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CARSTEN STRATHAUSEN

The Relationship between Literature and Film: Patric S!s ind"s Das Parfum
Abstract: The relationship between literature and film is studied both from a methodological and an interpretative point of view. The main argument is that the currently reigning semiotic and Marxist approaches should be supplemented by a physiological approach, one that (again) recogni es the bodily dimension of aesthetic criticism. The second part of the essay outlines the premises of such an aesthetic with reference to recent studies in the neurological and cognitive sciences. !inally, a comparison between "atric# $%s#ind&s novel Das Parfum ('()*) and its recent cinematic adaptation by Tom Ty#wer (+,,*) is offered. -ow do boo# and film differ in their attempts to render the sense of smell palpable to their audience. / argue that $%s#ind&s novel is more successful than Ty#wer in representing smell, not in spite of, but because of, the sensual0semiotic poverty of words as opposed to images and sound.

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The debate concerning the relationship between literature and film is as old as the cinematic medium itself. Considered a lowlevel form of mass entertainment, early film sought to increase its cultural reputation by drawing from the already established arts such as music, theatre, and literature. Hence, cinematic adaptations of literary works or motifs became increasingly common, particularly after the bourgeoning film industry shifted its focus from documentation to narration, that is, after the end of what Noel urch considers the !primitive mode of representation" before #$%$, as opposed to the !institutional mode of representation" and its spectator-oriented approach thereafter & urch #'().# *iven this constitutive intertwinement between film and literature, there have been &and continue to be) numerous studies devoted to both the empirical and the systematic analysis of the relationship between the two media. +f these the least interesting and methodologically least refined are studies that focus on narrative and plot differences between the original book and the later film version. Termed !fidelity analyses" by ,ric -entschler in #$'(, these normative studies usually stand !in the service of literary studies, more often than not forgoing cinematic specifics and slighting both historical and institutional considerations" &.). /lthough one of the ma0or goals of -entschler1s anthology was to break the hegemony of fidelity studies, there can be little doubt that most comparisons of film and literature today still follow what -obert 2tam calls !adaptation criticism." The latter, 2tam argues, features an !elegiac discourse of loss, lamenting what has been 3lost1 in the transition from novel to film, while ignoring what has been 3gained1" &4). /nother editor of a recent collection of essays on *erman literature and film arrives at the same overall conclusion as -entschler and 2tam5 !Not surprisingly, analyses of adaptations6 predominantly focus on the absence and7or presence of similarities between the narrative of the novel and the film, i.e., on the 3fidelity1 of the adaptation" &#4), and she rightly e8horts critics to pay more attention to the technological and institutional specificity of the cinematic medium as it !translates" a literary narrative into a film.

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This is not to deny the e8istence of numerous studies that aim to demonstrate the influence of film upon single authors or selected literary te8ts. In the *erman conte8t alone, we find analyses devoted to the importance of film for Hofmannsthal, Thomas 9ann, :afka, recht, ;<blin a.o.. /part from presenting biographical and archival information, these studies generally focus on formal =uestions regarding literary style and cinematic techni=ue, as they outline the importance of film for a particular writer7period7te8t. The net result is a series of dis0ointed close readings that strive to establish structural affinities between particular literary features &such as changes in narrative voice or flash-backs) and certain visual patterns &for e8ample, montage) which are considered to be cinematic in essence and origin. Having established the link, these studies often go on to conclude that a certain author &say, /lfred ;<blin or /lain -obbe-*rillet) should be considered a !cinematic writer" who pursues !a cinematic style of writing," etc. However, given the biographical scope of these analyses as well as their formalist perspective, there remains a palpable lack of theoretical or methodological conclusions about the general relationship between literature and film. Instead, these authorfocused studies culminate in long enumerations of cinematic features used in literary te8ts &or vice versa), without ever addressing the significance of this comparison within the broader conte8t of cultural modernity.

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/ far more sophisticated approach toward comparing film and literature was provided by the *erman media theorist >riedrich :ittler in his ground-breaking work on discourse networks, published in the mid-#$'%1s. :ittler contends that there has always been a profound media competition between the two signifying regimes, regardless of their changing narrative capabilities as outlined by urch, ,lsaesser, and other film historians. >or what matters in this comparison is not the narrative coherence, but rather the visual transparency of the different sign systems under investigation. ?sing >oucaultian as well as @acanian terminology, :ittler argues that literature and film belong to different historical epistemes of representation5 one renders real what the other could only imagine. !9edia are real," he insists, !they are always already beyond aesthetics" &:ittler #%). In other words, cinema1s actual pro0ection of !real" images on the screen e8poses and renders superfluous literature1s old-fashioned, and far less spectacular, attempt to con0ure fictional images in the mind of the reader. Thus, if sometime around #$%% literature willfully abandons its previous ambition to depict reality, and instead embraces the materiality of writingAas happens in 2urrealism, ;adaism and other avantgarde movementsAthis is due, according to :ittler, to literature1s increasing competition with the superior medium of film and the latter1s ability to present !real" rather than merely !imagined" pictures of the material world. !@etters become numbersAthat is the language crisis around #$%%," as :ittler later summariBes his central idea &:ittler, ! ild" '4C my translation). The reason why letters become numbers is that the arrival of film e8poses them to have been inade=uate images from the very beginning. It follows that treating letters like numbers, or as obscure marks on white paper, remains the only way for literature around #$%% to defend its claim of aesthetic independence in the face of technological change.4

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In spite of his trenchant criti=ue of the history of modern signification, however, critics have aptly noted that :ittler neither discusses the historical relevance of his own work, nor reflects upon its political ramifications. D Instead, he succumbs to a rather !obvious technological determinism" &EinthropFoung and EutB 888iv) that simply disregards any historical changes that cannot be assimilated into his epistemic model. In :ittler1s early work of the #$'%s, media either emerge at a particular point in time due to the ingenuity of human engineering, or are simply always already !there" to begin with. G @acking a differentiated discussion of the larger socio-economicpolitical framework that informs &his own criti=ue of) the media, :ittler1s analysis, therefore, focuses mainly on analyBing the epistemic and material differences between them. In terms of the discursive networks of #'%% and #$%%, this means that :ittler ultimately &mis)identifies the aesthetic nature of both film and pre-.%th century literature as consisting of a shared ambition towards visual transparency. Hut differently, his strong focus on semiotics prompts :ittler to short-circuit the relationship between literature and film, without grounding it in a broader, more comple8 historical framework. In the *erman conte8t, the need to reclaim this larger ground is evident, for e8ample, in the so-called :ino-;ebatte, that is, the heated debate among *erman intellectuals regarding the aesthetic =uality and nationalist value of cinema as it began to infringe upon the traditional domain of high culture, including literature. In *ermany, film not only threatened the bourgeois model of sub0ectivity and its aesthetic forms of self-representation, as /nton :aes has argued. It also undermined the constitutive myth of the *erman !:ulturnation" considered by many as a bastion against the corrosive effects of modern technology and civiliBation. The :ino-;ebatte thus mattered not only aesthetically, but it also resonated on the socio-political level during the Eeimar -epublic. Ee need only recall that the *erman ?fa was founded by a consortium of military, industrial and political forces for the specific purpose of supporting the nationalistic-propagandistic use of film during and after EEI, meaning that *erman autocrats were forced, parado8ically, to embrace a modern medium as a means of defending their anti-modern views.(

