RITES OF REALISM

Essays

on Corporeal Cinema

Editedby I VONE MARGUL I E S

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS Durham and London zoo3

Death Every Afternoon Andr Bazin

Tianslated by Mark A. Cohen

I understand that Pierre Braunberger nurtured the idea for this film for quite some time. The result shows that it was worth it. The chances are that
a noted aficionado like Braunberger saw nothing more in this project than a way to honor and promore bullfighting as well as make a film his producer

would not regret. From this point of view,

it was probably a good invest_ ment-deservedly so I must add-because bullfight lovers wirl rush to see

have been f-lmed copiously and repeatedly for the camera to convey the gction of the bullring so completely. Many are the passes and coups de grce

during top events featuring stars, which afford us long, practically in which the framing of man and animal is never tighter than ium shot or even an American shot. And when the head of the bull into the foreground it is not a stuffed head, the rest follows.
takes rhaps

footage

I am a fool to be so astonished by Myriam's talent. She edited with diabolical skill, and you have ro pay careful atrention to

it

btrll ends with a differcnt'ra'ancr a diffcrle't anirnar. Sincc 'rlic story oJ n ohct (Lt llonron d'utt 'riicht:ur) a'd cspecially paris i9(t0, evetyonc knows tlrat My'iarn is a briliiant ediror. 'r'rrc rrr(t,ghtrtas pr:oved it ye r again.
is this good, the art

and a sequence crcared by patching togcthcr fivc or six differcnt shots.r r7ith_ out us noticing the switch. a "vcronica" beginning with

scc thrt thc br,rll tbat c.lrcs int. view fi-o'r thc left is not always the orrc that lcft tbc sc'ccr.r 'orn thc right. So pcrfcctly clo thc rn:rrchcs on acrion conccal thc a.ticniation of thc shots that thc film w.ulcl have ro bc vrewcd with a'roviola to <listi.gtrish with ccrtainty be twcen a singlc shot

one matador and

They arc "mode'r" works, aesthetically contelnporary cicor,rpage of films such as Citizt:n Katte, r?rlcs ttJ-tlrc cantc, r'hc I/ipcr, a,nd Bicycle'l'ltict,es. The goar of rhe editing is'ot to srlggcst syrnboric and abstracr links betwcen thc i'rages, as in I(ulccirnrr', frrrr,,lri expc.iment with thc close-r'rp of Moszhukin. If thc pheno'rcnon revealed in this cxpcrir'e't rs to play a rolc in this neor'ontage , it is for a r.adically clifferent purposc: to ftilfill both thc physical vcrisimiiitrdc of rhe d.o.,p"g. a'c] irs logical The i'rage of a naked woman folrowed by tvror"hu_ 'ralleability. kin's arnbiguous s'rile significs salaciousness ancl desire. rvhat is rnore, thc moral significance in so'1e sellsc p'eexists the physical o'e;trrc image of :r naked wo'ran pius i'rage of a sr'ire cquars dcsire. No doubt the exisrence of dcsire logically i'rplies that the is rooking ar the wo'ran, but this 'ran geomctry is not there in the images. The deduction is almost supcrflrous; fo'I{r-rlechov, it is sccondar.y.'vhat collnts is the nrcani'g glven 'lorcover, to thc sr'ile by the collision of i'rages. rn this case, rhe r crationship i, q.rit. diffcrent. Myrirrn ai'rs above all at physicar realis'r. The .leceptin of rhe ecliting supporrs rhc vcrisimiritucre of rhe dcoupage. The ri.kage of two bulls in a single novcl'enr does'ot sy'rborize tri.'buils'rrr"rrgih,
.fr,ght are cye ."

is an esscntial elc'rent i' the flrn's cre ation. Srch a conception of montage flnr calls fo'furthcr discussi.'. At isstrc hc.e is so'rerhing quite different than a .etrrn ro thc old pri'racy of o,r". .r.o.rpge hooti'g 'rontagc sc'ipt) as taughr by early Sovict cine'ra. Neithcr- t'aris ryoo ior i,he Rttil-

of rhe editor gocs welr beyond irs ,rs.r.r ftinction--it

when

"I{i'o

with tlre

thorough inrroduction imaginable . Thc footage was not edited r:ancio'rry

secing. The cclitor'rakcs sense of rrer ecritingjust as the clirector of his d_ corpage, base d soleiy on this ki'd of re arism. It is no ronge r the car'era cyc, but thc adaptation of e diti'g tcchniclue to the aesthetics of the camera pen., That is why novices like nre will find in this film the clcaresr a,d rnosr

'eptitiousiy

replaces thc photo

ir suof the no'existent buli we bclievc we are

z8 RNln

uAZrN

shots' sPectacular afinities buC with precision and clarity. accordngto the (and of che bulls bred for it) and the evolution bullfighting of The history fighting styles up to and since Belmonte re presented with all the di-

of

the cinema' When a figure is being described, the image dactic resources of the critical moment and the commentator explains the relative

positions of man and animal' Probably because they did not have access to slow-motion equipment, Pierre Braunberger relied on a ttca, but the

isfrozenat

efleclive.'Needless to say the didactic qualities of this film its limit, or so it would aPPear. The project is less grandiose and all are ^lso embracng than Hemingway's in Death in the Afternoon, The Bullfght might seem nothing more than a feature-length documen tary, afascinating one to be sure, but still a "documentary." This view would be unjust and mistaken, unjust because the pedagogic humility with which it was carried out is less a sign of limitation than of a conscious refusal. Faced with such a grand subject, such rich material, Pierre Braunberger acted in all humilicy. The commentary restricts itself to explanation; it avoids a facile verbal lyricism rhat would be overwhelmed by the objective lyricism of the image. Mistaken, too, because the subject transcends itself, and this means that Pierre Braunberger's project is perhaps even greater cinematically than he could
freezeframe is
as

have imagined.

