Of the Face, In Reticence

Abstract

Not only the face in the image, and not only the face as itself already an image, but the image as face beckons. And as one considers the face as medium for thinking in and through the cinema, one must contend with the image as such. Privileged object of representation, imprint of identity, figure of subjectivity, the face is also a mode and an ethic of address.³ In response, one navigates between the obvious, at times so obvious as to be overlooked, and the marginal, at times so marginal as to present a constant but low horizon, a primal ground, hard to retrace without a deliberate lunge. One special perspective has propelled for me such layered aspects of the face, and of the look upon the face.

Are you framing her head or her elbow? Or purposely not framing? That would be the best. See what I mean—If you get her head, the framing is bad. Make it half her head and half her hand.

—Robert Bresson¹

There is a work of the negative in the image, a “dark” efficacy that, so to speak, eats away at the visible (the order of represented appearances) and murders the legible (the order of signifying configurations).

—Georges Didi-Huberman²