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As a film concerning both feminist and colonial issues, the correlation between feminism and colonialism in The Piano (Jane Campion, 1993) can be explored according to its heroin’s anti-patriarchal performances in relation to colonialism. In this essay, it will be demonstrated that although the feminist heroin may be considered as complicit with imperialism in certain aspects, her anti-patriarchal behaviors function to protest against colonization in greater extent, which suggests the negative relationship between feminism and colonialism in The Piano. This essay will firstly analyze the heroin’s parallel condition of inferiority with the colonized Maori people in New Zealand according to their shared “invisibility”, experiences of being devalued and their intimate connections with the sensation of “touch”. Sharing similar conditions, this essay will simultaneously demonstrate the ways Ada speaks for the locals, who revolts against colonization through her anti-patriarchal behaviors of self-imposed muteness, self-mystification and prioritization of “touch”. Subsequently, certain performances of the female protagonist who is suspicious of discriminating the native will be discussed, which challenge the supportive relationship of feminism to anti-colonialism in the film. Elaborating the particularity of Ada’s position in the society and Ada’s strategic displacement of gaze, this essay will then argue for the intimate relationship between Ada’s feminist performance and her resistance against colonial oppression. Finally, discussing the connotations of the piano, which symbolizes both colonialism and feminism that suggest their alliance, this essay will end by analyzing Ada’s character development who gradually relinquishes discursive ideology as a colonizer, which justifies the opposite relationship between feminism and colonialism in the film.
To begin with, because Stuart as a white male is a representative of both patriarchal masculinity and Western colonizer, Ada’s protest against him can be seen as both anti-patriarchal and anti-colonial. Simultaneously, Ada is qualified to be a speaker for the repressed group who is similarly marginalized with Maori people by the dominant group of white men. To elaborate the shared marginalization, Ada’s condition as a woman resembles the Maori people’s situation, whose interests are both ignored by the dominant group. Precisely, Stuart as a patriarchal figure exchanges Ada as an object with her father and neglects her unwillingness by forcing her to teach piano lesson. As a white colonizer, Stuart also never directly communicate with the Maori, who only interacts with them through his translator Baines, which suggests Stuart’s inability to listen to the native people’s voices. Moreover, Ada as representative of women and the Maori as representative of the colonized population share “invisibility” in a wider historical context. Because the intellectual capable to determine the production of history record the “truth” in favor of their own political interest,[1] the colonizers’ persecutions of native people became erased in considerable extent. Resembling the elimination of the Maori’s existence in history, women have also been treated as insignificant and less important throughout history, and therefore Ada shares similar invisibility with the Maori. Being commonly exploited, Ada “speaks” for the Maori who rebels against Stuart through deliberately using her silence as a feminist strategy. To illustrate, it has been demonstrated by Helene Cixous that because women have been discursively defined by men as hysterically talkative, the females’ voluntary silence functions as an ultimate approach to protest against patriarchal gender stereotype.[2] Therefore, Ada’s self-imposed muteness is actively chosen as an aggressive approach to reject masculine stereotypical oppression. Opposing Stuart who also stereotypically ignores the voice of the native population, Ada’s rebellious protest hence indicates her resistance against him as a colonizer simultaneously.
Secondly, both the Maori and Ada are commonly devaluated and repressed by the dominant group. On the one hand, Edward Said has recognized that Orientalism functions as the Westerners’ cultural tool to justify imperialism through devaluating the locals by regarding the Orients as ignorant creatures needing the salvation of the civilized.[3] Based on the film’s representation of the Maori people who are “ignorant” and behave childishly, their inferiority in the eyes of Westerners is manifested. The lack of interpretation of the Maori’s language also suggests their inability towards effective communication, which represents the discursive impression of the colonizers imposed on the native to justify their “civilizing mission”. On the other hand, in terms of Laura Mulvey, men tend to escape castration anxiety caused by women through investigating them and demystifying their mystery, with “devaluation, punishment or saving of the guilty object”.[4] Consequently, to prevent being devaluated, Ada uses the music of piano to express herself with its particular nature that cannot be seized by language to deliberately mystify herself. Developing the particular approach of articulation that attached to her unknown femininity as a feminist strategy, Ada’s distancing from the outside world prevents her from being verbally investigated by patriarchy. Hence, although being mutilated by Stuart who tries to devaluate her as a guilty object, the inaccessibility of Ada’s self-expression for Stuart protects her from being demystified, which leads to Stuart’s eventual concession. Thus, as a “speaker” of the exploited group, Ada’s self-mystification not only protects her from Stuart, but also distances her from all the white colonizers who are not able to understand her music, which indicates her denial of both patriarchy and colonization.
Thirdly, because both women and people before being influenced by Western civilization have intimate connections with the sensation of touch, Ada actively touches Stuart to prioritize their subjectivities to subvert traditional power relationship. On the one side, because sexual pleasure comes more from touching than from looking for women, enforcement of the sensation of touch suggests feminist value.[5] Additionally, it has been revealed by Mulvey that because “scopophilia is essentially active”, the voyeuristic male gaze towards female body renders the female passivity under the controlling power of masculinity.[6] Therefore, since the notion of “look” is attached to patriarchal power, Ada initiatively touches Stuart’s naked body to resist against his patriarchal gaze upon her by prioritizing female subjectivity. On the other side, tactility as a type of spontaneous sensation corresponds to primitive instinct of the native people, which is essentially different from visual sense that contains meaning of power relations that constructed by Western civilization. As a representative of the Maori, Baines’ emphasis of touch during his interaction with Ada manifests the relationship between “touching” and primitive instinct. Sharing the similar connection with the sensation of touch with the locals, Ada’s active touch is not only anti-patriarchal, but also anti-colonial that prioritizes both feminine and primitive subjectivities, which suggests the negative relationship of feminism to colonialism. Consequently, Ada can be seen as a speaker for the Maori because of their shared “invisibility”, experience of being devaluated by the dominant group and intimate connections to “touch”. Since Stuart symbolizes both patriarchal and colonial oppressions, Ada’s feminist protests against him including self-imposed silence, mystification and active touches simultaneously suggest her rebel against colonialism.
