Film-Philosophy
Journal | Salon | Portal (ISSN 1466-4615)
Vol. 6 No. 9, May 2002
Benjamin Wurgaft
How Heavy Light Can Be
Cathryn Vasseleu _Textures of Light: Vision
and Touch in Irigaray, Levinas, and
Merleau-Ponty_ London: Routledge,
1997 ISBN 041514233 (hbk)
0415142741 (pbk) 157 pp. 'If Bunuel himself, after
filming of the slit-open eye, remained sick for a week . . .
how then can one not see to what extent horror becomes
fascinating, and how it alone is brutal enough to break
everything that stifles?' [1] According to Georges
Bataille, Luis Bunuel's illness is tied to the filmmaker's
profanation of the visual in _Un Chien Andalou_, the
surrealist film containing the famous shot of an eyeball
split by a knife. The shot reminds us of the vulnerability
of the eye, so easy to imagine as a tool disconnected from
the body, but still a physical thing. By treating the eye as
an organ, not a tool (a distinction owed to Maurice
Merleau-Ponty), Bunuel broke with tradition and suffered the
consequences. Cathryn Vasseleu's book,
_Textures of Light: Vision and Touch in Irigaray, Levinas,
and Merleau-Ponty_, is about the re-embodying of light
itself, not by filmmakers, but by phenomenologists. She is
concerned not with the eye or with visuality, but with the
metaphor of light in philosophy. Much of philosophy
following from Plato takes for granted an association
between light and the understanding of abstract truth --
vision, the sense dependent on light, is also understood in
abstract, or tool-like terms. The philosophers Vasseleu
considers are not themselves influential within film theory,
but all three have had considerable influence on the
phenomenological tradition, and thus on those working on
phenomenological film theory. Vasseleu's interest is in one
of philosophy's oldest images, and its modern and
deconstructive inheritors. Thus her book is part
intellectual history, part phenomenological investigation,
and is itself a thorough deconstruction of the central
metaphor for philosophical rationality. The book is particularly
interesting for those working in the phenomenological wing
of film theory, of course, but holds interest for others as
well. Light is at the core of the filmic apparatus.
Vasseleu's study opens up space for a reconsideration of
that apparatus, addressing something more basic than the
projector, the dark space of the theater, the sound. A film
theory following from Vasseleu's work might hold that light
is the part of the apparatus most in need of assessment, for
film offers an opportunity to explore the investments we
have made in light. Vasseleu mentions the role of magic
lantern shows and other visual displays in the scientific
advancements of the 19th century (Jonathan Crary's
_Techniques of the Observer_ provides one of the most
complete accounts, from a film studies perspective);
recalling Plato, light is once again associated with the
display of truth. Our interest in film as a medium that
makes the claim to represent the real (as in documentary
film and realist cinema) may contribute to the association
between light and truth. The idea is not only that we take
philosophical positions through art, but that we receive
those positions as habits, as subtle influences that shape
our understanding. Film may be light, and only light, but
light is far more than a method for bringing forms to a
screen. The book begins with Plato's
concept of reality, 'based on an original self-presentation
of beings which can be clarified through vision' (4), and
ends with Luce Irigaray's notion of an 'erotic light' that
reminds us that the light that clarifies also communicates
an intentionality of desire; in other words light is not a
neutral clarifying agent. This use of Irigaray to mark
boundaries, and the book's otherwise chronological
arrangement (Vasseleu considers Plato, then Merleau-Ponty,
then Emmanuel Levinas, then Irigaray), could suggest a
teleological progression towards contemporary feminist
theory, and an assertion of its values over those of
classical philosophy. Yet there is no effort made to back
one thinker over another, and Vasseleu never explicitly
identifies her own views with Irigaray's -- she creates more
complicated relationships with her subjects of choice,
making this a more interesting read. The image of light: can a
metaphor function too well? Why light? Why this metaphor
above all others, and what secures the perfect match between
philosophical truth and illumination? Vasseleu explores the
Greek origins of this metaphor: 'In Plato's formulation
light is the means of expression of truth's wholly exemplary
nature, or a difference transcending the physical world and
its history.' (4) Light is separated from vision for Plato,
and can be treated as an image in its own right, without
considerations of how it is perceived. Light, not perception
of light, is taken as a metaphor for truth. Vasseleu then
draws on the Derrida's reading of metaphor: a path from the
signified to a signifier that is disrupted by a period of
loss. Meaning is transferred from one to the other, but
there is a moment in between when we lose track of the
signified object, when meaning disappears. The art of the
metaphor is actually in the forgetting or concealing of this
transition, and in the process of making the connection
between signifier and signified seem natural. Illumination comes to
represent truth through such a metaphorical path. The
corollary association between light's absence and falsehood
simply follows. By Derrida's account, light, because it is
either present or not present, is the perfect way to
represent the binary truth of philosophy. Either a statement
is true or else it is false, with no room for a halfway
position. Light then becomes an elegant metaphorical
mechanism because it reveals so much about the thing it is
