Irving Singer, Three Philosophical Filmmakers: Hitchcock, Welles, Renoir (Cambridge,
MA. &
London: The MIT Press, 2004, 29.00€, 279 pages,
ISBN 0-262-19501-1)—Marjorie Vanbaelinghem, Université de Poitiers
This new study by Irving Singer is a follow-up to Reality Transformed:
Film as Meaning and Technique (MIT Press, 1998).
To a certain extent, it illustrates the ideas exposed
in his first book on cinema. Three Philosophical
Filmmakers is indeed not just about film theory,
but more specifically about three directors: Hitchcock,
Renoir and Welles. Singer
selects the three filmmakers because they fit into
a sort of gradient, that is to say, they are similar
in the sense but at different degrees. The filmmakers
express, through their oeuvre, their personal views
on reality, although these views are different in
the case of each director, and are conveyed in different
ways. Hitchcock, on the bottom end of the gradient,
declared he made movies for mere entertainment purposes:
the ideas in his movies are very implicit. At the
other end is Renoir, who pledged to create a link
with his audience and stated the superiority of morals
over aesthetics. The personal perspective on life,
reality, the world, that these directors inserted
into their movies, as well as the fact that they not
only directed movies but also wrote on the subject
of filmmaking, are what makes them “philosophical,”
according to Singer. The phrase used as a title for
the book comes from Three Philosophical Poets,
a study by Santayana (on Lucretius, Dante and Goethe) in 1970.
Perhaps Singer could or should
have specified better from the very beginning what
he meant by “philosophical filmmakers.” The need for
a definition of philosophy may sound like a hackneyed
one, but the question of what becomes of philosophy
when applied to filmmaking is worth asking. Singer
teaches Philosophy, not Literature or Film Studies
(his other books include studies on love or on “feeling
and imagination”), and no one doubts he knows what
he is talking about when using the term “philosophical.”
He actually starts to present his point quite clearly
in the introduction (the “Preliminary Remarks,” some
of which are repeated in the conclusion). However,
as often happens in such studies, we lose the point
through the course of the very demonstration. Brilliant,
enriching, and fascinating as some of Singer’s analyses
are, the point that is first made does not come back
“on time,” when examples are exploited, so there is
no real demonstration. The philosophical side to Hitchcock,
Welles and Renoir’s creativity
is but a very general concept that allows Singer to
embrace a great many topics and aspects of filmmaking.
It might function as a necessary pretext for a philosophy
scholar who loves cinema…
In the preface and preliminary
remarks, Singer explains that he has been trying,
in his research, to reconcile the formalist and the
realist critical theories. He also asserts the need
for a more “humanistic” angle on movies, as the basis
for an alternative theory of film. Singer also begins
his definition of a key notion to his approach to
filmmaking: authorship. His approach on the three
filmmakers under scrutiny is characterized by an interest
in directors as authors and theorists. This explains
the use of not just films or scripts, but also of
interviews and different writings by Hitchcock, Welles
and Renoir. Although very enriching, this might be
seen as perilous: the texts do not always correspond
to the making of the movie they are about—being sometimes
completed long after the filming. One could also wonder
whether “Renoir the artist,” behind the camera, should
be distinguished from “Renoir the thinker”? That question
is not even taken up. Singer acknowledges that there
is a risk, but adds that he is “willing to take that
risk” (i.e., taking into account writings that might
deviate from the actual filming) because the filmmakers’
statements are “windows into their individual existence”
and function “as valuable clues about the content
of their films and culture from which such artworks
emanate” [5].
What Singer undertakes in each
of the three essays is initially to characterize their
technique of the director, the common stylistic thread
running between their films. He also attempts to determine
the general meaning of their oeuvre: their perspective
on life and man, but also on film and its place in
the human experience. I believe that is what the author
means what he speaks of “philosophical” meaning, movies,
or directors. It may sound simple, but the question
of whether movies (by directors like Hitchcock) can
tell the “truth” and offer a relevance
other than formalistic are challenging ones. This
is probably why Hitchcock is the first to be analyzed.
In the essay on Hitchcock, Singer
begins by trying to define what philosophy can be
in a movie: “In great art the philosophical […] not
only accompanies whatever elements that entertain
a receptive audience but also permeates the aesthetic
fabric of the work itself” [8]. The notion of “receptive
audience” is a crucial one when dealing with Hitchcock.
