Part Two: The Film Experience

Chapter I: Filmic Consciousness Faced with Its Object

We have tried to explain the major principles that should guide our under-
standing of the general phenomena of perception and identification. It has
thus become easier to broach the problems relating to the particular case
of the film experience.
We should rapidly recognize the path we are going to take. Film presents
itself above all as an object of perception and, as such, it is a structure, a
perceptual ‘gestalt.’ It is thus as a form, or a ‘gestalt’ that we will initially
envisage film. But we will not linger very long on this point because we
will soon perceive that film solicits a different attitude in our conscious-
ness than the pure perceptual attitude. We will see that, in order to clarify
this particular attitude, certain writers have made of the film experience
something situating itself midway between the real and the unreal. These
considerations, and others, will lead us to see filmic consciousness as a vari-
ation of the major category of consciousness that constitutes the imaginary
consciousness. This idea will constitute the guiding thread of our whole work.
We will attempt a description of the major aspects of the filmic attitude
conceived of as an imaginary attitude and, pushing this analysis further, we
will then try to explain the particular variations or modalities of this attitude.
In the end, on the basis of what this description will have taught us,
we will broach the problem of spectatorial behavior, or in other words, of
filmic identification.

I. The Film as an Object of Perception

Film is first presented as an object to be perceived. Thus, we can already

apply to the perception of film what we have said of perception in general.
In perception, as we have said, the object always presents itself as a
structure, a form, or a ‘gestalt.’ The same goes for film, which, as an object
to be perceived, presents itself first as a temporal form.
Film is not, in fact, merely a sum of elementary images placed in a tem-
poral contiguity. If we envisaged each image in particular, independently
of its context, we would perceive that these isolated images do not have the
same signification as when they are perceived inside a film. This is because
the meaning of an image always depends on those that precede it and those
that follow it – in a word, on its surroundings.
70  Jean-Pierre Meunier

The succession of images thus creates a new reality, irreducible to the

sum of the elements employed. This means that the construction of each
shot and the organization of shots into scenes, and of scenes into sequences,
creates a complex visual form.
A film, as Merleau-Ponty writes:

seems to be an extremely complex form inside of which a very great

number of actions and reactions are taking place at every moment.
The laws of this form, moreover, are yet to be discovered, having until
now only been sensed by the flair or tact of the director, who handles
cinematographic language as a man manipulates syntax…18

What is valid for images is equally valid for sound. The sounds and voices
that accompany a film are evidently not presented as a sum of elements more
or less independent of one another, but form a sonic ‘gestalt,’ a sonic totality
in which the elements draw their signification from their assemblage. In
the end, it is still necessary to consider that, inside a film, the visual form
and the sonic form are not simply juxtaposed but are composed to form an
even more complex ensemble.
Merleau-Ponty continues:

A sound film movie is not a silent film embellished with words and sounds
whose only function is to complete the cinematographic illusion. The bond
between sound and image is much closer, and the image is transformed
by the proximity of sound. This is readily apparent in the case of dubbed
films, where thin people are made to speak with the voices of fat people.
[…] And the union of sound and image occurs not only in each character
but in the film as a whole.19

The film, as an object to be perceived, thus appears as a structure, a complex

organization of visual and sonic elements which draw their signification
from the ensemble that they compose.
Hence, the deeds and the gestures perceived on the screen assume mean-
ing or signification through the contexture of the film. Each event, each
gesture or comportment, appears with a signification that comes to it, in
addition to its own signification, from the relations that it entertains with
everything that precedes and follows it.
But we should also point out that these significations are grasped from the
start. Here, we come back to one of the major characteristics of perception:
its immediacy. Perceiving, we noted at the beginning of this work, does
Part T wo: The Film Experience 71

not involve intelligently interpreting the world in order to reconstitute its

meaning. Rather, it has a presence alongside the objects of the world.
And yet, by giving us events and gestures, the cinema is essentially
addressed to this capacity for co-existing with things that is proper to
perception in general.
It may be that the cinema is equally addressed to reflection, but this can
only be a secondary aspect. As is the case with perception in general, the
reflection that necessitates taking one’s distance from the object can only
be carried out after this immediate apprehension of the meaning of things,
deeds, and gestures, which characterizes our first dealing with the filmic
world and with the world tout court.
Let us summarize what we have said. The film, as a perceptual object,
constitutes a ‘gestalt’ or a complex spatio-temporal structure in which
the elements draw their meaning from their internal organization. These
significations, which are significations of deeds and gestures, are initially
grasped without the aid of the intelligence.
Now, we must say that if f ilmic comprehension – or, rather, f ilmic
consciousness – borrows from perceptual consciousness its capacity
for co-existing with things, it is nonetheless differentiated from it by
many aspects. This is because the cinema is only a representation of the
world. It does not give us the world, but only images of the world. And
yet, if images of the real, like the real itself, offer themselves to us in the
same manner as our unmediated sensations, they nonetheless solicit a
different attitude.
Let us explain ourselves. Perceiving real behavior or perceiving repre-
sented behavior is, in both cases, grasping the meaning of this behavior. But
what changes from one case to another is our manner of considering this
behavior, of relating to it. In the case of visual representation, we know that
the behavior under consideration, despite presenting all the characteristics
of perception, is not physically present. Whence what we could provisionally
call a vague sentiment of mingling two different registers: the real and the
unreal. Whence also this behavioral difference when faced with an image or
with reality. Many writers have tried to describe this intermediary position,
specific to the cinema, between the real and the unreal.
Let us cite the titles of some very important articles in this respect: “Le
cinéma entre l’imagination et la réalité” (François Ricci),20 “L’impression
de réalité au cinéma” (Jean-Jacques Rinieri),21 “Le caractère de réalité des
projections cinématographiques” (Albert Michotte van den Berck).22
Some writers believed that they were able to specify the nature of the
real-unreal mixture on the basis of the objective characteristics of the
72  Jean-Pierre Meunier

image. The last article cited constitutes without doubt the most interesting
attempt in this direction.
In order to orient this analysis, we can take this article as a point of
departure.

II. Film, Real, and Unreal

Michotte begins with the following observation: the cinema gives a very
vivid impression of reality, and yet, the reactions of spectators are very
different from those of everyday life. They barely exceed the emotional
stage. Does this mean that there are two different types of reality? This
obliges us to distinguish between a belief in the reality of an object and
the intuitive character of reality.
He states that “the movement perceived is real, and yet we know that noth-
ing takes place on the screen apart from the rapid succession of immobile
images.” The conflict thus expressed is resolved, according to Michotte,
by the introduction of the concept of ‘illusion,’ which is dedicated to the
divorce between what we believe to be reality in itself and what merely
seems to be real.
As Michotte writes:

This is an important distinction for the psychologist because in general, the

reality of our beliefs rather than our intuition of the situation determines
how we act. The cinema is again characteristic here, since our general
attitude to film is that of a belief in unreality, despite the apparent reality
of represented events, and this probably goes some way to explaining the
difference in behavior just mentioned. But it would be wrong to imagine
that this explanation completely resolves the issue. On the contrary, the
psychological relation between belief and the impression of reality sets
up for the cinema, and indeed for the theater, extremely tricky problems
about which we know very little. For example, we must realize that the
attitude of belief in the non-reality of perceived objects, permanent though
it may potentially be, is neither constantly in operation nor ever able to
be suppressed entirely by the impression of reality. Audience reactions
to 3D cinema prove this when they are presented with a ball that looks as
if it has been thrown into the auditorium. Even in conventional cinema,
apparent reality cannot but impose itself in an absolute manner at certain
moments. There are probably numerous oscillations of this kind over the
course of a screening and what determines them should be investigated.23
Part T wo: The Film Experience 73

This way of posing the problem is doubtless remarkable in many respects,

even if, in our opinion, it is a little absurd to have apparent reality and a
conviction of unreality co-exist in our consciousness. We will soon see that
this mode of thinking likely derives from an effort to explain psychic realities
on the basis of objective realities external to the spectator. Whatever the case
may be, we will retain the following fundamental remarks for our reflection:

1. In real perception, there is a belief in the reality of the object, whereas

in filmic perception, there is the appearance of reality and, at least
potentially, the conviction of unreality;
2. Depending on whether there is belief or the impression of reality, our
comportment takes on a different allure.

We now see how Michotte explains what he calls the “psychological relation
between belief and the impression of reality.” In his view, the method consists
of “examining to what extent the laws known to govern perception allow
us to theorize an impression of reality, and how such an impression differs
from the one we assign to real things and events.”
We can see that Michotte places his investigation on the terrain of objec-
tive realities. These are relations between the systems of excitation specific
to everyday life and those governing filmic perception, which, according
to him, impose on consciousness the impressions of reality and unreality.
He begins by examining the divergences between the systems of ex-
citation envisaged. Let us briefly summarize them. Firstly, there are the
changes in the setting that intervene in the cinema and remove from the
perceived world the continuous character and phenomenal permanence
that it possesses in real perception. Subsequently, there is the difference in
the visual field: while the limits of the visual field in everyday life do not
belong to the objects perceived (we always have the impression that space
extends beyond what we can actually see), in the cinema, the visual field
finds itself considerably reduced: the portion of space it encloses appears
closed and strictly limited.
Analyzing the image in itself, we can observe that, as opposed to what
happens in the real perceptual field, where the objects that we see are
constituted by shadows, the realities that we project on the screen are
patches of light, with the darker parts considered from the physical point
of view as a sort of negative corresponding to the regions of the object that
do not excite the retina.
Finally, one last divergence is the fact that the perception of shapes and
sizes finds itself perceptibly altered in the cinema. The fact is that, due to
74  Jean-Pierre Meunier

its inability to reproduce the third dimension, the cinema does not entirely
respect the principle of size consistency.
All these perceptual anomalies are, for Michotte, so many determinations
of the impression of unreality. If it was necessary to focus on them alone,
the cinema would be nothing but a set of a data imposing themselves on
consciousness as unreal. But the film possesses other properties which,
according to Michotte, perceptibly bring filmic data close to real data.
First of all, cinematic projection ordinarily allows us to see perspectival
images. As Michotte explains:

The opposition between the moving figure and the still screen acts to
segregate and liberate the object from the plane it had been in. The object
somehow ‘substantializes’ itself and takes on an autonomous existence,
becoming a ‘physical thing.’

A second, powerful factor of reality is constituted by movement as such.

Finally, a third and final factor of reality would be the fact that the film,
almost always, induces emotional reactions. For Michotte:

One final aspect of the question should be considered. Watching a film

usually brings about numerous powerful emotional reactions in the
audience and these obviously possess an immanent character of reality.
[…] These emotions are intimately tied to what we see and above all to
its apparent reality because it is not generally the image of the character
which evokes our sympathy or admiration but rather what makes up their
real personality, as constructed from their physiognomy and behaviour.
Furthermore, there is empathy, that projection of our own emotions into
the characters on the stage or screen which is well known to psychologists
and aestheticians. Wouldn’t all of this bring about a kind of return shock,
a ‘circular’ process of reciprocal interaction, stronger than we might at
first imagine, one which would confer a veritable resurgence of reality
on people and the things they move around?

This last argument is differentiated from the others by the fact that it no
longer exactly concerns objective realities. The views that it expresses are
of a greater interest – this is, incidentally the reason for which we have
reproduced this passage in its entirety – but we do not understand why
Michotte introduced it into his reasoning. Emotion, in his view, is a tributary
of the impression of reality, itself determined by objective properties. It could
well be supposed that a circular process of emotion-empathy engenders
Part T wo: The Film Experience 75

a recrudescence of reality. But, in any case, in the final analysis, they are
the only objective properties which, in Michotte’s logic give the cinema its
attribute of reality.
In any case, this is what transpires in his conclusions: “Now,” he writes,
“cinematic experience appears to be a peculiar conjunction of the ‘real’
and the ‘artificial.’”
And what, for him, creates this ‘peculiar conjunction’ is none other than
the conflict between a determined perceptual organization and our acquired
experience, a conflict that is resolved through the impression of distance.
As he points out:

We think, in short, that the cinematic situation may be described as one

which makes us feel we are actually perceiving real beings and events,
but that this reality is more or less distorted, since it belongs to a world
which is psychologically speaking not exactly ours and from which we
feel, in spite of everything, rather distant.

Michotte’s analysis, as rich as it is in descriptive elements, nonetheless

strikes us as rather dissatisfying in the explanations he gives.
His argumentation contains certain weaknesses that are necessary to
analyze if we want to grasp the fundamentals of the film experience. First
of all, if, as Michotte thinks, the impression of reality is a direct tributary of
the relation between habitual perceptual elements and unusual perceptual
elements, then we need to take into account the fact that, as a general rule,
this relationship is rather constant. How can we thus explain these consider-
able variations of belief in reality which Michotte himself speaks about at the
beginning of his article, of which a striking example is given to us by certain
spectacular reactions during the very first film screenings? Indeed, if we are
to believe film historians, these first representations sometimes engendered,
among the spectators, manifest behavioral acts such as fleeing in terror.
Such behavior would be unthinkable today, and yet, the objective condi-
tions of the representation of the real have been considerably ameliorated.
We can understand these facts if we admit that there is, in filmic con-
sciousness, a certain knowledge: the spectators know that the reality unfold-
ing on the screen is merely represented to them. And yet, this knowledge,
well-structured today, was without doubt still ambiguous during the first
film screenings. For the first fans of the cinématographe, who still had little
familiarity with the screen, this knowledge was still too uncertain of itself
to be effectively maintained in the unreal images whose apparent reality
remained disarming for our minds.
76  Jean-Pierre Meunier

It could be objected that the knowledge of which we speak nonethe-

less stems from the objective conditions of representation, that it is the
perceptual anomalies that engender the awareness of a certain unreality
of the projected images. The schema proposed by Michotte would then
remain entirely valid.
We should first note, however, that Michotte never refers to knowledge.
He only mentions a conflict, and we are quite justified in thinking that this
conflict is only exercised on the simple level of impressions. Consequently,
is it certain that perceptual anomalies are the cause of the sentiment of
unreality? If this were the case, many things would appear unreal to us.
Let us take an example. Let us suppose a subject who is suddenly placed
before an unpolished, misshapen pane of glass, behind which people move
about. It is certain that the people perceived would appear to our subject as
bizarre, because they would be particularly misshapen. But it would be no
less true that they would remain just as real as they would be if they were
seen in normal conditions.
Of course, our subject could, if they so desired, posit that these strange
forms had come from some outlandish world. But this would necessitate an
attitude of consciousness, an intention to interpret the shapes in question,
since, in any case, the observing subject knows that they are real individuals
actually existing in the real world.
Let us take another example, borrowed, this time, from the world of
cinema. It happens that, during a film, in the middle of a succession of events
unfolding in an apparently real world, a sequence appears to be thoroughly
unreal. This is the case with sequences intended to represent the dreams
(or daydreams) of characters in the film. It is also the case with animation
films and films with fantastic settings.
How can we account for the two examples mentioned in the framework
of Michotte’s theory?
On the one hand, we have a very deformed vision, but posited as real
without any equivocation, and on the other hand, we have a vision of an
unreal world detaching itself from a world that is, in theory, midway between
the real and unreal.
Can we still, after examining these two examples, affirm that what
has been filmically perceived draws a certain unreal character from the
objective deformations to which the representation of reality subjects it?
Such difficulties posed by Michotte’s theory are surmounted if we make a
distinction between unreality and absence. Unreality is what consciousness
poses as being incapable of existence. Hence, the film experience, when
the film limits itself to representing lifelike events, would not be capable
Part T wo: The Film Experience 77

of inducing an impression of unreality. By contrast, when the content of the

film has, as its object, dreams or unrealistic events, the filmic consciousness
evidently becomes an awareness of something unreal.
We can see that the qualities of the real and the unreal essentially depend
on the manner in which we are given the content of the filmic representa-
tions, and bear no relation to the objective conditions of perception. There
are some kinds of filmic content that solicit our consciousness to take them
for reality, and others to take them for unreality, and the deformations of
the perceived world are not responsible for any impression of unreality.
Let us now envisage the notions of absence and presence, and resurrect
the example of perception through an unpolished, misshapen plane of
glass. What radically distinguishes this example from the film experience
is the fact that, although it is considerably deformed, the reality observed
through the glass remains actually present.
The cinema, by contrast, only gives a reality that we know to be absent,
or existing elsewhere, or not existing at all.
We touch, here, on a fundamental phenomenon. We can now see to
what the knowledge we have just discussed refers. It is not, in the end, the
knowledge of a certain unreality of the perceived world that is in question,
but the knowledge possessed by the filmic consciousness that the reality
it perceives, even though it has all the appearances of actual reality, is not
present in its bodily physicality.
We can also see from where this impression of ‘psychic distance’ spoken of
by Michotte stems. It cannot only be the consequence of a supposed mixture of
the real and the artificial, since it is included in the filmic consciousness. The
filmic consciousness indeed gives its object as not being there. So what would
be so astonishing about the spectator feeling distant from the filmic world?
In fact, it now appears that Michotte has committed a double error.
Firstly, by bringing together the impression of unreality and objective
data, he ignores the fact that, in the final analysis, reality and unreality,
absence and presence, essentially derive from knowledge, from a position
of consciousness. Subsequently, he makes no distinction between unreality
and absence.
Until now, we have been able to keep separate an essential aspect of filmic
consciousness: it is a relationship with the world, but a world that is not
present. Furthermore, this absence emerges from a position of consciousness.
And yet, the absence of the perceived world constitutes one of the essential
characteristics of the imaging consciousness, such as it is described by
Jean-Paul Sartre in The Imaginary.24 Thus, in order to discover more about
the filmic consciousness, we must now try to situate our problematic in
78  Jean-Pierre Meunier

the general framework of the theory of the imaginary, such as it has been
developed by the French philosopher.

III. The Imaginary Consciousness

Let us begin by offering a brief summary of Sartre’s thinking. A quick

overview of his reflections will help us to better pose our problems.
Reflecting on the imaginary consciousness, Sartre observes this supremely
important fact: in all cases in which the imaging function of consciousness
is active, it renders present an object that we know is not there. He writes:

The image is an act that aims in its corporeality at an absent or nonexistent

object, through a physical or psychic content that is given not as itself
but in the capacity of ‘analogical representative’ of the object aimed at.25

This phrase undoubtedly calls for some commentary.

With regard to the object targeted by the imaging consciousness, we can
cite this interesting passage from The Imaginary:

To produce in me the image consciousness of Pierre is to make an inten-

tional synthesis that gathers in itself a host of past moments, which assert
the identity of Pierre across these diverse appearances and which give this
same object under a certain aspect (in profile, in three-quarters, full size,
head and shoulders, etc.) This aspect is necessarily an intuitive aspect:
what my present intention aims at is Pierre in his corporeality, the Pierre
that I can see, touch, hear, were I to see him, touch him, hear him. It is a
body that is necessarily at a certain distance from mine, necessarily in
a certain position in relation to me. Only, the Pierre that I could touch I
posit at present as not being touched by me. My image of him is a certain
manner of not touching him, not seeing him, a way he has of not being
at such a distance, in such a position. The belief, in the image, posits
the intuition, but does not posit Pierre. The characteristic of Pierre is
not to be non-intuitive, as one might be tempted to believe, but to be
‘intuitive-absent,’ given as absent to intuition. In this sense, one can say
that the image has wrapped within it a certain nothingness. Its object
is not a simple portrait, it asserts itself: but in asserting itself it destroys
itself. However lively, appealing, strong the image, it gives its object as
not being. This does not preclude our then reacting to this image as if its
object were present, before us: we will see that it can happen that we try,
with all our being, to react to an image as if it were a perception. But the
Part T wo: The Film Experience 79

ambiguous and false state at which we thus arrive only throws into relief
what has just been said: in vain we seek by our conduct towards the object
to give rise to the belief that it really exists; we can ignore for a second,
but cannot destroy the immediate consciousness of its nothingness.26

In any case, the imaging consciousness posits its object as not being present
in its bodily physicality. But this ‘positional act’ of consciousness, as Sartre
calls it, can take, in his view, four different forms.

