Jean-Louis Baudry, Apparatus Theory, and Renaissance Perspective
TLDRThe video analyzes the ideological implications of linear perspective in Renaissance art and cinema. It explores how the single vanishing point and illusion of depth position the viewer as an isolated, all-seeing subject at the center of the image. Critics like Baudry argue this reinforces an individualistic, bourgeois worldview that flatters the viewer while concealing the means of production. The video traces connections from Renaissance paintings to Hollywood editing techniques, using ideas from Panofsky, Althusser, and others to build a Marxist critique of mainstream filmmaking as an apparatus reproducing dominant ideologies.
Takeaways
- 😟 Renaissance perspective centers the spectator and makes them the subject, contributing to ideology
- 😒 Cinema inherits perspective's problems - it positions the spectator as an idealized all-seeing subject
- 🤨 Baudry sees cinema as a process of transformation that conceals its own workings
- 😠 Movement in cinema, created by still frames, deceives us about its material nature
- 😣 Continuity editing synthesizes space for us, giving a false sense of knowing/control
- 😫 Cinema indulges our desire for identification, but this is an illusion
- 🤔 Linear perspective has not been universal - seeing it as ideological is a recent idea
- 🧐 Camera movements can create non-perspectival spaces (e.g. anime, Godard)
- 🤓 Marxist and Freudian ideas problematize the notion of a coherent, knowing subject
- 💡 Apparatuses and rituals make us subjects - ideology follows from material practices
Q & A
What is the main argument Beaudry makes about cinema?
-Beaudry argues that cinema has an ideological effect on spectators by transforming objective reality through techniques like perspective, movement synthesis, continuity editing, and identification, which give a false impression of completeness and self-knowledge.
How does linear perspective set up the viewer as a 'subject'?
-Linear perspective geometrically constructs the image from a single, centered point of view, placing the viewer in that centered position. This makes the viewer the 'subject' - the active center and origin of meaning in the image.
What does Althusser mean when he defines human beings as both free subjects and subjected beings?
-Althusser means that humans have a false sense of free will and self-determination as subjects, but are actually subjected to ideology and social forces they do not fully understand or control.
How might ideology determine behaviors rather than just beliefs?
-Althusser argues that rituals, behaviors, and material practices produced by ideology can inculcate certain beliefs in subjects. So ideology shapes actions first, which then shape thought.
How does Beaudry connect cinema's apparatus to Althusser's theory of ideology?
-Beaudry sees cinema's material and technical apparatus as an 'ideological state apparatus' in Althusser's sense - its techniques work ideologically by placing the viewer in certain positions and relations to produce a transcendental subject.
What are some differences between linear perspective and other methods of representing space?
-Unlike linear perspective, other methods like medieval spaces or isometric projection do not construct images from a centered, unified point of view or invite the viewer to occupy a fixed, centered position.
Why might depth staging and camera movement be considered ideologically problematic?
-Some theorists like Henderson and Lamar see depth staging and exploratory camera movement as encouraging possessiveness and domination, while flatter spaces discourage that.
How might animation escape the problems of cinematic perspective?
-Lamar argues the flexible planar transformations of animation spaces create more of a surface-based logic that does not rely on a fixed perspective viewpoint in the same way.
What alternatives does Beaudry offer to cinema's ideological apparatus?
-Beaudry does not extensively discuss alternatives, but suggests a 'knowledge effect' in which cinema would reveal its own production processes and transformations rather than conceal them.
What is an example of a 'non-bourgeois' film form?
-Godard's long lateral tracking shots which avoid depth and central perspectives are one example Henderson cites of a non-bourgeois style that rejects the individualist hero.
Outlines
😀 Renaissance perspective as an ideological apparatus of cinema
Paragraph 1 introduces the key concepts of ideology, apparatus, and perspective that form the basis of Baudry's argument about how cinema perpetuates bourgeois ideology through techniques like linear perspective. It summarizes Baudry's main point that cinema transforms objective reality in ways that center the viewer and conceal the means of production, creating an illusion of reality that aligns with dominant ideology.
😕 The subject as an ideological construction
Paragraph 2 explains Baudry's notion of the subject, drawing on theories from Altusser and Panofsky about how linear perspective positions the viewer as an ordering, perceiving, ideological self. It critiques this notion of the autonomous individual subject as an ideological construction concealing determination by social forces.
😠 Ideology arising from material apparatus
Paragraph 3 further unpacks Althusser's theory linking ideology to material practices and apparatuses. It relates this to Baudry's view that the cinematic apparatus exerts ideological effects through the viewer's bodily conformity to its rituals.
🤔 Are non-perspective techniques ideologically liberating?
Paragraph 4 considers counterarguments about whether non-perspective stylistic choices like Godard's lateral tracking shots might liberate cinema from ideological effects of perspective. It summarizes debates from later theorists on the ideological implications of different spatial representations.
😌 Concluding remarks
Paragraph 5 concludes by highlighting the key ideas about anime's use of non-perspective layering effects to avoid dominated, exploitative gazes associated by some theorists with deep focus and perspective.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡perspective
💡subject
💡apparatus
💡ideology
💡Marxism
💡psychoanalysis
💡realism
💡camera movement
💡continuity
💡identification
Highlights
Perspective centers everything on the eye of the beholder. It makes the eye the center of the visible world.
Renaissance perspective generates a vision intended for an isolated, idealized subject. It positions a single spectator as part of the work.
The term 'subject' refers to the perceiving and ordering self as the active center and origin of meaning.
Being a subject manifests a false sense that you are the author of your own actions rather than being determined by social forces.
Ideology always exists in an apparatus and its practices. Actions and behaviors lead to beliefs.
The apparatus of cinema has ideological effects by conforming our bodies to certain ritual behaviors.
Linear perspective ensures the setup of the subject as the active center and origin of meaning.
Medieval and Egyptian art show alternatives to Renaissance perspective's single, centered viewer.
Godard repudiates the bourgeois hero. His tracking shots serve no individual and prefer none.
Anime's layering of planes promises different ways of rationalizing space without dominating it.
Baudry sees cinema as condemned to linear perspective, creating an ideological effect.
Cinema transforms objective reality through techniques like editing and narrative, deceiving us.
We falsely feel like self-knowing subjects due to cinema's synthesis of movements and continuity.
Identification through point-of-view shots and characters persuades us, but falsely.
Baudry builds on Panofsky's idea that perspective constructs a symbolic subjectivity.
Transcripts
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