ís a body of rules, there is an rategies for realizing them.*1 od thus dramatizes both the isical paradigm, extrinsic norms should not even in this most ordinary s form and meaning accord-memory, and inference. No irent" classical film viewing s an activity. Any alternative )ilize narration to call forth
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10. Art-Cinema Narration

T
he predominance of classical Hollywood films, and consequently classical narration, is a historical fact, but film history is not a monolith. Under various circumstances, there have appeared alternative modes of narration, the most prominent one of which I shall consider in this chapter. As a start, ostensive definition might be best. L'Eclisse, The Green Room, Rocco and His Brothers, Repulsion, Scenes from a Marriage, Accident, Teoréma, Ma nuit chez Maude, Rome Open City, Love and Anarchy: whatever you think of these films, they form a class that filmmakers and film viewers distinguish from řízo Bravo on the one hand and Mothlight on the other. Not all films shown in "art theaters" utilize distinct narraüonal procedures, but many do. Within a machinery of production, distribution, and consumption—the "international art cinema," as it is generally known—there exists a body of films which appeal to norms of syuzhet and style which I shall call art-cinema narration.
We could characterize this mode by simply inventorying our theoretical categories. We could say that the syuzhet here is not as redundant as in the classical film; that there are permanent and suppressed gaps; that exposition is delayed and distributed to a greater degree; that the narration tends to be less generically motivated; and several other things. Such an atomistic list, while informative, would not get at the underlying principles that enable the viewer to comprehend the film. Our study of The Spiders Stratagem in Chapter 6 has already shown how its temporal manipulations are based on three broader interlocking procedural schemata—"objective" realism, "expressive" or subjective realism, and narraüonal commentary. The same schemata explain the various narrational strategies, and their instantiation in syuzhet and style, characteristic of this mode of filmmaking.
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i
^Objectivity, Subjectivity, Authority
#ne Russian Formalist critics pointed out that artists often 'usury novelty as a new realism, and this observation is borne ut by art-cinema narration. For the classical cinema, rooted in the popular novel, short story, and well-made drama of the Hate nineteenth century, "reality" is assumed to be a tacit {Coherence among events, a consistency and clarity of indi-'ual identity. Realistic motivation corroborates the com-ositional motivation achieved through cause and effect But $j£cinema narration, taking its cue from literary modern-£qi!estions such a definition of the real: the world's laws Say not be knowable, personal psychology may be indeter-ifiwnate. Here new aesthetic conventions claim to seize other ialities": the aleatoric world of "objective" reality and the reeling states that characterize "subjective" reality.  In 37'Marcel Martin summed up these two new sorts of verisimilitude. The contemporary cinema, he claimed, follows Neorealism in seeking to depict the vagaries of real life, ' to "dedramatize" the narrative by showing both climaxes id trivial moments, and to use new techniques (abrupt itting, long takes) not as fixed conventions but as flexible řtneans of expression. Martin added that this new cinema deals with the reality of the imagination as well, but treats «this as if it were as objective as the world before us.1 Of 'course the realism of the art cinema is no more "real" than MiäTÖT the classical film; it is simply a different canon of ^realistic motivation, a new vraisemblance, justifying particular "compositional options and effects. Specific sorts of real-rism motivate a loosening of cause and effect, an episodic ^construction of the syuzhet, and an enhancement of the film's symbolic dimension through an emphasis on the ^fluctuations of character psychology.
'The art film's "reality" is multifaceted. The film will deal ■with "real" subject matter, current psychological problems such as contemporary "alienation" and "lack of communica-■tion." The mise-en-scene may emphasize verisimilitude of ^Ijehavior as well as verisimilitude of space (e.g., location shooting, non-Hollywood lighting schemes) or time (e.g., the temps mort in a conversation). André ßazin emphasized
such aspects of the art cinema when he praised Neorealist films for employing nonactors to achieve a behavioral con-creteness. Bazin also analyzed how specific stylistic devices, such as deep focus and the long take, could record the phenomenal continuum of space and time.
Such localized aspects do not, however, do justice to the extent to which an "objective" realism becomes a pervasive formal principle. In the name of verisimilitude, the tight causality of classical Hollywood construction is replaced by a more "tenuous Unking of events. In UAwentura, for instance, Anna is lost and never found; in Bicycle Thieves, the future of Antonio and his son remains uncertain. We find calculated gaps in the syuzhet, as Bazin writes of Paisá: "This fragment of the story reveals enormous ellipses—or rather, great holes. A complex train of action is reduced to three or four brief fragments, in themselves already elliptical enough in comparison with the reality they are unfolding."2 The viewer must therefore tolerate more permanent causal gaps than would be normal in a classical film.
Gapping the syuzhet's presentation of the fabula is not the only way that art-cinema narration loosens up cause and effect. Another factor ivchancé; Contingency can create transitory, peripheral incidents—the locus classicus is the unexpected rainstorm and the chattering priests in Bicycle Thieves—or it can be more structurally central. It is by chance that Anna is not found in L'Awentura; and by chance that Antonio discovers, then again loses, his bicycle. It is only coincidence that in Wild Strawberries Isak Borg's path crosses that of young people who trigger such significant memories. In this mode of narration, scenes are built around chance encounters, and the entire film may consist of nothing more than a series of them, linked by a trip (The Silence, La Strada, Alice in the Cities) or aimless wanderings (La Dolce Vita, Cleofrom 5 to 7, Alße). The art film can thus become episodic, akin to picaresque and processional forms, or it can pattern coincidence to suggest the workings of an impersonal and unknown causality. Here is Bazin on Diary of a Country Priest:
If, nevertheless, the concatenation of events and the
causal efficiency of the characters involved appear to
J
1

operate just as rigidl ture, it is because th of prophecy (or perh ian "repetition") that causality is from an;. After working to open syuzhet. When, at the miraculously materialir-or when the mimes r. reappearance at the cl emerge to rob and kil;. Friends—in each case -fabula by appeal to the t We have seen that t tor's expectations upon the syuzhet's dramatic But the art film typicall searchers in L'Awentu What could limit the t: La Dolce Vita or Alma's ing or minimizing dead unfocused gaps and les ing actions; it also fa< causality in general. VV tic. this open-en dedne; more tightly "economi The loosening of cad of schema, that of a realism. The art film ;| kind of character, ancf Certainly the art filr" no less than does the c characters of the art I motives, and goals. Pre Udia in La Notte) or their purposes (Borg rendezvous d'Anna), 1' lion, which can play c silent about their moti* and intervals, and n
he praised Neorealist eve a behavioral con-;cific stylistic devices, ke. could record the time.
:ver, dojusiicetothe becomes a pervasive isimilitude, the tight iction is replaced by a UAwentura, for in-i Bicycle Thieves, the » uncertain. We find 2in writes of Paisä: lormous ellipses—or action is reduced to tves already elliptical hey are unfolding."5 'e permanent causal :al film.
the fabula is not the •sens up cause and ingency can create ;us classicus is the ig priests in Bicycle ly central. It is by \wentura; and by n loses, his bicycle. 'berries Isak Borg's rigger such signifi-n, scenes are built re film may consist iked by a trip (The imless wanderings le art film can thus irocessional forms, he workings of an is Bazin on Diary
■f events and the >lved appear to
operate just as rigidly as in a traditional dramatic structure, it is because they are responding to an order, that of prophecy (or perhaps one should say of Kierkegaard-ian "repetition") that is as different from fatality as causality is from analogy.1 After working to open gaps, chance can also close off the syuzhet. When, at the end of Nights ofCabiria, the youths miraculously materialize to save Cabiria from despondency; or when the mimes make their calculatedly unexpected reappearance at the close of Blow-Up; or when two thugs emerge to rob and kill Fox at the close of Fox and His Friends—in each case, the narration asks us to unify the fabula by appeal to the plausible improbabilities of "real life." We have seen that the classical film focuses the spectator's expectations upon the ongoing causal chain by shaping the syuzhet's dramatic duration around explicit deadlines. But the art film typically lacks such devices. How long do the searchers in UAwentura have before Anna's fate is sealed? What could limit the time span of Marcello's adventures in La Dolce Vita or Alma's disintegration in Persona? By removing or minimizing deadlines, not only does the art film create unfocused gaps and less stringent hypotheses about upcoming actions; it also facilitates an open-ended approach to causality in general. While motivated as "objectively" realistic, this open-endedness is no less a formal effect than is the more tightly "economical" Hollywood dramaturgy.
The loosening of causal relations is aided by a second son of schema, that of a subjective or "expressive" notion of realism. The art film aims to "exhibit character." But what kind of character, and how to exhibit it?
Certainly the art film relies upon psychological causation no less than does the classical narrative. But the prototypical characters of the art cinema tend to lack clear-cut traits, motives, and goals. Protagonists may act inconsistendy (e.g., Lidia in La Notte) or they may question themselves about their purposes (Borg in Wild Strawberries, Anna in Les rendezvous ď Anna). This is evidently an effect of the narration, which can play down characters' causal projects, keep silent about their motives, emphasize "insignificant" actions and intervals, and never reveal effects of actions. Again
consider UAwentura- Anna's disappearance is motivated some degree: she is dissatisfied with Sandro, she is cap. cious, and she yearns for solitude. But once she vanishes, our hypotheses become equally probable: she hasdiedft accident? by suicide?) or fled (in a passing boat). In; second half of the film, Claudia and Sandro take as iff putative goal the tracing of clues to Anna's whereabouts.& the film's syuzhet devotes so much time to the couj emotional reactions and to the other people they encou that their objective starts to collapse. The recovery of Ann no longer the causal nexus of the action, and our hypottiej turn to the development of the Claudia-Sandro affair.
Equivocating about character causality supports a c struction based on a more or less episodic series of events the Hollywood protagonist speeds toward the target. art-film protagonist is presented as sliding passively one situation to another. Especially apt for the art-film fa is the biography of the individual (Ray's Apu trilogy,"! faut's Antoine Doinel series) or the slice-of-life chrcr (Alfie, Cleofrom 5 to 7). If the classical protagonist s' gles, the drifting protagonist traces out an itinerár)' wl surveys the film's social world. Certain occupations (e, journalism, prostitution) favor an encyclopedic, "c* sectional" syuzhet pattern. In general, as causal conneC in the fabula are weakened, parallelisms come'tp tjjjj The films sharpen character delineation by impelling u. compare agents, attitudes, and situations. In The Sa«£ Seal, the Knighťs-toar of medieval society is enhanced bj juxtaposition of flagellants and buskers; Watanabe, the' tagonist of Ikiru, must encounter the denizens of night and the kindly factory girl Toyo. At its limit, the devj-parallellism can form the explicit basis of the fUm!7p Chytilova's Something Different and Pasolini's Pigpen.: art film's thematic crux.'its attempt to pronounce jud| upon modern life and la condition humaine, depends.u its formal organization.
It is only in this sense that the art cinema counters H' wood's interest in "plot" by an interest in "character." If.' classical film resembles a short story by Poe, the art cin: is closer to Chekhov. Indeed, early-twentieth-century.]
-

reis a central source for art-cinema models of character iisality and syuzhet construction. Horst Ruthrof points to ^mergence of a new sort of short story in the modern , one which is "organized towards pointed situations ■iwfiich a presented persona, a narrator, or the implied der in a flash of insight becomes aware of meaningful as Snst meaningless existence."1 Typical of this is what uthrof calls the "boundary-situation" story, in which the iusal chain leads up to an episode of the private individual's ess of fundamental human issues. Examples would Joyce's "Araby" and Hemingway's "Snows of Kiliman-k" The boundary situation is common in art-cinema Hon; the film's causal impetus often derives from the gonist's recognition that she or he faces a crisis of Xjstential significance.
