>I think Barthes' influence started around 1963. Even if Godard didn't read 
>Barthes' work himself, he did read criticism by his friends at Cahiers, who 
>were influenced by Barthes.

I always thought Barthes didn't come into vogue until after the
structuralists' star had faded.

>I think this is an interesting topic for a few reasons. About this time,
>after Rivette's _The Nun _ and before his _ L'Amour fou _, Rivette 
>was changing his approach to film-making. There might be interesting relations
>with his criticism. For example, Rivette wrote: 

>  Time was, in a so-called classical tradition of cinema, when the 
>  preparation of a film meant first of all finding a good story, developing
>  it, scripting it and writing dialogue; with all that done, you found
>  actors who suited the characters and then you shot it. This is something
>  I've done twice, with _Paris nous appartient _ and _The Nun_, and I
>  find the method totally unsatisfying, if only because it involves such
>  boredom. What I have tried since-- after many others, following the
>  precedents of Rouch, Godard and so on-- is to attempt to find, alone
>  or in company (I always set out from the desire to make a film with
>  particular actors), a generating principle which will then, as though
>  on its own (I stress the "as though"), develop in an autonomous manner
>  and engender a filmic product from which, afterwards, a film destined
>  eventually for screening to audiences can be cut, or rather "produced."

And then there is the Fritz Lang character in _Contempt_, whose
first words are "a film should have a definite point of view."

I always thought _Paris belongs to us_ is Rivette's best film, alongside
_Celine and Julie Go Boating_.  I have seen only 5 or 6 of his works:
_Up Down Fragile_, obviously a collaborative effort with the actors
(Laurence Cote got a screenwriter credit) is completely pointless to
me, even though I like Cote.  _Va Savoir_ is only slightly better.

But doesn't this Rivette exception (if it *is* an exception; a generating
principle is still a point of view, a "world view" of the film) proves
the point?  Most directors don't go to Rivette's (or Mike Leigh's)
collaborative length.  So doesn't this mean Rivette's critical method only
apply to a tiny fraction of cinema?  If so, how does he justify his
generalization  that "Bergman's films are something completely different
from Bergman's vision of the world, which interests no one"?

I tend to think of art as human, as something "like me."  If I see
a film that is interesting, I'd like to know what inspired the
director (or director in collaboration with actors/screenwriters/
cinematographers, as the case might be).  Is Rivette saying the
opposite, that art is fundamentally alien, like going to a zoo?  Most
people I know are fascinated by zoos and aquariums, and I'm not, so
maybe I'm the exception here.  Then again, most people I know don't
go to subtitled films, so I don't really know what to make of that.

>So, as with the comments on Bergman and Bunuel, there is an emphasis on
>how a film can develop "autonomously," without being dependent on a
>conventional narrative or pre-existing ideas, and this in turn suggests
>that the critic should concentrate on the actual experience of the film 
>and not try to reduce it to its narrative or to "the idea behind the film."

Isn't "a generating principle" (Rivette's words, or at least translation
thereof) precisely "an idea behind the film"?  I don't see why one has to
insist on a dichotomy here.  I don't know who it is that insists on a
conventional narrative; I certainly didn't.  One can certainly enjoy the
"actual experience of the film" without insisting it has no pre-existing ideas,
or ideas of any sort.  You can watch a film once for the narrative, once
for the techniques, another time for the acting, once again for its expressed
world view, etc.  Why do they have to be mutually exclusive?  The best films
marry form to content; their richness and multi-layered attractions are
*designed* to afford multiple viewings.

> I did notice this interesting quote from
>Noel Burch about _Persona_, pointing out the value of not interpreting 
>Bergman:

>   But 
>   would such an analysis bring us any nearer to the tangible reality 
>   of the scene? Surely, it would be better to experience this scene
>   as it develops, to feel the growing sense of apprehension in the
>   interminable waiting, which has such a powerful effect: The longer
>   it lasts, the stranger the characters' gestures appear to be, as 
>   this scene, which in the beginning was not at all intense because of
>   the very large space the shot takes in, becomes more and more fraught
>   with tension. And surely it would be better to simply experience
>   the pain of the cut that ultimately results, a wound in itself minor
>   and completely ignored by the characters yet that becomes as aggressively
>   shocking as a major mutilation because of the place it occupies in
>   the plastic and dramatic progression of the scene. We have already noted
>   how absurd it was to seek a political explanation for the scenes
>   from the Vietnam war that the sick woman sees on her television set.
>   The horror of the images and the woman's anguish as she sees them
>   must be _lived_. Interpreting them is tantamount to no longer seeing
>   them.