The act can take four and only four forms: it can posit the object as
nonexistent, or as absent, or as existing elsewhere; it can also ‘neutralize’
itself, which is to say not posit its object as existent. Two of these acts are
negations; the fourth corresponds to a suspension or neutralization of the
thesis. The third, which is positive, assumes an implicit negation of the
natural and present existence of the object. These positional acts – this
remark is crucial – are not superimposed on the image after it is consti-
tuted: the positional act is constitutive of the image consciousness…27

That is to say, the imaging consciousness includes, within its constitutive

targeting of the imaginary object, the modality of existence according to
which it is given as an object. This also implies that this modality of existence
only depends on the imaging intention and not on the object imagined.
We could, for example, neutralize the thesis – that is, not posit anything
concerning the existence of the object – with respect to the image of a dragon
or even view this dragon as being existent. Childhood consciousness, for
example, views as existent beings (such as Father Christmas) which adult
consciousness normally considers to be nonexistent.
But, if the imaging consciousness has as its essential and constant
characteristic a positing of its object as not being present, there are other
characteristics that can be modified and even disappear according to the
objective matter on the basis of which the imaging function is exercised. In
the case of the pure mental image – that is to say, when there is no material
basis, beyond the fact that consciousness gives its object as non-present – it
also appears as a creative spontaneity.
Let us return to Sartre:

A perceptual consciousness appears to itself as passive. On the other hand,

an imaging consciousness gives itself to itself as an imaging consciousness,
which is to say as a spontaneity that produces and conserves the object
as imaged.28
80  Jean-Pierre Meunier

Finally, we must still consider that, contrary to what takes place in percep-
tion, where we can observe and apprehend the object, in the mental image,
the object is given en bloc, it is entirely determined, and nothing can let us
know more about its nature.
Indeed, there is no sense in trying to enumerate the elements of an
imaginary image. An image of this kind is what it is. We do not apprehend
it – we constitute it.
As Sartre writes:

In a word, the object of perception constantly overflows consciousness;

the object of an image is never anything more than the consciousness
one has of it; it is defined by that consciousness: one can never learn from
an image what one does not know already.29

In the intention produced by the absent or nonexistent object, there is a

certain knowledge that is indissolubly linked with it, and which focuses on
the determinations of the object.
In the case of the image that has a material existence, we can none-
theless note certain variations concerning the knowledge of the imaging
consciousness.
Between the pure mental image and the portrait, the objective matter
of the image is far richer and, correlatively, the knowledge about the object
targeted evidently plays a less and less important role. Indeed, while in the
case of the pure mental image, or in the case of the image created through a
schematic drawing, or even more so in the case of the image created through
an imitation, there is nothing in the image above and beyond what we put
into it (the image is entirely penetrated with the knowledge we have of it), in
the case of the portrait, for example, or the photograph, the rich, even perfect
nature of the material basis of the image, its quasi-perfect resemblance
with the intended object, does not solicit the intervention of knowledge to
the same degree. Furthermore, we must also note that the portrait or the
photograph can equally be an object of perceptual consciousness or of an
imaginary consciousness.

The matter of a portrait is a quasi-face. No doubt it is first of all a neutral

element that could just as well function as support for a perceptual
consciousness as for an imaging consciousness. But this indifference is
mainly theoretical. In fact, the spontaneity of consciousness is strongly
solicited: these forms, these colors, strongly organized, almost impose
themselves as an image of Pierre. If it takes my fancy to perceive them,
Part T wo: The Film Experience 81

they resist. A picture spontaneously offers itself in relief to the imag-

ing consciousness, and the perceptual consciousness would have great
diff iculty seeing it as flat. This quasi-face, moreover, is accessible to
observation: of course, I do not refer the new qualities that I see there to
the object that I have before my eyes, to this painted canvas. I project them
far beyond the picture, to the real Pierre. As a result, each judgment that
I make is given as probable (whereas in genuine observation judgments
are certain). When I say “Pierre has blue eyes,” I imply: “At least, if the
picture represents him faithfully.”

The matter of my image is a strictly individual object: this painting is

unique in time and space. It should be added to this that the features of the
quasi-face also have this inalienable individuality: that quasi-smile is the
same as no other. However, this individuality appears only to perceptual
consciousness. In passing from perception to image, the matter acquires
a certain generality. We say: “Yes, it is just as he smiles,” implying that the
smile represents a mass of Pierre’s individual smiles. We apprehend the
different qualities of the matter as representatives that are valid for each
of a mass of qualities that appear and disappear on Pierre: this pink color
becomes the pink of his cheeks; this green gleam is the green of his eyes.
What we seek through the picture is not Pierre such as he could have
appeared to us the day before yesterday or on such-and-such a day of
last year: it is Pierre in general, a prototype that acts as a thematic unity
of all the individual appearances of Pierre.30

Let us summarize. In the pure mental image where objective matter is

lacking, the knowledge that we have of the intended object is alone respon-
sible for the determinations of the object. Here, we have what Sartre calls
the phenomenon of quasi-observation: we observe the mental image, but
this observation teaches us nothing. In the case of the portrait, wherein
the objective matter possesses an almost perfect resemblance with the
intended object, such knowledge barely intervenes at all. Furthermore, the
matter of the portrait can, at least theoretically, be the object of a perceptual
consciousness or an imaging consciousness. In the end, the portrait is offered
as a quasi-person accessible to observation.
It goes without saying that the elements that we have just recalled
will be extremely useful for our own analysis. There is, however, one
point that we would like to deepen, a point that has little importance in
Sartre’s theory, but which will have great signif icance on the problems
occupying us.
82  Jean-Pierre Meunier

Regarding the portrait, Sartre’s examples almost always related to an

image representing an absent object, or an object existing elsewhere, but
still having been the object of a pre-existing perception. The ‘Pierre’ of the
portrait constitutes a concrete, known being for Sartre. With this in mind,
Sartre passes quite rapidly over the phase preceding the appearance of the
intention that constitutes matter into an image. He even seems to indicate
that the observation of the quasi-face is still on the side of the perception
(‘seems,’ that is, because at other moments the observation of the face
constitutes an imaging consciousness for Sartre.)
Let us read these lines:

The matter of our image, when we look at a portrait, is not only that tangle
of lines and colors that I just called it in the interest of simplicity. It is,
actually, a quasi-person, with a quasi-face, etc. At the museum in Rouen,
suddenly entering an unfamiliar room, I happened to take the people in
a large picture for actual men. The illusion was of very short duration – a
quarter of a second, perhaps – it remains nonetheless that I did not have,
during this negligible lapse of time, an imaged consciousness, but on
the contrary, a perceptual consciousness. […] It is the case that, in the
picture, there is the appearance of a man. If I approach it, the illusion
disappears, but the cause of the illusion persists: the picture, made to
resemble a human being, acts on me as would a man, whatever attitude
of consciousness I took towards it in other respects. […] The composure
of this figure moves me directly whatever interpretation I may give it.
In brief, these elements in themselves are neutral; they can enter into a
synthesis of imagination or of perception. But although they are neutral,
they are expressive. […] The person in the painting solicits me gently to
take him for a man. […]

The portrait acts upon us – almost – like Pierre in person and, because
of this fact, it solicits us to make the perceptual synthesis: Pierre of flesh
and blood.

Presently my intention appears; I say: “This is the portrait of Pierre” or,

more briefly: “This is Pierre.” Then the portrait ceases to be an object, it
functions as matter for an image. This invitation to perceive Pierre has
not disappeared, but has entered into the imagined synthesis.31

We can see the difficulty that these lines contain. On the one hand, Sartre
underscores the manifest difference between the appearance of a present
Part T wo: The Film Experience 83

object and the appearance of a quasi-face (the illusion was shortly lived…)
and seems to indicate that this difference is that between perception
and the imaginary (“I did not have, during this minute lapse of time, an
imaged consciousness, but on the contrary, perceptual consciousness”).
On the other hand, he suggests, at least implicitly, that the observation
of the quasi-face remains on the side of normal perception by waiting for
an intention to appear and be directed towards something other than
the quasi-face, towards, that is, the real person. “Presently my intention
appears… Then the portrait ceases to be an object, it functions as matter
for an image.”
Let us note here that criticizing Sartre’s theory does not enter into our
project. Doubtless, the difficulty that we raise is only a minor difficulty.
But, by noting it and by trying to resolve it, we simply hope to be able to
extract certain elements conducive to advancing our comprehension of
our own problems.
How can we resolve this difficulty? Let us first interrogate its cause. It
does seem that the ambiguity on which rests the perception of the quasi-
face derives from the fact that the example introduced by Sartre concerns
the case in which the intention targets an already perceived object. The
Pierre of the portrait is known elsewhere, and from the moment when
the intention appears, it is brought towards someone whose existence is
situated elsewhere. The matter of the portrait and the quasi-face then totally
disappear from the background of the object targeted, of the true Pierre
existing elsewhere, and are shifted, so to speak, to the side of perception.
And yet, if it is correct that the objective matter (forms, colors, etc.)
of the portrait is indisputably situated on the specific terrain of normal
perception, the apprehension of the quasi-face contains an element that
radically differentiates it from perception, and which leads us to place it
on the side of the imaginary, of non-presence.
Let us take an example. I have before me a photograph of a person I do
not know, who I have never seen and, thus, who has never been the object of
my perception. The person represented thus appears to me as a quasi-person
with a quasi-face; he solicits me to take him for a real person, and I can
observe him at leisure, as I would do of a true person, but the fact remains
that I cannot see him, at any moment, as being present. There is, in the
apprehension of the quasi-face of a photograph or a portrait, a positing of
absence. The portrait or the photograph may well be lifelike and expressive,
but I know that the person is merely represented, and I posit him as being
non-present. It is simply that there is no positing of his existence, or, rather,
there is a neutralization of the thesis as to his existence.
84  Jean-Pierre Meunier

Let us cite a passage from The Imaginary illustrating a case in which

there is no positing of an existence:

If I look at the photos in a magazine, they can very well ‘say nothing
to me,’ which is to say I look at them without positing their existence.
Thus, the people whose photographs I see are indeed reached through
these photographs, but without my positing their existence, just as the
Knight and Death are reached through Dürer’s engraving, but without
my positing them.32

We could also cite these lines from Husserl:

Let us suppose that we are observing Dürer’s engraving, “The Knight,

Death and the Devil.”

We distinguish here in the first place the normal perception of which

the correlate is the ‘engraved print’ as a thing, this print in the portfolio.

We distinguish in the second place the perceptive consciousness within

which in the black lines of the picture there appear to us the small colorless
figures, ‘knight on horseback,’ ‘death,’ and ‘devil.’ In aesthetic observation
we do not consider these as the objects [Objekten]; we have our attention
fixed on what is portrayed ‘in the picture,’ more precisely, on the ‘depicted’
realities, the knight of flesh and blood, and so forth. […] This depicting
picture-object stands before us neither as being nor as non-being, nor in
any other positional modality; rather, we are aware of it as having its being,
though only a quasi-being, in the neutrality-modification of Being.33

In short, to ‘have’ a quasi-person or a quasi-face indeed amounts to having an

imagined consciousness, but one in which there is no positing of existence,
and thus one in which the existential thesis is neutralized.
Now, it also seems that it is not enough to say that the observation of
the quasi-face does not bear a positing of existence in order to exhaust its
characteristics.
Rather, it must also be added that, in the case of the consciousness of the
portrait, the neutralization of the thesis (that is, the absence of a positing of
existence) is often conducted by an undecided consciousness, which has still
not clearly established the existence of its object – or, in other words, of an
imaging consciousness which has just emerged and still remains unfinished.
The correlative of such a consciousness can only be a quasi-being.
Part T wo: The Film Experience 85

Or, to take another example: at the very moment in which a portrait ap-
pears to me (let us suppose it is life-sized in order to facilitate understanding),
the person represented still finds himself at the edge of perception. He is
almost a present person, and solicits our consciousness to make a perceptual
synthesis. However, this absence is already included in the consciousness of
the portrait and prevents it from being realized in the domain of perception.
In short, we are in the presence of a form of consciousness that is still uncer-
tain, an undecided attitude of consciousness floating between perception
and the imaginary. On the one hand, although the quasi-face first appears
absent, its resemblance with a face is such that I have a tendency to take it
for a real, present face, presenting itself in a singular and unique attitude.
On the other hand, through its very absence, I have a tendency to take it
as the matter of the image – that is, to target, through the portrait, a being
existing elsewhere (or not existing at all), but which, due to this positing
of its existence, would gain in generality, since each trait observed in the
quasi-face is no longer valid for what it is in itself, but refers to a quantity of
the traits of the person depicted in the portrait or the photograph.
We can now return to and clarify the genesis of the consciousness of
the portrait.
In the first place, the portrait can be the object of a perceptual conscious-
ness as much as of an imaging consciousness. We can, indeed, observe the
colors and forms by themselves.
But the portrait, through its resemblance with a human face, barely
permits the perceptual consciousness to be realized. In fact, we are im-
mediately solicited to consider the person and the face, rather than the
portrait as an object. At this stage, we have before us a quasi-person with
a quasi-face. Resemblance can be such that we have a tendency to take the
portrait for a real person.
The gaze of a portrait can sometimes be so lively that it happens that,
at least for a brief instant, we have the sensation of being seen by a person
in flesh and blood. And yet, in spite of the apparent reality of the object,
there has already been a negation of the presence of the person. There is a
quasi-person, that is, a quasi-presence, but we already vaguely know that
this quasi-person is not there. At this point, the attitude of consciousness
is still rather undecided. On the one hand, consciousness is already in the
imaginary, in that it posits the non-presence of the object, and on the other
hand, it remains on the side of perception through the tendency it has to take
the portrait for a real person, quasi-present and fixed in a singular attitude.
But this relative instability of consciousness does not last for long. The
awareness of the portrait as a portrait is soon made more explicit. The
86  Jean-Pierre Meunier

imaging intention appears more clearly and we tell ourselves: “that is a

portrait.” Thus, the portrait ceases to be ambiguous. Consciousness resolutely
slides into the imaginary, and clearly poses its object as not being there.
This does not mean, however, that there is already a positing of existence.
We know that a person existing beyond the painting is depicted, but we
cannot posit anything about his existence.
In other words, the person is indeed targeted by the portrait, but without
any positing of his existence from our part. It even happens that we let
ourselves fall into the trap of resemblance, that we almost enjoy believing
in the presence of the person. In any case, we still aim at nothing other than
the singular aspect or the unique attitude that the person in the portrait
presents. In short, at this moment, what we see in the portrait is not a
person-in-general, but a fixed person with a particular attitude.
Now, should someone tell us that it is a portrait of such-and-such a person
(a parent, perhaps), then there is a positing of existence. We posit the person
as existing, or having existed, elsewhere.
Thus, consciousness ceases to adhere to the object in its singularity. The
qualities perceived are projected beyond the painting, onto the real person
of whose existence we are assured. We target a person-in-general, since
each quality perceived in the portrait is valid for a quantity of others that we
presume have appeared on the face of the person. We then say that the person
has a friendly smile, or that he possesses a severe gaze, wishing to designate
by this a smile in general or a gaze in general. But we must remark here that
everything that we can say of the person-in-general, consists of presumptions
on our part. Each individual trait of the portrait refers to a trait in general by the
intervention of a sort of hypothesis on our part. It is actually given to us to see a
unique attitude of the person in the portrait, and if the imaging consciousness
is generalizing, it nonetheless remains connected only to the characteristics
of the portrait, which remains in the foreground of our attention.
If, on the contrary, we find ourselves faced with the portrait of a person
we know, then there is no presumption of a person-in-general, but rather
recognition.
Our attention extends well beyond the portrait, to the multiple charac-
teristics perceived in the real person.
Everything that we have known about the person flows from the face of
the portrait whose singularity fades in favor of the generalities that become
the center of our attention.
This final analysis of the consciousness of the portrait appears of interest
due to the fact that the portrait, and the photograph, doubtless constitutes
the matter of the image closest to the cinematic image.
Part T wo: The Film Experience 87

It is on this cinematic image that our attention will now be focused. It

is now for us to ask how the imaging function is exercised in the specific
case of the cinematic image. In other words, we must extract the specific
structure of the filmic consciousness, with respect to all the other types of
the imaging consciousness.

IV. The Attitudes of Filmic Consciousness Faced with Its Object

In the f irst place, we can already aff irm, recalling what we said about
Michotte’s descriptions, that filmic consciousness possesses at least one
characteristic shared with all the other forms of the imaging consciousness:
it posits its object as not being there. In other words, we know that filmic
reality is not physically present and we posit it as such.
Once this point has been ascertained, we need to interrogate the different
functions of the cinematic image, or, alternatively, the internal modifications
of filmic consciousness.
Let us note that, for reasons which will come to light in the rest of this
study, we will follow a procedure that is the inverse of that followed for the
analysis of the consciousness of the portrait. We will begin with a case in
which the object is existent and known (the home movie [ film-souvenir])34
in order to head towards the study of a case in which the object is unknown
and non-existent (a fiction film) by passing through the intermediary case,
in which the object is existent but unknown (a documentary film).

a) The Home Movie

It can happen that the cinema, like the portrait, offers to my vision images
relating to a person who is known but absent or existing elsewhere. We can
immediately see that this particular case of cinematic projection supposes
a conscious attitude very different to that which engenders the fiction film.
Let us take an example: I want to recall the face or the whole physiognomy
of a person I know. In order to do this, I can produce a mental image of this
person, but I will only ever reach an imperfect representation. I can also
take a photograph or a portrait of this person, and then I will find all the
face’s details. Photography, as we have seen, functions as an analogical
representation of the absent person. But it lacks life. It gives all the charac-
teristics of the face, but remains incapable of rendering expressions, looks,
and familiar gestures which have been seen countless times on the person
in question. If I desire to rediscover these known gestures, I can then, if
I am an amateur filmmaker, project a film that represents the person in
88  Jean-Pierre Meunier

question, if they have been filmed on a certain occasion. The cinematic

image, more than the portrait or the photograph, restores life. This time, I
really do find the person.
In the three cases that we have evoked, the intention remains identical:
every time, I render present to myself a person I know who is not there. In
all three cases, there is a positing of existence. The person who I seek to
render present to myself is posited as existing, or having existed, elsewhere.
In all three cases, too, the goal is to find a person-in-general.
Thus, the matter of the home movie, like that of the portrait, acquires a
certain generality. As for each of the gestures that I see on the screen, I do not
apprehend them in their own individuality, but as representations of multiple
gestures in reality. It matters little whether the person represented carries
out a given particular activity. The activity in itself is of no interest. What
interests me is to find, through the manner in which this particular activity
is accomplished, a more general mode of behavior, repeatedly perceived in
the absent person.
In short, what I seek to render present to myself is the person-in-general,
such as I knew him in the multiple real perceptions that I have had of him.
Thus, as in the case where I gave myself a known person through a portrait,
our attention carries well beyond the cinematic image. The person-in-
general, who is known in real perception, is the center of our attention. We
can also say that, in the case of the home movie, the cinematic image truly
plays the role of medium. It serves as an intermediary between the reality
perceived and my current consciousness of this reality.
With the characteristics that we have just enumerated, we must still add
that the consciousness of the home movie appears as a constitutive activity:
it looks beyond the image, to the person-in-general that it depicts, in order
to produce and maintain his existence even during the screening.
If this activity ceases, the person sought after gives way to an anonymous
character on the screen carrying out equally anonymous and singular
gestures, since they no longer refer to any general comportment.
Let us summarize. In the case of the home movie, there is, on the part
of consciousness, a positing of existence, a generalization of the matter of
the image that refers to a person-in-general, who constitutes the locus of
our attention, and, finally, the creative activity.