A simple instance is Fellini's 8'Á (1963). Guido, the wo-änizing film director, has coaxed cast and crew out on ätion to make a film whose point and script he cannot culate. He also brings his mistress, thus creating marital blems for himself. And he is plagued by memories of his hood, guilty feelings toward his family, fantasies of his wninance over women, and the vision of an idealized muse. 'the film progresses. Guido becomes trapped in the world his problems until a press conference called by his pro-jücer forces him to choose some course of action. What he ses remains uncertain (he may kill himself), but that iiido reaches a boundary situation with respect to the pur-^e of his life is beyond doubt. A different sort of boundary Nation can be found in The Spider's Stratagem, when fthos Magnani discovers that his father was a traitor. vHow heavily the film weights the boundary situation de-ds partly on the syuzhet's expositional procedures. The zhet can lead up to the situation by dramatizing the inent causal chain, as in The World ofApu when the l^ro's youth gradually prepares us for his recognition of the eaninglessness of art after his wife's death. Or the syuzhet confine itself more stringendy to the boundary situation Itself, providing prior fabula information by exposition. JRuthrof points out the tendency of modern literature to focus Km the boundary situation by compressing duration and

restricting space. In theater, the Kammerspiel tradition achieved a comparable end. The habit of confining the syuzhet to the boundary situation and then revealing prior events to us through recounting or enactment became a dominant convention of the art film, seen in Rashomon, Ikiru, Death in Venice, The Go-between, The Model Shop, The Immortal Story, and most of Rohmer's films. Bergman, with his strong affinities with Kammerspiel, provides perhaps the most obvious examples.
The boundary situation provides a formal center within which conventions of psychological realism can take over. Focus on a situation's existential import motivates characters' expressing and explaining their mental states. Concerned less with action than reaction, the art cinema presents psychological effects in search of their causes. The dissection of feeling is often represented as therapy and cure (e.g., many of Bergman's films), but even when it is not, causation is Often braked and the more introspective characters pause to seek the etiology of their feelings. Characters retard the movement of the syuzhet by telling stories— autobiographical events (especially from childhood), fantasies, and dreams. Even if a character remains unaware of or inarticulate about his or her mental state, the viewer must be prepared to notice how behavior and setting can give the character away. The art cinema developed a range of mise-en-scěne cues for expressing character mood: static postures, covert glances, smiles that fade, aimless walks, emotion-filled landscapes, and associated objects (e.g., Valentina's wire toy in La Notte or Catherine's hourglass in Jules and Jim). Within the fabula world—one that is usually as autonomous and internally consistent as that of the Hollywood film—psychological realism consists of permitting a character to reveal the self to others and, inadvertently, to us.
This is a fully expressive realism in that the syuzhet can employ film techniques to dramatize private mental processes. Art-cinema narration employs all the sorts of subjectivity charted by Edward Branigan.5 Dreams, memories, hallucinations, daydreams, fantasies, and other mental activities can find embodiment in the image or on the sound track. Consequently, the behavior of the characters within

the fabula world and t! on the character's pro! say that "inquiry into c thematic material buič ity. suspense, and sur
Conventions of expiv sentation: optical poi: glimpsed or recalled e1 light and color and sou. ter psychology. In Re Spirits, and many ot; construed as the pro? larly, the syuzhet may lation of time. The fU (Hiroshima mon ami.. Woman). Subjectivity' (slow motion or freez quency, such as the r amour, The Spiders 5 distortions in moden: "Newtonian" time bu sort discussed by Be:
One major consequ episodic format, the spauotemnoraJ "expre tions upon characte: films, the art film is a knowledge. Such re-(character knowledge the narration less reb character's access 11 syuzhet will confine i*, as in Blow-Up or Then splits knowledge betv| nioni's trilogy. The psychological depth; 13 more often than is els  | film has been a princi ing psychological ac:, '
To "objective" and
I
.''iŕ
II
II
II
'.ammerspiel tradition a bi t of confining the i then revealing prior enactment became a .. seen in Rashomon, een. The Model Skop, mer's films. Bergman, immerspiel, provides
formal center within
ealism can take over.
ort motivates charac-ľ mental states. Con-.. the art cinema pre-
of their causes. The ed as therapy and cure
even when it is not. - introspective charac-r feelings. Characters t by telling stories— om childhood), fanta-emains unaware of or ce, the viewer must be
setting can give the oped a range of mise-ter mood: static pos-:ade, aimless walks, ciated objects (e.g., :herine*s hourglass in i—one that is usually it as that of the Holiy-isists of permitting a .inadvertently, to us. that the syuzhet can
private mental pro-JJ the sorts of subjec-
Dreams. memories, ind other mental ac-
age or on the sound le characters within
the fabula world and the syuzhet's dramatization both focus on the character's problems of action and feeling; which is to say that "inquiry into character" becomes not only the prime thematic material but a central source of expectation, curiosity, suspense, and surprise.
Conventions of expressive realism can shape spatial representation: optical point-of-view shots, flash frames of a glimpsed or recalled event, editing patterns, modulations of light and color and sound—all are often motivated by character psychology. In Repulsion, Belle de Jour, Juliet of the Spirits, and many other films, the surroundings may be construed as the projections of a character's mind. Similarly, the syuzhet may use psychology to justify the manipulation of time. The flashback is the most obvious instance {Hiroshima mon amour, Wild Strawberries, A Man and a Woman). Subjectivity can also justify the distension of time (slow motion or freeze frames) and manipulations of frequency, such as the repetition of images. (Hiroshima mon amour. The Spider's Stratagem). As V. V. Ivanov notes, the distortions in modem cinema are often motivated not by "Newtonian" time but rather by "psychological" time of the sort discussed by Bergson."
One major consequence of the goal-bereft protagonist, the episodic format, the central boundary situation, and the spatiotemporal "expressive" effects is to focus on the limitations upon character knowledge. Unlike most classical films, the art film is apt to be quite restricted in its range of knowledge. Such restriction may enhance identification (character knowledge matches ours), but it may also make the narration less reliable (we cannot always be sure of the character's access to the total fabula). Sometimes the syuzhet will confine itself to what only one character knows, as in Bloiv-Up or The Wrong Move; sometimes the syuzhet splits knowledge between two central characters, as in Anto-nioni's trilogy. The narrow focus is complemented by psychological depth; art-film narration is more subjective more often than is classical narration. For this reason, the art film has been a principal source of experiments in representing psychological activity in the fiction film.
To "objective" and "subjective" verisimilitude we may add
I
a third broad schema, that of overt narraiional "commeij tary." In applying this schema, the viewer looks for thps moments in which the narrational act interrupts the trafäí mission of fabula information and highlights its own rol| Stylistic devices that gain prominence with respect to ck sical norms—an unusual angle, a stressed bit of cutting! striking camera movement, an unrealistic shift in lighting setting, a disjunction on the sound track, or any other ore? down of objective realism which is not motivated as-sul ^tivity—can be taken as the narration's commentary. Reel the" "prophetic" camera movement in The Spider's Sire agem (figs. 6.28-6.32), or the satiric freeze frame in V« iana that invites the spectator to compare the beggars' fei to the Last Supper. The marked self-consciousness of cinema narration creates both a coherent fabula world affil an intermittently present but highly noticeable external a J thority through which we gain access to it.
Thanks to the intrusive commentary, the self-consck points in the classical text (the beginning and ending o( scene, of the film) become foregrounded in the art film, credits of Persona and Blow-Up can tease us with fragmerijj tary, indecipherable images that announce the power off author to control what we know. The narrator can, bej scene in a fashion that cuts us adrift or can linger on a scj after its causally significant action has been complete^ g particular, the "open" ending characteristic of the art rig ema can be seen as proceeding from a narration which»« not divulge the outcome of the causal chain. V. F. Per objects to the ending of La Notte on the grounds that "l| 'real ending' is knowable but has been withheld— story is abandoned when it has served the director's purposl but before it has satisfied the spectator's requirements."'" complain about the arbitrary suppression of the story's oi| come is to reject one convention of the art .film.-A4 remark of the 1960s, that such films make you leave t theater thinking, is not far from the mark: the ambiguity,.! play of alternative schemata, must not be halted. Thus tl unexpected freeze frame becomes the most explicit figur? narrative irresolution. Furthermore, the pensive ending £§ knowledges the narration as not simply powerful but hui
:'
■Ran
: ■ sc.
fte; the narration knows that life is more complex than art ever be, and—a new twist of the realistic screw—the !Iy way to respect this complexity is to leave causes dan-ling an(] questions unanswered. Like many art films, La %otte bares the device of the unresolved ending when a Vornan at the party asks the writer Giovanni how a certain should end. He answers: "In so many ways/' t-film narration goes beyond such codified moments of intervention. At any point in the film we must be ready engage with the shaping process of an overt narration. A cene may end in medias res; gaps are created that are not explicable by reference to character psycholog)'; retardation result from the withholding of information or from Vloaded passages that require unpacking later. Lacking «"dialogue hooks" of classical construction, the film will loit more connotative, symbolic linkages between epi-;"sL Scenes will not obey the Hollywood pattern of exposi-on, pickup of old line of action, and start of new line. Irony yj)urst out: in The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Run-tier, Richardson cuts between a borstal choir singing "Jerusalem" and a captured boy being beaten. More generally, the Kanonie story schema we bring to the film may be disarrayed. [There may be little or no exposition of prior fabula events, End even what is occurring at the moment may require Subsequent rethinking (Sternberg's "rise and fall of first Hmpressions"). Exposition will tend to be delayed and widely distributed; often we will learn the most important causal factors only at the film's end. Like classical narration, art-l narration poses questions that guide us in fitting mate-into an ongoing structure. But these questions do not imply involve causal links among fabula events, such as 'What became of Sean Regan?" (The Big Sleep) or "Will tanley seduce Roy's husband?" (In This Our Life). In the : film, as we saw in our analysis of The Spider's Stratagem, Ehe ver)1 construction of the narration becomes the object of Spectator hypotheses: how is the story being told? why tell festory in this way?
Obvious examples of such manipulation are disjunctions /bitemporal order. One common strategy is to use flashbacks En ways that only gradually reveal a prior event, so as to
tantalize the viewer writh reminders of his or her limited knowledge. The Conformist is a good example. Such a flashback is also usefully equivocal; it might be attributable to the character's spasms of memory rather than to the narration's overt suppressiveness. A more striking device is the flashforward—the syuzhet's representation of a "future" ! fabula action. The flashforward is unthinkable in the classical narrative cinema, which seeks to retard the ending, emphasize communicativeness, and play down .self-consciousness. But in the art film, the flashforward flaunts'tne narration's range of knowledge (no character can know the future), the narration's recognition of the viewer (the flashforward is addressed to us, not to the characters), and the narration's limited communicativeness (telling a little while withholding a lot).
