Echoing through the Blue

17/09/12

Echoing through the Blue

Like the reflection in the pool, an echo is defined by a fundamental absence: what we perceive is not an entity but an illusion, the reflection of what once was.

Derek Jarmans Blue (1993)

With its seventy-nine minutes of blue nothingness, Derek Jarmans Blue (1993) can be considered the anti-spectacle as Jarmans colour of choice flickers past our eyes and at 24fps and nothing else. By reducing the spectacle to its last fundamental condition of being, projection, Jarman has seemingly liberated the spectator from their dreams of power and presence within and over the image. The films empty blue dreamscape waits to be distorted and willed into wonderment; it is a cinematic tabula rasa, a blank canvas, and a void. Jarman has rejected the medium of film by hijacking the spectacle, levelling it to a tainted nothingness. Although the primary cinematic mode of identification becomes problematic in Blue, when examining spectatorship in the film; it is through the films own narrative mechanisms that the lack of a spectacle draws our attention to a more subverted dimension of cinema, its sounds and their echoes. Absent sound, Blue would not have simply threatened its own form and function, but it would have liquidated any place its experimental ontology and epistemology would have in realm of cinema. Diegetic or otherwise, the sound in Blue echolocates, to use Peteks C.J Wheeler 1

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term, the spectator as the intended subject of the experience. Jarman subverts the traditional mechanics of cinematic perception and reception in Blue by fragmenting the subject-object relationship between the film and its audience. You say to the boy, open your eyes (Blue, 1993) are the opening words we hear as the echoes from first bells drift into the blue void. In the absence of an image, the voices and sounds in Blue trigger projections from the spectator as our own disavowal over the spectacle is forced to circumvent itself. An imaginative task that calls for an investigation into the psychoanalytical processes in operation in Jarmans Blue, in order to develop an understanding of the films ontological and epistemological assumptions and their effect on spectatorship and cinematic identification.

The Roman poet Ovid and Echo & Narcissus

Given the experimental nature of this film, and its own self-reflexive siding with minimalism, Sigmund Freuds psychoanalytical principles of the unconscious and dreamtheory will be applied. In addition, the Roman poet Ovids telling of the Greek tragedy of Echo and Narcissus will be presented as an insightful and meaningful allegory that the film possess; both as a piece of cinematic art and as a product of narrative culture and collective consciousness. In attempting to describe and localise his patients cause of distress and trauma, Freud drew parallels between his patients deep-seated psychological distresses and the function and form of mythological stories and their narratives. He explored the obscure, often ingenious, work of dreams through the drama of literature and creativity, most notably the cultural unconsciousness contained in Greek tragedies such as Sophocles Oedipus Rex (Lebeau, 2001:36). Greek mythologys themes of parricide, incest, violence, sex, adultery and desire are all forces active within Freudian psychoanalysis and its theoretical extensions. Bringing C.J Wheeler 2

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to bear an apparent contradictory dimension that exists in Freuds work as he himself was keen to cast the psychoanalyst as a man of science and not a poet (Lebeau, 2001:36). Brenner comments of psychoanalysis use of myth as follows: [Myths] are also more realistic in the sense that they attempt to explain the origins of mans environment, its nature, and its mode of functioning. They are not intended to be simple entertainment, as are fairy tales. They are serious attempts at cosmology and are, therefore, the precursors of scientific theories. (Brenner, 1974: 206) Freud believed that in order to fully understand the human condition and its aliments, it was valuable to awaken mythological memories present in the unconscious that allowed for emergences of mythopoetic thoughts reflected in the form of unconscious processes (Downing, 1975:12). Downing concludes her essay on Freuds work and Greek mythology by commenting on his use of myth in The Acquisition of Power over Fire; saying that myths are necessarily about the mythic imagination as the perennial theme of myth is the defeat of the instinctual life, of the imagination, and of its imperishability (Downing, 1975: 14). It is this collective constant, this interpenetration of share existence and experience, which births new modes of textual analysis and understanding. These art forms contain cultural residue of mankinds collective histories, memories, and dreams; all inherently enriched and telling of the mankinds most fundamental sources of conflict, drama, and myth. In 1993 the experimental Canadian filmmaker Norman McLaren released his final shortfilm Narcissus for the National Film Board of Canada. McLaren return to the style and form of his 1968 animation Pad de Deux; but this time recapping his lifes work through the Greek tragedy of Narcissus. Similarly, Derek Jaramans Blue also contains elements of Ovids mythologised Echo and Narcissus. Jarmans film managed to push the boundaries of cinema by erasing the line between the spectacle and the spectator, inviting the audience to become the film (Ellis, 2009: 199). Thus challenging the process of cinematic identification and the dream-works in operation when viewing the film. Blue establishes itself as a visual text that problematises the ontology and epistemology of the image and its relationship to the spectator. The film discards normative modes of reception and consumption as the spectator is forced to constantly project, and re-project, the mental C.J Wheeler 3