b) The Documentary Film

We can now envisage the case of the documentary film, a case similar to the
home movie in that it seeks to render present objects and people existing
Part T wo: The Film Experience 89

or having existed elsewhere, but which is nonetheless differentiated from

the home movie due to the fact that (at least theoretically) the objects and
people represented are not the object of any real perception.
Included in this category of f ilms are biographical f ilms – that is,
documentaries on people. But fictionalized representations of the lives of
historical celebrities (for instance, most films treating the Napoleonic era)
are eliminated. These are hybrid productions halfway between fiction and
reality, between myth and historical truth.
In order to facilitate our analysis, we will begin with a rather pure case
of modest films – generally short or mid-length films – seeking to render,
as faithfully as possible, individuals who are relatively little known to the
public, or even completely unknown.
Cinéma-verité offers us some specimens of this type of film. We will
find others still in certain works of new Canadian cinema (Lonely Boy, for
example).35
What takes place in these specific cases? As with the home movie, there
is, of course, a positing of existence. We know that the person proposed by
the film exists, or has existed, elsewhere, and we posit him as such.
As with the home movie, there is a certain generalization of the matter
of the image. In other words, through the specific attitudes and comport-
ments of the individual presented by the film, it is the general attitudes
and comportments that the spectator considers, with the goal of rendering
present the person-in-general who is the object of the film, and whom we
know to exist elsewhere.
In the film Lonely Boy, for example, a film which seeks to give an overview
of the life of the young Canadian singer Paul Anka, the behavior of the
singer in question is not generally apprehended in its individuality, but
as representative of a quantity of other types of behavior referring to the
general comportment of the singer-in-general.
We should also note that in this type of film, the director usually chooses
the most typical fragments of behavior, which are supposed to be the most
representative of the mode of behavior of the filmed person.
Until now, the biographical film has not appeared any different from the
home movie. In both cases, there is a positing of existence and the targeting
of an object-in-general. For this reason, in both cases, there is a constitutive
activity on the part of consciousness.
But we should also note that in this type of document, contrary to what
occurs in the home movie, the knowledge about the person-in-general is
contemporary to the viewing of the film. In the home movie, the image
functions as a representative of a sum of real perceptions, which, in each of
90  Jean-Pierre Meunier

the specific appearances, flowed out of the person depicted. Thus, we have
been able to say that our attention was focused on these real perceptions.
The image, in other words, slid to the background of our attention and lost
all singularity. Here, the process is quite different. We have not had any
real perception of the character represented. We only have a vague idea of
the character or no idea at all. Thus, if the perceived comportments gain in
generality, or better, if they essentially serve as a representative for a general
comportment, then it must be said that this generality is only acquired
through a hypothesis or a series of presumptions whose point of departure
can only be the particular behavior relayed by the film. No prior perception
can precede the current filmic image, and this remains the center of attention.
We can illustrate this last affirmation by a new example.
With the goal of rendering present to myself a person who is a friend
of mine, I have projected a home movie onto the screen. The first images
present this person to me taking a cigarette and lighting it up. I perceive
this unique gesture, but soon I also see something else: a familiar gesture
that has really been perceived on the multiple occasions on which I have
seen this friend light a cigarette. Or rather, the gesture in itself loses all
signification, and I only retain fragments of particularly representative
gestures of a general behavioral style that I have had the opportunity to
perceive when faced with the multiple and diverse actions made by my
friend. The cinematic image is filled with earlier perceptions. Its effective
content ceases to be apprehended for itself. It is dissolved, so to speak, in
the multiple real perceptions which it calls to my mind, and which flow
into the structural elements of the behavior presently perceived. It is not
my friend lighting a cigarette that I see, but my friend-in-general, such
as he appeared to me through the multiple gestures of his which I have
perceived, and which constitute the focus of my current attention. Now,
let us suppose that another person watches this home movie at the same
time as me. As he does not know my friend, this person finds himself in the
same condition as the spectators of a documentary or biographical film. I
tell him that the person on the screen is one of my friends. At this point, for
this casual viewer, the individual on the screen is posited as existent. What
is more, there is a search, by both him and by myself, for a being-in-general,
and the matter of the image acquires a certain generality. But, for the other
viewer, the cinematic image constitutes the only point of reference for this
search for the person-in-general. Through the representation of my friend
lighting his cigarette, this viewer aims for a structure of the entirety of his
comportment, but this structure is simply presumed, and his attention
continues to adhere to the cinematic image in its singularity. Whereas for
Part T wo: The Film Experience 91

me, there is a certain knowledge about my friend, which constitutes the

pole of attention, and which flows into the image, for the casual viewer,
there is the trace outline of a general knowledge about the film character
on the basis of the particular characteristics of the images, which remain
at the center of attention.
We can see, by passing from the home movie to the biographical film,
that the cinematic image gains in autonomy with respect to the level of
real perception. It further polarizes our attention, but nonetheless remains
situated (as an intermediary) with respect to an unknown reality, posited
as existing elsewhere.
Let it be noted that what we have just said applies to the documentary in
general. It suffices to replace the film character by a group of individuals.
The majority of documentaries indeed seek to take stock of the activities
or the history of a defined social group (a working group, a sports group,
etc.), or of a collectivity. In these cases, as in the biographical film depicting
a single individual, there is a positing of existence (we pose the group as
existing, or having existed, elsewhere), a generalization of the matter of
the image (the group-in-general, its general style of activity, is targeted), a
constitutive activity and a fixing of the attention on the image as a point
of departure for the trace outline of a general knowledge.
We can now move on to a study of fiction film. As we will see, this last
category of film (the largest) solicits, on the part of consciousness, a different
attitude, in many aspects, from that which it adopts with respect to the
home movie or the biographical film.

c) The Fiction Film

Let us envisage the case of the film relating an invented story – this case is all
the more important in that it concerns the majority of film production – and
refer once again to the same experiment.
This time, the images do not refer to anything existing. The characters
who perform the action are indeed attained – it is perfectly evident that
it is not the image in its objective reality that I see – but I do not posit that
they exist (or have existed) elsewhere, and, moreover, I do not posit their
non-existence, at least in the majority of cases. Rather, I am faced with a
world of quasi-people, totally independent of the world known through
real perception. We can thus say that, in the fiction film, the imaginary
closes in on itself in some way: the characters seen are indeed posited as
being absent, or rather, as not being there in their concrete bodily existence,
but their physical appearance and actions do not refer to anything really
92  Jean-Pierre Meunier

existent, the filmic world is cut off from the world existing in perception
in order to erect itself in an autonomous reality.
It follows that our attention is entirely centered on the screen. It also
follows that the matter of the image no longer acquires any generality, but on
the contrary, it is apprehended in all its singularity. In other words, the image
no longer serves as a medium between a perception and a person-in-general
or a group-in-general, it ceases to be valid as a representative sign of a larger
signified, and solicits our consciousness to take it in its individuality.
This last remark already anticipates a modification in the form of con-
sciousness’s activity. In the home movie and the documentary film, we have
been able to extract a certain constitutive activity that seeks and maintains
the existence of the object-in-general that it targets.
This is not entirely the case in the fiction film. Here, the consciousness of the
fiction film appears more passive, in the sense that it submits more to the object
that it targets in its individuality, and that it follows in its particular evolutions.
If there is activity, it is doubtless situated more at the level of retention, which
integrates past events into present action (and of protention, which prolongs
present action into the future), than at the level of the constitution of the object.
But we will have the opportunity to deepen this point when we study
the function of movement more particularly. Before this, there remain
several important remarks to make. First of all, if the fiction film no longer
has any relation with existing reality, what is its status for consciousness?
In other words, if the fictional world is purely imaginary, how should we
characterize the degree of consciousness’s belief in this imaginary world?
Let us examine our attitude when faced with the fiction film, and compare
it with what we adopt in normal perception, and then, when faced with the
documentary film.
In perception, we do not have to believe what we see. The perceived world
initially gives itself as real. Sartre explained this well in the following lines:

When I perceive a table, I do not believe in the existence of that table.

I have no need of belief, since the table is there in person. There is no
supplementary act by which, in addition to perceiving that table, I confer
a believed or believable existence on it. In the very act of perception, the
table is discovered, disclosed, given to me. […] The evidence peculiar to
perception is therefore in no way a subjective impression that would be
assimilable to a specification of belief: evidence is the presence for the
consciousness of the object in person; it is the ‘fulfillment’ of the intention.
[…] An evidence is a presence. Where evidence is given, belief is neither
useful nor even possible.36
Part T wo: The Film Experience 93

In perception, therefore, the objects are not ‘believed,’ but are immediately
apprehended as existent.
In the documentary, or, more generally, in the case in which an existent
object is targeted through an analogical representation (photography, film,
etc.), the object is evidently not present to our intuition, but we know that
it exists, and it is, in any case, its concrete existence that we try to attain
through the image. Regardless of whether or not we have actually felt this
existence, we posit it. In other terms, the awareness of the documentary
is not disconnected from the real. It is simply their relationship that has
changed. From now on, no more than for perception, we cannot say that
the objects are ‘believed.’ They do not depart from the category of the real,
and we apprehend them as real objects.
On the contrary, the objects, characters, and events of the fiction are not
posited as existing in reality. They form part of an unreal world, the closed
world of the film, which has no more relation with reality. It can, of course,
be objected that a given object that appears in a film (an item of furniture,
for example) really does exist, and that the spectator can, if they so wish,
set their sights on this existence. But we must then note that the object,
while recovering its place in the category of the real, ceases to belong to
the world of the film. It is entirely one or the other. Either we think of the
object in its reality, and consider it to be a studio prop, or we think of it in
relation to the events of the film, and it appears as an unreal object in an
unreal world. The same, obviously, applies to the characters of the film.
Either we consider the actor and we are in the category of the real, or we
consider the character and we are in the category of the unreal.
But if the objects, characters, and events of the fiction film are not posited
as existing – that is, if they are not immediately apprehended as being
real – we must still admit that they are ‘believed.’ The spectator believes
in the unreal, and is fascinated by it. This phenomenon of belief that we
find each time we let ourselves be ‘taken away’ by a fictional story has
been characterized by Sartre, with respect to a problem close to our own:
reading. Take this passage:

Reading is a kind of fascination, and when I read a detective story I believe

in what I read. But this does not signify in the least that I cease to hold the
detective’s adventures to be imaginary. Simply, an entire world appears
to me as imaged through the lines of the book […] and this world encloses
my consciousness, I cannot disengage, I am fascinated by it. This is the
kind of fascination without positing existence that I call belief.37
94  Jean-Pierre Meunier

Fig. 4: The unexpected death of Boris (Aleksey Batalov) in Mikhail Kalatozov’s The Cranes Are Flying.

What is true for reading is even more so for the cinema, since the latter,
rather than offering us signs on the basis of which we ‘imagine’ an unreal
world, directly gives us this unreal world in images, with an appearance of
reality which, even though we are never deceived (when reading and when
watching films, we never cease regarding the adventures as imaginary),
solicits belief and fascination to a very high degree. We can better understand
the phenomenon of fascination if we take note of the cases wherein the
spectators, by themselves, break their belief in the adventure and the heroes
of the film.
These breaks sometimes happen when the events presented by the film
become unbearable, or when the hero finds himself in an excessively awful
situation. In order to escape the unpleasant feeling instilled by a belief in
the film, the spectator says, “It’s just a film,” thereby refusing to believe in
the story unfolding on the screen.
To be more precise, let us examine a concrete example of this break. In
doing so, we can shed more light on the nature of the phenomenon of belief.
On the screen, the young hero of Letyat zhuravli (The Cranes Are Fly-
ing, 1957) by Mikhail Kalatozov is mortally wounded, and his tragic end is
described with such dramatic intensity that the scene becomes too awful
Part T wo: The Film Experience 95

for me to continue consenting to it. I tear myself away from my fascination

and say: “It’s just a film.”
From this point, I leave behind the ‘believed’ world of the screen and
return to my real situation as a spectator among other spectators, following
an imaginary adventure. In other terms, I re-enter the category of the real,
which I had momentarily evaded in order to consent to the unreal. The
filmic world loses its density, it annihilates itself: for a moment, I have
ceased to believe in it. This is not an act of denial. We do not deny that
which is imaginary. We either consent to it or we do not. In order to deny
an object or an event, the object or event must impose itself as such, as
occurs in perception.
In the example given, I do not deny that the hero has died – this act of
denial can take place, in a real situation, before a real death that I do not want
to accept – but rather, I cease to consent to the imaginary world, I withdraw
from it, as it were, in order to recuperate my function of the real and to
enable me to consider the death of the hero as an unreal event. I acquire a
certain distance with respect to this fact, which now merely appears to me
as a product of the imagination, a shadow without any substance. In short,
I stop believing in the imaginary world.
We can now see more precisely what belief is. It implies that we depart
from the category of the real, in order to be fascinated by an unreal world,
a world that we posit as neither existent nor nonexistent, that we never
cease to regard as imaginary, but to which we consent, or rather, which we
let ourselves believe in. Belief, in the cinema, is rather comparable to belief
when playing. The child who plays ‘cowboys and Indians’ never ceases to
regard his behavior as imaginary, but this does not negate the fact that during
the game – that is, until the moment when he decides to stop playing – the
child ‘believes’ that he is a ‘cowboy’ and ‘believes’ that his fellow players are
‘Indians.’ He is fascinated by the unreal world created by the game, just as
the spectator is fascinated by the unreal world of the screen. Both act ‘as
if’ the unreal were real. In other terms, they confer a ‘believed’ existence
on objects that they never cease to regard as imaginary.
Such is the status of objects in a fiction film.
A second important remark concerns those cases in which, contrary
to what we said above, certain characters are apprehended, not in their
singularity, but as representatives of people-in-general, or, rather, characters-
in-general. The popularity of certain actors is often the cause of such
phenomena, above all when these actors remain confined to playing a
specific type of character. James Dean, Jean Gabin, Sean Connery (as James
Bond), and Fernandel are just a few examples of actors who generally restrict
96  Jean-Pierre Meunier

Fig. 5: Jean Gabin as the Lieutenant Maréchal in Jean Renoir’s Grand Illusion.

themselves to certain roles. Let us suppose a fiction film in which the central
character is played by a popular actor who generally appears as the same kind
of character: for example, Jean Gabin. It then happens that our attention is
diverted from the meaning of the specific action of the character, and focuses
instead on the image of the actor’s broader personality. We then say “that’s
Jean Gabin all right” or “that sure is how he acts,” and we thus consider, via
the present character he is playing, a certain general personality that we
have seen in numerous other films. When such phenomena arise, we can
see that the fiction film distinctly plays the same role as the home movie.
But it is important to note two things. Firstly, these phenomena are
generally short-lived. The fiction soon takes over again and we forget Jean
Gabin, in favor of the police detective or the businessman he is incarnating.
Secondly, if such generalizations about the perceived being occur, and even
present themselves frequently, it is essential that the character-in-general
that we perceive does not leave the filmic world. Thus, in our example, we
obviously do not seek Jean Gabin such as he is presented in real perception,
but a certain film personality recognized in multiple films. Or rather, if it
is true that our attention has been detached for a short moment from the
specific character incarnated by Jean Gabin in order to focus on Jean Gabin
in general, then this process in our consciousness paradoxically leads to
Part T wo: The Film Experience 97

a growing focus on the particular action of the character played by Jean

Gabin. Indeed, at the same time as we think of Jean Gabin’s specific film
personality, there often forms within us a disposition to find and follow this
same personality in his actions, once again incarnated in a singular character
and action. The difference with the home movie is easy to discern. In the
latter, the image essentially served as a medium, and its particularities fused
into the ensemble of the characteristics of the person-in-general regarded
by us, whose reality is located elsewhere. Here, the reality that we regard
is not the Jean Gabin of real perception – there is no attempt to render Jean
Gabin present as such – but a film personality, a manner of being known
only in the filmic world, of which we expect a new manifestation in this
same filmic world.
Another important remark concerns the modifications internal to the
attitude taken when faced with a fiction film, modifications which derive
from certain relations that the fiction has with the real.
We have said that, in the case of the fiction film, the image does not
refer to anything that exists or has existed elsewhere. And yet, there
is a nuance to add to this proposition, a nuance that may be suggested
to us by the expressions of certain spectators frequently heard when
they leave the cinema, the object of which is to underscore the ‘truthful’
character of certain films. We say, for example, “that sure is how things
happen,” etc. The reason for this is that the fiction often maintains closer
relations with the real than might seem to be the case at f irst sight. If
we wish to be complete, it would be apt to study the changes in attitude
that this implies.
Let us first distinguish between the purely fictional film, such as we find
in heroic and fantasy genres, and this other category of films closer to the
real, whose action unfolds, as Cohen-Séat has explained, at the level of the
‘resembling-ego’ [semble-moi].
In the heroic film or the fantasy film, there is, of course, no search for a
reality existing elsewhere. The filmic world is perfectly autonomous since
it is totally independent of all perceived reality. Sometimes, even, the lack
of any verisimilitude in the story is such that it clearly solicits a positing of
its non-existence. The characters we see are indeed perceived through the
image, and we do indeed continue to follow them in their actions, but we
do not think that they exist, or rather, we do not think that they can exist,
which further seals the divorce between the filmic world and the real world.
In the second category of films, wherein the action unfolds at the level
of the ‘resembling-ego,’ the story told – while often banal or representing
familiar events from daily life – has the particular quality that it is lifelike,
98  Jean-Pierre Meunier

or at least possible. The action it recounts often refers to slices of lived

experience, and the human conflicts and problems it illustrates can,
to varying degrees and in various forms, be found in the common lot of
mortals. This type of film is perceptibly close to the documentary genre
– think of Italian neorealist cinema, for example – but is distinguished
by the fact that it does not convey, beyond the image, a specific, existent,
concrete reality. We can choose an example of a realist film that approaches
the limits of the documentary: Vittorio de Sica’s Ladri di biciclette (Bicycle
Thieves, 1948). This film is presented almost as a social observation; beyond
the characters it depicts, it invites us to consider a certain social reality.
The film, therefore, refers to something other than itself, a specific reality
existing elsewhere. But, contrary to what takes place in the documentary,
this reality remains indistinct, vague, and undifferentiated. Thus, the
bicycle thief is not posited as existing in his specific reality, that is as a
personal being, but he is valid as a representative of a number of anonymous
beings existing in a certain period and sharing the same problems with
him.
What should we make of this?
As in the pure fiction, our attention remains fixed on the particular
behavior of the character in particular, since this behavior is valid for itself.
Indeed, we do not search for a certain general personality of the bicycle
thief in the image, in the same way that we searched for a being-in-general
beyond the behavior of Paul Anka in Lonely Boy, which, in any case, we
posited as existent. Here, the behavior is not generalized, and is followed
for itself. But, from the fact that it is inspired by existing events, it is, in a
certain manner, impregnated with reality. The bicycle thief as such does
not exist, but the existing reality that it illustrates confers on it a power of
existence that gives it a certain substance of reality.
We should shed more light on this ‘substance of reality.’ We have seen
that, in the fiction film, we confer on the objects and characters a ‘believed’
and ‘credible’ existence. The bicycle thief, as a fictional character, receives
this ‘believed’ existence, and I may, if I wish to (or if I feel too uncomfortable
with the situation he experiences), break my belief in him just as easily as
I can break my belief in James Bond, or the hero in L’Homme de Rio (That
Man from Rio, Philippe de Broca, 1964).
But if I do this, contrary to what takes place with James Bond or the ‘Man
from Rio,’ there remains a residue of authenticity in the character that I
cannot eliminate: the real man, or, rather, the possible real man, who is
hidden behind the bicycle thief, and who I know exists in the anonymity
of a certain social layer in postwar Italy. All of a sudden, at the same time
Part T wo: The Film Experience 99

as I break my belief in the bicycle thief as a f ictional character, I must

also, in order for this act to be complete, deny a certain social reality that
this fictional character illustrates, and whose major characteristics he
reproduces.
We can now see better what is meant by ‘substance of reality’. It derives
from the fact that a character, because he is the reflection of a certain
category of real people, acquires this potential existence that the authentic
quality confers on him.

V. From the Home Movie to the Fiction Film

There still remains for us to apprehend the film experience, but, before
going further, it will be useful to briefly summarize the few conclusions
that our thinking has provided us with.
In all the cases we have examined, we have been able to recognize this
characteristic common to all types of filmic attitude: it is still a matter of
being presented with an object that is not there, or that is not present in its
corporal physicality. But if this characteristic has not changed, there are
others which have been modified as a function of the knowledge that we
have of what is represented, and correlatively, of the positing of existence
that derives from it. Let us quickly refer to the different cases studied.
From the home movie to the fiction film, via the documentary, we have
seen that the existence of the intended object, posited and known in the
first case, posited but unknown in the documentary, ceased to be posited
in the fiction.
From one end to the other of this spectrum of possibilities, we have been
able to note a progressive, increasingly structured adhesion of our attention
to the reality on the screen, which was gradually constituted as a reality
autonomous from the reality existing in perception.
At the same time, and corresponding with the increased attention given
to the filmic object, the matter of this object ceases to be generalized. It
even progressively ceases to be regarded as a more general object, and is
instead increasingly considered for itself, in its individuality.
On the other hand, passing from the home movie and the documentary
to the fiction film, we have also been able to discern a change in the mode
of activity of the filmic consciousness. Beginning as a constitutive activity
seeking a general, existing object, it then slides into a kind of submission
when it is more attached to the particularities of the individual object that
it targets and follows in the fictional world.
100  Jean-Pierre Meunier

Furthermore, we have also seen that, when passing to the category of

the fiction film, the objects change their status for our consciousness: they
are provided with a ‘believed’ existence, correlating with the act of belief
that the fiction postulates.
Finally, even within the f iction, we have been able to highlight an
important variation. In the pure fiction, above all the heroic film and the
fantasy film, the filmic world is perfectly autonomous because it is totally
independent of any perceived reality. In the realist fiction – whose content
is inspired by existing reality or slices of lived experience – the behavior
of the characters, even if they are fictional and thus individualized, also
acquires a real substance through the power of existence that a certain
existing, but general and undifferentiated, reality confers on them.
In conclusion, we should also note that the positing of existence does not
essentially depend on the type of film. In the end, it is consciousness alone
which is responsible for this positing of existence. It is quite evident that
a home movie generally solicits a home-movie attitude, and that a fiction
film demands that we comprehend it as a fiction, but this is not necessarily
always the case. We can indeed posit a purely fictional character as existing,
and we can also posit the Paul Anka of Lonely Boy as not existing.
In any case, it is probable that such phenomena take place and that the
consciousness of the child can teach us a lot on this subject. But this is not
our concern. We have only sought to determine certain general attitudes
of filmic consciousness, particularly with respect to the evident manner
in which each type of film solicits consciousness to comprehend it, outside
of any deviation.
It is now important to shift our focus to an essential characteristic of the
objective matter of the film: movement.

