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Anat Pick

1 3 Animal Life in the Cinematic Umwelt

From the beginning, we have nodou bt that anenclosing world is present, ou t of

which each animal cu ts its dwelling-world. As su perficial appearance teaches u s,
each animal encou nters inits dwelling-world certainobjects with which it has a
closer or more distant relationship.
Jak ob vonUexk ü ll1

A system does not regu late everything. It is a bait for something.

Robert Bresson2

This essay explores the id ea of cinematic d welling-world s in which hu man and

nonhu mananimal lives u nfold . Link ing Bazinianrealism tothe biological theory
of Jak ob vonUexk ü ll, inparticu lar his concept of Umwelt, I argu e that cinema’s
framing of d ifferent lives canbe profou nd ly zoomorphic. Bazinwas stru ck by life’s
sheer d iversity and formal inventiveness. Both at the level of form and at the level
of perspective, Bazinian realism is non-anthropocentric. I call this ‘zoomorphic
realism’, by which I meancinema’s aptitu d e for showing the creatu rely u niverses,
or ‘life-world s’3 of hu manand nonhu manbeings.
The most d irect expressionof Bazin’s creatu rely imaginationis, as a nu mber of
commentators have shown, his interest in(and love of) animals.4 Bu t films with no
animals are still zoomorphic if they treat the hu man world as part of natu re:
embed d ed inmateriality, su bject tothe forces that governand mod ify hu manlife.
Italianneorealism, for Bazin, achieved this particu larly well since neorealist films
pertained toboth the material and historical/social forces that engu lf hu manexis-
tence. Another Bazinian favou rite, early scientific cinema, pioneered new cine-
matographic technologies and allowed viewers to glimpse creatu res and world s
u navailable to the nak ed hu man eye. The 1 9 0 3 Cheese Mites, for instance, was
more thana microcinematographic sensation; it mad e possible a new u nd erstand-
ing of the concept of ‘life’. Both neorealism and scientific cinema, then, are exam-
ples of a zoomorphic, creatu rely cinema. If elsewhere I approached creatu reliness
and cinematic realism as u niversalising principles that ack nowled ge the vu lnera-
bility and perishablity of all living bod ies, whether hu manor not, my pu rpose here
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is d ifferent.5 I am interested infilms that engage with interior animal world s, ren-
d ered , as far as possible, from the perspective of the creatu re itself. Zoomorphic
realism, then, asserts the mu ltiplicity and situ ated ness of world s. It d oes not, by
d efinition, aspire tosome otherworld ly objectivity that su bsu mes particu lar world s
u nd er the single entity of Natu re. It aims toexplore the meaning of the perceptu al,
behaviou ral and ontological specificities of life by observing animals’ su bjective
experience, and reflecting onthe ethical stak es of su ch rad ical biod iversity.
Tomove from one d efinitionof realism tothe other, from realism as external
law tothe ‘inner real’6 of the ind ivid u al animal, I explore twod ifferent cinematic
d welling-world s: Robert Bresson’s A ManEscaped (1 9 5 6 ), and Clau d e Nu rid sany
and Marie Pérennou ’s insect d ocu mentary Microcosmos (1 9 9 6 ). Und er the ru bric
of zoomorphic realism, each bio-cinematic enclosu re raises qu estions abou t what
it means for a being tohave a world . As Uexk ü ll’s philosophical biology su ggests,
there is noliving being withou t a world , and noworld that d oes not correspond
tothe being that inhabits it. Uexk ü ll named the relationshipbetweenananimal
and its environment Umwelt, a concept that speak s not only tofilm theory, espe-
cially realism, bu t alsotoou r think ing abou t animal, by which I alsomeanhu man,
life onscreen.

Zoomorphic realism
Inone of the most beau tifu l passages in‘The Ontology of the Photographic Image’
And ré Bazin provid es what some wou ld regard as a cred u lou s read ing of the
image:

The aesthetic qu alities of photography are tobe sou ght inits power tolay bare the
realities. It is not for me toseparate off, inthe complex fabric of the objective
world, here a reflectionona dampsidewalk , there a gestu re of a child. Only the
impassive lens, stripping its object of all those ways of seeing it, those piled-u p
preconceptions, that spiritu al du st and grime with which my eyes have covered it,
is able topresent it inall its virginal pu rity tomy attentionand consequ ently tomy
love.7

Three k ey concerns of cinematic realism emerge inthe passage: the su pposed objec-
tivity of the external world , the ‘scru pu lou s ind ifference’,8 as Bressond escribed it,
of the camera’s ‘impassive lens’ that can ‘lay bare the realities’, and the film-
mak er’s (and su bsequ ently the viewer’s) su bjective investment inimages, the mys-
tifications of something lik e id eology – habits, belief systems, personal histories
and soon– that orient one’s ways of seeing. Realism, I want tosu ggest, pu rports
tofind incinema (perhaps inart more generally) the formal interweaving of these
perspectives. It asserts the reality of the world as a more-than-su bjective projection
while insisting onthe situ ated ness of the real: reality as the relationbetweenthe
world , the observer and the observing apparatu s.

