Maya Deren October October 014 Autumn 1980

Art Theory I Criticism I Politics
OCTOBER
Catrina Neiman An Introduction to the Notebook of

Maya Deren, 1947
Maya Deren and
Gregory Bateson An Exchange of Letters
Maya Deren From the Notebook of 1947
Annette Michelson On Reading Deren's Notebook
Sergei Eisenstein Letters from Mexico
Annette Michelson Bayreuth: The Centennial Ring
Jean-Jacques Nattiez Chereau's Treachery
Pierre Boulez and
Michel Fano A Conversation
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14
Art and Anthropology: The

Crossroads 3
Catrina Neiman An Introduction to the Notebook of
Maya Deren, 1947 3
Maya Deren and
Gregory Bateson An Exchange of Letters 16
Maya Deren From the Notebook of 1947 21
Annette Michelson On Reading Deren's Notebook 47
Sergei Eisenstein Letters from Mexico 55
Annette Michelson Bayreuth: The Centennial Ring 65
Jean-Jacques Nattiez Chereau's Treachery 71
Pierre Boulez and
Michel Fano A Conversation 101
Cover photograph: Siegfried, Act II. Bayreuth, 1978.

(Photo: Wilhelm Rauh.)
2 OCTOBER
GREGORY BATESON, who died earlier this year, gained his

initial reputation as an ethnologist working in the field in
Bali and New Guinea with Margaret Mead. His later work
combined cybernetic theory and anthropology. In 1946,
while lecturing at the New School for Social Research, he
met and began an exchange of ideas with Maya Deren.
PIERRE BOULEZ conducted the Bayreuth Festival centennial
Ring from 1976-80. The conversation published here was
recorded during the 1978 festival season.
MAYA DEREN's film practice and theory, begun in the 1940s,
laid the basis for the development of independent cinema in
this country.
SERGEI EISENSTEIN wrote the letters published here while
filming Que Viva Mexico! in 1931. This period was marked
by intensive reading, drawing, and correspondence during
the intervals between shooting.
MICHEL FANO is a composer, filmmaker, and sound engineer,
and a collaborator on the films of Alain Robbe-Grillet.
Among his principal contributions is Le territoire des
autres.
JEAN-JACQUES NATTIEZ, author of Fondements d'une
semiologie de la musique, teaches at the University of
Montreal, where he has directed a program of research into
the structure of the music of Northeast Canadian Eskimos.
He is currently at work on a detailed analysis of the
centennial production of the Ring.
CATRINA NEIMAN is a coeditor of The Legend of Maya Deren.
Her colleagues Millicent Hodson and VeVe Clark provided
suggestions concerning her introduction, and Francine
Bailey printed the photographs accompanying the Deren
material. Teji and Cherel Ito provided the stills from the
Haitian footage.
Art and Anthropology:
The Crossroads
The notes, correspondence, and photographs published here for the first
time are excerpted from Ritual, the second of three volumes of The Legend of
Maya Deren (1917-61). The Legend, which presents Deren's collected works in the
form of a documentary biography, is being published by Film Culture. It has been
organized by four women who together represent Deren's major areas of accom-
plishment: film (Catrina Neiman), photography (Francine Bailey), dance (Milli-
cent Hodson), and Caribbean studies (VeVe Clark). The originals of the Deren
documents are housed in the Special Collections of the Boston University Library.
An Introduction to the Notebook

of Maya Deren, 1947
CATRINA NEIMAN
Much of Maya Deren's work is still unknown, and it is far broader in scope
than is generally realized.' She contributed much that is not recorded in the annals
of avant-garde film. Her extensive writings show her to be a theoretician of some
stature and an interpreter of our culture as well as those in the Caribbean and Asia.
She was also a professional photographer and published portraits of artists and
writers she knew in New York in the forties and fifties: Duchamp, Breton, Ossip
Zadkine, Anais Nin, Julie Harris, Janet Collins, among many others. Longer still
is the list of more obscure figures, women artists and scientists, anonymous
Haitians.
Deren documented both modern and traditional art forms, the virtuoso
performance and its communal counterpart. As an artist herself, she experimented
with the use of certain traditional forms in structuring her own films-haiku
poetry, Chinese boxing, children's games, circus acts. Several of these projects she
left unfinished. They are, however, abundantly documented. The notes published
here were written in the course of planning what Deren called her "Film-in-
Progress" (1946-47), the most provocative of all her abandoned projects. The
reasons for its failure reveal as much about Deren's integrity as an artist as do any
of her completed works. She describes the fate of this film in the preface to Divine
1. A complete bibliography is available in Film Culture, 39 (Winter 1965), which contains an

astute selection of Deren's notes, essays, and letters.
4 OCTOBER
Horsemen, her book on the Vodoun religion.2 She had arrived in Haiti in
September of 1947, laden with cameras and recording equipment.
Among my papers was a carefully conceived plan for a film in which
Haitian dance, as purely a dance form, would be combined (in mon-
tage principle) with various non-Haitian elements....
Today, in September 1951 ... the filmed footage . . . lies in virtu-
ally its original condition in a fireproof box in the closet; the recordings
are still on their original wire spools; the stack of photographs is
tucked away in a drawer labeled "TO BE PRINTED," and the elaborate
design for the montaged film is somewhere in my files, I am not sure
where.3
Deren felt compelled to list the disposition of these materials in order to
emphasize just how much time and effort she had invested in her project,
"undertaken by one who was acknowledged as a resolute and even stubbornly
willful individual."4 The film had been conceived, worked out on paper, and
discussed with anthropologists, among them Gregory Bateson and Margaret
Mead. They had warned her of the problems she would encounter in comparing
Haitian dance with other forms (Balinese and Navajo). But Deren was construct-
ing a work of art, a cross-cultural "fugue" of ritual gestures and objects, and she
had persisted in her vision-until she arrived in Haiti. Once there, she soon came
to feel that she could not film the dances for her own purposes without regard for
their religious context. Conceding defeat as an artist, she "abandoned [her]
manipulations" and devoted herself to understanding "the irrefutable reality
... of Vodoun."5
II
P. Adams Sitney has remarked that Deren's film career was "radically
deflected" by her work in Haiti.6 One might, in fact, make the reverse claim, that
her interest in Haitian dance was initially deflected by her discovery of film. She
had first planned to visit Haiti in 1941, presumably to write about dance and
religious possession. She had, during the preceding year, become interested in the
work of Katherine Dunham, anthropologist and choreographer, whose writings
and concerts were just then bringing Afro-Caribbean dance forms to the attention
of North Americans. Deren persuaded Dunham to employ her as an assistant in
2. Deren's book Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti (London, Thames and Hudson,
1953), on the rites and cosmology of Vodoun, remained out of print for over a decade and was reissued
in 1970 with a new introduction by Joseph Campbell, editor of the series of works on mythology in
which the book had originally appeared (New York, Chelsea House Publishers, 1970; reprinted by
Dell, 1970).
3. Divine Horsemen, p. 5.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid., p. 6.
6. P. Adams Sitney, Visionary Film, New York, Oxford University Press, 1974, p. 38.
Art and Anthropology: The Crossroads 5
the hope that they could collaborate on a book about dance. Deren had in mind a
book for children on the origins of dance movement from an anthropological
point of view, illustrated with simple drawings of "the poetry of motion."7 That
project was also abandoned.
In 1941 Deren arrived in California, having traveled cross-country with
Katherine Dunham on the tour of Cabin in the Sky. Deren had absorbed a great
deal from Miss Dunham in that time and now undertook her own study of Haitian
ritual. Her three-part essay "Religious Possession in Dancing" was published in
1942.8 It was the entry of the U.S. into the war, Deren claimed, that prevented her
from going to Haiti to further her research. Soon afterward, while living in
Hollywood, she met and married Czech filmmaker Alexander Hammid. He
taught her the mechanics of photography and film, and it was their collaboration
on Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) that convinced Deren that cinema was her
medium. In the next four years she produced the body of films and writings for
which she is best known today. Two of these early works, Choreography for
Camera (1945) and Ritual in Transfigured Time (1946), use dance rather than
literary or theatrical devices as their structural dynamic. While revealing Deren's
own inclination toward choreography, these films retain something of Dunham's
spirit as well. Deren's principal performers, Talley Beatty and Rita Christiani,
were dancers she had known in the Dunham Company.
Deren never acknowledged a debt to Katherine Dunham, even in Divine
Horsemen. It is Gregory Bateson whom she credits with attuning her to "what
distinguishes culture from culture" and Joseph Campbell with "sharpening [her]
awareness of that which man has in common."9 Divine Horsemen, Deren added,
"is an effort to unite these points of view according to a third-that of the
artist. ."10Bateson and Campbell were both important influences and among
Deren's close friends-Bateson before her Haitian journey, Campbell afterward.
Dunham, however, had provided a considerable example for the synthesis Deren
herself would seek in art and anthropology.
III
"The elaborate design for the montaged film" mentioned in Divine Horse-
men has not been located in Deren's files. What is known of her plan is outlined in
one of her many grant applications." Her intention was to combine elements of
7. Letter to Dunham, February 17, 1941; from the Katherine Dunham Collection, Morris Library,
Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.
8. Educational Dance, March, August-September, 1942. This short-lived UCLA journal had the
previous year carried one of Dunham's major early articles, "Form and Function in Primitive Dance,"
October 1941.
10. Ibid., p. 13.
11. "Film in Progress. Thematic Statement." Application for the Renewal of a Fellowship for
Creative Work in Motion Pictures. February 9, 1947; in Film Culture, 39 (Winter 1965), 11-17.
6 OCTOBER
Balinese and Haitian ritual with those of children's games, filmed on the streets of
New York. Deren had long observed children. She had filmed sequences of a child
at play to use in Ritual in Transfigured Time but had eliminated these at the last
moment. Now she would take up the idea once more, characterizing the games of
children (and those of adults, like football and chess) as forms of secular ritual. As
she wrote:
All the quality of children's games which fascinated me and induced

me to consider it as a theme for the film-in-progress were . .. [their]
universality . . ., the intense illusion of reality which they had for the
players, the immaculate attention to seemingly irrelevant detail, the
element of self-subordination and even ordeal .... 12
12. Ibid., p. 14.

Also implicit in her analogy, of course, are the constructions of art. The
example of Duchamp, another mentor to Deren, strongly pervades her thinking at
this time. The identification of art with game is suggested repeatedly in her films
and notes of this period-most frequently in the image of chess, but in other types
of play as well.
In a later passage of her "Thematic Statement," Deren voices her fear that, by
juxtaposing games with rituals, she runs the risk of the rituals being observed
with the same "amused tolerance" with which we observe the doings of children
(and artists, she noted). In order to protect the integrity of the rituals, she felt
compelled "to enlist the advice of anthropologists." It was at this point that she
sought out Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead, who gave "most generously of
their information, perceptions of cross-cultural equivalents, and their understand-
ing of the relation of art forms to culture contexts."'13
13. Ibid.
Sidewalk Chalk Drawings, ca. 1948. (Photos: Maya

