Film-Philosophy
Journal | Salon | Portal (ISSN 1466-4615)
Vol. 7 No. 21, August 2003
Lysa Rivera
Screening the Postmodern:
Sobchack's _Screening Space_
Vivian Sobchack _Screening
Space: The American Science Fiction
Film_ New Brunswick, New Jersey:
Rutgers
University Press,
1987 ISBN
0-8135-2492-X 345 pp. Vivian Sobchack's book,
_Screening Space: The American Science Fiction Film_, is in
many ways, and like many sci-fi films, a sequel. Written
nearly a decade after her 1980 publication, _The Limits of
Infinity: The American Science Fiction Film, 1950-1975_,
this sequel includes the original three chapters from that
book, plus a new fourth chapter, and an extended
bibliography. Quick to dispel any expectations of a making
up for lost time by picking up where those first three
chapters left off in 1975, Sobchack insists that the new
fourth chapter, 'Postfuturism', is above all concerned with
'contemporary' sci-fi cinema of the 1980s. While this fourth
chapter does to some degree continue the original work's
'discussion of the aesthetic character of the genre' since
the release of _Star Wars_ in 1977, the chapter's main aim
'is *not* the entire recuperation of nearly a decade's worth
of American sci-fi films' (7, my emphasis). Instead,
Sobchack's fourth chapter focuses on the various ways in
which many of the American sci-fi films of the 1980s -- the
'electronic decade of American culture' -- visibly reflect
the cultural, social, and even existential conditions of
postmodernity (223). For Sobchack, the decade-long gap that
separates the first three chapters from the fourth -- a gap
she prefers to *explore* rather than *fill* -- appropriately
reflects 'the radical alteration of our culture's temporal
and spatial consciousness' since 1975 (223). Less formal in
its approach to the study of American sci-fi cinema than the
preceding three chapters, the fourth chapter brings to an
already comprehensive study of sci-fi cinematic form a
philosophical discussion of the relationship between
contemporary sci-fi cinema and postmodern tendencies,
something that many scholars now, in 2003, consider par for
the course in contemporary sci-fi studies, but rarely
provide with the thoroughness and depth of
Sobchack. Sobchack's reader, thus,
gets the best of both worlds. Those interested in expanding
their understanding of the iconographic and formal qualities
of postwar American sci-fi films can count on the first
three chapters for a thorough and intricate discussion of
those 'formal structures that make up the specific nature
and function of the American science fiction film' (7).
Those less interested in the formal aspects and more
interested in the philosophical tendencies of contemporary
sci-fi, can rely on the longish fourth chapter (itself
nearly 100 pages long) for a theoretically ambitious
discussion of the postmodern posturing of both mainstream
and marginal sci-fi films of the 1980s. As a scholar and fan
of the American sci-fi tradition in general, in both its
cinematic and written modes, I have found the text *as a
whole* indispensable to my research -- it satisfies my
desire for a working lexicon of the genre's forms *as well
as* my desire for a theoretical and philosophical scope to
my scholarship of the sci-fi film genre. As many sci-fi scholars,
myself included, are wont to do prior to embarking upon a
journey into the relatively unknown terrain of sci-fi
critical scholarship, Sobchack begins her study with the
question: 'What is Science Fiction?' (17). Curiously, in her
attempt to define the genre, Sobchack opts instead for a
type of non-definition, or a definition that resists closure
and is always subject to renewal, exception, and variation.
That is to say, she opts for 'a way of defining the limits
of a genre while remaining as inclusive as possible so that
the definition will seem neither too arbitrary and
personally manufactured nor so general that it becomes
useless as a critical tool', for if the definition is to
remain relevant it must 'accommodate the flux and change
which is present in any living and popular art form' (18).
