The Obvious and the Code
Raymond Bellour
Take as the example twelve shots from The Big Sleep. They are
inscribed between two major ' scenes'. The first, in Eddy Mars'
garage - where Vivian enters the action on Marlowe's side for the
first time — culminates in the death of Canino; the second, in
Geiger's house, is the end of the film - Eddy Mars' death brings
the open series of enigma and peripeteia to a close and sets the
seal on the emergence of a couple. In between the two there are
twelve shots showing Vivian and Marlowe in the car on the way
from the garage to the house.
As a specific unit of code, they correspond exactly to what
Christian Metz in his ' grande syntagmatique' calls a scene; that
is, an autonomous segment, characterised by a chronological
coincidence between ' the unique consecutiveness of the signifier
(deployment on the screen) and the unique consecutiveness of the
signified (= the time of the fiction) '-1
On the other hand, as a
specifically textual unit, they also constitute what, in work towards
a description of the classic narrative film, I have chosen to call a
segment;2
that is, a moment in the filmic chain which is delimited
both by an elusive but powerful sense of dramatic or fictional
unity, and by the more rigorous notion of identity of setting and
characters of the narrative. (When, as is most often the case, the
two pertinences do not overlap completely, ie when a significant
variation in location or character appears within one and the same
segment, the segment divides into sub-segments.) In this case the
dramatic unity is obvious - a pause between two strong times
marked by the deaths of Canino and Eddy Mars respectively, and
a resumption of verbal relations between Vivian and Marlowe.
Identity of characters and location is absolute - throughout the
segment we have a car, and the two main characters in intimate
conversation. Finally, the segmental nature of the shots is reinforced
by an element which, for all that it is not inherent in its
definition, is often consubstantial with it in the classic narrative;
the twelve shots open and close on lap dissolves — a punctuation
which here functions as a (redundant) sign of demarcation.8
The interest of this segment lies in its relative poverty. Even
an attentive viewer will not be sure to retain anything but the
impression of a certain amount of vague unity. Questioned, he
will very likely hazard the view that the segment consists of a
long take supported by dialogue, or at best, of two or three shots.
But Hawks needed twelve shots to secure the economy of this
segment. Undoubtedly, that economy was designed in order not
to be perceived, which is in fact one of the determining features
of the American cinema. But it exists, and from it the classic mode
of narration draws a part of its power. It is true, as Metz has
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observed, that ' (that mode) is geared towards the sequence and it
is the sequence (and not the shot) which is its preoccupation, its
constant problem '.4
But the organic material of this preoccupation
is the prior set of formal, hierarchically-ordered relations between
the shots. What I want to show here is how the simplest narrative
fact imaginable - two characters talking in a car - can come to
set into play a series of elementary but subtle operations which
ensure its integration into the development of a narration. It is
on this level that the — relative — poverty of this segment is
exemplary. .
According to Rivette's famous formula, ' obviousness is the
mark of Howard Hawks' genius \5
No doubt—provided we recognise
the extent to which that obviousness only comes to the fore
insofar as it is coded.
;
The text of the segment is constituted by the concerted action
of six codes, listed from (a) to (f) in the accompanying recapitulatory
diagram. The first three concern variations in scale between the
shots, whether they are static or moving, and camera angle
(symbolised by the arrow). These are three specific codes which
manifest the potentialities of one of the five purports of expression
proper to all sound film, ie the image-band.6
The three others are
non-specific codes; the presence or absence of this or that character
or characters from the units considered (and note the lack of
extension of this code here - there is no shot without a character),
whether they express themselves in dialogue or not, and finally
whether' these units are of greater or lesser duration, does not
depend on cinema. In the case of the last code, a relative imprecision
will be noted - the times of each shot are brought into
clear opposition, and this is just one of the multiple abstractions
to which the codes.subject the text. As for those elements consigned
to the seventh column, they do of course come within
a code, but its extension differs radically from that of the remaining
six. It differs in two senses: as a code of narrative actions
it is of itself broader than the rest, pluri-codic from the outset
through the different levels on which its elements are located; in
addition, it only takes on its specific value as code in the light of
the body of the text (for example the film) for which it determines
one of the principal semantic axes. It is a reflection of this extension
that it figures here in only a restricted number of elements
capable of entering into combination with the action of the other
six codes in the circumscribed space of twelve shots.
The most direct oppositions of the segment emerge between
shots 1 and 2. Shot 1 is the only moving shot; it tracks in to frame
the front right window of the car, and (from medium shot to
medium-close shot) delimits two frames which are to have no
equivalent in the remainder of the segment. I should stress (something
which does not seem to have constituted a distinct code
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The Big Sleep
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but might have done so) that it is the only shot taken outside the 13
car. A fourth - correlative - opposition is marked in the transition
between presence and absence of dialogue. But from shot 1 to 2
the narration is at pains to soften any excessive difference, ensuring
continuity on three levels: through the relative identity of duration
of the shots, the combined presence of the two main characters
in both shots, and above all, by maintaining the initial camera
angle (from left to right) which is the simplest way of ensuring
a sense that one is watching one and the same shot (see plates).
Shot 3 starts from an unevenly graduated transition (it is static
like shot 2, and preserves the same camera angle as shots 1 and
2) to introduce another series of differences. The two characters/
one character (Marlowe) change has its three correlates: passage
from medium-close shot to close-up, from long take to short take,
and the centring of the dialogue on one character.
Shot 4 refines this beginning of a system. We pass naturally
from one character to the other, from Marlowe to Vivian, as if
shot 2 had been divided to show us in turn the hero and the
heroine, giving each of them the same reduction in framing and
duration. But only at the cost of a double difference: Vivian does
not speak alone in shot 4 as Marlowe did in shot 3. Instead they
both talk. And above all, the angle changes completely to show
Vivian full face, enclosed by the space of the car interior - the
reverse of Marlowe, beside whose face the night landscape continues
to flow, discernible through the left front window of the
car.
Thereafter the segment organises itself on this twofold opposition
alternating between two characters and one character, and
between each of the two characters. But while the static nature of
the shot, the distribution of the scale of framing and the camera
angle remain invariable, the other pertinences undergo notable
changes.
(a) Firstly, the distribution of the characters. The shots which
show the characters alone follow a very precisely graded pattern
which complicates the initial 2/1-1 alternation. This pattern may be
broken down as follows: four alternating shots (3-6), then two (8-9),
then one (11). Inevitably, within the gradual contraction that marks'
the curve of the segment and ensures its internal acceleration
(what might be called its ' suspense'), a privileged status is
assigned to Vivian who figures in shot 11. Note that this privilege
is secured by a delicate transition which inverts the initial data
of the alternation - the M/V/M/V order which succeeds shot 2,
becomes V/M after shot 7, as if to pave the way for the absence of
Marlowe in the last occurrence.
(b) But the privilege conceded within one code (presence in the
image) is overthrown in another (presence in the dialogue belonging
to each shot). We have already noted that while Marlowe
alone speaks in shot 3 where he is alone in the image, Marlowe
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14 and Vivian both talk in shot 4 which shows Vivian alone, an
opposition which is continued in shots 5 and 6. The shots which
follow accentuate this imbalance in accordance with a progression
which is at the same time inverse, similar and different to that
of the image-presence progression. For Marlowe alone speaks in
shots 8 and 9 which show the two characters alternately, and
while he does not speak in shot 11 where Vivian marks her privilege
in the image, she — far from speaking — is quite silent.7
This silence, which opposes this shot of Vivian to the whole
anterior series of shots showing one character, is followed by
another silence. Shot 12, which shows both Vivian and Marlowe
again, is silent thereby giving the other end of the segment a
symmetry with shot 1 whose singularity in relation to those that
follow has been noted. A folding effect which clearly demonstrates
the way in which the narration, even down to its details, proceeds
through a differential integration of its constituent elements.
(c) Thirdly, time. While the two characters-long take/one
character-short take equivalence is respected throughout the segment,
the first term of the opposition undergoes profound internal
variation. Shot 7 is in fact much longer than its corresponding shots
1, 2, 10 and 12, to the point where it is almost as long as the whole
set of remaining eleven shots. The strategic placement of this shot
will be noted - it occurs in the middle of the segment, thus delimiting
a beginning which makes it possible, and an end which it motivates
and which echoes the beginning through a multiple process,
a process simultaneously of equivalence through symmetry, of
resolution through repetition and variation, and of acceleration in
balancing.
