Cinema and language. New prospective for a methodological research approach of the images in view of Massimo Fagioli’s Human Birth Theory

«I shall say  we must consider necessary that,  without the conceptualisation of the non-conscious images, we can not do any kind of research on the relationship between non-conscious and language and in particular on images and language. Within this I believe it is appropriate to propose a discourse on the method rather than a theory on the dynamic and the contents».

The scientific breakdown dates back to 1964, when Massimo Fagioli starts the theoretical work on the dynamic of the human birth, published in January 1972 with Death Instinct and Knowledge.

A new thought, a revolutionary way of seeing the human being reality and to which he recognises an original creativity – linked to the disappearance fantasy that together with vitality the newborn realises in the instant that “comes to light” – claiming the first year of birth without words “but with resistance and fantasy”.

The Human Birth Theory leads to the possibility of the knowledge to what is not visible and to the non-conscious, the night images are now comprehensive they become language.

«Body and mind are not splitted, different than the idea that the only way to human identity is given by reason. If we think how at birth the possibility of the body to motion is reduced to the minimum, we have to realise the image that the only movement is made in first place by the mind».

Research on images has always been a fundamental tenet in Massimo Fagioli’s theory and praxis, his research takes in all kinds of arts, in all of their shapes, including cinema.

It’s extremely interesting to see that in the contemporary debate within all the methodology and theories of film analysis, Fagioli’s research has a radical and innovative point of view that makes it possible to re-think and re-orient the knowledge and research on this language made by images.

After the second World War, psychoanalysis sets its outlines and among other areas, becomes the reference of a new paradigm for a critical method for the methodological theory of cinema. The essay written by Serge Lebovici in 1949 “Psychanalise et cinéma” guides the exploration by pointing out analogies between film and dream, in

the 70’ under the aegis of Lacan’s interpretation of Freud, psychoanalysis becomes the key to understand cinema and its dynamics as experience and the spectatorial identification, which is still known nowadays, as a theme of interest in cinema in a continue dialogue with analytic philosophy and neuro-cognitivism.

This approach, today in full growth, is linked to the survey of empathic relationships among audience and characters, and the empirical research of what happens in the mind of the spectator in front of a specific movie.

Massimo Fagioli’s unique research on images (where women’s identity image plays a central role that never had before in history ) in the context of the contemporary debate of studies on cinema, shows a new way of seeing the representation and knowledge of the image, of which – on the occasion of the congress “The shapes of language” held by the oriental institute of Napoli, on the 12th of May 1995 – was developed the formula “non-conscious non-oneiric image” that opened the gate to a huge research and gave a new proposition to distinguish two words “meaning” and “sense”. An image that is non-conscious and is not the representation of a dream, we can find it in Ingmar Bergman’s films such as Wild Strawberries (Smultronstället, 1957), Ansikte mot ansikte (1976), or in Luis Bruñuel film’s Un Chien Andalou (1929) and in Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie (1972).

An image through which the artist can find the silent language of images, saying without words what rationality does not see, recreating the first year of birth without words, which has the capability of imagination.

Represent, the invisible movement of the internal image, that relates through the camera the internal dynamic of the psychic of the human being. Here then, on the other side of what the academics say, we can claim that this kind of image does not admit any identification and it obligates re-thinking the analysis of films: «When it comes […] to use stories for proposing a language, a discourse, images, probably the possibility of identification is blocked. The spectator has to watch, follow, and try to feel before understanding».

On one side, we have the artist, who represents through images the invisible movement of the internal image; on the other side we have the academic, who has the job to look into what a certain move is saying, and finding the hidden “sense” behind the images. Thereafter, the academic in front of the artistic images is obligated to see with different eyes and say what the artist intuition is saying, what the critics never picked up about the possibility of representing images – beyond the storytelling – and the relationship with the author.

Re-search, «finding the original and absolutely personal language paradoxically uncommunicable that only the genius or the poet use to say things that only they can understand».

Brilliant insights of filmmakers such as Michelangelo Antonioni, who in 1960 with L’avventura (before with Cronaca di un amore, 1950 and Le amiche, 1955) represented in a completely original way the dynamic of the separation; or Manoel De Oliveira specially in Singularidades de una rapariga loura (2009) and in Estranho caso de Angélica (2010) «were made several films on women’s “das radikal Böse” but nobody said that she was “anaffettiva” (lack of affectivity). I saw that it was not the indifference of a woman proud of her beauty».

Finding out in what way images can become language (talking about his movie Il cielo della luna, made between 1997 and 1998 where the main theme is the representation of the women image): «I believe that with this movie we realized images that are language». The language of images that says what rationality doesn’t see, re-creating

the first year of birth without words, that has the capability of imagination, that gives the opportunity to the artist to get back into the internal image, necessary to create something that is completely new and that was never made before.