Indeed, the first chapter explores the 'flux and change' of
sci-fi's definition, tracing not only its relationship to
sci-fi literature, but also its 'uneasy connection' to the
horror film and the family of films that exists between
horror and science (43). Beginning with two of
sci-fi cinema's most 'seminal films', _Destination Moon_
(Pichel, 1950) and _The Thing_ (Nyby/Hawkes 1951), and
ending with Kubrick's 1968 release of _2001:
A Space Odyssey_,
the first chapter is effectively a history of the genre's
definitions, or lack thereof, in sci-fi criticism. Readers
stand a lot to gain from this chapter alone, as it
meticulously outlines the parameters of how critics have
defined sci-fi both against and within its sister-genres, so
to speak: the horror film, the creature film, and the BEM
(bug-eyed monster) film. Drawing from numerous American
sci-fi films that span two decades, Sobchack's first chapter
is a thorough and extremely useful genealogy of the
definition of the American sci-fi film. And, by the end of
the chapter, rather than rest with one fixed definition of
genre, Sobchack, taking her genealogy to task and
succeeding, ultimately argues for an embracing of hybridity
and the ongoing 'flux and change' of sci-fi cinema's
(un)definitions. 'We need', she concludes, 'a definition of
science fiction which gladly recognizes these hybrid forms
as part of a spectrum which moves on a sliding scale -- from
the sacred to the profane -- in an attempt to reconcile man
with the unknown' (63). In other words, we need to reread
American sci-fi's sliding definitions, hybrid forms, and
*potent fusions*, not as failures to arrive at a stable
definition, but as the inevitable (and fruitful) result of a
genre which in its nature attempts to 'reconcile man with
the unknown'. In an attempt to limit and
strengthen her study, and after having explored and defined
(or not) 'the parameters of the sci-fi film as a genre',
Sobchack writes that the next two chapters -- counterparts
in many ways -- both 'deal intensively only with those
visual and aural elements which seem to define the genre
formally' (12). Sobchack states early on that as a genre the
sci-fi film, unlike the Western and Gangster film, contains
emblematic images and sounds that '*evoke* the genre, but
which are -- specifically and physically -- *not* essential
to it' (65, my emphasis). In other words, while 'a great
deal has been written about the images in sci-fi films, most
often that writing has been more descriptive than analytic'
(64). Sobchack's goal, then, becomes a matter of offering
her readers a 'new approach to the sci-fi film . . . one
which is able to deal with the structural relationships
between images and sounds as well as those between thematic
elements' (13). These two chapters succeed in their more
*analytical* approach to sci-fi by examining the formal
elements *and* analyzing their significance within their
larger thematic contexts. Comparing 'the spaceship', for
example, to the Western's 'railroad', Sobchack notes that
while the latter 'in the history of the Western film has not
altered in its physical particularity or its specific
significance', the spaceship provokes 'no consistent cluster
of meanings' (68). Varying from film to film, and even at
times within a film, the spaceship's significance is
inconstant. And, as Sobchack notes, because there is no
constant meaning, it has 'no emblematic power' (68).
Depending on the film's *attitude* to the cultural and
technological milieu of its historical moment, then, the
ship itself will be treated 'lovingly, positively,
optimistically', or -- if the attitude is negative --
'demonically' (70-71). Taking this as her
launching point, if you will, Sobchack provides a meticulous
and extremely useful examination -- with numerous examples
and images -- of the fully 'realized' (other) world in
sci-fi landscapes and settings to demonstrate how the
'visual connection between all sci-fi films lies in the
consistent and repetitious use not of *specific* images, but
of *types* of images which function in the same way from
film to film to create an imaginatively realized world which
is always removed from the world we know' (87). Rather than
understanding the spaceship as symbolic (like the railroad)
of a specific historical moment (Western industrial
expansion), Sobchack understands it to be a part of a larger
'imaginatively realized' economy of sci-fi signs, so to
speak, that fully determines the spaceship's significance.
This enables Sobchack to engage in a very helpful 'cheek by
cheek' reading of the popular 'types' of images: the alien,
the robot, the Martian landscape, and, of course, the
android. Clearly, Sobchack's 'new approach' to studying the
iconography (or, perhaps lack thereof) of the American
sci-fi film sheds important but often dimmed critical light
on how the genre demands what it has hitherto lacked in
sci-fi film scholarship: an *analysis* (as opposed to a
neutral *description*) of the genre's images that takes into
consideration their larger cultural, economic, and
historical contexts, but, more interestingly to me, their
relationships to each other within the sci-fi signifying
practice -- that 'imaginatively realized' (other)
world. Meant as neither an
'apologia' nor a 'justification' for the aural elements of
the American sci-fi film, the third chapter is an effective
and meticulous attempt to 'illuminate and describe the
prevalent aural problems unique to [the] genre' in
the hopes of suggesting that our 'negative overview of
sci-fi dialogue is too simple, too stereotyped, and too
cliched to be illuminating' (222). Recognizing that 'no
amount of critical discussion' can turn a lousy film into a
great one -- 'or alchemically turn a leaden soundtrack into
a golden one' (222) -- Sobchack nonetheless provides us with
another broad illustrative survey of the aural patterns in
American sci-fi films and their intimate connection with the
themes of sci-fi, or the 'flux and change' of its attitudes.
Often outdone by the primacy of the visual, the 'soundtrack
of the sci-fi film' (which for Sobchack includes dialogue
and those tiny taken-for-granted aural effects, such as
beeps and buzzes) is an essential formal feature. It is, as
she puts it, 'the sound of technology', on the one hand, and
the echo of our *attitudes* towards that technology, on the
other (222). Kubrick's _2001: A Space
Odyssey_ serves as useful example of how seemingly dry and
ineffective dialogue is actually, when read *analytically*
and with a consideration of context, apt and effective. In
her typical thoroughness and attention to a film's
specificity in movement, sight, and sound, Sobchack argues
that the terse and dry human dialogue may be read as
effectively throwing into relief the 'more human than human'
(238) qualities of HAL's computerized voice *as well as* the
growing awareness, in 1968, of the inadequacy of language.
