The Seeing Image

It has been said that if you stare into the abyss, sometimes, it stares back. A recent viewing of Godfrey Reggio's most recent film, Visitors, makes me wonder if the same can be said about the cinema. Large segments of the film are devoted to images of human (and one gorilla) faces looking directly into the camera. It could be said that this method has been around as long as cinema has, with the utilization of the cinematic close-up, but even the close-up was never meant to look back; the close-up was an examination, not a judgment. This method was occasionally utilized in certain popular cinemas as a way to turn a conversation into something more personal, Iran's popular cinema being a notable, egregious offender. However, at some point of which I am, sadly, unaware, the image of the eyes looking back at the viewer became a notable experimentation in cinema; I have only begun noticing it recently.

In the Cannes-funded film Chacun son Cinema, Abbas Kiarostami created a short film which later developed into Shirin, a play as experienced through the faces of the viewers. The faces here, those of the women of Iran's cinema (and Juliette Binoche), are not meant to be seen; instead, they are meant to be read. The viewer does not see a story, but rather he or she experiences the story along with these viewers/performers. The audience becomes a part of the performance. Several years later, a single shot in Michael Haneke's Amour similarly caught my attention. The leading couple enter a theatre, along with many others, to see a performance. Again, the performance is mentioned to be a concert, but remains invisible (but not silent) to the viewer. We are, once again, left to look at the audience, a large audience, a faceless mass of individuals, as they look directly at us. Of course, there is still a pretense of something being viewed, something in the distance behind us, but the confrontation of viewer and viewed was a jarring experience.

Fast forward to Reggio. The pretense of a specific event being viewed has been lifted. The faces on the screen are no longer looking at a show. They are looking directly through the camera. First, they are individuals. As individuals, they have no agency. They may be looking at us, but we are greater in number; they continue to be the spectacle. That is, however, until a crowd of them gathers. Their crowd outnumbers our crowd! As two dozen or so individuals look out at us (there is no indication of what they may be looking at), they react; they cheer, groan, laugh and cry. As I look around the theatre, I see no difference between those on the screen and those in the seats. Well, just one: Those in the seats do not react; our agency has just reversed. We have become the spectacle.

Visitors was filmed in black and white, which I worried would be a distraction. However, that furthers the illusion. The audience viewing the film, in the darkness, is also black and white. So are the seats, the walls and everything in the distance. The only thing keeping me sane are the three exit signs around me, glowing red, reminding me that I can leave this madness anytime I desire. As the film reaches its end, Reggio once again twists the viewer's perception of the world. Singular faces once again occupy the screen (he has well proven how terrifying it is to be viewed by a larger group that one's own). However, a slow zoom out reveals a large audience in front of the screen, viewing it along with those in the theatre. The viewer begins to question just who is viewing who. The question of power and agency is raised to the forefront but never answered, as the screen disintegrates the film audience, deciding, for some reason, to spare the physical viewer.

Is this a possibility however? Can film stare back? The unimaginative answer is no, because the apparatuses of film (the camera, the projector, the screen) are all one-way objects. That is at least what the powers that be will say. The truth is that the image does not stare back, because the very idea of it still terrifies the viewer. Technology has developed methods for the image to stare back, but fear stops it from being put to good use. I have twice been in screenings which have used Skype to connect the audience to the creator, but the connection is never complete, because, at least in my experience with the two instances, the image, that of the creator displayed on the giant screen, has never been allowed to look out at the audience (except for the occasional fleeting glance). The image can hear the audience, but not see them, giving the audience, the greater number, the power. We still live in a world where power structures are strictly defined and enforced and the thought of giving agency to a singular image continues to terrify people. Take this as a call to revolution: the image can no longer remain blind!