VI. Movement

Up until now, everything that we have said about filmic consciousness

has been said with respect to the different attitudes that consciousness
can take towards the portrait or the photograph. The analogies are strik-
ing. We have above all highlighted the resemblances, on the one hand,
between the portrait of a familiar person and the home movie, and, on
the other hand, between the portrait of an unknown person and the
documentary film.
We can even add another analogy, which we will not analyze, but which
appears quite evident: that between the fiction film and the photo-novel
or the comic book, which also show us invented stories.
Part T wo: The Film Experience 101

And yet, none of the types of photography envisaged possess this char-
acteristic that is specific only to the cinema: movement. Moreover, none
possess this power so often recognized in the cinema. It is this properly
cinematic aspect that we are now going to look at. But if we do not wish to
engage in empty discussion and lose ourselves in useless commentary on
movement’s power of attraction, we must first attempt a description of the
perceptual experience of movement in order to highlight all the implications
on the level of the attitudes of the filmic consciousness.

1. The Experience of Movement

The effectiveness of movement has often been underlined by numerous

writers. The theories and descriptions of this are abundant, and we may,
as a point of departure for our study, take a remarkable analysis by Wallon,
which appeared in an article entitled “L’acte perceptif et le cinéma.”38
Wallon highlights two essential aspects of movement: its power of at-
traction and its power of life.
Let us cite the most significant passages:

From the point of view of perception, movement is also what happens

first; we detach moving objects from their background, and detach from
that the ‘environment’ in which this action occurs. The movement in
itself has a power of effectivity.

Illustrating this ‘power of effectivity,’ Wallon evokes the example of onlookers

whose gaze is attracted by the rapidly flashing letters of neon street signs.
Then, passing to the analysis of film movement, he adds:

In cinema there is something similar: we cannot take our eyes off the
film whose images flash past one after another, because we would lose
the thread of the story and would no longer understand what is going to
follow, but also because as the images follow one another, there is a sort
of attraction, a sort of induction working on us, on our attention, our
senses, and our sight, to ensure that we retain everything. The movement
is therefore something attractive and captivating in itself. I was telling
you just now about the details in a film that attract our attention more
by moving: that is the proof of this law of perception. You know that in
order to discern extremely subtle things which wouldn’t be visible if they
were immobile, you give them some movement: in this way you manage
to distinguish very slight tendencies, simply because of their movements.
102  Jean-Pierre Meunier

All these examples demonstrate something in movement that induces

greater subtlety of perception and which stimulates the desire to perceive.

Finally, in addition to this power of attraction, and correlating with it, film
movement, according to Wallon, possesses a veritable power of life:

But beyond this, movement possesses the power of life, a power of attrac-
tion which makes film subjugate our senses’ ability to keep and attract
this power, whereas in fact we are in an atmosphere completely foreign
to the series of images passing before our eyes.

The power of attraction and the power of life: these are the two essential
elements which, in Wallon’s view, characterize film movement.
We will further see that these two ‘powers’ of movement function very
differently according to the cases envisaged in the preceding section (the
home movie, the documentary film, the fiction film). But first it would be
best to analyze, in a deeper manner, the properties of movement such as
they have been described by Wallon.
We should first try to illuminate the characteristics of movement in its
most elementary nature – that is, the movement of a point.
Imagine an immobile point on a screen. This point, endowed with a
certain luminosity, is clearly detached from the darker background. As
such, it already has the power to solicit my attention. I can then fix my
gaze on it and it will appear to me as a figure detached from a background,
and one that maintains a series of fixed relations with the elements of
the background, which entirely determine the position that it occupies.
Imagine, for example, that the point is placed to the right, a little bit above
the middle of the screen. But as such, and unless I willingly adopt an attitude
of concerted observation, this inert and entirely determined point will
be incapable of retaining my attention for any significant period of time.
Now let us suppose that this point begins to move on a background that
otherwise remains immobile. In this case, there is, in my visual field, the
appearance of an overturning of the structure, in the sense that, losing its
stability, the point constantly changes its relations with its surroundings.
There is an indeterminacy of the object with respect to the background,
which poses the problem of its destination, and orients in the observer an
attitude of expectation. In principle, this attitude will only be relaxed when
the object attains a new stable position.
Let us explain this matter in greater detail. When the object was im-
mobile – that is, when it constituted, along with the background, a stable
Part T wo: The Film Experience 103

structure defined by a series of fixed relations – the act of perception was

in a certain fashion completed once this ensemble of relations is perceived.
I would naturally turn away from the object, and if, exceptionally, I had
maintained my observational attitude, this could only be as an effect of
my will, since nothing (or not much) in the object solicited my attention to
further explore it. In other words, the immobile point, or, more generally,
the immobile object, if it can momentarily attract our attention through
its luminosity or some other characteristic, can only mobilize our gaze in
a more prolonged manner through the intervention of our will deciding
to further explore the structure of the perceived object. We should also
note that this exploration is itself accomplished through a series of ocular
movements (our gaze wanders around the object in order to deepen its
relation with its surroundings), which are themselves accomplished in all
directions, but following the manner in which I have decided to explore
the object (from left to right, from top to bottom, etc.).
But when the object begins to move, when the stable relations it main-
tains with its surroundings are broken up, a new spatio-temporal structure
appears. This is a structure that unfolds in time, whose starting point is
well-known, but whose endpoint remains problematic.
And yet, it is the question of the becoming of the structure that solicits
our consciousness and mobilizes our attention. There is an incomplete
aspect in the perceived object, which induces an attitude of expectation
based on the defined position of the observed point.
It is important to note that what consciousness focuses on is not the
object as such, nor the different positions that this object can take when
moving, but the whole structure that unfolds, the trajectory.
In this case, not only does movement mobilize the gaze through the ques-
tion of its becoming, but it also implies that our attention is only detached from
the object once the movement has been completed. Indeed, since conscious-
ness focuses on the totality of the movement in progress, it must adhere to
each particular position of the point as the only trace of its becoming. If it
momentarily distances itself from the moving object, it loses the structure
of the whole. Hence, consciousness must not be distracted. It attaches itself
to each particular position of the point as the culmination of the movement
that flows out of it, and that it retains, and also as the starting point of the
future movement that it anticipates. With each position, there is an act of
‘retention’ and ‘protention.’ This absorptive, exclusive activity has no other goal
than prefiguring what consciousness is focused on: the totality of movement.
With respect to a different problem than the one we are concerned with,
Sartre, taking inspiration from Husserl, gave a very illuminating description
104  Jean-Pierre Meunier

of these acts of ‘retention’ and ‘protention,’ which constitute one of the

essential aspects of the perception of movement.
He writes:

Husserl has given a remarkable description of these particular intentions

which, starting from a living and concrete ‘now,’ are directed towards the
immediate past to retain it and towards the future to grasp it. He calls
these ‘retentions’ and ‘protentions.’ This retention, which itself alone
constitutes the continuity, is not itself an image. It is an empty intention
which is directed towards the phase of the movement that has just been
annihilated; we say, in psychological language, that it is knowledge cen-
tered on the present visual sensation, and which makes appear that now
as also being an after of a certain quality, an after that does not follow any
sensation except precisely the one that has just vanished. The protention,
on its part, is an expectation and this expectation gives the same sensation
as also being a before. Naturally, this latter is not as strictly determined
as a ‘before’ as it is as an ‘after,’ since […] the sensation that will follow
is not entirely known [connue]; but this sensation is already pretraced
by a very precise expectation. […] Retention and protention constitute,
in every way, the sense of the present visual impression: without these
synthetic acts, one could hardly speak of an impression at all; this before
and this after that are correlates of these acts are not given as empty forms,
as homogeneous and indifferent structures: they are the concrete and
individual relations that the current sensations sustains with the concrete
and individual impressions that have preceded it and that will follow it.39

A focus on the structure of the whole unfolding in time, an attention to-

wards the indefinite becoming of the moving object, acts of ‘retention’ and
‘protention’ – these are the characteristics of the perception of movement,
and we can now see what produces the ‘power of attraction’ of movement
discussed by Wallon.
Whereas the observation of a static form (a form entirely determined in
space and time) usually relates to a voluntary decision which is maintained
for the duration of the observation, and which can be suspended at any
moment without losing anything of the object (I can always come back to it),
the observation of the temporal structure is solicited in a constant manner
by questioning the becoming of the object, and can only be relinquished,
in principle, at the end of the movement.
Correlatively, whereas consciousness, during the observation of the
static object, is master of itself, of the points of view that it takes towards
Part T wo: The Film Experience 105

the object under consideration, and of the manner in which it decides to

deepen a consideration of the qualities of the object, in the attention given
to the dynamic object, consciousness is not in possession of itself to the
same extent. It awaits the structure that is progressively discovered and
that it therefore does not yet entirely possess. It is only when the movement
is completed that it can recover itself and perhaps return to the attitude
of voluntary observation of the perceived form that it then possesses in its
totality, and that it can then represent to itself as a static ensemble: the
trajectory or the totality of the path taken.
We can thus say that the perception of movement, or rather, the awareness
of a form in becoming, is, owing to the fact that it is in the course of being
realized and that it situates itself before its total completion, a pure expecta-
tion, or even an empty intention which expects to be filled by the object on
which it is focused. In this sense, it must alienate itself in its attention to the
various successive positions of the moving object, as the only traces of the
global form that it contemplates. Such an attitude rules out taking any distance
from the object. Our attention must coincide with each present position of the
object insofar as this position is given as the culmination of the immediate
past that it must retain, and as the starting point for the immediate future
that it is projected to follow up to the conclusion of the spatio-temporal
form in progress. We have thus been able to speak of a genuine ‘attraction’
of movement, a formula that is a little incorrect but highly suggestive.
Wallon has similarly spoken of a certain ‘power of life’ associated with
movement. This second great characteristic of movement flows, according
to Wallon, directly from the first characteristic, namely, the attraction
exercised by movement. The two phenomena are doubtless correlative,
but, in our opinion, what confers this power of life is the real or apparent
autonomy of the moving object.
We should also note that when any moving object immediately appears
not to be the cause of its own movement – for example, an object that I move
about with my hands – it does not possess this power of life, and continues
to appear to me as an inert object.
On the contrary, when an object moves inside my visual field, without
an extrinsic cause for its mobility also appearing, this object appears to me
as autonomous and draws from this autonomy its quality of a living being.
Let us return, for example, to the case of the luminous point moving on
a screen. As long as this figure is immobile, it remains integrated with the
background surrounding it as an inert object. But once the point moves,
there is a segregation between the point and the background, and since
nothing seems to give rise to this segregation, the point appears to us as
106  Jean-Pierre Meunier

being granted an autonomous being, and thus with life, because what we
usually understand by the word ‘life’ is none other than this quality of being
able to autonomously generate one’s own movements.
There are plenty of other things to say on movement in general, and on
its particular characteristics, but such a project would distance us too much
from the subject at hand. We have, we believe, the essentials of the matter,
and we can now focus on a study of movement in the cinema.

2. Movement in the Cinema

What we have just said about movement in general can also be applied
directly to the cinema.
A film is, in fact, an extremely complex spatio-temporal structure, which
presents us with action and behavior in becoming. Each shot is presented
as a spatio-temporal structure integrated in broader structures, which we
call sequences, and these sequences are integrated in turn into the whole
spatio-temporal form constituted by the film.
On all levels (shot, sequence, film), the filmic consciousness awaits a
becoming-in-progress, a total action that it considers in its entirety, and
that it will only possess once the film is over. This is an empty intention
which expects to be filled, and which must therefore adhere (and alienate
itself in its attention) to the various successive moments of the film, in the
sense that it must cling onto each one of these particular moments of the
action, as the only visible points of the whole, and on the basis of which it
can make its way towards the past or the future.
It is only when the film is over that consciousness can be distanced from
it. At this point, it possesses the structure in its entirety, and can take a
point of view on this structure. In fact, it can then be given or represented
as a static form, because it is now conclusively finished.
To adopt a more figurative way of putting it, we could almost say that
the f ilmic consciousness, during the screening, must coincide with or
plunge itself into each present moment, as the only location from which it
can perceive the moments that pass by and those that will follow. On the
contrary, when the film is over, and consciousness possesses the whole, this
whole can be given or represented ‘from a distance,’ as an object that it can
handle, and on which it can take any point of view that it likes.
What we have just said about movement in the cinema is particularly
applicable to fiction films, and we will later have the opportunity to return
to this matter. First, however, it would be beneficial to quickly examine the
role of movement in the other cases previously studied – namely, the home
Part T wo: The Film Experience 107

movie and the biographical or documentary film. This quick examination

will not be useless: not only will it permit us to deepen the attitudes of our
own consciousness in these two particular cases, but also, furthermore, it
will allow us to better understand and explain the role of movement in the
case of the fiction film.

a) Movement in the Home Movie

Here, as also, but to a lesser degree, in the documentary film, we will see that
movement, by being subordinated to a specific attitude of consciousness,
takes on a rather different signification from that which we have recognized
on a general level.
Let us quickly recall what we said about what we can now call the ‘home-
movie attitude’ [attitude-souvenir].
In this attitude, the intention is to render present a person who is not there,
but who we posit as existing or having existed elsewhere. Since the goal is to
rediscover the person-in-general, there is a generalization of the matter, in
the sense that each gesture seen is not apprehended in its individuality, but
as a representative of multiple gestures perceived countless times in reality.
Moreover, our attention goes well beyond the image, extending to the real
person we are focusing on, and, finally, there is a constitutive activity on
the part of consciousness. In short, consciousness constantly exceeds the
image, which serves precisely as a medium between the reality perceived
in the past and my present consciousness of this reality.
In this perspective, therefore, the role of movement is largely reduced
to being a factor of the liveliness of the represented reality. Indeed, the
progressive becoming of the filmed action, or, more generally, the spatio-
temporal form constituted by the entirety of the home movie, is of barely
any interest to the spectator.
Hence, for example, if, in order to summon the memory of one of my
friends, I screen a home movie representing various actions carried out by
this person, the endpoint of these actions is of no interest to me. My intention
is not to be given all of these actions in their entirety, but only to rediscover,
in each shot, or in the various moments of the action in progress, familiar
attitudes or gestures, specific to the person-in-general I am thinking of,
and which have been perceived in reality on several occasions. In other
words, each particular moment of the film is in some way isolated from the
whole. The preceding moments do not interest me and I do not anticipate
the following moments. Rather, each moment serves as the basis for the
constitutive activity of consciousness to seek and find, beyond each specific
108  Jean-Pierre Meunier

image, the typical allures of a certain person-in-general who truly exists in

reality. Unconcerned with the result of the actions it observes, consciousness
is not an empty vessel waiting for reality to materialize. On the contrary, at
every moment it is full of the object that it considers by means of the image,
an object which appears to it in different aspects (my friend is walking, he
is reading, etc.), but wherein each of these aspects contains the whole of the
person (my friend has a certain way of walking, or reading, etc.).
We could almost say, in figurative terms, that the home movie gives
rise to a longitudinal consciousness, which makes its way, via each present
moment of the film, towards the real and distant object that it has in mind.
On the contrary, when our mind focuses on a spatio-temporal structure in
progress, consciousness is, in a way, ‘lateral,’ in the sense that it makes its
way, via each present moment, towards both the past and the future. This is
indeed what takes place in the fiction – but we will return to this point later.
Hence, in the home movie, movement is subordinated to the primary
intention, which is to call to mind a real person existing elsewhere. Then, the
total action that it sketches out is not (or almost not) taken into consideration,
but, on the contrary, each present moment is forcefully detached to serve
at each moment as a point of application for consciousness, which does not
cease to regard a general, existing, and known object.
Our analysis, such as it has been expressed, is in all likelihood not entirely
correct. Indeed, if we pushed our reasoning right to the end, we would end up
claiming that our attention focuses on each specific moment, which would
end up being isolated content pure and simple (that is, mere photographs).
And yet, in movement no present moment is ever given as an isolated
content. It always appears as the succession of that which preceded it,
and the starting point for what will follow it. In other words, each visual
impression is always given as the basis of a retention and protention, which
determine its place in the continuity of movement.
However, and this is important to note for the case that we are presently
concerned with, retention and protention appear here as subordinated to
the present moment, to the concrete, current impression on the basis of
which I consider a general object.
Let us illustrate this last affirmation by returning to our example. In
order to evoke the presence of one of my friends, I can try to imagine the
person, but I will only end up with a very imperfect image. I can also take
a photograph, and now the representation will be more convincing. If this
photograph represents the person undertaking a certain action (for example,
walking in the street), then I can seek and find, via this fixed representation,
my friend’s general mode of comportment. But this representation lacks
Part T wo: The Film Experience 109

life. So let us suppose that I possess a home movie representing this same
person undertaking this same action. By following this action, which now
unfolds in time and space, there are, of course, retentions and protentions
that, at every point in time, give me the place of each present impression
in the continuity of movement, but my attention, far from making its way
towards the becoming of the observed act, or towards the past, as that which
can illuminate the whole of the acts, is instead centered at every moment
as the continually visible incarnation of a certain mode of comportment
that I constantly call to mind in its generality.
We can see the difference between the photograph and the home movie:
both restitute the specific mode of existing of the person considered, but, in
addition to what the photograph provides, the home movie restitutes this
mode of existing in action. The home movie shows us life, and we should
also note that this characteristic has affective repercussions that are often
more perceptible than those that are engendered by the fixed form of the
photograph. To a far greater extent than the photo, the home movie, by
means of the life that movement confers on it, is conducive to inducing a
high degree of nostalgia, regret, or other sentiments in us.
We can also get a glimpse, here, of the difference between the home
movie and the fiction film. In the latter, retention and protention, instead of
accumulating in each present moment, project beyond the present moment,
both towards the past and the future, in order for consciousness to take in
the action in its entirety.
But, before elucidating this last point, it is apt to study in greater detail
the intermediate case between the home movie and the fiction film, namely,
the documentary film.

b) Movement in the Documentary Film

In the ‘documentary attitude,’ as we saw earlier, there is, as is the case with
the home-movie attitude, a positing of existence, a generalizing of the
matter of the image, a constituting activity, and a fixing of the attention
on the image as a starting point for the sketch of a generalized knowledge.
When passing from the home movie to the documentary f ilm, the
cinematic image gains in autonomy as far as the level of real perception is
concerned. It further centralizes our attention, but nonetheless remains
situated (as an intermediate case) with respect to an unknown reality.
To say that the image further centralizes our attention already implies
that movement takes on a different meaning from that which it assumes
in the home movie.
110  Jean-Pierre Meunier

