Visible Man1 The ,discovery of printing has gradually rendered the human face illegible. People have been able to glean sO much from reading that they could afford to neglect other forms of communication. Victor Hugo once wrote that the printed book has taken over the role of medieval cathedrals and has become the repository of the spirit of the people. But the thousands of books fragmented the single spirit of the cathedrals into a myriad different opinions. The printed word smashed the stone to smithereens and broke up the church into a thousand books. In this way, the visual spirit was transformed into a legible spirit, and a visual culture was changed into a conceptual one. It is universally acknowledged that this change has radically altered the face of life in general.2 But the degree of change to which the face of the individual human being has been subject - his brow, his eyes, his mouth - has been largely overlooked. Now another device is at work, giving culture a new turn towards the visual and the human being a new face. It is the cinematograph, a technology for the multiplication and dissemination of the products of the human mind, just like the printing press, and its impact on human culture will not be less momentous. # To say nothing is by no means the same as having nothing to say. Those who remain silent can still be overflowing with things to say, which, however,, can be uttered only in forms, pictures, gestures and facial expressions. For the man of visual culture is not like a deaf mute who replaces words with sign language. He does not think in words whose syllables he inscribes in the air with the dots and dashes of the Morse code. His gestures do not signify concepts at all, but are the direct expression of his own non-rational self, and whatever is expressed in his face and his movements arises from a stratum of the soul that can never be brought to the light of day by words. Here, the body becomes unmediated spirit, spirit rendered visible, wordless. It was a golden age for the visual arts when the painter and the sculptor did more than fill empty space with abstract forms and shapes, and man 1 See TotF, 'Dcr skhtnare Mensch' (pp. 40ff). 2 TotF, p. 40. BB adds, 'This of course had its social and economic causes.' ^usesoulandspmt^ewhen paintings could have an ^ This was the hap^ ideas did not always manifest ft^ -theme' of their ow*beoa** ^ ^ pamter djd t face ^ ^ S first in concepts an J ^ g subsequent ^lustration The ^ providing concepts ana ^^don could be painted and sculpted m lts that became body wi ^ ^ advent Gf printing the word ha, primary m^est^°bridge joirUng human beings to one another Thesouj become the prmcipalbndg 1 a^affiMd there. The boo,' !TS Th! be^ns^pedofsoulandemptied. "The e^sTsurface of our bodies has been reduced to just our fa* This is not simply because we cover the other parts of our bod,es writ, clothes. Our face has now come to resemble a clumsy little semaphore of the soul, sticking up in the air and signalling as best it may. Sometimes, our hands help out a little, evoking the melancholy of mutilated limh. The back of a headless Greek torso always reveals whether the lost face was laughing or weeping - we can still see this clearly. Venus's hips smile as expressively as her face, and casting a veil over her head would not be enough to prevent us from guessing her thoughts and feelings. For m those days man was visible in his entire body. In a culture dominated bv words, however, now that the soul has become audible, it has groun almost invisible. This is what the printing press has done.' rJ!!n sltVatl0n now is that once again our culture is being given a of peolnT Th0n ~ tune by fljm Every evening many millions mc^sPof evervtin7erlenue hUman destinies' characters, feelings and the intertitles thatn ^ and without the need for words. For ephemeral rudiment ***** haVe are significant; thev are partly the special meaning that H S ^ ^^Ped forms and partly they bear a wh°le of mankind 1S ** °Ut to assist visual expression: fl* ^tures and facial exnL V relear™*g the long-forgotten language.01 ^ -haractenstrc?^/^ language ifno'the substitute** 2* 0C°r0ilary of huma„s^ ,a^age of the deaf and dumb, but uZlaT "lately made flesh. Man unll °f *W have establish^ £ ^ andW^n in express** movement, Bv ** J ^nn8 s0Unds Jcas ^ hands and his facial mu* fc "^^^ purpose. ^ 2? fP-41) ^ k M had grown almost invis** F ^Places 'i ^ ,me^tles'with'words' (P-4D- Visible Mmi 11 movements of his tongue and lips were no more than spontaneous gestures, on a par with other bodily gestures. The fact that he uttered sounds at the same time was a secondary phenomenon, one subsequently exploited for practical purposes. The immediately visible spirit was then transformed into a mediated audible spirit and much was lost in the process, as in all translation. But the language of gestures is the true mother tongue of mankind. We are beginning to recall this language and are poised to learn it anew. As yet, it is still clumsy and primitive, and far from able to rival the subtleties of modern verbal art/ But because its roots in human nature are older and deeper than the spoken language, and because it is nevertheless fundamentally new, its stammerings and stutterings often articulate ideas that the artists of the word strive in vain to express. Is it by pure chance that recent decades have witnessed a revival of the art ot dance at the same time as film became a universal cultural need? We evidently have many things to say that cannot be expressed in words. Now that the