Logos & Pneuma Pt. 1
Thoughts On: Narrative and Associated Elements
An attempt to make some sense of 'narrative' as a concept.
My mind has been clogged by a question of narrative recently. This began as I was making my way through Metz's Film Language - specifically his chapter on a phenomonology narrative. I struggled emphatically with this chapter because, whether it be my short-coming or his, I could not conceive of the fundamental concept which he was attempting to define with much clarity. Still there then remains a question of what narrative could be after reading Metz's work. He speaks of narrative as a discourse, blocks of time, events and unrealization, therefore defining the cinematic narrative to be 'a closed discourse that proceeds by unrealizing a temporal sequence of events'. So unsatisfactory and seemingly arbitrary this definition is to me that I fail to see its relation to any cinema I know. This is a consistent problem I have with the work of Metz; his thoughts on cinema are so distant from my own perception that I fail to understand their fundamental elements. Such is precisely why I find Metz interesting, but equally so, frustrating. How can one think of narrative without mention of meaning making processes and their function? Indeed, narrative has a temporal aspect in that it requires time in its description of spaces, thus in its manifestation in drama. Indeed, also, narrative, due to its utilisation of time and space (however abstractly) is made up of events that sit alongside one another, thus in sequence, and that furthermore formulate something appearing linguistic (discourse). However, the pertinence of unrealisation - of a narrative being understood as not truly real - seems loose to me. This theoretical element is already encapsulated by Metz's relatively limited description of discourse. In describing cinematic narratives as discourses, Metz merely suggests that narratives are told, or have some kind of author, and so are contrivances of human imagination communicated. In turn, narratives are briefly defined as determined imaginings. Here is where I struggle and cease to follow Metz's thinking with much ease.
It is not that Metz's definition is null and void. It merely describes certain aspects of the abstract phenomenon that is narrative film. As I read through his chapter, I found my self discomforted, waiting for narrative (as he defines it) to be situated within a wider phenomena - maybe termed 'story'. After all, how does Metz's definition do anything more than describe the motion of narrative? The spectator is left untouched in his theoretic composition. Narrative is something that moves in accordance to Metz; it was made and it moves, but there must be more. How does the fact that narrative is made and moves account for the related phenomenon of affect? If narrative has any obvious or universally evident function, it is to impact those who come into contact with it. Metz, seemingly intentionally, alienates this fundamental element of the experience of narrative. I do not understand why.
My mind has then wandered through my own understanding of narrative and in watching a selection of films I have came upon two new ideas. Narrative and story are sticky terms, so sticky I dare not differentiate them. I have toyed with this idea previously, but narrative and story point us toward 'the telling' and need not be manipulated beyond this. A foundation of our ontological theory concerns cinematic manifests emergent from a reasoned unknown: Tao. Narrative operates mimetically, it is thus an imitation of both known and unknown elements of being. This mimetic practice formulates a mode of communication - this communication may be conceived linguistically (how specifically, I do not know). Cinematic mimetic communication translates meaning from Tao through consciousness (thus tangible, knowable reality) to the conscious and unconscious of the spectator. Art, generally, exists as a process that establishes the path between the human mind, reality and its unknown reason. Narrative's place is in the medial dimension between Tao and spectator unconsciousness.
Such a formulation takes care of the function and place of narrative, describing it as a communicative process of meaning-making, or rather, meaning-translation. This outline is but one step towards a more comprehensive description of narrative. Another can be taken in the clarification the relationship between unknown and known, symbolic and semiotic, semantic and syntactical. It is the under-representation of symbolic discourse in film theories such as Metz's that motivate the present theory. It is not that cinema is entirely a symbolic process, primed only for the exploration of unknowable meaning. As humans, our natural state of being is, so to say, to walk on roads with the earth hidden beneath. The road cannot stand without the earth below, and the earth below cannot be walked without a face that hides it. The work of Carl Jung stands as a testament to this philosophy. His psychoanalysis positions consciousness over an unfathomable void of the collective unconscious. To perceive outwardly from the Jungian mind is to open a door to reality and a back-window to the realm of the archetypes. Just as important as the recognition of the unconscious mind is, however, is the practice of living in with one's ego or consciousness. Narrative and the cinematic art, too, has its unconscious recess. Attached to this is an ego, or rather, consciousness. That suggested, how do consciousness and unconsciousness operate in simultaneity during the procession of narrative?