Deren.)
8 OCTOBER
Bateson and Mead were among the anthropologists participating in the

lecture series sponsored by Franziska Boas in 1946, "The Function of Dance in
Human Society." Attending these lectures, Deren became aware of the work done
by Bateson and Mead in Bali in the late thirties. Over a two-year period, Bateson
had shot some 22,000 feet of film, material later used in a series of films on subjects
ranging from Bathing Babies to Trance and Dance in Bali (1951).14The original
footage, extraordinary in its range and objectivity, represents the first extensive
venture in ethnographic filmmaking. In 1942 Bateson and Mead published an
equally pioneering monograph, Balinese Character: A Photographic Analysis,15
based on their vast photographic archives. In this work they examine posture and
gesture frame by frame. Mead outlines the distinctive character or "ethos" of
Balinese life, and Bateson reflects on the methods of photographic analysis.
Deren had access to Balinese Character. What she had not expected was that
Bateson would give her the Balinese footage to use as she wished. Her decision to
work with Bali was therefore a purely pragmatic one. Prior to meeting Bateson she
had "spent considerable time" researching the rites of Southwest Indians, pre-
sumably trance dance, for possible inclusion in the film.16 However, as Mead
pointed out, no films of the Navajo existed then.17 Deren would have had to go
there herself. She investigated this possibilityl8 but dropped the idea because, as
Mead recalled, Bateson thought that Bali and Haiti were enough to handle. The
comparison between Bali and Haiti, in Mead's view, was legitimate; both were
"high cultures." Haiti's Vodoun was a derivation of ancient West African forms.
Bateson, at first, was wary of combining South Seas with Caribbean forms, but
Deren managed to convince him.
The initial encounter between Maya Deren and Gregory Bateson is reflected
in their exchange of letters during December 1946, published here. This corre-
spondence addresses itself both to the proposed content of Deren's film, an issue
14. "The following films in the series 'Character Formation in Different Cultures,' produced by
Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead for the Institute for Intercultural Studies, were released in 1951 by
the New York University Film Library, New York, NY 10003. All are 16mm, black and white, sound:
A Balinese Family, 2 reels
Bathing Babies in 3 Cultures, 1 reel
Childhood Rivalry in Bali and New Guinea, 2 reels
First Days in the Life of a New Guinea Baby, 2 reels
Karba's First Years, 2 reels
Trance and Dance in Bali, 2 reels"
(Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind, New York, Chandler, 1972). The original footage is
housed at the Museum of Natural History, New York, and at the Eastern Pennsylvania Psychiatric
Institute, Philadelphia.
15. Special Publications of the New York Academy of Sciences, vol. 2.
16. Letter to Henry Allen Moe, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, February 9, 1947.
17. Interview with Margaret Mead for The Legend of Maya Deren, September 21, 1976. All
references in this paragraph to Mead's recollections paraphrase this interview. Dr. Mead was unaware
of the footage of Navajo life shot by anthropologist John Adair in 1938, only recently made available
for public screening.
18. Letter to Moe.
for the anthropologist, and to the artist's problem of structure. While Deren had
won the former argument, justifying the inclusion of Bali on artistic grounds, it
was an idea of Bateson's, interestingly enough, that clarified the form of the film.
That idea Deren cites as follows:
The form which I have in mind for this film ... is one which has been
approximately described in an analysis by Gregory Bateson of the
South Seas exhibit of the Museum of Modern Art.'9 This exhibit
combined art objects from different cultures in such a relationship as to
itself constitute a progressive and even climactic art object. Mr. Bateson
praises the exhibit precisely for the fact that each grouping of materials
was true to the individual culture which it represented, at the same time
that these groupings were so arranged in reference to each other as to
create a 'sensible' pattern which transcended them all and even
strengthened them, each in their individual terms as well, and he goes
on to liken the organization of the whole to a "symphony, which
consists essentially of a single temporal sequence of sounds (where)
unity is achieved by earlier pre-figuring of themes which will be picked
up and developed in some later movement, so in this exhibit, the
spectator is allowed to see ahead something of what he will later
experience. It is this unity which causes the spectator to say 'it makes
sense.'"20
Deren wrote her "Thematic Statement" in February 1947 as part of her

application to renew the Guggenheim Foundation fellowship she had received the
previous year. It was the first Guggenheim grant "ever given for creative work in
the field of motion pictures" and the only grant she would receive. Bateson and
Mead were to help fund her expedition to Haiti, under the auspices of their
Institute for Intercultural Studies, in return for a copy of her raw footage. The
Guggenheim fellowship had freed Deren, then, to devote most of her time to the
film-in-progress. She continued, though, to lecture in and around New York and
wrote several articles on film before leaving for Haiti that fall.
Within a week of completing her "Thematic Statement," Deren began work
on the Balinese film. She noted her observations on index cards, typed these in
triplicate and cross-referenced them with the sequences she selected to use. She
then duplicated what amounts to five reels of film and over a hundred stills.
For a little over a month Deren kept a notebook, entertaining her spontane-
ous reactions and thinking them through aloud. Half-handwritten, half-typed on
loose-leaf paper, these notes are unique among her documents. Here she explores
the personal and professional conflicts that arise in the course of making a film.
19. Gregory Bateson, "Exhibition Review, Art of the South Seas," The Art Bulletin, XXVIII, 2
(June 1946).
20. "Thematic Statement," pp. 15-16.
10 OCTOBER
Stills enlarged by Maya Deren from her Haitian

footage, 1947-48.
Her articles for amateurs on film technique reflect her awareness of her own
filmmaking process. But only in these notes do we find her considering that
process firsthand, as an artist engaged in construction, as a woman artist embrac-
ing technology.
The notebook is particularly valuable as a record of the various perspectives
which Deren brings to bear on her task. First, she views the Balinese footage as raw
material to be molded in the image of her own creation. She selects a gesture or a
mask for its formal value with respect to her overall plan. At times she complains
of Bateson's framing that he has included too much or too little "context." Her
vision is constrained by his. Through the eyes of Gregory Bateson, Deren becomes
aware of the ethnographer's problems and improvised solutions. Her vision is
expanded by his. Once she accepts his frame of reference, she speculates on what
she sees within as well as what lies beyond. As viewer of this film, and as
filmmaker, she offers a complex meditation upon cinema in all its aspects.
IV
Deren had begun to reconsider the emphasis on deeply personal themes in
her own films and the necessity of using herself as protagonist. Ritual in
Transfigured Time, just completed, was the last film in which she would appear.
Her writing at this time, especially the "Thematic Statement," emphasizes the
need to "de-personalize" her art. Hence her interest in the forms of ritual as
manifesting anonymity and universality, forms which she hoped to incorporate.
The way in which Deren observed ritual, then-on film or later in the Haitian
hounfor-must be seen in terms of her own needs and goals. Consider, for
example, the title of her chart classifying rituals and children's games: "Rituals
Minimizing Personal Identity." "These categories," she noted, "are only roughly
drawn on the basis of preliminary research, and are subject to modification and
change."21
In her preface to Divine Horsemen, Deren warns the reader that hers is not an
orthodox anthropology. She is confident that Vodoun, like any work of the
imagination, is intelligible in and through its forms, its myths and rites, its drums
and dance. And it is these which she, as an artist, feels especially well "trained" to
grasp. She then acknowledges the insight of Gregory Bateson, as one of the few
anthropologists to possess "sensitivity to form and to the clues it provides for
meaning."
It is in the form of the artifacts and acts of a culture that the dis-
tinguishing ethos of a culture is stated, and a major discussion of
ethos, in relation to the anthropological analysis of a culture, is
contained in Naven, a study of the Iatmul tribes, by Gregory Bateson.22
Chronologically, it is to Mr. Bateson, in fact, that my first acknowledge-
ments are due. Before I went to Haiti and before this book was ever
contemplated, I had the good fortune to have many extended conversa-
tions with him concerning the nature of cultural organization, particu-
larly in reference to Balinese, British and American culture. It was the
non-sectarian quality of his anthropological intelligence-his readi-
ness to engage every sensibility and every possible point of view in the
effort to illuminate the structure of society-that, in my eyes, once more
reaffirmed anthropology as the study of man, restoring to both words
their major meaning. And those conversations altogether represent an
21. Ibid., p. 17.

22. New York, Cambridge University Press, 1936.
12 OCTOBER
influence which I am sure pervades this book, particularly in that it

sharpened my observation of significant details and differences and
my respect for the particular ethos of Haitian culture.23
Deren's early discussions with Bateson are preserved in her notebook. She
mostly addressed issues raised in his lectures, which she was attending then at the
New School for Social Research. Bateson had recently participated in the Macy
Conferences on Cybernetics and had begun applying systems theory to cultural
patterns. This approach to anthropology reflected his conviction, strongly influ-
enced by his father's work as a geneticist, that the types of symmetry characteristic
of nature were also inherent in the constructions of man, "that we might expect
to find the same sort of laws at work in the structure of a crystal as in the structure
of society ...."24 In 1946 Bateson too had been appointed a Guggenheim fellow
for "the formulation of a nucleus of theory relating to the concepts of culture,
personality and character formation and the extension of this theoretical nucleus
to cover the phenomenon of cultural change."25 The British anthropologist had
by this time already put forth a body of original theory. The book Deren
mentioned, Naven, is a milestone monograph in ethnology, as much acclaimed
for its challenge of conventional social science as for its analysis of ritual.
Deren was generally impressed with Bateson's work. She was, however,
skeptical about his theoretical comparison of "national character," contrasting,
for example, British with American parent-child relations, work he had done in
collaboration with Margaret Mead. The schemas he had formulated to describe
these relations-exhibitionism/spectatorship, dominance/submission, succor-
ing/dependence-were, Deren felt, too categorical, even simplistic, as was his cy-
bernetic model of cultural change. The greater part of Deren's notes is devoted to a
consideration of what she saw as an overly mechanistic view of man. One set of
typed notes (March 16) is specifically addressed to Bateson himself. In these Deren
confronts him on his own ground, constructing her own systematic model in
refutation of his.
Maya Deren was not unequipped for this task. Her background in the social
sciences was considerable. From her father, a physician and psychologist who had
worked with Pavlov in Russia, she had learned much about psychiatric theory.
Her own studies in gestalt theory with Kurt Koffka at Smith College provided the
basis for her thinking about the constructive process of perception, in particular
about the "habits of vision" formed by American audiences.26 Her interest in a

24. Bateson, "Experiments in Thinking About Observed Ethnological Material," Philosophy of
Science, 8, 53-68. Paper read at the Seventh Conference on Methods in Philosophy and the Sciences, 28
April 1940, at the New School for Social Research, New York; reprinted in Steps to an Ecology of
Mind, p. 75.
25. Records of the John Simon Guggenheim Jr. Memorial Foundation, New York.
26. See especially her Anagram of Ideas on Art, Form and Film, Yonkers, Alicat Book Shop Press,
1946; reprinted in Film Culture, 39 (Winter 1965). Bateson also employs the Gestalt concept of "habits
physical theory which could take the conditions of observation into account led
her to write a paper on seventeenth-century precursors to the theory of relativity,
often mentioned as having informed her understanding of time-space relations in
cinema.
The camera was for Deren the modern instrument which could most
naturally reflect its own conditions of observation: "local" time and place and
their changes, "the inalienability of subjective position."27 For her it was through
personal, subjective experience that we gain access to the universal. Though
among the most personal ever made, her films were addressed "to the poet in every
man.
To Deren, Bateson was proceeding in the reverse direction, constructing
abstract paradigms based on computer theory, a reductivist theory of mind which
did not necessarily hold true for individuals. In her notes criticizing Bateson on
this point she cites her essay An Anagram of Ideas on Art, Form and Film (1946) as
being concerned precisely with that individual consciousness.
In her notes on Bateson's lectures, Deren parallels William Blake's assertion,
in his annotations of John Locke's "Essay on the Human Understanding,"28 of
the primacy of man's imagination over and against the rigid, abstract constructs of
the scientist and philosopher. Bateson's was not, however, such a rigid mind, as
Deren's acknowledgement to him in Divine Horsemen suggests, and they did have
much in common: an interest in psychiatry and communications, in anthropol-
ogy and art, in play and dream. Both deeply loved poetry. Bateson, in fact, quotes
Blake throughout his writings and has always seen himself as Blakean with
respect to his own profession.29 He would take the artist's side, for example, in a
recent argument with Margaret Mead about the shooting of ethnographic film.30
Mead insisted on the most conservative, least imaginative method: wide-angle lens
and tripod. Bateson disdained this literal representation of objectivity. His
argument for the hand-held camera, moving in the midst of and "interpreting"
the action, recalls Deren's cinematography in Haiti. "She was right in there with
the goat," Mead remarked of the footage, critical of Deren's extreme "subjective
position"-her "poetic" ethnography and her participatory approach to observa-
tion.31
Deren cited Bateson's willingness to lend her the Balinese footage as "an act
of looking" (for temporality, narrative, cause and effect, etc.) in his 1942 article "Social Planning and
the Concept of Deutero-Learning," in Steps, pp. 159-176.
27. Deren, Anagram, p. 12.
28. See Northrop Frye, Fearful Symmetry, A Study of William Blake, Princeton, Princeton
University Press, 1947.
29. See especially Bateson, "Metalogue: What is an Instinct?" in Approaches to Animal Communi-
cation, ed. T. Sebeok, The Hague and Paris, Mouton & Co., 1969; in Steps, pp. 38-58.
30. "For God's Sake, Margaret," Interview with Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead by Stewart
Brand, Co-Evolution Quarterly, Summer 1976, 32-44.
31. Interview with Mead for The Legend of Maya Deren.
14 OCTOBER
of cross-professional cooperation which could serve as a model precedent in the