What the flashback and flashforward do in time can also take place in space. Odd ("arty") camera angles or camera movements independent of the action can register the presence of self-conscious narration. The "invisible witness" canonized by Hollywood precept becomes overt. In La Notte, for example, the bored wife Lidia leaves a part)' with the roué Roberto. As they drive in his car down a rainy street, they talk and laugh animatedly. But we never hear the conversation, and we see only bits of it, because the camera remains obstinately outside the closed car, tracking along with it as it passes through pools of light. The narration has "chosen" to "dedramatize" the most vivaeiou s ^interpersonal exchange in the film. Such procedures tend to set an omniscient narration's range of knowledge in opposition to the character's; effects of irony and anticipation are especially prominent. In the La Notte example, the camera position deflating the scene foreshadows the sombre turn the action will take when Roberto soon tries to seduce Lidia. Unlike the classical film, however, which usually makes the profilmic event only moderately self-conscious, art-cinema narration often signals that the profilmic event is also a construct. This can be accomplished by means of unmotivated elements in the mise-en-scene, such as the sourceless strips of pink and blue light sliding through Fassbinder's Lola. Alternatively, stylized treatment of situations, settings, or props, or of an era or



.
of his or her limited •od example. Such a
might be attributable ~y rather than to the nore striking device is sentation of a "future" hinkable in the classi-:o retard the ending.
play down self-con-shforward flaunts the laracter can know the
of the viewer (the ) the characters), and eness (telling a little
.rd do in time can also lera angles or camera can register the pres-e "invisible witness" | nes overt. In La Notte, s a party with the roué -i rainy street, they talk near the conversation, the camera remains ■<ing along with it as it -ation has "chosen" to •.-personal exchange in an omniscient narra-:>n to the character's; oecialiy prominent. In position deflating the the action will take -a. Unlike the classical e profilmic event only i narration often sig-onstruct. This can be ited elements in the strips of pink and blue :a. Alternatively, styl-r props, or of an era or
milieu, can seem to proceed from the narration. In Senso and igoo, events are presented with an operatic opulence that invites us to consider the profilmic event itself as the narration's restaging of history.
The result is that a highly self-conscious narration weaves through the film, stressing the act of presenting this fabula in just this way. Deviations from classical norms can be grasped as commentary upon the story action. More generally, the degree oF3eviation from the canonic story becomes a trace of the narrational process. Syuzhet and style constantly remind us of an invisible intermediary that structures what we see. Marie-Claire Ropars's discussion offjcritare— the tendency of directors like Ŕesnais and Duras to barüirect access to a profilmic reality;—emphasizes the general tendency of the art film to naürit narrational procedures.8 When these flauntings are repeated systematically, convention asks us to unify them as proceeding from an "author."
In Chapter 4, I argued that there was no good reason to identify the narrational process with a Active narrator. In the art cinema, however, the overt self-consciousness of the narration is often paralleled by an extratextual emphasis on the filmmaker as source. Within the art cinema's mode of production and reception, the concept of the author has a formal function it did not possess in the Hollywood studio system. Film journalism and criticism promote authors, as do film festivals, retrospectives, and academic film study. Directors' statements of intent guide comprehension of the film, while a body of work linked by an authorial signature encourages viewers to read each film as a chapter of an oeuvre. Thus the institutional "author" is available as a source of the formal operation of the film. Sometimes the film asks to be taken as autobiography, the filmmaker's confession (e.g., 8XA. The 400 Blows, many of Fassbinders works). More broadly, the author becomes the real-world parallel to the narrational presence "who" communicates (what is the filmmaker saying?) and "who" expresses (what is the artist's personal vision?).
The consistency of an authorial signature across an oeuvre constitutes an economically exploitable trademark. The signature depends partly on institutional processes
(e.g., advertising a film as "Fellini's Orchestra Reiiears\ and partly upon recognizably recurring devices from film to another. One could distinguish filmmakers by motu (Buňueľs cripples, Fellini's parades, Bergman's theater pet formances) and by camera technique (Truŕfauťs pan-and* zoom, Ophuls's sinuous tracks, Chabrol's high angles, f tonioni's long shots). The trademark signature can dep upon narrational qualities as well. There are the "baroq: narrators in the films of Cocteau. Ophuls. Visconti, Well Fellini, and Ken Russell—narrators who stress a spectacui concatenation of music and mise-en-scene. More "realis narrators can be found In the films of Rossellini, Obni, F man, and others. The art cinema has made a place for sat narration (e.g., Buňueľs) and for pastiche (e.g., the nr homages tc Hitchcock). The author-as-narrator can be ej( plicit, as in he plaisir or The Immortal Story; or the ní can simply be the presence that accompanies the story tion with a discreet but insistent obbligato of visual and: commentary. The popularity of R. W. Fassbinder in re' years may owe something to his ability to change narration personae from film to film so that there is a "realist" F" binder, a "literary" Fassbinder, a "pastiche" Fassbinder^ "frenzied" Fassbinder, and so on.
The authorial trademark requires that the spectator se this film as fitting into a body of work. From this it is only' short step to explicit allusion and citation. A film rn\ "quote," as Resnais does when he includes classic footage1 Mon oncle d'Amérique; it may be "dedicated," as La siréne, Mississipi is dedicated to Renoir; or it may cite, as whe Antoine Doinel steals a production still from Monika. film can allude to classical genre conventions (Fassbind, recalling the Universal melodrama. Demy the MGM musi cal). The art film often rests upon a cinephilia as intense_ Hollywood's: full understanding of one film require knowledge of and a fascination with other films. At its limi this tendency is seen in those numerous art films abď filmmaking: 8!4, Day for Night, Everything for Sale, Bewa of a Holy Whore, Identification of a Woman, Tfa C/oiWfc and many more. A film-within-a-film structure realisticaU motivates references to other works; it allows unexpec'
ifls between levels of fictionality; ii can occasionally trig-parody of the art cinema itself. In La Ricotta, Pasolini's side of RoGoPaG, Orson Welles plays a director filming he Christ story; he is pestered by a journalist who asks him bout his vision of life and his opinion of Italian society, ritonioni's Lady without the Camellias portrays a vacuous riet who marries a scriptwriter. He immediately forbids ar to play in any of the cheap romances that were her forte 'd instead puts her in a biopic of Jeanne d'Arc: "An art film, melhing that will sell abroad!"
The art cinema's spectator, then, grasps the film by ap-tying conventions of objective and expressive realism and authorial address. Yet are these schemata not incompati-fe? Verisimilitude, objective or subjective, is inconsistent b.an intrusive author. The surest signs of narrational Omniscience—the flashforward, the doubled scene in Per-Ma.ths shifts from black-and-white to color in A Man and a !"oman and //—are the least capable of realistic justification. Contrariwise, to push the realism of chance and ^ychological indefiniteness to its limit is to create a Haphazard narrative in which an author's shaping hand would not «visible. In short, a realistic aesthetic and an expressionist Bésthetic are hard to merge. The art cinema seeks to solve iffitTprÖblem in a sophisticated way: through ambiguity. '•Within some traditional aesthetic positions, ambiguity is Svhat philosophers call a "good-making property^Therefore, jHollywood films would be judged bad because they are denotatively unequivocal, while art films become good because they ask to be puzzled over. Within the framework of ^s book, however, ambiguity is only one aesthetic strategy among many, all of potentially equal interest. What is significant is that art-cinema narration announces its debt to the jarts of the early twentieth century by making ambiguity, ther of tale or telling, central.
The syuzhet of classical narration tends to move toward "absolute certainty, but the art film, like early modernist 'fielion, holds a relativistic notion of truth. This effect is "achieved by means of a specific strategy. The three principal ť schemata provide norms, but the puzzling passages of the '■film will be explained equally well by alternative conven-
tions. We have already seen this ambiguity at work in our analysis of The Spider's Stratagem, where we found contrary cues for whether to assign flashbacks to characters or to the narrational commentary. Antonionfs Red Desert offers another example. Putting aside the island fantasy, we can motivate any scene's color scheme on grounds of subjective verisimilitude (Giulietta sees her life in this way) or of authorial commentary (the narration shows her life as being this way). That these schemata are mutually exclusive creates the ambiguity. Or recall Rashomon, in which any character's account of the rape and murder may be objectively accurate or warped by subjective interests. In Herzog's Kaspar Hauser, the interpolated desert footage may be ascribed to (Caspar's visions or to the narrational commentary.
The art film is nonclassical in that it creates permanent narrational gaps and calls attention to processes of fabula construction. But these very deviations are "placed within new extrinsic norms, resituated as realism or authorial commentary. Eventually, the art-film narration solicits riot only denotative comprehension but connqtative reading, a higher-level interpretation. Whenever confronted with a 'problem in causality, time, or space, we tend to seek realistic motivation. Is a character's mental state creating the difficulty? Is "life" just leaving loose ends? If we are thwarted, we appeal to the narration, and perhaps also to the author. Is the narrator violating the norm to achieve a specific effect? In particular, what thematic significance justifies the deviation? What range of judgmental connotations or symbolic meanings can be produced from this.point or pattern? Ideally, the film hesitates, hovering between realistic and authorial rationales. Uncertainties persist but are understood as such, as obvious uncertainties. Put crudely, the procedural slogan of art-cinema narration might be: "Interpret this film, and interpret it so as to maximize ambiguity."
As I have described it, art-cinema narration might seem to encourage what Veronica Forrest-Thomson calls "bad naturalization." She observes of Wallace Stevens, "His obscurity is a kind of coyness, an attempt to stay one step ahead of the reader and so gain a reputation for daring while ensuring that the reader knows exactly where the poet is and how he
can take that one step to reach him. "■ And it is true that at its most banal, art-cinema narration promises complexity and profundity only to settle our attention on stereotyped figures: "reality," neurotic characters, the author as puppeteer. But in manv of these films, the narration sustains a complex play within the conventions of the mode. There is the possibility of exploring nonredundant cues and devising new. wholly contextual narrational devices. The film can build up curios.-ity about its own narrational procedures, thus intensifying the viewer's interest in the unfolding patterns of syuzhet and style. Uncertainty about story events, generated by causal looseness,and gaps_, can create what Sternberg calls "anticipatory caution." a tnwartihg of the'primacy effect and a discouraging of exclusive and likely hypotheses. The narration can warn us or mislead us. By alternating overloaded with sparse passages, the narration can demand intense attention; and by creating ambiguous organizational patterns, the narration can make such great demands on memory that it may be necessary to see the film more than once (a formal effect not without economic value). Finally, the film can undermine norms far more frequently than can a classical film. The art film plays among several tendencies: deviation from classical norms, adherence to art-cinema norms, creation of innovative intrinsic norms, and the greater or lesser foregrounding of deviations from those intrinsic norms. To see how the game can go. let us look at one film in detail.
f    The Game of Form
The career of Alain Resnais offers a good instance of how the art cinema as an institution encourages a filmmaker to formulate a cííšcermBle "project" running from one film to another. Resnais's recurrent concern has, of course, been the representation of time. In its day. Hiroshima mon amour (1959) caused considerable surprise for its minimal cueing of flashbacks, and Ľannée derniere ä Marienbad (1961) was widely understood as blurring the line between memory and fantasy. Muríť/{ 1963) contained no flashbacks or hallucina-
tion sequences but did exploit a highly elliptical approach to ^j the moment-by-moment unfurling of the syuzhet. 1 mention A these well-known facts because the average spectator of-La Á guerre est finie (1968) is likely to approach the film witO some expectations about the principal narrational manipülä- j tions the film will offer and to attribute those to an authorial",;; intelligence. In such ways, the creation of a distinct formäTj project can lead the filmmaker to innovate fresh intrinsic! norms from film to film. No two Resnais films treat the sam&l aspects of narrative time, or handle time in quite the same« way. The spectator will thus be asked to plot La guerre est» finie's particular work against the extrinsic norms of thea mode, and the achieving of prominence will have an undeni-J able ludic component. So will the subsequent deviations^ from the intrinsic norms. The viewer must draw upon tacit Ji conventions of comprehension characteristic of the arta film—objective verisimilitude, expressive realism, overt nar-a rational intervention—in order to construct the fabula andjfl identify the rules unique to this film's narrational work.
