Spurious

Under Ice

A dream: beneath any narrative you might write, there is the counter-narrative of writing. Beneath and behind the narrative, but also touching it at each moment of its development, the narrative against narrative, that lets the story hover out over 70,000 fathoms and voids its episodes from within.

How can it itself be brought closer to the surface, as a drowned body to the surface of the ice? How can it be made to pass close to the ice but beneath it, moving away from you but there?

Dream of a narrative so faintly written that another narrative can pass beneath its surface like a body under ice. A narrative so faint, so broken, that the other narration is also there and speaks in its own voice, far and distant. Its own voice but that is also yours, the unfamiliar sound that comes from you when, like the narrator of Tarkovsky's Mirror (just before the starting credits) you are able to say, 'I can speak now'.

'I can speak' - but can you? For it is not what you can say that matters, but also what says itself by means of that saying. And I think of Tarkovsky's film again, the newsreel clips, the Chinese at the Russian border waving the little red book; the girl in an evacuation who turns to the camera; the troops in Crimea, still cheerful, crossing the mud.

What says itself by means of film? By means of it, but holding itself into its own means, its own capacity? Even as it cannot own itself, or that it is what disowns itself from you as a filmmaker in your finished (unfinishable) work of art?

Imagine this instead: the artwork that cannot resort even to newsreels, or continuity shots that Ozu loved. That presents the bareness of the narration, of a narrative voice that says nothing. The breaks in Bergman's Persona, perhaps.

Is it possible to say even Tarkovsky was afraid of abandonment, that he sought to fill the void from which speech comes and to which it returns with historical footage; that even when his camera pans across abandoned items in the water during Stalker (the same items as were on Stalker's nightstand earlier in the film; the same, but sea-changed, become image ...) his cinema is still an attempt to avoid what abandons itself in narrative. And isn't Bergman's Persona, despite its breaks, still too 'psychological', still a descendant of Strindberg's theatre (his chamber pieces in particular)?

And now, idly as usual, I think of Bacon's attempt to strip his paintings of any narrative. Ah, but that is the good fortune of the painter, whose work needs much less time to unfold, that unfolds across space (crude analogy) and not through time; that is not obliged to narrate. That can be, in some sense. That stands on its two feet.

What would a film be that told despite narration, across it? Images, now, that are set loose from any particular story? Think of Duras's remaking of India Song ... what was its name? But wasn't it too boring? Didn't it fail to carry you along, even though you saw only the briefest excerpt.

Idle thoughts. Perhaps we must all be like Tarkovsky and Bergman, who stumble upon the 'break' - that other narration. Perhaps it can be spoken of 'despite', in negligence, happenstance, and according to those contingencies where something else speaks by way of what unfolds.

Think of Tarkovsky again. Tarkovsky, editing Mirror over and again, looking for - what? It fell together, after long effort, all at once, and there it was: broken narratives, though interconnected. Broken, though, and just enough to let something else shine through.

Shine? I imagine instead the body under ice, the drowned one Tarkovsky also was as he made his film. As though the whole film was seachanged like the items from Stalker's nightstand. The whole film - and perhaps, too, if we can read it autobiographically - Tarkovsky's life, his whole life as it had been offered as a sacrifice. A sacrifice, as it had been made to speak of that other who drowned beneath him, under ice ...

I Buy the Fruit

'Ingmar Bergman's dead', I say over the table which is spread out, as it never was, both leaves folded upward, in the middle of the room, 'I've been thinking of him a lot recently' - and I have, getting hold of his DVDs. 'Dead! Imagine that!' I tell my Visitor I've been waiting most of my adult life for him to die. 'I was always sure he'd go off at any moment'. She's reading a book on Existentialism, and is surprised I only seem to realising now that death happens.

It was the same with Blanchot, I tell her, and he lasted until he was 95! 95! Imagine! And I thought Bergman should at least have made it until he was 90!, I tell her. Of course his parents died a lot earlier - the father in his 70s, the mother in her 80s, if I remember, I tell her. Bergman was always ill, I muse. Blanchot was very ill, of course. My Visitor is unimpressed.