Whenever someone speaks in _2001_, writes Sobchack, 'we are
consistently made aware of how our language -- and
therefore, our emotions and thought patterns -- have not
kept up with either our technology or our experience. We no
longer have the words, or imagination, to describe our
universe' (177). Here, Sobchack draws a link between what
has hitherto been 'read' as a negative quality -- the terse
and dry dialogue of sci-fi films (conversely manifested in
the overblown dialogue of other sci-fi films) -- and the
film's larger context, its cultural conditions. While, as
Sobchack concedes, this type of analysis will not be able to
redeem a 'lousy film', it points to a new approach to
analyzing the formal features of the sci-fi film. Perhaps as
a response to her own analytical innovation here, Sobchack's
fourth chapter, as we shall see, continues this approach by
looking this time at the American sci-fi film of the
1980s. The fourth chapter,
written nearly a decade after the first three and certainly
less formal in its approach to the study of the American
sci-fi film, bases its entire study on the assumption -- now
a given -- that 'the existential attitude of the
contemporary sci-fi film is different' from the films of the
1950s and 60s, 'even if its basic material is the same'
(226). Sobchack insists that what has lead to this 'radical
alteration of our culture's temporal and spatial
consciousness' is in no small part technological (223). As
she puts it: 'Ten years ago the digital watch, the personal
computer, the video game, and the VCR were elite objects
rather than popular commodities. Now they are an integral
part of our everyday lives -- consuming us as much as we
consume them' (223). While new technologies certainly enable
new visual and aural 'special effects', what Sobchack spends
most of the chapter looking at are the changes in 'attitude'
of the sci-fi film that are now marked by a completely
different 'sense' of time and space. The fourth chapter
derives its strength, in my opinion, from its philosophical
and theoretical underpinnings. Drawing explicitly from
Heidegger and Jameson, and implicitly from Baudrillard's
'hyperreal' world of surfaces and simulacra, the fourth
chapter can be read alone for its thorough handling of the
'postmodernist' tendencies -- the 'postfuturism' -- of
contemporary sci-fi film. In fact, I would even go so far as
to say this fourth chapter has proven more helpful for my
own research into the affinities of the postmodern to film
in general, than many 'mundane film' genre studies
have. The chapter reads, once
again, like a genealogy of the American sci-fi filmic body,
beginning with Kubrick's 1968 release of _2001_, the year
that marks the end of American sci-fi cinema's first 'Golden
Age'. The films that emerged at the closing of the first
Golden Age witnessed, according to Sobchack, a change in the
way 'space' was represented (hence, perhaps, the title of
her book). Rather than the space-travel narratives of the
sci-fi 1950s films -- which had 'an aggressive and
three-dimensional thrust, whether it was narrativized as
optimistic . . . or pessimistic' -- space in these later
films becomes 'semantically inscribed as inescapably
domestic and crowded' (226). Moreover, losing its urgency,
'Time' in these films is depicted as 'statically stretching
forward toward an impoverished and unwelcome future' (226).
In short, the films that span this brief period are dystopic
and despairing -- largely, Sobchack later points out,
reflecting the socio-political unrest of the time (political
disenchantment and the Vietnam mistake). While certainly
recognizing the historical richness of the connection
between these dystopic sci-fi films and the political milieu
of their particular historical moment, Sobchack nonetheless
spends most of the chapter looking at the films that emerge
in the years following 1977, the year of American sci-fi's
'second Golden Age'. Clearly, 1977 was a 'big
bucks' year in the history of American sci-fi cinema as it
alone saw the release of two seminal American sci-fi films:
_Star Wars_ (Lucas) and _Close Encounters of the Third Kind_
(Spielberg). Whereas the first 'Golden Age' of the sci-fi
film emerged 'coincidentally with the emergent cultural
logic of late capitalism [and a] wariness and wonder
[of its] new groundbreaking aesthetic', the second
'Golden Age' represents the aesthetics of 'postmodern logic'
(252). In this age, insists Sobchack throughout the fourth
chapter and with her typical illustrative power, 'the
genre's altered aesthetics articulate not a wariness and
wonder at the emergence of a new cultural logic, but rather
an acceptance of and wonder at the logic's current
pervasiveness, its now common grounding of social existence,
its very *lack of novelty*' (252). In short, the 'new'
sci-fi film brings postmodern logic 'to visibility --
symbolically representing the new structures of experience'
(244), both spatially and temporally. Space is no longer
'deep' and something to explore; because of the prowess
electronic simulation, space becomes part of our everyday
existence. We no longer penetrate space; we skim its
surfaces in an ongoing (and postmodern) process of
'jouissance' and play. Without getting too far
