When we think of story we think first (at least I do) of short stories or novels. Of course, movies and theater and opera tell stories, and music and dance can also. Melanie’s Moby Dick series of fabric panels is closely tied to that story, though, as she says, not as conventional illustration. I’m beginning to think that story is a notion not at all confined to the literary arts. In fact, I suspect that stories don’t even require language–though it’s pretty hard to communicate about them without it.
I’ve been wondering lately about the role of story in viewing pictures, especially pictures that do not “illustrate” or document a known or guessable story. And as a landscape photographer, I’m especially interested in pictures that are about place. I don’t have any grand theory, but I’d like to present some intriguing elements that a larger understanding should encompass.
The filmmaker Wim Wenders, who has studied medicine, languages, psychology, and philosophy, as well as painted and played music, gave a talk at Princeton that he titled “A Sense of Place.” His thesis is that story has come to completely dominate over place and character, particularly in American movies, but also in other media and in the culture generally.
People and places have become the scenery of stories,
they are no longer its origins.
In most American movies today,
the stories manipulate the characters.
People are the victims of the events.
And events, most of the time,
are nothing but a chain of spectacular action effects.
In contrast, Wenders’ movies “all start like this: as a place wanting to be told.” This is beginning to sound closer to what a painter’s or a photographer’s motivation might be in making a picture. A key aspect is that the story to be told is not specified. In fact, it will not be told by the artist, but by the viewer. It will be based on what the picture suggests to the viewer, which depends on some things the artist can control, and many s/he cannot. It may be that the stories the viewer ends up telling himself or herself are what determine how compelling the picture is.
Another element stems from the Australian Aboriginal art I’ve been learning about, which traditionally is based on stories about place that are of fundamental cultural importance. Wenders also makes the connection and puts it nicely:
Their belief, their religion is “The Land”,
and its storytelling capacities….
They are obliged, each one of them,
to keep a stretch of their land alive,
by keeping its story alive.
When they let that story die,
when they let that land die along with its story,
they themselves die with it.
They are “singing their country”,
and remember:
Homer was singing the Odyssey, not reading it.
It seems that, in front of a picture, I tend to start telling myself stories. I don’t mean developed narratives, but I imagine myself seeing or being in that scene, and what might be happening, or what I might be feeling or thinking. This is true even for quite abstract work, though it becomes more more of an interior story, I feel more a mental breeze than the wind.
Does story play a role for you in viewing pictures? Do stories start happening if you see a deer in the woods?
More about the Moment.
Wonderful coloration of your picture and great link to A Sense of Place.
I read Wilm Wenders lecture, totally spell-bound. But near the end, I started to separate myself from his opinions. I don’t believe that the loss of a sense of place in American movie means that ”that shift will drastically shape and form future generations”. I bet that at some time, local color will be reinvented. There is too much of a sense of national identity around the world for a sense of place to be lost for a long time.
I will have to think about your final questions.
D.,
“The moment,” especially Cartier-Bresson’s “the decisive moment,” is almost sacred to some photographers. But I could argue that it’s not the moment per se that the photograph is “about.” Rather, the critical moment, say of the man leaping over a puddle, is simply an exceptionally evocative one that facilitates building a story of what might have happened before, what comes next, why this is happening… To consider the image above: To the extent it’s about moment, it emphasizes the eye contact between the deer and the photographer. But much more about their relationship comes from imagining what precedes–who was stalking whom?–and follows–did the deer take flight? continue on? You might remember similar encounters you’ve had. And so a story, or possible stories, enter our minds.
I’m not saying story is necessarily more important than moment, but I’m wondering if one can look for long without a story arising. Or maybe it needs to arise first, or at least be promised, in order to keep one looking.
Birgit,
I hope you’re right, and Wenders himself admits he may be getting carried away. Personally, I’m very worried that fewer and fewer people are having outside-of-city experiences, and often little appreciation of the ecological changes we are causing and their effects. Why should they care about these places they never go and sense no connection with? It better be that stories, including those that science tells us, can have an impact.
S.,
What I like about Melville is that he tells the story.
Steve:
The man’s foot has an appointment with the sludge in much the way Harold Edgerton’s bullet did with the apple. It’s a hanging moment before a drastic transformation. I can photograph a ball which might bounce harmlessly away and thus record something typical. Or I can get a shot of a ball about to meet a bat and go over the fence for a game winning home run. The story attached to the second instance is likely to be more fetching.