One formulation concerns established concepts of known and unknown mimesis. Known mimetic process are a reflection of that which the conscious mind has access to; unknown mimesis reflects that which is ultimately unknowable, yet receptible to the unconscious mind. In one respect, unknown and known mimesis can be considered statically, or rather, atemporally. In my analysis of unknown and known mimetic practice, I would point to signs and symbols; characters and objects in the cinematic space. Characters and objects have arcs and transform as a narrative proceeds and progresses. This kind of analysis can be attached to narrative, but because it requires the abstraction of character from narrative to some degree, it can be considered atemporal or static. We can consider narrative and the unknown and known process entirely temporally, however. We now then come upon our two new concepts: logos and pneuma.
Logos, in these constraints, defines the narrativisation of known mimetic material. Pneuma on the other defines the narrativisation of unknown mimetic material. These phenomena presented themselves to me as I re-watched The Lord of the Rings trilogy and have further solidified until I most recently was re-watching Bergman's Persona. We shall talk briefly about these two films to exemplify the concepts.
Logos concerns logic or the Word of God. Theologically, the term could possible be argued to be a symbolic process; God knows more than the the human mind can conceive of, thus the enaction of his words is never precise and true, one can only hope to follow in the steps outlined by the Logos. With this symbolic logos becoming attached indelibly to logic, the theological perspective is not incredibly pertinent and is subject to transformation. Logos can be considered to be the conscious enaction of reason. Logic then has its relationship with the unknown, but it is often consciously alienated from this with a 'scientific' rationalisation reliant on observable reality and fact. Logic then sits alongside faith, connected maybe, but conceptually dissimilar. I am drawn to this term because of this character - it is not simple, but it presents itself with clarity. To appropriate the term and immerse it into film theory, I would like to use it to describe the element of narrative that requires a degree of realism and cohesive, conventionalised logic. Lord of the Rings provides on of the most stark and expressive examples of narrative logos or logic's command in narrative. Why didn't Gandalf just call the eagles in the beginning?
This is a satirical critique of the trilogy that is, in itself, either entirely self-destructive or disengaged. Even someone who loves The Lord of the Rings trilogy may ask this question. You can only do so comedically, however, because the narrative that you have come to love emerges from what you might call a plot hole. Plot holes, as glaring as they may sometimes be, serve a function for the audience. One hears this most commonly in regards to melodramas and certain classes of typhlodrama. Why question Star Wars? You'll only run it. Why poke holes in Avengers? Just enjoy watching it. Maybe we've all heard or said something that equates to this: 'yeah, but... what does it matter? The eagles could have dropped the ring into Mount Doom, but the fact that they did not gave us the great trilogy that is The Lord of the Rings'. Here we have our opportunity to discuss narrative logos. It is not that narratives should be forgiven for having holes, but that it should be recognised that narratives require themselves to operate in certain ways. It is because narratives want to, are required to, or even must operate in a certain way that plot holes open up. These may be masked with exposition: the eagles cannot fly over certain areas as it'd be too dangerous. Alas, these are merely further projections of the narrative logos or logic. That is to say that that there are certain elements of a narrative that are only in place so that it can logically function. Whether the element be a plot hole or a plaster that masks a hole, it represents a constant demand of narratives to be coherent. This coherence is subservient to the true meaning-making process as it is related to pneuma and unknown mimesis. Alas, let us not be hasty. The logos of a narrative has its own meaning-making abilities. I do not regard the meaning produced by the logos to be the 'true' meaning of a movie as it is a pathway to, a road above, more fundamental meaning. That said, there is a class of film and filmmaker that privilege the logical meaning of narrative and so require an analysis of the narrative logos. We can return to this idea later. Let us step back.
Narrative logos is the strain of a story that is demanded by its own creation. For The Lord of the Rings, the narrative - a manifestation of meaning from Tao, an exploration of goodness and power - necessitates a journey. For the narrator to present a discourse, they require key processes. Joseph Campbell can be leaned on here as a key example. In his conception of the hero's narrative, certain elements are conventionally demanded. There must then be a hero, a mentor, thresholds, a showdown, an abyss, etc. The Lord of the Rings narrative requires some of these elements. The narrative logos composes them, drawing the lines between them so that a symbolic sculpture may manifest tangibly. Without logical composition, without the eagles neglecting to take the ring to Mount Doom, the sculpture cannot manifest. Important to emphasise is my insistence on prerequisite meaning. Stories are told as meaning something, yet simultaneously they are told and mean as a consequence; meaning transcends the telling, which is exactly why meaning can be so fleeting, so ambiguous, fluid and transformative between consciousnesses. The meaning a narrative can hold is something of an illusion: a narrative does not intrinsically bear truth, instead, is a mimetic process that allows light from Tao (which bears all truths unknowable) to hit one's inner eye. Narrative logos facilitates this expression.