into the text, I will provide a mere glimpse of what
Sobchack's discussion encompasses in its focused analysis of
these 'new structures' of spatial and temporal experiences
in the postmodern era of sci-fi films. Beginning with our
new 'sense' of space, Sobchack examines how American sci-fi
films have gone from 'screening space' as 'deep' to
screening it as 'depthless'. The traditional perception of
*depth* in space has been 'challenged by our current and
very real kinetic responses to . . . *simulated* space'
(230). Our depth perception, then, has 'become flattened' by
the superficial (surface-oriented) 'iconic space of
electronic simulation' (256). This depthlessness, Sobchack
insists, is not a loss of dimension, but rather an excess of
surface, and to illustrate her point here, as in the
previous chapters, the breadth and depth of Sobchack's
catalogue of filmic examples are impressive *and*
convincing. If electronic technologies
have fragmented and flattened *both* our experiences and
representations of space, then it follows that 'our temporal
sense also has been electronically transformed and made
visible' (235). In a thorough close-reading of _Blade
Runner_ (Scott, 1982), Sobchack looks at how many of the
characters experience the past in a non-linear, inauthentic,
and thoroughly mediated mode. Citing the artificial 'memory
implants' and the use of the 'precious photo' as two of her
examples, Sobchack effectively demonstrates how _Blade
Runner_, emblematic of many of the films at this time (both
mainstream and marginal), represents a mediated,
'decelerated', but not 'static' time. Filled 'with curious
things and dynamized as a series of concatenated events
rather than linearly pressured to stream forward by the
teleology of plot', even the temporal movement of these
sci-fi films take a certain pleasure in 'holding the moment
to sensually engage in its surfaces, to embrace is material
collections as *happenings*' (228). The sci-fi film scholar or
buff has much to gain from reading Sobchack's text, not
merely because it provides an impressive and comprehensive
knowledge of the genre since 1950; not merely because it
provides an abundance of examples to illustrate each and
every point made; and not merely because it represents an
indispensable discussion of that 'gap' that separates the
American sci-fi scene between Kubrick's 1968 release of
_2001_ and Spielberg's _Star Wars_ in 1977. Equally
important is the contribution the fourth chapter alone makes
to providing a useful critical link between American science
fiction film and postmodern theory vis-a-vis Heidegger,
Jameson, and, although never explicitly named, Baudrillard.
One may argue that it is nothing new to 'read' films such as
_Blade Runner_ and _Repo Man_ (Cox, 1984) in light of the
postmodern tendencies of the 1980s. However, Sobchack's
fourth chapter goes beyond the obvious and self-evident by
offering a closer reading of the entire *body* of sci-fi
films of this particular decade, putting them in an engaged
*cheek by cheek* reading with each other, thereby
articulating how 'the postmodern' is made 'visible' in
several ways and in quite different films within the genre,
be it the existentially and stylistically subversive _Repo
Man_, or the more conventional and commercially 'popular'
_E.T._ (Spielberg, 1982). In other words, Sobchack gives
fair play to both mainstream and marginal -- subversive and
conforming -- as she slides and skims the surfaces
('screening space') of American sci-fi cinema in the 1980s,
offering her readers an indispensable critical map -- and a
detailed, intricate, and accurate one at that -- of the dawn
of the American postmodern sci-fi film. In this way, despite
evidence of it being somewhat 'dated' (there is no mention,
of course, of cyberspace or virtual reality) the fourth
chapter remains innovative and relevant in its thorough
articulation and 'screening' of the postmodern spatial and
temporal (lived) experience in contemporary sci-fi
cinema. While one may be tempted
to leave the book, written, after all, 'way back in' 1987,
hungry for a fifth chapter (on, say, the cyberspace
narrative), one only has to recall the assiduous work of the
first three chapters (and the fourth, to a lesser degree) in
their more thorough and meticulous 'work' and formal
analysis -- beginning with genealogical study of the genre's
criticism, and then moving onto two extended studies of the
'formal features' that have helped to define the genre. In
them, Sobchack provides not only a genealogy of the sci-fi
film's body of criticism; she also provides a critical and
extremely productive approach to understanding the 'formal
features' that define that genre. In this way alone --
fourth (or fifth) chapter notwithstanding -- _Screening
Space_ is a sequel any sci-fi film scholar or buff must
'see'. I thought I knew a lot about the sci-fi film's
history, and then I read this book. University
of Washington,
Seattle, USA Copyright ©
Film-Philosophy 2003 Lysa Rivera, 'Screening
the Postmodern: Sobchack's _Screening Space_',
_Film-Philosophy_, vol. 7 no. 21, August 2003
<http://www.film-philosophy.com/vol7-2003/n21rivera>. Join the _Film-Philosophy_
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