Socialising Structures

Hrvoje Turkovic, Zagreb 1994

All four volumes of Bazin's capital work were titled What is Cinema? (Qu'est-ce que le cinema? - 1959-62.). The question in the title was not just theoretical, i.e. produced by the tradition of ontological inquiry transferred to cinema. As with any newly arrived product, the what-is-it question was unavoidable, it was an every-day, common, ordinary question invited in anyone facing the new phenomenon of cinema. The early reports on the first film exhibitions were attempts to answer this implied ontological question, as is clearly demonstrated by an article published 1886. in Croatian magazine Obzor (Skrabalo 1984:13):

Live photographs. In the "Kolo" hall an apparatus, named "Cinematograph", was exhibited yesterday. It throws diverse photographic images on the tablet placed opposite, and in these images everything moves: people, animals, cars, trains, bikes etc., and it is all so perfect that you believe you are watching the real life on streets and in trains. The system of cinematograph works in following way: out of the scenes, which one intends to reproduce, an unaccountable number of records is taken on a roller at an unheard-of speed (more then a thousand in a minute), and this roller is placed in the apparatus, from which the whole movement, as recorded in nature, is reflected with the help of electric light on the tablet placed in front of the objective. The thing is very interesting and we recommend it to the attention of our public.

Actually, most of the basic "ontological" determinants of cinema are mentioned in the article. First, the most important ontological trait of cinema was mentioned - its experiential, representational effect, its mimetic "image", an "image" in which everything moves in such a way "you believe you are watching a real life". The second important point is an emphasis on the "system of cinema", i.e. on cinema's artefactual nature, on the fact that cinematic image is a product, artefact, produced with the help of technical devices and specific technological process. The last point touched upon is cinema's "interestingness" - the social relevancy of the cinematic image and the whole "system of cinematograph".

All these points seemed to be at the time obvious traits of cinema. But, the question pursued by Bazin throughout his four volumes was not just ontological but "ontogenetical". His aim was not merely to notify the ontological characteristics of cinema as the above report did; Bazin's question has been also the following: what is in the very nature of cinematic image that is socially so powerful as to generate one of the most powerful communicational systems out of a curious technical invention? This is the point I will address in this paper.

Our ability to recognise what is represented in film doesn't seem to depend on any specific social training in film viewing. Like any representation, cinematic representation relies on our general recognition ability as it is achieved through our whole world experience, no matter whether it includes the film experience or not. The viewers of the Lumiere first film show at Grand Cafe in Paris in 1895. did not have any trouble to recognise a cinematic scene of e.g. a train entering station and people awaiting it, though some of the viewers may have trouble recognising the whole scene of incoming train as a mere representation, a mere picture, and not the "real thing" (Sadoul 1962:21).

There is an evidence that this general ability to recognise represented scenes and their parts and aspects (i.e. objects) appears mostly "unlearned" (Hochberg, Brooks, 1962), independent of any socialising practices.

Still, one can consider it exceedingly obvious that film, like other similar media (cf., for television, Comstock et al. 1978:184-187), does have its own socialising powers. And the very fact that it is an influential social phenomenon can be taken as an indicator of possible inherent socialising powers of cinema.

But, the question cannot be reliably answered when posed in general. Therefore, the more specific question has to be rised: what is it in the cinematic representation that affords a socialisation, be it desirable or undesirable one?

Cinematic representation is lastingly embodied in a film record - in a film print and a related projection of it. The film record is an environmental phenomenon: it is an environmental (physical) object locally placed within environmental situation in which it is observed.

As an object, the film record is distinct and typically detached from human body of possible viewer and distinct of other objects in the environmental situation. This "distinction" and "detachment" is based on specific dissociations and associations of the cinematic representation (cf. Turkovic 1990:370). Let us elaborate the essential ones.

1. The represented scene is, on the one hand, dissociated from its normal corresponding environmental (material) vehicles. This is because the represented scene remains crucially bound to the single physical (situationally checkable) vehicle of a printed film and/or a projected rectangular patch of shaded light.