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Fet none of this matters in :ittler1s discursive networks, where literary and cinematic signifiers collide and mutually determine each other regardless of the larger socio-political universe in which they continue to operate. 2o, in spite of his detailed analysis regarding the aesthetic changes that accompanied the switch from #$th-century print culture to the .%th-century !society of the spectacle" &*uy ;ebord), :ittler1s intriguing media theory inadvertently endorses what I want to call the semiotic account of the relationship between literature and film. 2emiotic critics fre=uently draw e8amples from the -omantic as well as the -ealist period of the #$ th century in order to support their central thesis that !good" literature always and inadvertently con0ures up images in the reader1s mind. /ll good literature, in other words, anticipates the arrival of filmC it is, by definition, cinematic. !If you ask me to give you the most distinctive =uality of good writing," 2ir Herbert -ead wrote in #$DG, !I would give it to you in this one word5 II2?/@. -educe the art of writing to its fundamentals and you come to this single aim5 to convey images by means of words" &-ead (#). In its most radical form, this line of criticism endorses what /ndrJ aBin, in a short essay from #$D(, called !the myth of total cinema." !The cinema," aBin contends,
is an idealistic phenomenon. The concept men had of it e8isted so to speak fully armed in their minds, as if in some platonic heaven, and what strikes us most of all is the obstinate resistance of matter to ideas rather than of any help offered by techni=ues to the imagination of the researchers. K6L The guiding myth, then, inspiring the invention of cinema, is the accomplishment of6 an integral realism, a recreation of the world in its own image6. & aBin .4C .()

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>or aBin, the art of cinema has always already e8isted, if only as a dream in somebody1s head. 9oreover, this constitutive myth of total cinema continues to be productive even today because every new technological development contributes to and thus makes !a reality out of the original 3myth16. In short, cinema has not yet been inventedM" & aBin .N). Thus the invention of the cinematic apparatus in the year #'$G represents 0ust one more intermediary step in a centuries-old aesthetic tradition whose goal has always been the truthful representation of reality, whether in painting, literature, the arts, or film. /lthough aBin1s historical points of reference do not predate the modern age &i.e., the #( th century), there is nothing in principle to prevent semiotic critics from e8tending this myth of total cinema backward as far as *reek anti=uity. This is precisely what happened in the #$N%1s, when Oean-@ouis audry and other theorists of the cinematic apparatus considered HlatoPs cave, along with the *reek epics, and even medieval painting, to be pre-cinematic events that e8press humanityPs ancient longing for the art of moving pictures.N The analytical shortcomings of this abstract and overtheoriBed position have been e8posed by a number of historically more astute critics, including Noel Carroll1s blistering attack in his Mystifying Movies from #$''. @ikewise, ;avid ordwell considers this idealist approach deeply flawed because it pro0ects onto cinema an !aesthetic essence" along with a particular !medium-specificity" & ordwell 4#) that cannot be verified historically. Instead, ordwell advocates a less theoriBed and more empirical approach toward film style, one that acknowledges the irreducible multiplicity and heterogeneity of the art of cinema, as well as its incommensurability with the other arts. 2teeped in close readings of particular scenes, ordwell1s astute historical analysis provides an important counterpart to the abstract semiotic approaches of the #$N%1s.

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y and large, however, ordwell1s approach was precisely the route many politically interested critics did not want to take over the ne8t decade. Instead, they went in a diametrically opposite direction, moving further away from empirical detail and toward an ever more abstract analysis of language and cinema. 9any cultural critics claimed that what was missing from the semiotic approach was a more comprehensive historical-materialist account of the media relationship between film and literature. Ehat was missing, in other words, was 9ar8ist theory. Eith the rise of 9ar8ist cultural criticism in the early #$N%1s &evident in the work of >redric Oameson, Terry ,agleton, -aymond Eilliams, a.o.), a consensus emerged to re0ect as !naQve" or !positivist" any straightforward empirical comparison between film and literature. The basic argument was that such a direct approach, regardless of whether it operates on the semiotic or the stylistic level, could not possibly do 0ustice to what the >rench philosopher @ouis /lthusser had called the !overdetermined social whole"Aa structural field in which everything, including culture, is governed by economics !in the last instance." The prevalent 9ar8ist approach during the #$'%1s and early #$$%1s considered modernist forms of montage in both literature and film to be artistic reflections of urban shock sensations and the fragmented mode of perception imposed by capitalist societies around #$%%. Instead of e8plaining one medium in terms of the other, cultural critics pointed to the rise of modern means of transportation, the construction of huge warehouses, and the conveyer belt as the socio-historical foundation for the cinematic perception encountered in #$ thcentury literary te8ts. Commenting on the psychological effect of the train ride, for e8ample, Eolfgang 2chivelbusch alludes to the new cinematic medium as the artistic correlative to this cultural e8perience5 !He Kthe travelerL perceives ob0ects, landscape etc. through the apparatus with which he is moving through the world." The world outside was thus converted into a tableau, a comple8 of !moving pictures" &2chivelbusch, -ailway (#).'

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It follows that the so-called !cinematic writers" of the .% th century did not simply copy the aesthetics of film, nor did early film-directors 0ust transpose ancient literary-aesthetic patterns into a new medium. -ather, both cinema and literature, independently from each other, mirror the socio-cultural fragmentation and new modes of perception that characteriBed .% th century modernity in general. /ccording to /lan 2piegel, the reason for the undeniable stylistic parallels between >laubert, ;ickens and other #$th century writers, on the one hand, and film aesthetics on the other, lies primarily in the fundamental changes inaugurated by ,uropean modernity that affected &and continue to affect) our !philosophical attitude and cognition" &2piegel #'(). 2imilarly, Ooachim Haech e8plicitly re0ects the attempt to e8tend the origins of cinema beyond the constitutive process of industrialiBation and urbaniBation that characteriBed the #$th century5
The montage-form shared by literature and later film stems from changes that affected the life of people during the #$ th century in general5 with its factories, machines, railways and new metropolises, the process of industrialiBation has created new forms of perception that found their e8pression in literary and finally cinematic forms of montage. /uthors belonging to #$th century bourgeois -ealism used formal means of e8pression resembling those of filmmakers in the .% th century not because they wanted to anticipate the cinema, but because they perceived reality in comparable terms as film-directors did later on. &Haech ($C my translation)

Ehereas aBin still insisted that the !myth of total cinema" amounted to a complete !reversal of the order of causality, which goes from the economic infrastructure to the ideological superstructure" & aBin .4), Haech1s comments fully vindicate the basic principles of historical materialism, because he insists on the priority of socio-economic forces over their aesthetic effects in modern media.

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This 9ar8ist model still remains the most ubi=uitously accepted perspective on comparing literature and movies, for the single reason that it is based upon a socio-historical understanding of modernity commonly shared by most humanists today. This understanding of modernity includes the belief that human perception is determined culturally rather than biologically. This is to say that perception has a history, and that this history has been accelerated by the rise and fall of the bourgeoisie over the last 4%% years or so. $ !The education K ildungL of the five senses is the laborious result of all of world history so far," :arl 9ar8 wrote in his economic-philosophical manuscripts from #'DD &9ar8 #$#C my translation). 2ome fifty years later, 2igmund >reud and *eorg 2immel described the psychological and behavioral processes by which the modern city dweller tries to cope with the onslaught of sensory stimulation s7he encounters in the metropolis.#% ;rawing from all these sources, Ealter en0amin, in #$4(, summariBed the 9ar8ist perspective on human perception in his seminal artwork essay as follows5
;uring long periods of history, the mode of human sense perception changes with humanity1s entire mode of e8istence. The manner in which human sense perception is organiBed, the medium in which it is accomplished, is determined not only by nature, but by historical circumstances as well. & en0amin, !/rt-Eork" ...)