Note

1. Fagioli, M. (1995). Le forme del linguaggio, Il Sogno della farfalla, 4, n°4, p. 16.
2. Fagioli, M. (2017). Istinto di morte e conoscenza. (p. 36). Roma: L’Asino d’oro.
3. Fagioli, M. (2011). Left 2008. (p. 286). Roma: L’Asino d’oro.
4.  Fagioli, M. (2011). Left 2008. Roma: L’Asino d’oro
5. «…the methodology I was talking about refers to this approach and relationship with this “reality” for which is proposed – beyond the specific theory – […] the challenge to a situation where everything has always been considered absolutely unknowable and even subject to the impossibility of knowledge, it is instead stated that it is knowable, and theorizable; and not only knowable and theorizable, but can have an immediate relationship with other human beings; meaning that all other human beings can use these scientific discovery for their own care and realization». Fagioli, M. (2001). Interview with Radios Città, Bologna, 7 September 1980, Il sogno della farfalla, 4, pg. 12.
6.  In the essay, we can read: «The film is a dream but it’s also material for dreaming, therefore, it’s a dream that makes you dream.» Some academic turn, in analytic practice, what is delated of the life of its authors can be restored through films. In this regard, see Fernandez, D. (1975). Eisenstein. Paris: Grasset and Spoto, D. (1979). The Art of Alfred Hitchcock. New York: Doubleday. The volumes tend essentially to search for ‘traumas’ that would have marked the two authors in childhood.
7. See also Le significant imaginaire. Psychanalyse et cinema (1977) by Christian Metz, whom had already published, in 1964, the essay Le cinema: langue ou langage, showing three different aspects of the use of the image in filmmaking: specular identification, vojerisme and fetish.
8. This approach developed with Gilles Deleuze that had his orientation towards Henri Bergson’s though to cinema in the ’80 and that was later represented in th ’90 till our days.
9. See for example De Vincenti G. & Carocci, E. (Eds.) (2013). Il cinema delle emozioni. Estetica, espressione, esperienza. Roma: Fondazione Ente dello Spettacolo.
10. See also. Among others, the contributions of: Shimamura A.P. (Ed.), (2013. Psycocinematics. Exploring Cognition at the Movies. Oxford-New York: Oxford University press; D’Aloia, A. & Eugeni, R. (Eds.). (2014) Neurofilmology. Audiovisual Studies and the Challenge of Neurosciences, in International Film Studies Journal.
11. «It was January 1999, when I held a speech, at the University of Würzburg, on two words ‘meaning’ and ‘sense’ […] and it came to memory May 1995 when it was said: «un-conscious image non-oneiric». So, it appeared like the wail of a newborn the word ‘sense’ as it was the smile of a young lady, in the appearance that was identity. There was no dark in the eyes and the conscious disappeared, only new images that didn’t make sense. And I heard a lot of normal people, that in front of Picasso’s painting were swearing: «They don’t make sense. They had the sense of the capability of imagination, without the hand reproducing oneiric images». (Fagioli, M. (2012). Left 2009. (pg. 120-121). Roma: L’Asino d’oro.What it is that the artist creates is «something that doesn’t have any meaning (if it did, it would be a traffic sign, that tells us where we have to turn) but probably it has a sense that can be felt and understood from other people» (Fagioli, M. …mi serve per pensare… (…I need it for thinking…), essay held by Massimo Fagioli on the 30th of January 1999 in the Auditorium of the Anatomy Institute of the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery of the University of Würzburg.
12. Fagioli, M. in The shapes of Language, conference of the 12th of May 1995 University of Studies Napoli “L’Orientale”. Cfr. The shapes of Language (pg. 20). Il sogno della farfalla, 4.
13. «And here comes the interesting part, that is very important, we have said that the author even though at high level of art, doesn’t actually know why and because he does certain things, he may not know toward what objects is going to, and that is the human reality, he may not have a clear purpose of transformation. But despite this – you know extremely well, cause you heard it as many times as I did in interviews with artists – facing the question: “Why did you do this and that?” the answer is: “I don’t know”. Probably there must be a very well skilled critic to tell them: “You have done it, for this and this other reason”. So the artist can answer: “You’re right it’s for this!”. But the artist doesn’t know. This is extremely interesting. It’s extremely interesting because with this we have the proof that it exist an unconscious imagination, the unconscious “I” not yet merged with personality so it becomes also conscious, conscious knowledge in order for a clear verbalization; but it exists, it exists an unconscious imagination, more or less childish that makes the identity, the uniqueness of the artist, that gives the possibility to rebel and to refuse the standards». Fagioli, M. in Il sogno della farfalla, 4, 2001, pg. 9-10.
14. De Simone, G. in ‘Il piccolo video’ (‘Short video’) filmed by Massimo Fagioli in Tragliata (Roma), during summer 1997 concerning the meetings of psychiatric research, held at the Auditorium of the University of Rome “La Sapienza” on the 10th and the 24th of May and the 7th of June 1997.
15. Fagioli, M. (2018). Left 2015. (pg. 81-82). Roma: L’Asino d’oro.
16. Fagioli, M. Debate held in Firenze on the 15th of May 1999, Cinéma Spazio Uno, in De Santis. G. (Ed.) (2020) Il cielo della luna. Un film di Massimo Fagioli. (pg. 210). Roma: L’Asino d’oro.