face of professional sectarianism."32 Similarly, his review of the South Seas art
exhibition concludes with the pronouncement:
It is evidently important to bring together anthropological knowledge
and artistic sensitivity. Such work may always require two persons,
each with his special skill, and always there will be pitfalls. The artist
may try to verbalize his conclusions in totally erroneous phrasings of
why some arrangement seems to him to be artistically appropriate, and
the anthropologist will probably err in trying to push the conclusions
toward too sharp a precision. But there is real hope that collaboration
along these lines might lead to some advance in our understanding of
the tangled emotional themes expressed in man's diverse artistic con-
ventions.33
V
Margaret Mead's most vivid memory of the proposed film on ritual and
children's games was of seeing Deren trace hopscotch lines in the air. Deren
repeatedly invoked this image to illustrate the way in which we define an artificial,
ritual space, a frame of reference, boundaries that may not be crossed or stepped
upon. This drawing of lines has, as we have noted, something of ritual and art; for
Deren it meant the placing of faith in an authority that transcends the self-an
authority, nevertheless, constructed by man. This theme underlies all of her
interests in the forms of art and religion, the paradigms of science, the games of
children, and is made explicit in two statements which frame her own work as an
artist. Meshes of the Afternoon portrays a woman's dream in which "the imagined
achieved, for her, such force that it became reality."34This reflection is elaborated
in one of the last articles she wrote, "Some Metaphors for the Creative Process":
There is another metaphor for this process of creating a structure which
conveys, perhaps, something of the situation of the artist. He is very
much like that classic figure of animated cartoons who ... is running
along and, in complete concentration on his purpose-carried along,
as it were, by the momentum of the act-runs right off the edge of a cliff
without noticing it and continues running in mid-air until, looking
down, he becomes aware of his unnatural situation, and in that
moment, and because he perceives it as extraordinary and unnatural, is
unable to sustain it, and falls.
32. "Thematic Statement," p. 14.

33. "Exhibition Review," p. 122.
34. Deren, Program Note for Meshes of the Afternoon, ca. 1945, in Film Culture, 39 (Winter
1965), 1.
So the artist, beginning in reality-in that which already exists-

starts moving toward a vision, an Idea, and, with the cumulative
momentum of that dedicated concentration, crosses the threshold from
that which already exists into the void where, still moving forward, he
creates a plane of earth where his foot has been, as the spider, spinning
from his own guts, threads his ladders or highways through once empty
space.35
Deren's productivity extended far beyond writing and the making of films.
She inaugurated experimental filmmaking as a viable profession in America-its
channels of distribution, lecture circuit, workshops-composing a network
existing entirely outside that of the commercial industry. And in order to protect
the independent film from the values of "mainstream" cinema, she advocated an
aesthetic of economy, which depended on "visualizing as much as possible in
advance. It is much cheaper to make mistakes in one's mind than on film, and this
is the key to freedom in film-making: to use one's imagination as a means of
independence, for it can make possible an economy which eliminates dependence
upon the financial approval of backers, distributors, etc."36
Even Deren's colleagues were largely mystified by her ability to make films on
shoestrings. "She could get a cast of thousands; she could tap invisible sources." 37
"Everyone wanted to know her system."38Although Deren shared her knowledge
and her methods, she was forced to protect herself, the fruits of her ingenuity. She
considers the problem at length in these notes, in response to a comment by
Margaret Mead on the ways of witches. Deren concludes that witches are those
who, like herself, survive by seemingly mysterious means.
One of the many legends surrounding Deren casts her as a witch. Her
involvement with Vodoun would reinforce the image of Maya as occult priestess,
the exotic "angle" of her story which most journalists still find irresistible.
In her notes Deren analyzes this identification in terms which forecast much
current feminist thinking. She saw herself in the figure of Lilith, Adam's
apocryphal mistress who, rather than abide by his rules, chose to leave the garden
of convention. When the name of Maya Deren was recalled to Gregory Bateson
after thirty years, his first, impulsive response was "Lilith." "Why Lilith?"
"Because," he replied, "that was her order; that was her goddess." Bateson
remembered little more. He responded to Deren's notebook by saying he could add
nothing that could not be gleaned from her own reflections.39
35. Village Voice, July 21, 1960, reprinted in Film Culture, 39, p. 53.
36. Deren, "Burglars and Triggers," Village Voice, June 1, 1961, in Film Culture, 39, p. 56.
37. Interview with Leo Lerman for The Legend of Maya Deren, August 14, 1976.
38. Interview with Miriam Arsham for The Legend of Maya Deren, July 17, 1976.
39. Preliminary telephone interview with Gregory Bateson for The Legend of Maya Deren, October
16, 1976.
An Exchange of Letters between
Maya Deren and Gregory Bateson
December 9, 1946
Dear Gregory Bateson:

I have just finished reading your article on the South Seas exhibit (I hope
I may keep it), and I regret enormously that I had not read it before our discussion
Saturday night, for it clarifies in my own mind the pattern which is basic to this
projected film and provides me also with an objective point of reference, which I
could have so well made use of in trying to make myself clear the other evening.
For what is to me, at this moment, exciting about your article is that whether
or not d'Harnoncourt intended it that way consciously, or even whether or not
it actually came out that way, is almost irrelevant to the fact that the pattern
which you describe is very close to what I had in mind about the film. That
is (leaving aside the actual intention or the degree of its realization in the
Museum exhibit), you say that it is possible to create a transcendent horizontal
pattern of development by cutting through a series of, as it were, vertical
integrities without violating these latter, or falsifying them, or even distorting
them. As a matter of fact, you praise the exhibit precisely for the fact that each
grouping of materials was true to the individual culture which it represented, at
the same time that these groupings were so arranged in reference to each other as
to create a "sensible" pattern which transcended them all and even strengthened
them, each in their individual terms as well.
It is this concept of relationships upon which I wished to build my film, and
when, upon first reading your article, I felt that you had actually stated it, I
immediately suspected that perhaps my personal preoccupation had induced me
to impose upon someone else's thinking my own organization. But I have gone
over it twice since, and I still get the same answer, and I hope it is not a
misinterpretation.
And if I have understood you correctly, then you have yourself answered any
number of the reservations and objections which both you and Miss Mead
posed the other evening, and which I answered rather with intuitive passion
than coherence. My problem, in a sense, was to build a fugue of cultures. But each
voice must have its own melodic integrity. Consequently, my preoccupation
with searching out a variety of cultures which had retained, in their own
terms, their homogeneity was not based upon my personal interest in exoticism,
but out of the need to have a variety of homogeneous structures which would
relate to each other in the film rather than blend into each other in the "melting
pot" manner. The Irish cop in Central Park did not belong in the pattern I had in
mind largely for aesthetic considerations: the cultural pattern which he
represented was so familiar that it would not carry the impact of a form. Had it
been a question of an Irish wake, it would have been quite another matter.
For it seems to me that, whereas a casual, social action can be understood
only in terms of the cultural whole, the artifacts of a culture contain that whole
within it; in the first case, the event or the image is part of the whole, whereas in
the second case it is a kind of miniature of the whole. In thinking back over the
films which you ran at the house, I suddenly realized that, taken singly, without
footnote, explanation, or other context, the nursing baby and the mother could
have been any mother or baby, and that even a good deal of the action between
them-isolated as single images-might be understood in terms of personal
temperament of the mother or some special family situation. But the moment that
baby began to dance, it could only have been a Balinese baby.
My problem then becomes to discover in the various cultures or artifacts
such force that they carry the entire culture in their arms, so to speak, and so bring
to the larger pattern the vertical dimension of their singular reference. Were I to
use a more casual movement or image, it would tear loose from its context and
would bring nothing but itself, in very immediate and flat terms, to the film. This
would make for the false, synthetic, superficial continuities of which you were very
justifiably suspicious.
It is precisely because I am so concerned with this vertical dimension-
without it, the film would be a kind of quick-costume-change business-that I
turn to the scientists in the field. For were I to violate the meaning of any of these
culture-images by failing to use them truly, I would defeat my own purpose. And
the same would be true if out of sheer ignorance I neglected to use something
which could suit my pattern very well. Although I was very anxious to see much
more of the Balinese material than we were able to look at the other evening (and I
know that you brought much more with you), I felt that if I could make clear the
sort of thing I was looking for, you would be in a much better position to help me,
and it would, in the long run, save a good deal of time. It was for this reason that I
permitted myself to leave the film in the briefcase while I blundered about
thinking out loud and trying to verbalize a series of concepts which are actually
visual and filmic and still in the process of developing themselves.
It might be simpler, also, if I tried to see at least some of the material at those
times when it may be shown in some other connection-such as your lectures at
the New School (if you ever run anything there), or if Miss Mead gives another
lecture as she did at the Boas studio. Do you have any other ideas as to how I might
proceed?
Please forgive me for keeping both of you so late the other evening. I'm
tremendously grateful for your interest and effort.
If and when you finish the Anagram and have a little time, I would be very,
very interested in having your ideas about it. I hope you realize that the emphasis
upon form, which may seem to you, in your field, superfluous, is on the contrary
tremendously necessary in the contemporary art field, where a work of art is
thought to be a personal finger painting of some kind.
Thank you again.
Maya Deren
18 OCTOBER
December 12, 1946
Dear Maya:
Excuse the dictated form, but I want to get this written down so that we can
go through the points one by one without interrupting each other's trains of
thought.
Yes, of course a cross-cultural fugue is certainly a possible art form, and this
is what the museum exhibit in large measure achieved. The question is what are
the conditions for such a synthesis of diverse ingredients.
My secretary, who knows about such things, tells me that a fugue is
essentially built around a single theme and its developments, contrapuntally
organized, so that is not the word we want; but I suppose it will do.
We face the general question of what must be the relations between two
artistic statements (e.g., two musical themes or two rituals, or if you like, a poem
and a painting) such that a combination of these two shall itself be an art form.
Clearly, there are various possible relationships between the two themes.
One theme may serve as a background to the other so that the relations between
the two would be comparable to the famous figure-ground relation of the gestalt
psychologists. [Or] the two themes may be essentially synonymous, carrying the
same emotional impact and containing the same or approximately the same
symbols, and while strict synonymy is certainly unnecessary and probably would
be tedious, some degree of overlap is, I think, essential.
Beyond these simple cases, we come to the much more complex ones
which begin to be interesting from your point of view. There are the possibilities
which the Museum of Modern Art worked on. Note first of all that the Australian
section of that exhibit was not a part of the "fugue." Its basic theme was not
connected with the reproductive cycle, and its only function that I could recognize
was that of a limbering-up exercise-to prepare the audience for the sexual thesis.
Note also that the Australian material presented a very special problem which is
very relevant to your plans. Australia is not a part of the culture area which
extends from New Guinea to Polynesia. None of the idioms of Australian art are
shared with the rest of this area. But in the rest of the area there are continual
cross-echoes. It is as if a vocabulary of artistic expression had been scattered over
the area, and each people had built up out of this vocabulary their own syntax and
their own set of things that they wanted to say.
When you plan to combine, e.g., Navaho with Haiti, you are facing
something more than the problem of combining New Guinea with Maori.
D'Harnoncourt was curiously lucky in that he had to deal with a culture area
and thought that he was doing an historical study. He therefore put in the system
of vistas, which permitted the common vocabulary of the culture area to give unity
to the whole exhibit.
I seriously think that you would do well to concentrate on two cultures
from a single cultural area-either two cultures of the Southwest or two negro
cultures in the Caribbean. To combine Haiti with a Southwestern culture is going
to raise all sorts of difficulties.
The possible ways in which themes may be related to each other will also
include all those cases which could be diagrammed by personifying the themes
and then saying that the relationship between the themes is comparable to a
human relationship. The possible combinations will then include all the
possibilities of human relationship: dominance-submission, masculine-feminine,
succoring-dependence, spectatorship-exhibitionism, etc. Indeed, these
possibilities have been frequently exploited in musical duets and so on-beautiful
stuff in Indian duet love songs with contrapuntal relationships between the
male and female voices. The trouble is that these paired adjectives are very
inadequate descriptions of human relationships, that in fact, to make a pair, the
dominance and the submission have to be of such special sorts that the submission
is the sort of submission which is appropriate to that particular sort of dominance.
Further, there is a whole mass of complexities which spring from the fact that
polarities of this kind can be linked together. Dominance may be linked with
spectatorship, and submission may be linked with exhibitionism, or the pair of
polarities may be reversed-dominance being linked with exhibitionism, etc.
The important thing is that there shall be ethological system [sic] of some
sort underlying the relationship between the two contrasting elements.
Beyond this it is probably necessary for the two elements to be talking about
the same thing-e.g., sex, or drawing a hopscotch line, or whatever.
What I am trying to say is that to orchestrate two themes together it looks to
me as though you require to meet at least two types of limitation: a) the two
themes must deal with the same thing, and b) they must talk about that same thing
in tones of voice or ethoses which are musically relevant.
There is, however, another point which could be worked on; namely, to
make a positive comment on discrepancy. I mean the sort of thing that T. S. Eliot
does with a mass of juxtapositions so designed that the total work of art says, "It is
all dust and ashes in the mouth." But I suspect that there is a discontinuity and
not a continuous series of gradations between artistic statements of relationship at
one end of the scale and artistic statements of heterogeneity at the other.
By the way, I wonder if two themes related in terms of exhibitionism and
spectatorship is not another way of saying two themes with a figure-ground
relationship between them.
Now, to come to this business of drawing hopscotch lines-interpreting this
metaphor in its widest, I presume it means everything, from laws to the almost
hypnotic concentration on an arbitrary goal that you might find in games or
competitive contests, to the strong barriers which prevent one from saying in a
conversation something which would break the fabric of the conversation, and so
on, the whole gamut of definable and undefinable controls on behavior; and that it
includes both positive and negative controls-"thou shalt" and "thou shalt
20 OCTOBER
not"-and all the controls which are not verbal and are not even felt as commands
but rather are felt as part of the structure of the universe-tram lines which we
follow because "that is how we do things" or "it is done."
As far as I know, the artist who has most consciously concerned himself with
the problem of the hopscotch line is Blake, and he will serve as well as another to
use as a figure of speech-the counterpoint relations in the Songs of Innocence and
Experience, which, alas, are never really worked out into any coherent artistic
form. What he does, mainly, is to try to build mythology or other artistic forms on
an imagined contrast between the world of rules and a world totally lacking in
rules, but what you are trying to do is to combine two worlds, each with different
sorts of hopscotch lines.
Yes, I think the answer has got to turn around a pair of themes, each of
which is the topological inverse of the other-e.g., one culture which sees its
hopscotch lines as permitting freedom of movement between the lines, while the
other culture sees the same lines as forbidding movement across the lines.
Granting that mathematically there is no difference between such systems,
psychologically there is, and I think differences of this order would give you
themes sufficiently related to be coordinated into a single artistic structure.
I hope some of these thoughts may be useful.
Yours sincerely,
Gregory Bateson
From the Notebook of
Maya Deren, 1947
February 16
The minute I began to put the Balinese film through the viewer, the fever began. It
is a feeling one cannot remember from before but can only have in an immediate
sense. I mean, like pain, one remembers having had pain, and even the reaction to
the pain, but the exact pain itself proper cannot be recreated by memory except
rarely.
Psychosomaticism is the re-creation in immediate terms of unrecollected memory.
Anyway, here, suddenly, is the strange fever and excitement. Is it because in

