What do you think?
Rate this book
The Ordinary Man of Cinema (Semiotext
The first English translation of a foundational work in cinema studies and the philosophy of film.
When it was first published in French in 1980, The Ordinary Man of Cinema signaled a shift from the French film criticism of the 1960s to a new breed of film philosophy that disregarded the semiotics and post-structuralism of the preceding decades. Schefer describes the schizophrenic subjectivity the cinema offers us: the film as a work projected without memory, viewed by (and thereby lived by) a subject scarred and shaped by memory. The Ordinary Man of Cinema delineates the phenomenology of movie-going and the fleeting, impalpable zone in which an individual's personal memory confronts the cinema's ideological images to create a new way of thinking.
It is also a book replete with mummies and vampires, tyrants and prostitutes, murderers and freaks—figures that are fundamental to Schefer's conception of the cinema, because the worlds that cinema traverses (our worlds, interior and exterior) are worlds of pain, unconscious desire, decay, repressed violence, and the endless mystery of the body. Fear and pleasure breed monsters, and such are what Schefer's emblematic “ordinary man” seeks and encounters when engaging in the disordering of the ordinary that the movie theater offers him. Among other things, Schefer considers “The Gods” in 31 brief essays on film stills and “The Criminal Life” with reflections on spectatorship and autobiography.
While Schefer's book has long been standard reading in French film scholarship, until now it has been something of a missing link to the field (and more broadly, French theory) in English. It is one of the building blocks of more widely known and read translations of Gilles Deleuze (who cited this book as an influence on his own cinema books) and Jacques Rancière.
When it was first published in French in 1980, The Ordinary Man of Cinema signaled a shift from the French film criticism of the 1960s to a new breed of film philosophy that disregarded the semiotics and post-structuralism of the preceding decades. Schefer describes the schizophrenic subjectivity the cinema offers us: the film as a work projected without memory, viewed by (and thereby lived by) a subject scarred and shaped by memory. The Ordinary Man of Cinema delineates the phenomenology of movie-going and the fleeting, impalpable zone in which an individual's personal memory confronts the cinema's ideological images to create a new way of thinking.
It is also a book replete with mummies and vampires, tyrants and prostitutes, murderers and freaks—figures that are fundamental to Schefer's conception of the cinema, because the worlds that cinema traverses (our worlds, interior and exterior) are worlds of pain, unconscious desire, decay, repressed violence, and the endless mystery of the body. Fear and pleasure breed monsters, and such are what Schefer's emblematic “ordinary man” seeks and encounters when engaging in the disordering of the ordinary that the movie theater offers him. Among other things, Schefer considers “The Gods” in 31 brief essays on film stills and “The Criminal Life” with reflections on spectatorship and autobiography.
While Schefer's book has long been standard reading in French film scholarship, until now it has been something of a missing link to the field (and more broadly, French theory) in English. It is one of the building blocks of more widely known and read translations of Gilles Deleuze (who cited this book as an influence on his own cinema books) and Jacques Rancière.
224 pages, Paperback
Published September 16, 2016
4 people are currently reading
238 people want to read
About the author
Jean Louis Schefer
36 books5 followersJean Louis Schefer is a prolific and influential scholar of art history, theology, philosophy, music, and linguistics, as well as an author of fiction.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 7, 2016
Such an interesting book! What a methodology! You know, at first I was pretty convinced that I was dealing w/ a pretty disingenuous fellow here. There is that title. And I was clearly not reading the musings of an "ordinary man," in any traditional sense. Like so many continental thinkers, it struck me, in fact, that Schefer was putting on quite a show of puffing himself up as some kind of otherworldly ascetic intellectual giant prone to framing things in as idiosyncratic a manner as conceivably possible. And his prose style is absolutely all about a pure poetic virtuosity. However, is gradually became clear that Schefer is coming at the art of the visible (and the moving visible) in a way that is remarkable and very useful (although I am fairly glad the world of criticism isn't exactly teeming w/ his less-skilled disciples). This is actually a kind of radical mutant hermeneutics (though Gadamer would doubtlessly not have been able to recognize himself here). What is at play is not so much the horizon of interpretation, but a more nebulous, spiritual, disembodied personal horizon. Basically we carry ourselves in and out of movie theatres in the process of living our own separate and entirely unique-in-the-particular lives, and the screen image synthesizes its business uniquely in each of us. Then those images become field agents of memory. In the first section, Schefer riffs kinda madly on some still images. Indeed, he invests a whole cavalcade of appropriately bizarre personal interests and preoccupations in reading images against the grain. The second section is far more impressive. It is some of the most impressive French stuff I have ever read on the cinema (and most of the most impressive stuff written on the cinema is French stuff). We might want to think of a school of structuralist criticism familiar to readers of Barthes. But the writing is more feverish and kind of self-generative than Barthes. It is almost like it is being dreamed onto paper. Shades of Proust, even. So it is extremely personal, but in many ways the person is missing. The cinema is a menagerie of affects. The ordinary man is the instrument of register. The ordinary man is a remembering machine. While paying lips service to specific movies and specific memories, Schefer excels most at writing about himself, in a captivating and extremely literary way, as such a machine.