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Bazin’s faith in images reflects his faith in reality, and in the notion that the
image, by virtu e of its ontology – its link with the world – can d eepen ou r
encou nter with reality by wiping cleanthe ‘spiritu al d u st and grime’ of id eology. If
id eology red u ces the ‘complex fabric of the objective world ’ inthe service of one
vested interest or another, Bazin’s view of cinema, d espite its id ealism, pays life’s
complexity its d u es. His realism avoid s both a simply nou menal view of cinema’s
ability toshow things ‘as they are’, and a thorou ghly su bjectivist one that su bmits
cinema tothe whims of ind u stry, technology or the au teu r.
As a nu mber of recent reappraisals of Bazinhave argu ed, a nu anced view of cin-
ematic realism eschews strict ind exicality.9 Realism emerges instead as a three-point
(Trinitarian?) relation between the ‘photographer’s mind ’, the ‘scene before the
camera’ and the ‘photographic negative inside the camera’.1 0 As Raymond Du rgnat
explains in‘The Negative Visionof Robert Bresson’, for Bazin, ‘the essence of pho-
tography is not some cold ly objective camera-eye scru tinizing its su bject from a d is-
tance, in a mechanistic or voyeu ristic way. Bu t neither is the artist’s su bjectivity
projected u ntothe world , inananthropomorphic, fantasizing way’.1 1
The camera is not d istant, d etached , or objective; it is reactive, that is, ina con-
tinu u m with the world it captu res. Moreover, the su bjective d imensionof the tri-
angu lar stru ctu re of film-mak er–camera–world mak es the encou nter a passionate
one: ‘Photography – or, more exactly, the “photorealism” that concerned Bazin–
is a loving interaction, anamorou s anxiety, abou t Creation’.1 2 Christianity infu ses
Bazin’s realism as a form of loving attention. Du rgnat, infact, d esignates Bazin’s
theory ‘Christian realism’.1 3 Creation is observed amorou sly and anxiou sly –
amorou sly, becau se, as the opening lines of Clarice Lispector’s The Hou r of the
Star (1 9 9 2 ) bold ly d eclare, ‘Everything inthe world beganwith a yes. One mole-
cu le said yes toanother molecu le and life was born,’1 4 anxiou sly, becau se the per-
sistence of inju stice and su ffering reflect Creation’s fallenness and , toa Christian,
the ‘ravages of God ’s “Absences”’,1 5 ‘Bazin’s transcend entalism’, Du rgnat claims,
‘is affirmative, bu t not optimistic’,1 6 which is one way of think ing abou t realism’s
general orientation: stick ing with the fou nd ing ‘yes’ of Creationwithou t ignoring
the traged ies and failu res of material, social and political life. Christian realism
speak s of a world empty of God where every object, no matter how small or
insignificant, reverberates with God ’s absence and becomes – or rather, the act of
observing becomes – sacramental, a testament of love for the world , anassertion
of that primord ial yes.
Yet, how many world s are there? WhenBazinwrites that cinema ‘lays bare the
realities’, inthe plu ral, we cantak e this tomeanslices, or parts, of reality captu red
intime. Bu t ‘realities’ may alternatively su ggest the copresence of d ifferent spa-
tiotemporal world s, and their correspond ing film-world s. Inlife, as infilm, there
is not one bu t a proliferationof world s, since what a world is canonly be thou ght
as a relationshipbetweenthe perceiving being and the world it perceives. There is,
then, the world (space-time) of the d og, of the beetle or of the hu manbeing, which
cinema canattu ne toand attempt toconvey.

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Realism, lik e reality, is a constru ctionand a point of view that d enote a mod e
of involvement. As Francesco Casetti pu ts it: ‘for Bazin cinema’s realistic basis
d erives from the possibility of participation’.1 7

Bazinnever said photorealism was the only way tou nderstand the world. … Its
relative ‘transparency’ was not ‘failu re toedit,’ not ‘naïve realism,’ bu t an
exploration, a showing-forth. It refrains, not from ‘artifice’ generally, bu t from
certainhabits of artifice.1 8

The world is not ‘ou t there’ tobe captu red by mechanical means. Reality is always
artificial, or virtu al, insofar as it is crafted betweensu bject and object, not anentity
bu t a proced u re: the creative process of ‘showing-forth’ coau thored by su bject and
object. Und erstood in this way, realism d esignates an overcoming of the
su bject/object d ivid e by allu d ing toit instead as a seamless continu u m.

Umwelt and animal life

A conception of world s as the u nfold ing correspond ences between su bjects and
their respective perceptu al environments is at the heart of two, interrelated , scien-
tific field s: the Umwelt theory of Estonian-Germanbiologist Jak ob vonUexk ü ll
(1 8 6 4 –1 9 4 4 ), and biosemiotics.1 9 The Germanword Umwelt is thou ght tohave
beencoined by the nineteenth-centu ry Danish poet Jens Immanu el Baggesenand
means ‘su rrou nd ing environment’. InUexk ü ll’s u se, the term ind icates the totality
or network of relations betweenananimal and its environment. The Umwelt is not
the objective world ananimal inhabits; it is mad e u pof those elements withinthe
animal’s perceptu al field that are intelligible to it and constitu te what Uexk ü ll
refers toas the animal’s ‘fu nctional cycle’.2 0

Most of Uexk ü ll’s work was devoted tothe problem of how living beings
su bjectively perceive their environment and how this perceptiondetermines their
behavior. Inthe book Umwelt u nd Innenwelt der Tiere (Environment and Inner
World of Animals, 1 9 0 9 ) he introdu ced the term ‘Umwelt’ todenote the su bjective
(su bjectivized, meaningfu l) world of anorganism.2 1

As Brett Bu chananexplains inOnto-Ethologies (2 0 0 8 ), Uexk ü ll wanted tod istin-

gu ish biology from physics and chemistry by moving from invariable, general laws
to the ind ivid u al organism. In so d oing, he positioned himself against Darwin’s
mechanistic view of life that sees natu re as operating cau sally onchance mu tations.
Throu gh natu ral selection, su ccessfu l mu tations su rvive by passing ontheir genes,
while others d ie ou t. This view reveals natu re as essentially planless. Uexk ü ll was
trou bled by what he saw as the implicit nihilism of the Darwinianposition, and
argu ed instead for a teleological view of natu re. Instead of focu sing solely onthe
accid ental evolu tionary mechanism of natu ral selection, Uexk ü ll tu rned his atten-

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tiontoparticu lar animals as su bjects whose behaviou r, he claimed , is not strictly