See my objection above.  I think that the best critics give you points of
view and interpretations that enriches the experience.  Burch seemingly
wants to critique films by subtraction, rendering them flat and sterile by
limiting the experience to a solitary, sanctioned way of seeing.  On top
of that, the above really doesn't make any sense to me.  Is it an exhortion
to lobotomize the audience, to shorten our attention span, so that we only
remember one scene (or one shot) at a time?  I hope I misinterpreted the
passage, but it sure sounds like that's what it is recommending.

>I'm also curious what Bergman thought, since in interviews at the time 
>he emphasized that the difference between life and art. He also emphasized
>his lack of interest in modernist art, how own included: "I find, and
>many another with me, the western more stimulating than an Antonioni or
>a Bergman." In an article in the March 1967 Cahiers du Cinema, Bergman
>writes:

>   That, and nothing but that, is my truth. I compel no one else to see
>   in it his truth, and, as consolation for eternity, it is obviously
>   rather meager. But as support for an artistic activity in the few
>   years to come, it is amply sufficient, at least for me.

That's the "Snakeskin" article, reproduced in the published screenplay
for _Persona_ and _Shame_ ... and translated slightly differently and
perhaps more transparently there:

	This and this only is my truth.  I don't ask that it should
	be true for anyone else ....

>In a way Bergman's own viewpoint is not so far from those of Rivette
>and Comolli. Bergman may be too humble, but he does not seem to think
>he is communicating novel or interesting ideas about the world, but instead 
>sharing his experience. 

My take is different.  To me, Bergman's statement, quoted twice above, cannot
be more diametrically opposed to what I think Rivette was doing.  Rivette
seemed to be claiming some general principle, some new, true, and only
way of watching flims, whose validity he appeared to claim for other
filmmakers ("Bergman's films are something completely different from Bergman's
vision of the world) and all audience ("which interests no one").

>Rivette and Comolli's comments seem too dismissive of 
>Bergman's intentions and control of his films, but on the other hand
>Robin Wood's comments seem to reduce Bergman's films to a message
>being delivered by Bergman.

Having never read Wood myself I can only quote verbatim your quote of
Hillier's quote of Wood:

"Bergman has never... shown any inclination to be avant-garde, and the
'advanced' aspects of _Persona_ were determined solely by the content:
they are not evidence of a desire for deliberate formal experiment,
but purely the expression of Bergman's sense of breakdown and disintegration."

I don't agree with the first three lines, but the last line sounds like
Wood is not that far from your position.  "Sense of breakdown and
disintegration" is a lot closer to an "experience" than a "message."
Again, I don't understand why you are insisting on a dichotomy here.

	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x

I'm sure Rivette, Comolli, and Barthes have useful insight to share
all of us about cinema (or a subsection of cinema anyway).  The
problem is, at least from reading your quotes, they do it in such an
obscure, didactic, arrogant, and absolutist way it is hard for me to
gain anything from them.  I've dealt with Rivette already; I don't
have anything to say about the Barthes paragraph because I honestly
don't have a clue what he is saying there.  As for Comolli's: the
argument from him strikes me as somewhat sloppy:

>"The film
>unfolds like a dream in progress, in itself a kind of dream, resisting a
>predetermined course, switching direction at will. Which gives credence to
>the idea of the film as an independent object, freed at last from the
>constraints of narrative and form which, powerlessly, its 'author' would
>wish to impose on it: the film as a living organism: a fabrication, of
>course, but also something which in a sense fabricates itself."

The passage seems to cancel itself.  If a film is a dream, it is *not*
an independent object.  It is inseparable from the dreamer and reflect/
his/her experience, albeit in strange ways.  A dream is *not* a living
organism, unless Comolli lives in the Dark Ages and believes in evil
spirits and such.  There also seems to be confusion about "author" and
"dreamer."  I am assuming that Comolli means that *watching* a film is
like having a dream.  So does "author" refers to the audience?  Or the
to filmmakers?  Neither interpretation seems to make sense.

I believe there is too much self-aggrandizing going on in academia.
If you write a rigorously argued paper, you get a pat on the head and
is soon forgotten.  If you start from minority, exceptional cases, and
weave a gross overgeneralization out of them, all of a sudden you are a
Star.  We should discourage such behavior and to stop the feeding frenzy
Therefore I think it is pointless to debate whether Barthes is absolutely
right or wrong, whether authors are dead and films are living organisms
which have wills and unconscousness.  The questions to ask should be:
what are the limitations of these theories?  When do they apply and when
do they fail?  To what proportion of films are they relevant?