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Published in the Slovak Republic Media Education (Mediaobrazovanie) Has been issued since 2005 ISSN 1994-4160 E-ISSN 1994-4195 2019, 59(1): 116-122
DOI: 10.13187/me.2019.1.116 www.ejournal53.com
The Role of Ontological Time Forms in Film Appreciation
Roman Salny a , *
a Anton Chekhov Taganrog Institute, Russian Federation
Abstract
The process of the feature film appreciation is ambivalent and includes both direct experience of the represented reality and its comprehension. A lot of film theorists of the last century (André Bazin, Béla Balazs, Gilles Deleuze, Siegfried Kracauer and others) considered that sensuous contact with the artistic reality plays the key role in the perception of the film. Meanwhile, the artistic cognition presupposes the comprehension of the artwork integrity that is impossible without a detached attitude. The present article attempts to consider the possibility of an integrated application of I. Kant and A. Bergson's theories to ontological interpretation of the film time. Philosophical conceptions of R. Ingarden's aesthetic appreciation and M.M. Bakhtin's artistic cognition provided the grounds for the integration of these theories. The ideas of I. Kant and A. Bergson were reframed by M.M. Bakhtin. He largely accepted Kant's theory about the arrangement of the subject's inner life in time and also he lead the virtual discussion with Bergson about the key stance of his theory, i.e. "immersion" into the actual reality. Both ideas in the modified form provided the basis for the chronotope category ("time - space") devised by Bakhtin that combines two types of cognition: artistic apprehension and aesthetic contemplation. R. Ingarden placed the same principle of transition from the moment of "immersion" into "non-existence" and vice versa that was formulated by M.M. Bakhtin. On the basis of these two forms of time experience, the subject of perception creates two forms of "involvement" in the artistic reality, blending into each other: "going beyond oneself" (V.P. Zinchenko), immersion in the depicted reality ("empathy") and detachment ("non-existence") in relation to it. In the first form the subject experiences continuous time and is not aware of its own forms of activity. In the second form, the subject is aware of its own "presence" (M. Heidegger, M.I. Yanovsky) in the objectified form - the structural relations of the image and/or work elements. The first form is characterized by a state of detachment, the second - the action of imagination, associative, image and abstract-logical thinking.
Keywords: time, duration, cinema, non-existence, aesthetic appreciation, film, Kant, Bergson, Bakhtin, Ingarden.
1. Introduction
I. Kant and A. Bergson's theories of time played and continue to play an important role in the formation of the philosophy of art. Despite the opposition of their views, the ideas of both the German and French philosopher equally influenced the construction of methodologies of aesthetic perception and artistic cognition. Meanwhile, in the philosophy of the cinema the ideas of A. Bergson were applied more effectively than the propositions of I. Kant. For example, polemizing
* Corresponding author
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (R. Salny)
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with A. Bergson, the theories of cinema were developed by André Bazin, Béla Balazs, Gilles Deleuze, Siegfried Kracauer and other researchers.
2. Materials and methods
The present article attempts to consider the possibility of an integrated application of I. Kant and A. Bergson's theories to ontological interpretation of the film time. Philosophical conceptions of R. Ingarden's aesthetic appreciation and M.M. Bakhtin's artistic cognition provided the grounds for the integration of these theories. At the heart of their theories of aesthetic perception and artistic cognition is the process of two moments of time experience transitions: "immersion" and "non-existence".
3. Discussion
In the second half of the nineteenth century, an irrational movement in philosophy began to form (A. Schopenhauer, W. Dilthey, A. Bergson and others) setting intuitive and sensory cognition against the prevailing classical forms of thought (R. Descartes, B. Spinoza, G. Leibniz, I. Kant, etc.).
One of the turning points in the confrontation between rationalism and irrationalism was the turn of A. Bergson from Kant's transcendental subject constructing an objective picture of external reality on the basis of a priori forms of sensuality - discrete space and time, to the person intuitively grasping the world as a whole in continuous time - duration.
