ROLAND BARTHES The Rustle of Language Translated by Richard Howard HILL anp WANG + New york p Straus and GirousLeaving the Movie Theater ‘There is something to confess: your speaker likes 10 leave a ‘movie theater. Back out on the more oF less empty, more oF less brightly fit sidewalk (is invariably a night, and ding the Week, that he gas), and heading uncerainly for some eaié or ‘other, he walks in silence (he doesnt lke discussing the film t's just seen) a ial dazed, wrapped up in himself, feeling the ‘old—he's sep, that’s what he's thinking, his body has become Something sopitive, soft limp, and he feels a lle dlsjointed, even (for a moral organization, relief comes only from this quarter) iresponsible. In other words, obsiously, he's coming, ‘out of hypnosis. And hypnosis (an old psychoanalytic device ‘one that psychoanalysis nowadays seems to treat quite conde- scendingly) means only one thing to him: the most venerable ‘of powers: healing. And he thinks of music ist there such thing as hypnotic musi? The castato Farnell, whose mesia di increible for its duration a for its emission,” felicved the morbid melancholy of Philip V of Spain by singing him the same aria every night for fourteen years. ‘This is often how he leaves a movie theater. How does he go in? Except for the—increasingly frequent—case of a specifi cultural quest (a selected, sought-or, desired film, object of a veritable preliminary alert), he goes to movies as a response to idlenes, leisure, free time. It's a if, even before he went into the theater, the classic conditions of hypnosis were in force: ‘vacancy, want of occupation, lethargy: its notin front of the film and because of the film that he divans offivs without knowing it, even before he becomes a spectator. There is a enema situation," and ths situation is pre-hypnotc. According usea Environs ofthe Image toa true metonymy, the darkness of the theater is prefigured by the “twilight reverie” (a prerequisite for hypnoss, according to Breuer-Freud) which precedes it and leads him from street to street, from poster to poster, finally burying himself in dim, ‘anonymous, indifferent cube where that festival of affects known 8 film will be presented. ‘What does the "darkries” of the cinema mean? (Whenever I hear the word cinema, I can't help thinking Aall, rather than {film Not only is the dark the very substance of reverie fin the Dprethypaoid meaning of the term; itis also the “eoloe” of a diffused eroticism; by ies human condensation, by its absence of worldlness (contrary to the cultural appearance that has to be pt io at any “legitimate theater), by the relaxation of postures {hiow many members of the cinema audience side down into ther seats as if into a bed, coats oF feet thrown over the rove i front), the movie house (ordinary model is a site of availability (even more than cruising) the inoccupation of bodies, whieh best defines modern etoticia—not that of advertising or strips tease, but that of the big city Tis im this urban dark chat the body's freedom is generated; this invisible work of posible affects emerges from a veritable cinematographic cocoon; the movie spectator could easly appropriate the sikworm’s motto) Inchusos labor iltuara; ics because I am enclosed that L work: and glow with all my desire. In this darkness of the cinema (anonymous, populated le merous—oh, the boredom, the frustration of so-called priya showings) lies the very fascination ofthe fil (any film) Tt ‘of the contrary experience: on television, where films are ‘shown, no fascination; here darkness is erased, anon represied; space is familiar, articulated (by furniture, jects), tamed: the eroticism—no, to put it better, to Ket the particular kind of lightness, of unfulillment We ‘raticzatio of the place is foreclosed: television ‘the Family, whose household instyument i has the hearth used to be, Hanked by is _ Leaving the Movie Thaler 7 In that opaque cube, one light: the film, the screen? Yes, of| course. But alto ), visible and unperceived, that dancing cone which pletees the darkness like a laser beam. This ‘beam is minted, aceoning to the rotation ofits particles, into changing figures) we Wir our face toward the currency of a Bleaming vibration whose imperious jet brushes our skull, slancing off someone's halt, someone's face. As in the old hypnotic experiments, weare fascinated without seeing it head> ‘on—by this shining ste, motionless and dancing. ts exactly as if a long stem