In the documentary film or the biographical film, all we know about

the object under consideration is that it exists elsewhere, and nothing else.
Our intention is precisely to know more about it. Consequently, our
attention is not focused only on each present moment, but on the ensemble
of actions that are proposed to us. There is a knowledge that is formed by the
projection, and that requires us to provide ourselves with a set of successively
presented events. However, despite the fact that it comes very close to the
signification that it takes in the fiction film, movement in the documentary
film is distinct from it in several respects. These differences reside, we think,
in the relationship that exists between retention and protention.
Let us take a concrete example.
Say I am watching a documentary film about a foreign country, and I am
shown a group of indigenous people engaged in a typical activity, which, most
of the time, has a symbolic, representative, and generalizing signification.
Hence, if I am shown the indigenous people in question hunting or farming
the land, I immediately know that I am seeing a people who are hunters
or farmers.
Incidentally, the voice-over commentary is often there to confirm this
generalizing opinion.
By means of each of these particular activities presented to me, I am
always focused on a general style of existence. What is more, each particular
activity brought to the screen gives me, in some sense, the totality of the
object under consideration.
If I am shown the indigenous people hunting, farming, or devoting
themselves to some other activity, it is always a general style of comporting
themselves that I aim for, and that I attain through the multiple aspects
given to me.
In short, in the documentary film, there is a knowledge that is formed
on the occasion of each particular event, a knowledge that is constantly
generalized and related to the reality that is aimed for.
Each particular shot appears as a particular perspective on a general
comportment. That is to say that, in the documentary, movement does not
engender this expectation of the future that we see in the fiction film. In
general, we can cut the film after any sequence, or even right in the middle
of a sequence, without the spectator being truly frustrated by it. This is
because, at every moment, it possesses a general reality that presents itself
on each occasion as a whole by means of the multiple, particular points of
view given about it. No moment really summons any other moment. It is
integrated with the preceding moments for the formation of an accumulating
knowledge, but does not create any expectation of a future, because this
Part T wo: The Film Experience 111

future never appears as being truly necessary – at least before it appears – in

order to illuminate the preceding moments.
Of course, one could reply to this that there exist all sorts of documen-
taries, and that certain among them come close to the fiction film, such
that the attitude that we have just described finds itself modified to a great
extent. Nanook of the North by Robert Flaherty (1922) is a good example of
this.
Nanook, a real character chosen to illustrate the life of the inhabitants of
the Arctic Circle, is indeed ‘personalized’ to the extent that we follow him
more as an ‘individual’ than as a representative of a category of people, and
that the ‘becoming’ of his actions has as much importance as those that
precede them. When watching Nanook of the North, the attitude we take is
almost the same as in the fiction film. But this is a particular case. On the
other hand, since our project no longer involves describing the multiple
variations and compromises within attitudes, but tries to describe rather
pure types of these attitudes such as they are solicited by equally pure
types of films, we will not dwell on marginal or ambiguous cases. These
cases could, in any case, easily be understood on the basis of the major
characteristics that the description of pure cases will have delivered us.
To conclude: in the case of the documentary or biographical film, there
is firstly retention, in the sense that each present moment is integrated
with past moments, while the whole constitutes itself into an additional
knowledge on the object under consideration, and a generalization in the
sense that, at any moment, the perceived object finds itself related to a
general object that exists elsewhere.
In figurative terms, once more, we can see that the documentary gives
rise to a consciousness that is both lateral – in the sense that, on the basis
of each present moment, it makes its way towards the past in order to retain
it and integrate it with the present – and longitudinal, in the sense that, on
the basis of each present moment, it makes its way towards a general object
that exists elsewhere.
In the documentary film, movement is what allows for a progressive,
cumulative knowledge of an existing object. In this case, protention, or
rather anticipation, is reduced.

c) Movement in the Fiction Film

Here, as we have seen earlier, there is no positing of existence. In a way, the

imaginary is closed in on itself, in the sense that the filmic reality does not
refer to any other existing reality.
112  Jean-Pierre Meunier

The filmic world is erected as an autonomous reality: there is no gener-

alization of the matter of the image, which is apprehended in its singularity.
Hence, our attention remains centered on the screen.
All this is to say that, in the case of the fiction film, movement ceases
to subordinate itself to an intention that remains connected with existing
reality.
On the contrary, it possesses the function that we recognized it had on a
more general level. The film is presented as an autonomous spatio-temporal
structure with respect to the reality of perception, and the intention is
evidently to give oneself this structure in its totality.
The fiction film, therefore, creates an expectation, an empty intention
that waits to be filled by the totality it takes into consideration.
The successive events are no longer a sum of independent points of view on
an existing general object. Rather, they are linked in the whole structure that
consciousness considers. Detached from existing reality, the only meaning
they have is in relation to all the events that precede and follow them.
Consequently, retention and protention constitute the essence of con-
sciousness’s activity, which projects, beyond each present moment, towards
the whole that is under consideration.
In other words, consciousness must dive into every present moment, as
the only place from which it can perceive the past and project the future. In
the figurative language we used earlier, we could say that the consciousness
of the fiction film is a ‘lateral’ consciousness.
There follows a certain number of consequences, some of which will
allow us to better understand the meaning of certain expressions currently
utilized in filmological literature, which all underscore the hold exerted
over us by the fiction film.
Thus, it now appears that the fiction film excludes almost any attitude
of detachment.
In fact, in the other cases examined (the home movie, the biographical
film, the documentary film), there remains a form of constituting activity
on the part of consciousness which means that it remains the master of its
object, from which it nonetheless keeps a certain distance. In other words,
it is consciousness, in this case, which holds, ‘at arm’s length,’ the general
object that it projects at every moment on the basis of the individual events
and characteristics that are given for it to see.
In the fiction film, by contrast, consciousness is constantly in an attitude
of empty expectation that leads it to totally coincide with each present
moment in order to lose nothing of the past or the future. Its project is,
indeed, to possess the object it considers (the film in its entirety) and it
Part T wo: The Film Experience 113

can consequently take a step back once the action is over, that is, when it
possesses, and can represent to itself at a distance and in its entirety, the
total series of events represented on the screen.
This is doubtless one of the reasons for the ‘fascinating’ nature of the
fiction film that has been so often noted by film specialists.
Let us note here that we prefer, instead of the term ‘fascinating,’ which
we have reserved for the description of the phenomenon of belief, the term
‘captivating,’ which is more descriptive as it underscores the retention or
‘capturing’ of our attention by fictional events in their becoming.
If, to the preceding remarks, we can add the fact that the material condi-
tions essentially aim to abolish the ambient reality in favor of the filmic
reality alone (the darkened room, the comfort of the spectator, the big screen,
the luminosity of the screen), then we have the essence of fictional filmic
reality: an imaginary world (that is to say posited as non-present), which is
autonomous, which imposes itself on consciousness by substituting itself for
the real world, and which, thanks to its movement, solicits consciousness
to coincide with it with barely any possibility of distanciation.
It is important to note here that, owing to the resources at its disposal, the
cinema can on occasion provoke in the spectator a certain ‘distanciation’ with
respect to filmic reality. The likes of Godard and Varda have honed a certain
number of procedures aiming to break the spectator’s enchantment, and to
invite them to take their distances. But these are, when it comes down to it,
rather artificial and rarely used procedures. The phenomena they provoke
doubtless warrant a deeper description, but do not form part of our project,
which, let us recall, is above all to highlight certain general types of attitudes.
We should also note that this ‘captivating’ character we have spoken
about above is not found to the same degree in any other genre of fictional
expression, such as the novel or, to take an example even closer to the fiction
film, the photo-novel. We will now examine this latter case.
In the photo-novel, as in the cinema, a f ictional story can very well
engender in the reader a strong attitude of expectation for the becoming-
in-progress such as it unfolds by means of successive photographs. We will
then see the reader excitedly leaf through the volume in a single sitting, even
though the photo-novel is no more than an attempt to represent a story in
motion that is artificially broken down into static fragments.
Contrary to what we can observe in the case of the film, however, there
remain sequences of voluntary movements in the photo-novel, which prevent
our total adherence to the story, or rather, a perfect coincidence with it.
We must indeed pass from one image to another, turn the pages, etc., and
what is more, we have, at every moment, the possibility of stopping and
114  Jean-Pierre Meunier

distancing ourselves from the passing sequences in order to envisage them

in their entirety, while in no way losing anything of the future sequences.
In the cinema, by contrast, the spectators not only can but must submit
to the unfolding of the story. They can never relieve themselves from their
attention and can therefore only distance themselves from their object with
much greater difficulty.
It follows that movement reinforces the autonomous nature of the fiction
film we recognized earlier. Not allowing any withdrawal or relaxation of
our attention, which must be focused on the succession of events, it impels
a belief in the events and characters on-screen, even if this belief is brought
into question once the film is over. Any relationship with reality is generally
only considered afterwards. During the film, a belief in the specific reality
of the film is customary, at least as far as the fiction film is concerned.
This last consideration leads us to formulate a very short and final remark
on the differences between the filmic and theatrical situations. Although
somewhat digressive, this remark will perhaps furnish us with a supple-
mentary element for understanding the ‘hold’ a cinematic film has on us.
In the cinema, we said, belief is customary, a belief not in the authenticity
or inauthenticity, or the existence or non-existence, of the object represented
on-screen, but simply a belief in a quasi-world populated by quasi-presences
which impose themselves on consciousness, and to which consciousness
adheres without any detachment.
Theatrical scenes, by contrast, present events played by people present in
their bodily physicality, but acting as analogical representatives of absent
characters, who are posited as existing or having existed elsewhere (or even as
not existing at all). In any case, we have in the theater the paradoxical situation
wherein a physically present being stands in for a non-present character.
There ensues a certain segregation between a world of presences (the
real people) and an absent but represented world.
Let us suppose, for example, a staging of Le Cid by Corneille. Rodrigue and
the other characters are indeed attained via the actors, but we never lose
sight of the fact that these characters are merely being played by actors. In
fact, we are aware of an actor playing the role of Rodrigue. In other words,
there is a certain constituting activity on the part of consciousness, which
posits the fictional characters represented via the actors.
In the cinema, there is no segregation between the people who represent
and the represented characters. There is not a world of fictional characters
considered via a cast of present people. As a general rule, the fictional
characters initially appear as fictional people in a fictional world. Hence,
in Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet [1948], Hamlet and the other characters are
Part T wo: The Film Experience 115

immediately registered as being fictional characters, posited as being non-

present and evolving in a world equally non-present. Of course, we know
the names of the actors, and certain acting personalities are sometimes so
powerful that we cannot forget them (such as Orson Welles).
But it remains no less true that, in the majority of cases, filmic reality
invites us to believe in the characters of the film without any distance,
while in the theater a certain complaisance or disposition on the part of
the spectator is necessary. We must ‘play the game’ and posit the fictional
characters via the physically present actors.
In the theater, there is a constituting activity and the belief in the
character is in some way feigned. The spectator remains in control, and is
responsible for the belief in the characters, a belief that they ‘play’ under
the effect of a sort of ‘good will.’
In the theater, the spectator posits the fictional reality under consideration.
In the cinema, this reality directly imposes itself.
We can see that this direct, submissive adherence to the filmic reality
has no equivalent in any other mode of expression. This is undoubtedly one
of the most essential traits of the film experience.

VII. Conclusion

To conclude this section is not merely, we should think, to summarize what

has been said, but rather to take some distance, and cast a critical eye on
the text and its contents. Any theory necessarily contains lacunae and
imperfections which it is good to examine with an overriding concern for
being constructive. This is what we wish to do here.
Let us first note that we are far from having exhausted the problem. This
banal remark, which can be found at the end of every study as a necessary
precaution, nonetheless here keeps its full meaning.
The attitudes that the filmic consciousness can take when faced with
its object are indeed rather more diverse and complex than it seems upon
reading our all-too-short analysis. We have indeed tried to specify three
major types of attitude corresponding to three major categories of film, but it
must be said that we have taken these attitudes in a pure state, such as they
are solicited by equally pure cases of the home movie, the documentary film,
or the fiction film. What is more, through a concern for the specification and
the differentiation of attitudes, a concern that often thwarts the possibility of
an exhaustive description of the multiple nuances which every phenomenon
contains, we have doubtless framed or abusively crystallized each of these
attitudes, thereby neglecting the subtle relations that they can have with
116  Jean-Pierre Meunier

the others, and the multiple intermediate modalities that scale from the
pure ‘home-movie attitude’ to the pure ‘fiction attitude.’
And yet, when looking closer, we can see that the attitudes described can
succeed each other or intertwine with each other during the viewing of a
single film, that a fiction film of a certain genre can solicit a home-movie
attitude, or that a documentary film can be presented as fictional and
engender a corresponding attitude.
Incidentally, it is important to note that the three attitudes described
correspond to three possible positions that consciousness can take, and
not necessarily to three objective categories of film. If it is true that the
objective category of the ‘fiction film’ normally solicits a ‘fiction attitude,’
this in no way precludes the possibility of the ‘home-movie attitude’ or the
‘documentary attitude’ from appearing.
Whatever the case may be, by specifying three modalities of the ‘filmic
attitude,’ we hope to have been able to furnish an adequate frame of refer-
ence, and, consequently, a verbal tool useful for the explanation of the
nuances evoked above.
Finally, a second remark: we have also neglected those cases in which a
voluntary, premeditated attitude gives a very special allure to the spectator’s
attitude. This is above all true for the fiction film. For example, it goes
without saying that the critical attitude brings about a type of perception that
is quite different to that of the naïve spectator. For the latter, we can observe
this adherence without any distance, which we have spoken about at length.
In the first case, a willed distanciation and a taking into consideration of
the film as an aesthetic object thwarts this coincidence with the perceived
object that the fiction film solicits, and brings about a more complex attitude
whose description warrants its own chapter.
Finally, it goes without saying that the personality of the spectator and
their particular interests can have a major influence, not on the type, but on
the quality of the attitude taken. A film that is boring for one person because
they see no interest in it will evidently not induce this intense expectation for
the future that we have described as constituting the pure ‘fiction attitude.’
In the same mode of thinking, certain technical procedures (or, more
generally, the aesthetic aspect of the film) influence in their own way the
type and the quality of the attitude taken. For example, we can think of
certain successful suspense films whose technical qualities are all mobilized
to engender, to a high degree, an expectation of the future and a passive
and intense adherence to the perceived object.
In short, there exists a complex web of factors whose impact on the
attitudes that the filmic consciousness can take is certainly not negligible,
Part T wo: The Film Experience 117

but whose detailed analysis would require at least one if not several volumes.
Such a detailed analysis could not find any place in our own study, but it
is necessary to signal its possibility, as well as the principal elements that
it ought to envisage.
This said, it seems useful to summarize in a short synthesis the various
aspects of the film experience that we have been able to unearth.
The filmic consciousness, we have seen, consists of a certain manner
of referring to an object, a manner that is different from that which we
encounter in real perception, and also different from that which defines
the pure imaginary, but which nevertheless comes close to this last, in the
sense that it targets an object not physically present, or, to adopt Sartre’s
language, an object that we posit as a nothingness [néant d’être].
The filmic consciousness is thus a relation to the world, but to a world
posited as non-present.
Now, we have seen that the object of the filmic consciousness, an object
always posited as non-present, can refer either to an existing and known
object or an existing but unknown object, or indeed to nothing existing at
all. In both of these different cases, the attitude of the filmic consciousness
varies considerably. Correlatively, movement, an essential element of the
filmic datum, has a diverse array of functions.
When the object is posited as existing or having existed elsewhere (which
is generally the case for the home movie), there is a constituting activity on
the part of consciousness, in the sense that, via the individual matter of the
film, it seeks and finds the object-in-general which it knew, which exists
elsewhere, and on which all its attention is focused.
Movement, in this case, has the essential function of giving life to the
perceived object. Retention and protention appear as subordinated to the
present impression, an impression which constantly serves as the basis for
consciousness to seek out the general object known from elsewhere.
When the object is posited as existing but was not known in real percep-
tion (which is generally the case for documentary and biographical films),
there is also a constituting activity on the part of consciousness, which
constitutes a general object on the basis of the individual matter of the film.
But since our knowledge of the object is contemporary with the screening
of the film, our attention must be more attached to the image as a starting
point for the sketch of a general knowledge.
Movement here has as its principal function the progressive unveiling of
certain aspects of the object, necessary to the formation of an additional,
generalizing knowledge. The activity of retention thus appears more im-
portant than the activity of protention.
118  Jean-Pierre Meunier

In one word, the activity of consciousness consists above all of retention

– which makes it submit more to the filmic datum than it does in the home
movie – and generalization, and it remains a constituting activity which
keeps it distant from the filmic reality as such.
When there is no longer any positing of existence on the part of conscious-
ness (this is generally the case for the fiction film), or, in other words, when
the f ilmic reality no longer refers to anything existing in the real, and
finds itself bestowed with a ‘believed’ existence correlative with an act of
belief on the part of the subject spectator, there is of course no longer any
generalizing activity. Our attention remains fixed on the perceived object
in its individuality and must submit to it. The activity of consciousness is
exclusively realized in retention and protention, which, this time, have the
goal of integrating at every present moment the ensemble of past events,
and projecting future events on the basis of these same moments.
Here, there is no longer any possibility of a detachment or a distanciation
with respect to the filmic reality. The coincidence with the perceived object
is customary, and this reinforces the autonomous character specific to the
fiction film.
At the end of the day, it appears that our attitude towards the filmic
reality is not only radically different from our attitude towards real (present)
objects, but that it can also adopt very different forms according to the
modalities of existence of the object under consideration.
By describing these variations in our attitude, we hope to have been able
to explain some aspects of the film experience, but also, we believe that we
have sketched out a useful framework for the study of our behavior when
encountering a film.
To define certain types of attitudes according to their structure and
their specific particularities was indeed necessary for the comprehension
of filmic behavior, which necessarily draws its form from the attitudes that
underpin it.
It is this behavior that we will now discuss.

Chapter II: Filmic Behavior, Identification

At the beginning of this study, we defined identification as a behavior of

private intersubjectivity, understanding by this that it is a question of the
comportment rooted in the terrain of anonymous intersubjectivity – a sort
of generic coexistence of subjectivities – but subsequently structuring itself
in a personal relationship, that is, in the behavior of private intersubjectivity.
Part T wo: The Film Experience 119

The analysis we have carried out on identification related principally to

real situations in which the members of the relationship are both present to
each other. Now, it is a question of examining how identification in a filmic
situation is realized, that is, when one of the members of the relationship
is presented as not being present.
There is no doubting that the essential structures of identification are
not modified – in both filmic situations and real situations, we find the
same postural apprehension of other people, as described earlier – and it
would be wrong to make filmic identification a privileged form of behavior
without any equivalent in real situations. Too many writers have begun
with this false premise in order to then make our identification with a
character (which also goes by the name of ‘participation’ or ‘empathy’) a
unique mechanism, one that is comparable, as much on the level of its form
as on the level of its possible influence, with an identification with certain
particularly structuring forms of behavior such as parental identification
or the phenomenon of identification in a psychoanalytic situation.
For us, there is no question of positing filmic identification from the start
as a privileged form of behavior.
Following the principles that we have detailed at the beginning of this
work, identification is a general mode of behavior that is traced out in
every encounter, and that is structured according to different modalities
depending on the type of relationship at issue.
In this conceptual framework, f ilmic identif ication is a variation of
identification as a general mode of behavior, a particular type of identifica-
tion corresponding to a particular type of relationship, one in which the
object, although presenting almost all the characteristics that it possesses
in perception, is presented as absent in its bodily physicality.
Provisionally leaving to one side the question of the choice of characters
with whom the viewer identifies, and what determines this choice, we
will now try to specify the major characteristics of this particular type of
identification, filmic identification, while taking into account, of course,
the internal modifications that it can undergo in line with the types of
attitude that we were able to distinguish earlier.

I. The Types of Filmic Identification

a) Identification in the ‘Home-Movie Attitude’

We know that, in the home-movie attitude, the image functions as a rep-

resentative of a known but absent person, that the matter of the image is
120  Jean-Pierre Meunier

generalized, that there is a constituting activity on the part of consciousness

and that, in the end, since our attention remains centered on the object
existing elsewhere and known in real perception, it is not the series of events
presented that is targeted but only each present moment.
All this leads us to presume a particular form of identification, a very
special manner of entering into intersubjective relations with other people.
In order to explicate this, we will once again refer to lived experience, and
imagine a concrete example.
Say I project a home movie showing people I know in various activities.
At one point in the film, one of them appears to me in a close-up, smiling. I
then happen to smile with him, or rather, like him – that is to say, I reproduce
the smile that I apprehended in another person. We can recognize here the
postural aspect of identification Hesnard spoke about, which, although it is
manifest in our example, is customarily more silent and almost undetectable
from the outside.
But we must note that here it is not the specific smile shown by the film
that is the object of identification.
We know, in fact, that in the home-movie attitude, the acts perceived are
not focused on for themselves, in their individuality, but as a representative
of a certain general manner of acting such as it has been experienced through
multiple real perceptions.
In the same manner, the acts ‘reproduced’ or ‘mimed’ by identification
are not reproduced or mimed on an individual basis, but on a general level.
Thus, in the smile that I mimed upon seeing my friend smiling in the
film, there was more than a simple reproduction of the individual act that
has been perceived.
It did indeed involve miming a certain general manner of smiling ap-
prehended through the specific smile shown in the film. In other words,
the smile reproduced by identification constitutes a kind of synthesis of
all the smiles apprehended on the occasion of numerous identifications
in real situations.
There is an entire knowledge that is incorporated with the postural
attitude of reproduction, a knowledge which bears on a behavior-in-general
and which largely exceeds the individual act reproduced on the screen. These
individual acts are, incidentally, only a means for the actualization of this
knowledge. Hence, the smile that I saw on the screen was only, for me, the
opportunity to remake the experience of a smile known for having been
perceived and apprehended over the course of numerous circumstances.
We can already glimpse the meaning or the role of identification when
it is developed within the home-movie attitude.
Part T wo: The Film Experience 121

But beforehand, let us look at the role it does not play.

