ROLAND BARTHES The Rustle of Language Translated by Richard Howard HILL anp WANG + New york p Straus and GirousLeaving the Movie Theater ‘There is something to confess: your speaker likes 10 leave a ‘movie theater. Back out on the more oF less empty, more oF less brightly fit sidewalk (is invariably a night, and ding the Week, that he gas), and heading uncerainly for some eaié or ‘other, he walks in silence (he doesnt lke discussing the film t's just seen) a ial dazed, wrapped up in himself, feeling the ‘old—he's sep, that’s what he's thinking, his body has become Something sopitive, soft limp, and he feels a lle dlsjointed, even (for a moral organization, relief comes only from this quarter) iresponsible. In other words, obsiously, he's coming, ‘out of hypnosis. And hypnosis (an old psychoanalytic device ‘one that psychoanalysis nowadays seems to treat quite conde- scendingly) means only one thing to him: the most venerable ‘of powers: healing. And he thinks of music ist there such thing as hypnotic musi? The castato Farnell, whose mesia di increible for its duration a for its emission,” felicved the morbid melancholy of Philip V of Spain by singing him the same aria every night for fourteen years. ‘This is often how he leaves a movie theater. How does he go in? Except for the—increasingly frequent—case of a specifi cultural quest (a selected, sought-or, desired film, object of a veritable preliminary alert), he goes to movies as a response to idlenes, leisure, free time. It's a if, even before he went into the theater, the classic conditions of hypnosis were in force: ‘vacancy, want of occupation, lethargy: its notin front of the film and because of the film that he divans offivs without knowing it, even before he becomes a spectator. There is a enema situation," and ths situation is pre-hypnotc. According usea Environs ofthe Image toa true metonymy, the darkness of the theater is prefigured by the “twilight reverie” (a prerequisite for hypnoss, according to Breuer-Freud) which precedes it and leads him from street to street, from poster to poster, finally burying himself in dim, ‘anonymous, indifferent cube where that festival of affects known 8 film will be presented. ‘What does the "darkries” of the cinema mean? (Whenever I hear the word cinema, I can't help thinking Aall, rather than {film Not only is the dark the very substance of reverie fin the Dprethypaoid meaning of the term; itis also the “eoloe” of a diffused eroticism; by ies human condensation, by its absence of worldlness (contrary to the cultural appearance that has to be pt io at any “legitimate theater), by the relaxation of postures {hiow many members of the cinema audience side down into ther seats as if into a bed, coats oF feet thrown over the rove i front), the movie house (ordinary model is a site of availability (even more than cruising) the inoccupation of bodies, whieh best defines modern etoticia—not that of advertising or strips tease, but that of the big city Tis im this urban dark chat the body's freedom is generated; this invisible work of posible affects emerges from a veritable cinematographic cocoon; the movie spectator could easly appropriate the sikworm’s motto) Inchusos labor iltuara; ics because I am enclosed that L work: and glow with all my desire. In this darkness of the cinema (anonymous, populated le merous—oh, the boredom, the frustration of so-called priya showings) lies the very fascination ofthe fil (any film) Tt ‘of the contrary experience: on television, where films are ‘shown, no fascination; here darkness is erased, anon represied; space is familiar, articulated (by furniture, jects), tamed: the eroticism—no, to put it better, to Ket the particular kind of lightness, of unfulillment We ‘raticzatio of the place is foreclosed: television ‘the Family, whose household instyument i has the hearth used to be, Hanked by is _ Leaving the Movie Thaler 7 In that opaque cube, one light: the film, the screen? Yes, of| course. But alto ), visible and unperceived, that dancing cone which pletees the darkness like a laser beam. This ‘beam is minted, aceoning to the rotation ofits particles, into changing figures) we Wir our face toward the currency of a Bleaming vibration whose imperious jet brushes our skull, slancing off someone's halt, someone's face. As in the old hypnotic experiments, weare fascinated without seeing it head> ‘on—by this shining ste, motionless and dancing. ts exactly as if a long stem of light had outlined a keyhole, and then we all pered, flabbergasted, through that hole. And nothing in this ecstasy is provided by sound, music, words? Usually—in current productions—the audio protocol can pro- ‘duce no fascinated listening; conceived to reinforce the ielieness of the anecdote, sound is merely 4 supplementary instrument of representation; itis meant to integrate itself unobirusively ito the object shown, isin no way detached from this object Yetit would take very litle in order to separate this sound tack fone displaced or magnified sound, the grain ofa voice milled in our eardrums, and the fascination begins again; for it never ‘comes except from artifice, or beter sil: from the arifact—ike the dancing beam of the projector—which comes from overhead ‘or to the side, blurring the scene shoxen by the screen jt widhnd soting ts mage (is getal, its meaning. For such isthe narrow range—at least for me—in which ean function the fascination of fm, the cinematographic hypnosis | must be inthe story there must be versie), but 1 must also be elsrwhire: a slightly disengaged image-repertore, that i ‘what I must have—tike 2 scrupulous, conscientious, organized, ina word difficult feishist, that is what I require ofthe film and ‘of the situation in which I go looking for it ‘The film image (including the sound) is what? A tere. 1 ara image as FL were hell in dhat famous dust