Read
July 1, 2023This is a very strange book to me, which is why I can’t really rate it. There are some beautiful ideas/poetry/etc, but I can’t say I enjoyed the experience of reading it. I’m willing to admit it could be a translation issue as well, but it’s still a very strange book. Here are some quotes I liked below:
At the movies, I learn to be surprised at my capacity to live in many worlds at once.
For it is impossible that my experience of cinema could be completely solitary, for that's precisely the illusion proper to cinema, more so even than the illusion of the mobility of the objects we see on the screen. It is the illusion that this experience of cinema, this memory of it, is solitary, hidden, secretly individual, because it (this story, these images, these affective colorings) always seems to tie an immediate private pact with an unexpressed part of ourselves: that part given over to silence and to a relative aphasia as if it were the ultimate secret of our lives, when it is perhaps nothing but the ultimate subjection. Through this artificial solitude, it seems as if a part of ourselves is permeable to effects of meaning without ever being able to be born into meaning through our language. There, we even come to know-and to me this is the imprescriptible link between cinema and fear-an increase in sentimental aphasia in our social being.
Cinema acts on every social being as if on a solitary being. (!!!!!)
For cinema is a new kind of experience of time and memory, one that, alone, forms an experimental being.
The only knowledge taken for granted here is that which comes from the use of our own memory: all it teaches us, ulti-mately, is how to manipulate time as image, made possible through the "subtraction" of our actual body.
Cinema is an art that awakens memory, in mysterious conjunction with the experience of a depth of feeling (but also a quite specific life of isolated affects). (!!!!!)
What, then, is the effect of that perpetual night where I watch (where the progression of images keeps my eyes open)?
In that night, I lose the imaginary sphere of movements whose center I was assured to be, and which alone enabled me to act (to walk, to suffer) in the world.
I go to that night to lose the world itself, along with this center that I am. (!!!!!)
What is that power to make us acquiesce, for example, to that pain, to the memory of that pain that we'd never suffered as our own? (!!!!!)
Perhaps this unique desire comes down to this: to be in the image, to be meaning and its privileged transition, and not to understand it, that is, to become powerless to move back through it.
All I wait for or expect from the image is its duration and its disappearance: isn't movement also the movement of sense? (!!!!!)
And yet, doesn't all cinema, and every film, more or less, tell me a secret of movement: the act of resemblance has already occurred, you won't see it, only a story will remain, a story whose many ensconced scenes will have to be untangled such that the memory of the film will be neither the memory of the images, nor exactly that of the narrative structure that passes through them. (!!!!!!!!!!!!)
The cinema, and the films I see, provide this additional conviction: I am a fatality.
These images must have only ever taught that "slight anteriority of time" on the unfolding of all actions.
Does the same thing occur when we try to describe a painting without being exact? And when through that inexactitude something becomes visible of what the figures cannot be reduced to? And is this, perhaps, the part of our time that we add to it? That we add in it like the figure that was always missing? (!!!!!!!!!!)
Through exaggerated colors and forms, through figurative excess, and through a kind of extreme bequest in the visible, the painted surface holds us, revives, or calms a wound of sight that we don't know where else to place. (!!!!!)
Our place, that is, our meaning, is fugitive, but nonetheless essential. I believe (as I've experienced it) that our meaning is linked to the delay, to that kind of fatal delay we have in regards to what we see. (!!!!!!!!!!!)
If we experience delays or slight anticipations of action here, it's not the represented subject but the substance of time (invisible up to that point) that becomes our knowledge, our pleasure and our entire experience.
In our experience, the visible doesn't know the sleep of thought.
If a written flower has no smell, if it does not affect my sense of smell, or awake the memory of that smell, I must therefore produce the duration of an imagination of bodies comparable to that of classical physics. These bodies are not rational; they do not possess the zone of affections that provides a body with a world, that is to say, a solidarity.
At the movies, I learn to be surprised at my capacity to live in many worlds at once.