I. Kant placed in the rational sphere of emotional experiences, ordering in time of which gives an idea of the external objective reality and about its own Self. According to his theory, the idea of external objects must be consistent with cognition constructing them on the basis of a priori forms of sensuality and synthesis of sensory representations. The agreement between what is a priori and what is in reality is the essence of the process of its cognition, and everything that goes beyond this process is supersensible that is not amenable to rational comprehension. In The Critique of Pure Reason I. Kant wrote: "We a priori cognize in things only what is invested in them by ourselves" (Kant, 1994: 19). He believed that it is impossible to cognize neither rationally nor sensually things "as they are", but the real existence beyond sensually perceived nature can comprehend the "practical reason" guided by the moral law. It is obvious that I. Kant did not consider time as a property of the physical, external world. "Time, as pointed I. Kant, is only a subjective condition of our (human) contemplation... and in itself, beyond the subject is nothing" (Kant, 1994: 57). He believed that "time is not something that would exist in itself or would be inherent in things as an objective definition, and therefore would remain if we were distracted from all the subjective conditions of contemplation of things" (Kant, 1994: 56). There was only one time for I. Kant - this time, relating to the nature of subjective sensory contemplation. This is the time of the subject observing its own feelings organized by the a priori form. The resulting representation of external "things in themselves" is indirect. "Things" remain transcendent to subjective cognition and "all our contemplation is only an idea of the phenomenon..., the things we contemplate are not in themselves as we contemplate them... " (Kant, 1994: 61).
Kant's time is the way by which consciousness organizes ideas about both external objective and internal subjective reality. According to I. Kant, "time should be considered valid not as an object, but as a way to represent me myself as an object" (Kant, 1994: 59). In this case, time is not given to consciousness as a substance and its essence and nature are hidden. It lies at the beginning of cognition and manifests itself in the form of a clearly distinguishable scheme that manifests itself in the process of sensual contemplation. In I. Kant's works, time acts as a mediator between a priori categories and the data of sensory experience. Kant's subjective time is realized in the limitation of the infinite objective reality, so that its complete form could appear in the consciousness, on the basis of which cognition is possible. If it were impossible to give a complete form to the sensually experienced reality, its cognition would not have been accomplished, since it is possible to cognize only that which is represented as a structured sequence of the moments of experience.
The teachings of A. Bergson differed from Kant's by means of fundamentally new approach to the interpretation of the nature of time. He considered it a mistake that I. Kant identified time and space. Agreeing with the idea of the Königsberg philosopher about time as an inner feeling and its connection with subjectivity, A. Bergson did not accept his other idea of spatial discreteness and homogeneity of time. For A. Bergson genuine time, first of all, appears as a duration in its continuity and integrity, at the same time being a property of both matter and the deep, pure Self.
It is opposed to the abstract, "mechanical" time, in which the external, social, "interested" Self resides. A. Bergson believed that these two types of time have a different representation within the subject.
I. Kant's interpretation of the causality of time as a "natural necessity" led, in A. Bergson's opinion, to the loss of the actual properties of the inner sense by time. He pointed out that from "successive states seen from the outside no longer as possible, but as real immobilities, you will never build movements" (Bergson, 2001: 294). A. Bergson believed that in the deep, inner Self, immersed in duration, there can be no external causation, but only freedom is possible, providing a genuine creative development.
In his teaching, A. Bergson overcame the rigid distinction of the world into subjective and objective reality. While I. Kant, recognizing the impossibility of cognition of the infinite physical reality, limited the mind to natural-scientific forms of cognition, A. Bergson, considering the subject as the result of the creative evolution of nature, sought to make a transparent border between objective and subjective. Substantiating his conclusion, he formulated the proposition that the actual reality is basically "aesthetic", and organic and harmony are its ontological properties. A. Bergson understood life as an endless creative evolution. Knowledge of life in its diversity and depth is possible in individual experience, based more on intuition than on logical thinking. The key in the theory of the French philosopher was the position of the incomprehensibility of living reality in "static" concepts. "In vain we try to squeeze the living into one or another framework. All frames are broken: they are too narrow, and most importantly, too unyielding for what we would like to invest in them" (Bergson, 2001: 34).
Commenting on the teachings of A. Bergson, P.P. Gaidenko noted that "life, movement, creative development", in his understanding "are therefore incomprehensible with the help of intelligence because intelligence is not able to grasp the continuity of time, the integrity of the temporal structure, and only intuition, which itself is related to this structure... can adequately perceive this ever-becoming, fluid, indivisible element" (Gaidenko, 2006: 313). The understanding that the living reality is not grasped by mechanical abstract schemes leads A. Bergson to the development of the category of duration. In it, reality can be embodied in its true form, because it is in the continuous movement and formation that the unique, living - the component of its essence - is located. "It is impossible to approach duration by a roundabout way: it is necessary to enter at once. This is what the intellect most often refuses to do, having got used to the habit of mobile thinking by means of immobile or static" (Bergson, 2001: 286).
A. Bergson's belief in the possibility of direct intuitive grasping of objects "as they are" in their infinite change distinguished his approach from Kant's understanding of "things in themselves", recreated by consciousness in a reduced completed form. Acknowledging intuition the highest capacity of cognition, A. Bergson believed that with its help it is possible to achieve the transcendental comprehension of the aesthetic properties of the actual reality.