I should write something about Bergman, I tell her, as I fill the washing up bowl and leave the dishes from last night to soak. I pace up and down the living room floor. But what? Ah Bergman!, I think to myself, not wanting to disturb my companion. Wasn't he my earliest image of what it was to be an artist? He was very humble, I think to myself, and spoke savagely of his own work.

I've always admired that, I think to myself, as if by so doing he pushes his own films away from him and lets them become something else. As though his loathing, his apparent indifference, frees them. And he spoke savagely of himself, too. He was unsparing, I think to myself, and was even unsparing about his being unsparing. How marvellous!, I think.

He was a contorted human being, bent back over himself as though his spine was broken. So many affairs, several marriages, what a drama! His exile to Germany for alleged tax evasion. His return to Sweden, his last film and then retirement! Perhaps we should watch one of his films tonight, I say to my Visitor, who is busy working. She agrees.

It was to be The World of Apu tonight, but what instead? - Fanny and Alexander? I think she might like it, my Visitor. Has she seen it? No she hasn't she said from the kitchen, where she's gone to do the washing up. I was going to do it!, I said. Too late, she says. There's no washing up liquid! There is, she says. She turned the bottle upside down. I was going to go out and buy some. No need, she says. I wanted to walk down the road and think about Bergman!, I say. Go on then, she says.

Bergman!, I think to myself as I surf the net. 'Bergman obituary' into Google. Entries for Ingrid Thulin, who died in 2004 at the age of 75, for Sven Nykvist, who died in 2005 at the age of 83. Max Von Sydow is still alive, I think to myself. He played Ming the Merciless in Flash Gordon. How old is he now? And Bibi Andersson. And Liv Ullman, of course. They're still alive, from the old ensemble. Only Bibi says she never speaks to Bergman now, I think. Never spoke to him, I correct myself.

Imagine it! Bergman! Dead! Wasn't he my first vision of what it was to be an artist? There was a season of his films - when? in 1987? Before I saw Tarkovsky ... And always the sense for me that Bergman wasn't as great as the others, that his writing, his direction, was too theatrical! And the sense that it was for something about him, Bergman, that drew me to his films, viewing them as a long Bildungsroman.

All those overlapping names, I think to myself. The same surname in film after film. The sound of water draining from the tank that is here behind louvre doors in the living room. My Visitor washes up and I am typing. It was The Touch I always wanted to see, I reflect. Wasn't it in English? Bibi Andersson and ... who else? Eliott Gould?

My Visitor has assembled the mineolas to feed into the juicemaker, which I don't know how to operate. The Touch, I think to myself. When did I read the script? What was the name of the protagonist? David Kovacs, was that it? I've written about him before, I'm sure. So negative. Broken backed, turned in upon himself. And indulged by those around him. Thoroughly indulged, I think to myself, as could only happen in Sweden.

In Sweden! With a welfare state! And lots of space! And big houses! Room for drama that us Brits do not have. We're not as self-dramatising, I think to myself. We can't take ourselves as seriously as Bergman's Swedes. And now he's dead, Bergman, I think to myself. There on BBC news online.

The tap's running in the kitchen. I should be more helpful around the house. Be of more use. I'm sitting at the computer to do - what? Well, it's forgotten now, now that Bergman's dead. I should write something about that, I think to myself, Bergman's death. He was always so frank about himself!, I think. He pushed himself. He struggled.

He and his father went scouting for locations for Winter Light, I remember. Father - an old priest - and son, scouting together, after long periods of estrangement. His mother had an affair, I remember. She was ferociously intelligent. In his old age, retired to his island, Bergman went through her diaries, dramatising them. And Bergman himself kept diaries, I know that. Diaries that recorded his wife's death from cancer, 10 years ago. They've been published in Swedish, I think to myself. When will they be translated? Will his death mean more translations? Will documentaries be shown?

