Film is a screenplay for a silent film (surprise).
It includes several common bits of Beckettness – existence, being seen, pain and their relationship, repetitive action that would have any process engineer pulling his hair, etc. It is also avant garde, though I think it is a little less "out there" than Eh Joe – or at least I feel I could understand the basic idea of what was happening better. I don't know if that's because it is more approachable or if that is because Beckett spent almost as many pages in explanatory notes about what he was thinking or trying to accomplish as he did describing the action in the screenplay -- giving me a "director's commentary" track for this story (film?) instead of just the story (teleplay?). He also spent a bit of text here and there explaining his intended meanings were for several elements.
The world of Film is a world of pairs. Almost everyone has a companion with them. I assume this is so everyone always has someone to observe them and ensure that they exist, though maybe this is a tip of the hat toward what Michel Foucault would later describe as "panopticism" where observation is about power and controlling people -- making them adhere to the norm to avoid standing out.
The story follows two people who Beckett calls E (the eye, the observer) and O (the object, the observed). Whenever E's perspective on O reaches a certain angle, O cringes in pain and E quickly moves back into the "area of immunity". The film ends with E confronting O and we find that E and O are the same person – or at least look the same.
O seems to be an outlier in society. For example, everyone but O is going the same way on the street. I also think that Beckett is saying that only E's perception causes people pain. Whenever E observes someone their faces gradually become horrified, though their reaction is less sudden and dramatic than O's reaction.
So who is E that he alone causes people pain upon observation? Dunno. If only O were affected by him, I'd suggest that Beckett is talking about the discomfort and difficulty of self-inspection. But E's observation of others causes them pain too, so E is clearly different from all the other observers. Maybe he sees with a keener insight. Maybe he's giving them a vulture look instead of just looking casually. Maybe he's giving them with a creepy stare. If he is O and O is an outlier, E is also an outlier. Maybe they are the man who walks to the beat of a different drummer and causes society problems or makes people confront things they don't want to see. Maybe they are Beckett -- or at least Beckett as he saw himself.
I don't know. Beckett's commentary makes it clear that the story is about the pain of perceivedness. We know that Beckett tied this idea into Berkeley's concept that being seen made one exist. This means the pain of perceivedness is also the pain of existence. I think the repetitive action (when O evicts the dog and cat from the room) is probably a joke of sorts. Beckett routinely injects absurd humor to defuse a serious situation. He also describes the sequence as a "foolish suggestion" for how to handle the process. He does note that animals aren't affected by E's observation, though, so apparently only sentient beings are subject to the pain of existence.
Again, while not as off the wall as Eh Joe, Film is still a bit off the wall. (I mean, for Pete's sake, Film! What kind of title is that?) Or perhaps, better said, it's a philosophical piece more than a pure literary piece. Beckett is once again telling his story of the existential horror of existence and expressing his philosophy of life, the universe and everything – that 42 is probably just as good an answer as any other and existence is misery.
No comments:
Post a Comment