100057830

Film Philosophy: FLM 602

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School of Languages, Linguistics and Film Assessed Coursework Coversheet
For undergraduate (BA) and taught postgraduate (MA) modules coded:

CAT, COM, FLM, FRE, GER, HSP, LIN, POR, RUS, SML, SMLM 1. To assist with anonymous marking, please use your nine-digit student ID number only: do NOT use your name anywhere on your coursework. 2. Normally you be requred to submit one electronic copy of coursework via QMPlus at https://qmplus.qmul.ac.uk/login/index.php. Your work must be submitted by 4 pm on the day of the deadline given. You will be informed by the module organiser of any exceptions to this procedure. 3. Extensions to deadlines may ONLY be granted by the Senior Tutor for your year of study (see your Student Handbook for details of procedures). Unless an extension has been granted before the deadline, late work will receive a maximum mark of a bare pass (40% for undergraduate [BA] or 50% for taught postgraduate [MA] students) if submitted within two weeks, and zero if submitted more than two weeks late. 4. You must keep a copy of all coursework you have submitted. You are reminded that p l a g i a r i s m , that is copying someone elses words or ideas without attributing them to that person, is c h e a t i n g . This is a s e r i o u s examination offence and a t t h e v e r y l e a s t will result in a mark of z e r o being awarded for this piece of work; it could result in your e x p u l s i o n from the College. By handing in this coursework you acknowledge that it represents your own, unaided work and that you have appropriately acknowledged all sources.

Student ID Number:(9-digit number): 100057830

Essay no: 2 Number of words written: 2408 Module Organiser: Lucy Bolton
(As listed in directory

Seminar Tutor: Lucy Bolton

(if applicable)

Module CODE: FLM 602

and TITLE: Film Philosophy Title of Coursework: Phenomenology and Morvern Callar

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Film Philosophy: FLM 602

Phenomenology and Morvern Callar [Lynne Ramsay, 2002]

Let us take phenomenology, a philosophical study that is concerned with human experience and consciousness, and apply it to cinema. We are now considering the affectiveness of a film. We are concerned with the effect the film has on its spectators, and how it puts them into a state of affect and brings about emotional response. Daniel Frampton, in his book Filmosophy, considers how phenomenology is introduced into film studies in order to help clarify questions of filmgoer experience and interpretation [Frampton 2006: p.39] The study of phenomenology alongside cinema is complex; there are multiple interpretations of how a film engages with human experience, or rather how a spectator engages with the filmic experience. Daniel Frampton recognises that a film, unlike our human phenomenology, has an ability to freeze time, rewind, become other characters (through a point-of-view shot, for example), and it can alter the colouring of things that we are unable to change in real life (ie. a red sky) [Frampton 2006: p.39] How are we then able to draw parallels between our human experience and this filmic experience? These abstract stylistic elements are nothing we ever witness in our own world, yet somehow we still manage to engage with them. Film phenomenology considers our responses to these certain filmic techniques, and recognises that we respond emotionally to what we see. It is concerned with the idea that we see something with our eyes, yet we feel it in our bodies and it lingers in our thoughts hence the state of affect mentioned above. Film phenomenology suggests there is something other than just a comprehension of the image on screen by our brain; our body understands it, and feels it. Our senses are affected by what we see.

Morvern Callar (Lynne Ramsay, 2002) presents us with the life and journey of Morvern, after she has just discovered her boyfriend dead on her kitchen floor. He has left a suicide note on the computer along with his finished novel. In his note he gives instructions to
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Morvern to send the novel to a publishing company and have it published for him. Morvern erases his name on the novel and replaces it with her own. She sends the novel off to the publishers, uses his funeral money to take a holiday to Spain with her friend Lanna, and eventually reaps the rewards of the book contract. Starting with Framptons idea of filmic intention, and off-screen action as a bridge for spectatorship identification with the film and its characters, this essay will explore how Morvern Callar is to a certain extent problematic in discussions of film phenomenology. Yet, it will also demonstrate how the film could be seen to engage completely with film phenomenology through sensory, body memory techniques, as argued by Vivian Sobchack, Lucy Bolton, and Linda Williams.

Phenomenology deals with experience, appearance and the visual. Daniel Frampton recognises that this makes it a highly relevant to film studies [Frampton 2006: p.40]. When we speak of appearance in terms of film studies, we are considering what our eyes can see on screen. A universal characteristic of film is that one scene is present at one time, and off screen action (although absent to the spectatorial gaze) is intended. As spectators we imagine this off-screen action happening, although we cannot see it. Essentially, we are conjuring up images in our own minds based on the action we have been shown. Frampton references Vivian Sobchack in his work, recognising her idea of film as a viewing-view, which uses choice-making gaze and thus, [] a new mode of attention. The film sees objects, and consequently expresses intention about those objects. [Frampton 2006: p.41] The notion of ownership is also pertinent alongside Framptons considerations of film intention. He quotes Merleau-Ponty: to see is to have at a distance [Frampton 2006: p.40] If we turn our attention back to phenomenology, a study associated with the conscious, one can therefore argue that films characteristic of intention and constructed signifiers allows our conscious to mingle (as Merleau-Ponty describes it) with the objects we see on screen and consequently
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conjure new intended objects (the act of imagining what is happening off-screen) [Frampton 2006: p.40] This is the point in which I will argue that Morvern Callar could be presented as potentially problematic in regards to film phenomenology and the identification of character through ownership and recognising filmic intention.