It is difficult to disagree with this conclusion, because en0amin avoids granting priority to either side of the nature7nurture debate. Instead, he simply posits a profound interrelation &!not only6, but6 as well") between the physiological and cultural factors that underlie human perception. Fet he did open the door for humanists1 increasing preoccupation with the latter at the e8pense of the former5 everything becomes historical and thusAat least potentiallyAsub0ect to deliberate socio-political change. >redric Oameson1s famous e8hortationA!/lways historiciBe" &$)Aboth epitomiBes and sanctions the current credo of much of contemporary criticism5 where nature was, culture shall be. II

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Today, however, this position has become as problematic as the one it originally sought to replace. *iven the amaBing advances in neuroscience and gene technology, there can be little doubt that the precise relationship between biology and environment, between our neurological !hard-wiring" and our cultural !software" remains unclear, to say the least. I agree, of course, that there is no !innocent eye" as postulated by Oohn -uskin and other high modernists towards the end of the #$ th century. !The 3eye1 is a product of history reproduced by education," Hierre ourdieu rightly insists &#'#%f.). ut this is not to say that our entire perceptual apparatus is completely rewired at the physiological or neurological level every few decades or so. This is certainly not the caseAa fact most emphatically defended by en0amin e8perts such as 2usan uck-9orss, who rightly insists that !the senses maintain an unciviliBed and unciviliBable trace, a core of resistance against cultural domestication because !they remain a part of the biological apparatus" &(). >or en0amin, of course, the biological nature of the senses remained a givenC it was the very basis upon which his history-of-vision theory was formulated. It follows that the historically changing relationship between the biological and the cultural level of perception remains in =uestionAmost obviously with regard to new media art and aesthetics. EhyR ecause digital art often deliberately works on the physiological-neurological micro-level of the body rather than on the philosophical-cognitive macro-level of the &!critical," !self-refle8ive") sub0ect. In order to !understand" many a digital work of art, it is crucial to acknowledge its unconscious, neurological effects upon the body, precisely because these effects are the ma0or raison-dtre of this art. +ne of the avowed goals of many new media artists is to use digital technology as a means to manipulate these physiological effects electronically.##

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New media art forces critics to refocus their attention on the physiological mechanisms that determine our affective response to art. In this sense, the arrival of new media aestheticsAwhat we, paraphrasing :ittler, might call the discourse network of .%%%Ais also beginning to change the critical parameters of the century-old investigation into the relationship between film and literature, by once again emphasiBing the affective &rather than the e8clusively !critical") dimension of aesthetic discourse. *iven technology1s increasing influence upon the very makeup of our bodies and our perceptual system, this affective dimension can no longerAnor could it everAbe separated from technology. This is why media critic 9ark Hansen refers to the !body-in-code," by which he means !a body submitted to and constituted by an unavoidable and empowering technical deterritorialiBationAa body whose embodiment is realiBed, and can only be realiBed, in con0unction with technics" &Hansen .%). >ilm critics, however, all too often simply repeat the en0aminian history of vision argument without updating it to the .#st century.#. ?nless we start renegotiating the relationship between the cinematic and literary representation of reality from a more body-oriented perspectiveAone that includes the =uestion of how our physiology is influenced by contemporary technologyAwe will remain stuck with the mere repetition of the abstract history-of-vision thesis rather than being able to scrutiniBe its relevance for aesthetic theory today. In practical terms, this means that we should no longer compare literature and film in semiotic and sociological terms only, but should do so in neurological-physiological terms as wellAfor e8ample, by relating the verbal and the visual to a third sense alien to both of them, namely smell. Ehat, I would ask, are the decisive similarities and differences between books and films as they try to describe or con0ure the most 3primitive1 and most embodied of our sensesR The apparent 3oddity1 of this =uestion =uickly disappears if we approach it from a physiologicalAinstead of a strictly semioticApoint of view.

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>ilm critic @aura 9arks has pointed out that, even before the arrival of the talkies, film directors such as ;.E. *riffith and 9arcel Hagnol e8perimented with adding smell to the cinematic e8perience by burning incense during the screenings of Intolerance &#$#() or Angle &#$4D) respectively. 2he also notes that !the cinema viewing e8perience, taken as a whole, is already multisensory" given the constant presence of food smells and perfumes in the cinema auditorium or the inadvertent physical contact with your seat neighbor, the ringing of cell phones and babies crying across the aisle etc. &2kin .#.). Oohn Eaters1 !+dorama" stands out as the most deliberate and notorious attempt of cinema to move beyond its audiovisual register. In his film Polyester &#$'#), Eaters wanted viewers to smell what they saw on the screen by using what he called Sscratch and sniffS cards, that is, small strips of paper coated with an odorous substance that could be released through rubbing or scratching the paper1s surface. Eaters1 !+dorama" had actually been inspired by a techni=ue called !2mell-+Iision" used only once, in Eilliam Castle1s Scent of Mystery &#$(%). The idea was to release up to 4% different smells from underneath the audience1s seats at different times during the show. The release mechanism was fully automated and controlled by the film1s soundtrack. y contrast, Eaters1 !+dorama" relied on the spectators themselves to release the scent of individual smell cards &numbered #-#%) when instructed to do so by a flashing number on the screen.

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In light of this history, then, it would be unwarranted to claim that books have a more genuine connection to smell than do films. /lthough we do touch books and inhale the various smells &dust, mildew, cigarette smoke, etc.) that they may have absorbed over the years, a number of related sensuous e8periences e8ist in the movie theater as wellAa similarity that increases if we compare books with ;I;1s or videos, all of which are physically handled and perceived by the viewer as material ob0ects &as opposed to what Christian 9etB called !imaginary signifiers" on the movie screen). / comparison of the two media with regard to their material properties alone thus inevitably leads to a dead end. It must be supplemented by a more detailed account of how films and books try to represent smell on the abstract level of signification, and how this signification is affectively registered by the human body. 9arks, for instance, rightly points to the biologically determined cooperation between our sense of smell and our audiovisual register, citing neurological studies which prove !that we are better able to remember smells when there is a linguistic or symbolic cue associated with the olfactory cue" &Touch #..). Iivian 2obchack, too, insists that !body and language6 do not simply oppose or reflect each other. -ather, they more radically in-form each other in a fundamentally nonhierarchical and reversible relationship that, in certain circumstances, manifests itself as a vacillating, ambivalent, often ambiguously undifferentiated, and thus 3unnamable1 or 3undecidable1 e8perience" &N4). Hence, our overriding goal in pursuing the literature-film comparison must be to avoid the epistemological fallacy of reducing both words and images to some allegedly shared !essence," be that an essence conceived in semiotic terms &i.e., their supposed striving toward visual transparency as outlined in aBin and :ittler), or in socio-historical terms &i.e., their supposed reflection of modern shock sensations, as described by 9ar8ist critics), or in terms of some other abstract principle of !e=uivalence" between the two media. #4 >or doing so would shift attention away from the affective register of human perception, and thus return our in=uiry back to the very argument &over the history of vision) that we are trying to update.