The ideas of I. Kant and A. Bergson were rethought by M.M. Bakhtin. He largely accepted Kant's theory of the organization of the subject's inner life in time, and argued with Bergson in absentia on the key position of his teachings - "immersion" into the actual reality. Both ideas in the transformed form provided the basis of the category of chronotope ("time - space") developed by M.M. Bakhtin that combines two types of cognition: artistic apprehension and aesthetic contemplation. If the first can be correlated with Kant's self-consciousness in time, the second -with the aesthetic intuition of A. Bergson.
Fundamental in M.M. Bakhtin's approach to the interpretation of Kant's theory is his understanding of the subject. Contrary to the widespread postmodernist tendency about the death of the subject, the subject-object relations were the basis of M.M. Bakhtin's philosophical approach to artistic cognition. He, remaining on the positions of classical philosophy, believed in the existence of the source of aesthetic creativity in the subject. Rethinking the rationalistic foundations of cognition, he appealed to the categories of freedom, responsibility, "participation", allowing to consider cognition in its integrity and to suppose that there is freedom of choice in the subject. According to M.M. Bakhtin, the subject taking responsibility in the "struggle for the truth" is able to make a genuine artistic cognition.
M.M. Bakhtin criticized I. Kant precisely for the absence of subjective will in his theory, actively manifesting individual existence in the outside world, "participation" in it. He believed that the Kantian internal moral law is not connected with the individual will and gives grounds to abstract interpretation of subjective actions. The merit of the subject is not in what the world will
reveal to him, but in taking responsibility for this discovery. To take a "place in being" in which discovery is possible.
Despite this Kantian transcendental idealism, M.M. Bakhtin highly appreciated the approach of the German philosopher to the space-time form. "Kant - according to M.M. Bakhtin - is all the time on the border of the idea of space as an object. This is a brilliant aesthetic point of view, proving that Kant always refers to the circumspect space..." (Bakhtin, 2003b: 337). As M.M. Bakhtin believed, "circumspect space" can be the primary condition of "non-existence" (M.M. Bakhtin) of the experienced event which brings the subject to the boundary of the depicted reality. The realization of this condition should serve as a sense of "the only place in existence". Guided by this feeling, the author shows his activity in the creation of the form, taking a "position outside the content - as a cognitive-ethical orientation" (Bakhtin, 1975: 59). In this position, he is able to "unite from the outside, form and complete the event" (Bakhtin, 1975: 58).
The categories of "border" and "non-existence" were one of the key ones in M.M. Bakhtin's philosophical understanding of aesthetic experience. He believed that the distance between the hero and the author of the work of art should be maintained, allowing the latter to complete the artistic image in its internal and external integrity. Distance - a prerequisite not only for creativity, but also for the perception of the work of art. In dialogical understanding it is impossible to achieve the fullness of meaning. There must always be a distance to the cognoscible (subject). M.M. Bakhtin saw the difference in the approaches of I. Kant and A. Bergson: the former sought to clearly identify this gap or distance and to cognize it rationally, and the second overcame it.
M.M. Bakhtin referred the teaching of A. Bergson about intuitive aesthetic cognition to the traditions of expressive aesthetics, criticizing it for ignoring the position about the final vision "from outside". Characteristic of expressive aesthetics "pure moment of immersion and empathy (compassion) is essentially outside of the aesthetic" (Bakhtin, 1979: 58). Bergson's duration, having purely internal activity, according to M.M. Bakhtin, characteristic of the monologue experience which is associated "with the loss of one's only place outside the other, in general is hardly possible and in any case completely useless and meaningless" (Bakhtin, 1979: 25).
Despite the importance for M.M. Bakhtin of A. Bergson's interpretation of time, he limited it only to "aesthetic something", having no direct connection with "the only eventfulness". Meanwhile, M.M. Bakhtin as well as A. Bergson did not accept abstract "theorism", rationalism, concluding that "aesthetic existence is closer to the real unity of being-life than the theoretical world, so the temptation of aestheticism is so convincing" (Bakhtin, 2003a: 21). From the point of view of M.M. Bakhtin, A. Bergson was right, seeing "aesthetic intuition" as the basis for the comprehension of "living life". It is impossible to penetrate into the deep content of the aesthetic phenomenon without it. But at the same time, A. Bergson, according to M. Bakhtin, was wrong in denying any forms of rational cognition of art.
