Ucl Film Studies Research Seminar

Lisa Socrates

UCL FILM STUDIES RESEARCH SEMINAR

17 November 2008

Deleuze, Time and Cypriot national cinema: Space, narrative and the sound image in Lia Lapithi Shukuroghlou

Introduction

In the final sequence of Elia Demetriou’s documentary,Pyla: Living together Separatelyabout a mixed Cypriot village caught up in the U.N ‘buffer zone’, filmed in 2004, a Greek-Cypriot narrates his journey from the south of the island of Cyprus to the north. He enters a mosque, a space which has been transformed since 1974, when it was a Greek Orthodox Church. The Imamaccommodates all Christian visitorsby laying a carpet, so that they do not have to remove their footwear. In his call to prayer, the Imam refers to the space in the mosque, as one to be shared by Christians and Muslims, Greek and Turkish Cypriots. The documentary closes with the following words by a Greek- Cypriot male voice –over: ‘And then I felt for a moment that Cyprus had expanded.’

The conclusions the audience might draw from Demetriou’s documentary as a whole andthe spirit of these last spoken words crystallize the key ideas in this paper. That is the relevance of space and time to the Cypriot nation, and their representation in cinematic space, through the reading of Lia Lapithi’s cinematic shorts. I will not say more for the present moment to unravel how time and space gain their significance in these texts and context, because my textual readings will address these questions. What I would like to draw attention to before moving on, is the reference to time, evoked in the expression of Cyprus as a nation expanding. Coming at the moment when a Christian Greek Cypriot enters the space of a mosque, the audience is compelled to consider the complexities implied in the reference to nation in relation to history, time and space. Demetriou’s film captures a sense of a ‘before’ and ‘after’ in Cypriot history and society. And this is where Deleuze’s work comes in.

Deleuze, Nation and ‘Cypriot Cinema’

There are two aims in this paper. The first is to apply Deleuze’s ideas on time and narrative to a national cinema, where both are crucial to an understanding of the role of history and memory in shaping a national identity. The second aim is to take Deleuze to a completely new textual terrain with a reading of three cinematic shorts from emergent contemporary Cypriot cinema. {For the purpose of the present discussion I refer to ‘Cypriot cinema’ to include cinematic production which attempts to represent a sense of nation, as well as an individual and collective identity in Cyprus. And specifically tothe cinematic production which emerged after 1974 within the Greek Cypriot community, for linguistic and other definitional purposes, which engage with nation, ethnicity and identity.[1] }

Butwhy Deleuze? To state that there are few studies on the national cinema of Cyprus is not enough. But this has certainly limited the scope for critical and theoretical engagement with cinematic texts. The following interrelated points are influential factors:

• the centrality of time in his thesis in explaining narrative in filmic terms
• the aspect of time, in respect of a nation which is ‘becoming’, politically and culturally
• and therefore the scope to read my texts in terms of their contextual and semiotic density and complexity and finally
• the invitation to engage with the predicament, even sense of crisis at play when individual time and public time are seen to compete and therefore to become challenging in the study of the national context.

It is with these aspects of the nation’s time, and its representation in film that Deleuze offers a starting point, with scope to extend his theories beyond the context in which they were originally intended. Finally, it is in Deleuze’s interpretation from Cinema 1 to Cinema 2 where he delineates a transition frommovement images to time images, explained in terms of a significant historical transformation,that he invites a fertile interpretive framework for the present Cypiot context. In the cited documentary the time evoked by ‘before’ and ‘after’ is vital in Deleuze’s thesis as it is located in a pre and post European society after the Second World War. I begin by offering an overview of both Cinema 1 and Cinema 2. After reviewing some possible limitations and criticisms of Deleuze, I move on to three cinematic texts by Lia Lapithi. (historical explanations not chronological).

The Movement Image: Narrative and Space

Gilles Deleuze’s Cinema 1 The Movement -Imagewhich originally appeared in 1983 and Cinema 2 The Time -Imagepublished in 1985 bring a philosophical, even radical discourse to Film Studies to explain how time is represented through two cinematic images: the movement -image and the time-image.[2] Deleuze’s dense concepts, interactwithfamiliar cinematic terminology, as for example in his explanation of the way camera shots correlate to different images in the frame, and this is one of the sustaining aspects of his work. Cinema 1 contains a substantial commentary by Deleuze ofthe French Philosopher Henri Bergson’s Matter and Memory, which he utilizes to explain the connection between cinematic images and movement, and also the construction of time and narrative.[3]Deleuze explains how the camera produces movement and thereby creates an impression of continuity. However, he argues that this movement is a ‘false movement’ because the movement image represents a journey through space to construct a narrative which is continuous and extends forward. Therefore there is some kind of illusion of movement which creates a false sense of continuity (1983: 1 ). Deleuze sees the camera as analogous to a means of transport, with the camera moving from one space to another as it moves from frame to frame. In this light he describes cinema as ‘ the system which produces movement as a function of any-instant-whatever that is, as a function of equidistant instants , selected so as to create an impression of continuity’ (1983:4). His reference to the equal space or distance between these frames explains the dynamic of the kind of cinema with which a fair proportion of contemporary Hollywood represents today; and that is the high concept, action packed blockbuster.

Deleuze explains in his ‘First Commentary of Bergson’ (Cinema 1) how each movement from shot to shot and frame to frame is a transaction in space where the individual parts of the system (the set) are seen to decompose as they move from one frame to the next to recompose the image. Movement is distinct from the space it covers and it cannot be divided without altering the quality of the space each time (1983:1). He explains that ‘each time we find ourselves confronted with a duration, or in a duration, we may conclude that there exists somewhere a whole which is changing, and which is open somewhere’ (1983: 9). The crucial aspect here for the cinematic image in Cinema 1, is the continuity and movement. Once we start however to view the set as a system where competing parts are seen to destabilize the whole, or as with the sound image to realize that it might remain ‘beyond movement itself’, we begin to anticipate the stillness of the time image- and this is a key focus in my textual analysis. Deleuze explains that this is because, whilst a frame is composed of a number of parts, these ‘do not have a common denominator’ (1983: 14-5). For example there is no common standard between light and sound, therefore movement precipitates a destabilizing effect on the parts of the setand alters their proportions. When the movement in space takes place, begins to vary the different elements within the set it allows for the whole set to be open and to experience a becoming from decomposition to recomposition. Movement will always relate to change, and this change will perform a qualitative change in the whole frame (1983: 23). Delezue gives the example of sugar- which dissolves in the glass of water to alter the material substance of this water.

He identifies three types of image in the classicperiod of cinema which he correlates to a particular shot:

• the affection image which is realized mainly through the close-up
• the perception image through the long shot
• and the action image through the medium close up.

During the classical period of pre-war Hollywoodcinema the predominance of the action image is defined as a motor-sensory image. This is characterized by the ability of the protagonist to move through the narrative because he/ she is able to influence their actions. The motor-sensory image works because there is a schema which determines that an action is followed by a situation which precipitates a new situation and this is because of the protagonist’s reactions to situations which produce new situations and so on. In this sense, the impression of continuity is sustained through the camera’s movement into the next frame, creating a sense of a linear narrative for the audience.In Cinema 1, the indirect representation of time – upheld as we have noted, is through ‘false movement’ is made feasible by continuity editing.

Lapithi, History, and the Time -Image

Deleuze identifies the Second World War as the historical event which could no longer sustain the action image. He expressed this in the Preface to the English edition of Cinema 1 as ‘a shattering of the sensory-motor schema’ (1986: ix). Pure optical and sound images replace the motor sensory actions characteristic of pre-war cinema with a distinct break in narrative continuity. Irrational cuts and montage editing achieve this. What distinguishes the new sound and optical image from the classic sensory-motor situation is the absence of a defined setting or space. Action images- working within the sensory-motor schema anticipated action and responded to reactions- this precipitated movement. In Cinema 2 the ‘purely optical or sound situation becomes established in what we might call ‘any-space-whatever’, whether disconnected, or emptied’ but unlike the action image, never continuous or linear (Deleuze, 1985: 5). By paraphrasing from Andre Bazin who defined a template of criteria to describe post war cinema, for example Italian Neo-Realism, Deleuze, in Cinema 2 captures the physical, moral and cinematic space of the post –war world when he states that ‘it was a matter of a new form of reality, said to be dispersive, elliptical, errant or wavering, working in blocs, with deliberately weak connections and floating events ‘ (1985: 1)

Because the totality of the cinematic image is lost it now becomes possible to refer to a space inside or outside, made possiblethrough the separation of the optical image from sound, situating the first in and the second outside of the cinematic frame. This disassociation of sound and image is a new development of the time image which is the focus on Cinema 2. And either sound or the optical image, or both are never ‘induced into action’ they just make the audience pay attention (1985:18). And now time is represented directly, purely for itself as it subordinates movement to emerge ‘in its pure state’ creating a circuit around the image rather than extendinginto movement (as the action driven image would) (1985: 17). As the image splits different layers are formed around the direct- time image. The gap in time is not filled by movement but through recollection. Delezue argues that the past is made at the same time as the present and a split in time forms a virtual image in the past, whilst the other is ‘launched’ forward into the present (1985:81). The past is not a pre-existent place, but it is made in the present. When a crisis such as war suspends action and movement, time emerges and recollection is about locating the former present which was. This is the Bergsonian idea of time constantly splitting, to form a present which passes and a past which is preserved. The significance of the time-image is that the suspended time between frames has now created the notion of an inside and outside space. As time cannot be linear, this means that individuals inhabit time and become internal to it; they can move in time and change it. Deleuze argues that duration is subjective and that it constitutes our inner life, making time non-chronological. (1985: 82).

***

Before turning to the texts I want to be provocative by confronting all the possible reasons why Deleuze is a very unlikely way of approaching Cypriot cinema. He is a Western philosopher, an elitist French – specifically Parisian scholar who even spoke with disdain about popular culture. David Martin Jones informs us in Deleuze, Cinema and National Identity: Narrative Time in National Contexts (2006), that Deleuze’s work has possible limitations if we take on board that he drew almost entirely on Western European Cinema and American Hollywood cinema as his case studies (some references are given to Japanese and Soviet directors). From this, Deleuze sets up a binary. In Cinema 1 he focuses on the popular genres of American (Hollywood cinema) when he defines the movement image (as characteristic of pre-Second World War cinema). Then, Cinema 2 is all about the emergence of a time-image after the war in the creation of ArtCinema, which is European- but specifically Italian, French and German. As Martin-Jones very convincingly explains, Deleuze’s paradigm simplifies both pre and post war film production. In fact, it becomes Deleuze’s strategy to suggest a logical transition from the movement to the time image (using this model) thereby as Martin-Jones explains choosing to ignore a lot of post-war cinematic trends such as the Italian westerns which were not time- images, had a popular appeal and do not follow his pattern. Nevertheless, for the reasons stated at the outset and with the above arguments in parenthesis, I want to draw on the distinction which Deleuze identifies in cinematic practice, of a movement image, superseded in the mid-twentieth century by a time-image, precipitated by historical events of huge proportions.

Cyprus 1974: ‘any-space-whatever’

As we shift to the Cypriot historical context I want to argue that the post- 1974 war landscape marks the emergence of the time image in Cypriot national cinema with a new reality unfolding into 34 years of a divided nation and the full realization of extreme nationalism. This date is crucial to the notion of a society ‘before’ and ‘after’. Cyprus experienced a coup from mainland Greece instigated by the right wing military Junta to force a union with the islanders. (Some Greek Cypriots had long aspired to this ‘union’- but not the entire nation). This was always going to be problem for the Turkish Cypriot minority anyway. In response Turkey invaded in defense of this population, and then war break out between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots .[4] So, in the terms offered by Martin Jones, 1974 was the historical transformation. In Deleuzian language, we have a society, suspended in time, waiting for the chaos to subside. A climate of inaction is captured in the dailiness of the Cypriot people who are waiting to return to their home, for the truth about their ‘missing persons’ and for the outside community such as the U.N or Britain as the Guarantor power to react. However, a deadlock has ensued in respect of the initially temporary division of the land and the resettlement of the population- it is the ‘Cyprus Problem.’As a single historical event of considerable proportions, the war in Cyprus hasindicated the tensions of history and time at different levels of duration. In Deleuzian terms this saw time emerge for itself in the post-war space and it was like history didn’t know which course to take. (no of refugees)

Lia Lapithi is a filmmaker and a multi-media artist who lives and works in Cyprus . Her short films are only distributed on her website and can be described as unruly in their abstractness, their experimental quality and their hostility to narrative. All of her experimental shorts are political in the sense that offer a dimension to the national ‘problem’, which has occupied journalists and scholars.[5] After nearly a century of British Colonial rule commencing in 1878, independence was gained in 1960. During the colonial years the two dominant populations, Greek and Turkish Cypriots (80 per cent to 20 per cent of the population) were polarized as communities, as the new administrative system required them to represent themselves separately (Bryant, 2004).[6] Ethnicity and religion were the two aspects which determined that by the year of independence there had already been bi-communal strife, as well as the evolution of two distinct nationalisms and national identities, precipitated by an increase in literacy, the rise of the press in each community and education.[7]

Greek Cypriot nationalism looked to mainland Greece and aspired to a union with the ‘motherland’ with whom it shared a Hellenic culture, education and the Greek Orthodox religion. Turkish Cypriot identity was shaped by a mainland Turkish nationalism created by the construction of a modern Turkish state which Kemal Attark had forged after 1923.[8] Intercommunal violence in 1958 and then 1963 divided the communities with a ‘green line’ in the capital Nicosia. This hostility continued until 1974, which created a permanently divided island.

As I now shift to a textual focus I would like to indicate the schema I follow. Rabbits have noMemory draws the audience’s attention to levels of time as underscoring her cinematic composition and use of space within the frame. Then, I move on to a‘Grade IV’: I do notForget, which issaturated with ideological messages which deconstruct the national homogenous discourse; and in particular the link between education and nationalism. In so doing I apply Homi Bhabha’s ideas, to suggest ways of reading Lapithi within her own historical and national context. Finally, in Electricity, I want to present how time comes to emerge purely for itself through the sound image . Whilst I draw significant ideas in this case from Deleuze I also turn to the work on Intercultural Cinema undertaken by Laura U Marks. I also draw on the revisionist work on time and narrative offered by Martin-Jones in order to connecttime within the text, and the nation. It can be argued therefore that overall my plan is to begin with the notion of a space which equates to the empty frame, to focus on time and history and then to sustain this argument by explaining how the sound image assumes a dominant part in cinematic time and space.