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ut there is another, less obvious assumption that must be avoided as well, namely, the belief that words and images constitute two fundamentally distinct means of artistic e8pression, whose relation is entirely conceptual rather than perceptual. Ehen @essing first published his Laocoon in #N((, he sought to delineate the allegedly e8clusive perceptual registers of painting and poetry, claiming that whereas &static) images operate in space and as space, the language-based arts cannot but unfold in time and as time. -udolf /rnheim later tried to apply @essing1s approach to the new medium of film in general and to the talkies in particular. In his !/ New Laocoon" from #$4', /rnheim reiterates @essing1s strict perceptual separation between words and images5
+bviously, it would be senseless and inconceivable to try to fuse visual and auditory elements artistically in the same way in which one sentence is tried to the ne8t, one motion to the other6.. +n this &lower) level of the sensory phenomena6, an artistic connection of visual and auditory phenomena is not possible. &+ne cannot put a sound in a paintingM). 2uch a connection can be made only at a second, higher level, namely, at the level of the so-called e8pressive =ualities. / dark red wine can have the same e8pression as the dark sound of a violoncello, but no formal connection can be established between the red and the sound as purely perceptual phenomena. /t the second level, then, a compounding of elements that derive from disparate sensory realms becomes possibly artistically. &/rnheim .%4)

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/rt, in other words, succeeds in combining on a conceptual &that is, structural or e8pressive) level that which must remain !complete, closed, and strictly segregated at the lower or primary level" of immediate visual perception &/rnheim .%D). +n the basis of this alleged ontological incommensurability of words and images, film critics such as ;udley /ndrew have concluded that a meaningful comparison between literature and film must take place on the level of narration, rather than that of signification or perception5 !The analysis of adaptation Kof literature to filmL then must point to the achievement of e=uivalent narrative units in the absolutely different semiotic systems of film and literature. Narrative itself is a semiotic system available to both and derivable from both" &#%4C my emphasis). /ndrew1s point is clearly shared by most proponents of !fidelity" studies today, who continue to argue that narrative remains the only viable means of comparison between otherwise incompatible semiotic systems. However, it is precisely this absolute distinction between images and words, between &lower) forms of perception and &higher) forms of cognition that has been called into =uestion by much of recent neuroscience and cognitive studies. In a seminal paper, entitled !Ehat the >rog1s ,ye tells the >rog1s rain," a group of scientists, including the renowned /rgentine neurologist Humberto 9aturana, concluded after a series of e8periments that !the eye speaks to the brain in a language already highly organiBed and interpreted, instead of transmitting some more or less accurate copy of the distribution of light on the receptors" &@ettvin et al, .GDf.). This means that each group &sheet or layer) of neurons charged with a particular operationAfor e8ample, to observe the movement of edges in a given retinal imageAprovides the brain not 0ust with a digital array of spatial points and numerical valuesC instead, each group pro0ects a congruent space that maps the entire retinal image according to the specific operation it is programmed to record. It follows that !every point is seen in definite conte8ts. The character of these conte8ts, genetically built-in, is the physiological synthetic a priori" &@ettvin et al, .GN).

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+ne important conse=uence of this research is that /rnheim1s and /ndrew1s crucial distinction between perception and cognition becomes =uestionable, since the process of image processing is spread out over the entire visual system and does not only take place at one central location. In modification of ;escartes1 famous dictum, we might say that it is both the mind and the eye that sees.#D >or there are at least 4. distinct regions of the brain that contribute to visual perception, meaning that there is no absolute center, no !*rand ;emeaner" or !Cartesian Theater" that authoriBes meaning, as the philosopher and cognitive scientist ;aniel ;ennett puts it. -ather, ;ennett argues, !at any point in time, there are multiple 3drafts1 or narrative fragments at various stages of editing in various places in the brain" &;ennett ##4). 2ince there is no single place or time at which this material becomes bundled and conscious, we are faced with a !multitrack process KthatL occurs over hundreds of milli-seconds, during which time various additions, incorporations, emendations, and overwritings of content can occur, in various orders" &;ennett #4G). The same holds true for our other senses as well. /s 9arks point out, smell depends even more on the !lower" functions of our cognitive systems than do sights or sounds, because the !olfactory bulb is already 3thinking1 when smells activate certain receptors" at the very beginning of the perceptual process &9arks, Touch ##$).

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This means that our classical aesthetic distinctions &between words and images, between perception and cognition, between affect and sense) are arbitrary and conventional rather than absolute. >or, at the neurological level, all of our sense perceptions break down to a comple8 array of electrical impulses across a interconnected field of dendrites and a8ons, at which point it makes no difference anymore whether the original stimulus was a sight, or a sound, or a smell. /lthough /rnheim was right to argue that !one cannot put a sound in a painting," he was wrong to conclude that we can establish a relation between the senses only on the cognitive level of abstract thought. +n the contrary, this relation is always already present at the neurological level of human perception. /nd this, in turn, gives us license to pursue more daring comparisons between diverse media and different senses, comparisons that deliberately violate /rnheim1s common-sensical e8hortation to respect the !natural" or !ontological" boundaries that allegedly separate them. @et me be clear5 all boundaries are constructions and thus arbitrary. ut the need to construct such boundaries is not. /lthough culture &i.e., technology) can intervene at any single point of a given boundary and thus change its !nature" &by using various chemical, electronic, or behavioral techni=ues), it cannot instantaneously alter the present configuration of an entire system, nor can it eradicate the epistemological necessity of creating distinctions and boundaries in the first place. >or this is precisely what cybernetics and systems theoryA which were themselves were influenced by the neurological sciencesAhave taught us5#G regardless of where e8actly one draws the boundary &between culture and nature, between film and literature, between analog and digital media), the crucial point is that one cannot not draw one, because no thought is all-encompassing. There simply is no thinking without distinctions.

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To return to our comparison of film and literature, my overall goal is simply to be mindful both of the arbitrariness of distinctions, and of their inevitability. Ehich is to say that Oameson1s mottoA!/lways historiciBeM"Amust be supplemented by 2pencer rown1s ma8im5 !;raw a distinctionM" The reason why I emphasiBe the affective dimension of aesthetics is not in order to reintroduce some fi8ed &i.e., ontological or ahistorical) human =uality ostensibly impervious to rational criti=ue, as postmodern or deconstructive critics often charge. -ather, my goal is simply to augment contemporary cultural criticism by showing how the various levels of &semiotic, socio-economic, and physiological) criticism outlined in the first two parts of this essay interact, or supplement each other, when applied to specific te8ts and films. The film version of Perfume provides an e8cellent opportunity to pursue this approach. III Tykwer1s film attempts to stay very close to 2Tskind1s original novelAmost notably by introducing a narrative voice-over that =uotes verbatim from the te8t. 2till, there e8ist a number of differences between the two5 the film cuts out the entire episode concerning 9ar=uis de la Taillade-,spinasse and his fluidum lethale theoryC and, instead of being a repulsive, disfigured misanthrope, Tykwer1s *renouille &played by en Ehishaw) is a handsome young man whose first victim succumbs to an unfortunate accident rather than to a carefully e8ecuted murder. ;uring the great orgy that replaces what should have been his e8ecution, *renouille even sheds tears on her behalf, while fantasiBing about what might have been had he not accidentally killed her. Ehereas 2Tskind repeatedly compares *renouille &>rench for !frog") to vermin, such as a tick, a bacterium, a maggot, a roly-poly, a spider, etc., the film depicts his overall behavior, and his obsession, as being distinctly humanAin fact, Tykwer refers to him as !a tragic hero of loneliness" who personifies the !myth of the unrecogniBed genius" &Tykwer in ArteC my translation). >or Tykwer, *renouille deserves sympathy rather than condemnation.