If we analyse the first scene, we are shown Morverns boyfriend lying face down (presumably dead) in the doorway between a living room and a kitchen. We are not shown his face, and it is at this point unclear whose house he is in. There is no soundtrack to this first scene and until Morvern moves to the computer, where she sees the words read me typed on the screen, there is no diegetic sound. Morvern is lying next to her boyfriend, stroking his back and caressing his hand, with the camera particularly focussing on her touch. She is not crying. Her face remains emotionless throughout the scene. In contrast with Framptons assertion that our minds feel ownership over the object on the screen, I feel it is near impossible to do so with the character of Movern (something which is particularly demonstrable in this scene.) We cannot gauge her initial emotional response to the suicide of her boyfriend, and upon watching the rest of the film we do not uncover anything about the relationship she had with her boyfriend. This goes against the idea of film intention, and if we relate it to Framptons metaphor of the cube - the idea of a spectator being given two or three sides at one time, and thus being able to think the identity of the cube - one might say Morvern Callar is a film that only ever gives us one side of the cube. This renders it very difficult to imagine any absent, off-screen happening and thus inhibits spectators identification with Morvern as a character.

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Another instance where it becomes problematic to attempt to let go and move into a state of affect when watching this film, is the scene where we are shown Morvern putting on her headphones and sunglasses and proceeding to cut up her boyfriend into pieces. However, this is all merely implied. Yes, we know her boyfriend is dead in the bath as we are shown his bloodied wrist over the bath edge. However, our viewpoint of the whole scene is obscured when we see Morvern with one leg up on the bath, presumably sawing into his dead body. The scene then cuts to Morvern taking a walk up the hills with a very large black bag on her back, it is implied that this she is carrying her deceased boyfriend. She then pulls out a very small trowel from her pocket and proceeds to dig. Again our view is obscured, and we never see her physically burying the body, nor do we see the body. There is an element of surrealism here, enhanced by the extremely small trowel used to dig a hole big enough to fit (what is implied to be) a body, and the fact that Morvern, a relatively small 20-something year old girl, could carry a human body on her back all the way to the top of a deserted, wooded hill. After burying the body Morvern then skips down the hills laughing and jumping, until she eventually stops to admire nature. The scene then sharply cuts to a loud laugh, as Morvern and Lanna prepare to pack for their trip to Spain. Her boyfriends burial is quickly forgotten. Although realist in both plot and film aesthetics, Morvern Callar is subtly surreal. The film does not aid spectators in their perception of Morvern. She is not presented to us as particularly cold or callous, yet her emotional voidness when forming relationships with others is hard to identify with in terms of phenomenology. Lynne Ramsay has not given us a protagonist that we recognise emotionally, and thus hasnt allowed for the new intended-objects or thought-things that Frampton speaks of. [Frampton 2006: p.40]

Vivian Sobchack, in her essay What My Fingers Knew considers the relationship between cinema and our physical bodies. She asserts that we see and comprehend and feel films with
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our entire bodily being, informed by the full history and knowledge of our sensorium 1 She identifies the room for touch, smell and taste in a cinematic experience, placing particular emphasis on the idea that previous film theory has not known how to respond to the idea that cinema is a medium that can affect our physical bodies.2 Linda Williams, a theorist who is referred to in Sobchacks essay, demonstrates the idea of physical bodily responses to cinema. She speaks of body genres, privileging melodrama, pornography and horror. She recognises that spectators experience discomfort when we feel over-involved in happenings on screen, both emotionally and sensually.3 This is another form of spectator identification, through experience. This is another strand of film phenomenology. So how can we consider Morvern Callar in the light of film phenomenology? Lucy Bolton, in her Remembering Flesh: Morvern Callar as an Irigarayan Alice indicates that the spectator is engaged with a physical, tactile connection with Morvern Callar [Bolton 2009: p.196] and it is through this connection that we identify with her. If this is correct, then the emotional emptiness of Morvern as a character should then be negated and we may find another process of character identification. Bolton continues to draw upon the idea of body memory and the notion that through this we can step into Morverns shoes: not through what we are told or how the narrative makes sense, but by knowing her bodily sensations, what she is touching, smelling, tasting and perhaps most significantly- hearing [Bolton 2009: p.196] So, if we consider the works of these three writers and apply it to the opening scene (which we have previously touched upon) we should identify with Morvern through the sight of her caressing hands, and through our knowledge of the feel of flesh on flesh. We hear nothing in this scene, and we see nothing when the flashing lights of the Christmas tree flash off. It is this presentation of the

Sobchack, Vivian What My Fingers Knew: The Cinesthetic Subject, or Vision in the Flesh <http://sensesofcinema.com/2000/5/fingers/> , accessed 11/12/2013
1 2 3

Ibid. Ibid. 6

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senses, directly as Morvern would be experiencing them, that allows for character identification and for Morvern Callar to be considered in a phenomenological light.