However, denying the supportive relationship of feminism to anti-colonialism, it can be argued that Ada’s anti-patriarchal behaviors involve little anti-colonial insight, who is essentially imperialistic due to her identity as a white colonizer. Different from other Western female characters including aunt Morag and Nessie who frequently work with indigenous people within domestic sphere, Ada as a feminist character free from domestic housework not only rarely communicates with the patriarchal white people, but also has little contact with the native. Hence, despite of her protest against the dominant group, Ada is also suspicious of being racist who is unwilling to interact with the “inferior uncivilized savages” of the locals. According to Davinia Thornley, “Ada’s feminism does not just suppress the heterogeneity of the Maori; it negates the race entirely, and as such must be recognized as one form of imperialism”.[7] Additionally, because feminism cannot be achieved by a single woman without the universal alliance among women from different regions, Ada refusing to align with the indigenous female is not only complicit with imperialistic hierarchal ideology, but her “white only” feminist performance also undermines the future of feminism. Moreover, Ada’s feministic awareness of her individual ownership contradicts with postcolonial value of social equality. According to Simone de Beauvoir, women deprived of resources by patriarchy tend to objectify themselves, who grasp her immanence through owning herself as a fetishized object due to her lack of access of other objects[8]. Therefore, determinatively persevering her right of ownership of the piano, Ada protects her right of possession to maintain herself as a subject who resists to be objectified by emphasizing that “The piano is mine, it’s mine” when Stuart tries to convince her to teach Baines. However, Ada’s feminist maintenance of ownership is at the expense of equal treatment among people from different social groups. Regarding Baines as an ignorant oaf, Ada discriminatorily refuses to let him touch her piano, who acts as a typical European colonizer looking down upon the illiteracy of the indigenous people. Hence, the attachment of imperialistic ideology to feminist self-protection indicates the complicit relationship of feminism to colonialism in the film.
Nevertheless, avoiding to positively gaze the native people, the lack of contact with the locals can be seen as Ada’s strategic approach to refrain from being aligned with patriarchal colonialism according to her particular identity as a female coming from an imperial empire. Being restricted by rules of conducts under both colonial and patriarchal orders, not only equal communication between different races is prohibited, Ada as a female is also deprived of equal access as white men to interact with the native people.[9] Thus, it is not because of Ada’s own unwillingness to contact with the indigenous people, but the rigorous social orders inhibit her from aligning with people with colors to achieve feminism for all women. Moreover, firstly it has been demonstrated by E Ann Kaplan that travel essentially involves the looking relationship between traveler and people they encounter, which evokes a conscious attention to racial differences[10]. Secondly, based on Sigmund Freud’s theory that the sexual difference of female’s lack of phallus provokes men’s unconscious fear of the removal of his own genitalia, Mulvey theorizes that men attempt to escape the castration anxiety by actively gazing at women, which not only imposes passivity on her, but also objectifies her who then “becomes reassuring rather than dangerous”.[11] Therefore, the connection between looking relation and power relation between genders can be applied in racial terms. In other words, through looking at the native, the differences recognized by the colonizers potentially provoke their disagreement due to cultural discrepancy, who then use their gazes again to impose passivity upon the indigenous people as one of their methods to oppress them, which justifies the invaders’ own culture and guarantees their priority. Consequently, refraining from looking at the native, Ada prevents herself from developing discursive racial stereotypes who refuses to gaze the native as objects to secure her own sovereignty. Also, the displacement of Ada’s look from the native contrasts to her active gaze at Stuart, which functions to challenge white male hegemony by subverting the dominant male gaze to female gaze. Looking at Stuart’s naked body, Ada keeps fiercely gazing at him after being dismembered, whose firm gaze thwarts Stuart who finally relinquishes his possession of her as an object. Thus, Ada’s conscious displacement of gaze suggest both of her anti-patriarchal and anti-colonial values, who only investigates white colonizer without stereotypically looking at the indigenous people.
Opposing the positive connection between feminism and anti-colonialism in the film, the piano is essentially a symbol of both Ada herself and exploitative Western civilization. Because the juxtaposition of the piano and the natural landscape of New Zealand produces harsh contrast, it implies the conflict between the feminist carrying Western civilization and the local. On the one hand, since the piano is European bourgeoisie invention which stands for Western civilization, Ada’s intimate relationship with it implicates her inseparable correlation with exploitative Western ideology. On the other hand, the piano as the producer of her language is an extension of Ada that symbolizes herself, which simultaneously contains the feminist connotation of her self-imposed muteness and female ownership. Therefore, involving both colonial and feminist implications, the representation of the piano implies the associative relationship between feminism and colonialism in the film. Because neither can feminism be justified when containing imperialistic value that refuses to encompass a world of difference among women, nor can colonialism with its ideology of hierarchy embrace the equality of women worldwide, the two concepts have been defined mutually exclusive. Therefore, the duel identity of the piano involving incompatible values eventually leads to its destruction by being thrown into the sea, which indicate Campion’s recognition of the problematic combination. Moreover, according to Rueschmann, the ghostliness of the Gothic styled landscape of New Zealand in the film suggests the disoriented mental status of Ada due to her combination of both feminist and imperialist values that incompatible with each other.[12] Because the grotesque landscape also strongly contrasts with the conventional shape of the piano that symbolizes Ada, the contradictory relationship between different civilizations becomes manifested, while the intrusive advent of the piano can be seen as a metaphor of the European’s invasion to New Zealand. Thus, the dangerous atmosphere created by the peculiar design of decor suggests the hostile relationship between Ada with both feminist and imperialistic ideas and the primitive land of New Zealand, which indicates the alliance between feminism and colonialism in the film.