+,
+n the other hand, the book and the film share a number of important stylistic characteristics that are most evident in their postmodern playfulness with respect to earlier aesthetic patterns. -egarding genre, for e8ample, 2Tskind1s story brings us back to the early #$th century form of the Novelle &from @atin novus, meaning !new") in *oethe1s sense of the term, that is, the !unerh<rte egebenheit" that found some of its finest literary e8pression in the work of Heinrich von :leist. Indeed, the parallels between 2Tskind1s Das Parfum and :leist1s Das rd!e!en in "hile &#'%N) on the level of plot &in this case, the dissolution and reestablishment of a class-based society) are as obvious as Perfume1s connection to the central theme of ,.T./. Hoffman1s detective story Das #r$ulein von Scuderie5 in both cases, a murderer is depicted as a special kind of artist. 2tylistically, however, 2Tskind updates this history of the novella by using a kind of rhetoric of e8cess and repetition reminiscent of Thomas ernhard. Here is an e8cerpt from the first page5
Uu der Ueit, von der wir reden, herrschte in den 2tVdten ein fTr uns moderne 9enschen kaum vorstellbarer *estank. ,s stanken die 2traWen nach 9ist, es stanken die Hinterh<fe nach ?rin, es stanken die TreppenhVuser nach fauligem HolB und nach -attendreck, die :Tchen nach verdorbenem :ohl und HammelfettC die ungelTfteten 2tuben stanken nach muffigem 2taub, die 2chlafBimmer nach fettigen @aken, nach feuchten >ederbetten und nach dem stechend sTWen ;uft der Nachtt<pfe. /us den :aminen stank der 2chwefel, aus den *erbereien stanken die VtBenden @augen, aus den 2chlachth<fen stank das geronnene lut. ;ie 9enschen stanken nach 2chweiW und nach ungewaschenen :leidernC aus ihrem 9und stanken sie nach verrotteten UVhnen, aus ihren 9Vgen nach Uwiebelsaft und an den :<rpern, wenn sie nicht mehr ganB 0ung waren, nach altem :Vse und nach saurer 9ilch und nach *eschwulstkrankheiten. ,s stanken die >lTsse, es stanken die HlVtBe, der Handwerkgeselle sowie die 9eistersfrau, es stank der gesamte /del, 0a sogar der :<nig stank, wie ein -aubtier stank er, und die :<nigin wie eine alte Uiege, sommers wie winters &2Tskind Gf.)

+'
Neither *oethe nor :leist or Hoffmann could possibly have written in this hyperbolic, postmodern style. The same plethora of thematic connections and stylistic =uotes is present in Tykwer1s film, meaning that the latter is as intervisual as the former is interte8tual. >or e8ample, the scene in which @aura and *renouille gaBe at each other beyond the edge of the frame K#5DD5D%L is reminiscent of a key scene in >riedrich 9urnau1s Nosferatu5 Hutter1s feverish wife calls out for him in despair, but succeeds only in attracting Nosferatu1s attention a few thousand miles away, as he looks up from his victim and turns in her direction. This e8change of glances continues to be hailed as a seminal moment in film history, one whose ingenuity rivals that of *riffith1s parallel and ,isenstein1s dialectical montage. 2imilarly to 9urnau1s, Tykwer1s montage establishes an almost metaphysical connection between the two protagonistsAthis time, however, insinuating the olfactory rather than the acoustic sense. In another scene, *renouille relin=uishes his fragrant handkerchief and lets it sail above a sea of outstretched arms and hands trying to catch it. This appears to be a direct =uote from >ritB @ang1s #$.N film Metro%olis &i.e., the scene when 9aria steadily beats the alarm in the flooded city while hundreds of children stretch their arms trying to reach her).

++
In addition to this shared interte8tuality &or intervisuality), both film and novel share the basic overall theme, which is to provide not 0ust a colorful picture of #'th century life in >rance, but also to depict >rench society during a period of profound socio-economic change that led to the great revolution of #N'$5 the utter disregard of the ruling class for the lives and wellbeing of the poorC the clash between the ancien rgimes belief in a divinely consecrated cosmic order &represented by aldini) and the social mobility caused by the rising influence of enlightened entrepreneurs and small shop owners &represented by -ichis and 9adame /rnulfi respectively). Indeed, all of the novel1s ma0or characters are defined by their selfish economic interests as well as by their rational calculation of how to pursue this interest most effectively, and all of them e8ploit *renouille1s remarkable skill and physical endurance in order to further their selfish economic interests. Fet, in the end, many of them &i.e., *renouille1s mother, *rimili, aldini, the 9ar=uis, and -ichis) are either killed, or suffer a severe loss, because of their intimate contact with *renouille. In the book, the people who survive are precisely those who trusted their gut instinct &i.e., their nose) and who forgo potential monetary gain, preferring instead to get rid of *renouille &for e8ample, the midwife Oeanne ussie, and the monk Terrier).

+1
The reason why *renouille upsets the socio-economic order is because, in contrast to everybody else, he harbors absolutely no monetary or materialistic motives of his ownAe8cept, of course, for his effort to sample and store in his memory each and every smell he has ever encountered in his life. ut smell is the most fleeting of our senses, which means that *renouille is in fact trying to materialiBe and preserve precisely that which altogether defies materiality and preservation. Thus, *renouille1s actions are both paradigmatic for and subversive of the society in which he lives5 paradigmatic in so far as he, too, seeks possession of the thing he loves &for him, it is smellC for his fellow men, it is money)C but also subversive, insofar as he renders this principle absolute, and thus unleashes its destructive potential. *iven the intricate dynamic between economic rationality and instinctual desire at play in 2Tskind1s novel, critics have aptly situated Perfume within the dialectic of the ,nlightenment, arguing that *renouille, with his uncanny sense of smell, symboliBes the repressed +ther of modern civiliBation.#( This point is revealed most clearly in the scene of his failed e8ecution. /t the precise moment when the entire city of *rasse has gathered to witness the state-sanctioned restoration of social order, *renouille unleashes a ;ionysian bacchanal that not only dissolves all class distinctions, but the physical boundaries of individual bodies as well5 !;ie @uft war schwer vom sTWen 2chweiWgeruch der @ust und laut vom *eschrei, *egrunBe und *est<hn der Behntausend 9enschentiere" &4%4f.). *renouille, the animal, has succeeded in transforming his fellow humans into animals A!9enschentiere"Aas well.