Bibliografia

• Alessandrini, C., Caporioni, V., Ciampelletti, I. G., Concetti, C., Cotti, A., Velli, G. F. (Eds.), (1996). L’architettura e la morte dell’arte. Roma: Nuove Edizioni Romane.
• Allen, R., Smith, M. (Eds.), (1997). Film Theory and Philosophy. Oxford–New York:  Oxford University Press – Clarendon Press.
• Bateman, J. A., Schmidt, K. H. (2012). Multimodal Film Analysis. How Films Mean. New York-London: Routledge.
• Bazin, A.  Che cosa è il cinema?. Aprà, A. (1973). Milano: Garzanti.
• Bellour, R. (1979/2005). L’analisi del film. Torino: Kaplan.
• Bellour, R. (2009). Le corps du cinéma. Hypnoses, émotions, animalités. Paris: P.O.L. Traffic.
• Bertetto, P. (2016). Il cinema e l’estetica dell’intensità. Milano: Mimesis.
• Bertetto, P. (Ed.). (2003). L’interpretazione dei film. Dieci capolavori della storia del cinema.  Venezia: Marsilio.
• Bertetto, P. (Ed.). (2014). Metodologie di analisi del film. Roma-Bari: Laterza.
• Bogue, R. (2003). Deleuze on Cinema.  New York-London: Routledge.
• Bordwell, D. & Carroll, N. (Eds.). (1996). Post-Theory. Recostructing Film Studies. Madison (Wisconsin): Wisconsin University Press.
• Bordwell, D. (2008). Poetics of Cinema. New York-London: Routledge.
• Buchanan, I. & MacCrmack, P. (Eds.). (2008). Deleuze and the Schizoanalysis of Cinema. London-New Delhi: Bloomsbury.
• Buckland, W. (2000). The Cognitive Semiotics of Film. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Carluccio, G. & Villa, F. (Eds.). (2006). Il corpo del film. Roma: Carocci.
• Carluccio G. & Villa F. (Eds.). (2005). La post-analisi. Intorno e oltre l’analisi del film. Torino: Kaplan.
• Casetti, F. (1993). Teorie del cinema. 1945-1990. Milano: Bompiani.
• Casetti, F. & Di Chio, F. (1990). Analisi del film. Milano: Bompiani.
• Chateau, D. & Moure, J. (Eds.). (2016). Screens. From Materiality to Spectatorship. A Historical and Theoretical Reassessment. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
• Currie, G. (1995). Image and Mind. Film, Philosophy and Cognitive Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• D’Aloia, A. & Eugeni, R. (Eds.). (2014). Neurofilmology. Audiovisual Studies and the Challenge of Neurosciences, in International Film Studies Journal, 22-23.
• De Blasio, E. & Viganò, D. E. (Eds.). (2013). I film studies. Roma: Carocci.
• De Gaetano, R. (2017). Il cinema e i film. Le vie della teoria in Italia. Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino.
• De Santis, G. (Ed.). (2020). Il cielo della luna. Un film di Massimo Fagioli. Roma: L’Asino d’oro.
• De Vincenti, G. & Carocci, E. (Eds.). (2013). Il cinema e le emozioni. Estetica, espressione, esperienza. Roma: Fondazione Ente dello Spettacolo.
• Deleuze, G. (1983/2016). L’immagine movimento. Cinema 1. Torino: Einaudi.
• Deleuze, G. (1985/2017). L’immagine tempo. Cinema 2. Torino: Einaudi.
• Derrida, J. (1967) L’écriture et la differénce. Paris: Seuil. Trad. it. Derrida, J. (1971). La scrittura e la differenza. Torino: Einaudi.
• Di Carlo, C. & Tinazzi, G. (Eds.). (1994). Fare un film è per me vivere. Scritti sul cinema. , Venezia: Marsilio.
• Elsaesser, T. & Hagener, M. (2009). Teoria del film. Un’introduzione. Torino: Einaudi.
• Elsaesser T. & Buckland W. (2010). Teoria e analisi del film americano contemporaneo. Milano: Bietti.
• Fagioli, M. (1972/2017). Istinto di morte e conoscenza. Roma: L’Asino d’oro.
• Fagioli, M. (1974/2011). La marionetta e il burattino. Roma: L’Asino d’oro.
• Fagioli, M. (1975/2012). Teoria della nascita e castrazione umana. Roma: L’Asino d’oro.
