Alain Resnais and the Code of Subjectivity
Alain Resnais and the Code of Subjectivity
This chapter discusses the connotative structure through which human subjectivity is simulated in film and how this renders cinema capable of performing a philosophical function. It analyzes Alan Resnais' films Last Year in Marienbad (1961), Hiroshima mon amour (1959), and The War is Over (1966) as examples of how human subjectivity is decodified in cinema. Resnais deconstructed the “code of subjectivity” in order to experiment with understanding an individual's relationship to the world in terms of political action. This deconstruction is based heavily on the recurrence of certain formal interactions, including alterations to the speech-image code, camera movement, and the constant interruption of denotation by varying types of insert sequence. The chapter challenges popular readings of Resnais that are erroneous and counterproductive and reframes his cinema as part of a connotative subversion of the implications of certainty and unilateralism implicit in classical conventions and constructions of subjectivity.
Keywords: human subjectivity, film, cinema, Alan Resnais, Last Year in Marienbad, Hiroshima mon amour, The War is Over, code of subjectivity
Columbia Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .
