LOST IN NARRATION: TRANSPARENT
STORYTELLER AND MOBILE SPECTATOR
IN EARLY HARUN FAROCKI
Boris Ružić
0000-0003-4491-4763 Received: 2nd March 2019. ABSTRACT In this article my aim is to suggest the move from the discussions regarding the immobile gaze in
terms of film theory and editing towards the discussion on wandering or mobile spectator enabled by the mobility of filmic means
such as narration and camera. I claim that mobility of the viewer is not necessarily a corporeal condition, but a political and
emancipatory potential arising from a certain aspect of film attributes that allow for spectator's engagement with what is being
seen on the screen. I will look for at least four sets of what I consider prerequisites for the emancipatory engagement of the
spectator. I focus on specific case studies of Harun Farocki's films: mobility of the gaze, visibility of narrative agency,
visibility of film language and the visibility of the spectator himself.
I claim that the procedures described in this analysis can nullify Baudryan view of film as a product of the ideological effects of
cinematograph as manipulative apparatus. Hence, standard model of film theory described by Bordwell and Burch in form of IMR is not
applicable to Farocki's model. Instead of the image as a final product, Farocki is constantly presenting the viewer the whole
procedure of the production (apparatus, narration, camera and the work needed to produce an image). In doing so, he does not render
reality banal, but positions it as a starting point for viewers' intellectual emancipation. KEY WORDS CLASSIFICATION
University of Rijeka - Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of Cultural Studies
Rijeka, Croatia
INDECS 17(2-A), 272-281, 2019
DOI 10.7906/indecs.17.2.4
Full text available here.
Accepted: 11th June 2019.
Regular article
visual culture, Harun Farocki, emancipation, narration, spectator
JEL: D83