Such an identification, it can be seen, is not a participation in the acts
perceived on the screen. In order for this to be the case, these acts would
have to be considered on an individual basis and thus perceived ‘in situation.’
Let us explain this point further. If, for example, in a home movie, I
perceive a friend running, it is not, of course, the act of running itself that
I apprehend – the meaning, that is to say the origin and the goal of this act
does not, in fact, interest me in the slightest – but rather, as we have seen,
a certain general manner of running which itself reflects a general manner
of acting which is that of my friend. It would be another thing entirely to
see a character from a fiction film running. In this case, identification
would indeed have the act itself as its object, in its individuality and with
its meaning. This identification would then often assume the guise of a
participation. If, for example, the running of the character in question has
the meaning of an escape, then it is the comportment of escaping which we
apprehend, and with which we identify, with all that this implies.
But this presents the opportunity of deepening the genre of identification
when we study the fiction film more precisely.
The identification in the home-movie attitude is not a participatory
behavior. Nor is it, however, understanding in the general sense of the
term. There is, in fact, nothing to understand in the observed acts. In other
terms, the identificatory behavior as applied to the home movie teaches us
absolutely nothing about the person under consideration. On the contrary,
as we clarified above, it is the actualization of a certain intuitive knowledge
bearing on a general behavior which is formed on the terrain of real percep-
tion on the occasion of previous contacts.
But why is this actualization realized? What is its meaning?
In our opinion, it essentially involves a kind of ‘incantatory’ behavior
intended to ‘presentify’ the person under consideration, and evoke their
presence.
Let us explain this further. In the example given above, there was on the
one hand my intention to render a friend present to myself, and on the other
hand, a film sequence showing me this friend smiling. Since my attention
does not focus on the individual smile on-screen, but on a certain mode
of smiling specific to my friend who I know exists elsewhere, my postural
attitude was fashioned as a function of what I know about the mode of
smiling possessed by my friend-in-general who exists elsewhere.
It is therefore a matter of identifying with an absent person who is real-
ized through the intermediary of the image, a vicarious identification. My
goal was therefore to enter into intersubjective relations with an absent
122  Jean-Pierre Meunier

person through his image. Thus, the smile of the screen was given as the
‘phantom’ of my friend’s real smile such as I have seen it in perception,
such as it is presently realized elsewhere, and which I regard in its most
essential aspects.
But to state that, in the case of the home movie, identification is a form
of vicarious identification says much about the meaning of this behavior.
This amounts to saying that we are dealing with an empty identification, a
behavior that is realized as if the person under consideration were present
in flesh and blood, and which even incorporates everything that it knows
about the absent person, who is not directly perceptible on the image. This
is a behavior that ‘plays’ the presence of the object. In short, it is an effort
to apprehend a real but absent comportment which remains out of range.
This is why we say that it is a kind of ‘incantatory’ behavior.
Incidentally, it may be apt to remark that the feelings accompanying this
behavior are also sentiments that are ‘played,’ simulacra of feelings that
could inspire in us the effective presence of the person under consideration.
Hence, the sympathy felt for a ‘presentified’ friend in the home movie is
evidently not inspired by what the screen shows us. It draws its origin from
the real contacts that we have seen with the friend sought after. What is
more, it is linked to the presence of this friend and, even when it functions
for no purpose, as is the case with the image of my friend, it must also be
interpreted as an attempt at ‘presentification.’ In fact, in order for these
sentiments of sympathy that I feel for a determinate person to be produced,
we must have the presence of this person or, absent this, a substitute for
this presence. The cinematic image offers us this substitute and allows us
to feel this sympathy linked to presence. At no moment do we lose sight of
the fact that the image is only a substitute, a simulacrum of presence. And
yet we continue to feel sympathy, even when it functions for no purpose.
More precisely, we realize this sympathy within us in an effort to join the
real person from whom we remain irremediably cut off. As we can see, the
affective aspect and the postural aspect are merged in a single, unified
behavior which is essentially defined as an effort to evoke the presence
of the object under consideration. But we must also say that this behavior
always fails. We ‘play’ at believing in this presence, but we never get there
since we are always aware of the absence of the object.
We might even add that the more the characteristics of the substitute are
close to the real characteristics of the object such as it can be perceived, the
more the failure of our behavior is felt. We can, in fact, try to render a person
present by different means. For example, we can produce a mental image,
or utilize a photograph or home movie. In all three cases, the behavior has
Part T wo: The Film Experience 123

the same meaning. In all three cases, too, this behavior is doomed to failure,
but we can observe that this failure is generally felt with more violence for
the home movie than for the photograph, and with more violence for the
photograph than for the mental image.
The fact is that, from the mental image to the film, the image gains in
precision and vivacity. It thus becomes more apt to evoke the presence,
and more apt to render the object such as it can be seen in perception. At
the same time, and paradoxically, it expresses absence with much more
clarity, quite simply because, by further resembling the real object, it lets
us better take stock of what the effective presence of this real object would
be. Consequently, this ‘absenteeism’ is all the more clearly felt, and the
resulting disappointment is all the greater.
In the home-movie attitude, our behavior consists of a vain effort to
‘presentify’ the object, an attempt to enter into intersubjective relations
with other people, which necessarily leads to disappointment.
All this leads us to make a final observation. At the same time as the
absence of the object is felt, and correlatively with this fact, the presence of
the spectator is experienced as useless, without any meaning. This is because,
by wishing to render a person present, it is often our presence to the person
that we try to evoke. In sum, we seek a relationship of real intersubjectivity.
But, once the object is irremediably revealed to be out of our grasp, this will
for a personal engagement in the relationship is experienced as being absurd.
It is confronted with the void, and remains suspended, without any
possible outlet or any real signification.
To conclude: in the home-movie attitude, our own presence is constantly
felt insofar as it is one of the poles of the relationship that we would like to
see realized, and it is felt all the more for the fact that, since it is incapable
of being engaged, it remains entirely preoccupied with itself.
This situation is comparable to the situation in which we have attempted
to take hold of an object that is out of our grasp. Insofar as the object can
be grasped, we simply have the awareness of an object to be held, and the
gesture to take hold of it barely attracts our attention. By contrast, when
it is out of our grasp, our attention focuses on these gestures. We are then
aware of carrying out useless, symbolic gestures which embarrass us in
their absurdity.
We could speak at much greater length on the behavior we have just
studied. There would be a great deal of nuance to add, and numerous specific
cases to examine. In any case, we believe we have touched on the essence
of the structure and meaning of this behavior, an essence that we can
summarize in the following terms.
124  Jean-Pierre Meunier

In its structure, identification in the home-movie attitude essentially

consists of the actualization of an intuitive and synthetic knowledge of
the object under consideration, an actualization which is realized thanks
to the perception on the screen of behavior that is objectively individual
but generalized by the spectator. In its meaning, this type of identification
consists of a vain effort to evoke a presence that remains irremediably out
of our grasp.

b) Identification in the ‘Documentary Attitude’

In the documentary attitude there is, as we clarified in the preceding chap-

ters, a positing of existence, a generalization of the matter of the image, a
constituting activity and a fixing of the attention on the image as a starting
point for the sketching of a general knowledge. In the end, the essential
function of movement is to permit the formation of a progressive, cumulative
knowledge in the object presented by the film. In this sense, the activity
of consciousness consists, above all, of a retention and a generalization of
the perceived object.
Within this attitude, how is identificatory behavior structured, and what
is its meaning?
Let us first of all note that here the quality of identificatory behavior
depends to a large extent on the interest felt by the spectator for the subject
of the documentary. This remark is, incidentally, very general, and applies
just as much to identification in the home-movie attitude as it does to
identification in the fiction film. However, it is appropriate to formulate it
in specific relation to the documentary film, since, in this case more than in
the other two cases, our attention risks being distracted. This is because the
documentary aims to procure a certain knowledge about a certain object,
and if this object does not interest us, we will experience the film in a very
distracted manner instead of following it attentively.
But since our project is to explain certain characteristic attitudes and
forms of behavior, we envisage the case wherein the spectator is interested
and follows the film attentively.
In order to orient our analysis, we will once again refer to a concrete
example. Take one of the numerous documentaries about medicine. For
example, take a documentary whose goal is to teach the spectator about
the lifestyle of country doctors, and the difficulties they face. The film
shows one of these medical practitioners in some of his most representative
activities: talking with patients, taking their pulse, difficulties in moving
around, emergency cases, etc.
Part T wo: The Film Experience 125

If I am interested, I will apply myself to the task of grasping the sense of

this doctor’s behavior by identifying with him. But here, as with that form of
identification that develops within the home-movie attitude, his behavior is
not apprehended on a strictly individual level. We know, in fact, that, in the
documentary attitude, the perceived object is generalized, in the sense that it
refers to a more general reality existing elsewhere. Thus, the particular manner
that our country doctor has of conducting himself with a patient at a given
moment in the film, presented as a general style of his comportment with his
patients, proper to the real-life doctor and, through him, to country doctors
in general. Consequently, what we try to apprehend through the individual
behavior with which we identify is a general style of comportment, such as
can be observed in numerous country doctors. We can see the difference
with fiction. In a fiction film, the comportment of a doctor does not refer to
anything existing. It would have no meaning with respect to existing general
reality. Its only meaning relates to the story told by the film, an individual
story made up of individual forms of behavior interacting with one another.
This comportment would then be apprehended in its singularity.
Within the documentary attitude, identification therefore has a general-
izing nature. It involves apprehending, on the basis of particular behavioral
acts, typical or general modes of comportment.
But if this behavior is generalizing, it is not generalizing in the same
manner as that which is developed in the home-movie attitude. In this
case, there is a whole knowledge that incorporates the postural attitude of
reproduction, a knowledge which is naturally intuitive and formed in the
course of earlier perceptual acts.
Here, by contrast, knowledge is contemporaneous with viewing the film,
and is formed precisely during the film screening.
Briefly put, in the documentary attitude, identification teaches. This is
its precise meaning and function. It targets the formation of an intuitive
knowledge about an existing and general reality considered through the
intermediary of the image. The postural attitude is here one of ‘comprehen-
sion.’ It is, therefore, radically different from the behavior of evocation
specific to the home-movie attitude, and also different, in many aspects,
from the behavior of ‘participation’ that we will have the opportunity to
study with respect to the fiction film.
Identification in the documentary attitude thus constitutes a kind of
apprenticeship. We grasp and understand a certain number of typical
behavioral forms with the explicit or implicit goal of knowing the ‘how’ and
the ‘why’ of these representative modes of behavior belonging to a certain
category of comportment.
126  Jean-Pierre Meunier

The individuals represented on the screen thus have little value as individu-
als, unless of course they are ‘personalized’ as in certain documentaries that
have fictionalized elements or that relate to a specific person (such as Nanook).
But, as a general rule, the individuals of the documentary film are anonymous
beings who are seen as representing broader categories of individuals. Thus,
in our example, the country doctor is not taken as a singular person but
as one doctor among many, chosen from the group of country doctors as a
representative sample of this group. It is therefore an anonymous being whose
anonymous behavior we grasp, and who we relate to a set of individuals.
That is to say that, in this case, identificatory behavior does not imply any
‘ego transference.’ The ‘ego’ of the spectator and the film character remain in
a relation of pure exteriority. In other words, we identify with the character
to understand their behavior, but in no way do we try to be this character,
who has no, or almost no, ‘personality’ for us. We remain ourselves in the
process of grasping the modes of comportment illustrated by one or more
anonymous, merely representative individuals. There is nothing similar, in
this type of identification, to that by which we try to substitute ourselves
for the other person, to become united with the other person, because it
is another character, a hero, whom we have strongly ‘valorized.’ We will
encounter this type of identification when we have to envisage a certain
genre of fiction filmmaking.
Here it is only a question of apprehending impersonal behavior merely
illustrated by an anonymous individual.
This is why we said that the spectator and the character remain in a
relation of pure exteriority.
We have the structure and the meaning of identification in the docu-
mentary attitude. We also know that this identification does not imply an
engagement of personal ‘ego’ in the character of the film. But above all, we
know that, in the case that occupies us, it is a form of apprenticeship. We
must now ask ourselves about the particularities of this form of apprentice-
ship, taking into account the non-presence of the object. In other words,
what differentiates the formation of knowledge in a filmic situation from the
formation of knowledge in real situations? Here, we can only give a tentative
response to this rather marginal question, but it may nonetheless be suitable
to address it, given the importance that it can take in the framework of the
problems that audiovisual pedagogy poses to us.
Two elements retain our attention.
Firstly, let us note that, in a real situation, in contrast to what takes place
in the filmic situation, our presence alongside the people with whom we
identify implies a certain reciprocity in relations.
Part T wo: The Film Experience 127

We are always situated in a relationship with other people, and, at the

same time that there is our view on another person, there is also the view
of another person on us. Our presence alongside the other person is felt,
and hones our attention as well as that of the other person. In short, we
are in the midst of a real situation, and are concerned by other objects
and people.
In a filmic situation, there is nothing of the sort. We apprehend reality
‘from a distance’ and our presence is absolutely not under question. It fol-
lows that we can develop a purer behavior of comprehension, because it is
extracted and centered exclusively on the object.
On the other hand, however, we must also consider that, since we are not
in a concrete, real situation – or rather, since we are not physically engaged
in this situation, and since we are therefore not physically concerned by it,
the reality considered through the intervention of the image does not have
the density for us that its actual presence would, with all that this implies
(particularly on the level of affectivity). We all know through experience
that following dramatic events on the screen makes less of an ‘impression’
on us than seeing them in reality. This is because, in the cinema, we see
things and events ‘from a distance,’ without truly being concerned by them.
The reality targeted remains distant, and becomes ‘disaffectivized.’
Thus, in our example, we can well understand the difficulties faced by
the country doctor, we can even see them, but in a manner abstracted from
reality. Consequently, we imagine what they are more than we really feel
them. By ‘imagine’ we do not mean an intellectual operation, by which we
represent to ourselves what these difficulties are. Rather, since we are not
in a real situation, we can only ‘play’ what we would feel more deeply if we
were present at the events and directly concerned by them.
It follows that this modality of apprenticeship that is identification in
the documentary attitude offers the advantage of a comprehension that
is more ‘objective,’ because it is extracted from the situation. Moreover, it
remains impotent to render in all their density the affective resonances
that are engendered by real contact with these events.

c) Identification in the ‘Fiction Attitude’

We here reach the most important point of our analysis, since it is quite
evident that the behavior that will be under discussion is by far the most
characteristic of the filmic fact.
Along with identification in the home-movie attitude and identification
in the documentary attitude, we have studied the forms of comportment
128  Jean-Pierre Meunier

corresponding to cinematic functions that are, when it comes down to it,

rather secondary, if not de jure, then at least de facto.
Through the importance of its on-screen representation, as well as through
its consumption by the broader public, fiction evidently constitutes the
principal sector of film production. This is why we will accord special at-
tention to the behavior solicited by fiction films.
Let us briefly recall the essence of what we have said with respect to the
attitude taken when faced with a fiction film.

We know that, in the fiction film, the filmic datum does not refer to any-
thing that exists. The filmic world, we said, closes in on itself in order to
constitute itself as an autonomous reality. It is a quasi-world populated
by quasi-presences, which we believe in without positing its existence.
Our attention focuses on the image in its individuality. Correlatively, the
activity of consciousness almost exclusively consists of acts of retention
and protention, whose goal is to integrate at every present moment the set
of passing events, and to project, on the basis of these present moments,
future events. Thus, as we have seen, there is no longer any possibility of a
detachment or a distanciation from the filmic reality. Consciousness is led
to follow the story and cannot be detached from it.
How is the apprehension of perceived behavior realized within this
particular attitude?
In other words, what is the meaning and the function of identification
with the characters of a fiction film?
We know that, here, the perceived behavior is almost entirely cut off
from existing reality. It only has meaning inside the film, within the ac-
tion in the course of being shown. Thus, for example, when we follow the
behavior of the hero in a Western, we obviously do not seek to represent
what heroes in general do. Their existence is not even presumed. Simply,
we wish to follow a story concerning a certain number of characters who
interest us to the extent that they are significant to the imaginary story
we wish to follow.
It is thus above all a matter of understanding the behavior perceived, not
for what it is conducive to teaching us (as is the case in the documentary) but
because it has a meaning within the story being told. This is the first function
of identification. It exerts itself on all the characters, but is almost exclusive
when it comes to secondary characters or, more precisely, characters who
remain little ‘affectivized.’
Let us explain this. We know that, in the beginning, identification is
affectively ambivalent but that it is then oriented either towards sympathy
Part T wo: The Film Experience 129

or towards antipathy. The same, by the way, goes for the valorization or
devalorization of characters.
And yet, in the cinema, there are characters who are strongly ‘affec-
tivized’ – generally, they are the main characters – and others who are
barely ‘affectivized’ at all (who are generally secondary characters). We
will later discuss the manner in which this ‘affectivization’ is structured.
For the moment, we will limit ourselves to describing the meaning of this
identificatory behavior according to whether it is attached to characters
who are ‘affectivized’ to a greater or a lesser degree.
When it comes to less ‘affectivized’ characters, identification is, as we
said, exclusively a behavior of ‘comprehension.’ The behavior of these
characters is simply apprehended for its signification in the action taking
place. This is the case, for example, in the behavior of the German sentinel
when the prisoners try to escape. This comportment is grasped insofar as
it has a meaning in the unfolding of events, but we in no way ‘participate’
in it. On the contrary, this type of comportment remains ‘external’ in the
sense that it is situated with respect to a character who we follow more
particularly.
Thus, when we are dealing with secondary characters affectivized to a
lesser degree, identification simply grasps the individual behavior on the
basis of its meaning in the context of the film, and the relationship of the
spectator to these characters is a relationship of pure exteriority.
The same, obviously, does not apply when we are dealing with more
strongly ‘affectivized’ characters. In this case, identificatory behavior takes
on more of an allure of ‘participation.’ But it will be useful to distinguish
several levels of participation.
To schematize somewhat, we can distinguish participation in the modality
of ‘being-with’ from participation in the modality of ‘being-like.’ It is hardly
possible to differentiate the objective filmic content susceptible to inducing
one or the other of these modalities. The personality of the spectator remains
the principal determinant of the type of participation. Nonetheless, without
any presumption of reality, it seems to us that certain categories of film,
such as so-called ‘psychological’ films, do more to solicit our participation in
the mode of ‘being-with,’ whereas the heroic genre and so-called ‘adventure’
films appear to induce a greater degree of participation in the mode of
‘being-like.’ We will refer to concrete examples.
Thérèse Desqueyroux by George Franju (1962, adapted from a novel by
François Mauriac) offers us a typical example of the psychological film.
Thérèse Desqueyroux, the title character, does not have the typical qualities
of the hero of an adventure film. She is a character the likes of whom we
130  Jean-Pierre Meunier

often meet in daily reality, someone who finds herself confronted with real
psychological and moral problems, such as they occur in real life.
In the course of the film, a certain sympathy is formed for the character
of Thérèse Desqueyroux, a sympathy which derives from an understanding
of her behavior, and which in turn solicits this understanding even more.
This sympathy for Thérèse Desqueyroux results in our participation in her
problems, her state of mind, and her behavior. In other words, identification
here takes the allure of participation. I am ‘with’ Thérèse Desqueyroux
in the sense that I share her life and her psychological troubles. But what
is important to underscore is that, while participating in her existence, I
remain situated with respect to her. In other words, I do not engage my
personal ‘ego’ in the character. Thérèse Desqueyroux remains before me,
in a relationship of exteriority. I live in connivance with her, in a sort of
sympathetic complicity, but I remain a center of reference. As such, the
story of Thérèse Desqueyroux does not become my story, since I do not
have a tendency to fuse with her, to be ‘like her.’
Rather, I am in solidarity with her behavior and her state of mind. I am
with her, while remaining myself. This is what we fittingly call participation
in the mode of ‘being-with.’
In films presenting a ‘hero,’ or, in a more general manner, characters
who are highly idealized or magnified – the hero of a Western, James Bond,
etc. – participation can sometimes take on an entirely different allure.
Think, for example, of certain Western heroes, super-men who triumph
over all obstacles and succeed in all their endeavors, both on the level of
action and on a romantic level. This type of character offers to the audience
the spectacle of a comportment, or rather, a highly idealized manner of being.
Not only do these characters provoke our sympathy, but, more than this,
they are valorized to a very high degree.
We should clarify that valorization should not be understood as pro-
ceeding from a moral judgment, but rather as flowing from an intuitive
apprehension of privileged comportment on the level of relations with
another person. We have here the affective valorization of a comportment
that appears as an ideal form of behavior.
It follows that participation in such comportment is often much more
than mere solidarity. This is because participation takes on the allure of an
attempt to ‘be like’ the hero. Here, there is identification in the narrow sense
of the term. In other words, there is an attempted fusion with the highly
valorized character. The ego tends to establish with the personality of the
hero a relation not of exteriority but of belonging. The center of reference
is no longer the ego of the spectator but the personality of the hero, and
Part T wo: The Film Experience 131

participatory behavior consists of an effort to be this personality. This is,

therefore, participation in the mode of ‘being-like.’
But we must maintain that this genre of participation brings with it
certain limits that it is important to specify if we wish to avoid wasting our
breath by producing a caricature of reality. This attempt to incorporate the
hero leads, in effect, to an extremely complex state in which the spectator has
a tendency to become another person while nonetheless remaining himself.
Let us try to elucidate this ambiguity and begin by further clarifying the
link established through participation.
We said above that participation in the mode of being-like tends to
establish a relation of belonging. But what, precisely, does this relation
consist of? Here, we must be wary of abuses of language, because certain
expressions – which we ourselves have utilized – such as ‘fusion with the
character,’ ‘transference of the ego into the character’ or even ‘forgetting
oneself to live inside the character,’ expressions which are frequently used
in the literature dedicated to cinema, are only a very imperfect reflection
of reality, exaggerating it or deforming it due to the words used to describe
it. It thus appears necessary, lest we lapse into committing certain errors,
to nuance the global meaning that these expressions contain. The problem
is thus to specify the exact nature of the relations between the self (the
spectator) and the other person (the character) which are established
through participation.
First of all, what do we mean when we speak of ‘forgetting oneself’ with
respect to the spectator?
This question requires us to clarify what we mean by the ‘self.’ We know
that subjectivity is not closed in on itself, but is a relationship with the world
and other people, that it is constitutionally intersubjective.
We also know that, in such conditions, it is in and through intersubjective
relations that the ‘self’ and the other person reciprocally constitute each
other through the interplay of identification and opposition. But this means,
among other things, that, what I am for myself is, at the same time, neces-
sarily what I am for other people, that the ‘for-me’ is indissolubly linked with
the ‘for-another.’ When it comes down to it, this means that, in the process
by which I constitute myself as a personal ego, I must constantly take into
account what I signify for other people, through ‘appearance’ or exteriority,
as well as through my position within a sociocultural milieu, which confers
on me a signification in the eyes of other people that I have not chosen but
that I must accept, and either take responsibility for or overcome.
These remarks will allow us to better understand what is meant by
‘forgetting oneself.’
132  Jean-Pierre Meunier

