andrew, dudley. of canons and quietism

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Society for Cinema & Media Studies

Of Canons and Quietism: Dudley Andrew Responds to Janet Staiger's "The Politics of FilmCanons" ("Cinema Journal," Spring 1985)Author(s): Dudley AndrewSource: Cinema Journal, Vol. 25, No. 1 (Autumn, 1985), pp. 55-58Published by: University of Texas Press on behalf of the Society for Cinema & Media Studies

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DialogueOf Canons and Quietism: Dudley Andrew responds to

Janet Staiger's The Politics of Film Canons

(CinemaJournal,Spring 1985)The argument over canons in film is a minor skirmish in the general politics ofAmerican culture. William Bennett, former head of NEH, now our Secretaryof

Education,recentlyappealedto the notion of a core of essential texts whichit is the

duty of the humanitiesto guardand disseminatefor the good of society.' In takingup the issue of the canon, even taking it up from the political left, Janet Staigergives awayto the establishmentmuchof the game by giving awaythe true subver-siveness of texts. Staiger has astutelycharacterized he politics of textualityin the

cinema, and if textual politics were all there were to cinema, I'd have nothing toadd. But there is more.

Let's look at this canon;not its enumeration,but its existence and position.Some type of canon has alwaysserved the institutionsof culture in their quest to

guideandcontrolart.By permittingsome books to enter the Bible,others wererele-

gated to the wastelandof apocrypha,where there is weepingand gnashingof teeth;

by teaching Shakespeare'severyword,the dramasand epics of his contemporariesweredismissed. So culturelifts up certain texts and repressesothers.The same hasbeen true of film culture:when cinema lobbied to enter the realm of the canoniz-

able, the realm of culture, specific films harboring specific values were retainedwhile others wererelegatedto cataloguesand triviagames.Firstwasthe reignof theart cinema of Fellini, Antonioni,and Bergman.Then, it gave way to the auteursfawned over

byFrench critics like Truffaut and

Godard(Nicholas Ray,Howard

Hawks,VincentMinnelli,ErnstLubitsch).The auteurapproachstill holdssway,butnow in competitionwithothersystemsof evaluation,such as that of politicallycom-mittedjournalsand schools for whom films are accepted or rejected accordingtocriteriarelatingto theiracceptanceof orchallengeto dominantsystemsof represen-tation. And, of course, there are such standardmethodsof canon formationas thevarious Ten Best lists and the AcademyAwards,whichclaimto representvaluesof art and entertainment or the largerpopulace.

Eventhis reminderof the differentattitudes heldby thoseinterested n the cin-ema displaysthe often neglected truth that cultureis not a single thing, but a com-

petition among groups. And, competitionis

organizedthrough powerclusterswe

can thinkof as institutions.In ourownfield certain institutionsstandout in marble

buildings.The NEH is one; but in a differentway,so is Hollywood,or at least the

Academyof Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Standardfilm critics constitute a

sub-groupof the communication nstitution,and film professorsmakeup a parallelgroup, especiallyas they collect at conferencesand in societies.Argumentsby these

groupsover the value of cinema and of particular ilms rehearsein miniature themovementof culturalhistory.Bennett is aware of somethinglike this whenhe aimsto have the humanitiesplay a more centralrole in culture.He hopes to unify thevarious academic institutionssurroundinghis key texts in a waythat will make the

DudleyAndrew s chair of the Departmentof ComparativeLiteratureand Head of the FilmStudies Programat the Universityof Iowa.

Cinema Journal 25, No. 1, Fall 1985 55







powerstructureof the countryrecognizeas importantboth the texts and theirpro-

mulgation.In opposing him, Staiger and I are performingpreciselyour functions in the

moremarginal nstitutionof the academy.We are holdingout for othervalues thanthose promotedin Washington,or traditionalAmerica-values of resistance,per-

haps even revolution.Bennett needn't worry; he academyhas alwaysbeen the siteof non-normative iews;the systemprospersby urging its malcontentsto band to-

gether on campuses.Some arguethat it prospersby reactingto the frictioncaused

by those on the margins.In short,if we arguewith Bennett on the basis of his insti-tutionalinterests,otherscan arguewith us on the basisof ours.Thereis no final ar-biter in this contest, though there are victors, or survivors.History prints theirnames.