There is another imperative characteristic of narrative logos. Beyond facilitating symbolic expression (pnuema), it realises meaning - which it to say, it transforms unknown mimesis into known mimesis or rather binds the two modes of representation. This occurs in two key respects: narratively and spectatorily. One of my favourite quotes from Jung is this:
Primordial images are realised in art as representational archetypes: the hero for example. The hero performs archetypal actions. The realisation of the archetype, the actual rendering of a primordial image, is a major function of narrative logos; logos embodies symbolism. To speak with a thousand voices requires relational logic. To then say one thing, especially if that one thing is really worth saying - if it allows you to speak of the unspeakable - we must offer signs and symbols. True meaning is, as Extreme teaches us all, more than words. Similar words may be spoken of the spectator. For the spectator to comprehend unknown mimetic elements, they naturally do, or are often prompted to, self-realise symbols carrying information of unknowable substance. We can transition towards a short discussion of Persona to make sense of this.
How does one confront Bergman's masterpiece? I personally find the greatest conundrum and a puzzle piece never given by the film rests in narrative perspective; from whose perspective is this story told and to be understood from? Is Persona a film about Alma and/or Elisabet? Or is it about the boy we see in the very start of the film? Who is this boy? Is it the son of Elisabet? Is it a representation of Bergman himself? Is he a surrogate for ourselves? Or is he a pure child archetype? It seems impossible to answer these questions definitively. Alas, the spectator may make sense of the film by making a choice. They may choose to perceive the film from Alma's perspective; a story about misplaced identity. This choice is an operation of logos. It is with this that we discover that narrative logos may be self-realised in the spectator, that the meaning a narrative can bear can prove itself to be highly relative. Alas, I believe that there is still a confined and coherent reading that is non-relative, instead relates to the many meanings produced by the narrative logos. This meaning is the true meaning, the unknowable meaning, captured by the narrative pneuma. Such is what we can discuss next. Before this, let us conclusively characterise narrative logos. Narrative logos has its relationship with known mimetic processes; it frames symbolic elements of a narrative as a conventional demand; and it produces meaning that grounds unknown mimetic material in knowable, tangible representations. Far more could be explored about Logos, but, these are its fundamental characteristics.
Previous post:
John Wick: Chapter 3 - Sick
More from me:
amazon.com/author/danielslack
An attempt to make some sense of 'narrative' as a concept.
My mind has been clogged by a question of narrative recently. This began as I was making my way through Metz's Film Language - specifically his chapter on a phenomonology narrative. I struggled emphatically with this chapter because, whether it be my short-coming or his, I could not conceive of the fundamental concept which he was attempting to define with much clarity. Still there then remains a question of what narrative could be after reading Metz's work. He speaks of narrative as a discourse, blocks of time, events and unrealization, therefore defining the cinematic narrative to be 'a closed discourse that proceeds by unrealizing a temporal sequence of events'. So unsatisfactory and seemingly arbitrary this definition is to me that I fail to see its relation to any cinema I know. This is a consistent problem I have with the work of Metz; his thoughts on cinema are so distant from my own perception that I fail to understand their fundamental elements. Such is precisely why I find Metz interesting, but equally so, frustrating. How can one think of narrative without mention of meaning making processes and their function? Indeed, narrative has a temporal aspect in that it requires time in its description of spaces, thus in its manifestation in drama. Indeed, also, narrative, due to its utilisation of time and space (however abstractly) is made up of events that sit alongside one another, thus in sequence, and that furthermore formulate something appearing linguistic (discourse). However, the pertinence of unrealisation - of a narrative being understood as not truly real - seems loose to me. This theoretical element is already encapsulated by Metz's relatively limited description of discourse. In describing cinematic narratives as discourses, Metz merely suggests that narratives are told, or have some kind of author, and so are contrivances of human imagination communicated. In turn, narratives are briefly defined as determined imaginings. Here is where I struggle and cease to follow Metz's thinking with much ease.
It is not that Metz's definition is null and void. It merely describes certain aspects of the abstract phenomenon that is narrative film. As I read through his chapter, I found my self discomforted, waiting for narrative (as he defines it) to be situated within a wider phenomena - maybe termed 'story'. After all, how does Metz's definition do anything more than describe the motion of narrative? The spectator is left untouched in his theoretic composition. Narrative is something that moves in accordance to Metz; it was made and it moves, but there must be more. How does the fact that narrative is made and moves account for the related phenomenon of affect? If narrative has any obvious or universally evident function, it is to impact those who come into contact with it. Metz, seemingly intentionally, alienates this fundamental element of the experience of narrative. I do not understand why.