Alone on his island all those years, I think. Like the narrator of Faithless, I think. I always liked him. The film's not so great, but he didn't direct it. Played by Erland Josephson, he of two Tarkovsky films. Is he still alive? Is he? He must be in his 70s! When he dies, and Liv Ullman, and Bibi Andersson, who'll be left?

Bergman! Dead! The smell of peeled mineolas. What are mineolas, as opposed to satsumas, oranges and the like? I buy the fruit, this is the arrangement. I bring home big bags of fruit. My Visitor goes across the Moor to the delicatessen, and I buy the fruit, bringing it back everyday.

And now the noise of fruit being fed to the juicer. I just brushed my teeth - the wrong move! The taste will be wrong! Bergman, I think to myself. On his island. Writing his diaries. Diaries in the plural because he stopped and started them, in my imagination. Sometimes his children would come out to visit him. From Stockholm, by ferry.

Where did he die?, I wonder. On his island? In a Stockholm hospital? It'll be big news in Sweden, I think to myself. Are they tired of him over there? How long did I have to wait to see Bergman films? Let's see - I bought The Magician when it came out on video. £17 - an unimaginable amount, back in the early 90s. Friends bought other videos; we swapped them; we watched them round one another's houses.

But I still haven't seen The Touch. Or From the Life of Marionettes. And then there's the theatre - will they show some of his productions, which I know were filmed, some of them, for TV? And Saraband, the last film. I only saw Scenes From a Marriage last Christmas, I think. And that was the short version for cinema, I thought, though there was no way of telling from Amazon. You can get the long version now, I think to myself. I should watch that and then Saraband, I think to myself. With - who? - Liv Ullman and Erland Josephson? That must have been moving, I think, making that film with Ingmar Bergman. He must have been 84 or 85 - imagine.

Bergman, dead at last, I think. Did his demons subside as he grew older? Was he calmer? Some kennels keep old dogs apart from young ones, housing them in a 'contemplation room'. Did Bergman contemplate at the end of his life? Was he more content, less fiery? What was his last wife like? He found happiness with her, didn't he? or did he? Happiness - and for Bergman?

My visitor cleans the juicer before she serves glasses of juice. She's washed the dishes from last night, and done the juicing, which I wouldn't know how to do. And what have I done? Bergman's dead, I think to myself. What was I supposed to be doing this morning? What was I supposed to be writing? Never mind, I think to myself. Bergman's dead.

The Beach

Takeshi Kitano's Sonatine is so-called because it was to present only a sketch of a film, only a beginner’s lesson in filmmaking. Kitano thought of himself as an apprentice, but it is as though, in his film, he had seen everything and knew everything and what he saw through his camera was only a segment of everything he had seen.

Sonatine's style: wide, long shots of motionless, emotionless characters and then short, quick ones in confined spaces: gun battles, sudden and horrifying. Characters filmed flatly: faces seen from the front or in sharp profile or from the back. No clues as to what they are thinking. Few close ups. Neutral music. No facial expressions. His characters have seen it before: victims and perpetrators are weary. Dying, killing, it is all the same; the roundplay will continue.

Kitano plays Sonatine’s yakuza boss Murakawa. He is a man who has not died once but a thousand times. He is a man who missed his appointment with death; what remains is the beach, the sand, that place where the waiting game can be played out. He is waiting for death to keep its appointment.

The beach is a hide out, a place where Murakawa and his henchmen come after taking bloody revenge. Some, battle-scarred, are waiting for the showdown. Others, younger, are only playing at being yakuza. An interval: a fun and carefree time. The gangsters become pranksters. A young woman joins them when Murakawa kills her rapist.

Days pass. Idle hours of conversation and horse-play. Sumo games, Frisbee, target practice ... this is the interval before death. Before the real business of life, which is to say, death. Death dealt out or death received. Soon, the other gang will come. Meanwhile: the beach, the flat expanse of land and sea.

