File spoon-archives/film-theory.archive/film-theory_1995/film-theory_Feb.95, message 30


Date: Thu, 9 Feb 1995 13:08:07 +1000
From: amiles-AT-netspace.net.au (Adrian Miles)
Subject: Re: Point-of-view, primary id and all that jazz


Malgosia wrote:

>So "subject construction", in the filmic sense, has to do with a confluence
>of constructs that have to do with diegesis?  My confusion stems from, among
>other things, the fact that I've had the impression that "subject
>construction" had to do with ideology, with certain attitudes that can be
>said to be imparted by the work.  In that case, it would have very little
>to do with diegesis -- cf. MTV, commercials, TV news programs, etc., etc.
>So would the term "subject construction" then _not_ apply to such
>non-diegetic things?  And which diegetic things does it apply to?  If Marker's
>diegesis is convoluted, then so is P.K. Dick's and _The_Terminator_'s, yes?
>So does one talk about "subject construction" only in cases where
>the diegesis meets certain standards of straighforwardness?  What are
>these standards?  And which are the relevant constructs?

I think here you are actually identifying the problem. I (and I think this
is Alan's position, apologies if it's not, and anyway apologies for
presuming to add his voice to mine) don't see how there is or can be a
'subject construction' in the filmic sense. This just seems to want to
argue that something happens when we enter a cinema that, well, I have
problems with. Subject is always subjects, plural, fluid, and if anything
this is what the cinema does, and plays with. The original notion of
subject was an ideological one, but I would have thought that retaining
subject as somehow just part of a realm of ideology just answers the
problem by shifting the terms. What is ideology, where is its outside, its
edge, and if you can't find these then what is it that it is actually
defining. This is why your concluding questions have to be asked. If
subject construction = ideology = certain attitudes it is just too easy to
reverse it, as the equation demonstrates... Ah what a mess. Let's just open
my big mouth and say i think the problem of reader/reading/ideology/subject
is a false one in that all of the terms are already hypostatised somewhere
and I don't think any of them ever are...

Adrian Miles

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
amiles-AT-netspace.net.au
http://insane.apana.org.au/~amiles
PhD student: Centre of Comp. Lit. & Critical Studies, Monash Uni.
Teach: Cinema/Media Studies, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
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