+2
Tykwer, however, pictures this seminal moment very differently. @ess animalistic and more angelic, the spellbound people of *rasse form an almost idyllic community that e8hibits progressive &heavenly) rather than regressive &hellish) tendencies. This shift is indicative of Tykwer1s sympathetic treatment of *renouille, who appears as a pro8y for, rather than representing the antithesis of, the other characters. /lthough Tykwer clearly retains the theme of monetary greed in his movie, he presents *renouille as being simply a victim of the economic order and thus as deserving of our sympathy and support. 2Tskind1s *renouille, however, is not 0ust a lonely individual in need of love, but also personifies the modern condition. This is why he lacks a personal smell and remains opa=ue throughout the novel. In fact, *renouille1s manifest yearning to be venerated and loved actually aims at a different goal, namely that of being able to recogniBe e8actly who he is and how he smells. Hut differently, *renouille1s most important characteristic in the book is precisely his lack of individualityA the very individuality Tykwer1s movie simply presumes as a given. 2Tskind1s hero, by contrast, desperately tries to develop a distinct smell &and thus a distinct personality)C and, once he realiBes that this ultimate goal remains unattainable, everything else becomes unimportant as well5
Eenn er wollte, k<nnte er sich in Haris nicht nur von Uehn-, sondern von Hunderttausenden um0ubeln lassen6. ,r besaW die 9acht daBu. ,r hielt sie in der Hand. ,ine 9acht, die stVrker war als die 9acht des *eldes oder die 9acht des Terrors oder die 9acht des Todes5 die unTberwindliche 9acht, den 9enschen @iebe einBufl<Wen. Nur eines konnte diese 9acht nicht5 sie konnte ihn nicht vor sich selber riechen machen. ?nd mochte er auch vor der Eelt durch sein Harfum erscheinen als ein *ottAwenn er sich selbst nicht riechen konnte und deshalb niemals wTWte, wer er sei, so pfiff er drauf, auf die Eelt, auf sich selbst, auf sein Harfum. &4#(C my emphasis)

The idiomatic sense of the *erman e8pressionAdaW !er sich selbst nicht riechen konnte"Ameans, of course, that *renouille does not like himselfAindeed, that he !cannot stand himself." /nd the reason for this self-ab0ection is the fact that he can !never know who he is" because he has no smell, and hence no identity.

+3
?sing structuralist terminology, we might say that 2Tskind1s *renouille represents the empty master-signifier that both guarantees and threatens the stability of the entire social order.#N @ike the empty signifier, he ceaselessly wanders about, yet in the end always returns to his place &the fish market in Haris). /nd it is precisely *renouille1s lack of self-identity that increases the self-assurance and self-identity of everybody else he meets. The less he seems to be there, the more he allows everybody else to feel superior to him & aldini, the 9ar=uis, ;ruot, -ichis, etc.). This negative reciprocity between *renouille and the other characters has been lost sight of in Tykwer1s film, since the director apparently considers *renouille1s lack of identity to be the lamentableAbecause &allegedly) preventableAresult of society1s amorality. Indeed, Tykwer appears unwilling to recogniBe that this lack is society1s constitutive Bero point, that is, he denies that the &signifier) *renouille of the novel represents the inevitable structural effect of any social order, and as such cannot be eliminated without at the same timeAhowever brieflyAsuspending the social order itself. This is precisely what happens at the end of the story, when *renouille is eaten alive5 cannibalism, after all, is humanity1s strictest, most fundamental taboo. ,ither because he is unaware of this underlying dynamic, or because he refuses to accept it, Tykwer gives a humanist twist to the novel1s structuralist insight. /lthough the film1s narrator =uotes the above passage from the novel almost verbatim, he changes one crucial phrase, thereby altering the reason why *renouille in the end abandons his own perfume5 not, as posited in the novel, because of his inability to smell himself &which in turn means that he cannot recogniBe who he is), but simply because of the fact that !there was only one thing Kthe perfumeL could not do5 it could not turn him into a person who could love and be loved like everyone else" &.5#45G%). In this way, any reference to the fact that *renouille1s obsession revolves around self-love Kself-acceptanceRL and selfrecognition Kself-assertionRL is deleted, while the central problem is re-defined in terms of &the impossibility of) loving relationships between himself and others. Fet, as depicted in the novel, *renouille1s dilemma is that he cannot ever be himself, because his e8istence is but a structural effect of the being of others.

+*
This difference between the film and the book decisively influences how each deals with the sense of smell. To be sure, both 2Tskind and Tykwer deliberately highlight the contrast between the &enlightened, aloof, noble) sense of sight and the &primitive, instinctive, ab0ect) sense of smell. The latter takes over when the former goes blind, not only for *renouille, but for all other characters in the novel as well. There is one scene in particular that encapsulates this inverted relationship between the two senses, namely the se=uence during which aldini, who is temporarily unable to smell anything following his initial testing of !/mor and Hsyche," instead gaBes appreciatively at the view of Haris from his open window5 !>rische @uft st<mte ins Uimmer. aldini sch<pfte /tem und merkte, wie sich die 2chwellung in seiner Nase l<ste. ;ann schloW er das >enster. >ast im gleichen 9oment wurde es Nacht, ganB pl<tBlich" &2Tskind 'G). Tykwer, too, thematiBes the relationship between sight and smell from the very beginning. The opening scene of the film depicts the dimly lit prison cell in which *renouille awaits his sentence. 2imilarly to what @aura 9arks calls haptic cinema, the lack of a clearly defined picture leaves the spectators grasping for non-visual clues in order to understand what they see.#' ut whereas haptic cinema prolongs this visual uncertainty in order to force the audience to rely on other senses, Tykwer =uickly fills the visual vacuum with a crystal clear closeup5 *renouille1s truncated nose slowly emerges out of the dark into the spotlight, flares its nostrils twice and then withdraws again, indicating to us that he has already smelled the imminent arrival of the guards who enter the room 0ust a second later. ;uring the sentencing that follows, *renouille1s face becomes visible, but his eyes always remain in the dark &unlike those of other characters in this scene). Throughout the film, there are numerous instances where *renouille closes his eyes so as to heighten his sense of smell.

+4
The opposite, of course, is true for us as viewers, since Tykwer constantly needs to show us what his hero is able to smell. The =uestion of how to do this remains at the center of the movie, and so far there is little agreement among reviewers as to whether Tykwer has succeeded in his effort to translate smell into sight.#$ Tykwer himself is confident about his successC in one of his interviews, he states laconically5 !The book did not have a smell either" &Tykwer in &erliner 'eitungC my translation). Fet most reviewers agree that the film, beginning with its opening scene, operates mainly with a baro=ue-like e8cess of the visual. It often works metonymically, trying to present the sense of smell by shining the spotlight on the organ itself5 !The hero of the novel 3sees1 with his nose. In the film, all we get to see is the nose of the hero," as :at0a Nicodemus of Die 'eit has aptly noted. Tykwer pursues this 3nose-aesthetics1 mainly with the help of certain well-known cinematic techni=ues that appear again and again throughout the movie5 a disorienting, e8tremely agile camera fully immersed in the scene it depictsC a =uick succession of bold Boom shots featuring e8treme close-ups, and often only partial views, of a particular ob0ect,thereby undermining its visual apprehensionC Booming in and !entering" *renouille1s nose or another smelling &smelly) body partC a dark and gloomy setting in which *renouille &and thus, by e8tension, the spectator) follows his nose in order to navigate diegetic space, etc. These visual elements are always fortified by acoustic ones. Throughout the film, Tykwer relies on different musical leitmotifs to render *renouille1s sense of smell palpable to the audience. Co-written &like the script) by Tykwer himself, the film score &performed by the erlin Hhilharmonic K+rchestraL under 2ir 2imon -attle) includes many minimalist themes reminiscent of the ambient sound of 2candinavian composer /rvo HVrtAmost notably, an ethereal-sounding chorus of female voices that acoustically supports the visual representation of smell..% /part from music, sound in general is omnipresent in Tykwer1s film, whether it is barely audible &as in the opening scene of *renouille in prison, where we hear the faint murmuring of the crowd outside) or deafeningly loud &when he is being presented to the public shortly thereafter).

