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for something else: a personal feeling or a psychological state. Narrative music is thus exposed in its ideology, its closures, and its link with power and knowledge.
Many viewers have, indeed, thought of my films as operating more like a musical score than like any traditional film structure. And I also tend to think of film montage and music composition as being very much alike (with the understanding that montage is not reduced to the editing stage, but can occur in the conception and shooting stages of the film as well). One can also argue that in poetry a very similar process happens in the play of words. For me, the exploration of new, complex subjectivity and the problematizing of the subject in contemporary theory can be best carried out through poetical languageas long as poetical language is not equated with a mere estheticizing tool or practiced as a place to consolidate a 'subjective' self. In poetry, the 'I' can
be said to simply personify an individual. It's amusing that the feedback I often get from my relatives or close friends on my book of poems tends to be something like: 'We never suspected you could be what you are in your poetry!' For them all the feelings and situations depicted in poetry are
true. They immediately associate me with the ''I' who speaks in my poetry and assume it's 'real,' which is not wrong, but it's not accurate either. In poetical language, there is no 'I' that just stands for
. The 'I' is there; it has to be there, but it is there as the site where all other 'I's' can enter and cut across one another. This is an example of the strength and vitality of poetical language and of how it can radically contribute to the questioning of the relationship of subjects to power, language, and meaning in theory. Theory, as practiced by many, is often caught in a positioning where the theorist continues to stand in a 'safe place' to theorize about others.
I've often felt that way about the little I know of theoretical film writing. Part of the reason I write articles is to consolidate a position for myself within an institution, to give myself a certain amount of economic and psychic security. Theorists talk about how the artist is situated within an economic system, but I rarely hear discussion of writing theory as a marketable activity.
Exactly.
On the other hand, if I show
and
and then show
it's like film theory in action. Language has such a hard time grasping what's on the screen that it's just easier to put the films next to one another and let the audience discover what the juxtapositions reveal.
There is a tendency in theorizing
film to see theorizing as one activity and filmmaking as another, which you can discuss with theory. This is an important question for me because I teach theory
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partly to people who come to a university department of cinema [Trinh teaches at San Francisco State University] primarily for film production. There's an antitheory tradition that runs deep among some of the 'production people.' I promote 'bridge' courses and emphasize the indispensability of the mutual challenge of theory and practice, which can be summarized in an old statement by Marx: that theory cannot thrive without being rooted in practice, and that practice cannot liberate itself without theory. When one starts theorizing
film, one starts shutting, in the field; it becomes a field of experts whose access is gained through authoritative knowledge of a demarcated body of 'classical' films and legitimized ways of reading and speaking about films. That's the part I find most sterile in theory. It is necessary for me always to keep in mind that one cannot really theorize about film, but only
film. This is how the field can remain open.
The thing I find frustrating about the whole theory/practice issue as it has played itself out in the last ten or twelve years is that to make a film one has to take a chance with one's life and one's resources. It's true in Hollywood films and in independent film, where, if you're going to come up with thirty-five thousand dollars to make a movie, you have to restructure your life. You have to take a direct and dangerous part in whatever the national economy is that you live in. When I write about filmsand I don't write theory, but I think it's also true thereyou don't have to reorganize anything (at least in this country): you can remain within an institutional framework where you have a salary: you can critique without changing your life-style. I go to independent films to see what those people who are willing to put their lives on the line are able to discover. Theory can be brilliant and enlightening, but I rarely feel people's lives on the line in the same way.
Well, I think there's such a resistance to theory because theory is often deployed from a very safe place. And I am not even talking about the other resistance that is found within the academic system itself, where theory can threaten the status quo and a distinction could be made between intellectual activities and academicizing pursuits. But I, myself, think of theory as a practice that changes your life entirely, because it acts on your conscience. Of course, theory becomes a mere accessory to practice when it speaks from a safe place, while practice merely illustrates theory when the relationship between the two remains one of domination-submission and of totalization. I see theory as a constant questioning of the framing of consciousnessa practice capable of informing another practice, such as film production. Hence theory always has the possibility, even the probability, of leading to 'dangerous' places, and vice versa. I can't separate the two. The kind of film I make requires that economically, as you point out, I readjust my life, but
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I am constantly questioning who I am, and making my films transform the way I see the world. You know,