The first nineteen shots of La guerre est finie introduce asm to its intrinsic norm. The story isifiis: The agitator DiegoJM driving back across the Spanish border with Jude, a book-3 seller who occasionally assists anti-Franco leftists. As thejeS approach the checkpoint. Diego looks forward to safe pas3 sage while Jude chats about how the sudden trip spoiled.hifll vacation. But this fabula episode is made difficult by .man« procedures.
The "objective" verisimilitude,of the action is evident-3 location shooting, the general fidelity to the political situa=jB tion—but it gets overridden by thcstronglvsubjeciivecastjjM the narration. The very first shot of the film (fig. 10.1) is fro™ a passenger's optical point of view. Shot2(fig. io.2)eňäbTeš« us to locate the source of the point of view (the character via will later learn to call Diego). The cues for subjectivity ar£B reinforced by the next shot (fig. 10.3). another optical poin« of view, and by the sound track, lor as the camera pans right« to show the distant town, a nondiegetic voice is hearaj "You're past the border. Again you see the hill of Biratou» The objective specificity of locale is secondary to the subject live depth, whereby the gaze is linked to a character'sreaM
'tionaj presentation. In shots 4-7 (figs. 10.4-10.7). Jude and Diego exchange patient glances. Despite the angle of Jude's look, neither man is filmed_frorn the otheťs optical point of view. In a"dditionrihe timing of the.glances presents a greater range of narrational knowledge: the camera antici-
pates each man's lool, presentation in this s tional.
Diego's optical poi the car approaches 11
pates each man's look by several moments. The unrestricted     .'ing sound is Jude's voice offscreen, confessing his wot
presentationin this suite of shots is of course highly conven-    > the car might have broken down en route. Midway thr tional.                                                                                  the sentence, the image track starts to diverge signifies
Diego's optical point of view returns (shot 8; fig. 10.8) as     . from Jude's chatter. We see several images, rapidly cu(9 the car approaches the checkpoint. But now the accompany-      figs. 109-10.18.) Diego runs out of a train station to a
IQ. 12
:   J
i (shot 9). An apartment door opens to reveal a man and a
lan coming forward (1 o). Diego enters an elevator as the
íe man strides out of an adjacent one (11). Diego runs out
: station but must wait in line for a cab (12). Diego walks
,-n a train corridor (13). Diego hops onto a train as it pulls
out (14). Diego runs to a train but misses it (15). Diego leaps from a car as it pulls up to a train station (16). The same unknown man comes into his apartment and greets Diego. who appears to have been waiting for him (17). And all this occurs while Jude's voice continues on the sound track. At
shot 18. we are bac/ wheel.
Later, certain que answered. The man against returning u
10.13
ÍO.IJ
to. 15 10-lÍÍ
it (i5). Diego leaps on (16). The same : and greets Diego, :-n (17). And all this he sound track. At
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shot 18, we are back in the car, with Jude still behind the wheel.
Later, certain questions raised by this sequence will be answered. The man is Juan, whom Diego is coming to warn against returning to Spain. But the mode of presentation
-
must give the spectator pause. Seeing that shots 9-^7"' ture the spatiotemporal continuum of the scene in tM and hearing Jude's chatter continuing in voice-ovť« viewer versed in the conventions of the art cinema hypúffl sizes a temporal disjunction between sound (the pre^
fiUmage (npt.the present). But the ambiguities of the |quence thwart an easy comprehension. The most probable Spothesis based on extrinsic norms would be that the im-is in the past. Yet this creates a new problem. It is icult to grasp the series of shots as presenting a single chain. True, nothing prevents our construing shot 9 fis way. (Perhaps Diego caught a train earlier.) And there
might be an effort to fit the images into some chronology, on the assumption that arriving at the station (16) preceded catching the train (14) and riding it (13), But all of the shots are not easily explicable as events in any temporal string. Most of them present mutually exclusive alternatives:
i. Diego catches a cab quickly (9); or he has to wait in line (12).
2.   Diego calls on Juan and he is home (10); or Diego misses him (11); or Diego calls and Juan arrives later (17).
3.  Diego catches the train (14); or he misses it (15). The all-or-nothing nature of the alternatives is strengthened by theirnmediate juxtapositions of extremes: Diego finds Juan or misses him (10/11), he_catches the train or misses it (f4/i5)r*Wrľátéver the spectator eventually makes of this "sequence, there are strong cues that it probably does not represent a single stretch of past fabula events.
If this is not a single action in the past, the shots might be construed as an elliptical montage sequence of the "frequentative" type. That is, Diego's regular routine is to take cabs, visit contacts, catch or miss trains, and so forth. This hypothesis is strengthened by the ypjce-oyer's insis- < tence upon repeated action ("Again you see the hill of Biratou . . ."). Yet Diego wears the same clothes in every shot—hardly a helpful cue for construing these actions as habitual repetitions in the past.
Only one construction accounts for everything in these shots. It is an unlikely one, but it is the one that later passages will confirm. These shots may be taken to represent various possible future events.^Put in simple fashion: "I might grab a cab right away or have to wait in line," "1 might miss Juan," "What if I can't catch my train?" La guerre est jinie wilj^explore character_syl)jevuvity according.(ojane.— principle of the art film; we justify what we see and hear.by reference to psychological motiva^ioij. The narration creates t a unique intrinsic norm by supplying neither flashbacks nor fantasies in the usual sense. Weare to share the character's -anticipation of events..This also ŕealištiČäTly"justifies the lack of chronological order in the images. Diego might think
of meeting or missingj
apartment, then of mis
interview, Resnais as$
tion was "realistic" in
ahead to a goal and
happen on the way. O
trary. (One could just
for the mind to plar
Nonetheless, Resnais
ical experience for ns
Resnais also doubtt
ment would get acros
able to spectators, b
in the fact that the
certainly argue that;
characters and placť
comprehended by rr
than "images which
difficulty is very imp
acclimate us gradu;
cues for flashbacks i
art film's appeal rest
a game of gaps wit
quickly sets that gai
not only whether I
pense) and what h
flurry of intersperse
own "rules" are. St juxtaposed shots m; exactly what story quence, we're seein out for critical disc^ mentatororind
to the difficulty Once the se
in the presenj
subjective,
reassurin
puzzling
live" franj
.
ART-CINEMA NABRATION

í some chronology, on nation (16) preceded 3). But all of the shots any temporal string, sive alternatives: ; or he has to wait in
j home (10); or Diego Jan arrives later (17). he misses it (15). stives is strengthened xtremes: Diego finds 5 the train or misses it uually makes of this it probably does not
_Ia events.
past, the shots might
-ge sequence of the regular routine is to
> trains, and so forth.
ne voice-over's insis-you see the hill of
^me clothes in every
-ling these actions as
: everything in these
íe one that later pas-
oe taken to represent
n simple fashion: "1
wait in line," "I might
j   train?" La guerre est
■■ ity according to one
't it we see and hear by
: The narration creates
cither flashbacks nor
I   share the character's
-Üsäcally justifies the
2s. Diego might think
*
of meeting or missing Juan, then of how he will get to Juan's
I apartment, then of missing the train, and so forth. In a 1966
interview, Resnais asserted that his .treatment .of. ajitjcipa;
tion was "realistic" in showing the minďsjejráeTrcy Jojeap
'"äKéäcQp a goal and only later "speculate £h wfiat.niigHt^
•^"háppejTon theL Way. '.Of course," This "realism"!^ wholly arbi-
^írářy. (One Could just as easily argue that it's more plausible
for the mind to plan its moves in chronological order.)
Nonetheless, Resnais opens up a new category of psycholog-
fcqj experience, for narration to dramatize.
Resnais also doubted that all the implications of his treatment would get across. "I do not think that it is understandable to spectators, but they can feel a sort of uneasiness in the fact that the images are in the future."10 One can certainly argue that shots 9-17, swiftly cut and referring to characters and places of whom we yet know nothing, are comprehended by most first-time spectators as little more than "images which are probably subjective." This initial f difficulty is very important. First, it is typical of the art film to acclimate us gradually to its intrinsic norms. (Recall the cues for flashbacks in The Spider's Stratagem.) Much of the art film's appeal rests upon a tantalizing narration that plays a game of gaps with the viewer, and La guerre's opening quickly sets that game in motion. We become keen to know not only whether Diego will get through the border (suspense) and what his past is (curiosity) but also what this flurry of interspersed images represents, and what the film's own "rules" are. Second, the mutual exclusiveness of the juxtaposed shots maximizes indeterminacy. We are not sure exactly what story event, in what place in the action sequence, we're seeing. Finally, such a striking opening cries out for critical discussion. In reviews and interviews, a commentator or indeed the director himself can call our attention /to the difficulty of the device.
Once the sequence returns to Jude (shot 18), we are back in the present, and the next shot of Diego (19) confirms the subjective, chj^éšsrve nature of the anticipatory images. It is reassuring, at the formal level, to discover that, however puzzling the excursions become, we will return to an "objective" frame of reference. We thus grasp the entire first se-
quence (in all, twenty-five shots) as a generally and "ob. lively" coherent scene (durationally continuous íí primarily restricted to Diego's knowledge) which a sub tive passage interrupts.
Against the overall narrative unity of the sequence oj be set certain ambiguities and lacks of redundancy. .^ about the voice-over that speaksJ^to" Diego? It is not m subjective:"]! is not his voice, and it uses "you" rather. "I." Is it then the voice of some "authorial" narräioŕ?.Ons "subjective other," an impersonal objectificationjSf; thoughts? Later scenes will play with possible sources voice. Andthe handling of point-of-view découpage.isso what_different from the normalized ABA cutting patta Rear Window (Jeff looks / shot of what he sees / back to looking). Here we see through the character's eyes befoj; ('see the character (shot 1). Or we have shots A:an<i ' instead of a return to the looker we cut to another (shots 2-4). Or a passage involving mental subjectivity gins on the'mušing character (shot 8) but ends on theo character (shot 18). Or weiiave mentally subjective __ that woik against cojisistent.optical-subjectivity^shot Not that any of these tactics is fundamentally disqulB but they do bring out how the classical paradigm usesnSB redundant cues; our comprehension does not nece flag if some are withheld.* '^ '
As in this sequence, the whole film's syuzhet cof around Diego, as both agent and psychological subject .range^ofknpwjed geJs^mo_st_cpmpleiely.rest this respect he resembles Philip Marlowe in The Big Si Murder My Sweet: thesyuzhet is.cpnstructecl around;^ .'the hero's knowledge. .More to the point ŕorarFcŤÍ nôrmš7ho\Véver^lstrirtrestricuon to Diego's range of khi . edge is necessary for the central device—the antrat«« flashforward—- to work^ .If.we should learn Juan!sjat witness events of which Diego is ignorant, his visions ' 'register simply as narrationalirony^XHe's right about ■■: wrong about that.) Confinement to what Diego' only justifies withholding information, as in the de tale, but also increases the indeterminacies of "expres
realism" and permits the plumbing of elusive states of
--—     - ■ *'v<';".           í x
m
/.A.