My mind has then wandered through my own understanding of narrative and in watching a selection of films I have came upon two new ideas. Narrative and story are sticky terms, so sticky I dare not differentiate them. I have toyed with this idea previously, but narrative and story point us toward 'the telling' and need not be manipulated beyond this. A foundation of our ontological theory concerns cinematic manifests emergent from a reasoned unknown: Tao. Narrative operates mimetically, it is thus an imitation of both known and unknown elements of being. This mimetic practice formulates a mode of communication - this communication may be conceived linguistically (how specifically, I do not know). Cinematic mimetic communication translates meaning from Tao through consciousness (thus tangible, knowable reality) to the conscious and unconscious of the spectator. Art, generally, exists as a process that establishes the path between the human mind, reality and its unknown reason. Narrative's place is in the medial dimension between Tao and spectator unconsciousness.
Such a formulation takes care of the function and place of narrative, describing it as a communicative process of meaning-making, or rather, meaning-translation. This outline is but one step towards a more comprehensive description of narrative. Another can be taken in the clarification the relationship between unknown and known, symbolic and semiotic, semantic and syntactical. It is the under-representation of symbolic discourse in film theories such as Metz's that motivate the present theory. It is not that cinema is entirely a symbolic process, primed only for the exploration of unknowable meaning. As humans, our natural state of being is, so to say, to walk on roads with the earth hidden beneath. The road cannot stand without the earth below, and the earth below cannot be walked without a face that hides it. The work of Carl Jung stands as a testament to this philosophy. His psychoanalysis positions consciousness over an unfathomable void of the collective unconscious. To perceive outwardly from the Jungian mind is to open a door to reality and a back-window to the realm of the archetypes. Just as important as the recognition of the unconscious mind is, however, is the practice of living in with one's ego or consciousness. Narrative and the cinematic art, too, has its unconscious recess. Attached to this is an ego, or rather, consciousness. That suggested, how do consciousness and unconsciousness operate in simultaneity during the procession of narrative?
One formulation concerns established concepts of known and unknown mimesis. Known mimetic process are a reflection of that which the conscious mind has access to; unknown mimesis reflects that which is ultimately unknowable, yet receptible to the unconscious mind. In one respect, unknown and known mimesis can be considered statically, or rather, atemporally. In my analysis of unknown and known mimetic practice, I would point to signs and symbols; characters and objects in the cinematic space. Characters and objects have arcs and transform as a narrative proceeds and progresses. This kind of analysis can be attached to narrative, but because it requires the abstraction of character from narrative to some degree, it can be considered atemporal or static. We can consider narrative and the unknown and known process entirely temporally, however. We now then come upon our two new concepts: logos and pneuma.
Logos, in these constraints, defines the narrativisation of known mimetic material. Pneuma on the other defines the narrativisation of unknown mimetic material. These phenomena presented themselves to me as I re-watched The Lord of the Rings trilogy and have further solidified until I most recently was re-watching Bergman's Persona. We shall talk briefly about these two films to exemplify the concepts.
Logos concerns logic or the Word of God. Theologically, the term could possible be argued to be a symbolic process; God knows more than the the human mind can conceive of, thus the enaction of his words is never precise and true, one can only hope to follow in the steps outlined by the Logos. With this symbolic logos becoming attached indelibly to logic, the theological perspective is not incredibly pertinent and is subject to transformation. Logos can be considered to be the conscious enaction of reason. Logic then has its relationship with the unknown, but it is often consciously alienated from this with a 'scientific' rationalisation reliant on observable reality and fact. Logic then sits alongside faith, connected maybe, but conceptually dissimilar. I am drawn to this term because of this character - it is not simple, but it presents itself with clarity. To appropriate the term and immerse it into film theory, I would like to use it to describe the element of narrative that requires a degree of realism and cohesive, conventionalised logic. Lord of the Rings provides on of the most stark and expressive examples of narrative logos or logic's command in narrative. Why didn't Gandalf just call the eagles in the beginning?