holding film in one's hand one holds life in one's hand?
S.' and I had an argument yesterday. I complained that the viewer was bad, and
that I couldn't see properly, so he said that there weren't any that were really
better, and that I would be better off using a projector. But my feeling was against
that.
The immediate physical contact with the film, the nearness of the image, the
automatic muscular control of its speed-the fact that as I wound, my impulses
and reactions towards the film translated themselves into muscular impulses and
so to the film directly, with no machine-buttons, switches, etc. -between me and
the film. All this seemed for me very important, especially in relation to a film
which was not mine. This physical contact creates a sense of intimacy. It is not an
image independent of me, projected on a wall, of which I am a spectator. It is
immediately, directly, uniquely for my eyes. It comes to life out of the energy of
my muscles.
Later, of course, I shall use the projector to get proper speed, etc. But first this
ultimate copulation between me and the film must take place, and out of it will be
born the independent child which will be projected at the Provincetown Play-
house while I sit in a bar across the street.
Truly "by Maya out of Film." It is the film machine which is the impregnated
woman. Is it out of this that the male artists' respect for their medium comes-that
they are less spontaneously self-expressive and concern themselves with the
machines of the instrument which they impregnate, whereas most women artists
are best when they are sort of spontaneous? I mean that women should be, for
example, singers-themselves the source of the action-whereas men are com-
1. S. = Sasha (Alexander) Hammid, filmmaker and Deren's husband (1942-47); G. =Gregory

Bateson; M. = Margaret Mead. (The annotations to Deren's notes are by Catrina Neiman.)
22 OCTOBER
posers-impregnating the orchestral instruments? Or women be actresses, but

hardly playwrights, which is the same principle.
Yet, I once said it in reverse. That woman expresses herself through the creation of
another human being-be it child, or the lover she inspires, or the husband she
protects and encourages, whereas men express themselves directly.
Now I have said the inverse. That as artist, woman is her own medium, whereas
men impregnate something. One day I must think this through.
In any case, for me, this physical contact with the film instrument seems always to
have been initially important. The Rolleiflex which I can hold in my hands,
steady with my neck, press against my chest and hold my breath at the moment of
snapping the shutter; or the Bolex, with the vibration of the motor running down
my arm-I would like to shoot by hand altogether but of course this would limit
the camera. Like a cat, it sometimes permits itself to be held warmly. But there are
times when you have to let it stand on its own tripod legs.
I think one must at least begin with the body feeling. Once established, we
understand each other and can work better together, separately.
I wish I could immerse myself in the Balinese film. Damn this cutting article....2
February 19
Well, by staying up all night I finally finished that cutting article. A good one, I
think. I didn't have time to go into rhythm at all, but how can one discuss that in
general terms anyway? This article is a good example of what can happen if you
consciously abstract a principle from a skill and reapply it on a higher level. I
mean, most of the cutting techniques which I mention are already used in
Hollywood films, but on their lowest pragmatic level.
This is the limitation of pragmatism-it is noncreative by being nontheoretical.
Consciousness of what has been done, and then the principle applied on a higher
level.
Now, thank god, I can get to work on the film. Must remember to make that point
about creative consciousness to Mead sometime as she seems to see creativity and
consciousness somehow antithetical.
2. "Creative Cutting," Movie Makers, May, June, 1947.

February 21
At the lecture at Sarah Lawrence last night,3 a new point came up. There was this
painter character who kept insisting that since the screen was a two-dimensional
area, it was liable to composition in terms of plastic principles. Whereupon I
agreed that it was two-dimensional, but that adding the dimension of time (rather
than the dimension of space) made it metamorphic.
This metamorphosis point ... is important. It is how time operates on a two-

dimensional surface. Amazing how difficult it is to get those kids to realize time
and to think of a construction extending into time instead of into space. What has
this to do with attention spans and retentiveness? Often their memory is space-
fixed. They simply don't remember the becoming of an event, but only each part of
it as a being.
February 22
Last night the Bateson theory lecture and the mix-up about Balinese "startle."4I
suspect it doesn't sit in there right because it is a "symptom" of something which
is an order, and is not itself an order in the sense that other "feedbacks" are orders.
Anyway, that dominance-submission5 business feels very wrong somehow, but I
don't dare speak as strongly as I should like to because I haven't the right thing to
offer instead.
At least if he [Bateson] would use arrows of dynamic movement (what the hell is
the name of them?) rather than those directional signposts!
TIME TIME TIME - not SPACE
ENERGY - not MATTER
3. One of Deren's lectures on cinema, Sarah Lawrence College, New York, February 20, 1947.
4. The behavior Bateson and Mead have called "startle" in Bali is described in their book, Balinese
Character: A Photographic Analysis, New York Academy of Sciences, Special Publications, Volume 2,
1942, p. 147: ". . . In Balinese social organization, instead of dominance-submission [see Note 5] based
on fear of the superior individual, we find what may be described as startle systems, in which the
behavior of the superior is characterized by suddenness in speech and gesture [clipped words as
opposed to the inferior's long, smooth periphrases].... The emotion which we are here calling 'fear'
or 'startle' enters into a great many contexts where there is nothing of which to be afraid. Especially in
the theater, the Balinese constantly portray a quick, heightened awareness which has in it something of
fear." A dance is described; it "begins rather slowly in a sitting position and works up with sudden
rhythmic rising movements till the man is almost erect."
5. "Dominance-submission," along with "exhibitionism-spectatorship" and "succoring-depen-
dence," are the pairs of bipolar, complementary characteristics formulated by Bateson as indices of
national character, parent-child relations, etc. See "Morale and National Character," Civilian Morale,
ed. Goodwin Watson, 1942, Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues; reprinted in Steps to
an Ecology of Mind (collected essays of Gregory Bateson), New York, Chandler, 1972, pp. 88-106.
All photographs accompanying these notes are stills
enlarged by Maya Deren from the Balinese footage by
Gregory Bateson, 1938-39.
February 23
It is strange how energy is never lost. When I did that paper on Haitian
possession,6 I had no idea of making films. The dance project for which it was
designed did not work out,7 and I thought: Well, now it is all finished. And then
went on to make films, and it lay all this while in my files-since 1941-and was
forgotten until now. And suddenly in this film it becomes relevant now in 1947. I
dig it out and Metraux8 says it is one of the best things he has ever read on
possession.
Altogether a much welcomed morale boost, and a wonderful "in" to Haiti to boot.
I really didn't expect such a good reception for it. Reading it over on the way out, I
rediscovered that whole section on the hysterical release of a subconscious system
of ideas. I had completely forgotten this point and the one about deep-rooted
psychic insults-which certainly the Balinese has in his childhood.
And on the way back that whole discussion with S. who said maybe I would
6. "ReligiousPossessionin Dancing,"EducationalDance, March,Auguist-September, 1942.

7. Nothing is known about this danceproject.
8. AnthropologistAlfredMetrauxworked in Haiti in the fortiesand fifties.He studiedVodoun
extensively,publishing many articles throughout this period. In his book Voodoo in Haiti (New
York,Oxford, 1959),he surveysthe variousstudiesof Vodounand saysof Deren'sDivine Horsemen:
"In this verybriefcatalogueof our principlesourcesa veryparticularplacemust be reservedfora book
writtenby the Americanfilmcamerawoman,MayaDeren,who in Divine Horsemenprovedherselfto
be an excellent observer,though her book is burdenedwith pseudo-scientificconsiderationswhich
reduceits value" (p. 21).
eventually abandon film and become an anthropologist. And my insistence that I
would never be satisfied analyzing the nature of a given reality but would want to
make my own. And his answer that that attitude brought to anthropology might
make a new branch of it. And my answer that perhaps in introducing the
anthropological attitude into film I was making a new branch of film. Well-
maybe....
Anyway, I don't see why you have to leave facts and ideas out of art. Why not
coordinate the whole business in the creative terms of art?
This morning that review of the Einstein book said that one of the methods was
the imaginative hypothesis. The method of art and science is essentially the same.
Experimental or applied science stands in relation to pure science as crafts do to
arts. There is the craftsman and the artist, and we couldn't live without either.
Bless them both.
February 24
Today a great and somewhat heated discussion with Gregory about that old
business of his linear analysis of nonlinear systems. I still insist that learning to
walk will not lead to flying....
I feel that his dominance-submission, succor-dependence structure is wrong. That

is, he builds up a whole structure of feedbacks, etc., because he starts off with such
a linear, simplified process. He gets a kind of Ptolemaic system. It is better to
complicate the premise by one dimension-time-and have a simple analytical
26 OCTOBER
structure flow from it than to keep the premise simple at any price only to have a
very complex superstructure.
That is, that if the dominance-submission structure is, as he drew it a-b-a2 then,
if b is necessary to a2, a cannot be said to dominate b, rather it is a reciprocal
relationship which will give, eventually, b2.
G. answered that, in isolating a-b-a2, he was studying the arc of a circle (at last
he has moved to circles) for which the circle, as a whole, is understood. But a-b-
a2 is not a circle. A circle is a-b-a. a-b-a2 is a spiral. And a spiral has no arc,
for it has no constant radius.
That bass-man lecturer last night sure had a nerve screwing up that Hegelian
system, and being obviously oblivious of the entire literature of Marxist analysis,
which does take up energy, motion, values, etc....
If someone from politics got up to give a lecture on New Guinea without having
read the literature in the field or been there, the anthropologists would be horrified
out of their wits, and properly so. Yet these people get up and lecture on social
systems without having read Trotsky or Lenin or Hook. A hell of an attitude for
people who make a fetish of scholarship!
February 24
/-*/
Bateson's treatment of the frustrated Balinese climax principle9 has always