Although constituted interiority must also accommodate exteriority

(or being-for-another) within itself, because they are indissolubly linked
with one another, this does not prevent it from sometimes escaping itself,
at least on the imaginary level, and taking refuge in another exteriority,
another being-for-another.
It is in the imaginary realm, indeed, that we can, for a certain length of
time, abstract ourselves from the concrete conditions of our existence, and
free ourselves from this signification for the other which we must always
assume in real life, and it is in the imaginary realm that we can consequently
try to install in our interiority another being-for-another linked to another
apparition and other conditions of existence. The expression ‘forgetting
oneself’ means nothing other than the bracketing of one’s social being. We
are now in a position to further clarify this ‘relation of belonging’ which
we evoked earlier, and which we admitted was specific to participatory
identification. This relationship is established between the interiority of
the spectator and the exteriority of the character, between the for-oneself
of the spectator and the being-for-another of the character.
The attempt to be ‘like another person’ is, in the end, an attempt to let
dwell in one’s interiority another apparition, another signif ication for
another person. Correlatively, what the spectator targets in participatory
identification is not the other person as a being endowed with an interiority,
but as an exteriority, a being incarnated in a certain body realizing certain
possibilities within a certain historical and social milieu. In a word, it is a
special manner of being-in-the-world-and-with-other-people that the specta-
tor seeks to integrate. In this behavior, the essential function of mimicry
(posture) is precisely to make the external behavior of the character dwell
in the interiority of the spectator, thereby constituting a link of belonging
between the being-for-another of the latter and the being-for-oneself of
the former.
It may be useful to illustrate all this with a concrete example.
On the screen, the standard Western hero – we are referring here to
classical Westerns with a simple structure, and not to certain f ilms of
the same genre which have ambitions that more evidently reside on the
psychological or social level – imposes his law on the evildoers, his strong
personality on his posse, and his seductive powers on the heroines. Each of
his actions reflects a privileged mode of being, a kind of mythical style of
existence, which is consequently enviable in many aspects. As such, if the
character seduces me, the intersubjective relation that makes me coexist
with him is structured in the direction of a belonging of his conditions
of existence to my interiority. I try to appropriate to myself his behavior
Part T wo: The Film Experience 133

and his manner of being. By mimetically imitating him, I try to feel the
exteriority of the hero in my own interiority. If he vanquishes an enemy, I
act as if I have overcome the bad guy. It can even happen that I anticipate
his behavior, reacting to events before he does or correcting his actions.
In short, I participate in a privileged manner of being-in-the-world by
making it my own.
We can now see what distinguishes this mode of participation from
that which we have defined as a “participation in the mode of being-with.”
In this latter category, we do not only aim for an exteriority. Through the
exteriority, we try to feel the interiority of the character, even while we
maintain a distance from it in order to comprehend it. Simply put, there is
a co-existence with the other person, who remains other in terms of their
personal consciousness. By contrast, with participation in the mode of
being-like, there is no co-existence with another person, but an attempt
to make another behavior exist for us. We should also note in passing that
heroic characters, those who encourage participation in the mode of being-
like, do not impose themselves as individuals, that is, as personal beings
possessing their own interiority, but rather as pure behavior or, if you like,
as pure exteriority. They provide us with ideal schemas of comportment
more than inviting us to consider them as personal consciousnesses. Think
of Tarzan or Zorro, to take the simplest cases, or even James Bond or Matt
Helm. On the other end of the spectrum, those characters who do more to
solicit our complicity, connivance, or comprehension (participation in the
mode of being-with) impose themselves as individuals, and invite us to enter
deeper into the mysteries of their interiority, rather than live vicariously
through their actions. These characters include Thérèse Desqueyroux, Cleo
(from Cléo de 5 à 7 [Cléo from 5 to 7, Agnès Varda, 1962]), the hero from Bicycle
Thieves, or St. Vincent de Paul from Monsieur Vincent (Maurice Cloche, 1947).
All these considerations put us in a good position to elucidate the limited
and ambiguous aspects of the relationship established by participation in
the mode of ‘being-like.’
If, as we believe, this participation is an adherence of the personal ego to
the exteriority of another person, we can understand that the link thereby
established cannot be totally realized.
If he finds himself favored by the filmic situation – a situation which is,
we must clarify, advantageous for the bracketing of my own conditions of
existence – it remains the case that the character under consideration is
still before me.
An insurmountable distance remains between him and me. Funda-
mentally, for participation to take place, I must be able to transport myself
134  Jean-Pierre Meunier

into the filmic world. But I cannot do so, and so I remain condemned to
mime from my seat the role that I try to occupy in the universe of the
film. This means that, no matter how much I may realize the belonging
of my interiority to the exteriority of another person, I can only make it
act from afar. I must act ‘as if’ I were in the place of the characters, ‘as if’ I
possessed their bodies and possibilities. And yet, this ‘as if,’ imposed by the
insurmountable distance between that behavior which remains inexorably
before my own self, remains implicit for consciousness and renders the
realization of the relationship impossible. This is because ‘acting’ at being
like another person implies that, at the same time, I deny that I simply
am this other person. In other words, this means that the ‘participating’
ego who can only ‘pretend’ remains implicitly conscious of its exteriority,
since ‘pretending’ implies that we cannot forget but only feign to ignore
our proper conditions of existence, and that feigning to ignore implicitly
means recognizing.
Thus, escaping from the self is never total. It is only ever a game requiring
a share of bad faith, an attempt to deceive oneself about one’s own reality
and make oneself believe something else.
In what we have called participation in the modality of ‘being-with,’ there
is nothing of the sort, since this behavior is a form of co-existence – that
is, the simple coming together of the self and the other person as different
beings.
Hence, the difference between the two types of participation appears
still more clearly, and this difference, we believe, deserves to be elucidated,
since it indicates to us that the experience of the film is neither simple nor
singular, that it moves, at times, in the direction of the understanding of
the other person, and at other times in the direction of an escape into the
other person, and that any psychological or sociological study of the function
of film in the life of individuals and societies must necessarily take into
account this diversification of experience.

II. The Differentiation of Identification According to Different

Characters

Until now, we have spoken of filmic identification in general, without wor-

rying too much about the manner in which it is differentiated according to
the different characters of a film. And yet, we all know from experience that
our identification with a character varies greatly depending on whether the
character is central or secondary, strong or weak, moral or immoral, etc.
How is this differentiation brought about?
Part T wo: The Film Experience 135

In other words, what is it that makes our relation to certain characters, in

the course of a film, take on the allure of an intense participation, whereas
for others, it is reduced to mere understanding?

We already partially responded to this question when we envisaged the

problem of the different modalities of filmic identification, but it is doubtless
apt now to return to this issue, by further systematizing the elements of
an answer.
We have sometimes posed the problem of the structuring of identification
according to different characters in terms of a choice, by the spectator, of
a privileged individual who is identified with in an almost total manner.
Subsequently, to justify this choice, it sufficed to appeal to one or another
objective characteristic, discernible in the personality (or the character)
and conducive to inviting the spectators to ‘escape’ or ‘project’ themselves
into this character. Thus, we have invoked the physical beauty of the on-
screen figure as an invitation to live for a time with the ideal appearance
that we do not possess. Sometimes, too, we attributed the role of enabling
intense participation to certain traits held in common by the actors and the
spectators. If they find themselves faced with the physical or moral image
that actors present to them, spectators have the opportunity to ‘project’
themselves into a cinematic ‘alter ego.’ Of course, the objective elements
which, like physical beauty, arouse our escape into an ideal personality, or
which, like the resemblance between the spectator and the actor, invite
our participation through connivance or complicity, intervene, to a certain
extent, in the choice that the spectators make.
On this matter, we should signal that, during a study aiming to clarify
the impact on the audience of the film La Vie conjugale by André Cayatte
(Anatomy of a Marriage, 1964), we were able to observe that certain specta-
tors, having gone through problems similar to those encountered by the
characters, took the side of one or the other of the characters, and stood
up for them. Thus, everything leads us to believe that during the course of
the film, these same spectators had ‘projected’ themselves, more than is
normally the case, in what appeared to them as their own image.
We do not deny the importance of the objective elements which have here
been in question, but, what seems erroneous to us, or in any case abusive, is
the idea that we turn these elements into ‘factors of identification,’ that we
establish a direct link between these elements and the choices of spectators.
First of all, this would considerably reduce the act of identification. As we
have seen, it is not only a behavior of intense participation, but intervenes
on every level of relational behavior. We therefore need to describe the
136  Jean-Pierre Meunier

Fig. 6: Françoise (Marie-José Nat) and Jean-Marc (Jacques Charrier) in André Cayatte’s Anatomy of
a Marriage.

modalities of identification, more than defining privileged cases where it

is realized to a high degree.
Subsequently, if there was a direct link, if physical perfection or resem-
blance automatically induces participation, it is hard to see why these ele-
ments do not function in an equal manner for characters who are apparently
equal on the level of beauty, or on the level of possible similitudes with the
spectators. For example, among the secondary characters gravitating around
the main characters, there are often those whose physique or conduct might
inspire the spectator. In the same manner, it is also hard to see why, in the
hypothesis of a direct link between physical perfection and participation,
certain stars do not exert the same hold from one film to the next. The cases
are numerous wherein a star, who is generally adulated by the public in the
majority of his films, loses, as a result of playing a new role in a situation that
is unusual for him, his power of fascination. Thus, in Lost Command (Mark
Robson, 1966), Maurice Ronet plays, alongside Alain Delon and Anthony
Quinn, and in opposition to these two actors, a particularly antipathetic
character, barely conducive to soliciting the participation of the spectator.
The manner in which we here discuss the attractive value of the ‘objective’
elements under consideration, can appear a little simplistic, but nonetheless
shows that it is vain to try to establish direct links between participation and
a visible trait of the characters independent of the context in which they are
perceived. If the traits of the characters have any influence on identification,
this cannot be in the absolute, but in relation to a certain context. This is
why we find it illegitimate to pose the problem of the differentiation of
identification in terms of the choices motivated by certain characteristics
of the characters envisaged as isolated beings.
Part T wo: The Film Experience 137

In reality, if we attentively examine the film experience, we will see that

the characters of a film are always perceived in relation to one another.
They are characters-in-relation-to-other-characters. As we expressed at
the beginning of this work, we do not perceive isolated subjectivities, but
social beings perpetually in relation to one another and drawing their very
definition from these relations. Likewise, characters perceived in the cinema
are perceived as relational nodal points. They define themselves with respect
to other characters and the objective elements (or rather ‘objectifiable’
elements) which characterize them, only have meaning in the social context
specific to the film.
In fact, one of the reasons why we have sometimes sought the direct
causes of intense participation in the objective traits of characters was very
probably the constancy with which certain actors garnered the admiration
of spectators. It was consequently tempting to attribute only to the elements
that are apparently invariant from one film to another – the physique and the
temperament taken by themselves – the direct reasons for the constancy of
the fascination they exert on the crowd. But, when looking more closely, we
can see that, what principally remains invariant, from one film to another,
is the character played by these actors, a character who is always ratified
by the social context of each of their films. Thus, in almost all films, Jean
Gabin presents the image of a strong, slightly gruff personality, admitted
as such and confirmed by his entourage.
Likewise, Brigitte Bardot, who has never ceased, since the beginning of
her career, to play beautiful, erotic, and amoral young women, has always
found herself in filmic situations from which she has drawn this signification
of amoral and erotic beauty.
We can also say that her physique and temperament predispose her to
this signification, but this is possibly because she plays the same role in life
as she does on the screen, or, in other words, that, taking into account her
innate physical attributes, the human relations of her real existence have
been structured in a certain manner, and that it is this manner that has
been reproduced on the screen in situations that confirm it.
In any case, we are still dealing with roles and situations, and with
characters drawing a certain signification from a certain context, and not
isolated personalities drawing from themselves, like a secretion, a certain
power of attraction or repulsion.
Moreover, in contrast to actors restricted to a single persona, there are
many others whose various appearances on the screen are so many composi-
tions of characters having little or no relationship between them, and they
acquire from this fact very different significations.
138  Jean-Pierre Meunier

In short, as we have said, film characters are always characters-in-relation-

to-other-characters who receive their signification from the social situations
in which they are involved. It seems that it is on this basis that we must
envisage the problem of the differentiation of identification according to
different characters.
We must consider that, at the beginning of the film, all characters are
simply apprehended by the spectator in roughly the same manner. We
grasp this behavior and understand its meaning, but nothing is as yet well
structured, since the relations between characters are still too imprecise.
If, at this point, certain characters already appear as more sympathetic
than others, we are still only dealing with a barely sketched out sentiment.
This sentiment is doubtless predicated on a style of behavior that makes
us presume an appearance that has either been glimpsed or, in the case of
a well-known actor, valorized in other films, and that we are prepared to
once again find a familiar role for them. But, up to this point, differentiation
has only just been initiated. It is only later, in the course of the film, that
identification is structured and differentiated into an intense participation,
in the case of certain characters, or a simple comprehension, in the case
of others.
The fact is that, during the unfolding of a film, that is, as the interactions
between characters are intensified and specified, each one of them reveals
their signification within the pattern that the ensemble of these characters
constitutes.
Let us clarify things a little. As we have underscored, the spectator does
not perceive isolated characters, but beings in relation with one another,
characters-for-other-characters, or, alternatively, the manners that these
different characters have of structuring their relations with other people.
In the course of the action they undertake, these manners of comportment
are specified, and each one of them takes on a signification in relation to
the others.
As this apprehension of significations is realized, the intersubjective
relations between the spectator and the character are modified and con-
comitantly diversified.
In fact, the affectivity which, as we have seen, plays an essential role
in identificatory behavior, invests the characters in a very different man-
ner according to the significations that they reveal. Certain behavioral
styles appear sympathetic, while others are apprehended as indifferent or
antipathetic. Certain of them are valorized, while others are devalorized.
And yet, this affectivization and valorization of the characters will
orient the form and intensity of identifications. We espouse the cause of
Part T wo: The Film Experience 139

sympathetic, valorized characters. Identification is crystallized around

them, it is intensified and takes the allure of participation. As for the other
characters, they are soon only apprehended through the main characters,
to which we adhere almost exclusively. We grasp their behavior as having
a meaning with respect to the chosen characters, and we often feel for
them the same sentiments as those that they inspire in these same chosen
characters.
At the risk of gross schematizing, we could summarize the complex
process that we have just described in three successive phases, which can
be delineated as follows:

1. Understanding of different characters.

Here, identificatory behavior merely grasps the meaning of on-screen
behavior. Following this comprehension, each character takes on a
certain signification with respect to the others.
2. Affectivization and valorization of the characters.
Certain modes of behavior are affectivized in the direction of sympathy
and others in the direction of antipathy and indifference. Likewise, the
same behavior is valorized or devalorized and remains indifferent on
the level of its value.
3. Identification fixates on the sympathetic, valorized characters.
It becomes participation.

The other characters are now only grasped through the main characters.
Let us try to illustrate this process by means of a concrete example chosen
from a genre that is rather simple as far as the signification of characters is
concerned: the Western. High Noon by Fred Zinnemann (1952), a Western
that has become a classic, tells us the story of an aging sheriff at the end of his
career, who finds himself suddenly constrained to carry out an imperative
but dangerous task.
The drama begins at 10 o’clock in the morning. Will Kane, the sheriff, has
just married, and is ready to once and for all leave the town in which he has
conscientiously carried out his duties for many years. However, at this very
moment, Kane learns that the train from the south will bring a dangerous
outlaw (Frank Miller) to the township, whom Kane had earlier condemned
to death. Already, three accomplices wait for Miller at the station. Up to this
moment, and although the ensemble of characters has already begun to
organize itself around Kane, the spectators limit themselves to understanding
the situation and grasping the meaning of behavior specific to the different
characters, who still have barely any signification on the affective level.
140  Jean-Pierre Meunier

But the rest of the action will increasingly orient our attention and af-
fectivity on Kane: the sheriff, in the absence of a successor who will only
assume his functions the following day, vainly tries to rustle up a posse of
men to welcome the four ‘desperados.’ One by one, and for various reasons,
his friends desert him. Even his wife abandons him. Everything is against
him, and he will have to fight alone.
We can see how the identificatory behavior of the spectator is differenti-
ated. Through the situation and the interaction between the characters,
Kane’s behavior is bestowed with a signification that induces affectivization
and valorization, which results in identification being transformed into
participation. On an affective level, we take his side, stand up for him. Our
state of mind coincides with his own, and we ‘experience’ his behavior.
As for the other characters, they are primarily apprehended through Kane.
Many of them (the townsfolk) are felt to be mediocre or cowardly, and Miller
is seen as a mortal danger. Of course, even for these other characters, identi-
fication can move in the direction of a deeper comprehension. Kane’s wife,
for example, can certainly be the object of identification-comprehension.
For proof, take this extract from a newspaper review, which can only be
the result of enhanced identification:

Kane’s wife. Her character is like that of the pastor. She belongs to the
Quaker religion which forbids violence of any kind. She pushes her
religious convictions to the extreme and coldly imagines leaving her
husband, resorting to threats in order to put pressure on him. We should
adopt a very nuanced judgement in the analysis of her behavior if we take
into account, on the one hand, the depth of her religious convictions,
and on the other hand the obligation she has, owing to her marriage,
to understand and admit the point of view of her husband, who values
doing one’s duties.

