Abstract
The introductory chapter develops a critical framework to appreciate and analyse ambiguity in movies. Surveying several prominent ways of understanding the concept in and outside film criticism—by addressing the works of David Bordwell, André Bazin, and William Empson—it defends an account that sees ambiguity as more than the condition of multiple meanings. Decoupling the concept from its typical associations with “art cinema” and “modernist aesthetics”, this chapter considers ambiguity as what invites, often persistently, the inquiry into “why is it as it is?”. And a satisfying response to this inquiry requires us to acknowledge our critical doubt and pursue what can be called the “aesthetic reasons” behind creative choices.
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Notes
- 1.
The remainder of the passage highlights the difficulty of analysing ambiguity: people “feel they know about the forces, if they have analysed the ideas; many forces, indeed, are covertly included within ideas; and so of the two elements, each of which defines the other, it is much easier to find words for the ideas than for the forces”. It is easier to identify the multiple meanings of an ambiguity than to explore and articulate their links.
- 2.
Elsewhere, Bazin writes: “analytical découpage tends to suppress the immanent ambiguity of reality” (2009, 54). But the critic also sees the possibility of the convention to achieve the opposite. For example, speaking about Alfred Hitchcock’s uses of the close-up, Bazin observes how they could “suggest the ambiguity of an event” (69). There is a sense that the critic sometimes writes dogmatically for rhetorical purposes. His analyses are not reducible to, often more nuanced than, the inflated critical assertions that he declares.
- 3.
Bazin’s emphasis on the viewer’s participation—a democratic vision of the medium—suggests that his film aesthetics is undivorceable from matters of ethics.
- 4.
For a discussion of Bazinian ambiguity that revolves around issues of temporality, see Carruthers (2017).
- 5.
Bordwell’s account of “art cinema” appears circular. He proposes realism and authorial expressivity as the defining features of this particular “mode of filmmaking” and then goes on to “explain” the films in these terms.
- 6.
George M. Wilson notes: “Nothing in the idea of the explanatory coherence of a narrative requires that the material that is responsive to the dramatically significant questions of the film has to be deployed in a familiar or easily discernible way” (1986, 44).
- 7.
See Robin Wood’s “Notes for a Reading of I Walked with a Zombie” for an attempt to apply Barthes’ five narrative codes to film analysis (2006, 303–38).
- 8.
This seems to me linked to the philosophical question of how a film means. I have in mind V.F. Perkins’s suggestive remark that the meanings made clear in a film are meanings that are “filmed” (1990, 4). Here, the very activity of the medium (filming) also serves as an eloquent, intuitive way of saying how meanings are achieved in its instances. It is as though how the camera articulates meanings remains something of a mystery to us. But to understand “how filming means”, what we need is not a general theory of the nature of the medium but appreciations of the aesthetic possibilities of individual acts of filming. Or, at least, the theorization cannot be done in advance of detailed analyses of film.
- 9.
One benefit of conceiving movies in terms of question-and-answer is that it presents a more dynamic understanding of the fictional world than the prevalent preoccupation with narrative causality in film studies. Notably, it allows us to see narrative ambiguity as far more complicated than the disruption or complication of cause-of-effect. In a similar vein, Alex Clayton (2011) has discussed how the cause-and-effect model distorts issues of character choice and agency in film.
- 10.
This book’s emphasis on the “why” inquiry is indicative of its larger interest in the valuable lessons of Cavell’s writings on art and art criticism. Indeed, this volume is inspired and guided by these lessons, that is, not in the sense that I’ve applied Cavell’s “methods” of analysing movies and approaching ambiguity—the application of methods is in fact alien to Cavell’s critical sensibility. The philosopher’s ideas will no doubt frequently crop up throughout this book. But what my account really takes up from Cavell and pays homage to is his unique insights into the operation of criticism. For instance, his commitment to reflecting on our experience of film, to the teachings of film. My “Cavellian” position will be fleshed out in “Concluding Remarks”. Recent volumes which draw attention to Cavell’s critical lessons include Moi (2017) and Ray (2020).
- 11.
What about when someone asks “why is this unambiguous?” Would that be a case of ambiguity? I think there are two occasions from which this remark may arise. In the first, it stems from genuine puzzlement. This is a case of ambiguity, albeit expressed in an unusual form. But it remains possible to reformulate the question so that it is directed to the source of uncertainty. In the second scenario—equally unusual—the remark is a veiled judgement; it points to an expectation of the detail to be ambiguous in some way. The question is therefore close to a rhetorical question. It is likely that the speaker speaks out of critical conviction rather than puzzlement. If so, he or she doesn’t really think of the creative choice as ambiguous.
- 12.
I am indebted to Adrian Martin for pointing out these two pervasive variants of ambiguous films to me.
- 13.
See Chap. 5 for more about “cop-out” and “tacked-on” film endings.
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Law, H.L. (2021). Introduction: Why Is It as It Is?. In: Ambiguity and Film Criticism. Palgrave Close Readings in Film and Television. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62945-8_1
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