Rush 9: Doubling, Cinema, and Diagesis

'Doubling,' or an individual encountering oneself has long been a fixation for the narrative arts. In Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Sebastian and Viola both double into Cesario. In Edgar Allen Poe's "William Wilson," the eponymous protagonist is haunted by an exact double of himself. etc etc. From these examples we can see that our notion of a 'substance encountering itself' is not sufficient to describe comedy, as Twelfth Night is a comedy, but "William Wilson" is not. 

Now let us leave these two examples for a moment to consider the interdiagetic nature of both Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Ben Briand's "Apricot." In both of these films, clever assemblage is used to place the character in relationship to himself or herself. Through "L-cuts," the protagonists voice is played over scenes of their past selves; Far from being the narration of a memoir, however, we come back to see the characters themselves speaking the words in question. Both narrator and memory exist as characters. However, only in Eternal Sunshine do the characters encounter each other. Joel stops talking and moves from narrator to memory in a seamless moment, whereas the female protagonist in "Apricot" never comes into contact with her memory. The doubling is not 'substance encountering itself.' In these two examples our theory holds -- Eternal Sunshine can be said to be comedic, but "Apricot" cannot.

I'm still troubled by William Wilson, however. Perhaps the work is a comedy? Perhaps a 'substance encountering itself' is necessary but not sufficient for comedy? Further reflection along these lines is needed.

Rush 8

The film, "Being John Malkovich" begins with a puppet overture: We see a marionette, controlled by one of the film's principle's, Craig Schwartz, go through several motions which will have dramatic significance in the film. The puppet looks in a mirror, displays shock, reaches out touches it, looks up, recognizes its puppeteer, then dances before collapsing in a corner weeping.  This overture is then paralleled later in the film when Craig Schwartz guides John Malkovich through similar motions for the amusement of Maxine Lund (John Malkovich looks in the mirror, reaches out, touches it, displays shock, dances, etc).

These two shots parallel each other almost perfectly (though Malkovich does not smash the mirror and sweep the objects of the table onto the floor as the puppet does), and in them we see philosopher Alenka Zupancic notion of a "substance's alienation from itself," as being critical to true comedy. A dancing Malkovich in itself isn't necessarily comic (even if he's not particularly good at it), but in the shot by shot recreation of the marionette seen, a new context for the object, 'John Malkovich' is created -- he is not a man at odds with society, as we might see in the concrete-universal play of a tragedy, but rather he is an immutable substance which no longer relates to itself in the most basic way - it no longer controls its motions or destiny. In this we can see Malkovich as being part of a tradition with all stock comedic characters. We do not see him as a tragic individual, but rather a recognizable substance which is alienated from itself -- Malkovich is not Malkovich, just as Groucho Marx is not "Groucho Marx" so to speak.