The arrangement shown by the work of the codes is the same
one that shapes the meaning of the fiction. From the mass of narrative
elements ebbing and flowing throughout the segment (conversations,
turning on a deepening of the relations of the enigma, and
the more or less continuous-discontinuous field of the characters'
actions and reactions) I have isolated only two phrases and two
gestures. " . . . I guess I am in love with you *. This phrase, which
occurs twice, uttered first by Vivian and then by Marlowe, clearly
shows the extent to which the reduplication effect - in this instance
a simple mirror effect linked to the admission of love - is constitutive
of the narrative. But this is so at the cost of an inversion
which underscores the fact that repetition is constitutive only
inasmuch as it takes its starting point from the difference circumscribing
it, within a movement of bi-motivation which is in fact the
specific necessity of this type of narrative. It is in shot 6 in which
she appears alone that Vivian makes the first admission of love
whose effect carries over onto shot 7, thereby justifying among
other things its exceptional length. Inversely, it is in shot 10 in
which Vivian and Marlowe appear together that he reiterates the
admission whose effect focuses on shot 11 which shows Vivian
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alone and silent. 15
The two gestures on the contrary are relatively heterogeneous.
But they are of interest, the first - Marlowe gripping the steering
wheel on a difficult swerve - by specifying him, as he has been
throughout the film, as belonging on the side of action; the second,
Vivian's tender gesture, coming as an explicit and conclusive
response to the admission of love, in that it lets us place her
dearly within a feeling only recognised and expressed by her once
she has committed herself in the action on Marlowe's side.
This double narrative inflection moreover has its effect on at
least two of the codic implications of the narrative whose articulation
appears that much more strongly motivated as a result.
On the one hand the divergence between presence in the dialogue
and presence in the image which privilege Marlowe and Vivian
respectively; on the other, the difference in camera angle, concentrated
on Vivian and abstracting her face on the surface of the
screen. Easily recognisable here is a double sign of the mythologisation
of the woman. Hawks, we might note, is one of the
Hollywood directors who has most profoundly re-orientated the
Hollywood tradition of the woman-object. The well-known independence
and initiative of his heroines brings to certain of his
couples - and to none more than that of The Big Sleep - the
slightly legendary character of a relationship of adult reciprocity.
But this is only aclu'eved through the codified marks which, in this
instance, make it the woman whose magnified face simultaneously
and wholly expresses and receives the admission of love.
Nevertheless it would be over simple to move to a neat conclusion
and find something like the ' secret' of the text in this
correspondence, to see it as the rationale of the text, discovered
in its meaning, or even in a meaning. On the other hand, if
there is nothing but meaning, and if it has a meaning, in the sense
that one might say it has a direction, this must, I think, be
expressed in quite a different way. In these films, let's say in the
classic American cinema, meaning is constituted by a correspondence
in the balances achieved - as a law of the text in development
- throughout its numerous codic and pluri-codic levels, in other
words, its systems. Multiple in both nature and extension, these
cannot be reduced to any truly unitary structure or semantic
relationship.
But, to confine ourselves to what has been produced by this
analytical description of twelve shots isolated from a film which
can justifiably figure as one of the models of American high
classicism, we note:
(a) the number of shots, which is relatively high given the
exigencies of the action. This allows for a discontinuity capable of
ensuring a certain degree of variation of the filmic space within the
given time.
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16 (b) This variation, which the narrative adopts as one of its basic
options is, on the other hand, limited by a profound tendency
towards repetition. Repetition essentially takes the upperhand
through a number of strictly similar shots: on the one hand shots
3, 5 and 9 of Marlowe, and on the other, shots 4 and 6 of
Vivian. (The similarity in question is of course on the level of the
codes which constrain the constitutive variation of dialogues,
actors' comportment, etc.)
(c) This tendency towards repetition which as we saw also
expresses itself clearly through numerous relationships of partial
similarity between shots (and beyond that between codes) carries
with it a natural after-effect. It underscores the codic differences
which give effectiveness to the basic variation constituted by the
successive plurality of the shots. These differences are powerful
and discrete in their distribution and transitions, having as their
primary object to ensure the natural continuity of the narrative that
is to sustain its artifice, but without ever making it too obvious.