Finally, to argue for the supportive relationship between feminism and anti-colonial value, the juxtaposition of Ada and the localized figure Baines in the film leads to her character development who is becoming increasingly anti-colonial. Despite of Ada’s refusal of Baines at the beginning, she gradually develops to accept him and progressively combines her feminist perspective with his anti-colonial values to form an alliance to rebel against dominant group. Concretely, Baines with strong anti-colonial value symbolizes the Maori people, who shares various characteristics with the Maori whose illiteracy functions to rebel against the Law of Father as Ada’s muteness[13]. Therefore, being sexually awoken through the physical sensation of touch, which relates to both feminine and primitive instincts when Baines touches Ada’s body during the piano lesson, their shared instincts lead Ada to become increasingly closer to him psychologically. With her music becomes increasingly emotionally enriched, which contrasts to her impassionate attitude at the beginning of the piano lesson who only went through consecutive piano keys, Ada finally completely accepted Baines who initiatively made love to him. Since their sexual relationship signifies the alliance between female and the native, the connection between feminist performances of Ada and the anti-colonial representation of Baines in the film becomes explicitly conveyed. Additionally, not only is she becoming increasingly intimate with Baines, but also does Ada gradually abandons the imperial ideology herself. Because Ada’s costume of restrictive Victorian dress symbolizes the limitation imposed on her by Western civilization, taking off her clothes in front of Baines piece by piece who finally strips naked, the progressive development implicates Ada’s liberation from imperial ideology towards her integration with nature. With her hair finally put down after making love with Baines which was neatly fixed before that suggests the strict restriction of Western culture, Ada eventually throws the European symbol of her piano into the sea, which indicates her determination to abandon the imperial ideology that once restricted her. Consequently, the alliance between Ada and Baines leads to Ada’s progressive development who gradually becomes aware of and relinquishes her imperialistic ideologies. Through the integration of female and the native, the direct connection between Ada’s feminist performance and Baines’ anti-colonial behavior indicates the positive relationship of feminism to anti-colonialism in the film.
In conclusion, this essay has firstly analyzed the resemblance of female and colonized population according to their shared inferiority of being muted and devaluated by dominant groups and their common sensibility of the sensation of touch. As a speaker for the Maori people in the film, Ada rejects both male and white colonizers through her anti-patriarchal behaviors of self-imposed silence, self-mystification and emphasis of tactility, which functions to rebel against Stuart who is a representative of the dominant group. Subsequently, the lack of contact of Ada with the native and her discriminatory attitude towards illiteracy has been challenged as imperialistic, which suggests the connection between feminism with colonialism in the film. Demonstrating female’s particular position in patriarchal society during colonization, it can be argued that Ada resists to support colonialism through her special strategy of the displacement of look from the native to white male, whose gaze only interrogates hegemonic power. This essay then points out the piano’s duel connotations as both a symbol of rebellious femininity and Western civilization, which indicates the alliance of colonialism and feminism that questions the anti-colonial entity of feminist conducts in the film. Finally, the female protagonists’ character development has been analyzed, who gradually relinquishes her imperialistic ideology throughout the film with herself becomes increasingly localized, which justifies the negative relationship between feminism and colonialism in The Piano. Consequently, this essay has demonstrated that although Ada’s feminist performances in The Piano can be seen as complicit with imperialism in some aspects, she is portrayed as anti-colonial in a more significant extent, which indicates the negative relationship between feminism and colonialism in the film.
Bibliography
Bruzzi, Stella, Lynda Dyson, and Sue Gillett. “Tempestuous Petticoats: Costume And Desire In The Piano”. Screen 36, no. 3 (1995): 257-266.
De Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex, translated by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier. London: Vintage, 2010.
Diane, Long Hoeveler. “Silence, Sex, and Feminism: An Examination of the Piano’s Unacknowledged Sources.” Literature/Film Quarterly 26, no. 2 (1998): 109-116.
El Aidi, Abdellatif, and Yahya Yechouti. “Antonio Gramsci’s Theory of Cultural Hegemony in Edward Said’s Orientalism.” International Multidisciplinary Research Journal 6, no. 5 (2017): 1-13.
Hendershot, Cyndy and Diane Long Hoeveler. “(Re)Visioning the Gothic: Jane Campion’s the Piano./ ‘Silence, Sex, and Feminism: An Examination of the Piano’s Unacknowledged Sources’.” Literature/Film Quarterly XXVI, no. 2 (1998): 97-116.
Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” In Feminism and Film Theory, edited by Constance Penley, 57-68. Florence: Routledge, 1988.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Can the subaltern speak?.” In Can the subaltern speak? Reflections on the history of an idea, edited by Rosalind C Morris and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, 21-78. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010.
Thornley, Davinia. “Duel or Duet? Gendered Nationalism in” The
Piano.” Film Criticism 24, no. 3 (2000): 61-76.