bothered me, particularly as illustrated by that diagram of the ascending line,10
stopped off with a cross, and then just a dotted line indicating, I suppose, where it
should have gone. It did not seem as simple a thing as a conclusive negative
abortion. Being part of the sociological structure, it would have some kind of
9. Gregory Bateson, "Bali: The Value System of a Steady State," (1949), Steps to an Ecology of
Mind, pp. 107-127; and "The Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis and Culture," Psychological
Review, 1941 (48), 350-55.
10. Deren reproduces Bateson's diagram at this point in the notes.
functional relevance, unconscious, to be sure, and therefore not purposive in any

immediate sense. But even if it did not have some purpose, it must have a positive
effect. It could not be as arbitrary as all that in terms of its own logic.
Actually the thing clarified itself for me in the course of writing that cutting
article, and especially when I re-read what I had written to the effect that
intensified duration, or at least continuity, was achieved by never permitting a
single movement to be completed-as in the dance film leap.1'
Actually, that line, after it gets ascending, does not merely dissappear at the point
of the X on Bateson's diagram. What happens is that the energy which would be
required for the ascendant acceleration of a climactic curve is channelized instead
into a plateau of duration. The duration in time, therefore, is enormously
extended and can even withstand interruption, as an accelerating curve cannot.
Certainly, this principle applied to sexual activity even in occidental culture is not
considered a negation but, on the contrary, valued as a considerable achievement.
One might say, in terms of sociological structure, that the purpose of the
frustration of climaxes is the channelization of energy which would, in climactic
activity, be spent and really dissipated in conclusive exhaustion-that it is
converted into a tension plateau which serves the continuity both of personal and
communal relations.
February 25
This morning went to dig up stuff on political science-Hook, etc.-and began

reading it myself. The hard brilliance, the sharp darts of mind in those things are
like brisk fall or spring mornings after the gray, stuffy pedantry of Haskell, etc.
Oh, to hear a nice polemic battle again!
With Sasha discussed the spiral problem and he showed me how he makes his out
of two centers.12That structural tension is the tension between the two centers.
And he pointed out that his arithmetic spiral which did not accelerate is to the
logarithmic spiral as the arc of a circle is to the arc of a parabola. A very nice point.
A very nice point also in the dictionary, which defines the spiral in terms of a
11. "Dance film leap" refers to the last sequence of Deren's A Study in Choreography for Camera
(1945), with Talley Beatty.
12. Refers to Hammid's spiral paper sculpture, which slowly revolved when suspended over the
flame of a candle, in their living room.
28 OCTOBER
"receding" from the center. Thus the spiral must be defined in terms of movement
and time, whereas the circle can be defined only in terms of space. A parabola also
defined in terms of movement and time-"extension" of the legs into infinity,
etc ....
February 28
Roll 5. These shots of the dragon will not be very useful, I think. He seems to have
been torn from some context, and one has the feeling that he was asked to come
out so that he could be photographed. He belongs in the context of some ritual
activity; without it-isolated by himself-he has only the irreverent, weightless
pathos of the fallen streamers and the confetti of a Sunday morning ballroom after
a masquerade.
There are two close-ups in the beginning, though, which in their framing conceal
his lack of context, and in these he is strong enough to project an "understood"
context into the areas beyond the frame. This is somewhat similar to the effect
which a strong spatial orientation within the frame-as a person looking sharply
to the left-has.'3 This projection of the dragon is not in terms of directional
orientation, but an emanation of aura beyond the frame. In both cases, however,
we understand what we do not see in terms of what we do see.
Roll 2. I am struck repeatedly by a sense-as in the crowd of people in the

beginning or later when the man seems to be doing a kriss dancel4 all by himself
and then is brought out of trance or at least held on a lap, and then again in that
row of dancers, before they dance-I am struck by the tremendous distance
between nonaction and action (as in the dancing girls) or waiting for action-
either their own or that of a performer-in the crowd. Apparently inaction and
action are such distinct orders that they do not make a transition from one into the
other except abruptly. The dancers, for example, do not prepare (interiorly, in the
sense of "getting into the mood" of occidental performers) nor do they "become"
active. First there is inaction: a kind of vacuous waiting, and then suddenly there
is action, quite abruptly. This carries through in the complete lack of identifica-
tion between audience and performer and explains, perhaps, something of that
curious indifference. This throws a strange light on the exhibitionism-
spectatorship category in reference to Bali. In our culture the tension between
exhibitionist and spectator is one of identification: the spectator either would like
to be capable of the acts of the performer or identifies himself temporarily, and this
enviable and envied "model" role is the incentive for the performer. This holds
true certainly for the British parent-child relationship, and actually holds true for
the American set-up too, if one sees the American as not wanting to grow up and
therefore, in this case, the adult identifying with the child-exhibitionist.
But certainly there is no inter-identification between spectator and performer in

Bali. One cannot become the other. They are, within that context, different orders
without transition between them. There is no identification and transition across
these orders any more than across caste lines. Identification-the idea of becoming
something else-is a democratic, not a hierarchical concept. In any case, it is
dynamic, not static and circular. Yet it is this dynamic which is the tension which
we understand by spectatorship-exhibitionism, and I feel it does not sit very
comfortably on Bali. Exhibitionism contains, actually, such maxim[iz]ing
13. Deren discusses this particular example of spatial orientation within the frame (looking sharply
to the left) as illustrated in her own films in "Creating Movies With a New Dimension: Time," Popular
Photography, December 1946.
14. The kriss dance in Bali is a trance dance in which the sword (kriss) is turned in upon the self. See
Bateson and Mead, Balinese Character.
30 OCTOBER
concepts as competition,15 for it is a competition for the attention of the spectator,

and certainly this is not, nor can [it] be, in the logic of the situation, true of Bali.
The indifference of audience to performer and performer to audience-and it is
entirely mutual-is a statement of categorical difference, excluding entirely the
potential of transitions, becomings, identifications, etc., which is basic to our
audience-performer relationship.
In any case, exhibitionism is a personally motivated activity. One exhibits

"oneself" in very personal, individualized terms, and in this is the entire incentive
in the child, certainly. In theatricals here, there is always the idea of the one who
performs as if he were someone else, but it is rather a statement of personal
virtuosity in exhibitionism, and this is retained by the careful attention, in
programs, for instance, of naming the real person as individual, as well as the role
he performs. The star system is exactly an example of this. But how, then, can this
same term exhibitionism be applied to Balinese performers who are essentially
anonymous-in the sense that the dancer's achievement as a dancer does not raise
her social caste position as it does here-and who do not exhibit themselves in
terms of original, individualized activity, but who perform prescribed patterns?
And certainly, how could it be "exhibitionist" (an ego attention statement and
satisfaction) in the trance dancers when this is characterized by amnesia for the
period of performance, and there the amnesia is true also of the audience in the
sense that they treat the little girl, afterwards, just like any other little girl, and not
as the little girl who danced so well? A condition of exhibitionism is an acute
consciousness of exhibiting oneself, and this the little girls in amnesic trance
certainly are not. Nor do they have "memories" of their moments of glory, so to
speak-trunks of souvenirs, or the dress they performed in the night the Prince of
Wales sat in the right box. No-exhibitionism is the wrong word.
I think it has something to do with those two stages of trance which I have
noticed: the stage in which the body of the little girl is emptied of "mortal
individual content," so to speak, and only after it has been emptied, are the holy
clothes draped on her, for now it is not the little girl any longer, and now they
decorate the house (the body as a tube) and hope a deity will move in. And the
caprices are not of the little girls before they are vacuated, but the caprice is of
the deity or angel who enters her body for a moment, makes a movement using her
arms, then darts out and leaves her standing empty and waiting, and then comes
in again, and then out again, and then eventually comes in, takes over the body,
does a dance, and then is sent back to its regions. After all, if it moved in right
15. Deren used the term "maximating," referring to the sociological concept of "maximizing"
(one's wealth, prestige, etc.), evidenced in competitive behavior. Bateson discusses the apparent lack of
"maximizing" behavior in Bali, and the society's alternatives in "Bali: The Value System of a Steady
State," in Steps.
away it would reveal an unseemly anxiety to appear. The angels, after all, must
indicate a certain capricious reluctance vis-a-vis their worshippers. It would be
entirely unseemly for them to arrive at the merest beckon.
The gap between action and inaction-the waiting to be active rather than
becoming active-is clear in the last shots, where the dance begins with a file of
girls moving slowly forward. The front ones dance already, but at the end of the
line are two waiting for the line to advance forward from the wall so they can step
in.
Roll 8. Sanoer, Baris Gede.16The extreme precision of this ensemble dancing is of