secondary and derivative modes of our culture appear to have ended up in blind alleys of different sorts, we are reverting to primordial forms of expression. The word seems to have taken men by brute force; over-rigid concepts have obliterated much, created an absence which we now feel keenly, and which music alone does not suffice to fill. The culture of words is dematerialized, abstract and over-intellecrualized; it degrades the human body to the status of a biological organism. But the new language of gestures that is emerging at present arises from our painful yearning to be human beings with our entire bodies, from top to toe and not merely in our speech. We long to stop dragging our body around like an alien thing that is useful only as a practical set of tools. This new language arises from our yearning for the embodied human being who has fallen silent, who has been forgotten and has become invisible. 1 will address later the question of why the decorative choreography of dancers shall fail to produce this new language. It is film that will have the ability to raise up and make visible once more human beings who are now buried under mountains of words and concepts. But today this visible man is in an in-between state: no longer there and not yet present. It is a law of nature that any organ that falls into disuse degenerates and atrophies. In the culture of words our bodies were not fully used and have lost their expressiveness in consequence. This is why they have become clumsy, primitive, stupid and barbaric. Have we not often observed that primitive peoples have a stock of gestures that is richer than that of a 5 TotF here inserts an analogy with music: 'How much of human thought would remain unexpressed if we had no music! .. Although .. human experiences are not rational c«>nceptual contents, they are nevertheless neither vague nor blurred, but as clear and unequivocal as is music' (p. 42). The musical analogy replaces the emphasis in Visible Man on the art of dance. tfifch a vast vocabulary at his disposal?n ,. Klv educated Etirop^w^icJl the art of film has flourished^ if let have l^^rf w, should turn to the cinema £j comics will per^^^ and facial express^ on a par compile a lexicon ol g<^ audicnce wlU not wait for £ dictionaries of "^J^, by academics of the future; they will g0to J ^em.i and learn it^'^^ modcrn European's neglect of his bod, Much has bun s ^ enthtLSiastic devotion to sport. However ArV?rmikc the body healthy and beautiful, it cannot make\ doueTsince it strengthens only the arumalquaUties Sport cannot^ of the body a sensitive medium of the soul, capable of registering fe slightest motion. It is possible to have the most powerful and beautiful 0| voices, and yet to remain incapable of saying what one means. This neglect of the body has not only caused its expressive powers to atrophy; it has similarly damaged the soul that the body should express. For we should take note that the soul that is expressed in words is not identical with the soul that finds expression in gestures, any more than music simply says the same thing as literature. We can dredge words up from the deep by the bucketful, but they will be very different from the gestures we can acquire by a similar process, and will bring quite different treasures to the surface. In this instance, however, ii nothing is drawn from it the well dries up. For our ability to express ourselves conditions our econnn!5 ^ * adVanCe" That * ™ture °f 0Ur ^ PsychZirlr T,apable °f Prod^ing anything that cannot be used. 2X^^k*aI 3nalyses have demonstrated that our words are those moughtsfrorrageS °f °Ur thou§hts' bu* ^rms that determ^ * say aboS ^P«lTet Bad writers a^ dilettantes may havea W re*% only very verve °f their feelinSs and thoughts, but it is * ^ to express - andt ^ ^ We can conceive of ideas that we* ^ have thoUght. Here ^ We do not really know what it is human mind ls dla, ^ m every other sphere, the development of* Cm!;keitP°s^blefor th ^ 3t sa™ **e' *** *%? a ramies!50 °f the world thJ to Srow in its turn. ^ to are **siltarUn8ful ^rn lS^°nta^d within the word music' dmiS> iustaT^88 tha* ^ system does not redlate «W f0Und n *PreSent' S^h a complete and ^ 0 w^e°f ^fc^C h" "na8e of man and" the vvorl > ^ ltV\n°W^ LAdm^d,vHran Culture can be conceived > l0ss ^trariEeHes,Sarily be inferior. It would at * ^ed from the immediate reality °'P Visible Mm 13 Ruth Saint Denis, that greatest of the geniuses of dance, writes in her autobiography that she did not learn to speak until she was five.6 She had Jived a secluded life„ alone with her mother, who was completely paralysed for many years and was in consequence especially sensitive to the meaning of movement. They understood each other so completely through signs and gestures that Ruth had no need of language and was very slow in learning to speak. Her body, however, became so eloquent that she became a great and wonderful poet of gesture. ' ^ "V Yet the expressive movements of even the greatest dancer can never ~ amount to more than a concert-hall experience for the few; they remain a segregated form of art, separate from life. Only an applied art can be culture. Not culture in the sense of the beautiful poses of statues in art galleries, but the gait and the everyday gestures of people in the street or at their work. Culture means the penetration of the ordinary material of life by the human spirit, and a visual culture must surely provide us with new and different expressive forms for our daily intercourse with one another. The art of dance cannot do this; it is a