of light had outlined a keyhole, and then we all pered, flabbergasted, through that hole. And nothing in this ecstasy is provided by sound, music, words? Usually—in current productions—the audio protocol can pro- ‘duce no fascinated listening; conceived to reinforce the ielieness of the anecdote, sound is merely 4 supplementary instrument of representation; itis meant to integrate itself unobirusively ito the object shown, isin no way detached from this object Yetit would take very litle in order to separate this sound tack fone displaced or magnified sound, the grain ofa voice milled in our eardrums, and the fascination begins again; for it never ‘comes except from artifice, or beter sil: from the arifact—ike the dancing beam of the projector—which comes from overhead ‘or to the side, blurring the scene shoxen by the screen jt widhnd soting ts mage (is getal, its meaning. For such isthe narrow range—at least for me—in which ean function the fascination of fm, the cinematographic hypnosis | must be inthe story there must be versie), but 1 must also be elsrwhire: a slightly disengaged image-repertore, that i ‘what I must have—tike 2 scrupulous, conscientious, organized, ina word difficult feishist, that is what I require ofthe film and ‘of the situation in which I go looking for it ‘The film image (including the sound) is what? A tere. 1 ara image as FL were hell in dhat famous dust8 Environs ofthe Image ‘elation which establishes the image-repertote. ‘The image is there, in front of me, for me: coalescent (its signified and is ‘Sigoifier melted together), analogical total, pregnant; itis a perfect lure: I fing myself upon it like an animal upon the Scrap of "lifelike" rag held out wo him: and, of course, it sustains in me the misreading attached to Ego and to image-repertoire Tin the movie theater, however far away Iam siting, I press my rose against the screen's mirror, against that “other” image> repertoire with which I narcisistially identify myself iis said that the spectators who choose to sit as close tothe screen as possible are children and movie buff) te image captivates me, ‘aptures me: Tam glued to the representation, and itis this glue which established the natwalnes (the pseudonature) of the filmed scene (@ glue prepared with all the ingredients of technique”) the Real know’ only distances, che Symbolic knows ‘only masks the image alone (the image-repertoire)is clove, only ‘the image is "(can produce the resonance oftruth). Actually, has not the image, statutorily, all the characteristics of the deological? The historical subject ke the cinema spectator Lam imagining, i also glued to ideological discourse: he experienc its coalescence, its analogical secu, its naturalness, its “ruth its hae (ou hte, for who escapes it): the Ideological would actully be the image-repertoire of a period of history, the Cinema of a society; like the film which lures its clientele, it even his its photograms: is noc the stereotype a fixed image, ‘quotation to which our language is glued? And in the common place have we not aeual relation: narcissistic and maternal? How to come wnglued from dhe mitror? 1 risk « pun 0 answer: by faking off (in the aeronautical and nareote sense Of the term), OF course, iis sll possible 10 conceive of af AFL ‘which vill break the dual ce, the fascination of ily loosen the glue, te hypnosis of the lifelike (OF the by some recourse to the spectators crt vision is this not what the Breebiian alien Leaving the Movie Theater Mo ica hypnosis the very metbods of a ep art, te spectator’ Culture rhs ideoogel lnc contrary o casa hy tera the imagereperate vanes once one observes that exe ‘But ihere is another wy of yolng to the moves besides being armed by the dour of eter ology) by lecng ones be fascinated vie oer, bythe image and by ts surroundings — 11 had two bodies athe sate ine nari wich ses, lon into the engul and a perverse bed ready wo fetshie no the image but preciely what excel the texture ofthe sound, the hall, the dark tas ofthe other bodes they of igh, emering he these Jewving she hall ahr inorder to dance oder take off” complicate a "relation by "situation." What 1 use to Avance myself rom the iage—tat, ultimately is mh fs tates me: Tam hypnotized by a distance; and this Uatance ‘ot ctl intellectuals ti one might ay. am amorous disance: would thete be, in the cinema icf and ting the word at is tymologisiggesion) a possible la of ductans the obscure Communication, 1975