That means, that e.g. in Lumiere's "Arrival of a Train" the vehicle of the whole represented scene is a projected shaded light and therefore not a real countryside, not a material railway station building, not a material train, not bodily humans etc. The "appearance" of the represented scene is dissociated from the three-dimensional collection of material objects (whose "appearance" it is) because the "appearance" is "produced by" the textural structure of a particular, restricted environmental "object" - e.g., a patch of shaded light.

The consequence of this is that the scenes represented in a movie are typically not identical with the scene in which the movie is viewed. Even if the two scenes are categorically identical, they are ontologically crucially different because of the above analysed "appearance dissociation" and textural "association" of cinematic scene. This makes possible for many idiosyncratic environmental scenes to be experienced as (good or not so good) exemplifications of a particular cinematic scene (for the concept of ex-emplification cf.: Goodman, 1968:52-57).

That means that cinematic scene is experienced as in principle cognitively general, and that cinematic representation always refers to something else than itself, to something outside of a given idiosyncratic situation in which it is attended to, to something evocable in different idiosyncratic situations. It is this aspect of cinema that stimulates a consideration of the movie as a sign.

Viewing a movie typically implies observing a lot of diverse (represented) situations within a single, quite uniform, life situation of theatre attendance, as well as observing a single set of situations (represented in a particular movie) within a number of geographically, socially and historically diverse life situations (diverse theatre situations).

2. On the other hand, the perceptual point of view posited (implied) by the represented scene is dissociated from the bodily entrenched perceptual position of the environmental viewer of the scene record.

Namely, no matter where we are posited in the cinema-theatre in relation to the screen - close to the screen, far away of the screen, on the left or on the right of the screen - we shall always see the represented scene from the same perceptual vantage point. This is due to the fact that the representational vantage point is determined by the perspectival projection of a three-dimensional scene on the two dimensional plane of a film and/or a screen. These perspectival projection patterns are fixed by the film record of the scene, and that is the reason why they do not depend upon the bodily position of the viewer's eyes. Representational vantage point is just a positional "slot" for observation of a represented scene imposed upon every and any actual viewer of the movie, no matter in which viewing position (e.g. where in the movie theatre) and in what geographical, historical and social situation he partakes the offered vantage point. The representational vantage point is therefore general (valid over variety of idiosyncratic viewing situation), it is equivalent for all the viewers (offering identical perceptual opportunities), and it is not personal (it is always the vantage point other then our own, and other then anybody's else in the movie theatre). Basically, the representational vantage point is interpersonally exchangeable, (interchangeable, cf. Schutz, Luckmann 1974:68), trans-ferable, transcentric.

Moreover, because such vantage point is not bound to the bodily placement of the actual movie viewer it is not restricted by the bodily position within the given life situation. Therefore, a multitude of highly diverse (often bodily "impossible") vantage point positions can be presented to the situationally immovable movie viewer, and also the same sequence of vantage point positions can be set for a variety of viewers. Again, all this contributes to the "objectified" sign character of a movie.

3. Further on, the conjoining of the vantage point and the scene within the life situation typically implies conjoining of the two kind of mutually dissociated "things": the body of the viewer and the rest of the "things" in the environment. But, in the cinematic representation there is a close projectional interdependence between the represented scene and the representational vantage point within the representation record. This interdependence is pre-set for any viewer of film by the film record. It is, therefore, dissociated from the body activity of the viewer; representational vantage point relation to the scene cannot be varied by the viewer's perceptual (body) action. The observation activity - i.e. the variation of the relation between a vantage point and a scene - is set in motion by the representational film texture. So, what is represented in cinema is also an integral observational activity, not just its two separate sides. To put it otherwise, cinematic representation actually objectifies the whole observational activity by making it transsituational (general) in regard to the actual viewing activity of an audience, by making it exchangeable, transferable, transcentric... in the same way the scene and the vantage point are.

But, there are also further, more far-reaching implications of the described phenomenon. Observational activity in a life situation implies three things to be cognitively solved: we have 1) to establish behaviourally relevant field of identification (field of reference; i.e. - "a situation", "a scene"); 2) to specify our position in the field (i.e. - "a vantage point", "station point"), and 3) to specify the possible activity relation between the vantage point and the scene.