mechanistic.
By exploring anorganism’s su bjective interplay with its environment Uexk ü ll
was able to argu e a nu mber of points: natu re, perceived as a single object that
fu nctions accord ing to physical law, d oes not exist, since, as Kant’s second
Copernicanrevolu tionsu ggested , there is noworld ou tsid e of the su bject whoper-
ceived it.2 2 Next, Uexk ü ll insists that not only hu mans bu t animals tooare active
perceivers of their world . An animal’s perceptu al world is hermetically sealed –
Uexk ü ll lik ens it to a soap bu bble2 3 – bu t some Umweltentou ch and overlap.
Umweltencanbe simple or complex, bu t the organism ineach case both receives
and acts u ponenvironmental signs – this is the semiotic principle which Uexk ü ll
believes su stains living systems – end owing the Umwelt with meaning. ‘Each envi-
ronment’, Uexk ü ll writes in A Theory of Meaning, ‘forms a self-enclosed u nit,
which is governed inall its parts by its meaning for the su bject’.2 4
Uexk ü ll’s most famou s example is the female tick , whose Umwelt is minimal-
ist (she is d eaf and blind and her world consists of the senses of smell of bu tyric
acid from a mammal’s sweat, of temperatu re, which allows the tick torecognise
the mammal’s warm bod y, and tou ch, with which she feels her way toa conven-
ient spot where she can bu rrow and d rink the mammal’s blood ).2 5 The tick ’s
Umwelt d oes not exist ou tsid e of this exclu sive relationship. Thou gh simple, inher
Umwelt the tick mu st engage inthe exchanging of meaningfu l signs with the su r-
rou nd ing environment; the tick and her su rrou nd ings together create meaning (or
fu nction) and soare mu tu ally conversant ina k ind of ‘d u et’.
Uexk ü ll mak es even the u npopu lar tick ’s world seem worthy. In The Open:
Manand Animal (2 0 0 4 ), Agambencalls Uexk ü ll’s writing onthe tick ‘a highpoint
of mod ernantihu manism’.2 6 Inher imperviou sness toelements inher immed iate
area that mean something to other animal species (inclu d ing the taste of blood ,
which the tick d oes not notice), the tick ’s world may seem, as Heid egger wou ld
have it, d eprived . And yet, ‘[T]he example of the tick clearly shows the general
stru ctu re of the environment proper toall animals’.2 7 Inhis 1 9 2 9 –3 0 lectu res The
Fu nd amental Concepts of Metaphysics: World , Finitu d e, Solitu d e, Heid egger
d efined animals as ontologically ‘poor inworld ’.2 8 Poverty inworld (Weltarmu t)
consists for Heid egger in the animal’s ‘captivation’ (Benommenheit) by those
meaningfu l perceptu al cu es that fu rnish its Umwelt.2 9 The animal is cau ght u pin
its environmental relations, which intu rnremainconcealed from its grasp. By con-
trast, hu mans are free toaccess their world and be ‘world -forming’ (weltbild end ).
The animal is absorbed inits environment, while Daseinstand s apart, tak ing inthe
world and actively shaping it. Thu s, the world qu a world is never giventoanimals
as it is toman; it is as if animals melt intotheir su rrou ndings, whose discrete beings
are never d isclosed . To a lizard su nning itself on a rock , the rock is given as a
‘lizard -thing’, bu t ‘is not accessible toit as a rock ’.3 0 The animal is inthe world
withou t this world ever being revealed toit. This is the animal’s essential poverty.
Heid egger tak es his cu e from Uexk ü ll, who insists on the internal wholeness of

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animal world s.3 1 For Heid egger and Uexk ü ll alik e, world s are not hierarchically
organised , some richer thanothers, bu t are intrinsically complete (which, incid en-
tally, su pports new ways of think ing abou t d isabilities, not as d iminished states,
bu t as environmental relationships in their own right). Bu t in find ing the lizard
d eprived of the relationtothe rock as a rock , all Heid egger shows is that the lizard
d oes not participate inthe hu manUmwelt. Heid egger may reject hu manism, bu t
he remains anthropocentric.
Inthe tick ’s case, world ly confinement is evenharsher. What is most heartrend -
ing inUexk ü ll’s d escriptionof the tick ’s Umwelt is how u nshareable and cu t off it
is from other animal world s.3 2 As Bu chananpu ts it,

The moon, weather, birds, noises, leaves, shadows, and soforth donot matter to
the tick . They may belong tothe Umwelt of other organisms that live inthe midst
of the tick , bu t they donot carry any meaning for the tick itself. The external
world (Welt) is as good as nonexistent, as are the general su rrou ndings
(Umgebu ng) of the organism. Both are theoretical references tocontrast with the
meaningfu l world of the Umwelt. What does matter tothe tick , however, is the
sensory perceptionof heat and sweat from a warm-blooded animal, onwhich the
female tick feeds, lays its eggs, and dies.3 3

‘The Umwelt might be consid ered ak intoa microcosm’,3 4 and since each u nit
is ‘meant for’ a particu lar animal, there is not ju st one bu t mu ltiple animal world s.
Together these Umweltenform a weblik e ed ifice Uexk ü ll compares toa symphonic
orchestration. Althou gh self-contained , the

Umweltenof organisms are therefore not simply closed spheres, as if lock ing the
organism withina self-concealed and isolated container. The animal is not an
object or entity, bu t a symphony u nderscored by rhythms and melodiou s reaching
ou tward for greater accompaniment. Individu al Umweltenare necessarily
enmeshed with one another throu gh a variety of relationships that create a
harmoniou s whole.3 5

Uexk ü ll’s biological theory of meaning and his mu sical analogy resist the clichés
abou t natu re’s ind ifference becau se animal world s are internally and externally
link ed throu gh biosemiotic processes, the exchanging of meaningfu l signs, that are
mu tu ally non-ind ifferent and harmoniou s.
Every element ina living system is d escribed by Uexk ü ll as a ‘carrier of mean-
ing’.3 6 Both the organism and its su rrou nd ing objects assu me their id entities in
their formative relations toone another. Ou tsid e of the relationshipanobject has
no meaning, and neither d oes the organism. ‘When framed in this way’, writes
Bu chanan, ‘anorganism is never ju st one’,3 7 since it d epend s onits environmental
cou nterparts for its id entity. The Umwelt is thu s rad ically intersu bjective. Ind eed ,
Bu chanansu ggests that Uexk ü ll’s is ‘anintersu bjective theory of natu re’,3 8 mak ing

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him, perhaps, biology’s Levinas. While essentially meaning-carrying (sonon-ind if-

ferent), world s are alsoseparate and , inthis sense, lonely. And loneliness, too, is
not ind ifferent. Uexk ü ll’s insistence onthe melod iou s arrangement of world s and
his efforts to rend er visible for u s the variety of animal Umwelten – in Georg
Kriszat’s charming illu strations inForay – convey the u rge toovercome solitu d e as
neither ju st hu manor animal, bu t as if inherent innatu re itself.
Uexk ü ll removes the ‘d u st and grime’, as Bazinpu t it, of anthropocentrism that
sees the world solely throu gh hu maneyes. As will become clear inthe following
section, Umwelt work s well toencapsu late the variou s d iscrete environments that
films d epict, from prison’s carceral space inBresson’s A ManEscaped tothe pop-
u lou s u nd ergrowth inNu rid sany and Pérennou ’s Microcosmos. Bu t Umwelt d oes
mu ch more thanthis. Cinematic Umweltenopenou r eyes and mind s tothe vari-
ety and expressiveness of animal lives. Living systems, then, are inherently cu ltu ral.
They give rise tovariations inbehaviou r, new forms of expression, new relational
trajectories. We think of animals as belonging tonatu re, and of people as cu ltu ral
beings. Bu t life as a biosemiotic process link s the ‘natu ral’ existence of animals to
the ‘cu ltu ral’ life of hu mans and mak es d ifficu lt, evenu ntenable, the d istinction
betweennatu re and cu ltu re.
One way of approaching the Umwelt cinematically is, as I have briefly sk etched
ou t, inthe context of zoomorphic realism. Another is throu gh the notionof fram-
ing, since the Umwelt is a d emarcationwithinwhich each animal lives. Umwelten,
then, tell the framed life stories of creatu res, and , lik e films (d ocu mentary or fic-
tion), raise qu estions abou t the possibility of really entering and u nd erstand ing
other lives. Ju st lik e film, Uexk ü ll’s Umwelt seek s to‘u nlock the gates intoprevi-
ou sly forbid d enworld s, all the while retaining the closed bu bble intact’.3 9