According to Fatimah Tobing Rony, the documentary Nanook of the North (Robert J. Flaherty, 1922) is an example of ethnographic taxidermy. Comparing the film subjects to taxidermies, Rony points out that the subjects’ images are discursively reconstructed. Challenging the film’s authenticity, Rony demonstrates the imbalanced power relationship inscribed in the documentary. Based on Rony’s writing, I will argue that Nanook of the North is an ethnographic taxidermy for it fulfills taxidermic impulse and distorts the subjects’ images, while the subjects also possess certain active power, which challenges the film’s taxidermic nature. In this essay, I will contend that the film’s subjects are taxidermized by being portrayed as dead, which promotes the sense of authenticity. I will then contend that the subjects’ images are abused by Orientalist ideologies and reconstructed as prototypical taxidermies the taxidermies. Dealing with the counter-point arguing for the authenticity of the documentary, I will deny the notion of participant observation and demonstrate the ways the film is fabricated. Seeing the taxidermic nature of Nanook of the North as questionable, the Inuit people’s acknowledgement and participation of the filmmaking will be examined. I will argue that they cannot merely be seen as taxidermies because the subject possesses potential subjectivity in reference to the notion of oppositional gaze.
In terms of the taxidermic nature of Nanook of the North, the subjects are portrayed as dead already. Like the lifeless taxidermies displayed in museum, the Eskimo are represented as prehistorical creatures, which makes their images appear more authentic. According to Rony, “In order to make a visual representation of indigenous peoples, one must believe that they are dying, as well as use artifice to make a picture which appears more true, more pure.”[1]To illustrate, André Bazin demonstrates an “obsession with realism” , while indexical forms as taxidermy and photography renders them powerful force as evidence.[2] Additionally, Mark Alvey highlights that the authenticity of taxidermy comes from people’s acknowledgement of its reconstitution, and therefore the notion of pastness becomes essential to indexical sign.[3] In the documentary, intertitles establish the camera and introduce the audiences to the world of the Eskimo. The filmmaker explains the Eskimo’s daily activities on their behalf, for the dead can no longer speak for themselves. Suggesting the impending death of the Inuit, the words such as “kill” and “hanger” are repeated in intertitles throughout the film. Moreover, the maps showing the geographic location of the native people’s inhabitant provides a sense of time travelling, implicating that they may no longer exist. As taxidermies, the Eskimos appear both real and dead, and thus their images become the most authentic and respond to people’s realist obsessions.
Moreover, the Inuit is represented as objects on display for their otherness based on the ideology of Orientalism. According to Rony, Flaherty reconstructs the Eskimo as naïve primitive lack of intelligence, while their images are consciously racialized based on popular imagination.[4] For example, Flaherty not only emphasizes the Eskimo’s behaviors of eating raw meat, but also compares them to animals by constantly intercutting between the Inuit and dogs. Having their lives shown as constituted by bloody huntings, the Eskimo appears wildly primitive and distinct from the civilized. Hence, the camera shares similarity with gun that they both offer thrilling experience by capturing the wild. In terms of Finis Dunaway, people temporally eschew from modernity and have their forbidden passion for wildness fulfilled through seeing the primitive.[5] Additionally, portraying the Eskimo in simple happiness, Flaherty’s subjects also appear lack of sophistication. It seems the primitive is only occupied by dietary concern, who remain a primal state without psychological requirement. Resembling the stuffed taxidermies, the Eskimo is portrayed only in surface level, whose inner world remain neglected. Not only being hunted by orientalist gaze, the Inuit are simultaneously captured by voyeuristic gaze. Revealing their half-naked bodies, the Inuit appears the most primitive without the awareness of shame. Highlighting their sexually connotative acts of “lick” and “touch”, Flaherty represents erotic images of the native that satisfy the audiences’ voyeuristic desire. Hence, as an example of ethnographic taxidermy, Nanook of the North offers an ideal prototype of the Inuit that conforms to orientalist gazes and the audiences’ expectations.
Nevertheless, Rony points out that the documentary’s authenticity has also been defended. It is commented by Siegfried Kracauer that Flaherty’s “slight narrative” resuscitates the indigenous people’s pure modes of existence, simply capturing their lives as authentic primitive.[6] Precisely, Flaherty’s long takes, deep focuses and self-effacing camera movements contribute to a realistic representation. Thus, the natural cinematography suggests participant observation and the audiences seemingly acquire perceptual freedom.[7] However, I would argue that it can merely be seen as an observation, while potential impositions of western values devalue the subjects as idealized taxidermies in the film. To illustrate, Rony demonstrates that the notion of participant observation suggests an encounter, which acknowledges the subject’s own perspectives. Instead, the natives are only represented from the observer’s vision, whose images are distorted by stereotypes. Furthermore, Rony argues that the indigenous are attached with Western values. For instance, the Eskimo seems living harmoniously in an idealized peace that free from war; In the hunting sequences, the native appears considerably preserved and brave, resembling the superhuman with unlimited strength. Additionally, the mother (Nyla) always devotes to her child (Allegoo) and the father appears independent. Embodying the idea of proper gender role, the Eskimo is represented in a traditional family corresponding to western value. Thus, it is highly contestable whether the Inuit see themselves in the same way. According to Rony, the Eskimo is portrayed as the “primitive protestant” with protestant value, which functions to comfort white people in terms of the Nordic’s fear of racial annihilation.[8] Incorporating the cherished traits of peacefulness, courage and nuclear family, Flaherty makes the Eskimo’s images acceptable to Western audiences. Therefore, the documentary represents the indigenous in the ways the viewers expect to see, crafting them as ideal taxidermies that attractive and satisfactory.