task that will be accomplished only by film. In general, culture appears to be taking the road from the abstract mind v to the visible body. When we see a person's movements or his sensitive \ hands, do we not recognize the spirit of his ancestors? The fathers' thoughts become the nervous sensitivity, the taste and instinct of the children. Conscious knowledge turns into instinctive sensibility: it is materialized as culture in the body. The body's expressiveness is always the latest product of a cultural process. This means that however primitive , and barbarous the film may be in comparison to literature as it is today, it \ nevertheless represents the future development of culture because it 1 involves the direct transformation of spirit into body,.,. \ This path leads in two apparently opposite directions. At first glance, it appears as if the language of physiognomy can only increase and intensify the process of estrangement and alienation that started with the confusion of tongues in the Tower of Babel. This cultural path seems to point towards the isolation of the individual, to loneliness. For, after all, following the confusion of tongues in Babel, communities still survived who shared a common mastery of the words and concepts of their single mother tongue, while shared dictionaries and grammars rescued human beings from the ultimate solitariness of mutual incomprehension. But the language of gestures is far more individual and personal than the language of words. Admittedly, facial expressions have their own vocabulary of 'conventional', standard forms, so much so that we could and indeed should compile a comparative 'gesturology' on the model of comparative linguistics. However, although this language of gestures has its traditions, it is unlike grammar in that it lacks strict and binding rules, Ruth Saint Denis (1879-1968) was a US dancer, choreographer, teacher and lecturer. She was a pioneer in freeing dance from the rigid rules of traditional ballet. 14 Bf Ha Bid' Early FH'" Theory , nunished in school. This language is stiJJ M would be ^ver;j/moUJded to fit the particular nature 0f wh0Se can be where it can be created by the mind, so young that ^ ^ ^ the srage w ntrtan mtd being «cb» to hold out the promise of oler hand, the -^^V screens of the entire world are redemption from the curse: o■ language, the language qf now starting to project tne, ^ ^ ^^tionalism has its roots in gestures and facial ex?K* {des the firmest foundation. A film costs so economics, which a ways p g pjJofit jf if hag mternationaJ much to produce that-ir / readiJ ^^ted frQm Qn(? - **^J**Z*^£^ facial expressions must be"1 r;Xa*ato the whole world. This sets strict limits to nationaT characteristics. The early years of film-making witnessed a struggle for hegemony between the Anglo-Saxon and the French styles of expression " r - the Jaws of the film market had room for only one universal language of " w?l]ef' SinCe othervv'se the nlm will not recoup its^oste. We foEom^rf?6 °f geStures has become standardized infihn. I tt^J^^f*^ W***y <* ^e white racehas explains what up ton h bedr°Ck °f ever^ film st0fy' ^ these stories; but despite* ■ • the Primitive> stereotyped nature of ™portance. ft contains Z7 S™plicity> ^ development is of immense "ho will one day emerge * T mg seeds of *e standard white man peoples. The cinema^*" Synthesis <* the mix of different races and - we' rret: ^s^ca^fe that fa its °™ ™ywii crrr ^versai If ^her- By su^bW *W ^ o/" * " f unif0rrn l**1 fof *iective br£? 8 8 Uniform id^al of beauty as the of «* white nlm will help to produce i • variety of facial expressions and ,,mited to thp-„0th,s *en ; revises his earlier call for a 'gesfe«**? an ř0 Sí»y whj i ey cement fy8nomvin «™« ;.....* nmiei Q&P"* should" UndisPi»toH JUltvPe that. cement in Umyintneform it took under U . '° °f fa« is re* imiC' racism)- Balázs writes: 'In anv c* real'y repre ■ rat-e hl'VtLacceP^d EnaJ!yueprGSentative of any n',rion °f , „hv «* traiv ..!ngJ,sh face? If so, what J it !ike? An^ emont. The ^ theSe in ^» d be . comparative science ferS «* md the fundamental fof me^toestablIshKUchasCjence'(p^ boc any vyhe fiirni 8. Vi -ibk Man 15 Ixidily gestures has drawn sharper frontiers between people tha** has iiny customs harrier, but these will gradually be eroded by film. And, when man finally becomes visible, he will always be able to recognize hirrwlf, despite the gulf between widely differing languages.* BaMzs's later transition from the racial essentialism of this passage to a Marxist-inflected cultural determinism that sees cinematic internationalism as the pmduct of film's penetration of international markets, is visible in the replacement in 7bi£of this passage on the 'standard white man' with the following (p. 45): The silent film helped people to become physically accustomed to each other and was about to create an international human type. When once a common cause will have united men within the limits of their »wn race and nation, then the film which makes visible man equally visible to everyone, will greatly aid in levelling physical differences between the various races and nations and will thus be one of the most useful pioneers in the development towards an intprnational universal humanity' Baiazs's newly acquired cultural relativism - a position that atWs for differing cultural 'viewpoints' - is further evident in TotF in a section on 'Children and savages' (sic) where he observes (p. 81): 'The close-up often reveals unusual gestures and mimicry: unusual, that is, from the white man's viewpoint.