But it makes things more difficult, because it brings
about the notion of subjectivity and the question
of whether it is the viewer—by his personal, original
understanding of the movie—that makes it philosophical,
or the director—who originally, injected objectively
philosophical elements in his work. In other words,
can a movie become philosophical because of the responses
it gets (becoming a cult movie, reflecting its time)?
Since Hitchcock always said
that his aim was to provide entertainment, Singer
writes, if we consider art and philosophy as separate
from entertainment, “the mere idea of Hitchcock’s
films as having a philosophical scope is mere nonsense”
[7]. Singer argues, then, that such “nonsense” is
only based on our taking the artist’s intention and
declared will as a truth, without criticism. It seems
to me paradoxical to decide to provide an objective
analysis on the relevance of a creator’s art, use
his writings and assertions on the subject, and declare
that such a use must be limited and fundamentally
critical. However, Singer succeeds in overcoming that
paradox. The use of archives, interviews, is well-made,
and we learn a lot about the directors—we actually
get the opportunity to know them a bit personally.
Singer is very good at grasping the personality, the
mindset, the sensibility of artists.
As soon as Singer kicks off
the actual technical analysis of Hitchcock’s movies,
the book gets into gear. The author resorts to parallels,
numerous examples, descriptions, long and detailed
analyses. The explanation of the use of montage for
the construction of a scene from Sabotage is
but one example of the brilliant demonstration Singer
makes of the specificity of cinematic devices. Hitchcock
spoke about “pure cinema,” but Singer wants to go
beyond that idea. He pores into Hitchcock’s use of
hints, as well as his playing on what is not shown
on screen, and explains that, in Hitchcock’s movies,
the audience is left with a choice of different affective
reactions. This is effectively demonstrated by a parallel
with Gus Van Sant’s “remake”
of Psycho. Van Sant’s
film was more precisely a reenactment of the movie:
although the scenes are perfectly similar, as well
as the action and the set, Van Sant
shows a lot more than Hitchcock. Van Sant’s
tendency to be more explicit and direct, Singer argues, is the reason why his version of Psycho
fails to provide the viewer with the same emotions.
According to Singer, Hitchcock favors emotionality
over sensationalism (that is why he makes us fear
for the heroine and imagine the worse, rather than
see her blood) and this is his aesthetic (and
thus philosophical) program. Singer defines Hitchcock’s
technique as a “sheer manipulative intent” [25], then
launches a discussion on the moral relevance of the
thriller as a genre. A number of concise overviews
and analysis of movies are brilliant and enlightening
pieces, even taken out of their context, for scholars,
instructors and students involved in Film Studies.
Examples are developed regularly, over a couple of
pages, but this often means we leave the realm of
sheer philosophy (for instance, with the digression
on humor in Hitchcock’s movies).
The essay dedicated to Hitchcock
ends on Singer’s assertion that he is a philosophical
director on the ground that his statements “reach
beyond himself and offer expert opinion about cinema
in its relation to other arts, to modern civilization
and to reality as a whole” [52].
A similar attempt at blending
the aesthetics of filmmaking and moral philosophy
is manifest in the essay on Orson Welles.
However, it is much easier to show the philosophical
relevance of Welles’s movies
than that of Hitchcock’s. Welles
was politically committed, and could assume he used
his art to expose tenets and ideas. But the philosophical
relevance of Welles’s films
does not reside in their political hints: according
to Singer, they are about the past “in its unfathomable
nature” [79]. In order to fully grasp how a movie
can present a “myth of the past,” the author incorporates
in this essay a long, thorough study of The Dead
by John Huston. There he analyses the movie in comparison
with the short story by Joyce. Not only is this an
extremely well-made study of the movie, but it represents
a model of how to use a movie in relation to a novel:
it fully shows what a movie can add. Singer seems
very interested in the question of remakes, and there
is a lot to be learnt in his book about the specificities
of literature on the one hand, and cinema on the other.
Sometimes, however, this makes
him stray away from his point: for example, the discussion
on The Magnificent Ambersons (I still do not know its final point), then
about the notion of character, and the analysis of
the acting performance (indeed crucial in the case
of Welles, as he played
in many of his movies) do not integrate that well
into the original discussion. An exception is the
idea of the “importance of thought in film acting”
[120] (exposed by Welles
himself), an interesting idea, which is opposed to
the sensibility and poetry involved in filming, but
which is not developed enough.
What is obvious about Singer’s
work is that, more than anything, he tries to depict
and analyze the attitude of the filmmaker toward art
and filmmaking, and connect it to his attitude to
life. This is also the result of Singer’s will to
reconnect realism (the ideas and the character of
the filmmaker as a man) with formalism (the eye of
the artist). At one point, Welles
is quoted on that matter: “A movie is a reflection
of the entire culture of the man who makes it” [145].
Singer seems to be saying, in addition that a philosophical
and successful movie is a reflection of the entire
culture of the man who makes it.
In the case of Jean Renoir,
the connection between art and society, realism and
formalism seems obvious: the ambition of the filmmaker
is to “have a conversation” [147] with the viewers:
“the establishing of human contact is preferable to
any search for perfection” [153]. The importance of
what is shown and above all its capacity to touch
people, is far superior to
the aesthetic perfection of a movie. We thus attain
the opposite of the gradient going from technicality
to realism, implicit thinking to explicit view on
the world: from Hitchcock’s considering the audience
“as an audience,” with set reactions and foreseeable
sensations, to Renoir’s will to create a bond with
the audience. A number of themes—such
as the relationship between human beings and nature—are
explored in Renoir’s oeuvre, thus making it truly
philosophical. The explanation of the “naturalism”
of Renoir is very well presented: the whole of the
directing and actor-managing Renoir did is indeed pervaded by this
sensibility. What is striking also about Renoir is
the importance of art and filmmaking as a theme. While
Hitchcock created “perfect movies” that are “pure
cinema,” technical feats; Renoir made movies that
dealt with art, artists’ lives as their theme (Le
Carrosse d’Or,
French Cancan). The reflection on technology
(in La Bête Humaine)
is another self-mirroring aspect of Renoir’s oeuvre.
Singer never attempts to artificially re-construct
a “career plan” or the evolution of a somewhat Hegelian
idea expressed throughout the oeuvre of each filmmaker
he is too subtle for that. At the core of Renoir’s
philosophical relevance is the refusal to trust technology,
as Hitchcock did: according to Singer, the limits
to formal bravura are there on purpose, as the technical
(or, rather, un-technical) counterpart to Renoir’s
humanistic views. Singer’s book also raises the question
of what movies are made of. Even when he admits to
his own incomprehension or when he points out the
lack of clarity of some notions or phrases from the
directors’ interviews, Singer adds to the seriousness
and the objectivity of his analysis. He also shows
the mystery of filmmaking, as something between visual
art and literature, with the physical presence of
art and the abstraction and hermetism
of philosophy.
On the whole, I must say that
the three analyses, taken individually, are extremely
helpful: the Hitchcock analysis is a model of scholarly
research. The Welles analysis
is perplexing to a certain extent, but perfectly renders
the feeling and the structure of an oeuvre, that is
what it is because it is unfinished, complex and contradictory.
I found the analysis of Renoir at points too remote
from its context, its country of origin, but as one
reads, one feels the admiration and fascination Singer
has for Renoir, and, added to the rigorousness of
the comments, analysis of themes, techniques, and
notions, this makes the reading extremely pleasant.
The last chapter, “A Family Portrait,” aims at picking up the threads of
the argument in order to compose a harmonious conclusion
to this triad of essays. Singer repeats his belief
in the interdependence between technique and meaning—but
this time as the basis of art in general. He also
focuses on the audience, as an essential aspect of
creation, especially in the case of cinema as opposed
to painting. However, this brings about, once again,
the question of subjective or objective philosophical
meaning. Furthermore, the essay ends on intertwined
portrayals of the three philosophical filmmakers,
with a notable hint of psychoanalysis (for instance,
the part on Welles and his
mother). In these portraits, Singer shows more explicitly
that philosophy to him does not mean aesthetics, but
ethics—the very behavior of the creators, their commitment
regarding a certain number of issues. The connection
between the improvisational tendencies in Renoir’s
filming and existential philosophy I found very pertinent.
Again Singer aims at blending things that are apart:
the look of an image and its ethical raison d’être,
aesthetics and ethics, the stern shadow of Sartre
with the joyful animation of Renoir’s movies.
The book is thus both strictly academic and personal. It is ambitious,
and at points imperfect because of its ambition, which
nonetheless opens a lot of doors and makes the reader
think. It contains a lot of excellent, useful and
even inspiring passages for anyone willing to theorize
on films or just to think about filmmaking as a practice.
There is no bibliography, and only few book references
in the essays, but there is a very practical index
of films, actors, authors, and notions mentioned,
which the reader involved in research on other directors
will find extremely useful.