Additionally, the fictionality of the film is revealed according to the staged poses, the inaccurate depictions and the removal of history. In the trading sequence, the intertitle suggests that Nyla is showing her baby off to the trader, while she is actually facing the cameraman. As a staged pose, the Inuit baby is deliberately represented in to the audiences in a fabricated composition, which manifests the fictionality of narrative. Moreover, it is manifested that the Inuit people find the depictions of their ancestors in the documentary inaccurate. According to Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker, “Allakariallak’s clothing was not indigenous to the region; that the contrived sequences were highly amusing to the Inuit; that the seal hunt was contrived.”[9] Moreover, Rony contends that Flaherty removed the part of history regarding to the connection between the Inuit and the white people. Based on historical fact, the Inuit not only knew gramophones, but also adopted Western tools and clothes.[10] Selectively, Flaherty represents the indigenous as archetypal primitive, who are raw-meat eaters using only primal hunting tools and wearing animal furs. Consequently, the fictional production process of the film is suggestive of its taxidermic nature, while both the taxidermy and the documentary are creations of illusion of reality.
However, the film’s taxidermic quality is questionable due to the subjects’ awareness of being filmed. Participating in the filmmaking, the subjects may act out their real self-conception. Acknowledged by Rony, the Inuit collaborated to make the film, who act, repaired camera and washed exposed film, etc.[11] It appears to me a feeble argument that Rony denies the film’s collaborative nature due to the lack of existing Inuit accounts of the process. Although the extent of collaboration cannot be confirmed, I would argue that the Eskimo undoubtedly collaborated in performing themselves. According to Thomas Waugh, the people playing themselves would be the most expressive, who would act in specific ways based on their real characteristics.[12] Thus, although the subjects were told to act, it is possible that they naturally performed themselves out of authentic intuition. William Rothman argues that it is undoubtful that Allakariallak understands the film “is made to be view, that the camera filming him not only stands in for the visible filmmaker who is really in his presence, but also for viewers who are absent, invisible.”[13] In the igloo sequence, Allakariallak waves and grins at camera, who is possibly showing genuine happiness in his own approach. Therefore, unlike the dead taxidermies completely deprived of autonomy, the Inuit is aware of the camera and consent to perform without being forced to.
Noticeably, Nanook also stares at the camera, which suggests the notion of oppositional gaze. In terms of Paula Amas, “when people look back at or toward the camera—that purportedly has the effect of unbalancing cinema’s dominant gaze.”[14] Challenging the Orientalist gaze of the audiences, Allakariallak looks back at the camera as a refusal and a mock. Instead of performing himself as a simple happy man in accordance to the audiences’ expectation, it is manifested that Allakariallak merely found it funny being shot by a camera.[15] Irrespective of the Western audiences’ perceptions, Rony acknowledges that Allakariallak may be seen as laughing at the camera from the Inuit people’s perspectives.[16] Unconcerned by the onslaught of modernity, Allakariallak mocks the over-civilized at their nervousness by laughing at their camera. Moreover, in the walrus hunt sequence, Allakariallak’s direct gaze appears threatening and fierce, who is no longer amicable but views the camera as an intruder. According to Rothman, “he is not denying his relationship to the camera, but he is declaring that this relationship has a limit, that this limit must be respected.”[17] The oppositional gaze towards camera indicates the subject’s active power, while the filmmaker challenged by the gaze subsequently cuts to a view of the sea, respecting the subject’s refusal of being recorded. Consequently, the oppositional gaze further demonstrates the subject’s subjectivity in the documentary. Not merely being passively shot, the subject can challenge the filmmaker and orientate the way he becomes represented.
Conclusively, Nanook of the North is an example of ethnographic taxidermy in terms of its lack of authenticity and its ideological functions. Discursively portraying the subjects as dead, the documentary fulfills the audiences’ realist obsessions; Reconstructing the Inuit’s images in terms of orientalist stereotypes, Flaherty represents the subjects as prototypical taxidermies of the uncivilized primitive; Conforming to the audiences’ expectations, the idealized images of the native appear reassuring and satisfactory; Based on the staged poses, the inaccurate depictions and the deliberate removal of history, the production process also suggests the film’s artificiality. Acknowledging the subjects’ participation of the filmmaking, the taxidermic nature of the film is also contestable. In terms of the Inuit’s voluntary self-performance and the notion of oppositional gaze, it is possible that the subjects possess active power. Although the subjectivity of the subject can hardly be confirmed due to the lack of evidence, the availability of their authentic willfulness should be taken into consideration. Consequently, although the subjects are taxidermized in multiple aspects and the production process is highly fictional, it is reductive to consider the subjects as merely taxidermies in Nanook of the North.
Bibliography
Alvey, Mark. “The Cinema as Taxidermy: Carl Akeley and the Preservative Obsession.” Framework 48, no. 1 (2007):23–45.
Amad, Paula. “Visual Riposte: Looking Back at the Return of the Gaze as Postcolonial Theory’s Gift to Film Studies.” Cinema Journal 52, no. 3 (2013): 49-74
Bazin, André, and Hugh Gray. “The Ontology of the Photographic Image.” Film Quarterly 13, no. 4 (1960): 4-9.
Dunaway, Finis. “Hunting with the Camera: Nature Photography, Manliness, and Modern Memory, 1890-1930.” Journal of American Studies 34, no. 2 (2000): 207-230.
Geiger, Jeffrey. “Fiction, Truth, and the Documentary Contract.” In Film analysis: A Norton Reader, edited by Jeffrey Geiger and R. L. Rutsky, 94-114. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2013.
Rony, Fatimah Tobing. “Taxidermy and Romantic Ethnography: Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North.” In The Third Eye: Race, Cinema, and Ethnographic Spectacle, 91-126.Durham, N.C. and London: Duke University Press, 1996.
Rothman, William. “Nanook of the North.” In Documentary Film Classics, 1-20. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Waugh, Thomas. “Acting to Play Oneself: Acting
in Documentary.” In The Right to Play Oneself: Looking Back on Documentary
Film, 71-92. Minneapolis and Minn: University of Minnesota, 2011.
