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https://www.sabzian.be/text/the-violence-of-the-gaze

The Violence of the Gaze

As a filmmaker, I thus inhabit the world of the image, a world halfway between myself and reality. I believe that, ideally speaking, the film viewer is in a comparable position. For a variety of reasons, we have abandoned the idea of reality as a self-contained entity existing outside and independently of us. So if you don't wish to take the position of someone watching an external reality from the outside, but rather of someone who is observer and participant at the same time, then you’re facing the problem of how to define yourself as an individual, or how, as an observer, you are to see yourself. Who is the person who makes, and who is the person who sees?

Of course, you cannot deny that there is subject matter. A film is about very clear things, living conditions, modes of production, power relations… But they are not established facts that you then simply translate into a film. On the contrary, whatever knowledge there is, is acquired by making the film. So there is no point in asking me anything else about the subject matter, since everything I know is already in the film. The film is the result of the learning process. And the learning process, you might say, repeats itself in the viewer. The viewer is to the film what the film is to reality. Reality consists of infinite numbers of images, infinite numbers of lives. And yet there are long passages in my films where hardly anything happens at all, the long shots of the windows at the end of The Spirit of the Time, the long corridor in Diary, the endless observation of three beds in The New Ice Age. To me, those are very important moments, because the film no longer provides information at a “normal” rate, and the viewer is left to his own devices.

He has to realize he is looking at a screen. He has to define his own position. I think the viewer faced with this situation – if and when he is willing to go along with it – is able to acquire a kind of knowledge that differs, in its very essence, from the kind of knowledge acquired in conventional education. There the knowledge comes ready-made from an outside source, whereas here the viewer can go look for it himself by consciously taking a stand with respect to the reality of the film. To me it has to do with the idea of “democracy at the basis,"” where everyone occupies an approximately equal position regarding the knowledge available. Knowledge does not come from above, everyone can go for it.

From a conversation with Robert Daudelin, on the occasion of the film retrospective at the Cinémathèque Quebecoise in Montréal, 1975. This translation originally appeared in Zien kijken filmen (Van Gennep: Amsterdam, 1980).

Images from De nieuwe ijstijd (Johan van der Keuken, 1974)

ARTICLE
16.10.2024
EN
In Passage, Sabzian invites film critics, authors, filmmakers and spectators to send a text or fragment on cinema that left a lasting impression.
Pour Passage, Sabzian demande à des critiques de cinéma, auteurs, cinéastes et spectateurs un texte ou un fragment qui les a marqués.
In Passage vraagt Sabzian filmcritici, auteurs, filmmakers en toeschouwers naar een tekst of een fragment dat ooit een blijvende indruk op hen achterliet.
The Prisma section is a series of short reflections on cinema. A Prisma always has the same length – exactly 2000 characters – and is accompanied by one image. It is a short-distance exercise, a miniature text in which one detail or element is refracted into the spectrum of a larger idea or observation.
La rubrique Prisma est une série de courtes réflexions sur le cinéma. Tous les Prisma ont la même longueur – exactement 2000 caractères – et sont accompagnés d'une seule image. Exercices à courte distance, les Prisma consistent en un texte miniature dans lequel un détail ou élément se détache du spectre d'une penséée ou observation plus large.
De Prisma-rubriek is een reeks korte reflecties over cinema. Een Prisma heeft altijd dezelfde lengte – precies 2000 tekens – en wordt begeleid door één beeld. Een Prisma is een oefening op de korte afstand, een miniatuurtekst waarin één detail of element in het spectrum van een grotere gedachte of observatie breekt.
Jacques Tati once said, “I want the film to start the moment you leave the cinema.” A film fixes itself in your movements and your way of looking at things. After a Chaplin film, you catch yourself doing clumsy jumps, after a Rohmer it’s always summer, and the ghost of Akerman undeniably haunts the kitchen. In this feature, a Sabzian editor takes a film outside and discovers cross-connections between cinema and life.
Jacques Tati once said, “I want the film to start the moment you leave the cinema.” A film fixes itself in your movements and your way of looking at things. After a Chaplin film, you catch yourself doing clumsy jumps, after a Rohmer it’s always summer, and the ghost of Akerman undeniably haunts the kitchen. In this feature, a Sabzian editor takes a film outside and discovers cross-connections between cinema and life.
Jacques Tati zei ooit: “Ik wil dat de film begint op het moment dat je de cinemazaal verlaat.” Een film zet zich vast in je bewegingen en je manier van kijken. Na een film van Chaplin betrap je jezelf op klungelige sprongen, na een Rohmer is het altijd zomer en de geest van Chantal Akerman waart onomstotelijk rond in de keuken. In deze rubriek neemt een Sabzian-redactielid een film mee naar buiten en ontwaart kruisverbindingen tussen cinema en leven.

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