so formal a character that it looks a little strange taking place outdoors without an
enrapt audience in view. I'm uncomfortable both when the indifferent audience is
visible and when there is no audience visible. I think what is bothering me is that
the lack of a defined dance platform or area defined by spectators, etc. means that a
physical statement of the existence of context is missing. Our theater stages are a
physical definition of contextual limits; but in Bali the entire society is the context,
and there seem to be no physical contextual limits defined. I can't remember a
"stage" in any of the film which I have seen. Nor does the audience create, out of
concentrated attention, the idea of a "stage." I wonder how much trouble this
casual lack of contextual definition in physical terms is going to give me. On the
16. Baris Gede: "A type of dance, usually danced by men in formation carrying weapons (spears,
bows, or shields)" (Mead and Bateson, Balinese Character).
32 OCTOBER
other hand, it does blend well with the children's games and rituals which have a
similar lack of physical contextual definition very often: the enrapt hopscotch
players in the midst of the indifferent street pedestrians. Well, I'll see.
I think that close-shots and medium-shots which evade the contextual statement,
so that context is understood in the terms emanated by the object in the frame, will
be most useful in the Balinese material.
March 1
Since this witch stuff keeps running around in my head, I had better get it down-
all "tidied up," so it won't keep popping itself up in everything I do today.
Yesterday G. brought up the question of why does the Balinese witch, in "seeking
out hostility," go around trying to pick a quarrel whereas the Balinese pattern
would logically require something less personal and individual in the way of an
action. He complained that I had not paid sufficient attention to this "seeking out
of hostility." As a matter of fact, I remembered very distinctly that he had said that
at my party I had done something like that, but he said it without real conviction
and I had not answered, for although I knew it was not so, I did not know why it
was not so, and I knew that if I waited until a few more pieces of the jigsaw fell
into my mind I could, at a certain moment, make them jell. It was no good
looking for the pieces, because then I would be selecting them according to an
anticipation of something and eliminating those which did not conform with my
anticipation and then trying to jam them together into a picture which was not
the picture at all. It's sort of a matter of sticking around with an ample skirt wide
open so that all the pieces fall into your lap, and then [you] try to piece them
together. The anxious gathering together of one's skirt and making a beeline for
home to piece things together usually means just simply not having on hand some
of the critical joining points. They may not be large, and they may not be
significant in themselves (or seem so), but oh brother they do tie things together in
a critical fashion. The trouble with the people who collect data is not that they do
collect it, but that they do not collect it receptively enough. They don't get rid of
their anticipations enough to register everything. But of course all this is just
another way of saying what I've been saying for four years about the experience of
art-that the condition of receptivity is primary and must precede any analysis.
Anyway, I answered G. by saying something about the fact that a witch had to
violate the Balinese pattern of impersonal relations and therefore sought out
personal relations so that she thereby was bad for violating the pattern. That made
sense, he agreed, and we went on to discuss something else. But this morning I
kept being troubled by the fact that I had suddenly answered with such ease a
question I had not attempted to answer before, and that actually made me feel that
perhaps I was saying more than I thought I was saying-that perhaps actually I
had gotten hold of a system on a higher plane of generalization (without being
conscious of it) and that, having this in me, I was now able to answer these more
specific problems.
So I began to dig at my own statement to discover its structure, and sure enough,
there it is-the answer of M.'s idea of witches killing babies, and why it never
made sense to me, and what I had been digging at in interpreting, to Sasha,
Margaret's statement about my being a witch by telling him that she was really
referring to a personality structure (she never used this idea, but that was the only
way I could accept the concept of witch as applied to me, since I was neither
intentionally evil and yet agreed that there was something in common), and why,
in reference to the same object-myself in this case-I could also use terms like
deviant, catalyst, and such concepts as an independently integrated order which
was not referable to actuality, and why I instinctively agreed that cats belonged to
witches, and why it had sort of impressed itself on my mind that whereas the usual
image of a witch is a highly formalized creature-always doing things in a
mysteriously just-so way-suddenly the Balinese witch was a peculiarly informal
creature. And, of course, there it is all sitting together once one doesn't insist on
characterizing a witch, unconsciously, in moral, value terms.
A witch is, actually, a successful (in the sense of surviving) deviant. You have a
cultural, ideological, social, what-not pattern which is, for that society in
question, normal (and, importantly, this is understood as a synonym for natural).
Most people survive because they conform to these patterns-because they behave
normally. Then suddenly you have someone not behaving "normally," and
usually they cannot survive, since having rejected the system and its support they
go under, so to speak, and are referred to as "subnormal," "maladjusted," and
other such terms which have a negative relation to the standard norm. But then
suddenly you get a deviant which survives, and since it does not draw its support
from the normal pattern-and since the normal people only consider themselves
as natural-that deviant is understood as drawing its support from "unknown,"
"supernatural" sources. This "independence" of the accepted, natural pattern
upon which the normals are dependent jibes, of course, with the universal
attributes of witches as being "solitary," owning cats (since cats share this
independence), etc.
But it goes further than that. For the survival of the witch independent of the
accepted pattern means that she is simultaneously a manifestation of a non-
"normal" order which is apparently integrated and strong enough to sustain life.
But it is characteristic of the "normal" that he cannot conceive of the simultane-
ous existence of dualities-that his way is the only possible way-and conse-
quently the sheer existence of another order capable of sustaining life is a threat
34 OCTOBER
and a source, potentially, of destruction. They are afraid, for they think: If we
cannot survive without our order, how can she survive in solitude? Hers must be
indeed a very powerful order to exist so independently, without all the intercoop-
eration and individual compromise which we have to go through to survive. And
if it is so powerful, then it could destroy us. We must try to destroy it first.
Thus they ascribe to a deviant a hostility and an antagonism which comes from
their own limitation-their inability to conceive of simultaneous dualities. They
cannot imagine the simultaneous existence of two orders without imagining an
antagonism between them. And it is interesting that basic to the myth of witches
there is the idea that if you just leave them alone they might not bother you.
Which of course is true. It is only when one tries to make them surrender their own
order that they put up a fight. It's a matter of not wanting to get pushed around.
And since they can't resist trying to push her around, she answers with a defensive
hostility and antagonism which they, in their arrogance, do not understand as
defensive simply because they think their state is the normal one. They cannot see
that what for them is a "state" is, if imposed on her, a "firstderivative" from her
point of view; that her action is a "reaction," the second, not the first, step in a
time structure. (This is all relevant to what is wrong with Bateson's isolation of a-
b-a for what is first derivative, for one is not first derivative for the other. I'll have to
write up the diagrams I arrived at at his lecture last night.)
Thus the normals not only anticipate a hostility in the deviant but actually create
it.
But why do they not consider the matter settled when they destroy that deviant-
and why are there such complicated rules for how to kill a witch? Because
unconsciously they know that she is not an isolated, individualized freak, but that
she is the manifestation of an abstract order, and that if they kill one or a dozen
there are and will be still others as manifestations of that order, that there is some
kind of order which has its natives, so to speak, that the race of Lilith flows
through the blood of the world, and they imagine it as a forever threat to the race
of Eve. And Lilith has all the independence-attributes of the witch.
Tied up in this is also the mythological idea that you must cross yourself if you see
a witch (or not look at Medusa), etc. For to see is not to see simply a woman, but it
is to see a deviant order which you may recognize, since something of the blood of
Lilith is in everyone, and you may be "bewitched" by the vision of the fact that it
does survive and does live, and this triumphant recognition may induce you, if
you carry enough of Lilith's blood in you, to abandon the normal order and
partake of the deviant order when you see that it can sustain life in the person of a
surviving deviant. One is held to the normal partly by the threat that to depart
from it is to die; but if one sees that it is possible to live, then the threat doesn't
hold.
This is why, essentially, Lilith and witches are thought of rather in catalyst terms,
for their sheer existence and presence is effective in the above sense. Witches do not
make signals in terms of the codified signs of the normal; they make signs out of
the nature of their own order, and these signs are recognized by potential witches,
and that recognition (which escapes the normals) seems a mysterious thing. Note
that the active element is in the fact of recognition, and that the existence of the
sign, in the catalyst sense, creates energy or action without being the source of
energy or action.
Nor can the signs be translated into signals, for they derive from different orders.
Of course, all this is actually stated in the mythology of witchcraft. I let myself be
sidetracked by G.'s abrupt and so secure and so repeated distinction between
witches and witchcraft. I never agreed to that distinction and felt that there was
not really a distinction (one must trust that mythology is making some deep kind
of sense, and that if witchcraft belongs to witches in mythological statements it
probably does go together on a deep level). Now it is clear that the mythology of
witchcraft is an effort to explain the process of catalytic action as opposed to
interactive action. Witchcraft is an activated projection, in material terms, of how
a witch functions. Note that her activities involve "signs," not signals (as in
kabbalistic signs); that it always works indirectly-that is, with a minimum or no
contact between the person acted upon and the witch and her craft, which is a
crude but accurate statement of catalytic action-and that it is thought of as a kind
of self-hypnotic action-which is a crude statement of the fact of "recognition."
Well, I now consider that a good deal of the problem of deviants, witches, etc., has
been, as G. would put it, tidied up.
Including the idea that the "pure" soul-or the pure-blooded Eve-is not
susceptible to witches.
P.S. Sudden thought, two hours later: So I was right in presuming, on their
second visit, that M. and G. were, like myself, deviants, for anthropology is the
study of deviancy from one's social norm and is, theoretically, best advanced by
deviants who, being deviant, have a respect for the existence of deviant orders-for
at least dualism. But it must be undertaken with the intent to respect deviancy, and
that respect must be maintained. It must not be undertaken with the intent to
resolve deviancy into "normalcy." There is no such thing as a "normal deviant."
"Deviancy" is not a state, it is a statement of relationship to a given norm.
36 OCTOBER
(Although it is true that witches, once admitted as witches, do not hex each other.)
Roll 9. I'm beginning to get the feeling of how this Balinese material is going to
sit in the film-as the sort of suspended constant. Something of the feeling that I
was trying to get into the section [in Ritual in Transfigured Time, 1946] where the
party freezes, then cut to Rita moving, then return to the party frozen; or the girls
into statue-Rita walking away relationship; or the Rita normal time held against
the declining time of the woman with the skein. It's that feeling of suspended
sameness between different shots and the suspended sameness within the shot, and
when the movement ends it is not so much a completion as a suspension ... a sort
of freeze.
In the middle of a wonderful shot of the masked, tailed figure squatting on the
ground, someone comes up to fix his tail which has sort of fallen over. But the
dancer is not disturbed or embarrassed. This business of the clothes coming off
and no embarrassment or interruption-it feels almost a familiar psychological
image, but I can't place it yet. It has something to do with it not being a failure, as
such an event is in our culture. I can't quite get a hold of it. Perhaps it has
something to do with this: that on the stage here, such a falling of clothes is a
disaster because it is like the falling of a mask which is supposed not to look like a
mask but to convey the illusion of a reality. But in Bali the theatrical is not
supposed to be an illusion of reality (this ties in with the nonidentification
business and the impersonality of the performer), so it is not felt as a failure of an
illusion of reality, since this is not its intent. On the contrary, the point about
Balinese theatricals is that they can be done only if they are accepted as false, and
maybe the necessity of calling attention to the falseness of it by an adjustment of
masks, tails, skirts, etc., is actually a condition of the theatrical. That is, if these
"accidents" did not happen, the thing might begin to seem too real. Certainly the
Balinese are skillful enough craftsmen to make the clothes stay together if they
really wanted to. This is almost, I think, a deliberate negligence-the control of
accident to which I have several times referred.17The creation of a condition in
which a certain accident can occur. Yes, I think that's it. I think the clothes are
supposed to come off in theatricals where the emotion is never supposed to become
real. It's a sort of frustrating of the climax of the represented emotion when it is
constantly interrupted for such reasons. With this sort of clothes-fixing going on,
one can hardly forget that this is all make-believe. The idea of watching the
shadow-play from both sides of the screen (which sort of puzzled G. at one point)
is part of this too, I think. As is the fact that clothes don't seem to fall off in the
17. Deren frequently refers to "the control of accident" in filmmaking in her articles on technique:
"Efficient or Effective," Movie Makers, June 1945; "Creating Movies with a New Dimension: Time";
"Creative Cutting"; as well as later pieces reprinted in Film Culture, Winter 1965.
kriss dance, where they seem to mean business for a change, sort of. The
adjustment of clothes is a constant attention to propriety-not in our moral
sense-but in the sense that one must not forget that one must be dressed in some
way. The occidental idea-in the smartest circles-is to get so well dressed up
beforehand that you don't have to think about your clothes and can concentrate on
expressing your personality when you get to the party. Every fashion magazine
carries at least three articles a year stressing the necessity of not letting your clothes
be more important than you, either in their appearance or in your own attitude
towards them. Don't wear things which make you uncomfortable, or which make
you aware of them. Once you've put yourself together, forget what you're wearing
and be "yourself." This is of course exactly the opposite point from that which the
Balinese are making when their clothes keep coming off and requiring attention. I
feel that it's this point that the come-apart clothes are making, and not a tactile or
masturbatory point, which only holds here in the dream of being naked in a room
full of people. I mean that in Bali physical nakedness is obviously not a projection
of psychological nakedness, as it is with us. When clothes fall off they have to be
adjusted in Bali for theatrical, not personal reasons.
Freud wouldn't do so well in Bali. Hooray for the Balinese.
Roll 12. Dragon, also other dancers. Here again those movements and choreo-
graphic patterns which can only be described as a sort of jockeying for position on
the part of the group dancers. They are the sort of side to side, tentative forward
and retreat, a going forward and returning back, which is a little like the patterns
in a boxing match when the opponents are sizing each other up. This gives a
strange, ambivalent feeling both of fear and cunning at once. One keeps waiting
for the charge. A perfect, subtle technique for sustaining a tension, sort of.
On reading over that clothes-come-apart business on the previous page in that

section on the kriss dance-here a hurting of oneself is the climax-the transition
from theatrical to reality, which must not occur. It's a part of that business that
make-believe is fine as long as it remains make-believe.
I was wrong about that "stage" business. In this roll there are a number of shots in
which the deliberate seating of the audience and their relatively consistent
attention do set physical contextual definitions in a stage sense.
Sasha was right about those undersized masks. Their function, he said, was to
make a proportion which makes the body sort of giantlike and monumental. As it
does indeed in this roll. Wish I had some close-ups in which the intended
monumentality was not corrected by exterior things like trees, other people, etc.
Roll 13. Here a young man is seated and grasps an urnlike thing in front of him,
38 OCTOBER
and his body rotates and weaves like that of the little girl as she grasps the shaking
stick. Do they always grab hold of something like that when going into trance?
In the middle of this is a strange incident where the young priest (?) takes the mask
off of a seated dancer in the middle of the arena. Then another man presses a pole
at the now unmasked dancer, who is either in a daze or is sullen because his mask
was removed. What is this all? It certainly does not seem like part of the theatrical.
Does it really take that many men to carry that bamboo scaffolding on which the
casket sits, or is it mainly an excuse to get so jampacked together?
March 9
Roll 150. First half of this roll consists of a man first sawing, then chopping a
plank. There is here again, as in the beginning of the carving, that curious semi-
lethargic disinterest of a worker doing something that he had agreed to do but was
not even interested enough to do it efficiently. Again that slipping of the board out
of position and adjusting it, over and over, with no effort to stop and fix it, once for
all. Was this something he was doing for the camera, and is his disinterest a kind
of sabotage of the "bribery" involved? Or are they always disinterested in the
period where the rough work has to be done, becoming interested only when it
comes to the finer points, as in the carving sequence? Or is this some expression of
a general lack of urgency and anxiety towards purposive, material activity?
Roll 151. Are the rather deep holes dug into the ground into which the older girl
places the baby before leaving and in which one of the older children has been
sitting . . . are these common? At first it was not visible that there were the holes,
and suddenly, when they became apparent, it gave me a very strange feeling, for
the feeling of digging into the ground seemed somehow alien to the Balinese
character. The sinking of the baby into the ground by putting it into a hole was
strange; as was the entire idea of the Balinese fussing around with earth and
burrowing into it.
I think I understand now why I am having such difficulty eliminating shots or