Because the observation activity is determined by the structure of cinematic representation, the observation process appears as a structural thematic-rhematic relation, a topic-comment relationship between the identified scene (topic, theme) and the point of view aspects of the scene (comment, rheme) (cf. the concept of thematisation in: Turkovic 1992:78). In other word, it is the movie representation that picks up the scene for us - the film viewers, that picks up the vantage point in regard to it, and through a covariation of the two determines the observational action (and the observationally based type of scrutiny). And, due to the basic dissociations of the cinematic representation, the representationally "offered" thematisation modes are - in the already elaborated sense - general, transferable, transcentric in regard to any particular observational life situation of any and each viewer of the movie.

As far as the thematisation process is basically an interest based process, variation of thematisation modes within the cinematic representation entails a variation (modulation) of the interest implied by each given thematisation mode. And, as far as what is represented in a movie is not only an observational scenic item, nor merely a vantage point, but also interest based observation activities, the whole cognitive structure is latently entailed by the representation (i.e. not only perception based cognitions are entailed but also the interest bound motivation determinants, the emotional and attentional arousal, the attitudinal system, etc.).

Since representational thematisation variation does not depend upon the viewer, each viewer can be presented with a variety of cinematically offered thematisation interests within the basically single life situation (within single life thematisation process: the process of observational managing of a movie in a cinema theatre). And, also, the same representational thematisation interests can be offered to the viewers in the socially, geographically and historically different idiosyncratic situations.

Let us point out some important ontological and gnoseological implications of the above described dissociations and associations.

a) The generally adequate response to the represented scene is purely observational, cognitive one and not a bodily active one, not an interventional one. (This trait motivates the widespread conviction about the "disinterestedness" of the viewer's attitude to the work of art). E.g. it will change nothing in the represented scene if we shout for warning an endangered character in the movie, or if we jump in order to help him/her, or if we move in order to improve the vantage point accessibility of the scenic detail ... The only goal we will possibly achieve with our bodily intervention will eventually be the interruption of the projection of light on the screen and of the observational concentration of the rest of the audience.

b) Most of the relevant observational items of cinematic representation are texture based - derived from the systematic texture differences within the "film object" (film print and/or screened shaded light). The local, and easily observationally controllable, texture variations within the film record are generating complex observational (cognitive) differences in representation, i.e. the whole observational activity elicited by the movie representation. (This texture foundation of representation accounts for the felt obligation to speak about cinema as "medium"). Texturally caused differences in the movie representations are in principle much more observationally, i.e. cogni-tively accessible and manageable than the non-representational differences in life situations (cf. on analogous assertion concerning language medium, Brown 1968:374-375).

c) An important consequence of the above described characteristics of the cinematic representation is its cognitive autonomy. Namely, because of their observation regulative effect, the texture variations are able to elicit obser-vations (cognitions) of an autonomous nature. Autonomy is ensured, first of all, by the transsituational character of representation. By "trans-situational character" is meant that a movie, though always placed in some concrete environmental situation, is typically not uniquely bound to the situation - movie representation is not idiosyncratic to the given situation (e.g. to the particular theatre situation of viewing). Represen-tation inevitably referentially points to other situations than the given one (and, as pointed out above, this feature enable us to speak about cinema as a semiotic phenomenon). On the other hand, due to its textural entrenchment in the film print or projectional shaded light, the same movie can be transferred from one environment to the another without loosing its scenic (representational, mimetic) identity and maintaining its representational functionality over a multitude of concrete, otherwise idiosyncratic, situations. It is a long-term phenomenon.

In another sense, the autonomy is manifested in the possibility to generate - through variations in textural basis of observation - the cognitions which are uncommon or new to the extra-cinematic experience of the viewer. (This accounts for the common view on art as "imaginative" enterprise).

