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for something else: a personal feeling or a psychological state. Narrative music is thus exposed in its ideology, its closures, and its link with power and knowledge.
Many viewers have, indeed, thought of my films as operating more like a musical score than like any traditional film structure. And I also tend to think of film montage and music composition as being very much alike (with the understanding that montage is not reduced to the editing stage, but can occur in the conception and shooting stages of the film as well). One can also argue that in poetry a very similar process happens in the play of words. For me, the exploration of new, complex subjectivity and the problematizing of the subject in contemporary theory can be best carried out through poetical languageas long as poetical language is not equated with a mere estheticizing tool or practiced as a place to consolidate a "subjective" self. In poetry, the "I" can
never
be said to simply personify an individual. It's amusing that the feedback I often get from my relatives or close friends on my book of poems tends to be something like: "We never suspected you could be what you are in your poetry!" For them all the feelings and situations depicted in poetry are
personally
true. They immediately associate me with the ''I" who speaks in my poetry and assume it's "real," which is not wrong, but it's not accurate either. In poetical language, there is no "I" that just stands for
myself
. The "I" is there; it has to be there, but it is there as the site where all other "I's" can enter and cut across one another. This is an example of the strength and vitality of poetical language and of how it can radically contribute to the questioning of the relationship of subjects to power, language, and meaning in theory. Theory, as practiced by many, is often caught in a positioning where the theorist continues to stand in a "safe place" to theorize about others.
MacDonald:
I've often felt that way about the little I know of theoretical film writing. Part of the reason I write articles is to consolidate a position for myself within an institution, to give myself a certain amount of economic and psychic security. Theorists talk about how the artist is situated within an economic system, but I rarely hear discussion of writing theory as a marketable activity.
Trinh:
Exactly.
MacDonald:
On the other hand, if I show
Nanook
and
Ax Fight
and then show
Reassemblage,
it's like film theory in action. Language has such a hard time grasping what's on the screen that it's just easier to put the films next to one another and let the audience discover what the juxtapositions reveal.
Trinh:
There is a tendency in theorizing
about
film to see theorizing as one activity and filmmaking as another, which you can discuss with theory. This is an important question for me because I teach theory