A show of hands: A Man Escaped and Microcosmos

Whoever wants tohold ontothe convictionthat all living things are only
machines shou ld abandonall hope of glimpsing their environments.4 0

Uexk ü ll’s biology ‘seek s totransform ou r u nd erstand ing of the animal away from
its trad itional interpretationas a sou lless machine, vacu ou s object, or d ispassion-
ate bru te’,4 1 and nopart of the animal k ingd om is consid ered more mechanical,
more bru tish and d ispassionate, thanthe feared (and ad mired ) class of insects.4 2
Microcosmos, whose very title references the Umwelt, explores the d esire toenter
and find meaning inthe world s of these bewild ering arthropod s.
I tu rntothe lives of insects inMicrocosmos by way of ju xtapositionwith an
altogether d ifferent cinematic Umwelt: the enclosed , cellu lar world of A Man
Escaped . As a locu s of meaning, I focu s onthe d exterou s u se of limbs – hand s and
legs – by the films’ hu manand insect protagonists. Each film, I want tosu ggest,
revolves arou nd the semiotic processes particu lar toits animal su bject, and each

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presents the viewer with a d ifferent interpretive challenge. Fontaine’s (François

Leterrier) actions inA ManEscaped u nfold inanostensibly mechanistic, flattened
world , d evoid of d eeppsychology and the conventions u sed toexpress it (narra-
tive su spense, d ialogu e, facial expressions, character acting). InMicrocosmos the
situ ationis reversed : insects are d epicted as characters ina mu ltid imensional world
with all the ad ornments of a Hollywood d rama. The tensionbetweenmechanistic
and nonmechanistic conceptions of life, betweenphysiology and phenomenology,
u nd erpins both films whose respective interiors are similarly constricted . What
exactly d oMicrocosmos and A ManEscaped have incommon? Inwhat sense can
they be said toshare a world view, and where, inBazin’s terms, lies their common
realism?
A Man Escaped is the first (and most su ccessfu l) of Bresson’s ‘prison cycle’
films (followed by Pick pock et [1 9 5 9 ], and The Trial of Joanof Arc [1 9 6 2 ]). The
plot of A ManEscaped is ru d imentary: captu red , imprisoned and cond emned to
d eath by the occu pying German forces, Fontaine, a member of the French
Resistance, plans his escape. The film follows his d aily preparations inhis cell and
end s with Fontaine and his cellmate Jost (Charles Le Clainche) escaping tofree-
d om. Significantly, the film’s title foretells the ou tcome: we k now Fontaine will
escape. The French title is even more d eterministic: Un cond amné à mort s’est
échappé ou Le vent sou ffle où il veu t (A ManCond emned toDeath Escapes: The
Wind Bloweth Where It Listeth).4 3 With sparse d ialogu e, the film focu ses on
Fontaine’s concrete task s: filing away at the wood enplank s of his cell d oor, fash-
ioning a rope ou t of ripped clothing, mak ing metal hook s ou t of pieces of wire and
a metal frame and soon.
Lik e the rest of Bresson’s oeu vre, A ManEscaped is most ofteninterpreted as
anallegory of hu mansalvationand d ivine grace. Giventhe d eterministic contou rs
of its film-world , A ManEscaped rehearses the theological conu nd ru m of grace
and freed om central tothe trad itionof Jansenist and Pascalianread ings of Bresson.
Bressonfamou sly rejected psychological realism – he d id not aspire toshow people
as they really act and interact bu t sou ght toreveal the mechanism behind any per-
sonal qu irk s. From his actors, whom he called ‘mod els’, Bresson d emand ed not
expression bu t au tomation. ‘Nine-tenths of ou r movements obey habit and
au tomatism. It is anti-natu re to su bord inate them to will and to thou ght.’4 4
Bressonspok e of the need torend er acting as mechanical as possible: ‘It is not a
matter of acting “simple” or of acting “inward ”, he wrote, ‘bu t of not acting at
all.’4 5
Su sanSontag thou ght, ‘Bressonis interested inthe forms of spiritu al action–
inthe physics, as it were, rather thanthe psychology of sou ls. Why persons behave
as they d ois, u ltimately, not tobe u nd erstood .’4 6 The reality Bresson, a Catholic
with Jansenist leanings, wants toack nowled ge is a spiritu al one. Torepresent it
cinematically he need s toget rid of psychological trimmings and the id ea that ind i-
vid u als are the proper au thors of their fate. LiberationinA ManEscaped , Sontag
su ggests, is not the achievement of a strong personal will, bu t, onthe contrary, of

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A Man Escaped (Un condamné à mort s’est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut, 1956): a series of
manual tasks on the way to freedom

Fontaine’s abd ication of personality in favou r of the series of menial task s that
mak e u pthe narrative. Free will is evenmore harshly repu d iated inBresson’s later
work , from Au hasard Balthazar (1 9 6 6 ) and Mou chette (1 9 6 7 ) onward . Will
seems toplay itself ou t inthe lives of ind ivid u al beings onbehalf of animpersonal
mechanism. A ManEscaped may therefore be nothing more or less thanthe d ra-
matic u nfold ing, the fu lfilment, of a mechanism whose ou tcome is fixed .
All of Bresson’s protagonists, for better or worse, ad here tothis formu la. They
act ou t the permu tations of a mechanism towhich they willingly or otherwise give
themselves u pbu t which they d onot control. This accou nts for the psychological
vacu u m inBresson, the sense that the people we watch are marionettes rather than
au tonomou s agents. Time and again, Bressonforgoes personality for objectivity,
placing people and objects onanequ al plain, onthe su rface of reality, su bjecting
them tochance and the laws of matter. And yet by remaining at the material su r-
face of things, Bresson, ina negative move, intimates the spiritu al.
Brian Price challenges this theological orthod oxy of Bresson criticism. In
Neither God nor Master: Robert Bressonand Rad ical Politics (2 0 1 1 ), Price pu r-
su es a politicized read ing that link s Bressontothe Su rrealist movement, left poli-
tics and anti-clericalism torecover the revolu tionary u nd ercu rrents inBresson’s
work . This reread ing is particu larly provocative in the prison films that featu re
criminals and criminality as mod es of resistance:

