. 3. _Cinema Interval_
Inscribed within the Discourse on Production
Processes I propose to view _Cinema
Interval_ within the discourse on production processes. I
obviously recognise that there are many ways to encounter
this book, that's precisely the interest of her work.
However, I think perceiving this book as a way to enlighten
creative processes could be a contribution to (un)veil what
happens within the infinite relation of word and image:
'filmmaking is a complex form of veiling. So rather than
simply condemning the veil, we also have to deal with the
power of its attraction as with desire in love
relationships.' (197) By reproducing issues encountered in
the process of creating the films she sheds light on how she
envisions the production process, and, as such, she invites
the reader to broaden their concept of filmmaking. In her
films she explicitly reproduces the performance and
theatricality of the film process. 'Like in all my other
films, the strategies I use usually point back to the making
and viewing of the work.' (202) By inscribing the process in
the production of knowledge, she proposes a critical stance
on image building -- 'the demystification of the creative
act has almost become an accepted fact: The writer or the
artist is bound to look critically at the relations of
production and can no longer indulge in the notion of *pure
creativity*.' (224) Cinematic framings are imbedded in an
intangible relationship between the real and the imaginary.
Arjun Appadurai writes: 'ordinary lives today are more often
powered not by the givenness of things but by the
possibilities that the media (either directly or indirectly)
suggest are available'. [1] However, in being
inspired and challenged by the identities on screen, the
mode of production is often omitted. In this sense, the
reconstruction of the real (this fiction) is perceived as
fact. There exists a deeply rooted confusion between the
presented and the experienced reality, which is blurring the
urge for scrutiny. A viewer is being developed who is highly
trained in believing what is being showed. Because of the
referential or indexical quality images are wrongly taken
for reality, and therefore the production or constructionist
level that is located between the experienced reality and
the representation is neglected. Bill Nichols writes: 'The
very authenticity of the image testifies to the use of
source material from the present moment, not the past. This
presents the threat of disembodiment: the camera records
those we see on screen with indexical fidelity, but these
figures are also ghosts or simulacra of others who have
already acted out their past.' [2] The essential elements of
film are mostly being covered up. When, why, and how
selection, intrusion, performance, and representation has
taken place is being camouflaged by means of an Ancient
Greek view on drama. By submitting the flow of experiences
to the structure of a classical drama, one confides in a
certain appropriation and an ideology-laden use of images.
The viewer cannot locate censorship nor accountability. Form
(the type of narrative, the scenario) in and of itself thus
carries a highly sophisticated ideological meaning. To
ignore the mode of production of this form is to confine it
in an ideological drama. Elsewhere Trinh writes: 'What is presented as
evidence remains evidence, whether the observing eye
qualifies itself as being subjective or objective. At the
core of such a rationale dwells, untouched, the Cartesian
division between subject and object, that perpetuates a
dualistic inside-versus-outside, mind-against-matter view of
the world. Again, the emphasis is laid on the power of film
to capture reality 'out there' for us 'in here'. The moment
of appropriation and of consumption is either simply ignored
or carefully rendered invisible according to rules of good
and bad documentary. The art of talking-to-say-nothing goes
hand-in-hand with the will to say, and to say only to
confine something in a meaning. Truth has to be made vivid,
interesting; it has to be 'dramatized' if it is to convince
the audience of the evidence, whose 'confidence' in it
allows truth to take shape.' [3] An example I experienced in
my own filmmaking: I used a Super8 camera in my film
_Visitors of the Night_ (1998) to illustrate the reactions
of the Mosuo-people in China to my digital video camera. The
Super8 images can therefore be presented as more 'real',
more authentic in relation to the mode of production of this
film as they evoke the scene of filmmaking. However, the
medium itself (Super8) can work as an imaginary process,
evoking souvenirs of the early seventies when it was used to
produce home movies. The Super8 images, filmed on location
in China, projected this nostalgic remembrance of (Western)
time past. The complexity thus created reveals an approach
to the real in a multi-layered way. It refuses to perceive
reality as a good-bad fiction. Trinh writes: 'A documentary
aware of its own artifice is one that remains sensitive to
the flow between fact and fiction'. [4] 4. Politics of Narration:
Spiralling Movements and Indirection In this book, then, Trinh
translates those issues to the written medium by which she
contextualises these aspects in a broader discourse. The
book develops a style of narrative which is able to resonate
with issues such as hybridity, marginality, difference,
resistance, autobiography, representation, and more. The
term *resonate* is appropriate, since she explicitly decides
to offer the reader a non-linear, non-encyclopaedic, or
academic account of these concepts. She uses the image of
*spirals* to explain her style of discourse: 'You, as the onlooker,