An environmental documentary I made in collaboration with my friends, in response to the incresingly deteriorating environment and the extinction rebellions: Our Planet
Youtube link: https://youtu.be/BXxD-xfX0YQ
An independent short film & A psychological thriller: Drop
Youtube link: https://youtu.be/Hb6a4GtC9Yg
In terms of Chaplin’s slapstick performance, the uncontrollability of his body reflects the problem of mental dislocation in contemporary society. According to the action of falling adopted throughout his comedies, Chaplin represents himself as a hysterical figure who is incapable to coordinate his physical body. It is demonstrated by Susan Mccabe that Chaplin’s hysterical motion reflects a mental detachment from bodily organ that permeates every “non-hysterical” subject in contemporary society.[1] To illustrate, people frequently experience involuntary loss of attention due to the traumatic onslaught of shocking experience brought by modernization.[2] As a symptom of the rapid social transformations in modern society, hysteria has become a universal experience. Therefore, Chaplin embodies the universally experienced absence of consciousness by reinforcing the action of falling, who reflects the modern disease of hysteria through his comedic body. For example, Chaplin repeatedly falls on a road at the beginning of The Tramp (Charlie Chaplin, 1916). Being corporally unable to deal with the rapidly passing motor vehicles, the tramp seems incapable to escape the road, who is coerced to regain his feet and keep being inflicted. Juxtaposing the symbol of modern technology with the action symbolizing inefficiency, Chaplin exposes the tramp’s mental incapability to grasp modernity. Metaphorically, the tramp’s physical vulnerability reflects people’s experiences of being incapable in the reality under unceasing social transformations. Thus, Chaplin represents a circular failure through bodily performance to reflect the problem of people’s inflicted psyche in the modern society.
Not only does he fail to balance physical body, Chaplin also appears unable to control his motor impulse. Unable to repress kinesthetic impulse, Chaplin deliberately acts like a child to undermine the concept of proper behavior in modern values. In terms of Guillemette Bolens, Chaplin performs “irresistible kinesthetic” as a decentered subject, who expresses motor urges whenever experiencing kinesthetic sensations.[3] Because people’s spontaneous reactivity is encouraged to be repressed in modern society, Chaplin represents the uncontrollability of motor impulse to embrace innate human nature and subverts constructed social norms. For instance, the tramp instinctually laughs when he learns to perform clown show in The Circus (Charlie Chaplin, 1928). Knowing the inappropriateness of laughing at this situation, the tramp still cannot help immediately bursting into laughter when experiencing funny events. Lifting his legs and shaking his body, Chaplin laughs in an unconstrained manner irrespective of social norms. Only when being stared by his boss does he stop, the tramp keeps failing to control his motor impulse and shortly laughs again. Additionally, not only unable to control his cheerfulness, Chaplin also impulsively expresses anger through direct bodily behavior. In the boat scene of The Immigrant (Charlie Chaplin, 1917), the tramp irritated by an officer retaliates by kicking his arse. It is explained by Dan Kamin that the arse is culturally considered the most undignified part of human being. Therefore, the action of arse-kicking is more atavistic than other behaviors normally used to express anger.[4] Without considering the socially constructed concept of dignity, Chaplin performs a spontaneous stimulus response driven by human’s primal impulse. Prioritizing spontaneous bodily reactions over the demand of society, Chaplin performs a “natural man”, per Tom Gunning, to oppose the bourgeois value of enclosed body.[5] Consequently, Chaplin utilizes bodily performance to represent the uncontrollability of desire and suggest the universal propensity of losing control among human being, who criticizes modern values through subverting social norms.
Based on the critical meanings attached with bodily performance, Chaplin utilizes multiple elements in mise-en-scne to vivify his performance and further challenge modern society. According to the specific makeups adopted by Chaplin throughout his oeuvre, they function to intensify his visual language of bodily performance. In terms of Kamin, Chaplin’s iconic mustache functions to highlight his facial expressions.[6] Using mustache to visually weaken the shape of his mouth when it is closed, Chaplin also uses it as a tool to emphasize the position of his mouth when he laughs. By emphasizing the action of laughing, Chaplin’s representation of uncontrollable body thus becomes vivified. Moreover, Chaplin utilizes top hat to visually largen his head. Because head is the controlling center of body, reinforcing its position highlights the invalidity of volitional control and makes it more graphically striking when Chaplin falls. Apart from incorporating slapstick performance with makeups, it is demonstrated by Gunning that Chaplin merges his body with animal to create a “new body” and provide a renewed sense of corporal experience.[7] In A Dog’s Life (Charlie Chaplin, 1918), Chaplin represents a mixed body through integrating his body with a dog’s tail by hiding a dog in his trousers. Thus, not only behaving like a child himself, Chaplin also subverts the concept of socialization by visually combining the civilized with the uncivilized. Creating a harmonious unity, Chaplin highlights the compatibility and affinity between human body and animal body to challenge the glorification of civilized human body in modern ideology. Moreover, other characters’ dancing postures appear extremely stiff in the pub scene, whose grotesque movements resemble the motions of machine. Because people are affected by mechanical interventions in contemporary society, the rigid postures can be seen as symptomatic of their hysterical nerves. Comparing with the supposedly civilized dancing people, the dog appears more animated and alive. Therefore, Chaplin represents an inversion of value by comparing human to living machines and representing the animal as a natural being. Referencing other characters’ performances and utilizing animal as prop, Chaplin critically reveals the people’s inflicted psyche in the society and interrogates modern civilization. Consequently, bodily performance and other elements in mise-en-secne are incorporated in Chaplin’s comedies to forward social critique.
