Paper 01 - Motion as Illusion
Our Ways of Seeing Illusion in Motion Pictures
One of the longest arguments for cinema is whether the idea of motion in motion pictures is an illusion. For many, the argument comes from our conception of seeing, which itself has a long, storied discourse through the history of philosophy, art, and photography. V. F. Perkins in the book Film as Film, attempts to dissipate the idea of the reality of the representation.
The ways in which we see largely value how we interpret art, photography, and cinema. Such views and methods of viewing largely disassociate how we see from our reality, providing a subjective and illusionary possibility to seeing. Although Perkins acknowledges that our ways of seeing are an illusion and thus give credence to motion as illusion, he neglects to explain his entire view of how we see and interpret what we see.
Seeing is considered by many as a subjective interpretation loosely associated with our personal reality and limitations of seeing. According to James Elkins in a lecture presented at the University of Montevallo, our own vision lends itself to be subjective. He remarks in which the ways we see may not be the same for other species. For example, bees sense light and colors much differently than humans through a much broader spectrum of wavelength. It has even been reported that some human females have four color receptors, in contrast to the typical three. His hypothesis, in short, is that if seeing is different for every species, and with known exceptions to optical disorders, what is to say seeing is not different with each and every human? If so, what then allows seeing to be objective and real?
Elkins also notes in his lecture that stereo photography lends itself as an exception to the idea of the camera capturing reality. To most, the combination of stereo photographs, through such devices as a Stereo Realist camera, may capture an image from two angles simultaneously. Yet for these photographs to be seen as intended, they must be viewed differently than other photos through the use of a glasses to combine the images for our seeing. The aid of such a device alters the way we see the object. As a result, stereo photographs are interpreted by our own subjective vision.
Another idea in the ways we see is the valuation of what is represented. For John Berger, we enjoy a painting not only for its aesthetic value, but also the value of the representation. He notes “this analogy between possessing and the way of seeing… is a factor usually ignored by art experts and historians”. Instead of seeing the representation, a viewer attempts to connect in some manner with the object or scene depicted as a way to reach beyond their own reality.
The fact that film is a reproduction of an original alters the meaning of the work. “Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place of where it happens to be,” wrote Walter Benjamin. As he further explains, the purpose of a reproduction is only to bring the aura, or essence, closer to the viewer. Yet the reproduction limits the availability of experiencing the originality of the object. Lithography, photography, film, and reproduced art themselves cannot represent the original object, and alter the way in which we see the object, or as Benjamin wrote, reduces the value of the authenticity of the object. Inasmuch, every frame, scene, and actor foregoes its essence as much as the “estrangement felt before one’s own image in the mirror”. The ways in which we see a reproduction of ourselves, a work of art, a photography, or a film has a lesser value of its original.
Not only is the methods in which an image captured and our interpretation of seeing the captured image open to illusion, but the image contents allows itself to being interpreted subjectively. In the book Camera Lucida, Roland Barthes describes two terms to define the ways we look at a photograph. These terms, the studium and the punctum define the objective and subjective interpretations of photography. Our physical ways of seeing and the associative responses show that how we see is both personal and subjective to every individual viewer. The punctum, as defined by Barthes as “the accident that pricks me” describe the interpretation of the image, taking note the details that create a personal reaction or opinion as a response to their seeing. Studium, on the other hand, is the basis of the subject matter, or that of which does not add to the interpretation of the image. For Barthes, it is what is understood, as “everything that happens in the frame dies absolutely once this frame has passed”. Our interest beyond the frame must belong outside the realm of our seeing.
With these notions of seeing, the views of Perkins on the idea of motion as an illusion appears to be hampered and distracted. The illusion of motion in cinema, which appears to be correct, lacks substance in his interpretation. His method of illustration of illusion focuses on the historical reference the movie camera had to the earliest optical toys and their relationship to realism rather than how we see.
Motion in motion pictures is an illusion due to the independence from realism, according to Perkins. In the same realm of photography, the representation is only a captured value of the subject matter. For cinema, each captured photo, or frame, in sequence, depicts a representation, yet is only eluding to its physical presence and available experience. While true in this sense, there is a confusion in what is conveyed. It seems that Perkins, although writing “the relationship between illusion and reality is usually ambiguous and often chaotically muddled,” has a hard time himself explaining such differences. The confusion arises simply in the (in)ability of Perkins to explain how seeing is an illusion. His expectation of the readers’ competence to understand such a complicated, widely-debatable subject may be intentional, yet the lack of explanation of photography as representation and reproduction also hurts the credibility of his statements. For instance, his views of stereo-photography and stereoscopic movies being able to tighten the gap between illusion and realism are assumed and arguable invalid. Elkins noted in his lecture that stereo-photography requires the use of another device to help us interpret what we are seeing, and inevitably detaches the photo even more from its reality. The illusion from stereo-imaging may be interpreted closer to its intended realism, but it slices up its representation even more than a typical photograph.
Perkins explains (with limited effect) the importance of film as a reproduction, notably focusing on the topic mainly within the first paragraph of the book. The fact of film being a reproduction of a subject or scene does not necessarily diminish itself as art, but deserves better explanation of how reproductions are an alteration of the essence of the subject. He gains some traction on this topic in the beginnings of Chapter Five (The World and Its Image), writing that “[technology] cannot duplicate reality because it cannot directly reproduce our perception of reality”. Unfortunately, this statement would have been better served earlier in the book to help describe how we see reality.
Lastly, Perkins fails to allow the possibility of interpretation to affect the way we see. With some value, he discusses technical aspects of film in the forms of setting, scene, editing, and sound in Chapters Two, Six, Seven, and Eight. In Chapter Seven (Participant Observers), he details out we can identify with cinema as entertainment or communication, yet he attempts to derive the ways we see more on the technical merits than the value of the subject. Although the concepts of studium and punctum were written by Barthes in Camera Lucida ten years after Film as Film, Benjamin hinted on these concepts thirty-six years before Perkins. Benjamin writes:
The act of reaching for a lighter or a spoon is a familiar routine, yet we hardly know what really goes on between hand and metal, not to mention how this fluctuates with our moods. Here the camera intervenes with the resources of its lowerings and liftings, its interruptions and isolations, its extensions and accelerations, its enlargements and reductions. The camera introduces us to unconscious optics as does psychoanalysis to unconscious impulses.
In short, he offers suggestions that elements or details contained in a frame or sequence of frames introduce us to personal interpretations, as much as the studium and punctum does for Barthes.
Overall, Perkins correctly identifies the illusion of motion in motion pictures as the manner in which we see. Yet his lack of coherent explanation of how we see hurts his argument for the independence of illusion and reality. Had he taken greater care to distinguish different ways in which we see and outline such ways earlier in his book, the overall stance of the Orthodox v. Realist views and his combined film theory could have benefited. Instead, the subjectivity of seeing is left for other art, film, & photography historians, theorists, and philosophers to debate.
Work Cited
- Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida. Hill & Wang. 1982.
- Benjamin, Walter. “Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit (The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction)”. 1936.
- Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. Penguin Books, London. 1972.
- Elkins, James. Lecture. University of Montevallo, Montevallo, AL. 22 Jan 2007.
- Perkins, V. F. Film as Film. Penguin Books, New York. 1972.
Keywords — james elkins, john berger, walter benjamin, v. f. perkins, roland barthes, motion, illusion, seeing, reality, film, philosophy, paper 01