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images required to constitute the subject/object relationship of spectacle. These dreamy projections, these illusions of cinematic time-space, are birthed by the form and function of the unconscious processes in operation in Blue as a cinematic spectacle.

Norman McLarens Narcissus and Giulio Carpionis The Blind Prophet Tiresias with Baby Narcissus, after 1666

In Ovid's original myth of Echo and Narcissus, the beautiful and self-loving son of the river god Cephisus, stared into a pool of water and becames all-consumed with his own image. Like Narcissus himself, the displaced spectator in Blue is forced to stare into nothingness until our own projections and images take shape within the blue void. In both Jarmans Blue and Ovids telling of Narcissus, the subject is denied a position of perceived power and authority, and is force into a deep and all-consuming struggle between projection and introspection. When Narcissus mother ask the seer Tiresias whether her son would life a long life, he replied, If he neer know himself (Ovid in Petek 2008:5); as his captivating beauty, once recognised, would ultimately result in a fatal struggle between eros and thanatos, with the former perhaps being favoured by the curse Nemesis dutifully placed on Narcissus. Freud called on the mythical story of Narcissus to describe the psychosexual stage in human development, between auto-eroticism and object-love where the psyche structures of the mind link the initial amorphous subject with its final form (Petek 2008:7). This phenomenon is similar to the Jacques Lacans theories on the mirror-stage, in which subjectivity begins to find a form which is never altogether lost (White in Pam & Cook, 1999:346). In Blue, prior knowledge and predispositions are stripped away, as the blue and vacant C.J Wheeler 4

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dreamscape replaces the absent spectacle. This absences/lack of a gaze is a product of perception as the film subverts the subject-object relationship of film-viewing in order to induce a new perspective or vision. The psycho-cinematic mechanics of the projection and recognition in Blue are similar to that found in tragedy of Narcissus, and his own of sadomasochistic misrecognition of himself. Narcissus refused to move from the pool and his reflection; ultimately fulfilling Tiresias prediction of self-destruction through self-knowing:

No thought of food or rest can draw him from the spot; but, stretched on the shaded grass, he gazes on that false image with eyes that cannot look their fill and through his own eyes perishes" (Ovid in Lawrence, 1991:1).

Blues enchantment lies in its ability to act as the catalyst to the mental projections of the spectator, despite only simply providing the viewer with a blue abyss and fragmented echoes. Absent images, the ego-centric spectator restructures its relationship with the film and, in doing so, reconstitutes the principles of projection and identification. This reeducation is negotiated through Freuds three psychic structures of the mind, and thus the images that are experienced in the film, are products of the egos defence mechanisms to reestablish the division between the films latent and manifest content. Reaction formation, for example, is a defence mechanism whereby one of a pair of ambivalent attitudesis rendered unconscious and kept unconscious by an overemphasis of the other (Brenner, 1974:86). In Blue, the absence of imagery is kept within the realms of the subconscious mind by the psycho-cinematic process of projection and pleasure; as the spectator is compelled to attempt to reassert himself as the subject of spectacle. This results in the spectator projecting images as the ego strives to re-establish the natural order of our subject-object relationship with the text. However, there is another aspect to both Jarmans Blue and Ovids Narcissus that must be considered in order to fully understand how these mental projections of the spectator take form. C.J Wheeler 5