The gangsters come. Gun battle. Murakawa survives; death has not come. Then he must give death to himself. Earlier he said: ‘When you are afraid all the time, you almost wish you were dead’, but it is not fear that makes him take his own life. It is sense that death is everywhere. That everything is a pause between now and death, but that death is everywhere, waiting. That death is there in the sand, the sea, the sky.

The yakuza are numberless. More will come, Murakawa will have to kill them, or they will kill him. If he survives, still more will come. Then more still, from now until the end of time. This is why he laughs as he brings the gun to his head. Has he defeated death, the multiplication of death?

A smiling Murakawa brings the gun to his head. Pulls the trigger. Now an empty shot. View of the beach. Which joins the other empty, trailing shots of the film. The silence before and after action. And now we know: the beach is what remains before and after death. It is that expanse upon life and death are played. It is what saw itself when Murakawa saw it. The beach knew itself in him. The beach opened its eyes in his eyes. The beach raised the gun to his temple.

And Takeshi Kitano? his suicidal despair in this period is well recorded. His deliberate attempt to wreck his career. His motocycle crash. His drinking. He dies in his characters. But he survives as the beach survives, witness to all. He survives in the film as it watches itself being watched. The film is what knows itself in us as we watch it.

Covac

I have only read the script of Bergman’s The Touch but it has remained with me for many years. David Covac has to smash everything up; he shatters the happiness of a married couple; the wife leaves her loving but stodgy husband, but then Covac destroys that relationship too. Why? It is as though Covac were a moving storm; what makes him exciting makes him dangerous. If he destroys everything it is not because he wants to, but because the storm wants to destroy everything he wants.

Why am I reminded, thinking of this, of Bataille’s remarks on philosophy – it is too boring, he writes; nothing is at stake for the philosopher, above all, there is never the laughter in which the thinker grasps that he or she is a buffoon with respect to what he or she is trying to think. The Hatred of Poetry – this is the name of the first edition of a book that was later republished as The Impossible. Is it possible to write of a hatred of philosophy? And then to envisage a storm that would carry philosophy away because it would show that this destruction is what, all along, the philosopher sought?

Spielberg and Associates

Godard’s In Praise of Love, Eloge de l’amour is an elliptical film, fragmented, we hardly see the actors, they speak from outside the frame, they are half glimpsed in hotel interiors. What are their motivations? What do they want?

Watching, rewatching the film is to find the plot slowly emerging. Part one – black and white. Auditions for a film about the four stages of love. The young woman with whom the protagonist, a director, is fascinated, has killed herself. She had tuberculosis; she spared herself suffering. The director, Edgar, had been working with her for a film on Simone Weil.

Part two, in supersaturated colour: two years earlier – Edgar’s trip to Brittany, where he first met her. We meet her grandparents, too – French Resistance fighters. Edgar admires the way the young woman, ‘Elle’ resists Spielberg and associates, who are trying to buy the rights to make a film about the Resistance. The old couple embody the project Edgar was working on when we met him at the start of the film: the four stages of love.

I will have to watch it again (and again). It is still not alive for me in the way Tarkovsky’s films are alive; it will be (how many times have I watched Pierrot le Fou?) Still – how to write this? Memory, loss, chance, fascination … what is given to me when I watch the film? It is as if my entire life has been lived again, as if I have been caught in the wave of a great repetition. – But also as though that life were not mine, or that I have been opened to what was not mine about my life. Not my life, but a life which I live again. In this way, the future opens amidst everything else that is about to open.

Tomorrow, I know what I will do … teach, mark essays, fill out forms. But tomorrow is as it were infused with the future. This is what the film gives me and continues to give me because it does not press a story upon me. Lost in Translation is, in the end, another Hollywood film. Listen to the music – trace the story’s arc. The film has no space for you. Why complain? Because there is no air left in film – it’s suffocating. The work does not allow us to breathe, to draw breath. To be inspired.

Bland conclusion: this is an age of the worst classicism. There is no work, nothing indeterminable in the work of art. Nothing escapes – nothing permits us to escape. The culture industry, Spielberg and associates, make films which buy our memories and our lives.