But Bresson’s image has a narrative: The single wave moving out from the back of the ladder shape tells that the jumper had just pounced on as he was about to pounce off. The “water’ would be differently disturbed had he been standing around. But that distinct point of information simply highlights the overall mystery of the event. Chances are that the leaping man was rewarded for his efforts. Granted that possibility, we are then left to ponder Hank’s choice of event.
D.,
Melville is, by all accounts, an excellent storyteller. I’m also interested in what the semi-abstract panels have to say; their tale is not the same.
Jay,
Yes, the wave suggests a reading of prior moments. It looks to me as if the puddle may be deeper to the right, and we can only wonder how far it goes. I can’t tell if the man in the background by the wheelbarrow is watching, perhaps preparing a guffaw.
Steve:
The man in the background by the wheelbarrow is pondering, as am I, the odd coincidence of the leaping figure on the Railowsky poster. Is it one of those Bresson happy chances that mark his work, or part of a symbolic tapestry woven by the photographer? Goggled Railowsky to find that the name now pertains to what may be a photo agency, as it may have been back then.
Steve:
By the way, is that lovely creature a white tail? She seems to be somewhat wide abeam, which may place her in a different subspecies, or in the vicinity of human habitation.
Jay,
I think you’re right about the white-tail identification. The other possibility here is mule deer, which is less indicated, though I’m not expert enough to rule it out. She’s definitely living near humans.
Steve:
We have entire herds of white tail moving through the suburbs.
Steve,
I guess we want the same thing: I want to know your story and you want me to feel free to realize mine.
Maybe art, at its best, takes us to a place where we are both enthused to reveal.
D.,
If you want more of my story, a similar deer encounter was briefly described elsewhere. Here, I’m principally interested in how the image alone speaks to us. My deer was a recent example at hand, but much better story-telling/generating images for most people would be those of Larry Sultan you introduced us to in a previous post.
“When we think of story we think first (at least I do) of short stories or novels”
Story is a way of ordering experience so that it “makes sense” — intellectual and emotional sense as well as “of the senses” sense. At its best, it’s not a short-circuiting of experience and impressions, but rather a refined and prolonged re-experiencing of them, often, but not always, crafted so that the experience and impressions can be shared with others. In a way, it is a form of abstraction in which the appealing details (humor, drama, perplexity) take prominence and the less appealing details fall away.
My apologies, btw, for being out of touch. I had a big, happy, self-imposed deadline looming (and met) and, in an unrelated incident, my computer had to go out to be de-virused, and — why not? — the bathroom ceiling fell in around the same time. I’m sneaking in some time at the work computer but will respond more thoughtfully to the MD comments as soon as I can.
PS. I would, therefore, argue that Wenders is completely wrong when/if he defines story as events. Events, especially the kind of “spectacular action effects” he rightfully bemoans, are plot, not story.
There’s an old writing-teacher chestnut about the difference between plot and story: A plot is “the king died, then the queen died,” but a story is “the king died, then queen died of grief.” The distinction being the ongoing, unfolding, and (one hopes) compelling explication of the emotional/intellectual significance of the action.
melanie,
I like your distinction between plot and story. I think Wenders would agree. His complaint is that, in too many movies, what should be a story has been reduced to a sequence of events that might be exciting in themselves, but don’t arise in a satisfying way from the (neglected) place and characters.
I could make a similar distinction about reflexive-disdain-posing-as-insight and genuine analysis. From your excerpts, Wenders seems to be conflating the demands of form and genre (an issue of craft) with the strictures of taste (his) and, seemingly, using his taste as a universal criterion of excellence. But I think I’d better wait to have my computer back and follow the link before I go too far off into unsupported territory because of my own drumbeat concerns regarding issues of taste versus issues of craft.
Melanie,
I’ll be interested to hear what you think if you find time to read the Wenders piece. I don’t think he’d deny that personal taste enters into his criticism.
To make your distinction requires addressing the contentious question of how to identify the “demands of form and genre.” Do box office receipts matter? If so, Wenders is in trouble. Critical discussion as an approach is more to my taste. :-) Obviously, my opinions are less grounded than authors’ or filmmakers’.
There is a kind of genius in being able to appeal to a mass audience — and the kind of mass receipts that arise from that ability provoke a great deal of understandable envy. But as with other kinds of genius, the people blessed with this talent make it seem easier than it is.