What, then, should film scholars do in history?Some, such as GeraldMast,have maintaineda laissez-faireattitude towardfilm canons,assumingthat human

beings willsave those films that they require. Unwillingto step in from on high and

arbitrate aste, Mastwill be comfortablewith the canonwhich is inevitable.He willuse and work with it in order to refine the particularvarieties of texts and values

that our culture,for a plenitudeof often contradictory easons,has decided to re-tain.Forhim,in short,the academichas no special rightto establishcanons,but sheorhe does havetheexpertise o discriminate mongthe films that havecome downto

us. Bennettstandsreadyto applaudthe academicas conservator,but he wouldstill

pose the question, Conservatorof what? and force Mast to discriminateamongvalues,and to discriminateamongthevaluesof variousvalues,to create a hierarchyof films.

The politicallycommittedacademics,representedon this issuebyJanetStaiger,

are fully preparedto accommodateBennettand deliver a hierarchy, hough surelynot one he wouldaccept. Staigerconcludes that since canons are inevitable and in-

evitablya matterof powerand politics,an obligationfalls on every sociallyrespon-sible academicto push towarda correctrewritingof the canon. Of course,correct-

ness for her is not what it is for Bennett. He is the enemy,since he and his canon

standfor the statusquo. She wouldcall upon WalterBenjamin's tradition of re-

sistance in locatingfilms and genreswhichquestionor deconstruct he statusquo,that are self-consciousabout ideologyand representation,and whose ambitionsfor

newrepresentationare tantamount o directlypoliticalambitions.Oursensitivitytothe responsibilityof the image industry or havingdefined,and nowfor redefining,

masculinityand femininity(both as social roles and as types of experience)liftsStaiger's positionfromthe backwatersof leftist banterinto the mainstreamof cul-tural discourse.We are readyas a society to considerthe social effects of the filmsand televisionshowswe live with or cling to.

If it weremerelya matterof pointingto the importanceof canons and notingthe impact of one's choice, my job here would be over. All of us (Bennett in his

realm, Mast, Staiger, and I in ours) agree to that. But my criticism touches thenatureof the canonitself,andthe implicationsof anydebatethatsubstitutesdiscus-sion of canonsfordiscussionof art.I wantto placea permeablebarrierbetweenthe

categoryof art and the institutional ool of the canon.While it

maybe normalfor institutionsto

upholdsome values while

repressingothers,there is nothingnormalabout art doing this. Here is whereBennett funda-

56 Cinema Journal 25, No. 1, Fall 1985







mentallygoes astray,at least in relationto those disciplinesdevoted to the studyof

artisticdiscourse.Althoughmost artworkshave been constructedwithinprecisecul-tural molds, the differenceof art is preciselyits resistanceto any final definition.Whentexts proverichenough to activateinterpretationsand evaluations,even suc-

cessivelycontradictoryones, that richnessrequiresstudy.

If any public act confoundsthe bureaucracyof culture,it is the experienceofart. Doubtlessthis is whyRolandBarthes,SusanSontag,and so manyother criticshave reached for an erotic vocabulary o describe it. Art worksintimately.It alsoworksmomentarily.This temporalontology s exactlywhatBergsonand Heidegger,in verydifferentways,madethe cornerstoneof theirphilosophies.Acanonlives as a

spatializedmodel of art. It is a bureaucratic ist meant to deal with a situation thatexceeds bureaucracy.Heidegger would call it an irrelevant,reified constructionmeant to hem in and control the temporalopening of Being that art bringsabout.The humanitiesare differentfromotherdisciplines,becausetheirobjectof studyisnot an object at all, but an experience,and experiencecan't be listed in card cata-

logues. Heidegger would let the leftists and the rightists fight over the propercanon,for whatinterestshim is priorto any politics of culture.It lies in the shared

opennessto Being that art promises.I emphasize sharedopenness, for art's inti-

macy is the opposite of hermetic.Indeed, for Heideggerand others,art asks for a

utopian communityof experience.Bennett's academic heaven of professorstrans-

mitting a canon to the public has no part in that utopia.Heideggerianthoughtcanalwaysbe dismissed,since it virtuallydismisses tself

from the ordinary orumof discourse. But I thinkin this case it providesan impor-tant limit to oppose to that other limit, the inevitablepolitics of the canon. We

might say that art negotiates the space between experience and meaning, or be-

tweenperceptionand knowledge.This space can be filled in manyways.Heideggerinsists that knowledge s neverable to fullyaccountforwhat is revealedof Being in

perception.On the otherhand,the academicinstitutions,especiallyas representedby NEH, collapsethe space, assumingthatknowledge s not onlythe goal of our in-terest in art,but our methodof experiencingart. This would be as truefor Staigeras forBennett;both willuse art andits meaningsas counters n the contest overcul-tural hegemony.I realize that an easy cynicismattends my characterization.Ben-nett and Staigerfunction as the systemdemands,one from the governmental enter

(a political institution),the other from the marginsof the academy(a traditionalinstitutionof resistance).Butno institutionencompasses he central ssueof art,our

experienceof it. This dependson its temporality,a temporality hatmakes t impos-sible to corral.If I appearto be takinga middleview betweenthese limits,it is not out of cow-

ardice.Art,I believe, is the radicalmiddle between the uncodedandthe coded. Thisis its sourceof renewalfor personsand for culture.Nowcultureitself, whileposingas the locus of receivedmeanings, constantlyrenews tselfby attendingto the novel-ties history brings to it. That is, its coded meaningsare subject to revision on thebasisof its experience,history.Anartworkreatedcanonically s partof the received

ideology; whereas, treated as Heidegger would treat it, it is unincorporableand

meaninglessin its otherness.This conundrumis clarified

bythe

dualityat the

verycenter of the term

meaning. Culture s the repositoryof that whichpersists beyondan experience,

Cinema Journal 25, No. 1, Fall 1985 57







its meaningwhich we carry orward o our next experience.Butmeaning, equally, sthat which makes a differenceagainstthe norm,as structural inguisticshas taughtus. Unless something distinguishesitself as different,it is meaningless.Hence,cul-turalexperienceis an interplaybetweenpreservationof the coded and adjustmentto thatwhichdoesn't fit the codes.This oscillation s at the basis of art itself,which

begins by arrestingour attentionwith its particularity nd ends byjoiningourotherexperiencesas we interpretand make the art part of ourselves.

This binary wayof characterizing he life of texts and of cultureinvites a false

rigidificationon its own.Is the gap between the momentary xperienceof a text andits ultimateposition or positionsin the public sphere reallyunleapable?Not com-

pletely,forbeyondthe privateassociationmost of us havewithart,there is the issueof its public reception.Bennett's great foundingtexts and Benjamin'sor Staiger'ssubversive ones don't bear their meaningwith them. They carry opportunities or

meaningwhich are put into play by social groups.Just as there is a politicsof can-

ons, there must be a prior politics of reading. Canonshave evolved throughthe

ages, but so has the rhetoricof reading.Obviouslyall this has vast pedagogical consequences. If texts live a partly

autonomousexistence and aremobilizedby those in authority,educatorsneed to letstudentsknowaboutthe recalcitranceof texts and the politicsof mobilization.The

studyof cinema distills these issues. It shows,first of all, that even if twentymillion

spectatorsare interestedenoughto see Amadeus,only some of thosespectatorswillhave the institutionalright to specify the significanceof this film. Throughtheirvariousexpertisesandinterests, ilmmakers, ritics,andscholarswillposition his filmforthe culture,without,I insist,exhausting t. Studentsneed to learnabout textsandaboutexpertise.Moreimportant, hey need to learnthe discoursesof both.

And discourse s a rhetoric.Staigerunderstands his fully, hopingto alterread-ing habitsto makewayfor a perfectedsociety.She sees the canonas a site for alter-

ation and so doesn't shrinkfromacceptingits importance.It is a tool for cultural

change. In this she respondsto TerryEagleton'sclarion call in the final pages of

LiteraryTheory,a call for a rhetoric of powerin the service of social goals.2But by engaging in an all out rhetoricof power,Staiger and Eagletonretract

fromtextstheir ownpower o amazeandperplexus. I havenothing againstStaiger'ssocial goals;and I applaudher ingenuityat enlistingtexts to promotethose goals.I

must, however,repeatmy priorallegianceto the unpredictable ertilityof the texts

she wouldmerelyuse. Or,to be moreprecise,I wantto see that balancebetweenex-

perienceand use maintained,that balancebetweenthe intimate and the social thatis not only at the core of the phenomenonof art, but is at the core of whatever s

liberal and liberating in the humanities.

1. WilliamBennett, ToRecover Legacy, ChroniclefHigherEducation,8Nov.1985,16-21.

2. TerryEagleton, LiteraryTheory:An Introduction Minneapolis:Universityof Minnesota

Press, 1983).

58 Cinema Journal 25, No. 1, Fall 1985





andrew, dudley. of canons and quietism

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