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If we tak e seriou sly the criminal dimensionof A ManEscaped and Pick pock et, we
cansee that crime is not a prelu de toreligiou s conversion. Rather, it is the
beginning of a revolu tionary conceptionof crime presented inthe most incendiary
of all forms.4 7

Price is interested in the traces in Bresson’s work of Su rrealism’s ‘antisocial’

impu lses and its refashioning of the world throu gh ‘rad ical ju xtaposition’.4 8
Ord inary objects, lik e a spoon, a sheet or a pencil are perceived anew by Fontaine
and become, not the instru ments of spiritu al salvation, bu t tools of escape.
Throu gh the u se of rad ical ju xtaposition, Bressoninstru cts viewers intechniqu es
of flight. ‘A ManEscaped ’, says Price, ‘is best u nd erstood … as a long and virtu -
osic d isplay of how objects in prison can be transformed – how matter can be
altered – and thu s how one’s fortu ne canbe altered .’4 9
The alterationof matter and reinventionof objects throu gh rad ical ju xtaposi-
tionis part of Su rrealism’s interest inperceptu al possibilities and the creationof
alternative world s. This is equ ally tru e of Uexk ü ll’s Umwelt. Accord ing toUexk ü ll,
the organism and its su rrou nd ings mu st enter intoa ‘contrapu ntal’ relationshipas
if engaged ina ‘two-part d u et’.5 0 Uexk ü ll’s formu lations evenassu me a su rrealist
flavor: ‘It is this id ea of contrapu ntal harmony that lets Uexk ü ll call the flower bee-
lik e and the bee flowerlik e, or the spid er flylik e, and the tick mammalik e.5 1
When, inone sequ ence, Fontaine remak es the spoonintoa chisel with which
he files away at his cell d oor, Fontaine encou nters the spooncontrapu ntally: the
spoonis nolonger aneating u tensil for scooping u pfood ; its primary qu ality is its
‘chiselness’. The cell itself becomes anUmwelt: Fontaine’s biosemiotic enclosu re.
Init, objects are carriers of meaning for the organism and sod onot exist ou tsid e
of their relationship with it. ‘Every su bject’, writes Uexk ü ll, ‘spins ou t, lik e the
spid er’s thread s, its relations tocertainqu alities of things and weaves them intoa
solid web, which carries its existence’.5 2 The prisoncell, therefore, is anUmwelt,
bu t only if one tak es it tomeansomething more thana confining, captive space.
The Umwelt, writes Jean-Christophe Bailly inThe Animal Sid e (2 0 1 1 ),

designates the opennetwork of possibilities arou nd every body of behavior, the

sk einthat every animal forms for itself by winding itself intothe world according
toits means, with its nervou s system, its senses, its shape, its tools, its mobility.5 3

Fontaine’s cell is, parad oxically, a space of creative abu nd ance. Bresson’s au stere,
minimalist style and u se of montage (fragmentationof bod ies and spaces, close-u ps
of objects and hand s) form the system of vital relations within which things are
highlighted accord ing totheir fu nctional compatibility with the perceiving organ-
ism. InFontaine’s world , a spoonis illu minated while a Bible fad es intothe back -
grou nd . The spoon, not the Holy Book , is what Fontaine need s to carry ou t his
plan. Bresson’s cropped frames, eliminationof spatial context, and u se of high con-
trast shad ows and light d isclose objects intheir lu minou s specificity and continu ity

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with the su bject. What look s lik e d eterminism, inthe title’s foregone conclu sion, is,
inthe Uexk ü lliansense, a pu rposefu l and fu nctional stru ctu re. Knowing Fontaine
will su cceed provid es the film-world with d irectionality, and colors (or, inUexk ü ll’s
mu sical langu age, ‘tones’) objects inju st the right way sothat inencou ntering one
another, Fontaine and his objects achieve contrapu ntal harmony.5 4
After Orsini’s (Jacqu es Ertau d ) failed escape, he cau tions Fontaine: ‘my rope
brok e at the second wall. You ’ll need hook s.’ Fontaine replies: ‘What hook s? How?
What with?’ Orisni whispers back : ‘The frame of you r lamp.’ At this, Bressoncu ts
toFontaine’s face inprofile as he look s u p, thentoa point-of-view shot of the light
onthe wall above. The lampnolonger has a lighting ‘tone’ bu t a ‘metalwork ’ tone.
With his new perceptionof the lamp, Fontaine will d isassemble its frame and mak e
hook s for his rope. Onreceiving a parcel from home with clothes, blank ets and jam,
Fontaine exclaims: ‘What resou rces!’ Bu t rather thaneat or change ou t of his blood-
stained shirt, Fontaine tears the clothes intostrips and says invoiceover: ‘Tant pis!
Il fallait’ (Toobad . I had to). Read inlight of Fontaine’s su ccessfu l escape, filmic
objects tak e onmeaning as instru ments of flight. Knowing Fontaine as ‘the being
whoflees’, we enter intohis Umwelt and see throu gh his eyes. Cou ld we not say,
moreover, that inhis relationtoobjects, Fontaine (lik e Uexk ü ll’s flowers and bees)
becomes spoonlik e, hook lik e, or ropelik e?
I am not su ggesting that Bresson has mad e an overtly Uexk ü llian film. As a
critical framework , however, Umwelt theory strives toresolve qu estions of both
physical (mechanistic) and metaphysical (transcend ental) d eterminism that are at
the heart of Bresson’s film. The Umwelt helps id entify Fontaine’s constru ctive rela-
tiontoobjects as world -forming. Most significantly, the Umwelt shed s a d ifferent
light on Fontaine’s creatu reliness and Bresson’s antihu manism, not least when
compared tothe cinematic Umwelt of Microcosmos.
Su btitled The People of the Grass, Microcosmos is stru ctu red as d ay-in-a-life
of insects living in the u nd erbru sh of a French mead ow. Instead of showing
extraord inary or u nu su al insects inhigh-thrill situ ations of pred ationand mating
typical of natu re films, Microcosmos featu res extraord inary footage of everyd ay
creatu res d oing everyd ay things. Unlik e the growing bod y of spectacu lar natu re
d ocu mentaries (su ch as the BBC prod u ctions narrated by David Attenborou gh),
Microcosmos contains no voiceover narration (save for two short excerpts that
frame the film at both end s, reminiscent of storytellers intrad itional fairytales).
The film opens, not u nlik e David Lynch’s Blu e Velvet (1 9 8 6 ), with aerial shots
of clou d s and the mead ow. This is the world as we k now it. As the camera glid es
d ownintothe u nd ergrowth, the d imensions of the world shift and ad ju st tothe
d etail and size of insect life. Uexk ü ll notes the ‘possibility of mak ing visible
processes that are too qu ick for ou r hu man time-speed , su ch as the beating of
bird ’s or an insect’s wings’, u sing slow-motion cinematography. ‘Ju st as slow
motionslows d ownthe processes of motion, sod oes time-lapse photography accel-
erate them’.5 5 For their own foray into the world of insects, Nu rid sany and
Pérennou relied onad vanced cinematography.5 6 Ina series of set pieces shot ou t-