Additionally, the juxtaposition of slapstick bodily performance with realistic décor in Chaplin’s comedies functions to emphasize the cruel reality of modern society. According to Kamin, Chaplin’s postures suggest bullet dance, which evokes a world of wealth that contrasts to the character’s real status in his films.[8] Precisely, Chaplin always hold his head regally rather than crane it forward like normal people, who also tilts his pelvis back and walks by spreading his feet apart. Therefore, although Chaplin represents himself as an under-class tramp, his postures reveal the tramp’s aspiration to gracefulness and innate desire towards beauty. However, the realistic settings in Chaplin’s comedies appears incompatible to his romanticized physical performance, which reveals the unrealizability of his aspiration. For example, in The Kid (Charlie Chaplin, 1921), Chaplin’s elegant manner resembles a bourgeois gentleman rather than a tramp when he reads newspaper on bed. However, Chaplin manifests the impossibility for the tramp to achieve his aspiration by representing the incompatibility of his behavior with the environment around him: gracefully putting on a shabby quilt and using it as a night-robe, the tramp then gently puts his feet into a pair of worn-out shoes. Juxtaposing the ideal with the reality, the contrast between Chaplin’s romanticized performance and the realistic décor creates a sense of disillusionment and melancholy, which suggests the unrealizability of the tramp’s dream. Therefore, Chaplin satires the cruel reality of the modern industrial society, where the poor can hardly escape their dilemma and are unable to change their social status.
Moreover, Chaplin represents a complex persona by combining subversive bodily performance with socially recognized behavior to subvert the ideology of binary opposition in modern values. Comparing Chaplin’s slapstick comedy with traditional slapstick shows, it is demonstrated by James E. Caron that ritual clowns only represent anti-structure and act sole against socially symbolic figures. Because ritual clowns’ disruptive performance functions to differentiate the evil from the good, they are ultimately represented to confirm the proper behavior and enculturate audiences.[9] Nevertheless, Chaplin represents both structure and anti-structure in the tramp’s persona to challenge social ideology by combining subversive performance with socially justified behavior in narrative. On the one hand, the tramp is normally involved in romances and actively pursuits job, who embodies social norms in narrative. On the other hand, Chaplin’s slapstick performance involves socially despised actions, which disrupts social order. Therefore, Chaplin achieves a balance between the structure and the anti-structure in his persona, who resists the concept of binary moral judgement. In A Dog’s Life, the tramp actively pursuits job and engages in romance, who symbolizes the norm in modern industrial society. Stealing food, violating social rule and violently hitting others, etc., Chaplin’s slapstick performance involves socially unwanted actions. Because the anti-structural actions are neither punished in narrative nor justified by his socially recognized behaviors, both elements gathered in a single character appear compatible with each other. Thus, Chaplin refuses to forward moral judgement as in traditional slapstick show, who embraces both advantages and drawbacks in human nature. Accepting multiple aspects of human nature without articulating an absolute moral judgement, Chaplin subverts the emphasis on binary oppositions in modern values to challenge constructed social ideology.
Furthermore, Chaplin subverts the ideology of progression attached with contemporary society by using slapstick performance to freeze narrative and represent individual’s incompetence. In terms of Alan O’Shea, the ideology of social progression is closely tied to the notion of modernity.[10] Subversively, Chaplin utilizes meaningless slapstick bodily performance to detach from goal-driven plot, who denies the utopian attitude and challenges the obsessive pursuit towards progression in modern society. Precisely, it is demonstrated by Mccabe that Chaplin creates a “peculiar break” in narrative through his off-centered body, who subordinates plot to disjunctive rhythms of bodily motions and articulate “radical nothing”.[11] For instance, in The Immigrant, Chaplin rhythmically hiccups with a man beside him in the beginning of the film. Keeps exaggeratedly vacillating his body without purpose, Chaplin repeats the meaningless bodily motion to freeze narrative flow. When gambling with others, Chaplin tries to win the game by behaving as a professional sports player. Exaggeratedly distorting his torso and rotating his arms, Chaplin absurdly uses much more energy than required in this game. Since the game is only a game of chance, the emphasis on Chaplin’s gratuitous action impedes narrative progression. Therefore, Chaplin deliberately undermines narrative and represents a world lack of meaning, who denies the idea of teleological progression in modern society. Additionally, the meaningless-ness of slapstick performance indicates the incapability of individual to progress in modern society. In A Dog’s Life, the tramp competes with other applicants in an employment center, who is unable to reach the window although persistently retries. The character’s action of repeated failure excessively exaggerated by slapstick performance temporarily hinders narrative development. Because the tramp appears unable to both obtain a job and proceed a narrative, Chaplin highlights the ineffectiveness of personal effort in the industrial society, where human labors have been replaced by machines. Thus, freezing narrative through representing invalid behaviors and manifesting individual’s incompetence, Chaplin challenges the optimistic attitude towards progression in modern society.