This is a satirical critique of the trilogy that is, in itself, either entirely self-destructive or disengaged. Even someone who loves The Lord of the Rings trilogy may ask this question. You can only do so comedically, however, because the narrative that you have come to love emerges from what you might call a plot hole. Plot holes, as glaring as they may sometimes be, serve a function for the audience. One hears this most commonly in regards to melodramas and certain classes of typhlodrama. Why question Star Wars? You'll only run it. Why poke holes in Avengers? Just enjoy watching it. Maybe we've all heard or said something that equates to this: 'yeah, but... what does it matter? The eagles could have dropped the ring into Mount Doom, but the fact that they did not gave us the great trilogy that is The Lord of the Rings'. Here we have our opportunity to discuss narrative logos. It is not that narratives should be forgiven for having holes, but that it should be recognised that narratives require themselves to operate in certain ways. It is because narratives want to, are required to, or even must operate in a certain way that plot holes open up. These may be masked with exposition: the eagles cannot fly over certain areas as it'd be too dangerous. Alas, these are merely further projections of the narrative logos or logic. That is to say that that there are certain elements of a narrative that are only in place so that it can logically function. Whether the element be a plot hole or a plaster that masks a hole, it represents a constant demand of narratives to be coherent. This coherence is subservient to the true meaning-making process as it is related to pneuma and unknown mimesis. Alas, let us not be hasty. The logos of a narrative has its own meaning-making abilities. I do not regard the meaning produced by the logos to be the 'true' meaning of a movie as it is a pathway to, a road above, more fundamental meaning. That said, there is a class of film and filmmaker that privilege the logical meaning of narrative and so require an analysis of the narrative logos. We can return to this idea later. Let us step back.
Narrative logos is the strain of a story that is demanded by its own creation. For The Lord of the Rings, the narrative - a manifestation of meaning from Tao, an exploration of goodness and power - necessitates a journey. For the narrator to present a discourse, they require key processes. Joseph Campbell can be leaned on here as a key example. In his conception of the hero's narrative, certain elements are conventionally demanded. There must then be a hero, a mentor, thresholds, a showdown, an abyss, etc. The Lord of the Rings narrative requires some of these elements. The narrative logos composes them, drawing the lines between them so that a symbolic sculpture may manifest tangibly. Without logical composition, without the eagles neglecting to take the ring to Mount Doom, the sculpture cannot manifest. Important to emphasise is my insistence on prerequisite meaning. Stories are told as meaning something, yet simultaneously they are told and mean as a consequence; meaning transcends the telling, which is exactly why meaning can be so fleeting, so ambiguous, fluid and transformative between consciousnesses. The meaning a narrative can hold is something of an illusion: a narrative does not intrinsically bear truth, instead, is a mimetic process that allows light from Tao (which bears all truths unknowable) to hit one's inner eye. Narrative logos facilitates this expression.
There is another imperative characteristic of narrative logos. Beyond facilitating symbolic expression (pnuema), it realises meaning - which it to say, it transforms unknown mimesis into known mimesis or rather binds the two modes of representation. This occurs in two key respects: narratively and spectatorily. One of my favourite quotes from Jung is this:
Whoever speaks with primordial images speaks with a thousand voices.
Primordial images are realised in art as representational archetypes: the hero for example. The hero performs archetypal actions. The realisation of the archetype, the actual rendering of a primordial image, is a major function of narrative logos; logos embodies symbolism. To speak with a thousand voices requires relational logic. To then say one thing, especially if that one thing is really worth saying - if it allows you to speak of the unspeakable - we must offer signs and symbols. True meaning is, as Extreme teaches us all, more than words. Similar words may be spoken of the spectator. For the spectator to comprehend unknown mimetic elements, they naturally do, or are often prompted to, self-realise symbols carrying information of unknowable substance. We can transition towards a short discussion of Persona to make sense of this.
How does one confront Bergman's masterpiece? I personally find the greatest conundrum and a puzzle piece never given by the film rests in narrative perspective; from whose perspective is this story told and to be understood from? Is Persona a film about Alma and/or Elisabet? Or is it about the boy we see in the very start of the film? Who is this boy? Is it the son of Elisabet? Is it a representation of Bergman himself? Is he a surrogate for ourselves? Or is he a pure child archetype? It seems impossible to answer these questions definitively. Alas, the spectator may make sense of the film by making a choice. They may choose to perceive the film from Alma's perspective; a story about misplaced identity. This choice is an operation of logos. It is with this that we discover that narrative logos may be self-realised in the spectator, that the meaning a narrative can bear can prove itself to be highly relative. Alas, I believe that there is still a confined and coherent reading that is non-relative, instead relates to the many meanings produced by the narrative logos. This meaning is the true meaning, the unknowable meaning, captured by the narrative pneuma. Such is what we can discuss next. Before this, let us conclusively characterise narrative logos. Narrative logos has its relationship with known mimetic processes; it frames symbolic elements of a narrative as a conventional demand; and it produces meaning that grounds unknown mimetic material in knowable, tangible representations. Far more could be explored about Logos, but, these are its fundamental characteristics.
Previous post:
John Wick: Chapter 3 - Sick
More from me:
amazon.com/author/danielslack