Wir
jím their own sake. How much less confident would we feel >ut Marlowe's inferential powers if The Big Sleep drama-
'^ed, in abrupt flashes, all the alternative hypotheses that
t through his mind!
Later we will not be completely restricted to Diego's range
knowledge. There are brief, patterned violations that func-
;n to prepare the female characters to take over his role at e film's end. In scene 17, while Diego sleeps, there is a
.rief shot of his lover, Marianne, looking in on him. Five
equences later, Nadine Sallanches comes down the steps of fe while Diego's back is turned. In scene 27, when Diego into a drugstore to phone Nadine, the camera holds on
arianne. At the film's climax, the narration has recourse to "scutting among, these three characters: while Diego drives to Spain, Nadine is visited by a policeman and Mari-
"ne prepares to cross the border to warn him. The very last Shots of the film identify Marianne and Diego, making her
jr new (and limited) protagonist; she now obtains, per-
aps, a depth of subjectivity commensurate with that earlier
ssigned to Diego. %\i Diego is our virtually constant point of reference, the
"verall composition of the film assures that we do not lose our
tarings in,a rnora,ss of subjectivity. For one thing, each gap 'ßflaüntecf;' we may be in the dark about the narration's goal, ■but we can pinpoint where we lose our bearings. (Contrast in fe respect the suppressed gaps of Ľannée derniére á ftarienbad.) Moreover, just as the first sequence framed Diego's anticipations within the "objective" action of cross-Tig the border, so the narration always takes care-to include . lab]e_ expository portions. After the disorienting series of
Ótšwe have already considered, the narration goes objective for three scenes. Diego is questioned at the border and
!s false identity is tested. He escapes because the young čwoman who answers the phone at "his" address backs up his ^fory. Here the restriction to Diego's range of knowledge iyields orthodox results, a curiosity.gap; why would Nadine . riches..lie to protect a stranger who has apparently.
folen her father's passport? In the next scene, Diego's discissions with Jude and Jude's wife explain to us thefaked 'passport, his bluff before the border officer, and soon. Just as
important, it is during the stay at Jude's shop thai clear cues are supplied about the nature of the subjective passages. If the flurry of Diego's anticipations in scene 1 was graspable only as "perhaps not flashbacks," the narration now takes pains to explain the device.
Over a medium shot of Diego, Jude's voice-off asks if Diego knows the Sallanches family. Nondiegetic piano music comes softly up. Diego responds: "No, none of them." This creates a primacy effect: we will evaluate what we see . in the light of this statement. Ten shots follow, all but the last accompanied by the piano music. Each of the first five shots shows a young woman walking in medium shot away from the camera as it tracks to follow her. Similarity balances difference; graphically matched compositions and figure/ camera movements play against the fact that each young woman is unique. (See figs. 10.19-10.21.) The next two shots show, again in graphically matched fashion, two different women entering a building. The eighth shot tracks in on yet another young woman talking on the phone. As in the first sequence, the "objective" conversation continues on .the sound track, signaling that the series of shots is Diego's mental event. But instead of the several either/or pairings presented in the overloaded first passage, here a single piece of information—Diego's musing. on what Nadine looks like—is reinforced by the musical cue, by ^verbal declaration, and by a series of shots that reiterate ten alternatives. The same sort of point is made in the last two shots: on the sound track Diego says he's never seen their house, and the narration immediately supplies images of a street and a ^ house number.
The viewer's prevailing hypothesis about the film's intrinsic narrationai norm emerges: any images or sounds that "cannot be related to an "objective" construction of the scene .are then most likely Diego's subjective anticipation. Scene 5 reinforces this hypothesis immediately. After more conversation, Jude remarks to Diego that Antoine must be at the station. Cut to a man at a railway bookstall turning to look at the camera- Cut to the same man, now at the ticket window, turning to the camera. Cut to the same man in another spot, again turning to look at the camera. And cut to a long shot of
A R1 - C i r* t »j
to 19 10.20
10.21

Jude and Diego coming downstairs, their footsteps having sounded over the three interpolated shots. Finally, this scene links the device to the first, most puzzling subjective passage. After Diego says that Juan can't be across the border, the narration cuts to a shot of the man we saw in the first sequence, riding in a car. From ten inserted shots to three
shots to one: after a trio of interpolations, we are primed to construe even a single disparate image as Diego's projection. By the end of scene 5, not only have we received a major portion of expository material about Diego's mission and his tactics, we have also found the key to the film's narrational method. This key, however, will not unlock anything unless the spectator is prepared to apply the art cinema's conventional schemata.
It is worth stressing just how redundant all this is. At the level of the fabula, characters' traits and functions are mutually compatible. At the level of the syuzhet, the narration's repeated alternation of subjective passages with objective ones and its adherence to a consistent point of view guarantee considerable predictability. And the narration presents the fabula so that we have ample opportunity to pick up information, especially in the expository conversation scenes. In scene 5, we not only understand what transpired in scene 2, when Diego was challenged by the border chief, but also learn the background to his underground activities. Even the content of Diego's anticipations is eventually clarified through repetition. Only certain aspects of the narra-
tion are not redundant, some bearing chiefly on a key plot point—what has become of Juan?—and some bearing on how certain narrational devices are to be interpreted, as we shall see. The ambiguity of the art cinema is of a highly controlled and limited sort, standing out against a background of narrational coherence not fundamentally different from that of the classical cinema.
La guerre est finie builds its story upon the base established in the opening, scenes. The principal fabula lines involve Diego's mission to convince his leftist compatriots that the Spanish police have discovered Juan's plans; his love affair with Marianne, a book designer; and his involvement with Nadine, daughter of the man whose passport he carries and member of a youthful leftist group which is hoarding explosives for terrorist ends. These lines of action interweave across a svuzhet duration of four days (18-21 April 1968), each stŕanďšerving to retard resolution of the" others. To this calendric verisimilitude the film adds other realistic touches: mishaps and coincidences (warning Juan. Diego's encounter with a cop in a cafe), real locations, allusions to political events, and a general depiction of debates within the French left (Old Left patience versus terrorism, etc.)- There is also the convention of expressive realism, incarnated here as Diego's psychological crisis. Is he right to insist on warning Juan? Has he lost track of the political game he plays? His colleagues charge him with being blinded by the daily trivia of his job; he begins to doubt his judgment. "We're finicky about details," he tells Nadine. "It's the total picture we lose sight of." Marianne notices as well, asking him whether he is not confused about where he's going. Diego makes slips: he may have betrayed himself to the Spanish police, he forgets to turn on his headlights and is stopped by a policeman, and after a heated quarrel with Nadine's cadre, he realizes that he has led the police to them. His boundary situation is as much personal and political, since he desires Nadine but comes to realize that he wants lo clear a place for Marianne in his life. All of these factors work to ensure that the film is unified by realistic motivation of an art-cinema stripe.               ^
The realism of Diego's comportment also justifies the
syuzhet's expositional tactics. The narration gives us information piecemeal and retards our complete understanding of the situation. Ngt until a later scene do we learn the basis for Diego's belief that Juan is walking into a trap. Still later, we learn that Diego has some relation to a woman named Marianne, and we see her somewhat after that. The narration also delays revealing Nadine's affiliation with the young leftists. Thus the film engages the spectator's interest with suspense gaps (e.g., will the police nab Diego?) as well as many curiosity gaps (what is Diego's relation to Marianne? how is Nadine connected to Diego's activities?). The curiosity gaps are motivated by Die go's.state, of mindin two ways: the restriction placed on his knowledge and the very_ nature ofhis mental activities. .For instance, of course Diego knows about Marianne at the start, but the narration does not inform us of her existence for some time. This omission is justified by the way Jiis mind is shown to work. He is characterized as cautious; so he is unlikely to volunteer information about Marianne in scenes with other characters. Since he is preoccupied with die mechanics of his border crossing and the possible peril to Juan, none ofhis anticipations involve Marianne until he approaches her apartment. The narration justifies its distributed and delayed exposition by making its central character ignorant, closemouthed, and so perpetually focused on the future that he does not occupy himself with the past. Hence the need for several lengthy scenes in which Diego and other characters pass expositional information along to the viewer.
La guerre est finie, then, appeals to conventional structures and cues while at the same time introducing significant Innovations. J^he narration employs art-cinema principles of psychological verisimilitude but finds a new domain for them (the anticipatory fiashforward). The film fulfills our expectations about ambiguity (e.g., the opening sequence) while also defining the range of permissible constructions (e.g., "probably not flashbacks"). Early on, the film tutors us in its methods, giving us a unique but comprehensible hypothesis to help us construct the story action. The film's problem now is to maintain psychological coherence—the focus on Diego's political and personal experience—while
:ration gives us in-rnplele understand-ene do we learn the Jng into a trap. Still elation to a woman what after that. The 5 affiliation with the s spectator's interest nab Diego?) as well Vs relation to Marino's activities?). The state of mind in two vledge and the very nee. of course Diego : the narration does time. This omission jwn to work. He is ilikely to volunteer with other charac-s mechanics of his o Juan, none of his he approaches her distributed and de-character ignorant, řd on the future that Hence the need for : -nd other characters : :he viewer, conventional struc-introducing signifi-s art-cinema princi-nnds a new domain The film fulfills our opening sequence) jsible constructions n. the film tutors us ut comprehensible -y action. The film's cal coherence—the experience—while
-v V-'-
'varying the narrational ploys.1 Once we have the key, the narration could become wholly predictable. How is the narration to engage that overt play with expectation characteristic of the art film?
One way that the game is sustained involves marking each subjective sequence unequivocally but also varying the particular filmic devices employed. In this film, two stylistic cues are necessary for a sequence to be identifiable as imaginary: a cut (visual cue) to images from which no diegetic 'sound is forthcoming (auditory cue). Thus the first sequence cuts to Juan leaving his apartment. Diego missing a train, and so on, but we do not hear voices, the throb of the train, or other diegetic sounds. These cues are accompanied by more contextual ones. Diego must be present, and the anticipation must be plausibly triggered by something in the current scene. Otherwise the flashforwards display great freedom in their sylistic figures. On the image track, the subjective shot often includes a tracking camera movement and characters' turning to the camera—both techniques suggesting Diego's optical point of view—but these are not always present. And no single sound cue will unequivocally assure us that a subjective sequence is coming up or in progress. Given the silence within Diego's mental image, the sound track may let dialogue in the present continue (e.g.. Jude's chatter in the first scene) or supply diegetic noise from the present (e.g., the two men's footsteps in scene 5), nondiegetic music, the voice-over, silence in the present, or any combination of these. For example, Diego's anticipations of Nadine in scene 5 are accompanied by piano music for nine of the ten shots and dialogue in the present during eight of them. This means that the subjective sequences may be accompanied by a rich variety of sounds. In scene 1, Jude's complaining about the vacation he had hoped for while Diego is occupied with his own anticipations exemplifies how the range of sonic options can indirectly reinforce the image.