taken to represent; it is thus a mechanism that reveals its
own inner workings. The moment of loss, or
slippage of meaning represented by light's appearance or
disappearance, is especially interesting. It is not just the
loss of philosophical truth, but can be related to a more
psychoanalytic reading of loss. An imaginative investment
has been made in the ideal of the True. Desire has been
poured into truth, for Plato -- and 'desires' is a word too
complicated to simply mean 'wants something'. To play with
the image of light in philosophy as Vasseleu's thinkers do,
is to play with the motif of desire, and to play with the
metaphor that most accurately represents philosophy's way of
slipping in and out of connection with its object of
desire. Philosophy after Plato
accepts this metaphorical association willingly. It forgets
that light and truth had ever been separate. The term left
out of the story, of course, is desire. I could say that the
match between the metaphor and the object it describes is
almost too perfect, that the metaphor functions too well. As
a result there is a sense that the metaphor, because of this
proximity, smothers more subtle aspects of the desires of
philosophy: what form does philosophy want the truth to
take? How does philosophy imagine its progress towards the
true and good? Vasseleu has responded to this smothering of
desire by writing this book. Merleau-Ponty and Irigaray's
investigation of carnality tries to return the idea of want
or need to philosophy by investigating how tactile
experience shapes the perception of light. Giving their
attention to perception, and to the strengths and failings
(Irigaray is, of course, concerned with sexuality) of the
perceiving organs, they deliberately move against the
Platonic model. This allows an easy segue
into Vasseleu's approach to her three main thinkers, who
take up this question of desire. Writing in the 20th
century, their works all include responses to the great
science of desire, psychoanalysis, and the idea of
scopophilia: the pleasure of a look, aided by light.
Irigaraian language is very resistant to translation into
Freudian terminology. This is a book marked by the Lacanian
rather than Freudian psychoanalytic heritage, by a Gaullic
not Teutonic character, but the term most useful for
relating this work to film studies comes to us from Freud:
scopophilia. The displacement of carnal desire onto the
visual field is what we get from Freud; from Merleau-Ponty
and Irigaray we get the opposite, the 're-education' of the
visual as we learn just how shaped by carnality our visual
modes really are. Levinas gives us something different,
separating all methods of visual representation from the
sphere of ethics -- there is less room for a critique
(meaning a correction) of visuality in Levinas, because
Levinas is more enthusiastic about describing the ethical
relations possible without the dominating presence of
visuality. Each writer has their own
point of investment in the critique of light --
Merleau-Ponty is the one whose view comes closest to the
simple criticism that photocentric philosophy overlooks the
epistemological complications of an embodied human subject.
Irigaray's critique follows from the idea that the
photocentric subject is also a masculine one -- that a
light-based philosophy leaves no room for the contributions
of a non-masculine (i.e. feminine) epistemology. Levinas's
critique goes further. He sees philosophies based on light
not simply as epistemologically misguided, but as missing
the most important dimension of human experience:
ethics. Merleau-Ponty sees flesh as
conditioning perception and experience -- as helping to
define the phenomenological world -- but also as undefinable
before reason; it is impossible to reduce flesh to a
phenomenological theme. 'Flesh in contrast (to biology)
refers to the body as a living substance, or existence which
must be assumed contingently as the condition for the
expression of a point of view.' (28) Light is implicated in
the carnal nature of perception; light is taken not only to
be simple illumination, revealing objects, but lighting,
creating the perceptual atmosphere. Merleau-Ponty's subject
then responds to that perceptual environment, which is
defined by light, in meaningful ways (45); this is
distinguished from using light to pick out the details of
objects, because the subject comes to perceive in a way that
takes into account their relationship with the thing
perceived (47). Merleau-Ponty's own language for this is: 'A
carnal adherence of the sentient to the sensed.'
[2] Vasseleu's discussion of
Irigaray unpacks the meaning we knew was hidden in the word
'carnal', but which Irigaray handles forthrightly: desire.
For Irigaray, the carnal is impossible to define via
philosophical reason, and the carnality of light is not
simply a matter of perception's grounding in organic
functions (Merleau-Ponty). Light is a source of wonder and
passion for the detected, desired world; it does not
illuminate objects alone, but also illuminates the feelings
motivating our relationship with those objects. Finding
something valuable in light is, for Irigaray, a way of
reclaiming light from the Platonic tradition. Irigaray does
make the claim that a truth-system based around the light
metaphor is biased towards masculine approaches to
philosophy; Levinas, seeing light as a problematic image,
moved away from it, whereas Irigaray tries to rediscover the
kind of interactions with the world made possible by light.
She seems to extend Merleau-Ponty's speculation on the
carnality of lighting, returning the erotic undertones to
the term 'carnal' and exploring the implications of
eroticism for the pursuit of truth. There are questions about
the inclusion of Levinas in this study that I must raise.