Combining the approaches to artistic cognition formulated in the polemic with I. Kant and A. Bergson, M.M. Bakhtin made an extremely important conclusion which is the basis of the art criticism and psychological theories of aesthetic perception. "The essential (but not the only) moment of aesthetic contemplation - in his opinion - is the immersion into the individual object of vision, the vision of it from within in its own being. This moment of immersion is always followed by the moment of objectification, that is the position of the concept of integration of personality outside of one's Self, separation it from one's Self, coming back into one's Self, and only this returned to oneself consciousness, from its place, aesthetically shapes from the inside captured by the immersion personality, as a single, coherent, qualitatively peculiar" (Bakhtin, 2003a: 18). This idea can be formulated in a slightly different form. The beginning of aesthetic contemplation is the moment of "empathy", in which the subject, without realizing its Self, falls into a detached state - "duration". It is followed by a moment of reflection, gathering of the Self from the traces of its own "Self" in the intervals of continuous time. Further, these moments replace each other, generating as a result of transitions holistic, deep and multifaceted aesthetic sense. "The duration and complexity of this process - as R. Ingarden believed - depends... on whether we are dealing here with a more complex or a simpler aesthetic subject" (Ingarden, 1962: 117).
In the aesthetic theory of R. Ingarden lies the same principle of transitions that was formulated by M. Bakhtin, i.e. from the moment of "immersion" in "non-existence", and vice versa. Developing his own theory, R. Ingarden as well as M.M. Bakhtin polemized with I. Kant and A. Bergson. In I. Kant's theory, he did not accept a priori forms that leave objects transcendent to the subject of cognition, and believed that aesthetic appreciation or perception is partly due to the
objective properties of the object, and a priori forms determine the laws of interdependence "between the type of object and the set of properties subordinated to it" (Ingarden, 1962: 299). R. Ingarden agreed with A. Bergson in the fact that in continuous time it is possible to experience the "quality of the image", that is the simultaneous perception of the image before the establishment of compositional relations in it.
In "Studies in aesthetics" R. Ingarden (Ingarden, 1970) presented aesthetic experience as a process containing "in itself, on the one hand, active phases, and on the other - fleeting phases of passive feeling, moments of "freezing" of contemplation" (Ingarden, 1962: 133). In moments of "passive feeling" the subject experiences the state of uncertainty that is not filled with any substantive content. If there were no such moments in the work of art and the subject of perception exhaustively read its meanings, it would cease to be a work.
The comparative analysis shows that M.M. Bakhtin and R. Ingarden were close in understanding the temporal organization of aesthetic "contemplation". Kantian spatial time and Bergson's duration organically coexisted in their approaches. The difference between them was that for M.M. Bakhtin more important role played the first and for R. Ingarden - the second. Meanwhile, both forms of time are the basis of the organization of the whole process of artistic apprehension and in both forms the subject of perception is addressed to the "supersensible" (R.M. Perelstein). Bergson's time is experienced in those moments when the spectator's "Self" is dissolved in the artistic reality and directly feels the "supersensible". Kant's time, on the contrary, reveals itself in moments of conscious appeal of the spectator's "Self" to the "supersensible", which is beyond the limits of the depicted reality.
4. Results
On the basis of these two forms of time experience, the subject of perception creates two forms of "involvement" in the artistic reality, blending into each other: "going beyond oneself" (V.P. Zinchenko), immersion in the depicted reality ("empathy") and detachment ("non-existence") in relation to it. In the first form the subject experiences continuous time and is not aware of its own forms of activity. In the second form, the subject is aware of its own "presence" (M. Heidegger, M.I. Yanovsky) in the objectified form - the structural relations of the image and/or work elements. The first form is characterized by a state of detachment, the second - the action of imagination, associative, image and abstract-logical thinking.
The basis of the first form is the unity of the subject with the depicted reality that according to A. Bazin, is the main goal of cinema. A. Bazin was one of the first researchers of the philosophy of cinema, who pointed to the possibility of cinema to recreate the experience of direct contact with reality. He repeated the basic idea of A. Bergson, believing that it is impossible to cognize the duration, but it is possible to feel it. Both of them were looking for the way to overcome the mediating, distorting role of consciousness in the construction of the image of actual reality. For A. Bazin this way was obvious: in order to create reality "as it is" on the screen, it is necessary to exclude the author from the process of shooting it with camera (cine filming).
Formulating his point of view A. Bazin appealed to the contemplative orientation of perception, in which there is no organization, structuring of objective reality, expressing the active author's "Self". The author in this case "falls out" of the place from which he observes the world around him. According to A.A. Atanov, "the negation of the certainty of a place gives us an opportunity to understand the fluidity of the world and to enter the fluidity of the world... the force itself... capable of he changes turns out to be the non-structural framework of the world, the non-place and creates the presence" (Atanov, 2012: 187), "presence is laid by duration..." (Atanov, 2012: 188).