A balance which in its own specific mode echoes that inscribed in
the playing of the actors and the style of the photography.8
(d) This balance thus reveals a constant relationship from shot
to shot between symmetry and dissymmetry, which is moreover
reinforced by a general arrangement in the segment as a
whole. In this respect we might recall the unequal deployment of
the shots alternating between Vivian and Marlowe around the
central axis represented by shot 7, which is itself inscribed into the
alternation on another level. It is not surprising therefore that it
should be the regulated opposition between the closing off of
symmetries and the opening up of dissymmetries which gives rise
to the narrative, to the very fact that there is a narrative.
A particular arrangement will however be noted which seems
to me not specific to, but profoundly characteristic of the American
cinema. The progressive relationship (in the literal sense) outlined
above seems more or less to resolve itself within each unit
of narration — in this case within a short segment of twelve shots
which might be taken for a secondary transition — by means of a
suspension and folding effect, as if to allow the segment to close
back on itself more effectively and leave the new fold the problem
of unrolling its new elements. Take the final shot for example.
It is conclusive and synthetic undoubtedly, by virtue of Vivian's
tender gesture which closes off the dialogue marked by their
double avowal. But it is also so in another way: by the silence
between the characters which only has its equivalent in shot 1,
it ensures a kind of overall symmetry, but it is tipped over into
dissymmetry so to speak because it is opposed to the shot it
recalls through the identity it sustains with shots 2, 7, and 10,
the final silence being the distinguishing mark.
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Notes 17
1. Raymond Bellour/Christian Metz, ' Entretien sur la sdmiologie du
cinema', Semiotica, Vol IV, 1971, part 1, p 10. For more detailed
discussion, cf Christian Metz, Essais sur la signification au cinema,
Klincksieck, Paris, 1968, pp 130-131.
2. Particularly in a work in progress on Vincente Minnelli's Gigi.
3. Cf on this point the valuable distinctions established by Christian
Metz ' Ponctuations et demarcations dans le film de diegese',
Essais sur la signification au cinema, Vol II, Klincksieck, Paris,
1973 (especially pp 126-129).
4. Ibid, pp 120-21.
5. ' Genie de Howard Hawks', Cahiers du Cinema, no23, May 1953, p 16.
6. On this opposition between specific and non-specific codes and the
correlative ideas cinema/film cf the whole of Christian Metz'
book Langage et Cinema, Larousse, Paris 1971 [Language and
Cinema, Mouton, 1974.] Following on Metz (cf more particularly
pp 169-180) one might bring in here the notion of degree of
specificity to establish a gradation between the specific codes: only
the static/moving code is specific in an absolute way here. The
pictorial arts have variations in scale and in angle, although
within a radically different extension of the notion of a work
or of textual closure. Film contains them within itself (except a
film made up of a single shot filmed from a fixed camera position
and without internal variation among the subjects filmed, in
other words, almost a non-film), whereas it requires several paintings,
etchings or photographs to constitute an equivalent variability.
It is in this sense that the frame, while it is the smallest unit into
which the filmic chain can be broken down, cannot be retained as
a pertinent unit for the theory of cinema and film analysis except
at the cost of prior loss of the notion of specificity.
7. <|Note here the difficulty sometimes encountered by clear distinctions.
At a viewing, even a viewing slowed down by a projector
which allows for reduction in speed, shot 11 appears to be silent,
following a cut on Marlowe's admission ' I guess I am in love
with you'. On the viewing table on the other hand, the ' you ' seems
fairly clearly to straddle the two shots. This effect is certainly not
negligeable since it was intended in the editing and it accentuates
the motivational relation in the succession of the two shots. It
suggests once again the need to question the theoretical status of all
that is only clearly apparent on the level of the frame.
8. A distinction needs to be made here between these two methods
of balance, which correspond to each other and support each
other, both equally aimed at giving the illusion of naturalness by
the regulated control of artifice. While both are codified, to the
degree demanded by the need to produce the illusion, only the first
is coded, ie capable of formulation into relatively strict systematic
relationships. This is why the playing of the actors or the arrangements
of tones in the image, which express themselves in the first
case in terms of gestural dynamics and in the second in terms of
intensity of light, resist analysis which inversely finds its chosen
ground in the coded or codable elements (to stress clearly its character
as a construction). It should be added that what falls to a
greater extent into the codified in one instance may in another
instance fall to a greater extent into the coded: for example the
arrangement of lighting and certain features of the actors' playing in
certain German expressionist films.
Translated and reprinted from Cinema: Theorie and Lectures, a
special issue of Revue D'Estethique, Klincksieck, Paris 1973.
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