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In the tale of Narcissus, there is also the character of Echo; a nymph who was punished by the goddess Hera for distracting her form discovering Zeus adulterous behaviours: That tongue of thine, by which I have been tricked, shall have its power curtailed and enjoy the briefest use of speech (Ovid in Petek, 2008:5). As punishment Echos speech was restricted to only those words that were spoken to her. Thus she was unable to communicate her love to Narcissus. When she finally confronted him, she found that he had no love for her, only himself: Hands off! The Nymph Echo, a painting by Giovanni Dosso Embrace me not. May I die before you power oer me! to which Echo could only reply I give you power oer me! (Ovid in Petek, 2008:5-6). Here again issues of power, authority and agency can be identified in Blue as the passage of power is displaced and centralised within the frames void. In Blue Jarman asks the question of how are we to be perceived, if we are to be perceived at all? (Blue, 1996), Since the text is essentially objectless there is nothing to constitute a spectator, as the vanishing point of the text is vacant. If the blue screen exists as the libidinal force associated with the id impulses, and the spectators own mental projections formulate the ego, then the sound in Blue alludes to the superego as Freuds final psychic structure of the mind. These intra-psychic forces represent the pre-conscious, conscious, and subconscious of both the internal and external world of cinematic experience. Worlds that Jarman believes must undergo a transformation, a metamorphosis of being and being-in-theworld, of nature, fact, and history. It is Blues sound, its narrations, voices, sounds and ambiances that constitute the mythological presence of Echo within the film. These noises and auditory phenomenon are, themselves, disenfranchised from the regular discourse of film-thinking and being, as the line between diegetic and non-diegetic sound remains disrupted, fragmented, and illusive.
(1479-1542)

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Similarly we can consider the fate of Echo after being rejected by Narcissus. Amy Lawrence describes the myth and its relationship to cinema as follows: The story of Narcissus is frequently used to describe the image's seductive power. However, in Ovid's original myth the story of Echo and Narcissus interweaves issues of sight and sound, vision and speech. (Lawrence, 1991:1) Lawrences thoughts on Ovids myth emphasises the importance and potency of sound when considering the mythological inclusion of Echo and Narcissus within psychoanalytical film thinking. The auditory elements operating in Blue trigger the visions and projections experienced by the spectator; this is what Petek identifies as echolocation as Blue conceptualises the conflict of seeing-sound into its ontology. Lawrence (1991:2) comments broadly on this by saying: Like the film viewer, Narcissus sees at one remove, seeing not what he loves directly but its reflection. This displacement of knowledge and intra-psychic conflict are directly related to how the spectator feeds the projection with images. Without such direction the blue void leaves nothing but child-like wonderment as questions and raw emotion comes flooding from the blue canvas: Where am I? What am I looking at? Where should I look? What is the point? Why am I here? To which Jarman replies through an echo: You say to the boy, open your eyes, and with a bell he marks your re-birth, your regression, and your visions metamorphosis. Film is fundamentally a visual art form and its auditory components where worked into its cinematic vocabulary through its history and technological advancements; rather than being paired with it at birth. Sound was a subsidiary contrast design to accent and accompany the visuals, not dictate the nature of them. In Blue, the power relationship between sight and sound has been displaced, resulting in paradigmatic inversion of the spectators mode of perception. That is our re-birth as spectators of Blue; as Jarman stands behind us, not with a stream of light from which to project our images, but with a whisper and a sound that lingers long enough for us to see into the blue. The story of Echo and Narcissus is a cautionary tale warning against what is conceived of as the unnatural and dangerous separation of sound and image, woman and man, hearing and seeingoppositions that are in many ways fundamental to the ways we think about film. Both Echo and Narcissus are ravished by perception, subjected to

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obstacles of expression or comprehension, and ultimately die from the missed connections. (Lawrence, 1991:2) Here Lawrence is applying the myth of Echo and Narcissus to classic Hollywood cinema, working within a psychoanalytical feminist framework. Echos sexuality is another contributing factor when considering the politics of psychosocial moral development. Therefore sound can be considered the feminine component in the production of cinematic meaning; and, absent the father, the power of sound falls into the new realm of matriarchy order and being. Like Narcissus, the vacant spectator in Blue has been cursed, denied its power and forced to fetishise a phantom-phallus out from the void that simultaneously marks the trauma of his dismemberment. Thus the audio component to Jarmans Blue must necessarily be considered to occupy the feminine voice in the film. Silverman describes that maternal voice, saying that it surrounds the infant like an acoustic blanket (Smelik in Pam & Cook, 1999:358); and since Blue demands the spectator regress to an earlier childhood state of mind and unknowing, the film can be said to challenge the psycho-sexual agency of cinematic spectatorship. As the son of the river god Cephisus, it would be Narcissus, in keeping with Freuds own descriptions of his Oedipal complex, who would theoretically gaze at fragments of his father in Jarmans body of blue. Narcissus failed to distinguish between himself and the idealised image he sees in the waters. In Blue the symbolic father, like the vacant spectator, is absent, and is only felt and symbolically abstracted through the void. Thus the film presents a complex pre-Oedipal construction of knowing by inverting the voice of the spectacle as a position of power: As in Ovid, the mutual dependence of sound/image Cephisus is essential to cinema and, as with Echo, a woman's voice is at the heart of the matter. (Lawrence, 1991:3)