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d oors and inthe stu d iowe see bees, wasps, spid ers, caterpillars, beetles, mosqu i-
toes, ants (as well as a pair of snails) whose behaviou r belies the conventional view
of insects as alienand efficient machines. Splend id d isplays of colou rs and shapes
accompany actions that seem sk ilfu l, tend er or playfu l.
The similarities betweenMicrocosmos and A ManEscaped are not merely cos-
metic, not simply a case of the former being a miniatu re of the latter. Nor is it the
fact that Nu rid sany and Pérennou cite Bressonas one of their maininspirations.5 7
Compare Fontaine’s exploits to a k ey scene in Microcosmos, in which a d u ng
beetle (also k nown as the sacred scarab or Scarabaeu s sacer) stru ggles to free a
d u ng ball impaled ona thorn. Inwhat way d oes the beetle resemble Fontaine?
The protagonists in both films – a beetle and a man – u nd ertak e a physical
task , solving a problem that requ ires d exterity, attentionand effort, whose final
objective concerns the qu estionof freed om. Inboth films, liberty and bond age are
not only concrete bu t broad ly philosophical pred icaments. Microcosmos raises
qu estions abou t the possibility of insect agency: is the beetle free tod etermine its
actions? Towhat extent d oes ‘it’ exercise ju d gment? Are the scarab’s actions con-
sciou s or merely reflexive? What d owe k now of the beetle’s interior world ? These
qu estions pertainju st as well toFontaine.
The beetle is su bject to the physical laws of matter. Yet while we k now, or
think we k now, that this creatu re is toosimple toexperience its stru ggle inexis-
tential terms, still we see it try ou t d ifferent angles, persisting in its mission.
However strong the u rge to explain what we see as strictly mechanistic, there
remains ‘visible’ an interior zone of the animal perceiving, acting and reacting,
from the insid e ou t, as it were, tak ing heed and respond ing, ‘think ing’ the envi-
ronment it fu nctionally inhabits. ‘It’s really moving’, Nu rid sany explains onthe
DVD interview,

watching this animal proving intelligence isn’t ju st link ed tothe nu mber of neu rons.
He considers all sorts of possible solu tions, tries them ou t and fails, u ntil he finds
the one that solves his problem. Tosee su ch aninsignificant little animal, maybe not
think ing, bu t trying all these different solu tions is something really moving.5 8

Uexk ü ll insisted that organisms, inclu d ing beetles and tick s and d owntoind ivid -
u al cells, are not machines bu t ‘machine operators’, since their actions cannot be
explained solely as reflexes:

Everywhere, it is the case of machine operators and not of machines, for all the
individu al cells of the reflex arc act by transfer of stimu li, not by a transfer
movement. Bu t a stimu lu s has tobe noticed [gemerk t] by the su bject and does not
appear at all inobjects’.5 9

Microcosmos tu rns insects, whom Nu rid sany d escribes as those ‘little figu rines
with impassive mask s’, intoaffecting characters. Nu rid sany and Pérennou stress

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Microcosmos: Le peuple de l’herbe (1996): the scarab beetle in a series of physical tasks freeing the
dungball

that actions are filmed ‘practically inreal time’, withou t special effects, and that
charges of anthropomorphism are misgu id ed :

those whoconsider anthropomorphism tobe su ch a crime are seriou sly wrong. To

talk abou t animals saying they have nothing todowith u s is a hu ge mistak e.
Anthropomorphism – attribu ting hu mancharacteristics toanimals based on
excessive comparison– is oftenconfu sed with the parallels you candraw between
twodifferent animals.6 0

At times Microcosmos plays lik e a comed y of world s (as when, inone stu d io
scene, ants gather arou nd a d ropof water lik e sheeparou nd a pond ). Inthe scarab
sequ ence, d ramatic and emotional tension issu es from the u nravelling of beetle
being, sod ifferent yet alsosimilar toou rs. The scarab’s Sisypheanbattle is not the
prod u ct of false or excessive hu manising. Unlik e the heavily ed ited animal films
Bazind islik ed , inwhich ed iting fabricates behaviou r, Microcosmos reveals actions
that tak e place inthe continu ity of space and time.6 1
A ManEscaped and Microcosmos are examples of zoomorphic realism. What
strik es u s as d ehu manisation in Bresson has the reverse, hu manising, effect in
Microcosmos. The cinematic gestu re is opposed – invok ing mechanicity inBresson,
allaying it inMicrocosmos – bu t the resu lt is the same. Inboth films, the contou rs
of anUmwelt, its coming intobeing as a su bjective engagement betweenthe living
being and the objects arou nd it, challenge anthropocentric conceits rooted in
red u ctive hu manand nonhu manontologies.