The narration can also withhold some cues. We have already seen that the first anticipatory sequence can be construed as Diego's subjective "insert" even though it ends not with a shot of Diego but with a shot of Jude. Such slight

deviations from extrinsic norms can suffice to destabilize m expectations. A subjective insert can thus come along in wide range of circumstances. There is no need for a lead-J shot of Diego, or a musical cue. or explicit discussion of th subject of the anticipation. This is comparable to the váná tion of cues for order and duration at work in The Spidm Stratagem. The narration can also mislead us by foregoing! subjective passage when we might expect one. On sevi occasions. Diego will pause reflectively—on a train, in study—and the next shot will prove not to be an index of thoughts. When Diego burns his false passport photo' hear his voice, as if in voice-over; yet it is not the intern! voice that addresses him, and we must conclude that.hn murmuring offscreen. Such a play with our expectation remains within the boundaries codified by the film. It is tn trigger and the timing of the mental imagery thatthe spj tor can never exactly predict. To the end. the eruption\o subjective sequence remains only more or less proba never certain,
The narration maintains its game with the viewer in-jj more ways. Consider, for instance, the difficulty that up if we cut from a shot of Diego to a close-up of some ac£ a valise being slid into a locker. If there is no "present-teiS sound on the track, there are two possible assumptions: tfy it is a subjective flashforward or that it is the first shot j new, objective scene. One effect of some flashforwards.g thus be an uncertainty as to whether we are yet "into" next present-tense scene. There are several other, eaua slight, aislodgings 01 expectation that the anticipators quences create, but I want here to focus on two of g importance, both revolving around time-By scene 5. 1 have argued, redundant cues have esj lished the reigning hypothesis for grasping narrationa junctions: when in doubt, look for cues for Diego's s live anticipations. This hypothesis is strengthened iii
6.  when at Hendaye station Diego reflects on how J| might be captured and how Diego might prevent it. Ins
7,  aboard the train to Paris, the narration provides a™ mary of most of the subjective motifs we have seen: Cw getting out of a cab. Diego arriving at Juan's apartra
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»go meeting his leftist cronies, Juan being captured, fe'go spotting young women who might be Nadine. Both scenes 6 and 7 are accompanied by present-tense sound: >gue in the first, the train rumble and whistle in the jcpnd. The film is now in danger of becoming predictable, fn the next scene, some ground rules get modified, albeit in gjuivocal fashion.
;,We are first Given to wonder whether Diego is now not isionally conjuring up past events. In scene 8, a quick of Madame Lopez and a longer take of the apartment J&mplex are accompanied by voice-over remarks that sug-giest flashbacks^J'You visited Juan a year ago—building G, ithUoořr number  107—care of Madame Lopez, you Mught." The case for a flashback is not clear-cut, though, :e one could also consider the shots of Madame Lopez ... the apartment complex as anticipatory; only the com-pentary would then pěrtáihto the past. There follows a shot fuaiídňving off which can be taken as Diego's imagining í'a past event ("Juan has probably already left") but could so be taken as another anticipation ("If Juan has yet to tóáve..."). In scene 11, the promise is fulfilled. When Diego leaves Ramon's, the narration gives us another ambiguous íage—a track back from the corridor of Juan's apartment— id then a definite flashback: a shot of Madame Jude, as she iäd been seen earlier tha^day when Diegq talked with her. "fere .we have a case of foregroundings tně violation of an siablishedintrinsic norm. It is not, however, a strong case. Borjt varies along pnly.one dimension, temporal order. (Re-Kail that foregrounding gets stronger according to now many jimensions of syuzhet or style are involved and how predict-ible the deviation is with respect to intrinsic and extrinsic wrms.) Indeed, this deviation quickly gets absorbed into the [intrinsic norm. From this point on, the film will have occasional recourse to flashbacks. Thus the narration teasingly pkTthe spectator to modify the initial hypothesis: assign any deviation from objective continuity to Diego's mind, Bither most probably as an anticipation or secondarily as a [flashback. The strategy suits the art-cinema mode. Instead rfopening the film with the more conventional device of the fahback and moving on to include flashforwards. the
narration starts with the more unpredictable device and introduces the conventional one in a way which yields uncertainty.
Along with the flashback there is another foregrounded temporal device, used only once. We have seen that as a rule Diego's subjective flashforwards are presented as silent images, although they may be accompanied by dialogue or noise in the present. The temporal disjunction occurs only on the image track. But in one scene we are disoriented by an apparent violation of this rule. Diego and Nadine have agreed to meet at the Bullier Building at 6:00. There follows a pursuit: Nadine and her boyfriend, Miguel, are followed by a policeman, who is in turn followed by Diego. Over the third shot of the pursuit, nondiegetic xylophone music gives way to the disembodied voices of Nadine and Diego. He is telling her that she has been followed; she denies it. After several 1 moments of conversation, cut to Nadine, turning in medium shot and saying: "Miguel?" Now she and Diego are in the Bullier Building, their rendezvous point, yke the images in earlier scenes, the sound track here is equivocal. It could represent Diego's anticipation of what their conversation will be, in which case it would be the only auditory anticipation in the film. Or the passage can be taken as a more "objective" aural flashforward: the sound of their conversation at Bullier at one point of fabula time is laid over images of action at an earlier point. Either way, the narration is only stretching the rules. Allowing one instance of auditory anticipation still adheres to the basic principles of Diego's subjectivity, while the "authorial" trick of letting the sound of scene B lie over the end of scene A would be quite conventional in the art cinema generally. In either event, the image/sound interaction here, like the occasional flashbacks, works to keep the film from falling into easily predictable patterns.
One more way that the narration maintains its game with viewer expectation deserves notice because it is quite particular to La guerre estfinie. We have already seen that the film spectator's interest is essentially future oriented; under the pressure of time created by the viewing situation, we are more geared to suspense than curiosity. To some extent, the art cinema works against this by stressing curiosity and
delaying expositional
guerre trades upon fuu
Obviously, at the leve
happen-next sort of i:
handlings of the intn:
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explained in sequence
film is that the particu.
diffused gaps with rt
focused expectations
constandy anticipatin.
sharpened. Will theev
they occur in the way:
pervasive instance is.
not merely recounts)
Juan, we take a keen i:
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Nadine will look like i
counter Juan's wife.
conduct their meetin
forward to measuring
objective event. To s-
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Yet this tactic too:
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A R T - C I N E M A  N A R R A 1 1 U N
table device and which yields un-
:ier foregrounded seen that as a rule -nted as silent im--d by dialogue or ction occurs only •disoriented by an .nd Nadine have oo. There follows íl, are followed by go. Over the third í music gives way lego. He is telling ťs it. After several jming in medium Diego are in the -ike the images in Juivocal. It could neir conversation auditory anticipa-taken as a more of their conversa-.aid over images of narration is only - of audi tory antic-jf Diego's subjec-he sound of scene :e conventional in the image/sound nbacks, works to zictable patterns, .ans its game with se it is quite parády seen that the e oriented; under I situation, we are > some extent, the ;ng curiosity and
delaying expositional material. But the narration of La guerre trades upon fjJture-qrientecHntcrest to a great degree. Obviously, at th^ level of causality, there is the what-will-,happen:next sort of interest. At the level of narration, the handlings of the intrinsic norms also'sÓUcít spectator surprise. (Will the device of sequence i be explained? Once it is' explained in sequence 5, will it vary?) The peculiarity of this film is that the particular narrational tactics it exploits create diffused gaps with respect to past events but unusually focused expectations about future ones,.. Because Diego is constandy anticipating his actions, our awareness of them is sharpened. Will the events he envisions take place? If so, will they occur in the way that he expects? The most obvious and " pervasive instance is Juan's trip. Since the film enacts (and not merely recounts) many possible fates which could befall Juan, we take a keen interest in finding which will be actualized. On a more local level, Diego's anticipations of what Nadine will look like, where she will live, how he will encounter Juan's wife, and how he and his colleagues will conduct their meeting are all precise enough to let us look forward to measuring the fit between subjective image and objective event. To some degree, the film makes up for the widely distributed and delayed exposition of prior fabula events by an unusually high degree of control over the spectator's hypotheses about upcoming ones. Our hypotheses are highly exclusive (Diego constructs clearly defined alternatives) and often simultaneous. Which is to say that because of the narration's enactment of Diego's mental activity, the film invites us to make his expectations our own. Yet this tactic too is modified so as nouo become predictable. At two points, Diego doubts the efficacy of his (and our) hypothesis forming. His chief charges him with subjectivism, with misjudging the danger to Juan, and though he puts up resistance he ends by accepting the criticism. More ŕ vividly, in scene 30, Nadine's Leninist group confronts him : with the possibility that he led the police to them. Surprised, he imagines an agent filming from a car (another, "specula-^ ,tive flashback"). One" effect of any highly restricted ot3 deeply subjective narration is to make us forget the extent to which we and the character may be led astray. In the course
■•■m
rof the narration, Diego is forced to consider that his hypoth-^ ,eses are often not as probable or as exclusive as he had lassumed. Once we learn the narration's devices, we arg) Inclined to trust Diego's judgment; when that fails, we s_ujf what Sternberg calls the "risejind faU of first impressions,"1
The anticipatory image anil its varied manifestations; functions, and effects maintain the intermittent overtness of* narration characteristic of the art cinema. That stress is alsÓJ apparent in the way that the film employs ambiguity. Th& •} complexity of certain images and sounds is not a reflecti™ of their ambiguity for Diego. (He knows who Juan is, whf he must have left, what was actually said to Nadine', the Bullier Building.) The amlpiguitv is_Jargely the resujtoj an omniscient narration's overt play with audience expectal tion. Sometimes it is a matter of communicativeness—hojdl ing back the identification of Juan in the first scene, foff instance. Sometimes it is a question of self-consciousness,as| when the narration supplies images and sounds that arej most comprehensible as coming from an overriding conj sciousness (the narrator).
A simple example is the love scene with Nadine. Aft' Diego has met her, they make love. But the scene is stagey and cut in a stylized fashion uncharacteristic of the rest the film. A montage of body parts is accompanied by _ ,key lighting^ overexposed images,„and abstract white bac* grounds. The effect is to code the scene as both "reality"?U couple did make love) and "fantasy" (connotations 01 possibly pure pleasure). In retrospect, the treatment ap-even more stylized by comparison with Diego and Mi anne's lovemaking later, handled in longer takes and wii out the abstract visual effects. The question is: to "whom'1 we attribute the fantasy connotations in the scene Nadine?_We can take it as a piece of character psycl (Diego "seeing" Nadine as a fantasy of desire) or as cpj tary (the narration informs us of this fantasy as_Nadin role, although Diego is unaware of it). The ambiguüyj* .. between a relatively unselfconscigus presentation of characi ter subjectivity and a highly_self-_conscious intervention the "author."
While the love scene is fairly ordinary in its ambiguitv tna
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Karration is somewhat more inventive in its use of the voice;
^commentary. We have already noticed that this internal
ier^-using a voice which is not Diego's and addressing
Üjm.as "you," is inherently equivocal. It could be the "sub-
fectively objective" vpiceôf his own mind, a kind of internal-"
rtzecPÖther that pond'érá his actions in an impersonal way.
SRsllternáuvé is reinforced by the commentary's habit of
oddly summing up what has happened and of projecting
ture possibilities that accord with what we see. "Antoine's
... jit." the voice says. "Go to Paris"—this overia shptof Diego
pimping on a train. The commentary often chimes with the
ticipatory images, giving us a greater confidence that it is
'lomě mediated way Diego .talking to himself. Yet one
Oulďäsšconstrue the voice as that of a highly knowledge-
and unusually intimate narrator, one deliberately let-
n^us "overhear" its address to Diego. This would justify
e use of "you," the disparity in vocal qualities, and Res-
nais's own comment that the narration aims to admit to the
ctator, "We are in the cinema.n" The difficulty of choos-
one source over another is revealeä in two later scenes.