Not only expressing critical attitudes through performance, Chaplin also utilizes his performance to closely involve audiences. Using humorous bodily performances to trigger audiences’ laughter, Chaplin promotes the audiences to experience their own kinesthetic impulses. According to Bolens, the audiences lose rational control and irresistibly laughs when watching Chaplin’s funny performances, and therefore the spectators themselves become decentered subjects with the character on screen.[12] As the tramp experiences motor impulse and expresses it through various motions, the audiences express their uncontrollable impulses through laughter simultaneously. Thus, the spectators make sense of the tramp’s lack of control, who unconsciously identify with the character. Moreover, Chaplin also occasionally laughs with the audiences, whose infectious silent laughs promote the audiences’ complicity. Consequently, Chaplin’s silent laughs invite the audiences to share his point of view and encourage them to enjoy his anti-social behaviors. Additionally, it is demonstrated by Bolen that Chaplin’s vivid actions enhance the audience’s propensity to generate perceptual simulation, which nudge them to internally simulate the sensations the character possibly feels like.[13] To achieve a further rapport with the audiences, Chaplin also remains frontality towards camera, who acknowledges the camera’s position and appears aware of the audiences’ presence. To illustrate the ways Chaplin uses performance to involve the spectators, he remains facing the camera when stealing food in front of a seller in A Dog’s Life. Adopting quick and playful bodily motions, Chaplin’s vivid performance attracts the audiences’ attention and pulls them into his action. Through his rhythmic kinesis, Chaplin activates the audiences’ perceptual simulation and provides them a sense of excitement and nervousness to boost their participation. Repeatedly stealing foods and facing back to the camera, Chaplin connects with the spectators to ensure their complicity with his transgressive behavior. Watching the character’s slapstick performance, Caron points out that the audiences experience psychological regression and are brought into primal pleasures, who secretly wish to transgress the ideal with the character.[14] Therefore, Chaplin’s performance promotes the spectators to become complicit with him both perceptually and cognitively. Recognizing their common desire of evading the stricture of the world, the audiences are offered a chance to critically reflect the society.
To promote the audiences’ critical thinking, Chaplin also occasionally disrupts their pleasures by combing realist performance with slapstick performance. In order to prevent the audiences from being indulged into pleasure, Chaplin’s comedies oscillate between cheerfulness and seriousness by combining different performing styles. Precisely, Chaplin adopts realistic performing style when representing serious realities, who interrupts the comedic effect of slapstick performance to both involve and detach the audiences. For example, in The Vagabond (Charlie Chaplin, 1916), Chaplin directly represents the horrendous action of a man whipping an innocent girl without attaching the performance with any sense of humor. In The Circus, the audiences would also not laugh when the circus owner cruelly abuses his own daughter. In The Immigrant, a man is violently punched only because of ten cents, which elicits the audiences’ sympathy rather than laughter. Because of the realistic revelations of individual’s suffer through non-comedic performances, Chaplin’s clownish slapstick, per Caron, becomes a “grim faced satire.”[15] Therefore, the audiences with their pleasures disrupted are acknowledged the reality and promoted to critically reflect the problems in the modern society. Additionally, Chaplin replaces his slapstick performance by a more realistic performance style when representing pathos. In The Kid, Chaplin realistically represents the emotive moment when he regains his boy. Holding and kissing the boy in tears without adopting funny actions, Chaplin expresses authentic emotion through realistic performance. No longer being delighted, audiences are emotionally infected by the character’s pathos and are promoted to interrogate the authority that forces to separate them in the film. Therefore, Audiences are not only engaged by the slapstick performance, their pleasures are also occasionally disrupted by the negativities represented through realistic performances in Chaplin’s comedies. Consequently, Chaplin critically engages the audiences and promotes their own reflections about modern society.
Conclusively, the expressive power of Chaplin’s kinesis in his comedies helps him both convey critical meanings and effectively engage audiences. According to Bolens, because specific kinesis can be attached with various meanings and functions, gesture’s semiotic meaning is less fixed by the conventions of other signifiers.[16] Therefore, Chaplin’s kinesthetic expression with its irreducible complexity appears more volatile than linguistic representation. Resisting verbal representation and foregrounding the communicative function of bodily performance, Chaplin forwards an effective social critique in his silent comedies. Representing the uncontrollability of human body and desire through physical performance, Chaplin metaphorically reveals the modern problem of people’s inflicted psyche and subverts social norms. Incorporating bodily performance with elements in mise-en-scene, Chaplin vivifies his kinesthetic performance and enriches its critical meanings. Juxtaposing romanticized bodily performance with realistic décor, Chaplin also represents the marginalization of the lower-class in the modern society. Moreover, Chaplin subverts the dominant ideology of binary opposition in modern society, who represents a rounded character by combining subversive performance and socially recognized behaviors. Utilizing slapstick performance to freeze narrative and represent individual’s impotency, Chaplin represents a meaningless world to challenge the modern ideology of progression. Importantly, Chaplin engages audiences’ kinesthetic empathy and uses his body as an attraction to psychologically involve spectators. In order to both engage the audiences and promote their critical reflection, Chaplin combines slapstick performance with realistic performance to disrupt their pleasures. Consequently, Chaplin foregrounds kinesthetic expression and utilizes bodily performance to reflect social problems, criticize modern society and critically engage audiences in his slapstick comedies.
Bibliography
Bolens, Guillemette. “Kinesthetic Empathy in Charlie Chaplin’s Silent Films.” In Kinesthetic Empathy in Creative and Cultural Practices, edited by Dee Reynolds and Matthew Reason, 143-156. Bristol : Intellect, 2012.
Caron, James E. “Silent Slapstick Film as Ritualized Clowning: The Example of Charlie Chaplin.” Studies in American Humor, New Series 3, no. 14 (2006): 5-22.
Grace, Harry A. “Charlie Chaplin’s Films and American Culture Patterns.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 10, no. 4 (1952): 353-363.
Gunning, Tom. “Chaplin and the body of modernity.” Early Popular Visual Culture Vol. 8, no. 3 (2010): 237–245.
Kamin, Dan. “Falling for the Flickers.” In The comedy of Charlie Chaplin: artistry in motion, 12-31. Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2008.
Mccabe, Susan. “‘Delight in Dislocation’: The Cinematic Modernism of Stein, Chaplin, and Man Ray.” Modernism/Modernity, Volume 8, no. 3 (2001): 429-452.
O’Shea, Alan. “English Subjects of
Modernity.” In Modern times: reflections on a century of English modernity,
7-37, edited by Mica Nava and Alan O’Shea. New York and London: Routledge,
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Film & Art