For it is impossible that my experience of cinema could be completely solitary, for that's precisely the illusion proper to cinema, more so even than the illusion of the mobility of the objects we see on the screen. It is the illusion that this experience of cinema, this memory of it, is solitary, hidden, secretly individual, because it (this story, these images, these affective colorings) always seems to tie an immediate private pact with an unexpressed part of ourselves: that part given over to silence and to a relative aphasia as if it were the ultimate secret of our lives, when it is perhaps nothing but the ultimate subjection. Through this artificial solitude, it seems as if a part of ourselves is permeable to effects of meaning without ever being able to be born into meaning through our language. There, we even come to know-and to me this is the imprescriptible link between cinema and fear-an increase in sentimental aphasia in our social being.
Cinema acts on every social being as if on a solitary being. (!!!!!)
For cinema is a new kind of experience of time and memory, one that, alone, forms an experimental being.
The only knowledge taken for granted here is that which comes from the use of our own memory: all it teaches us, ulti-mately, is how to manipulate time as image, made possible through the "subtraction" of our actual body.
Cinema is an art that awakens memory, in mysterious conjunction with the experience of a depth of feeling (but also a quite specific life of isolated affects). (!!!!!)
What, then, is the effect of that perpetual night where I watch (where the progression of images keeps my eyes open)?
In that night, I lose the imaginary sphere of movements whose center I was assured to be, and which alone enabled me to act (to walk, to suffer) in the world.
I go to that night to lose the world itself, along with this center that I am. (!!!!!)
What is that power to make us acquiesce, for example, to that pain, to the memory of that pain that we'd never suffered as our own? (!!!!!)
Perhaps this unique desire comes down to this: to be in the image, to be meaning and its privileged transition, and not to understand it, that is, to become powerless to move back through it.
All I wait for or expect from the image is its duration and its disappearance: isn't movement also the movement of sense? (!!!!!)
And yet, doesn't all cinema, and every film, more or less, tell me a secret of movement: the act of resemblance has already occurred, you won't see it, only a story will remain, a story whose many ensconced scenes will have to be untangled such that the memory of the film will be neither the memory of the images, nor exactly that of the narrative structure that passes through them. (!!!!!!!!!!!!)
The cinema, and the films I see, provide this additional conviction: I am a fatality.
These images must have only ever taught that "slight anteriority of time" on the unfolding of all actions.
Does the same thing occur when we try to describe a painting without being exact? And when through that inexactitude something becomes visible of what the figures cannot be reduced to? And is this, perhaps, the part of our time that we add to it? That we add in it like the figure that was always missing? (!!!!!!!!!!)
Through exaggerated colors and forms, through figurative excess, and through a kind of extreme bequest in the visible, the painted surface holds us, revives, or calms a wound of sight that we don't know where else to place. (!!!!!)
Our place, that is, our meaning, is fugitive, but nonetheless essential. I believe (as I've experienced it) that our meaning is linked to the delay, to that kind of fatal delay we have in regards to what we see. (!!!!!!!!!!!)
If we experience delays or slight anticipations of action here, it's not the represented subject but the substance of time (invisible up to that point) that becomes our knowledge, our pleasure and our entire experience.
In our experience, the visible doesn't know the sleep of thought.
If a written flower has no smell, if it does not affect my sense of smell, or awake the memory of that smell, I must therefore produce the duration of an imagination of bodies comparable to that of classical physics. These bodies are not rational; they do not possess the zone of affections that provides a body with a world, that is to say, a solidarity.
June 4, 2024
In a lot of ways this is a kind of theory missing link between people like Bazin and Deleuze (if you want to read Deleuze’s cinema books I highly recommend reading at least the last half of this book either first or as a companion). Occasionally borders on goofily absurd but I’ve always thought that was part of its charm.
February 2, 2023
(review of first half)
blast the closemindedness (or flat out anti intellectual spirit) of america for ignoring the pleasures to be had in the idle (or do i mean errant or wandering) speculation and subjective musings of poet / philosophers regarding to take just one dear to my heart example film . few are the books , tho maybe just slightly more numerous are the writers / critics i could name working in america that go as hard as schefer here in the name of cinematic speculation or what i might call poetic wanderings in a snow globe (citizen kane snowglobe aptly the cover photo) composed of the moment to moment mind body experience the writer has while watching a film , the cinephiliac moment as keathley (a brit i believe) termed it. girish shambu , adrian martin, robert ray, keathley , are people i may cite as solid deliverers on this , pinkerton (american) on occasion , nathalie leger in suite for barbara loden, durga chew bose in fits and starts in her book too much and not the mood, stanley cavell and toles at times , the list could go on perhaps but to me it will remain still not enough for it seems to me the medium of film (vastly more than the other arts) was made for this kind of ping pong of thought vectors willy nilly style of critique . i think maybe (and the blurb on the semio texte printing of this seems to confirm) that herein schefer (tho perhaps picking up where many of the cahiers critics (especially godard) left off) delivered one of the key texts of the genre. its this mode of inquiry into any given film that defines the most rewarding type of cinephilia to me and perhaps the unexplainable to the laymen reasoning behind my and my kind's addiction to cinema, the also hard to explain answer to the noncinephile's inevitable question ; well if the plot (and sundry other elements) are of little matter, what is? and finally i promise also the incessantly pounding (like a heartbeat) reasoning behind our need for rapt attention, sacred expectation even at times, during a screening and our annoyance when others cant at least to a bare minimum play the game as well. take my wordiness and the fact that it took three people thirty six years after the fact to translate this that this study / poem / book / series of reflections is not for everyone, only anyone who professes to be a cinephile (a heady one tho admittedly ; i could only twist my beard hair while squinting my eyes at times) and for that i love it, unashamedly, for love could never be snobbery.