When Diego is meeting with his leftist colleagues, a voice-
fover commentary is heard. At first, we might be inclined to
riake the voice as Diego's inner Other ("Again the feeling
you'vejived through this experience before..."), but when
[Diego and the chief start to debate in Spanish, the voice
eTto function as a translator's^!! renders the speeches
Slito French, while in an undercurrent we still hear the
characters speaking Spanish—a technique transtextually
^oded as "documentary" from its use in television reportage.
en Diego speaks, the commentary continues to render
is Spanish with a shift in person: "You never said that, that
ire ought to give ourselves up to spontaneity . . ." We are
breed to posit either thatXHego is thinking in French_while
eaking in Spamsh pr_^ai.a_self-cpjiscipu^ narrator is
"ňšlating'thís speech for the benefit of the viewer while still
taming access to Diego's attitudes. Moreover, in this scene
commentary utilizes a new voice, not the one we have
'/heard over earlier scenes. This of course exacerbates the
[problem of the source. There is no way to resolve these
disparities; we can only note them as ambivalent effects.
l:
working to jar our expectations and to make the film an object of interpretation.
The most striking ambiguity surrounding the voice-over commentary occurs when we last hear it. In scene 31, Diego returns to his compatriots' apartment. Manoío is standing morosely by the window. As Diego walks in, the commentary delivers a remarkable passage.
You didn't know that Ramon was dead, they're going to announce the news to you in a second. Dead Sunday night, a few hours after you saw him. His heart gave out, as the saying goes. And now you're going to leave in his place, because the work has to go on, no single death can interrupt it.11
This is most plausibly grasped as the voice of an omniscient _ narrator who has decided to intervene overtly. Only such an entity could confidently assert, "They're going to announce the news to you ..." Yet some degree of ambiguity remains. Leaps into the future are compatible with Diego's habits of mind, however unlikely it is that he could anticipate Ramon's death in such detail. Moreover, the trip planning is soon interspersed with Diego's anticipation of Ramon's funeral, at which he is sometimes seen as present, sometimes treated as absent. To make Diego the source of the voice-over is tantamount to granting him second sight, but it could well be the climax of the film's use of subjective anticipation. Self-conscious narrator, or unselfconscious
s character? The uncertainty is never dispelled.
Itls at the film's close that the play between clear, even redundant narration and the expansion of ambiguity becomes strongest. Diego meets his new driver, Salart, and. they set off for Spain. In extreme long shot, the car drives off (fig. 1022). This is the first time we have been so spatially distant from Diego. And now there is a dissolve to Juan,
Walking toward us as the camera tracks back (fig. 10.23). The image hangs suspended between character and narrator. Until now, we have seen Juan only through Diego's imaginings, so this shot may constitute his last anticipation. But many of the previously affirmed cues for subjectivity are absent: no cut (rather, a dissolve); no subjective camera; no
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5 to go on, no single
voice of an omniscient
ÍÍ e overtly. Only such an P 're going to announce of ambiguity remains. with Diego's habits of he could anticipate er, the trip planning is :icipation of Ramon's een as present, «some-;ego the source of the :im second sight, but it m's use of subjective J' r, or unselfconscious ■j dispelled.
y between clear, even aion of ambiguity be-?w driver. Salart, and shot, the car drives off nave been so spatially :s a dissolve to Juan, rks back (fig. 10.23), , character and narra-:>nly through Diego's e his last anticipation. ies for subjectivity are iUbjective camera; no
ART-CINEMA  NARRATION

contextual cues that could trigger a flashforward (Diego has departed, we hear no dialogue).
Immediately after this equivocal, foregrounded image, however, the narration supplies a highly normalized sequence. The long shot tums out to be our farewell to Diego as a bearer of information. Now the film crosscuts a cop's
10.24
■íľ

.";
interrogation of Nadine with shots of Diegoand Salartspeej ing to the border. Nadine learns that the police have set'fl to trap Diego and she calls her father, telling him to warn hja Spanish friends. As soon as she hangs up. there is of Diego's passport being stamped at the border. Side by sji stand a highly ambiguous shot and a passage that emplo' unrestricted narration for the sake of suspense.
The same juxtaposition occurs in the very last seel jManolo and Marianne are at Orly airport. She will depártt [Barcelona to warn Diego. The spatial and temporal constn tion of the scene is unequivocal, with shot/reverse shot f dominating. Then there is a cut from Manolo at Orly tol riding in a car (fig. 10.24), much as we have seen him tíj] first sequence (fig. 10.7). A very slow dissolve takes usj to Orly, where Marianne hurries down a corridor tovi^B camera. Diego's face is held superimposed over her, asgjm and choral music rises on the sound track (the sameilffl used in their lovemaking scene). Diego's face finali^B out, leaving only Marianne hurrying toward us as Juaig at the closing of the earlier sequence (fig. 10.25)..
The scene reveals that the narration has moved iß

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Ibsure. The characters have become predictable, their ac-iiis thoroughly motivated, the alternative outcomes simplified. Just before this scene, Diego's psychological crisis las been resolved: he has broken with Nadine, has offered to Eke Marianne to Spain, and has renewed his political com-pitment by envisioning Ramon's funeral as an occasion for jlidarity; "You're caught up again by the fraternity of long ľpmbats, by the stubborn joy of the action." Now Marianne jfäs found the place in Diego's life that she has sought. Yet mé last scene also generates considerable ambiguity. Two Iffntéd gapsHnhé^ýlrzrTet~běoórne~gerrnanent ones: we BJfnever léanrWhäTbéČame of either Juan or Diego! The Ivcd image of Die go, like that of Juan earlier," can be lěrstóod as the narration's self-conscious juxtaposition |MäTiänňe"ŕuriš to Diego, or Marianne will become Diego, or Bjarianne will become Juan) or as her anticipation of Diego's lorive (making her the sort of restricted, deeply subjective garrational vehicle that Diego has been during the bulk of Sie film). lt.would^be_wrong to settle on_one interpretation, Jance the film works to create a limited but still "open"* [|naiňgnň~thís~ít 'fulfills yet another convention of the art
Kjnema. í' -       ____
.
A full analysis would have to study the film's political themes—its debates about commitment and its stress on individual responsibility. But all 1 have aimed to show is how. the political material has been appropriated and transformed by formal conventions. The film has in fact blatantly announced its conjunction of political substance and narra-tional protocols. On his way to Ramon's, Diego reflects that Roberto gets upset when "the reality of the world resists us, because he saw what we did as being a dream of infinite progress. He hates it when reality fails to coincide with his dream." Here the political struggle is made analogous to the film's own principal narrational operation—Diego's dreams coinciding more or less with actual events—and, more generally, to the familiar dream/reality theme of the art cinema. By focusing on the individual psyche and maintaining a shifting narrational game with the spectator, La guerre est finie transmutes political material into a unique treatment of the conventions of a particular narrational mode.
The Art Cinema in History
As a mode of narration, the art cinema forms a paradigm. But as we saw when considering classicaľHollywood narration, putting the paradigm into a historical context reveals some narrational options as more likely at certain points than at others. Lß guerre est finie's use of tanečná ambiguity would be improbable in a 1950s film, or a 1984 one. The drama of a family's emigration to the city is rendered with "objective" verisimilitude in Visconti's Rocco and His Brothers (i960), while a comparable story is refracted through flashbacks, fantasy scenes, hallucinations, and overt authorial address in Francesco Rosi's Three Brothers (1980). In sum. we have now to sketch out how the weight assigned to narrational options, the shifting of "dominants," has varied across history.
Art-cinema narration has become a coherent mode partly by defining itself as a "deviation from classical narrative. This may seem most obvious in the postwar decades, when the dismantling of the studio system enabled highly individual-
■	ized internationa
	the art cinema h
'	nurtured within \
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ART-CINEMA  NARRATION
10.26 IO.27
Jy the film's political ient and its stress on * aimed to show is how iated and transformed nas in fact blatantly - substance and narra-n's, Diego reflects that >f the world resists us, ig a dream of infinite
. -s to coincide with his made analogous to the -tion—Diego's dreams J events—and, more •'theme of the art cin-yche and maintaining
I ^ectator. La guerre est
a unique treatment of :ional mode.
forms a paradigm. But Hollywood narration, context reveals some certain points than at and ambiguity would
.•4 one. The drama of a
ered with "objective"
His Brothers (i960),
§ :- through flashbacks,
ert authorial address
•Í80). In sum, we have [   signed to narrational
aas varied across his-
coherent mode pardy assical narrative. This ar decades, when the led highly individual-
ized international auteurs to emerge. Historically, however, the art cinema has its roots in an opposition to Hollywood nurtured within various national film industries of the silent era and sustained by concepts borrowed from modernism in theater and literature.
During the 1920s, when modem art was strongly influencing avant-garde cinema, the grounds for conventions of expressive realism and overt narrational address were laid. The influential Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) took up theatrical techniques (distorted settings, Schrei acting) for representing subjective states, and its equivocal frame story can be seen as a very early case of applying ambiguity to an entire narrative structure, since we must wonder whether the stylized settings proceed from the "narrator" or (as the film tries to suggest at the end) from the character's mind. The film also appears to leave a permanent gap: the distorted settings remain constant to some degree when they reappear in the frame story, and the Doctor's final "I think I know how to cure him now," addressed to the camera, strikes modern viewers as unsettling.1* It was in Germany as well that the Kammerspielfilm was initially developed. Films like Scker-ben (1921), Hintertreppe (1921), and Sylvester (1923), with their confinement of the action to a single locale and a brief time span, showed that cinema could represent existential boundary situations with the same concentration as that achieved in Strindberg's dramas.
In France, the Impressionist school was cultivating a set of devices for the representations of characters' inner states. Abel Gance's La roue (1923) sought to dramatize Us characters' fleeting thoughts and moods through superimpositions and other optical effects, point-of-view shots, and rapid editing. In Epstein's Coeur fiděU? (1923), the heroine's mental distress as she rides a whirling carnival ride is conveyed by frantic cutting. Theorists of the period advocated subjective camera movements to enhance the audience's identification with characters' feelings.11 The French filmmakers also explored ways to convey narrational comment Irises and vignettes could soften the image for lyricism. At the start of Coeur fiděle, Epstein uses mismatched close-ups—the barmaid's unmoving face alternating with her arms tiredly per-
forming her chores—to imply a dissociation between! sensitive temperament and her sordid life (figs. iS 10.27). The impressionists were much influenced by;| Symbolist art, so it is not surprising to find Germaine Bi comparing a film to a Debussy piece, or to see in the com]
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.últiple-narrator structure of Epstein's La glace á trois faces '927) the influence of Proust. Gide, or Romains. At the period, Surrealist films like Un chien andalou, in their frage play with the conventions of mainstream storytelling, Lened up new paths for the achievement of narrational "biguity."