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Twoord ers of d ehu manisationare at work inA ManEscaped . The colloqu ial
d ehu manisationof prisoners by the Vichy au thorities is conventionally negative,
bu t it d oes not interest Bressonvery mu ch. The film’s ownd ehu manising proce-
d u res are positive: they stripFontaine of empty hu manist tropes (the ‘triu mph of
the hu manspirit’ or the ‘hu mancond ition’) and place him ina u niqu e, world ly
relationwith objects. Fontaine’s powers are exercised withinthe coord inates of his
world whether d etermined by God or by Natu re or, inSpinoza’s parallelism, God -
or-Natu re.6 2 Either way, Fontaine – lik e every living being on earth – exists
between law and freed om, between the system and variations of the system, in
what Bailly calls ‘the u nd ecid ability betweencod e and improvisation’: ‘if there is
ind eed a program, as has been claimed over and over, there is also interpreta-
tion’.6 3 This is what I tak e Bressontomeanwhenhe says, inthe epigraph tothis
essay, that a ‘system d oes not regu late everything’ bu t ‘is a bait for something’.
Hu manisationinMicrocosmos neither mak es the beetle more lik e u s, nor su b-
su mes his world u nd er ou r gaze. Instead , the film ask s what ‘lik e u s’ might mean,
wheninevolu tionary terms, it is we whoare lik e the beetle rather thanthe other
way arou nd . Why is the scarab’s ad ventu re less Sisyphean, than, say, Lau rel and
Hard y’s inThe Mu sic Box (1 9 3 2 )? Meaning is creatu re-specific, bu t meaning as
su ch – the biosemiotic striving of organisms – is u niversal innatu re. Microcosmos
rejects the Heid eggerianid ea of animals’ poverty inworld . It fu rther ask s that we
loosenou r gripover notions lik e joy, stru ggle or love as u niqu e properties of the
hu manUmwelt.
My comparative read ing of A Man Escaped and Microcosmos reveals that
Bresson, and Nu rid sany and Pérrenou share a single broad problematic: the u nre-
solved tensionbetweend eterminism and freed om, whether inrelationtohu man
or nonhu mananimal life. As we glimpse the film-world s before u s, what appears,
inart’s alchemical triu mph, as open, only partly regu lated systems, may yet be (as
is evid ent inBresson’s later work ) the u nwavering playing ou t of natu ral law.

Notes
1 . Jak ob vonUexk ü ll, A Foray intothe World s of Animals and Hu mans with A Theory
of Meaning, trans. Joseph D. O’Neill (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
2 0 1 0 ), p. 1 3 9 ; hereafter Foray.
2 . Robert Bresson, Notes onthe Cinematographer, trans. JonathanGriffin(Copenhagen:
GreenInteger Book s, 1 9 9 7 ), p. 2 1 .
3 . Wend y Wheeler, The Whole Creatu re: Complexity, Biosemiotics and the Evolu tionof
Cu ltu re (Lond on: Lawrence and Wishart, 2 0 0 6 ), p. 1 1 0 . The term ‘life-world ’
(Lebenswelt) comes from Hu sserl.
4 . See Serge Daney, ‘The Screenof Fantasy (Bazinand Animals)’, trans. Mark A. Cohen,
inIvone Margu lies (ed .), Rites of Realism: Essays onCorporeal Cinema (Du rham,
NC: Du k e University Press, 2 0 0 3 ), pp. 3 2 –4 2 ; Jennifer Fay, ‘Seeing/Loving Animals:
And ré Bazin’s Posthu manism’, Jou rnal of Visu al Cu ltu re vol. 7 (April 2 0 0 8 ),

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pp. 4 1 –6 4 ; Seu ng-hoonJeong, ‘Animals: AnAd ventu re inBazin’s Ontology’, in

Du d ley And rew and Hervé Jou bert-Lau rencin(ed s), Opening Bazin: Postwar Film
Theory and Its Afterlife (New York : Oxford University Press, 2 0 1 1 ), pp. 1 7 7 –8 5 ; and
my chapter ‘Cine-Zoos’, inAnat Pick , Creatu rely Poetics: Animality and Vu lnerability
inLiteratu re and Film (New York : Colu mbia University Press, 2 0 1 1 ), pp. 1 0 3 –3 0 .
5 . Pick , Creatu rely Poetics.
6 . DorionSagan, ‘Introd u ction: Umwelt after Uexk ü ll’, inUexk ü ll, Foray, pp. 1 –3 4 , 8 .
7 . And ré Bazin, ‘The Ontology of the Photographic Image’, inWhat Is Cinema?, vol. 1 ,
trans. Hu gh Gray (Berk eley: University of California Press, 2 0 0 5 [1 9 6 7 ]), pp. 9 –1 6 ,
15.
8 . Bresson, Notes onthe Cinematographer, p. 3 6 .
9 . See Tom Gu nning, ‘Moving Away from the Ind ex: Cinema and the Impressionof
Reality’, inGertru d Koch, Volk er Pantenbu rg and SimonRothö ler (ed s), Screen
Dynamics: Mapping the Bord ers of Cinema (Vienna: SYNEMA, 2 0 1 2 ), pp. 4 2 –6 0 ;
FrancescoCasetti, ‘Su tu red Reality: Film, from Photographic toDigital’, trans. Daniel
Leisawitz, October vol. 1 3 8 (Fall 2 0 1 1 ), pp. 9 5 –1 0 6 ; and Daniel Morgan, ‘Rethink ing
Bazin: Ontology and Realist Aesthetics’, Critical Inqu iry vol. 3 2 (Spring 2 0 0 6 ),
pp. 4 4 3 –8 1 .
1 0 . Raymond Du rgnat, ‘The Negative Visionof Robert Bresson’, inJames Qu and t (ed .),
Robert Bresson(Toronto: TorontoInternational Film Festival Grou p, 1 9 9 8 ), pp. 1 4 9 ,
4 1 1 –5 1 .
1 1 . Ibid ., p. 4 2 0 .
1 2 . Ibid .
1 3 . Ibid ., p. 4 2 1 .
1 4 . Clarice Lispector, The Hou r of the Star, trans. Giovanni Pontiero(Manchester:
Carcanet, 1 9 9 2 [1 9 7 7 ]), p. 1 1 .
1 5 . Du rgnat, ‘The Negative Visionof Robert Bresson,’ p. 4 2 0 .
1 6 . Ibid ., pp. 4 2 1 –2 .
1 7 . FrancescoCasetti, Theories of Cinema 1 9 4 5 -1 9 9 5 , trans. Francesca Chiosri and
Elizabeth Gard Bartolini-Salimbeni, with Thomas Kelso(Au stin: University of Texas
Press, 1 9 9 9 ), p. 3 9 .
1 8 . Du rgnat, ‘The Negative Visionof Robert Bresson’, p. 4 2 3 , emphasis ad d ed .
1 9 . Brett Bu chananwrites lu cid ly onUexk ü ll’s biology and its significance for su bsequ ent
theorisations of life incontinental philosophy inOnto-Ethologies: The Animal
Environments of Uexk ü ll, Heid egger, Merleau -Ponty, and Deleu ze (New York : SUNY
Press, 2 0 0 8 ). Onbiosemiotics, see Jesper Hoffmeyer’s Biosemiotics: AnExamination
intothe Signs of Life and the Life of Signs, trans. Jesper Hoffmeyer and Donald
Favareau (Lond on: University of ScrantonPress, 2 0 0 8 ); and Wend y Wheeler (ed .),
Biosemiotics: Natu re/Cu ltu re/Science/Semiosis (OpenHu manities Press, 2 0 1 1 ),
http://www.livingbook sabou tlife.org/book s/Biosemiotics.
2 0 . Uexk ü ll, Foray, p. 4 9 .
2 1 . Kalevi Ku ll, ‘Jak ob vonUexk ü ll: AnIntrod u ction,’ inWheeler, Biosemiotics,
http://www.zbi.ee/~ k alevi/k u lljvu .pd f, p. 7 .