(review of second half, starting after individual frames section) :
okay so ive actually finished reading and i must say the second half is a let down in its maddeningly opaque obfuscation. i aint a philosophy guy really, i aint a poetry guy really, i am a film criticism and theory guy and this book up until the second half does all three beautifully and within a realm i can still understand it and be dazzled buttt the second half like most philosophy or poetry books ive tried is like trying to keep a kite afloat in an unsteady breeze, only in fits and starts am i taken with it, lighter than air and mind opening and freeing but otherwise its like sand passing thru my fingers, whole pages of not a single thing sticking.
blast the closemindedness (or flat out anti intellectual spirit) of america for ignoring the pleasures to be had in the idle (or do i mean errant or wandering) speculation and subjective musings of poet / philosophers regarding to take just one dear to my heart example film . few are the books , tho maybe just slightly more numerous are the writers / critics i could name working in america that go as hard as schefer here in the name of cinematic speculation or what i might call poetic wanderings in a snow globe (citizen kane snowglobe aptly the cover photo) composed of the moment to moment mind body experience the writer has while watching a film , the cinephiliac moment as keathley (a brit i believe) termed it. girish shambu , adrian martin, robert ray, keathley , are people i may cite as solid deliverers on this , pinkerton (american) on occasion , nathalie leger in suite for barbara loden, durga chew bose in fits and starts in her book too much and not the mood, stanley cavell and toles at times , the list could go on perhaps but to me it will remain still not enough for it seems to me the medium of film (vastly more than the other arts) was made for this kind of ping pong of thought vectors willy nilly style of critique . i think maybe (and the blurb on the semio texte printing of this seems to confirm) that herein schefer (tho perhaps picking up where many of the cahiers critics (especially godard) left off) delivered one of the key texts of the genre. its this mode of inquiry into any given film that defines the most rewarding type of cinephilia to me and perhaps the unexplainable to the laymen reasoning behind my and my kind's addiction to cinema, the also hard to explain answer to the noncinephile's inevitable question ; well if the plot (and sundry other elements) are of little matter, what is? and finally i promise also the incessantly pounding (like a heartbeat) reasoning behind our need for rapt attention, sacred expectation even at times, during a screening and our annoyance when others cant at least to a bare minimum play the game as well. take my wordiness and the fact that it took three people thirty six years after the fact to translate this that this study / poem / book / series of reflections is not for everyone, only anyone who professes to be a cinephile (a heady one tho admittedly ; i could only twist my beard hair while squinting my eyes at times) and for that i love it, unashamedly, for love could never be snobbery.
(review of second half, starting after individual frames section) :
okay so ive actually finished reading and i must say the second half is a let down in its maddeningly opaque obfuscation. i aint a philosophy guy really, i aint a poetry guy really, i am a film criticism and theory guy and this book up until the second half does all three beautifully and within a realm i can still understand it and be dazzled buttt the second half like most philosophy or poetry books ive tried is like trying to keep a kite afloat in an unsteady breeze, only in fits and starts am i taken with it, lighter than air and mind opening and freeing but otherwise its like sand passing thru my fingers, whole pages of not a single thing sticking.
July 21, 2023
In many ways, this book is summed up by Gilles Deleuze’s comment on the back - ‘A book in which theory forms a kind of great poem’. As such, it is often guilty of opaque meaning which, I guess, is precisely Scheffer’s aim as he proceeds to demolish meaning and signification in cinema. There are passages of luminous beauty and hinges of exposition that do elicit nods of comprehension. There are, however, moments of labyrinthine prose that (perhaps) are wilfully obscure. His conclusions are poignant and persuasive but the body of his thesis could conceivably be criticised for avoiding robust methodologies and instead (as he contends film is entirely centered around our perceptions) wallowing in the subjective. As it happens, I lean towards Schefer’s argument for the ineffable nature of the cinematic experience - I just wish (ironically) that his prose and theory had more tangible anchors for the reader to cling to!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews