Spectacle vs Narrative

What is spectacle? What is narrative? Why are spectacle and narrative seen to be diametrically opposite? What effects do they have? Can they co-exist? These are some of the questions I wish to explore in this essay.

Debates on spectacle and narrative in cinema have been going on for sometime and the conversation for me starts from Scott Bukatman’s “Spectacle, Attractions and Visual Pleasure” as a point of departure where he places Laura Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasures and Narrative Cinema” and Tom Gunning’s “Cinema of Attractions” and "Attractions: How They Came into the World" in conversation with each other. I would argue that spectacle and narrative are intertwined in complex ways and it is futile to draw distinctions between them.  

Mulvey in her “Visual Pleasures and Narrative Cinema” examines Hollywood narrative films, which she argues are characterized by spectatorial passivity and spectator’s vouyeristic isolation and for her these films are explicitly ideological. Gunning on the other hand, analyzes pre-narrative experimental cinema, which he argues is basically exhibitionistic cinema, where the spectator is constituted as a social aggregate, and this kind of cinema is not explicitly ideological. For Mulvey spectacle is “an aberration within a primarily narrative system” (72) while for Gunning “attraction precedes and subtends the system itself”(72). Though Mulvey’s essay acknowledges the existence of “something else”(76) according to her, narrative is prioritized over spectacle in Hollywood films while at the same; she implies the limits of narrative cinema strictly in narrative terms. For Gunning, narrative theory as a hegemonic structure has restricted our understanding of the medium. He insists on the exhibitionistic nature of the cinema of attractions. He believes that this kind of cinema is not voyeuristic because it is  presentational, exhibitionist confrontation, “what is seen on the screen is manifestly shown.”(79) Bukatman points to a convergence of Mulvey and Gunning’s ideas that they both acknowledge the existence of this “something else”(76), however Gunning argues that it has always been there. Mulvey’s essay insists on the disruptive power of cinematic spectacle as being fundamental to the construction of cinematic meaning but she believes that it needs to be tamed or contained and hasn’t been fully or easily. Similarly, for Sergie Eisenstein, attraction was something that was attention grabbing and that which was not naturalized through psychological narrative. Therefore, suggesting something like Bertolt Brecht’s alienation effect where the viewer takes the role of a spectator who is actually aware of his/her witness position.  Mulvey, like Brecht opposes identification and calls for interruption at the level of spectatorship (which for Brecht was through a new mode of theatrical production) and considers spectators to be passive. Comparing Mulvey and Brecht’s stands, Bukatman writes, “Both demand the disruption of common modes illusionism and narrative presentation in order to establish a critical distance between the text and the spectator”(74); Brecht in the context of epic theatre and Mulvey in the context of Hollywood films. For Mulvey the disruptive character of spectacle is a threat to the stability of narrative system. I would argue that because she doesn’t allow for any agency at the level of the spectator, who would by virtue of being involved makes a decision in not being disturbed by the element of spectacle in the narrative of the film and has a fairly seamless filmic experience, that spectacle for her becomes such a big threat. Bukatman as a negotiation between Mulvey and Gunning suggests his own definition of spectacle as being “an impressive, unusual or disturbing phenomenon or event that is seen/witnessed” (81) and writes that spectacle can be used for ideological resistance and attraction can return as an untamed form.

A spectacle is a specially arranged display of a somewhat public nature usually on a large scale that is an impressive show for those viewing it. It is also used to mean a person or a thing exhibited to the public either as an object of curiosity or condemnation or an object of miracle or admiration. The word, spectacle is derived from the Latin root spectare which is “to view, watch” and specere “to look at”. But with the shift into modernity, the traditional notion of spectacle as a visual and affective medium begins to define a more complex understanding of the spectacle and its relationship to the spectator. The spectator, confronted by new modes of socio-economic production and technology, ceases to simply be a receiver of affect and arguably becomes the modern or post-modern subject. Though for Jean-Louis Baudry, the spectator even being within an ideological spectacle is unaware of the entire film labor processes like audio-video production, editing, etc. and the ideological effects of the apparatus. A similar re-definition and skepticism towards spectatorship appears in Mulvey's essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," which locates the power of the gaze within male spectatorship. She bases her argument on scopophilia, which fetishizes the female into a sexual object and spectacle, and sadism, which demystifies and punishes the woman. Queer, Marxist, and post-colonial dialogues have responded and modified Mulvey's argument so that non-normative categories of spectator and spectacle Otherness can be considered. Another criticism of Laura Mulvey’s essay that I wish to take forward for my own argument here is against her claim of spectatorial passivity in Hollywood narrative film. I would argue that absorption, identification and “willing suspension of disbelief” constitute active participation on part of the spectator. Also, films like Gladiator and Moulin Rouge show that spectacle may not oppose or suspend narrative, but rather, it becomes an integral element in the unfolding of narrative. The spectacular sequences of these films, while being thrilling, corporeal and disorienting, also provide important information for the narrative of the film. It is becoming more difficult to make a clear division between what is spectacle and what is narrative, between what resists or suspends narrative and that which contributes to narrative. 

Vanessa R. Schwartz, illustrates the obscured distinction between spectacle and narrative in her chapter, “Cinematic Spectatorship before the Apparatus: The Public Taste for Reality in Fin-de-Siecle Paris”, where she makes an interesting argument about how early cinema was part of public interest in reality. She situates her argument within the study of three sites of public looking, Paris Morgue, wax museums, and panoramas. She writes, “Panoramas and similar entertainments reproduced reality in a variety of ways: by relying on spectator-generated optical illusions, by echoing other realist genres such as press, and by simulating reality. One can find no technological telos toward ever more perfectly realistic reproduction culminating in the invention of cinema. Rather, as this focus on panoramas during the 1880s and 1890s has tried to suggest, these spectacles technologically generated “reality” and its concomitant animation in a variety of ways during the same period. Further, the various representations of “real-life” experiences offered sensationalized versions of reality- a sensationalism that ranged from narrative suspense to physical simulations.” (315) She suggests how the real life was experienced like a show and the shows were becoming increasingly more realistic. Therefore, reality is continually redefined and is constituted in complex ways.  