&Jot until after World War II, however, did the art cinema 'erge as a fully achieved narrational alternative. Holly-6bd's dominance of exhibition, both at home and abroad, égän to wane. In the United States, judicial decisions (the íount decrees) created a shortage of films. Production s needed overseas markets; exhibitors needed to com-S'e with television. In Europe, the end of the war reestab-rhed international commerce and facilitated film exports, 'omas Guback has shown how, by 1954, many films were ihg made for international audiences." It would be wrong see this as a case of "Hollywood versus Europe." American s underwrote much foreign production, and foreign litis helped American exhibitors fill screen time. The postwar "art house," a film theater in a city or campus town, was symptom of the new audience: college-educated, middle-[iss cinéphiles looking for films consonant with contempo-ideas of modernism in art and literature. Parallel audioes emerged in European intellectual centers. On the light of these developments. Italian neorealism may considered a transitional phenomenon. Institutionally, ns like Shoeshine (1946), Rome Open City (1945), Paisa 1946), Bicycle Thieves C1948), and Umberto 0(1952) func-^ined as international reportage, addressed as much to the 'tside world as to Italians. Along with certain French Jforts (notably Les enfants du paradis, 1945) and Scandinavian films (e.g.. Day of Wrath, 1943), the Neorealist Ims broke into worldwide markets. Formally, the films itributed to founding conventions of objective verisimili-Bazin pointed out the importance of chance (Bicycle ^ieves "unfolds on the level of pure accident") and of narra-■pnal omission, which he justified as the construction of the "ň out of "component blocks of reality."18 By the early )50S, then, filmmakers had at their disposal a tradition "Snbracing both character subjectivity and authorial in-
tervention. And some filmmakers had begun to explore the objective realism of open-ended narratives, a dramaturgy of chance encounters, and above all the essential ambiguity of the fabula world. At this point, however, objective verisimilitude on the Italian model was the dominant narrational convention. It was chiefly the flashback films, such as Rashomon( 1950), Af iss Julie (1950), Ikiru (1952). Waiting Women (1952), and Lola Montes (1955) that chose to explore subjectivity.
If, in retrospect, art-cinema narration seems so distinctly a creature of the late 1950s and the 1960s, it is partly because the richest play among its three defining schemata took place then. During this period, the ambiguous interaction of objective and subjective realism reached its apogee. Consider just some of the output of those years:
1957: Nights ofCabiria, Wild Strawberries, Aparajito, The Cranes Are Flying
1958: Eroica, Ashes and Diamonds, Brink of Life, The Face, Nazarin, Black Orpheus
1959: L'Avventura, La Dolce Vita, Hiroshima mon amour, The 400 Blows, The Virgin Spring, The World ofApu, Kagi
i960: Les bonnes femmes, Shoot the Piano Player, Zazie dans le metro, Une aussi tongue absence
1961: Through a Glass Darkly, Cleo from sto 7, Jules and Jim
1962: The Exterminating Angel, 8lá, Knife in the Water, The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner, Winter Light, The Soft Skin
1963: The Silence, Muriel, The Leopard, The Passenger, The Servant, This Sporting Life
J964: Red Desert, Before the Revolution, The Gospel according to St. Matthew, Identification Marks: None, King and Country
1965: Juliet of the Spirits, Le Bonheur, Walkover, Darling
1966: La guerre est jinie, A Man and a Woman, The Hawks and the Sparrows, Barrier, Daisies, Night Games, Young Torless, Persona, Man Is Not a Bird
1967: Belle de Jour, La collectionneuse, China Is Near, Love Affair, Accident, How I Won the War
1968: Everything Top: Disoriented 1969: My Night (
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moderne (1964). The onus of interpretation fell even upo journalist-reviewers. Some (e.g.. John Simon) look:iff gladly, while others—Pauline Kael and Dwight MacDon* are notable instances—somewhat nervously mocked.«? duty by welcoming films that did not require hyperintelľ tual exegesis. The role of critical discourse in compiehefl ing the art film was confessed by Bergman in Not to Spt about all These Women (1964). wherein a shot of aar, running down a corridor waving fireworks is interrupted tide warning critics not to interpret the fireworks syni cally.
So strong an intellectual presence was the 1960s arte* ema that it shaped conceptions of what a good film^ Because the film was to be understood as a "personal ment" by the filmmaker, the art cinema effectively ri forced the old opposition between Hollywood (industry;! lective creation, entertainment) and Europe (freedomlfi commerce, the creative genius, art). In 1965, Arthur Km compared the Hollywood product with the Eu^B approach:
Art is not manufactured by committees. Art comes-ftS an individual who has something that he must expffl and who works out what is for him the most forceftflj affecting manner of expressing it. And this, specify is the quality that people respond to in European pig] tures—the reason why we hear so often that foreig^ films are "more artistic" than our own. There is trig them the urgency of individual expression, an ind pendence of vision, the coherence of a single-min statement.10
To this personalization of creation, the director asi there corresponded certain narrational aspects whicht could highlight. Through an emphasis on "character^ cinema could now achieve the seriousness of contempt literature and drama, insofar as the latter were though" portray modem man's confrontation with a mysterious' mos. The individualization of political action in La gueigg finie is only one instance of how the art film's concenii on the boundary situation reinforced widely held nötig
In retrospect, Ľannée derniěre ä Marienbad (1961) must be seen as a film of great influence, pushing the art cinema toward extreme exploration of character subjectivity. (It was a double-edged influence, however, as I shall show later.) It was still possible, of course, for a film to exploit the objective verisimilitude of Neorealism, either for drama (The Fiances, 1963) or Chekhovian comic pathos (Closely Watched Trains, 1966). Generally, though, in this period, formal process and economic demands merge: the tendency to play a cognitive game with the spectator, to modify and foreground the text's operations, matches the institution's need for the salable differentiated product. The fullest flower of the art-cinema paradigm occurred at the moment that the combination of novelty and nationalism became the marketing device it has been ever since: the French New Wave. New Polish Cinema, New Hungarian Cinema, New German Cinema, New Australian Cinema . . .
A cinema of ambiguity required machinery to interpret it. During the 1960s, film criticism took up a task it has for the most part clung to ever since. Now a critic was expected to explain what a film meant—to fill in the gaps, explicate the symbols, paraphrase the filmmaker's statement. The Cahiers du cinema critics unashamedly interpreted works, sometimes in pseudophilosophical or pseudoreligious terms. In Britain, Movie subjected films to a detailed explication in the tradition of Oxbridge "practical criticism." Journals like Sight and Sound, Film Culture, New York Film Bulletin, Moviegoer, Brighton Film Review, Artsept, Positif Image et son, Jeune cinema. Film Quarterly, and their counterparts all over Europe ran analytical and interpretive essays as well as interviews from an auteurist standpoint. Publishers began to bring out monographs on art-cinema directors and surveys of the art cinema as a whole, such as Parker Tyler's Classics of the Foreign Film (1962), Penelope Houston's The Contemporary Cinema (1963). John Russell Taylor's Cinema Eye, Cinema Ear (1964), and GUIes Jacobs' Le cinema
$he existential problems of the solitary character.
It is in this context that the auteur approach to criticism $an be understood historically. The art cinema accustomed gritics to looking for personal expression in films, and no one Sjoubted that it could be found in the works of Antonioni, *ergman, et a!. Auteur critics went further and applied t-cinema schemata to classical Hollywood films. The critic noi usually bother to explain how individual expression ped into the Hollywood commodity.™ More commonly, e critic concentrated on describing and interpreting Peered films; as Jim Hillier put it in 1975: "The strategy 'as lo talk about Hawks, Preminger, etc. as artists like Éiiňuel and Resnais."31 Scenes in Ray. Minnelli, or Hitch-ck could be taken as informed by subjective realism or piilhorial commentary. (The house in Bigger Than Life im-fisons the protagonist; a camera angle in The Birds expresses the narrator's judgment.) V. F. Perkins could internet a shot in Carmen Jones as if it were by Antonioni: "A íňétal strut at the center of the widescreen divides the image :'as to isolate and confine each character within a separate
sua! cage___|This shot) begins as a graphic expression of
be's personality. It shows us his world as he wishes to see ft—a world of order and stability.'*" Sirk's objects and decor |ould be justified as symbols of characters' mental states or 's the narrator's ironic asides to the audience. The style of a *awks or Walsh, on the other hand, was conceived of as /oiding authorial address or expressive realism; these were he "objective" directors. And there was always the possibility of complexity and ambiguity, as in the work of Hitchcock. Preminger. and the American Lang. Ironically, the "reread-g" of Hollywood, which has been so central to film theory (in recent years, has its roots in the schemata of European "rustic" filmmaking.
Nor were the lessons of art-cinema narration lost on makers. The wheel turned almost full circle: classical 'ollywood influenced the art film (often negatively); the art m influenced the "New Hollywood" of the late 1960s and e 1970s. Everything from freeze frames and slow motion ^conventions of gapping and ambiguity has been exploited «by filmmakers like Donen (Two for the Road, 1967), Lester
(Petulia, 1968). Hopper (Easy Rider, 1968), Coppola (The Rain People, 1969), Nichols (Catch-22, 1973), and Altman (Images, 1972; Three Women, 1977). Like its European "New Wave" forebears, the New Hollywood took up an explicit intertextuality, often alluding to the Old Hollywood in parody (Play It Again, Sam, 1972) or pastiche (De Palma's work). More broadly, art-cinema devices have been selectively applied to films which remain firmly grounded in classical genres—the Western (Little Big Man, 1970; McCabe and Mrs. Miller, 1971), the domestic melodrama (The Last Picture Show, 1971). science fiction (2001,1968), the thriller (Sisters, 1973), and the detective film (Klute, 1971; The Conversation, 1974; The Long Goodbye, 1973; Night Moves, 1975). The force of the European art film lay in large measure in making not genre but the author's oeuvre the pertinent set of transtextual relations, but the Hollywood cinema absorbed those aspects of art-cinema narration which fitted generic functions." The process was assisted by those filmmakers like Antonioni and Truffaut who occasionally made Hollywood genre pictures (e.g.. Zabriskie Point and Fahrenheit 451).
I write this in 1983, when the intense subjectivity of the 1960s art film is less in evidence. Most current works emphasize an ambiguous play between objective realism and authorial address. Antonioni, Resnais, Fellini, Bergman, Truffaut, Bunuel, and others of the 1950s and 1960s have been content 10repeat themselves, sometimes skillfully. Trie possibility of authorial differentiation can still be exploited for novelty, as the Tavianis, Bertolucci. Ruiz, Herzog. Fassbinder, and Wenders have shown.
From another angle, the art cinema brought out more radical possibilities. For the postwar decades, the key work is—again—Ľannée derniěre ä Marienbad. Constructed like a nouveau roman, the film solicits comprehension within an art-film frame of reference but goes beyond the limits of that paradigm. The syuzhet is so wrought as to make it impossible to construct a fabula. Cues are either too few or contradictory. One order of scenes is as good as any other; cause and effect are impossible to distinguish; even the spatial reference points change. This might seem the very incarna-
tion of the dream of • there is no longer 1 stable point of de) causality, ambiguit consequence. Art-c to its own inten'ent ble story in a certa when everything ii vision and authori;
ART-CINEMA  NARRATION                                                                                 2
tion of the dream of significant ambiguity, but it is not. Once there is no longer a fabula to interpret, once we have no stable point of departure for constructing character or causality, ambiguity becomes so pervasive as to be of no consequence. Art-cinema narration self-consciously points to its own interventions, but the aim is still to tell a discernible story in a certain way. These schemata are of no help when everything in the film may represent both subjective vision and authorial address. By teasing us to construct a
fabula but always thwarting us. Marienbaďs narration* cally separates the potential "story" from the syuzhetar stylistic patterning that are presented to us. Marienbady vokes conventions of subjectivity only to surpass them,; constitutes an example of yet another mode of film pratj one I shall discuss in Chapter 12 as "parametric" narrat] The "realism" of art-cinema narration, as have so nv "realisms" before, opened the way for a new stylizatio