Transsituational character also implies transpersonal character; though representation is not "functional" without an observer (somebody viewing the film), it affords common observational conditions for every viewing person in any idiosyncratic bodily or spiritual state (as long as it is within the range of adequate observational functioning).

d) But, all listed features of cinematic representation are not "simply given", they are not purely accidental attributes of some casual environmental item - they are "produced", "intended", "planed" and "planted". Movie is an artefact, product, work of "art" (skill). And, it is a functional, instrumental artefact at that: it is planned in order to be normally put to a cognitive, epistemic use, it is "planted" into life situations to be of such use. Textural variations with their observational consequences are therefore - modelling (simulative) procedures; cinematic artefact is actually a model.

What is modelled are complex cognitive patterns. First, cinema representation is a model of the identificational pattern (observational identity of the world). Second, cinema representation is a model of the positional patterns of the world managing mind (it is therefore a model of observational activity in regard to the world). Third, cinema representation is a model of the interest patterns of world management (connected with the pattern of observational activity). And, fourth, cinema representation is, taken in its modelling entirety, a reflective (methodological, epistemological) model of the working of the mind.

Modelling, of course, does not imply just a (mimetic) reconstruction, but, among other things, also - analytically-synthetically directed exploration, enhancement, and prospective (innovative) elaboration. Actually, there is never a "mere mimesis" - any mimesis (even a replication) is a modelling of some kind, and therefore of an explorative potential.

e) Being transpersonal, cinematic model is a potent socialisation factor.

First, cinematically developed "cognitions", i.e. texturally developed cognitive models, are generally made available (typically in a public way, as an social offer) for a cognitive check by any viewing individual. They are artefactually objectified, (cf. Berger, Luckmann 1976:147).

Second, being objectified, they afford the testing of idiosyncrasies of involved cognitive performances. On the one hand, idiosyncratic ("subjective") cognitive "investment" of the model makers into the model can be observationally checked by them in an "objectified" manner, i.e. from the position of the viewer in regard to whom the cinematic representation is idiosyncratically unspecific (transsituational, autonomous). On the other hand, in as much as cinema is always a social offer, both representation's social validity, and its personal validity can be tested. Social validity of each model is checked (cf. the concept of "social testing" - Gombrich 1979:85) against reactions of other audience members on the one hand, and against recurrent structures which have survived throughout many publicly available films, proving their "social survival" value, on the other hand. These recurrent structures are manifested in generic determinants of "genre", "cinematic language" and "style" structures; in other words - in "tradition forms" of cinema discourse. Personal validity of each model is checked against the degree of idiosyncratic ("subjective", "personal") interest activation on the part of a viewer (i.e. according to the "entertainment value", "experience value", "emotional value", "aesthetic value" etc. of a given model for individual viewer).

Third, socially survived traditional forms are offered to be learned, "internalised" through the selective and socially regulated co-ordination of idiosyncratic (personal) experiential conditions on the one hand and the model exposure to a supple succession of cinematic models on the other (i.e. through a varied and extensive film viewing and filmmaking).

f) Finally, all this social modelling process is actually a communication enabling process, if we take "communication" to mean: "cognitively regulated social interaction" (or "socially regulated cognitive action").

Of course, one can always ask: Who is here communicating with whom? As in other communication phenomena, there is an offering party, communicators (filmmakers, film producers, theatrical service...). But, communicational exchange is not only between them and the public - there is a much more important exchange going on: among the audience members themselves. By taking the role of the audience member in regard to particular film, by "understanding" the film in generic (traditionally established) terms, an individual participates in a socially defined and publicly available event which is regulated through the epistemological impact of the cinematic representation. There-fore, the cinematic representation affords regulated communality of experiences for all audience members, and this is much more culturally important side of communicational exchange in cinema then the author-audience exchange.

In as much as it is regulative, epistemological modelling is a communicative modelling too: what is modelled are possible communicative modes. To put it in a nutshell, the disciplinary differentiation of cinema (on "feature films", "documentaries", "persuasion films", "educational" or "scientific" films etc.) can be seen as basically a specialised modelling elaboration (exploration) of the specific communicational, discoursive possibilities that are constitutional for a given culture.

Basic structure of cinematic representation is evidently very powerful; in it resides the ontogenetic impetus to the cultural rise of the film.

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