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ask the actress in the film is, "Does the camera lie?" And then, "Do you lie?" The answer is, ''Yes." I was playing with that and was also fascinated with the idea of identity or personality being a series of masksa young man's fascinationand I was curious to see if it were possible to set up a mask-removal procedure, and finally discover the "real" person behind all the smoke and mirrors that constitute an "official" personality. Another interest was in interrogation as a form, "confession" extracted under duress, the Truth.
MacDonald:
How well did you know that woman? And how fully did you plan the interaction between the two of you?
Noren:
I chose a young actress named Miriam, whom I had met once before in connection with another film. Of course, I was also interested in the fact that she was an actresswhen are we ever not acting?and wanted to see if perhaps I could register that borderline transfiguration of "real" person into actor/actress and back again. I think that aspect of the film is successful and interesting still. So, Miriam came for her screen test, and we talked and performed and acted while the half-hour of film ran through the camera. It left us both bewildered and exhausted, questions hanging in the air.
MacDonald:
Several photographs hang on the wall behind the woman; two of thesea photo of an aborigine looking at a movie camera, a news photo of a woman in Vietnamsuggest that you were dramatizing problematic elements of the conventional uses of cameras, and the conventional functioning of the media. Is that a correct assumption? Do you see the parallel between the exploitation of aborigines and the exploitation of women? Both have often functioned as exotics for the voyeuristic movie viewer.
Noren:
The photo of the aborigine and the Arriflex on the wall had nothing to do with "exploitation"; it was a humorous comment on my own absolute lack of expertise in using that camera, nothing else. On the wall behind her also is a photograph of [Piero Paolo] Pasolini. I was interested in him at the time because of his efforts at making "fictional" documentaries, which
Say Nothing
certainly is. There is also an absolutely up-to-the-minute news photograph, which was taken from the front page of that day's
New York Times,
which sort of localizes the film in time.
MacDonald:
These days, especially, the film raises issues with regard to the camera as an instrument of the "male gaze." In fact, it seems a particularly vivid instance of the use of the camera to exert power over a female subject.
Noren:
The camera is an instrument of the "gaze" of the person controlling it, male or female. Your question suggests that the male gaze is inherently exploitative and manipulative, while the female gaze is