It is possible to formulate the concept of presence as a focus on the object of perception, in which there is no "interested self" (A. Bergson). The "emptiness" of the content filling accompanying this orientation gives grounds to M.I. Yanovsky to conclude that "the experience of presence is not an emotional state... does not correspond to any of the known types of sensations... Images and ideas are an indirect reflection of reality, whereas the experience of presence is live and immediate" (Yanovsky, 2017: 73).
N.F. Boldyrev found the effect of "presence" in the rhythm of Tarkovsky films. At the moments of actualization of "presence", in his opinion, in the frame "the classical division into subject and object is lost..." (Boldyrev, 2004: 455). The slow pace of Andrei Tarkovsky films is a balance, harmony, unity, there is no hierarchy, structuring - relationships, accelerating the time.
Objects in the frame are not opposed to the characters, and coexist. They are as much participants in artistic reality as the characters and do not submit to their subjective will. To rational cognition they appear as Kantian "things in themselves". According to N.F. Boldyrev, this form of unity of the character with reality organizes artistic reality in the films of A. Tarkovsky. Describing Andrei Gorchakov, the hero of "Nostalgia" (1983), he noticed that "we contemplate (the hero) in the same context in which stay: sections of walls, the tree, the front garden, the window-sill with vases and stones, the horse, the doorway, the depths of the water..." in space (Boldyrev, 2004: 179). Andrei Tarkovsky held "the existential level at which a man, a tree, a stone wall, a horse - equipotential" (Boldyrev, 2004: 179).
In the second form of "non-existence" the subject of perception captures the changes in the image of his own "Self" in time, manifested in the emerging structural relations between the elements of the frame and the whole work in general. In this process, there is a sequence in the formation of various types of relationships: associative, imaginative, compositional, with a plot. It was already in the 1970s - 1980s that Y.N. Usov developed a theory of perception of audiovisual artistic image based on the student's ability to "intuitively capture certain phases of the sound and visual image formation on the screen and its final design in his/her mind" (Usov, 1988: 182). However, it should be borne in mind that the moment of conscious fixation of the phases of image formation is preceded by the moment of "empathy", accompanied by the state of "presence" of "Self", the experience of pure unity with the depicted reality. The unfolding in time of the tested state of "presence" can accompany the process described by Y.N. Usov.
According to R. Ingarden in aesthetic perception the key role is played by the initial moment of "empathy", direct immersion in the artistic reality. He called it "preliminary emotion", which "does not completely fade away, but forms the basis of further phases of aesthetic experience, goes into such a phase of this experience, in which visual capture (perception) of the same quality that caused the emotion dominates" (Ingarden, 1962: 133-134). The time of "visual capture" can be correlated with that described by Yu.N. Usov fixation phases point of the image formation. He believed the stay of the subject of perception in the position of "non-existence", from which appears the possibility of mediated clearance of "preliminary emotions" in the form of the actualization of meanings in their own perception - their expansion in structural relations. Genuine contact with art makes the subject of perception face the need to update or refresh his/her own subjective position, that is, the implementation of co-creative activity. First of all, it is aimed at working with the Self's own experience happening in time. According to D. Zahavi, "subjectivity as such is self-temporalization..." (Zahavi, 2003: 66).
"Preliminary emotion" creates an intention (direction), which has two ways of development. In one case, it dissolves in the moment of objectification. This effect is associated with the objectification of internal feelings. As M.K. Mamardashvili noted, "the perception indicated by the sign dies in the sign" (Mamardashvili, 1995: 313). In the second case, the "preliminary emotion" is preserved in the sense of becoming an artistic form and meaning. This is possible in case of stay of the subject in the form of a "non-existence".
5. Conclusion
In the second form of "non-existence" of the "Self" in the Other outlines the boundaries of its own touch with the supersensible, the whole, accomplished in the previous form of "empathy". At the same time, the subject of perception feels his own "action creating the object", "feeling of generating activity" (V.P. Zinchenko), observing the reflection of one's own "Self" in the Other.
The compositional form of the image, actualized by the transformation in the imagination of the sense of direct continuum experience of the becoming whole stored in memory, is guided by the feeling of reflection of the "Self" in the Other - by the delineation of the boundaries of direct contact with the ideal whole. In imagination, the internally unified feeling ("preliminary emotion") is transformed into a systemic whole - the structural unity of the essential properties of the perceived image, extended in time.
6. Acknowledgements
This research was funded by the grant of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR, project No. 18-313-00018) at the Rostov State University of Economics. Project theme: "Time perception of the audiovisual image in the screen-oriented art media text". Head of the project is Dr. R.V. Salny.
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