Merleau-Ponty and Irigaray offer accounts far more
consistent with Vasseleu's general project than Levinas, who
divides philosophical work into that defined by visuality,
and that involved in ethics, and identifies his own work
with the latter. Levinas introduces one chapter of his
seminal _Totality and Infinity_ with the image of a 'black
light' of philosophy, which establishes a visual regime of
truth consistent with the idealist world-understanding. For
Levinas, light has no potential for carnality in the sense
that it does for Irigaray. It is in the absence of light
that the caress, which Levinas sees as a contact where the
difference between two touching entities is preserved,
becomes possible; neither tries to define the other, as they
would through sight. Levinas's thought both provokes and
inspires Irigaray's. Her 'Fecundity of the Caress', a
response to the 'Phenomenology of Eros' chapter in _Totality
and Infinity_, is one of the premier examples of Irigaray's
philosophical critique of light. It may be appropriate that
Vasseleu's account of Levinas feels somewhat off-topic --
she needs to quote Bataille and Blanchot extensively in
order to get a carnal critique of light from Levinas --
because he is the odd third wheel in this study, if a
necessary one because of his connection to
Irigaray. Vasseleu examines philosophy
itself rather than its intersections with other disciplines,
and if there is a (pardon) blind spot in her study, it is
present because psychoanalytic discourse on the visual
relates very directly to Vasseleu's concerns. Scopophilia is
not about light or truth, but about the displacement of
desire onto the visual field. Visuality becomes a metaphor
for the desires of the flesh, on Derrida's understanding of
metaphor as the path that desire takes from one object to
another. This is similar to the way that the rendering of
light in metaphor has helped to cover up carnality. The
scopophilic gaze allows lookers to engage their pleasure
centers without bodily contact; the scopophilic gaze is
shaped by carnality, but it incorporates the safety and
tension of distance as well. It is helpful to linger on
psychoanalysis because of its centrality for film studies.
Vivian Sobchack, in the preface to her _Address of the Eye_,
writes that psychoanalysis and Marxism have: 'Converged in a
mutual recognition of the originary nature and productive
function of language and discourse in constituting the
libidinal 'economy' of the 'self' and the political
'unconscious' of the social formation.' [3] It is
easy to connect Vasseleu's project -- revealing the carnal
dimension of light and its visual truth -- to this detection
of the libidinal in language. It is Merleau-Ponty whom both
Sobchack and Vasseleu draw on to effect much of this
'submerging', and Vasseleu can be seen as contributing to an
existing body of work on the phenomenology of film
experience. Sobchack refers to this as the 'fleshing out'
(the pun is very deliberate) of film. [4] By
examining phenomenology and semiotics together, she looks
for the libidinal mechanism that lies at the root of
semiotics; phenomenology is the branch of philosophy most
concerned with bodily experience, and a filmic phenomenology
is most concerned with showing us the ways in which film --
which is just light, as above -- is carnal. Vasseleu does hesitate to
delve into the question of desire itself. This is
understandable -- not forgivable, which would imply that she
should have explored the topic, but understandable --
because to write on the motif of desire in the three
thinkers, plus Plato, could have filled two additional
volumes. However, because each thinker's approach to light
and visuality involves integrating desire into philosophy in
some way, the change is whether desire means 'desire for the
truth', or desires more rooted in carnality, which in turn
could mean a reinterpretation of what we mean by the word
truth. The relationship between metaphor and desire, so
deeply investigated by critical theorists and literary
critics, is a topic that borders on Vasseleu's, and which
the reader would be wise to explore in order to fully
understand what Vasseleu moves towards in her
book. All my comments thus far --
the book's applicability to a number of fields, its raising
of topics that could fill many volumes -- should not suggest
a deficiency, but rather a strength. Vasseleu explores light
without trying to exhaust her topic, without trying to
'dominate' it (to use a term that Levinas and Irigaray would
appreciate). Her book alone is not enough to fully
understand the phenomenologists' critique of light -- for
that a historical study such as Martin Jay's _Downcast Eyes_
is helpful. To apply this to phenomenological film theory,
Vivian Sobchack's _The Address of the Eye_ provides a
discussion of Merleau-Ponty's applicability to film, and the
development of a notion of 'film's body'. Vasseleu cites
both works, however, quite aware of her book's specialized
role in a much wider-ranging conversation. Vasseleu offers
us a focused entry point into that conversation, one of the
best services a book can offer. Somerville, Massachusetts,
USA Footnotes 1. Georges Bataille,
_Visions of Excess: Selected Writings 1927-1939_, trans.
Allan Stoekl, with Carl R. Lovitt and Donald Leslie, Jr.
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985), p.
19. 2. Maurice Merleau-Ponty,
_The Visible and the Invisible_, trans. Alphonso Lingus
(Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1968), p.
142. 3. Vivian Sobchack, _The
Address of the Eye: A Phenomenology of Film Experience_
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), p.
xiii. 4. Ibid., p.
xviii. Copyright ©
_Film-Philosophy_ 2002 Benjamin Wurgaft, 'How Heavy
Light Can Be', _Film-Philosophy_, vol. 6 no. 9, May 2002
<http://www.film-philosophy.com/vol6-2002/n9wurgaft>.
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