+)
The scene at the fish market is paradigmatic, because it employs all the audio-visual stunts described above5 the frantic swirling of the camera interspersed with the sound of *renouille1s breathing, the slicing of fish along with the sniffing and chewing, s=ueaking and barfing that goes on wherever the camera carries our gaBe &%5%(5%4 to %5%(54#). -eferring to this scene in particular, one critic even charged that Tykwer !visually rapes the viewer" &2peicherC my translation). There is some truth in this harsh verdict. >or what is repulsive about these images has little to do with the smell of rotting fish. -ather, it stems from the sensory overload caused by the continuous barrage of audio-visual effects. +pulent scenes like that of the fish market occur too fast and too fre=uently to remain effective. @ike most big-budget productions in the /merican style, Tykwer1s Perfume overfeeds, and thus ends up numbing, the audience. /dding the narrator to the audio-visual grandiosity of Tykwer1s film further e8acerbates the problem, because it throws yet another level of signification over this already dense web of sensibility. /t worst, all of these elements Athe narrator, the mobile camera, the chiascuro and intense color schemes, the leitmotif-techni=ue along with the numerous sound effectsAvie with one another for the viewer1s attention and thus undermine or cancel each other out &for e8ample, during *renouille1s stay at 9me. *1s). /t best, they all work together to create an intensity as rich and repugnant as too much perfume.

+(
@et us take, for e8ample, the scene in which aldini first smells *renouille1s freshly mi8ed perfume &%5DD54% until %5DG5%G). /s aldini closes his eyes in bliss, the camera slowly moves around him in a 4(%-degree arc, during which the walls of his laboratory are transformed into a beautiful pergola with flowers gently swaying in the wind, and a gorgeous young woman approaches him from behind to give him a kiss on the cheek as she whispers !I love you." /lthough technically well done, the scene suffers from its uncanny similarity to the Nivea and +il of +lay advertisements familiar to us via TI. /nd similarly to most commercials for laundry detergent, aldini1s moment of bliss is announced acoustically through the seraphic sounds of violins, children1s laughter and birds1 chirping, well before it is being visualiBed as a *arden of ,den. The scene is too richAbut not in the en0aminian sense of !shocking" us. -ather, it is !over-coded," so to speak, because its aesthetic elements have become so habitual that they end up anaesthetiBing instead of stimulating us. /s if acknowledging this connection himself, Tykwer abruptly cuts from aldini1s blissful face to his hand slamming coins on the table as he buys *renouille from *rimalAa deliberate reference to aldini1s overriding economic interests, and one that, albeit unintentionally, also comments on the profound commercialiBation of the very images Tykwer has 0ust presented to us.

1,
/nother e8ample is the scene right after *renouille has left *rasse to follow @aura &#5DD5#' until #5DD5D'). /fter he has reached the top of a mountain so as to pick up her scent again, Tykwer lets the camera swoop up and whirl around him before it flies off with amaBing speed and slithers through the hilly terrain. This, to be sure, is a digital gimmick intimately familiar to every sci-fi fan or video-game player. y contrast, the landing of Tykwer1s camera is =uite innovative. /s it approaches @aura, the camera slows down and hovers right above and behind her, unsure whether or not it is really she who dashes away in full gallop several feet below. ut while our gaBe continues to Boom in, her hat flies off, and her red curly hair flutters in the wind while she turns her head in slow motion to meet our gaBe, as if to confirm her identity while sensing *renouille1s &and the audience1s) eerie presence. /t precisely that moment, Tykwer abruptly cuts back to *renouille still breathing in all that redC he then immediately opens his eyes, indicating that he, too, has !seen" @aura through her scent. The scene worksAprecisely because the camera does not get up close and !into" the fragrant ob0ect &i.e., @aura1s hair). Instead of offering a barrage of visual e8cess, Tykwer1s camera here remains at a distance, and thus activates our imagination5 it invites us to transfer the ambiguity of what we are seeing into the hint of what we &imagine to) smell.

1'
ut scenes like this remain e8ceptional, which is why the overall psychological effect of Tykwer1s film differs sharply from that of 2Tskind1s book. / =uick survey of the public1s reaction demonstrates that what remains consistently e8hilarating and 0oyful for the reader is e8perienced as numbing and boring by the viewer &at least in *ermany). The reason for this affective difference between literature and film is partly medial, of course, since the low-tech medium of the book is much less invasive than is the digitally enhanced, high-tech medium of film. ?sing the full potential of the latter is bound to have an infinitely greater effect upon the audience than the relatively meager rhetorical devices of the former. 9oreover, given our visually saturated society today, it is far more intriguing to ingest a ernhardian rant than to be force-fed on Hollywood1s mass-produced audio-visual gimmicks. I say !intriguing," because the issue no longer concerns the audiences1 ability to !cope with" or !rehearse" stimuli in order to avoid trauma or other mental problems, as >reud and en0amin still argued in the last century. /ll of us today are able to !cope with" our visually saturated world 0ust fine. Nor is it a =uestion of ideology, in the sense that audiences are transformed into brainwashed fanatics ready to follow a dictator into war. -ather, it is a =uestion of aesthetic stimulation and pleasure, occasioned by a change in what Oac=ues -anciXre recently called the !distribution of the sensible" in a given society. .# 2imply put, the goal of art consists in engendering difference and in making this difference Kpalpable, able to be e8periencedL, !sensible." In Oohn ;ewey1s words from his #$4# lectures on Art and (%erience5 !The conception that ob0ects have fi8ed and unalterable values is precisely the pre0udice from which art emancipates us" &$G). To achieve this goal, a few drops of *renouille1s perfume here and there would have been much more effective than Tykwer1s pouring out the whole bottle over each and every one of his opulent scenes.

1+
The reason why Tykwer cannot resist the temptation to do so, however, was not only his G% million dollar budget. It has e=ually to do with his humanist understanding of 2Tskind1s novel and the fact that, for Tykwer, the fictional character *renouille is a lamentable victim, rather than embodying a structural effect of society. *iven the utopian aspirations e8pressed in all of his films so farA think of the miraculous escape of 2issi and odo at the end of )he Princess and the *arrior &.%%%), or the protagonists1 final ascent to heaven in +eaven &.%%.)Ain the end Perfume, too, is all about redemption, reconciliation, and wholeness. /nd it is precisely this absence of harsh necessity that the baro=ue style of the film seeks to render present on the screenAwhich is why so many of Tykwer1s scenes stylistically resemble those produced by the advertisement industry5 both disavow the structural necessity of deprivation. This brings us to the final image of Tykwer1s film, which does not have a counterpart in 2Tskind1s novel. It presents a close-up of the last drop of perfume about to hit the ground in that disgusting Haris fish market. The drop, of course, signals that the ,nlightenment is never able to devour its primitive other without leaving a remainderAreminding us that the dialectic will continue, no matter what. There is, according to Tykwer, always hope for redemption in the form of a true human communityAone drop is, after all, precisely the right dosage to do the trick, as we saw earlier in the movie. /nd yet, this last drop of perfume carries not only a promise, but also a threatAnot simply because it signifies the constant danger that the masses will be seduced by an evil genius, but also because it betrays the artificiality and unnaturalness of the total redemption to which Tykwer aspires. @ike *renouille1s perfume, &our desire for) redemption is always manufactured, and thus remains sub0ect to human treachery and guile. The only way for the threat to become a promise is if we renounce this aspiration altogether, or at least, like 2Tskind, recogniBe its potentially lethal nature. To choose life, on the other hand, is to acknowledge that its apparent fullness ultimately rests on deprivation and need. It is, basically, to acknowledge the necessity of &political, scientific, cultural) distinctions, however artificial they may turn out to be in the future.
Notes