There still remains the question of how spectators engage with a film through their senses? We have considered that we can recognise how it feels to have a hand caressing our body, or how it feels to be cold when we see a character in the snow. Yet in which ways can a film help us re-live an experience, or immerse us completely in the characters on-screen experience? Sobchack finds links between human perception and film perception. She asserts that film vision is nearly isomorphic to human vision. [Frampton 2006: p.46] Sobchack recognises that film uses human modes of embodied existence (seeing, hearing, movement) to enact its intentions. [Frampton 2006: p.47] If this is correct, then Movern Callar is a perfect example of a film is trying to faithfully depict human vision and experience through aesthetic. After Morvern has taken some money from the back pocket of her dead boyfriends jeans, she goes on to attend a party with some of her friends. They go for a drive in the car whilst playing loud, dance music. Over the top of this music we can hear slightly muffled, unintelligible speaking and laughing. The camera is placed in the back seat, where Morvern is sitting, and we feel as though we are inside the car with the characters. After they eventually reach the party, the music changes and the camera pans through the crowds. This deliberate effect places spectators in the shoes of who we believe to be Morvern. We have arrived at this party with her and we are now sharing her journey through the crowd. We are experiencing exactly what she herself is experiencing. Again, we can hear unintelligible speech under the loud distorted, trippy music. The film is trying to recreate exactly how Morvern experienced this party, for its spectators.

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If we are to consider Morvern Callar a piece of affective cinema, it should throw us into a mental state accompanied by [] subjective feelings, action tendencies, [] and outward bodily behaviours (facial expressions, body postures, gestures, vocalizations, etc.) [Plantinga 2012] For Morvern Callar to be regarded in considerations of film phenomenology it must be affective. I believe we can look at this film in two different phenomenological lights. Firstly, I would argue that the film does not push spectators into an affected state, as one may find with a typical tear-jerker film such as The Notebook (2004, Cassavetes). This affected state comes through spectators taking on a cognitivist approach, and responding to the thought of themselves being in the situation of the characters on screen. I would also stress that to be in an affected state does not necessarily mean to have a bodily response to a film or images, but it could mean a film that lingers in the mind days or even weeks after watching the film. Does Morvern Callar have the ability to do this? I would suggest it does not. There is a distinct lack of signifiers within the plot to help us identify with Morvern as a character. On the other hand, we may regard this film as one which engages with phenomenology through body memory and re-enactment of human sensual experience, as Sobchack and Bolton suggest.

One could argue that for a film to work perfectly alongside phenomenology, it would maintain a complete balance between each of the ideas we have considered. There would be narrative indicators which allow for the spectator to fully engage with the actions of the characters on screen, yet the film would also engage with techniques that immerse spectators sensually into the life and experiences of the character. A film that is perfectly phenomenological engages with character identification, and the notion of ownership that Frampton suggests. After the spectator has engaged with this identification, they are then able to allow their body to view the film. They will view it as a sensory experience, not only through sight, but through any other sense that is available to them.
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Bibliography Bolton, Lucy (2009) Remembering Flesh: Morvern Callar as an Irigarayan Alice, in Guilt and Shame: Essays in French Literature, Thought and Visual Culture, ed. Chamarette, Jenny & Higgins, Jennifer (Peter Lang) pp189-200 Frampton, Daniel Film phenomenology in Filmosophy (2006, Wallflower press: London) pp.39-48 Plantinga, Carl (2012) Emotion and Affect The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Film Shaw, Daniel Film and Philosophy- Taking movies seriously (2008, wallflower press: London) pp.58-59 Sobchack, Vivian What My Fingers Knew: The Cinesthetic Subject, or Vision in the Flesh, Senses of Cinema Williams, Linda (1991) Film bodies: Gender, Genre and Excess in Film Quarterly Vol. 44, No. 4 (University of California Press) p.2-13 Filmography Morvern Callar (2002, Lynne Ramsay) The Notebook (2004, Nick Cassavetes) Internet Sources Sobchack, Vivian What My Fingers Knew: The Cinesthetic Subject, or Vision in the Flesh <http://sensesofcinema.com/2000/5/fingers/>, accessed 11/12/2013