We should also underscore that she was not born a Quaker, but had em-
braced the pacifist religion following a murder in her family, committed
right before her eyes. This atrocious vision provoked a psychological
shock in her. She sees nothing strange in the fact that a new shock (seeing
her husband on the verge of being killed) should provoke a profound,
instantaneous change in her feelings, and lead her to use violence in her
turn in order to defend the man she never stopped loving…

Evidently, this type of analysis can only come from identificatory behavior
which is based on comprehension, and which has been developed during
Part T wo: The Film Experience 141

a viewing of the film. But it is still the case that, for the vast majority of
spectators, Kane’s wife remains a ‘peripheral’ character understood through
her relationship with Kane, the central character who not only solicits our
understanding but also our participation.
Let us note that this participation will attain its culmination when Kane
heads off in search of his enemies in order to do battle with them, a battle
which he miraculously wins despite being greatly outnumbered.
We can now see more clearly how identif ication is structurally and
functionally differentiated according to the various significations with
which the different characters are endowed within the situation in which
they are inserted.
We can also see the precise importance that we must attribute to the
objective, isolable elements in the physical and moral personality of the
actor. It is only in a situation or a social context in which physical beauty is
valorizable that this beauty can intensify identification or orient it towards
participation.
In the same manner, a possible resemblance between actor and spectator
only acquires importance in and through its context. If we are dealing with
a moral resemblance – that is, a resemblance that is translated through a
similarity in comportment – this is evident. If we are dealing with a purely
physical resemblance, everything depends, in our opinion, on the significa-
tion that the character in question takes in the context of the film. If the
character is favorably situated, that is, if they are valorizable and conducive
to inspiring sympathy, there is every reason to believe that this element
of resemblance will orient our identification towards more intensity or
participation. If, on the contrary, this same character is disadvantageously
situated, it is rather certain that the element of resemblance will not in any
fashion influence identificatory behavior.
In a word, the primordial element on the basis of which we must under-
stand the type of identification that a character solicits is the significa-
tion that this character draws from their position in relation to the other
characters.
Now, to avoid any confusion, it is essential to note that the process by
which each of the characters draws their signification from the context
is not something objective that would be uniquely situated within the
film, and to which the spectator is simply subjected. In fact, in the final
analysis, it is the spectator who attributes significations, and who projects
these significations onto the different characters in order to subsequently
affectivize them and valorize them in one sense or another. But what we have
simply wanted to show is that this bestowal of signification is realized not
142  Jean-Pierre Meunier

through a direct effect of some kind of characteristic objectively readable

in the personality of the actor or, more generally, the character taken in
isolation, but rather through the apprehension by the spectator of a series
of interactions between the characters, interactions that permit him to
situate the characters with respect to one another and thus to attribute
significations to them.
To put it differently, it is the spectator who, entering into intersubjectivity
with each of the characters during the initial emergence of identification, and
thus perceiving in each of them a certain mode of comporting themselves
in relation to other people, or a mode of being for the other characters, will
give a certain signification to this manner of being for other people.
This last remark elicits another question that will make us pose the
problem of an objective approach to audience reactions. If it is true that it
is definitively the spectator who is alone responsible for the significations
accorded to the characters, do we not fall into a pure subjectivism, and are
the reactions of the spectators not too individual, and thus too diverse, for
the possibility of synthesizing them ever to be glimpsed?
We do not think so, since subjectivism does not necessarily signify a
heterogeneity of perceptions and a dispersion of behavioral forms.
In fact, if the perception, identification, and attribution of significations
essentially belongs to the subjective activity of the spectator, we must say
that this subjective activity is largely guided by the author of the film.
In other terms, it is the director who solicits, to a large degree, the manner
in which spectators structure their behavior.
When he makes a film, a director incarnates in behavior significations
that he wants the spectators to recognize. He structures the relations
between characters in such a way that each one of them is grasped by
the spectators. He composes each behavioral act in such a way that it is
perceived and felt by the spectators, just as he desires it to be. What is more,
he disposes of numerous technical procedures conducive to highlighting the
significations that he translates to the level of comportment (the scale of
shots, rhythm, the soundtrack, etc.), so much so that, at the end of the day,
he is the one who solicits and orients the manner in which the spectators
must apprehend the characters and structure their behavior. Moreover,
we should also remark that this solicitation of the author is exerted not
through a critical consciousness, but, as we have seen earlier, through a
‘captivated’ consciousness, led to coincide with the filmic reality and thus
without any distance from it.
It follows that the solicitation of the author takes the allure of a real shap-
ing of the spectator’s behavior and manner of perceiving. The psychological
Part T wo: The Film Experience 143

conditions of filmic perception are such that, in the course of viewing the
film, a narrow relationship is established between the subjectivity of the
director and the subjectivity of the spectator, with the latter being led to find
the significations incarnated by the former, by means of the filmic content.
This is why subjectivism does not signify a dispersion of reactions. On the
contrary, we now understand that, between the spectators of one and the
same film, there exists a community of comportment and, extending our
reasoning further, we can ask whether this behavioral community reinforces
each individual’s behavior through what they have in common. Indeed,
everyone knows that the reactions of the isolated spectator seem rather dif-
ferent, and in any case timider, with respect to those of the spectator within
a group, and it is easy to understand this. In the midst of other spectators
whose reactions are perceptibly similar, every individual is confirmed in
their own reactions, and gives free rein to them. Thus, within the group
of spectators, there is a mutual reinforcement of reactions through what
they have in common. We can say that, in addition to the intersubjective
link tying each spectator to the author, and thanks to this link, there forms
among the spectators in a single theater an anonymous intersubjective link,
drawn from a contagion of reactions, and through which each individual
has a vague feeling of solidarity with the crowd.
It is now important to note that the solicitation of the author can be
exerted to different degrees. While particularly powerful in the majority
of action films, it is often less spellbinding when it comes to films inspired
directly by daily reality, ‘psychological’ films, or social-issues films.
Action films (the Western, the cloak-and-dagger film, the spy film, the
adventure film, etc.) often only recount a story involving characters with
a simple and clearly differentiated psychology (there are ‘good guys’ and
‘bad guys,’ brave men and cowards, etc.). Such films generally arouse in
the spectator simple reactions, which are exactly those anticipated by
the author, all the more so given that these films address a well-disposed
audience, who only wish to be distracted by the antics of purely fictional
heroes. But for other films, those in which characters with more complex
psychologies bring with them a measure of ambiguity, it is obvious that the
relationship between the spectator and the character, although it is broadly
oriented by the author, is also nuanced according to the personality and
the history of each party. We can think, for example, of the characters in
films such as Hiroshima mon amour by Alain Resnais (1959), Jules et Jim by
François Truffaut (1962), Thérèse Desqueyroux by Georges Franju, 8½ by
Federico Fellini (1963), Moderato Cantabile by Peter Brook (1960), and many
others. The equivocal nature of these characters, with their complicated
144  Jean-Pierre Meunier

psychology rich in contradictions, leaves greater room for the initiative of

the spectator, above all when the ambiguity is willfully maintained by the
author (e.g. Anatomy of a Marriage by Cayatte).
In the end, we can see that the behavior of the spectator is organized
in a very complex manner. We could now begin an analysis of the way in
which, within a single subjectivity, the personal urges and the solicitations
of the director are articulated. This analysis would doubtless require an
elaboration that would be too long to be included in the present study.
Our project was to describe the broad outlines of spectatorial behavior,
and to thereby furnish a useful canvas for a global comprehension of
phenomena.
This said, we believe it is useful, as much to clarify our ideas as to
form a conclusion, for us to briefly summarize the ideas developed in
this chapter.
Identificatory behavior is structured in different ways according to the
different characters of a film, and this is a function of the different significa-
tions that the spectator attributes to these characters. The attribution of
signification is a subjective matter, but it finds itself broadly solicited by
the author. Finally, this solicitation of the author can exert itself to varying
degrees, depending on the type of film or, more generally, the will of the
director.

Chapter III: Towards Post-Filmic Behavior

After studying the structures of the film experience, we would like to hazard
a few hypotheses relating to the influence of filmic identification.
Here, of course, we can only summarily paint the broad brushstrokes of
a tableau showing the principal repercussions of a film on the mental life
and personality of the spectator. To put it simply, as much to manifest the
possible utility of the preceding discussion as to initiate further study of the
problem, we would like to open up certain perspectives to the analysis of the
influence of the cinema. More precisely, based on what we have said of the
film experience, we will try to explain the manner in which this experience
can be prolonged in psychic life and, on this basis, formulate hypotheses
about what it would be fitting to call post-filmic behavior.
We have seen that, in the case of fiction films, identification can take,
at least when it is focused on the central characters, two rather different
forms: participation in the mode of ‘being-like’ and participation in the
mode of ‘being-with.’
Part T wo: The Film Experience 145

We can take this observation as a starting point and formulate the

hypothesis, which is a certitude for us, that the film will produce differ-
ent effects according to whether one or the other of these modalities is
realized.
Let us first envisage the case wherein the film has solicited participation
in the mode of ‘being-with.’
Let us recall that this modality of identification is not presented as a
form of escape into the other person, but as a complicity, a connivance with
the other person. In this specific case, the self and the other remain in a
relationship of exteriority, in the sense that the spectator participates in the
other person while still remaining the same self, and that they ‘experience’
the other person as different to their own self.
We could also say that the spectator takes possession of the other person
in order to assimilate them, to live inside them even while their self remains
the center of reference. What would remain of this participation?
It goes without saying that if the effects of this behavior are prolonged,
then this will take place on the same level as participation itself, that is
to say, on the level of the being-with-other-people, or, more generally, the
comprehension of other people as others.
Can we see how?
If we interrogate the spectators upon exiting a movie theater, we can
observe that, in general, they are incapable of saying much of any interest
about the films and the characters they have just been following. At the
very most, they can express a few vague impressions or sentiments, but
they cannot clearly explain the film experience through which they have
just lived.
We could thus say that, with respect to the characters and, on this basis,
the film, they possess an intuitive knowledge, and this can be understood
if we recall the specific nature of identification.
In its participatory form, as in all its other forms, identification is in fact
motoric and mimetic in nature.
And yet, mimicry, we can recall, consists of a postural or psycho-muscular
attitude that aims to reproduce the behavior of the other person in order
to understand it.
What the spectator possesses at the end of the film is, therefore, not
a conceptual knowledge situated on the level of rational thought, but a
knowledge that is somehow ‘bodily’ in nature. In figurative terms, we can
say that the spectator remains impregnated by the other person – possessing,
that is, in the form of motoric or bodily traces, the behavior of the other
person.
146  Jean-Pierre Meunier

If we add to this the fact that this behavior is now presented to the specta-
tor as a complete whole, then we have the essence of the intuitive knowledge
we spoke about earlier: a bodily knowledge relating to the global behavior
of the other person understood as another person. Of course, we are here
leaving to one side the possibility of a conceptual knowledge resulting from
a possible reflection that takes place while the film is being screened. It
is not very often that this type of reflection is realized and it is not, in any
case, the habitual function of the film to induce it.
It now remains for us to examine how this intuitive knowledge will be
resolved. In our opinion, it can follow two different evolutionary paths
(not counting intermediary cases). In the f irst case, it can remain in a
vague, intuitive state. In this case, although it is not reproduced at the
level of conceptual thought, this knowledge can constitute an enrichment
in the general framework of our real relations with other people. It can
always re-emerge and serve as a point of reference in the understanding
and appreciation of the other person. This intuitive knowledge, therefore,
would be in addition to the traces left by the multiple identifications (in
real or cinematic situations) taking place in the existence of subjectivity in
order to constitute the complex interplay of intuitive references. Seeing the
exact role and the relative importance of filmic references is, we believe, a
fundamental problem of interest for reflection and research. This intuitive
knowledge stemming from filmic identification can equally be the object of
a more or less elaborated explanation. This happens when the spectator, for
one reason or another, is led to conceptualize (that is, explain using verbal
categories) the identificatory experience of another person.
The manner in which this conceptualization is realized posits numerous
problems that are difficult to resolve.
How can a global knowledge of an intuitive nature flow into concepts?
What is the role of the imagination and its power to refer to the scenes of the
film in this passage from the intuitive to the verbal? What are the relations
between the mimetic traces and the imagination within the process that
leads to conceptualization? And what is the role of intelligence?
The solution to these problems would necessitate long analyses that are
impossible to realize in the framework of this study.
Nonetheless, as nothing more than a pure suggestion, we can propose this:
there is, initially, an intention to conceptualize, to translate into words the
behavior about which we possess all the necessary data, but in an intuitive
and thus globally undifferentiated state.
This intention produces an activity of conceptualization. In order to
understand this activity, it is essential to note that the concept only ever
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teaches us about one aspect of the comportment to be explained. If we say,

for example, that a given character is ‘courageous’ we only find one aspect
of the behavior of the character in question, and we discard the rest of his
personality. Moreover, the term ‘courageous’ is still very general and very
vague. We would need other concepts to specify what type of courage we
are dealing with. And others would be needed to explain other behavioral
aspects. The conceptualization of behavior is thus progressively achieved
by reviewing its different aspects, that is to say, by taking a wide range of
perspectives on it – right until, if this is even possible, the globally intuitive
knowledge we possessed in the beginning is exhausted.
We now have a better understanding of how the activity of conceptualiza-
tion should be realized: it must proceed by stages, and successively envisage
different levels of judgment (the moral level, the psychological level, the
social level, etc.). That is, it must take different points of view towards the
intuitive knowledge that it possesses.
But, having chosen the level on which they will pass judgment, the
spectator must also be able to relate, in their imagination, to the behavior of
the most significant characters, with respect to the point of view they have
chosen, and they must relate this behavior to all kinds of other behavior
which they have experienced, and which they will use as reference points,
since, in fact, behavior only has meaning in relation to the behavior of
others, to which it is opposed or with which it is identif ied. The mean-
ing derived from these relations will then be explained with the use of a
concept.
If we add to this the fact that speech is not a pure translation of what it
signifies, but that it has a constitutive character, then we have an idea of
the complexity of the problems that the conceptualization or, if you like,
the accession to the explicit meaning of intuitive knowledge has. These
problems – which, it must be said, we have only been able to briefly skim
through from a distance – belong to general psychology rather than film
psychology. If we have devoted a few words to general psychology, it is
because we think that certain more specifically filmic questions closely
relate to it, and that possible research into these questions should take it
into account. This is the case, for example, with the problem of the specific
qualities – if there are any – of the conceptualization of a datum of cinematic
origin. On this matter, there are those who have expressed the opinion that
film was conducive to revitalizing the conceptual apparatus, and to giving
birth to more flexible verbal categories. Without fully subscribing to this
hypothesis, we think that it would still be useful for research to focus on
this question.
148  Jean-Pierre Meunier

In any case, whether it leads to conceptualization or not, it is in the domain

of comprehending other people, or more generally on the level of being-with-
other-people that participation in the mode of being-with can prolong its
effects. In all instances, this participation constitutes an enrichment, an
experiential surplus. Defining the exact role and the manifestations of this
experiential surplus is, in our opinion, a research perspective that could
be of great interest.
We must now consider those cases in which the film has solicited par-
ticipation in the mode of ‘being-like.’ Let us first recall that this modality
of participation consists of an attempted escape into the highly idealized
personality of the character. Between the self and the other person, there
is no longer a relationship of exteriority, connivance, or complicity, but
one of belonging. The other person (the character) is presented as an ideal
behavioral schema, and the ego installs itself into this ideal schema. In short,
the ego tends to escape into a highly valorized behavioral mode.
What might be the extensions of this escapist behavior in psychic life?
Here, as is the case when participation is realized in the mode of
‘being-with,’ it seems evident that post-filmic behavior will have the same
signification as participation itself. In other words, it is the attempt to be
like the idealized other person that the spectator prolongs beyond the limits
of the film. We must now look at the manner and degree of this behavior.
Lessons learnt from lived experience on the one hand, and some conclusions
drawn from simple observation on the other hand incline us to distinguish,
rather schematically, three major modalities of post-filmic comportment
corresponding to three levels of behavior: oneiric behavior, ludic behavior
and imitative behavior.
Let us consider the case wherein post-filmic behavior is situated on the
oneiric level. We know from experience that a major part of the life of the
imagination consists of dreaming, wherein the dreamer identifies with an
unrealized self whose very unreality allows for the accomplishment of ideal
actions usually made impossible by the contingencies of real life.
In other words, the imagination is often the favored site for the behavior
of escaping the self.
What, therefore, should be so astonishing about the fact that filmic iden-
tification prolongs its effects in the imagination? It is indeed normal that the
spectator who, for more than an hour, has vicariously experienced an ideal
comportment, contrives to reproduce it in their dreams or fantasies. This is
all the more true given that escapist film characters have something unreal
or mythical about them, in perfect accord with the world of daydreaming. It is
also all the more true given that the dream offers the dreamer the possibility
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of experiencing idealized filmic comportment with their own physical

traits. The dreamer, in fact, places their own self in their daydreams, but in
an unreal form. We can thus say that the cinema constitutes an aliment for
oneiric activity. It is also a powerful stimulant, since the identification that
is repeated for the multiple heroes who populate the cinematic universe
constitutes a powerful inducement to daydreaming.
Filmic behavior can thus be continued and completed in oneiric behavior.
But this is not its only extension. Participation in the modality of being-like
can sometimes engender more active forms of behavior, even if they are still
bracketed off from reality. This is true for ludic forms of behavior, which are
a compromise form between pure oneiric comportment and comportment in
reality. Such behavior can be primarily observed in children. It is expressed
in child play, and can be interpreted as an attempt to incarnate, to play
in real life, that which has a purely imaginary character. Like dreamers,
‘players’ project themselves into an unreal, often idealized ‘ego,’ with the
difference, however, that they realize their unreal ‘ego’ in manifest and
apparently real comportment. In a word, they act ‘as if’ their ‘dreamed ego’
was a ‘real ego.’ To the same extent and in the same manner as the dream,
the cinema constitutes a kind of aliment for ludic activity. We only need to
consider the enthusiasm with which children contrive to reproduce in their
games all kinds of situations illustrated by fiction films. Childhood games
are replete with cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, heroic soldiers,
and numerous other characters born from the mythology created, at least
in part, by fiction films.
As active and manifest as it may be, ludic behavior nonetheless remains
without any great relationship with real life. Play rests on a convention, and
the player who acts ‘as if’ they were a hero, even if they are fascinated by
this character, never forgets that it is simply an enjoyable diversion. In other
words, players never confuse themselves with the characters they play. Once
the game is over, they come back to their own selves without any difficulty.
This amounts to saying that, as in oneiric behavior, ludic behavior in no
way participates in reality. It is a pure escape from reality.
The same goes for the behavior of imitation, whose most perceptible
manifestations can be observed in fashion styles. The ‘Brigitte Bardot look’
was often spoken about during the time when her popularity was such
that, among the female public, many believed they could gain the same
powers of seduction by donning the same long, unkempt hair as the star.
Likewise, the myth of James Dean resulted in a wider uptake of wearing
blue jeans. More recently, we have been able to note in men’s clothing all
kinds of details borrowed from James Bond. The examples of this kind are
150  Jean-Pierre Meunier

numerous. In fact, throughout the history of fiction filmmaking, there is

practically nothing in fashion that has not felt the influence, in one way or
another, of the major stars, who are both loved and envied by the public.
Fashions borrowed from film stars incontestably attest to the existence
of imitative behavior, but they are only a socialized and, all in all, a rather
superficial manifestation of this phenomenon.
If we question the meaning of imitative behavior on the purely indi-
vidual level, we can propose this: imitation consists of behavior aiming to
reproduce the idealized behavior of others, with the goal of appropriating
the signification attached to this behavior. Thus defined, imitation is not
fundamentally different from oneiric behavior and ludic behavior. In all
cases, we still find the same desire to be like the idealized other. However,
whereas dreams and play realize this desire in an imaginary manner, within
the sectors of activity operative in real life, imitative behavior, for its part,
attempts to realize it in reality.
In other words, imitation tends to realize the dreamed ego in the real
ego. The dreamer or the player still kept in mind the distinction between
the imaginary ego and the real ego. Or rather, their activity was based on
this distinction. The imitator, by contrast, contrives to fuse the two.
The problem is thus to know whether this fusion is capable of being
realized, whether it is structuring or destructuring.
This is not the place to treat this problem, which requires a discussion
that would be too long for this study. Nonetheless, out of a concern for
being even a little bit complete, we can, as a pure hypothesis, try to sketch
out an answer.
If it is true, as we have maintained throughout this book, that man is a
being who is relational right from the start, and that it is in and through
intersubjective relations that the personal ego is constituted, if, in other
words, we are nothing other than what we are for other people, then we
can say that imitation can be structuring, insofar as the modifications of
behavior that it engenders are conducive to being ratified by the gaze of
the other. Conversely, it would be destructuring if the signification that the
imitator tries to incarnate does violence to the signification constituted by
other people.
In the latter case, imitation can doubtless have dangerous consequences
for the mental equilibrium of the individual. In fact, it is constantly expe-
rienced as a vain endeavor unavoidably doomed to failure. Taking refuge
in a character is a form of alienation that cannot be approved by other
people. It can consequently result in aggression towards other people, or a
detachment from reality, a withdrawal into the self and an escape into the
Part T wo: The Film Experience 151

imaginary. In short, it is divorced from real intersubjective relations. We

can glimpse the consequences of this, but this is not the place to talk about
them. In any case, if there is a place to elaborate a pathology of post-filmic
behavior, it seems that we should look in this direction.
By relying on what we have been able to discern of the film experience,
we have tried to highlight certain interesting perspectives for the study of
post-filmic comportment.
In doing so, we have occasionally indicated certain problems that should,
in our opinion, arouse the attention of the researcher. But we are also aware
that the number of these problems undoubtedly exceeds what we have been
able to discuss. The forms and consequences of these manifestations will
doubtless be more clearly elucidated with the aid of multiple, painstaking
observations.
Whatever the case may be, we think that it is on the basis of a reading
or sufficiently elaborated description of the film experience as such that
research in the field of cinema should formulate its hypotheses and construct
its methods of observation. In the end, this is what we have wished to show
in this last chapter.