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2 2 . OnKant’s ‘Copernicantu rn’ that shifts philosophical inqu iry from objective reality to
the cond itions of su bjective perception(which for Kant are transcend ental or a priori),
see, for example, Claire Colebrook ’s Philosophy and Post-stru ctu ralist Theory
(Ed inbu rgh: Ed inbu rgh University Press, 2 0 0 5 ). See alsoBu chanan, Onto-Ethologies,
pp. 1 3 –1 4 .
2 3 . Uexk ü ll, Foray, p. 1 4 4 .
2 4 . Ibid ., p. 1 4 4
2 5 . Ibid ., pp. 4 4 –6 .
2 6 . GiorgioAgamben, The Open: Manand Animal, trans. KevinAttell (Stanford , CA:
Stanford University Press, 2 0 0 4 ), p. 4 5 .
2 7 . Ibid ., p. 4 6 .
2 8 . MartinHeid egger, The Fu nd amental Concepts of Metaphysics: World , Finitu d e,
Solitu d e, trans. William McNeill and Nicholas Walk er (Bloomington: Ind iana
University Press, 1 9 9 5 ). See especially Part II, Chapter 3 , pp. 1 8 5 –2 0 0 .
2 9 . Ibid ., pp. 2 4 6 –5 3 .
3 0 . Ibid ., p. 1 9 8 .
3 1 . Uexk ü ll, Foray, p. 5 0
3 2 . Ibid ., pp. 4 4 –5 .
3 3 . Bu chanan, Onto-Ethologies, p. 2 4 .
3 4 . Ibid ., p. 2 3 .
3 5 . Uexk ü ll, Foray, p. 1 4 4 .
3 6 . Ibid ., p. 2 8 .
3 7 . Bu chanan, Onto-Ethologies, p. 2 8 .
3 8 . Ibid ., p. 2 9 .
3 9 . Ibid ., p. 2 .
4 0 . Uexk ü ll, Foray, p. 4 1 .
4 1 . Ibid ., p. 2 .
4 2 . Oninsects as robotic or cybernetic systems, see Ju ssi Parik k a’s Insect Med ia: An
Archaeology of Animals and Technology (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
2 0 1 0 ).
4 3 . John3 : 8 : ‘The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sou nd thereof, bu t
canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: sois every one that is bornof
the Spirit.’
4 4 . Bresson, Notes onthe Cinematographer, p. 3 2 .
4 5 . Ibid ., p. 9 9 .
4 6 . Su sanSontag, ‘Spiritu al Style inthe Films of Robert Bresson’, inAgainst Interpretation
(New York : Dell Pu blishing, 1 9 6 9 ), pp. 1 8 1 –9 8 , 1 9 2 .
4 7 . BrianPrice, Neither God nor Master: Robert Bressonand Rad ical Politics
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2 0 1 1 ), p. 1 6 .
4 8 . Ibid ., p. 2 5 .
4 9 . Ibid ., p. 2 6 .
5 0 . Hoffmeyer, Biosemiotics, p. 1 7 2 .
5 1 . Ibid ., p. 1 7 2 . See alsoUexk ü ll, Foray, p. 1 9 0 .

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5 2 . Uexk ü ll, Foray, p. 5 2 .

5 3 . Jean-Christophe Bailly, The Animal Sid e, trans. Catherine Porter (New York : Ford ham
University Press, 2 0 1 1 ), p. 4 8 .
5 4 . Onthe tonality of things and the mu sicality of natu re, see Uexk ü ll, Foray, pp. 1 4 8 ,
1 8 5 –9 .
5 5 . Uexk ü ll, Foray, p. 7 1 .
5 6 . The technology took twoyears tod evelop. Tocaptu re the flu id ity of movement from
the insects’ perspective, the film-mak ers u sed a pu rpose-bu ilt robotic camera.
Enhanced lights were need ed for the stu d ioshoots. The intense heat generated by the
cu stomised theatre lights requ ired special filters toprotect the tiny ‘actors’. Images
were filmed at u pto5 0 0 frames per second thenslowed d owntwenty times, enabling
strik ing close-u ps and d etailed motion. Time-lapse sequ ences served toshow the
movement of plants.
5 7 . Scott MacDonald , ‘Interview with Clau d e Nu rid sany and Marie Pérennou ’, in
Ad ventu res of Perception. Cinema as Exploration: Essays/Interviews (Berk eley:
University of California Press, 2 0 0 9 ), pp. 1 8 4 –9 8 , 1 8 6 –7 .
5 8 . ‘Le Mond e d e Microcosmos: Entretienavec les réalisateu rs, inMicrocosmos:
Le Peu ple d e l’herbe d vd (Arcad es Vid eo, 2 0 0 3 ).
5 9 . Uexk ü ll, Foray, p. 4 6 .
6 0 . ‘Le Mod e d e Microcosmos’.
6 1 . Bazinwas especially critical of the films of JeanTou rane, whose animal protagonists
had tok eepstill, their actions created by ed iting (and hu manising props lik e hats or
bowties). In‘The Virtu es and Limitations of Montage’, Bazinwrites that ‘the apparent
actionand the meaning we attribu te toit d onot exist … prior tothe assembling of the
film’ (4 4 ). Montage becomes ‘that abstract creator of meaning, which preserves the
state of u nreality d emand ed by the spectacle’ (4 5 ). For Bazinthis fau lty u se of ed iting
mark s the d ifference betweenappropriate and inappropriate anthropomorphism. See
Bazin, What Is Cinema?, vol. 1 , pp. 4 1 –5 2 .
6 2 . Along Spinozistic lines, the tworealities are ind istingu ishable. Price’s cou ntercu ltu ral
read ing of Bressonas political shifts emphasis from the d ominant, su pernatu ral
preoccu pations of Bressoncriticism toward immanently social ones. Granted ,
rehashing religiou s interpretations of Bressonafter read ing Price feels a little
complacent, bu t whether one read s Bressonas a transcend ental or as a political film-
mak er, his interest insystems and mechanisms, and their implications for freed om,
remains k ey.
6 3 . Bailly, The Animal Sid e, p. 5 4 .

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