rolls. For the quality of Balinese posture, attitudes, quietness, combined with the
extremely long shots, end by giving everything almost a sort of ritualistic
character. Right from the beginning the same thing has happened over and over to
me. I will start cranking off the reel, and a scene will appear in which nothing
much is happening. And I will say to myself: "Well, there's no movement or
action in this shot, this is no good." And I continue cranking and very quickly
come to the point of being very bored with it and hoping the next shot will show
up, but I keep cranking, and the same thing goes on and on and on, and gradually
it becomes a kind of suspended state of mind which I feel I could watch
indefinitely. There is some point there in the watching where, just because
nothing is happening in the developmental sense, and just because the shot keeps
lasting, the scene crosses some strange boundary from "activity" into "state."
When one is quite convinced that nothing will happen and ceases to watch for
action, a sense of being transfixed in a state begins to happen. And this is
especially so when there is practically no action, as in the group of men sitting
around in this roll, or the children just sort of sitting. And this is quite different
from the violent excitement of the shots of the little girl going into trance, and is
quite different also from the lyric tension of the extremely sustained dance
movements.
40 OCTOBER
The extremely disinterested length of these shots, and the slow, easy pan which
sometimes occurs over very quiet groupings is-whether it is so intended or not-
a kind of Balinese subjective camera. One has a feeling that one is watching the
way a Balinese watches, that kind of quiet, sustained staring, or rather gazing,
since there is no intensity in it.
I would like to use, in the film, this subjective Balinese-eye effect of the camera
. . . one in which Bateson just watches for no special reason except that he is
watching . . . not looking for something, which one feels in some of the shots of
sort of busy action, but just plain watching and not even caring what he sees. I
must keep an eye out for a lyrically composed scene which he watches for the full
run of the camera. And it might even be possible to extend this by printing the
same thing twice and joining it tail to tail on an identical frame. Or, of course, by
intercut, possibly.
March 16
I've now been able to clarify in my own mind, to some extent, the sources of my
dissatisfaction [with] Friday's feedback lecture.18 My understanding of the scien-
tific method is no doubt somewhat primitive in the refined details, but in general
principle I believe it consists of first distinguishing between any given state and
those operational variables of which it is the emergent; and second, by determin-
ing what variable relationships between those variables result in any state. My
dissatisfaction with the lecture was a dissatisfaction with a basic gliding over of
the fact that the state of a machine and the way it works are not the same thing: a
distinction between the total mechanism and its operational mechanics. (A
refrigerator-a mechanism maintaining a certain temperature-may do so by a
variety of operational means). And this lack of distinction led to a failure to isolate
at least the most important variables in both, and this to a failure to even touch the
whole problem of variable combinations of variables.
I cannot see that a formulation which does not contain within it sufficient variable
definition to distinguish Balinese from Iatmul can be of much value. The feedback
described could fit both. First I want to distinguish between a mechanism and its
operational mechanics. In man, for example, the operational mechanics are
substantially the same throughout his lifetime. At five, fifteen, and forty-five years
of age the lungs, the heart, circulatory system, etc., operate the same basic way. But
the organism changes, and changes developmentally, which is not the same as the
deterioration of a machine over time-wear and tear, etc. The distinctive feature of
18. See for background, Bateson. "Bali: The Value System of a Steady State," in Steps.
man is precisely that he doesn't just plain wear out from a given point of original
perfection. I think this whole thing of deterioration, in order that it not be
confused with development, should be put under the heading of "tolerance,"
which is where it belongs anyway-machine friction, building stability, etc.,
being usually dealt with in that category. In an organism it comes under the
heading of tolerance too-and is quite distinct from development. And I would
further distinguish between mechanism and organism in that both have, at all
times, limits of tolerance, but only the latter is capable of development . .. that is,
it is capable of changing its limits of tolerance by changing its own nature.
Offhand I would say that only an organism containing its own source of energy
was capable of development and variable tolerance, but that is not at the moment
important. To get back to the first distinction, as between a mechanism and its
mechanics. Both or either can be characterized by the following variables, which I
shall designate as A and A', as the simplified polarities.
Either of them may be A on-off or A' genetic (this is probably not a good word, but
I mean that A would either be all there or not function at all, whereas A' becomes
functioning by functioning). A would be a total, whereas A' would be grada-
tional.
The second variable seems the same thing as the first but can split from it under
certain conditions. Again, the words may not be good, but I would say that B is a
simultaneity whereas B' is a sequence in time. Thus, in matters of complementary
relationships one can have a state of simultaneous complements (or correctives) or
a state of sequential complements. B would be a static state whereas B' would be
an oscillatory steady state.
The third C category would be C constant or C' developmental, and this last
variable has somehow a subvariable (this needs tidying) which consists of (c)
cumulative or (C) dynamic. That is, a development may be durational or
cumulative-as when a constant heat makes a progressive burn-or it may be
dynamic, which would be an inconstant energy. The C of this variable, constant,
either (c) fixed or (C) plateau.
And finally (and this is perhaps a lower order of variable), it can be either D
symmetrical or D' asymmetrical. Thus the old architecture was balanced in
symmetrical terms, whereas the new architecture, with its cantilever principles, is
asymmetrically stable. The whole lever principle or the pulley system are asym-
metrical stable statements.
Now, if we put the Mechanism on one side, and the Mechanics on the other, and
take first Architecture, which is in a sense the simplest of mechanisms, we get the
following (V stands for possible variation):
42 OCTOBER
Mechanism Mechanics
A (on-off) A (on-off)
B (simultaneous) B (simultaneous)
C (constant) C (constant)
V D or D' D or D'
That is, in a building you can have a D mechanism operating on D' mechanics (as
may be necessary in the case of unstable rockbeds, etc.) or vice versa, or DD or both
DD', but you can't change ABC on either side or you don't have a building.
Theoretically (I say this because I can't think of an example) or conceptually, one

could have a machine which was just as stable as a building, with the one
exception that anything having an energy transfer principle (which all machines
have) would be, on the Mechanics side, a B'-a sequential element. I also say
conceptually, because it is difficult to conceive of an absolutely constant energy,
since it is usually oscillatory. Thus, on the mechanics side you would probably
have a cC, Cc, or a C' (c). Otherwise, if electric current were neither sequential nor
oscillatory, an electric light would fill the bill.
The steam engine of the feedback variety which you described would probably line
up like this:
Mechanism Mechanics
A A'
V Cc, CC, or C'c Cc, CC, or C'c
B B'
V D or D' D or D'
Thus, while the mechanism itself is an on-off A, its mechanics, involving energy
transfer, are A', genetic. It is also simultaneous in itself, but sequential in its
operation. (This is the point we began to argue the other night-the time lag
possible in a sequential system.) Both sides are either constant (that is, unchang-
ing) on a fixed or plateau principle, or either side can be developmental, but only
on a culminative basis.... That is, a constant mechanism can culminate in a
change, or it can operate in terms of culminative valve principles.
And the main property of such machines, and of that governor feedback you drew,
is that the corrective governor is built-in and depending upon a built-in error.
There is to me a very important and basic difference between a sprinkler system
which gets set off at a certain heat in the room and keeps running until the fire
department comes in to turn it off but is not otherwise part of the room-there is
to me a basic difference between an emergency valve of that kind and a valve or

governor built into a mechanism whose constant functioning is part of the vital
operation of that mechanism at all times. In that steam-governor engine, the
governor is in the line of energy transfer. And it, in turn, is dependent upon a
functioning error which is also built into the machine. At this point it would be
possible, for instance, to say something about Bali and latmul, namely, that in
Bali you have an emergency valve in the idea of exile, but the system itself has
neither error nor corrective built in. ("If he didn't give the ceremonial, no one ever
would again" is a clear statement of a system without built-in corrective.) latmul,
I think, is probably full of built-in errors and their complementary built-in
correctives.
In Bali, however, you have two operational mechanics, and the whole could be
formulated, perhaps, as follows:
Mechanism Parent-Child Adult Mechanics

Mechanics
A A' A
B B' B
C C C
D' D' D'
In other words, Bali is a hell of a lot more like an architectural structure than it is
like a feedback mechanism such as you drew. For one thing, both sides are on-off.
And the simultaneity statement B is borne out not only by the absence of time
sense in Bali altogether, but by the condition of the simultaneous elevation-
support complement which is a pure architecture-a nonoscillatory, non-
sequential structure. Certainly it is C on both sides and, like much modern
architecture, D' on both sides. I would therefore describe Bali as a static state, not a
steady state, and certainly not dynamic. I might add that in architecture, stresses
and strains are simultaneously, not sequentially, resolved, except in mobiles such
as bridges.
Iatmul might be described as follows:
Mechanism Mechanics
A (always Iatmul) A'
B B'
C C'c
D D
44 OCTOBER
Thus, Iatmul might be described as a steady state of compensatory sequential

oscillation with error and corrective built in.
America would be an A (until a revolution) A', BB', C or C'c (revolution) C or

C'c, D'D mechanism.
At this point, I'd like to do a job on animals and people. An animal will look
something like this:
A' A'
B B'
CC C'c
D? D'
(I am not referring to purely physiological functions, but rather to psychological
functions.)
And a man will look like:

A' A'
B' B'
C'C C'C
D' D'
The point is that man is the only one of the lot with C' (dynamic change) over on
the left-hand side. This is what you have otherwise referred to as deutero
learning.'9 The extent to which it is present in animals is negligible, except in
their infancy. It is also what you have called "irreversible consciousness," and it is
the "consciousness within himself" that I have dedicated my whole anagram 20 to,
basically. It is the only place where, through consciousness, time perspective is
present along with the sequential operation of the organism (psychological, not
physiological sense). The fact is that a constant oscillatory system is essentially the
same thing as a circular or elliptical or cyclic system, it comes back to where it
started if you reverse the negative half of a sine curve.
All the other systems besides man himself are at most developmental on the
culminative basis, except for Great Britain which avoids this problem by an
19. "Deutero learning" is Bateson's term for the type of learning which, as opposed to rote learning,
takes the context of the learning situation itself into account, i.e., "learning to learn," and being able to
transfer knowledge gained from one learning context to another, so that the rate of learning is thereby
increased. See Bateson, "Social Planning and the Concept of Deutero-Learning" (1942), reprinted in
Steps, pp. 159-176. In this essay, written in response to Margaret Mead's "The Comparative Study of
Culture and the Purposive Cultivation of Democratic Values" (1942), Bateson analyzes human "habits
of looking" (a Gestalt concept with regard to how we see cause and effect, ends justifying means, etc.).
20. Deren, An Anagram of Ideas on Art, Form and Film, Yonkers, Alicat Book Shop Press, Outcast
Series, No. 9, 1946.
extraordinarily high tolerance structure. But there is no society or organization

designed to change itself, and this is what the whole hitch is. Either he builds in
both error and governor, or he builds in just the error and gets a revolution.2'
Man is distinguished for consciousness, time perspective, and original energy. So

is anything that lasts. And in consciousness is understood value. Consequently, it
would seem to me that any effort to pattern a society should take its cue from that
distinctive feature in man which is unlike machines, and which makes him
capable of building machines. And I might further point out that it's the deviants
who are most characterized by the special attributes of man. Man is a spiral system,
the more accelerated the spiral, the more idiosyncratically (among all the things of
the universe) man he is.
This whole system probably has lots of nonsense in it, but it was a hell of a lot of
fun to construct.
March 20
To recognize the irrevocable, inviolable relationship between ends and means

should not mean a confusion between them, or a merging together of them, or a
failure to recognize their hierarchical structure.22
That morality which automatically makes synonymous understanding and