11

Tom *unning has proposed a somewhat different terminology to describe the same aesthetic and institutional shift. He compares the by now proverbial !cinema of attraction" that lasted until ca. #$%( to the reign of what he calls !narrative integration" after that &*unning G(). 2ee, for e8ample, elach et al &eds), Das ,ino und )homas MannC *ersch, #ilm !ei &rechtC Hrodolliet, Das A!enteuer ,inoC and Capovilla, Der Le!endige Schatten. >or a more comprehensive discussion of the media-competition at the turn of the century, see 2trathausen, )he Loo- of )hings.
2 1 +

'

In one of the earliest /merican responses to :ittler1s work, -obert Holub concluded that :ittler e8hibits a remarkable !lack of reflection on his own historical situatedness" which leads him to !muster only a helpless and cynical political gesture" devoid of substance or !political ramifications" &D4). >or a more comprehensive and well balanced criti=ue of :ittler1s work in general, see the introduction to .ramo%hone/ #ilm/ )y%e0riter by *eoffrey Einthrop-Foung and 9ichael EutB, 8i-8li. It deserves mention that this is not an ade=uate description of :ittler1s later work or his oeuvre as a whole, which makes a significant contribution toward a nuanced historico-theoretical understanding of the development of &ancient, modern, and !new") media. 2ee in particular his erlin lectures published as 1%tische Medien.
* 4 3

>or more, see :reimeier, Die 2fa-Story3

In his influential essay !Ideological ,ffects of the asic Cinematographic /pparatus," audry claims that the !arrangement of the different elementsApro0ector, darkened hall, screen" found in the cinema1s auditorium !reproduc&es) in a striking way the mise-en-scne of Hlato1s cave" &DG), and he concludes that !the cinema assumes the role played throughout Eestern history by various artistic formations" &D(). 2ee also Haul IalJry1s comment that !Hlato1s cave is nothing but a gigantic dark chamber" &=td. in Haech ((). +ther critics have e8panded on the importance of the Italian Yuattrocento and the re-invention of monocular perspective during the -enaissance as a crucial influence or scientific prere=uisite for the invention of cinema.
8 -egarding the relationship between cinema and modernity, see also the collection of essays edited by Charney and 2chwartB, "inema and the Invention of Modern Life. (

2ee @owe, +istory of &ourgeois Perce%tion. 2ee >reud, &eyond the Pleasure Princi%leC and 2immel, !9etropolis and 9ental @ife."

', '' '+

9edia artist +lafur ,liasson, for e8ample, e8periments with retinal afterimages in some of his work, his e8plicit goal being to turn the spectator !into a pro0ector" &1lafur liasson .#). 2usan uck-9orss1 otherwise intriguing essay !/esthetics and /nesthetics5 Ealter en0amin1s /rtwork ,ssay -econsidered" is a case in point. In en0aminian fashion, uck-9orss convincingly demonstrates how #$ th and early .%th century technology contributed to the fragmentation and alienation of human perception. Ehat is missing from her account, however, is any discussion of contemporary &digital) technology and its ability to increase rather than decrease our aesthetic sensibility toward our own body, as Hansen and other new media critics have recently argued. If indeed the overall goal of art is !to restore the instinctual power of the human bodily senses6 not by avoiding the new technologies, but by passing through them," as uck-9orss rightly summariBes en0amin1s position &G), then we need to apply this insight to our own era and its technological capabilities. In his e8cellent introduction to an edited volume on Literature and #ilm, -obert 2ham rightly contends that, !in fact, there can be no real e=uivalence between source novel and adaptation" and that !the widely varying formulae for adaptationA3based on the novel by,1 3inspired by,1 3free adaptation of1Aindirectly acknowledges the impossibility of any real e=uivalency" &#'f.).
'2 '3 '* '4 '1

In his 1%tics from #(4N, ;escartes famously claimed that !&i)t is the mind, which sees, not the eye" &#%'). 2ee von ><rster, ,y!ern thi-C and @uhmann, So4iale Systeme.

>or a >rankfurt 2chool inspired reading of 2Tskind1s novel see *ray, !The ;ialectics of Z,nscentmentP"C and utterfield, !,nlightenmentPs +ther in Hatrick 2TskindPs Das Parfum." !The whole structure," *illes ;eleuBe contends, !is being moved by this primordial third that nonetheless remains distinct from its own origin" &DG). This empty field or blind spot is the sine 5ua non of structural difference5 !no structuralism without this point Bero" &D'). 2ee also Oac=ues @acan1s comments on ! %etit o!6et a" as that which !lacks in its place" &.D). /ccording to 9arks, haptic cinema !enables an embodied perception" and thus !depends on limited visibility and the viewer1s lack of mastery over the image" &)ouch DC #G). oth Der S%iegel and Die 'eit were fairly critical of Tykwer1s film, claiming that !Tykwer does not succeed in finding uni=ue images for the abstruse cosmos of the nose" &HochC my translation) and that !the visualiBation of the act of smelling remains rather banal" &NicodemusC my translation). y contrast, the ma0ority of /merican reviewers, led by -oger ,bert, reacted positively to the film, thus indicating once again the discrepancy between the ,uropean suspicion of &and the /merican fondness for) big-budget productions. Cf. 9ike ;ec #%, .%%N).
+' +, '( ')

eilfuW1s comments at http577www.cinemamusica.de7#G.7das-parfum-tykwer-klimek-und-heil &accessed

2ee -anciXre, )he Politics of Aesthetics.

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2obchack, Iivian. "arnal )houghts3 m!odiment and Moving Image "ulture . ? of California H, .%%D. 2peicher, 2tefan. !-uchlos." &erliner 'eitung #4 2ept. .%%(5 .G. 2piegel, /lan. #iction and the "amera ye3 >isual "onsciousness in #ilm and the Modern Novel. Charlottesville5 ? of Iirginia H, #$N(. 2trathausen, Carsten. )he Loo- of )hings3 Poetry and >ision Around :;@@ . Chapel Hill5 ?niversity of North Carolina Hress, .%%4. 2Tskind, Hatrick. Das Parfum3 Die .eschichte eines MGrders. UTrich5 ;iogenes, #$'G. Tykwer, Tom. !@ieber ein beiWender *estank als ein flTchtiges @Tftchen. Interview mit Helmut Uiegler." &erliner 'eitung $ 2ept. .%%(5 9%D. ---.!Interview."http577www.arte.tv7de7film7:ino-News7#4#N'#',CmC\#4#N'...html &accessed .% >eb. .%%N). Ion ><rster, HeinB. ,y!ern thi-. Trans. irger +llrogge. erlin5 9erve, #$$4. Eeibel, Heter. )ime Slot3 .eschichte und 'u-unft der a%%arativen *ahrnehmung vom Phena-istis-o% !is 4um 7uanten-ino. :<ln5 Ealter :<nig, .%%(.