position yourself differently according to different
contexts and circumstances, but so does the *other* whom you
are looking at. Each constitutes a site of subjectivities
whose movement is neither simply linear nor circular. In the
spiralling movement, you never come back to the same, and
when two spirals move together in a space, there are moments
when they meet and others when they do not. Trying to find a
trajectory that allows the two movements to meet as much as
possible without subsuming one to the other is also how I
see the process of translation.' (187) This citation is typical of
her discourse, in which she combines one concept with
another and by doing so broadens both issues. Similarly, she doesn't
expect the reader to have seen her films, because you can
enter a spiral at any time. There is no specific beginning
nor ending in Trinh's discourse. It develops within the
process of developing and as such opens paths to a multitude
of interpretations and opposes clear cut definitions. 'The
story . . . is headless and bottomless but one has to enter
somewhere, one has to go out somewhere, and even though
there is a beginning and an end to every story, the readers
can actually enter and exit on any page they wish without
the feeling that they have missed *the intrigue* or the
*main point*.' (37) This stance, again, refers back to her
perspective on, for instance, anthropological issues. The
*other* in anthropology is often understood as clearly
different and apt to fit the dichotomy created as such. This
dichotomy, for her, can be traced back to colonial politics
of certain methodologies of anthropology. By creating binary
divisions the self is situated in a veiled game of ideology
and power and 'flattened down to a form of oppositional
demarcation between dominant and dominated cultures' (63).
The self that Trinh offers consists of a broad range of
subjectivities. Again, the image of the spiral is useful to
shed light on this idea. Instead of envisioning the self as
an onion with a clear core, she creates a layered and
dynamic complex which can't be reduced to simple
definitions. Opening up concepts by refusing static
classification is the only clear core that she will defend.
This *core* can be understood by the strong affiliations she
has with, on the one hand, French critical theories, and, on
the other, traditional Asian philosophies: 'What interests me is not
the return to the roots nor an assimilation of French theory
but rather how I can use all tools that I have in their
radical resistance to one another; how I can read French
theory in light of Zen Buddhism or Taoism; and how to a
certain extent, I can reread Zen Buddhism and Taoism in
light of contemporary critical continental philosophy. The
process of cultural and theoretical hybridity gives rise to
an *elsewhere within here* -- a space that is not easy to
recognize, hence to classify.' (63) Trinh's approach can be
described as a strategy of indirection and understatement,
an approach that many find disturbing as she doesn't offer a
clear and logical account of her discourse. 'One can only
approach things indirectly. Because in doing so, one not
only goes toward the subject of one's focus without killing
it, but one also allows oneself to get acquainted with the
envelope, that is, all the elements that surround, situate
or simply relate to it.' (33-34) 'The way a thought, a
feeling, an argument, a theory, or a story takes shape on
paper is at the same time *accidental* and very precise,
very situated, just like a throw of dice.' (35) 'I would
take up the element of chance and dwell on the configuration
of the dice until their inherent relations rise to
visibility and reveal to me something of our encounter.
Listening to how things resonate among themselves has led me
into totally unforeseen areas.' (257) 5. A Never Ending
Story It is impossible to end a
review on this book in any significant way, as it offers
endless re-entering. You can walk through her book reading
the interviews with specific issues in mind, such as the
production process of the creative act, but also with a
focus on the specific films whose scripts have been
included, or a precise interest in the politics of China and
Vietnam. Therefore, she manages to appeal to a large
audience and can offer a challenging questioning of the
topics that you were hoping to find. By reading the book
concentrating on a particular issue you suddenly find
associations you were not thinking off. You will pass by
several notions that you were not familiar with. Moreover,
you can also view the book as a visual piece of art, with an
attractive and interesting combination of imagery. The one
thing that you will not find, however, is a clear cut
definitive account of her discourse. If you prefer clarity
over (un)veiling, logic over indirectness, you would
probably find the book too mystical. University of Ghent,
Belgium Footnotes 1. Arjun Appadurai,
_Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization_
(Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press,
1996), p. 55. 2. Bill Nichols, _Blurred
Boundaries: Questions of Meaning in Contemporary Culture_
(Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press,
1994), p. 4. 3. Trinh T. Minh-ha,
'Documentary Is/Not a Name', _October_, no. 52, Spring 1990,
p. 83. 4. Ibid., p. 89. Copyright ©
_Film-Philosophy_ 2002 An van Dienderen, 'This
Special Mystique of Interview Politics: A Flow Between Fact
and Fiction', _Film-Philosophy_, vol. 6 no. 16, July 2002
<http://www.film-philosophy.com/vol6-2002/n16vandienderen>.
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