• Fagioli, M. (1980/2013). Bambino, donna e trasformazione dell’uomo. Roma: L’Asino d’oro.
• Fagioli, M. (2013). Settimo anno. Lezioni 2008. Roma: L’Asino d’oro.
• Fagioli, M. (2009). Left 2006. Roma: L’Asino d’oro.
• Fagioli, M. (2010). Left 2007. Roma: L’Asino d’oro.
• Fagioli, M. (2012). Left 2009. Roma: L’Asino d’oro.
• Fagioli, M. (2013). Left 2010. Roma: L’Asino d’oro.
• Fagioli, M. (2014). Left 2011. Roma: L’Asino d’oro.
• Fagioli, M. (2018). Left 2015. Roma: L’Asino d’oro.
• Fagioli, M. (2001). Bologna 1980. Realtà umana dell’artista e opera d’arte. Il sogno della farfalla, 4. Roma: Nuove edizioni romane.
• Fagioli, Marcella (1993). Prime note su ipotesi di lavoro che legano gli studi linguistici alla realtà psichica. Il sogno della farfalla. Roma: Nuove edizioni romane.
• Flaxman, G. (Ed.). (2000). The Brain Is the Screen. Deleuze and the Philosophy of Cinema.  Minneapolis-London: University of Minnesota Press.
• Godard, J.-L. (1966). Trois mille heures de cinéma, Cahiers du Cinéma, 184, novembre; poi in Id., (1981). Il cinema è il cinema. Milano: Garzanti.
• Kennedy, B. M. (2002). Deleuze and Cinema. The Aesthetics of Sensation. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
• Lacan, J. (1966). Ecrits, Paris; trad. it. (1974). Scritti. Torino: Einaudi.
• Laine, T. (2011). Feeling Cinema. Emotional Dynamics in Film Studies. New York-London: Continuum.
• Laine, T. (2007). Shame and Desire. Emotion, Intersubjectivity, Cinema. Bruxelles-New York: Peter Lang.
• Metz, C. (1964). Le cinéma: langue ou langage. Communications. Parigi.
• Metz, C. (1977). Le signifiant imaginaire. Psychanalyse et cinema. Paris.
• Plantinga, C. (2009). Moving Viewers. American Film and the Spectator’s Experience. Berkeley-Los Angeles-London: University of California Press.
• Plantinga, C. & Smith, G. M. (Eds.). (1999). Passionate Views. Film, Cognition, and Emotion. Baltimore-London: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
• Shimamura, A. P. (Ed.). (2013). Psychocinematics. Exploring Cognition at the Movies. Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press.
• Smith, M. (1995). Engaging Characters. Fiction, Emotion, and the Cinema. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Smith, M. & Wartenberg, T. E. (Eds.) (2006). Thinking Through Cinema. Film as Philosophy. Wiley-Blackwell, malden, Mass.
• Stam, R., Burgoyne, R., Flitterman-Lewis, S. (1999). Semiologia del cinema e dell’audiovisivo Milano: Bompiani.
• Stam R., Teorie del film (2000), tr.it di F. Silveri e G. Del Duca, Dino Audino, Roma 2005
• Tassone A., I film di Michelangelo Antonioni. Un poeta della visione, Gremese, Roma 2002
• Tredell N. (a cura di), Cinemas of the Mind. A Critical History of Film Theory, Icon Books, Cambridge 2002
• Wartenberg, T. E. (2007). Pensare sullo schermo. Cinema come filosofia. Milano-Udine:  Pagliarini, Mimesis.

Giornate di Studio

• Cristaldi, L. & De Santis, G. (Eds.). Amalfitano, E., Chianese, G., Natoli, I., Pirani, F., Villa, G. (Roma, Febbraio 2019). Cinema: Michelangelo Antonioni – nell’ambito del ciclo “Rivoluzione del pensiero” organizzato dalla società “Venti Secondi” – (https://ventisecondi.it/eventi/cinema-michelangelo-antonioni/)
• Pappagallo, E. & Tonietti, U. (Eds.). Fazio, C., Fiori Nastro, F., Gramigni, P., Iacarella, A., Monacelli, A., Monducci, E., Panzera, F., Rocchi, I. (Roma, Giugno 2019). Medicina e Psichiatria: Massimo Fagioli – nell’ambito del ciclo “Rivoluzione del pensiero” organizzato dalla società “Venti Secondi” – (https://ventisecondi.it/eventi/medicina-e-psichiatria-massimo-fagioli/)