By disturbing the process of psycho-cinematic identification and projection, Jarmans Blue essentially transsexualises the spectator in two ways. First, by taking control over the viewers cinematic identification, due to the lack of pre-existing images and objects within the frame, the spectator is forced to project their own mental images that form from the C.J Wheeler 8

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sounds and voices that accompany the blue screen. Here the gendered scopophillic, to borrow Laura Mulveys term, pleasures of spectatorship are overthrown by the actual psycho-cinematic projection processes operating in Jarmans Blue; shifting cinematic agency over the image towards the newly echolocated spectator. The second process lies in the spectators own misrecognition of the projected images. Narcissus had been adored by men and women alike, but the beautiful youth never returned their love (Petek, 2008:5), his cross-gender appeal symbolises a universal beauty and constant; one where the gaze that results is trans-sexed by nature. Similarly in Blue, with the absence of any pre-existing film objects, the spectator misrecognises the projected images as their own while subverting the role of the acoustic blanket that the feminised Echo represents: Even the sound we hear when Echo speaks is not "Echo" but a representation of sound, not a person speaking but the acoustic reflection of a person. Like the reflection in the pool, an echo is defined by a fundamental absence: what we perceive is not an entity but an illusion, the reflection of what once was. (Lawrence, 1991:2) The tale of Echo and Narcissus concludes with Narcissus wasting away from grief until he closes his eyes and his body vanishes; Echo was heartbroken and humiliated, [she] pined away until her body melted into thin air, her bones were turned to stone and only her voice remained (Petek 2008:6). According to the myth, when their bodies disappeared only two things remained of them, Echos voice and the Narcissus flower that was found in place of his body when others went to mourn his death (abid.). Similarly, in Blue death is marked by sound, as the same bell chimes once more; before which we hear the last echo of a voice: I place a delphinium, Blue, upon your grave. Derek Jarmans Blue is a visionary piece of cinema that transcends the medium as a narrative art-form. By seemingly removing the spectacle from the equation of cinematic experience, Jarmans Blue stands on the edge of his retrospection and self-reflexive C.J Wheeler 9

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quest for the boundaries of cinematic art and form. As Blue regresses into a fragmented free-association of memories, thoughts, and feelings, the less abstract the comparison becomes between the film and its meta-narratives of myth and collective unconscious. Within this narrowing passage we can overlay Ovids Greek myth of Echo and Narcissus in order to begin to understand how psychoanalytical principles of the unconscious can provide new knowledge on how the cinematic process of projection and identification function within Derek Jamans Blue. Source List Cook, P. & Bernink, M. Ed. 1999. The Cinema Book. 2nd ed. London: British Film Institute. Brenner, C. 1974. An Elementary Textbook of Psychoanalysis. Rev. ed. New York: Anchor Press. Downing, C. 1975. Sigmund Freud and the Greek Mythological Tradition. Journal of the American Academy of Religion. 43(1). Available: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1460730 [2012, September 14]. Ellis, J. 2009. Derek Jarmans Angelic Conversations. London & Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Jarman, Derek. 1993. Blue. Channel Four Films. Lawrence, A. 1991. Echo and Narcissus: Women's Voices in Classical Hollywood Cinema. Berkeley: University of California Press. Available: http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft2x0nb1hx/ [2012, September 14]. Lebeau, V. 2001. Psychoanalysis and Cinema: The Play of Shadows. London: Wallflower Press. Petek, P. 2008. Echo and Narcissus: Echolocating the Spectator in the Age of Audience Research. Newcaslte, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

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