The experience of flmed theater- and its almost total failure until some
played by real presence.
a

of the role know that the photographic image of a play only gives it back to us emptied of its psychological reality, a body wichout
recent successes redefined che problem-has made us aware
W'e soul. The reciprocal presence, the flesh and blood confrontation of viewer

and accor, is not a simple physical accident but an ontological fact

tive of the performance

as

as

such. Starting from this theoretical given

constituas well

from experience, one might infer that the bullfighc is even less cinematic If theatrical reality cannoc be captured on celluloid, what about the tragedy of tauromachy, of the liturgy and the almost religious feeling that accompanies it. ,\ photograph of a bullfght might have some documentary or didactic value, but how could it give us back the essence of the spectacle, the mystical triad of animal,man, and crowd? I have never been to a bullfight, and it would be ridiculous of me to claim that the film lets me feel the same emotions, but I do claim that it gives me its essential quality, its metaphysical kernel: death. The cragic ballet of the bullfight turns around che presence and permanent possibility of death (that of the animal and the man). That is what makes the ring into
than the theater.

DEATH EVERY AFTERNOON 29

sotrcthing norc tilan a thcttcr

st

plays for bis lift, likc thc rrapezc of thosc rare cvents that jLrstfics
cirtcntatic spctif tity. Art of time, cin peating it, a pr:iviicgc conrnlon to use

soni:rn "rlur(e," whicli is in essence i that cinema reprociuces at will and of which we are a parr, the sensible
nrakes a nolcl both spatiai ancl

with infinitely grcarcr porcntia more precise since rhere.are other tc'rporal arts, rike'rusic. r_l,t nrusicar time is immedi:rtely and by definition time, whercas the cinenra ".rth"ti. only attains and constructs its aestl

of my life, but cinema can rcpet any before nry eyes. If ir is tn-re that for any othcr, there is one on which this

tempor

rxoment

efinitcly
eclual ro nverger,

ery creaturc, death is the uniquc me of life is retroactively clefine cl

"
thcy c an ncverrhere s s b e
as

J,

i:,H, :::-.,,:::,

in iife radically rebcr ag:rinsr trris concession

cine,ratic rcpetition is'rore par.rdoxical in thcory than i'orr.r".. ,r"_ spite the o'tological co'tradiction it represents, we quite readily accept rt as a sort of objective cornterpaft to menlory. However, two mo,.'ents
'rrdc

sirniiar

:ji: : ::: :'j',::; ;i;:,,i:

by consciousncss: rhe

ai in which Rcd ,,spies,,werc exeare. At each scrcening, at the flick

ancl then

gc fi-om onc stale to thc other. In haunting docunrentary about

the

rhejelk of rhe sanre bul_

3o aNon

tAZrN

film did not even leave out the gesture of the make cwo ttemPts with his jammed revolver, an to had who oo..-rn intol.rrbl. sight not so much for its objective horror as for its ontologinecks. The let jolCed their

only the profanation of corpses and cal obscenity. Before cinema there was the desecration of tombs. Thanks co film, nowadays we can desecrate and

will the only one of our possessions that is temporally inalienable: a dead without a requiem, the eternal dead-again of the cinema! I imagine the supreme cinematic perversion would be the projection of an execution backward like those comic newsreels in which the diver
show at

jumps up from the water back onto his diving board. These observations have not taken me so far as it seems frorn The Bullof fght. One will understand me if I say that the film of a performance Molire's Malade Imaginaire has no theatrical or cinematic value but that if the camera had been present at Molire's final performance it would be an amazingfrlm.t This is why the represenlation on screen of a bull being put co death (which presupposes that the man has risked death) is in principle as moving as the spectacle of the real instant chat it reproduces. In a certain sense, it is even more moving because it magnifies che quality of the original moment through the contrast of its repetition. It conGrs on it an additional solemnicy. The cinema has given che death of Manolette a material eternity. On the screen, the toreador dies every afternoon.

Notes

r z

A movieola is a playback machine.

Translator's note: Given that
T-hc

Bullfglt has a voice-over commentary written by

sees

Michel Leiris, it is probable that lJazin

of Alexandre Astruc's r.ern mnra
stylo.

this

as

n essay flm,

as

suggested by his use

3 4 5

A truca is a special effects optical printer.

Tianslator's note: In the French this is rc-rlolls, which is a pun on te-rnords, rneaning
"remorse."

Translator's note: Molire diecl shortly after falling

this play in 1672.

ill

onstage cluring a performance

of

DEATH EVERY AFTERNOON

31