IMAGE MUSIC TEXT ROLAND BARTHESaig tne is fee; Fr fn, this is nots, since the na sonot go faster oF slower without losing ite pereptval gure. The stl, By instituting a reading that's at on Instantaneous and vert, scorns fogiel time (which 18 ‘nly an operational time); vt teaches us how to dissociate the teshnvea constraint Irom what i the specific me and whic 1s the "ndessribable’ meaning. Perbaps t was the Trading of this otier text (hete in sills) that SME called forwhen hese thata fms ot simply to beseen andheard but to be srtinized and intend fo attentively. This seeing and this hetting are obviously not the postlaton of some simple need to apply the min (hat would be banal, a prous wish) but rater vertable mutation of reading and is sect, te oF flit — which is ero problem of sue time Diderot, Brecht, Eisenstein Let ws immagine that an afmty’ of status and history has linked mathematics and asoutice since the ancient Greeks Let us tho imagine that for two or three millennia this effectively Pythagorean space las been somewhat repressed (Pythagoras is indeed the eponymous hero of Secrey) Finally, It ss imagine that from the time of these same Greeks’ another relationship hat tesn established ove euist the fist and has got the better oft, conbnually taking the lead inthe Retry ofthe aris = he relationship teiween geometty and theatre. The theatre is peocsl that practice which calelates the place of things as ihe fare observed: if L se the spoctacle here, the spectator Will Se this if [put teleeshar, he will not, and T cam aval myself of this masking effect and play on the illusion it provide, The stage the line which stands across the path Df the optic pencil, tracing af once the point at which ots hi to a stop and, as i Were, the threshold of its ist muse (agaist the bros Representation 1s not debited directly by imitabo even if one gets rid of notions of the “real, ofthe "vase babe, of the “copy, there will sil be representation for slong as @ subject (author, reader, spectaor oF ¥oyeUt) fe towards a horton on which he en Out the base of 2 ttangl, ht eye (or his mind) Forming the apes. The “Organon of Representation’ (which itis today becom Ing. possible to write becatse there aze intimations of hing ele) will bave as ts dal Foundation the sover- of the act of euting out [éeoupage) and the unity10 | mace ~ este ~ TEx! ‘ofthe subject of that action. The substance of the various fri wil heefore be of itl inaportanes eertainy, sheatre fd cinema are direct expresions of geomelty (unless, as Tarsy, they arty ou some research om the voice, on sHereqphon}), but classic (eadabie) [rary discourse which has for sbch 2 long time now abandoned prosedy scntatonal, geometncal discourse in 19 depict them: to discourse ree he talent Diderot, Brecht, Eisenstein | 7 tableaux: they are scenes which ae laid out fin the sense In which one sas the tablet a), wick ane perfectly fo that dramatic unity theorized by Didero:frmly eu out remember the flerance shown 93 Brecht with regare to the Malin curtastage is contempt for indefinite theatres open ai, theatre mv the round), erecting a meaning Bu manifesting the production ofthat meaning, they assom plish the coincidence of the visual ana the weal aécowpazes Nothing separates the shot sn Eisenstein from the pctore by Greuze (except, of cours, their respective projects im the latter moral ithe former Sosa); nothing separates the scene in epic theaze from the Eiversten shot (excep ‘ha in Brecht che tableau ss oered to the spectator For Is the tablena then sine i ares froma proses of eating font) a fousbrobject? Yes, atthe level ofthe ideal meening (Good, Progress, the Cause, the mph ofthe ust Histor fo, at that of ie composition. Or rather, more exactly, it ts the vey composition that allows the ceplacerment of the point a hich the fetish coors toa alt and thu the sting further back of the loving eect of the découpage. Once agiin, Diderot is for us the theonst of thi dileca of cut out the tableau, This point of meaning Diderot, Brecht, itensem always the Law: law of seit ln of strug, law o ‘meaning. Thusailmiltancartcannot bitberepresetation legal. In order for represeniation to be realy beceft of origin and exceeds ezmmeriesl nature without ceasing t te representation, the price that must be pd enormous — no less than death, In Dreyer’s Vanya a friend pawns out, the camera moves fom house to cemetery rexording it the dead man sees: such isthe extsme iit at which representation 3 outplayed: the apestator os no Tones take up ans postion, for he cannot sdeilly his eye with the closed eyes of the dead mani the tabla has no pone of departure, no support, 1 gapes open. Eversthing that goes on before ths limit reached (and this the case of the work of Brecht and Eisenstein) con only be legal: in the loag run ats the Law of the Party which cuts out the epi scene, the fic shots this Law whih lok, fares, focuses, equncites. Once agnin Eisenstein and. Brecht rejoin Diderot (promoter of bourgeois domeste (aged ar). Diderot distinguished in painting. major practic those whose force ss ethactie, aiming atthe Mealty oF meaning, from minor practices, those whieh are purl imitacve, aneedotal ~ che diference evween Greuze and Chardin In oth sscendency every physics of art (Chardin) muse be crowned wih mete physics (Greuze). In Brecht, in Eisenstein, Chardin and Greuze covet (more complen, Brecht leaves it this public be the Greuze of the Chardin he ses before thee jes) How could art, ina society that has not yet found peace, erase to be metaphyseal? that i, significant, reade Able, representational? ftshst? When are we to have It seems that Brecht know hardly anything of Diderot barely, pecs, the Paraoxe sur le comedien) He i is,* atte pga. Roane score gest natrattpvopi ancl hese tap he programe fr ts Sosity hose theory ames tion, Brest de up the PB te and tract which he contemplated sendi fo Jean Reno, 0 Eisenstein. Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narratives The narratives of the world ace ive is frst and foremost procigious surety of gente, themselves distributed amongst diferent substances as though eny materiel were it co recsive man's stories. Able to be ease by articulated language, spoken or ten, fed or moving mages, gestures, and the ordered sittire of all these es present in myth, legend, fale tals novella, epic, history, tragedy, drime, comedy, snime painting (think of Carpacsio’s Saint Ursula, stained lag ‘windows, cinema, comis, nes item, conversation, More ‘over, under this almost infinite diversity of forms, msracve begin with the very history of mankind and there nowhere Is nor tas been a people without narrative. Ail hss, a human groups, have thet naratves, enjoyment of which is very often shared by men sith differen, sven opposing, jaltueal backgrounds. Caring nothing for the division teen good and bad literature, marsive i international ranshstorial,transultual: it ie simply there lke ie well Mast we couee from this universality thee nacrat 's imsgmiicant? Is it so general that we can have sothing {o say about it except forthe modest dserption ofa fee highly individualized varieties, something literary history saionally underakes? But then Rov are we to master ven these varieties, how are we to justify ous right to