Expanding this discussion further, I would like to point to Peter Wollen’s list of losing and winning cinema techniques from his article about Jean-Luc Godard’s Vent d’ Est (1972): 

The losing side                                                               The winning side
Narrative transitivity                                                       Narrative intransitivity
Identification                                                                  Estrangement
Transparency                                                                 Foregrounding
Single diegesis                                                                Multiple diegesis
Closure                                                                          Aperture
Pleasure                                                                         Unpleasure
Fiction                                                                           Reality

Such a division cannot be generalized to all genres because such polarities don’t exist everywhere. Like, absorption is not exclusive to spectacle, there can be narrative absorption as well, and also, one can be absorbed by both at the same time. Alienation can be understood as an estrangement of the spectator from his/her present environment into the world of the film in the form of involvement and identification. Therefore, alienation and absorption can co-exist. Also, with an increase in both televised and cinematic mediation, the spectator is not necessarily alienated from the spectacle but instead seems to produce a different type of awe and wonder which is based on the medium specificity of the filmic image. Roland Barthes writes on his enthrallment with the cinema, describing the "cinematographic hypnosis" and the pleasure of being drawn to the cinematic representation and the fascination of being close to other dark bodies in the shared space of film viewing. A similar idea is what Thomas Elsaesser has called “engulfment”. Elsaesser describes engulfment as a characteristic trend in contemporary Hollywood cinema that displays spectacular visual effects, which demands reactions of awe and wonder from the spectator, but also pushes them into modes of disorientation, affective complexity and shock.  

I would like to add “engulfment” to the characteristics of attraction offered by Tom Gunning namely, novelty, a presentational set of codes, direct address to spectator to illustrate how popular Hindi films particularly use both spectacle and narrative resulting in absorption and engulfment, that for Indians is mainstream cinema. Novelty not just in the case of a desire to see a display of cinematic technology but also in terms of new locations within the filmic world, innovative narrative styles, extravagant sets, costumes and accessories, the ways in which music and dance is incorporated and the presentation of latest consumerist products are some of the ways in which it is employed in popular Hindi films. A presentational set of codes becomes naturalized into the mise-en-scene of the films in the above-mentioned ways. The direct address to the audience can be traced back to iconic images from calendar art and poster art that influenced early Indian cinema. These images varied in styles, featured both religious and secular icons, they were always fore grounded, essentially still and immobile and its full-frontal address was the most distinctive feature. Film scholars like Ravi Vasudevan have suggested that darshan or the aspect of gaze in worship can be used to analyze Indian films. I would use the concept of darshan as a tool for making a connection between the iconic images in films and other arts and how that establishes the spectator’s relationship to the icon. Just as the devotee derives pleasure from a sense of involvement in looking at the icon and in the assumption that he/she is being looked back at, early film spectators received a similar pleasure from the iconic images represented in films. This pleasure from the sense of involvement by being directly addressed to gradually changed into being involved in the filmic experience through narrative absorption where even if spectacle if understood to be “a disruptive power”, it was the “willing suspension of disbelief” that allowed spectators to have a sense of involvement, where the spectator overlooked situations of contradictions and impossibility for the pleasure of being entertained. I would like to point out that in popular Hindi films, spectacle gets naturalized into the narrative and hence is not considered to be a deviation from the continuity of the film, even though from an objective point of view it may be. Therefore, even though the way the spectator was being acknowledged changed, the relationship between the spectator and the image, did not necessarily. And here again, emphasizing on the role of the spectator in the whole process, I would locate the issues of how spectacle is defined, what is its relationship with narrative and how does it affect the spectator, within the relationship between the spectator and the image. In any case, cinema’s function is not just to tell stories, which is done by many other art forms but rather to show its own specific and special properties and potentialities.

Bibliography

1. Tom Gunning, "The Cinema of Attractions"; Tom Gunning, "Attractions: How They Came into the World;" and Scott Bukatman, "Spectacle, Attractions, and Visual Pleasure" In Wanda Strauven, ed., The Cinema of Attractions Reloaded (Amsterdam Univ Press, 2006), pp. 381-38732-39; 72-81
2. Laura Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" (online)

3. Peter Wollen, ‘Godard and counter-cinema: Vent d Est’, in Bill Nichols (ed.), Movies and Methods, Volume II: an Anthology (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1985)
4. Jean- Louis Baudry, “The Apparatus: Metapsychological Approaches to the Impression of Reality in the Cinema” in Philip Rosen ed., Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology: A Film Reader (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970)
5. Thomas Elsaesser, “Specularity and Engulfment: Francis Ford Coppola and Bram Stoker's Dracula” in S. Neale and M. Smith eds., Contemporary Hollywood Cinema (London and New York: Routledge, 1998)
6. Vanessa R. Schwartz, “Cinematic Spectatorship before the Apparatus: The Public Taste for Reality in Fin-de-Siecle Paris” in L. Charney and V.R. Schwartz eds., Cinema and the Invention of Modern Life (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1995)
7. Gayatri Chatterjee, “Icons and Events: Reinventing Visual Construction in Cinema in India” in R. Kaur and A.J. Sinha eds., Bollyworld: Popular Indian Cinema through a Transnational Lens (Delhi: Sage, 2005)