approval or forgiveness is a most oversimplified, barbaric extention of sixteenth
[century] religious systems. Since the inevitabilities of inconscient nature are
outside the pale of moral judgment or are "morally" good as an extension of deity,
the tendency is that, since science began as an effort to understand the natural
universe, it was dealing in matters either "morally good" or beyond the pale of
moral judgment. This original linking of a method-understanding-with a
value-moral goodness-was then preserved in reference to the activities of
conscient beings. To preserve this linkage is to humiliate consciousness-to say
to a man you cannot help yourself no more than nature can help itself-therefore
to understand the causation of your inevitabilities is to know all there is to know
of you.
It is for this reason that I reserve understanding, forgiveness, until a moment of

final judgment.
21. Elsewhere in this notebook Deren had observed that Marxism is the "only theory of politics
which designed a mechanism capable of changing itself-as in the concept of the withering away of
the state." (n.d.)
22. Cf. Mead's "The Comparative Study of Culture .. ." and Deren's Anagram....
46 OCTOBER
The causation formula of a man contains the X of his values. If they do not
function, if indeed he operates as if it did not exist, he has reduced himself.
And time perspective is just part of this X or, rather, is an expression of its
operation and will affect the entire formula of action.
Thus, if some absolute value is the primary determinant, the activities by which it
is achieved may be variable. If the activities are constant-being a function of
variable forces outside-one must assume that it is the value which is variable. I
mean that one may say that, essentially, the course of a man's life can be plotted in
terms of 3 elements: A-intrinsic value; B-exterior necessity; C-method. B is
obviously a variable. Consequently it must add up either that BA=C, or that BC=A,
or that AC=B.
If the activity is constant, then the value must have been adjusted to exterior
necessity.
On Reading Deren's Notebook
ANNETTE MICHELSON
Life depends, above all, on the path

which leads from the Dionysian forest to
the ruins of the classical theater. This
must not be merely stated; it must be re-
peated with the stubbornness of faith. It
is insofar as existence avoids the presence
of the tragic that it becomes trivial and
ludicrous. And it is insofar as it partici-
pates in a sacred terror that it is human.
It may be that this paradox is too ex-
treme and difficult to sustain; it is, nev-
ertheless, as essential to life as blood.
-Georges Bataille
We have always known that Deren wished to make a film of ritual, and we
have known as well that this was no mere wish. It was a project carefully
considered, intensively researched and planned. In presenting the textual evidence
of 1947, we offer once again documentation of a filmmaker's evolution and resolve,
inscribed with the immediacy of the diaristic soliloquy. It is our hope that this
publication may facilitate a new stage of inquiry into the theory and practice of
America's independent cinema, sharpening and confirming speculative impulses
hitherto constrained by the deliberate pace of posthumous publication. Deren's
work is not alone in question, and it therefore seems incumbent upon us to point
out, however tentatively, the relations that most suggest themselves, linking this
text and the "Notes for a Film of Capital," which had seemed to its author to
mark, two decades earlier, the closure of cinema's analytic enterprise.
I will claim, then, that Deren's work and role, epitomized in this extension
of her theoretical program, solicit a redefinition of the scope and thrust of her
intervention considered as a whole, and that we must reread her work as
reopening, within the historical context of postwar America, the questions posed
1. Sergei Eisenstein, "Notes for a Film of Capital," October, 2 (Summer 1976), 3-26.
48 OCTOBER
by the direction, shape, and scale of a project which had by that time acquired the
status of a paradigm within the history of film: that of Eisenstein.
What, most generally and immediately, might impel one to make such a
claim? The sense of a constant and intimate articulation of theory with practice, of
a relentless concern with systematization, the determination to ground innovative
practice in theory. And, of course, the manner in which both practice and theory
stand in a relation of fruitful, unresolved tension, of variance with those of her
time. Tracing the development of Deren's work and of her role, one discerns a
particular logic evident only once before in the history of the medium.
Eisenstein, coming from theater, had begun as the heir of Griffith and the
student of Kuleshov; Deren, coming from the theater of dance, begins as the
legatee of Cocteau2 and as apprentice to Hammid. For both, theory and practice
have as a central concern the radicalization and refinement of editing techniques,
and they develop toward the crucial, climactic elaboration of a totalizing,
transcultural project that is to synthesize and extend the formal and theoretical
gains of their earlier innovative work. Neither project was, as we know, com-
pleted; their monumental remains now lie in the archives of film museums. Such
is the most general outline of parallel trajectories, suggestive nonetheless of more
than interesting coincidences and analogies. And within this rough retracing, a
number of specific considerations solicit our particular attention.
The first of these is that the fragmentary character of these projects, their
forced suspension, their subsequent and respective diversions and sublimations,
suggest more than the pathos of personal defeat. They point, rather, to the
contradictions inherent in the situations of two filmmakers at variance with the
dominant practice of their times, with its economy and its labor structure.
Turning from that practice and that structure to alternative modes of production
(supported in both instances by private patronage) proved the condition for the
working confrontation with foreign cultures. And this confrontation, in turn,
confirmed the problematic nature of their relations, as artists, both to their own
cultures and to those of their chosen arenas of enterprise. Like Eisenstein, turning
to Mexico from his disastrous experience as the visiting artist-revolutionary
imperially summoned and dismissed by the American film industry, Deren
approached her work in Haiti with the eagerness and euphoria of the discovery of
the new-found land. Like Eisenstein, she knew that she must "permit the culture
and the myth to emerge gradually in its own terms and its own form." And she
was later to speak of the felt necessity, upon her encounter with the seductions of
Haitian culture, for a "discretion," balanced by "a sense of human bond which I
did not fully understand until my first return to the United States." She then
2. For an extended development of these considerations, see Annette Michelson, "Film and the
Radical Aspiration," in Gerald Mast and Marshall Cohen, eds., Film Theory and Criticism, New York,
Oxford University Press, 1979, pp. 617-75.
On Reading Deren's Notebook 49
continues, in a passage that reads like a blow-by-blow description of Eisenstein's

progress through America in, 1930:
At that moment I became freshly aware of a situation to which I had
grown inured and oblivious: that in a modern industrial culture, the
artists constitute, in fact, an "ethnic group," subject to the full "native"
treatment. We, too, are exhibited as touristic curiosities on Monday,
extolled as culture on Tuesday, denounced as immoral and unsanitary
on Wednesday, reinstated for scientific study Thursday, feasted for some
obscurely stylish reason Friday, forgotten Saturday, revisited as pictur-
esque Sunday. We too are misrepresented by professional appreciators
and subjected to spiritual imperialism.... My own ordeal as an "artist-
native" in an industrial culture made it impossible for me to be guilty
of similar effronteries toward the Haitian peasants.3
Work on the film of ritual was, then, like that of Eisenstein's Mexican
project, grounded in the sense of alienation and of a bond, newly discovered, with
the colonized culture. And Deren remarks, in a phrase which might also have been
Eisenstein's, "It is a sad commentary upon the usual visitor to Haiti that this
discretion seemed to the Haitians so unique that they early formed the conviction
that I was not a foreigner at all but a prodigal native daughter finally returned."4
From these work projects, both gained access to a dimension of experience
which was undoubtedly decisive in every later enterprise: a glimpse, widely sought
but denied to many of their generation, of the meaning of community in its most
absorbing and fulfilling instance: of collective enterprise grounded in the mythic.
One may, in fact, see both Deren and Eisenstein as fellows in a program defined by
the group of intellectuals, gathered in 1937 around Bataille, who defined their
aims as follows:
The precise object of the projected activity may be termed a sacred
sociology insofar as it implies the study of social existence in all its
manifestations in which the active presence of the sacred appears. It
thus proposes to establish points of convergence between the basic and
driving impulses of individual psychology and the directional struc-
tures which command social organization and direct its revolutions.5
Deren had come to the theory and practice of film with a preparation of a
kind unique in her lineage: that of her Marxist studies and involvement in the
Trotskyist youth movement. This had undoubtedly predisposed her to a sense of
3. Maya Deren, Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti, London, Thames and Hudson, 1953,
p. 8
4. Ibid.
5. See "Note sur la fondation d'un College de Sociologie," in Georges Bataille, Oeuvres Com-
pletes, Paris, Editions Gallimard, 1970, vol. I, p. 492.
50 OCTOBER
community, of shared goals and collective experience. It also provided a context

and stimulus for the development of a theoretical impulse. Rejecting, as the
Russians had, the native pragmatism of Hollywood ("it is noncreative by being
nontheoretical"), she quickly developed a preference for the anonymous forms of
ritual over the individualistic psychology of dramatic narrative in film, and
speaks, in Anagram, of how "in ritual, the human being is treated, not as source of
dramatic action, but as a somewhat depersonalized element in a dramatic whole,"
and she is careful to add that the effect is "not of reduction, but of enlargement."6
So too, for Eisenstein, the sense of individual action (and, indeed, of his own) as
vectorial in the historical process, had obviously provided the basis for the
cinematic form of his early work. He was, however, to realize from his contact
with oriental theater that
when a common cultural heritage and conducting agent exist it is
perfectly possible to communicate by means of those general, emotion-
ally charged complex units, lacking the sharp individualization of a
precise, private, conceptual order. And this may, furthermore, act to
enlarge the sphere of communication. It is interesting to note that this
method has the advantage of a generalized evidence conferred by the
symbol; it may sacrifice a certain intellectual sharpness and precision,
but it became, for that very reason, the means of communication
between untold numbers of people in the East.7
And he remarks, as well, that "at present, we can say that the scientific
systems of the Chinese are based not on principles of abstract thought but on those
of sensual thinking. Or, in other terms, that Chinese science is constructed not on
the model of scientific systems but in the image of the work of art."8
Deren had from the first envisaged a cinema recharged, as it were, with the
energy of dance. Speaking of Ritual in Transfigured Time, that exercise in
variational change and process distilled from the kinetics of the social institution
of the cocktail party, she describes it as a dance film, but more particularly as one
in which "shots are held together not by the constant identity of an individual
performer, but by the emotional integrity of the movement itself, independent of
its performer . .. continuity of movement between disparate individuals so identi-
fied, in which the cinematic unity is a statement of common motivation shared by
the individual elements."9
6. For this and subsequent references to Anagram, see Maya Deren, "An Anagram of Ideas on Art,
Form and Film," Film Culture, 39 (Winter 1965).
7. S. M. Eisenstein, "A l'Enchanteur du Verger des Poires," in Cinemastisme: peinture et cinema,
Brussels, Editions Complexe, 1980, p. 150.
8. Ibid.
9. Maya Deren, "Ritual in Transfigured Time," Dance Magazine, December 1946, repr. Film
Culture, 39 (Winter 1965).
Observing, in 1947, the Balinese footage shot by Mead and Bateson, she sees
with a sense of mounting excitement the sacred rites therein enacted as totalizing
in their design. To her impulse towards theorization corresponds the sense of a
total order, the compelling necessity of every detail, the aesthetic distillation of
obsession. She seizes upon the relation of accident to design, the attitude toward
costume and disrobing, the distancing of theatrical effects, the elimination of
transitions within Balinese performance structure. She establishes, in fact, an
inventory of what was later to become modernist performance style. Reading
Balinese performance as a social text, she discovers an instance of the complex
integrity of form observed at home in children's games as played on the streets of
New York. Speaking of the configuration of hopscotch as "inviolable," and of the
relation of that inviolability to the problem of formal autonomy which, as our
pioneer filmic modernist, she defined for her generation, she says, "its prestige is
contingent upon satisfaction of the form itself as authority, and that form may
still be completely independent of any functional relation to actuality." Like
Webern citing Holderlin, she believed, in effect, that "to live is to defend a form."
She seems to have sensed the distance between form and function in the children's
game as an analogue of the boundary dividing secular from sacred, and it is in the
respect for the integrity of the form and of those boundaries that she sees ritual as
"classicist in nature."
Her analysis of the Balinese material, then, is propaedeutic in the develop-
ment of the planned film, and it is more than that. The work envisaged is to be
composed of three ritual forms: children's games, Balinese and Haitian rituals. "I
wish to build the film, using the variations between them to contrapuntally create
the harmony, the basic equivalence of the idea of form common to them all."
And Eisenstein's project? The weaving of historical periods of Mexican
history into one unity, threads to be laid, side by side, in the true montagiste
tradition. Or, in his words,
Striped and violently contrasting are the cultures in Mexico running
next to each other and at the same time being centuries away.... No
plot, no whole story could run through this Serape without being false
or artificial. And we took the contrasting independence of its violent
colours as the motif for construction of our film: six episodes following
each other-different in character, different in people, different in
animals, trees and flowers. And still held together by the unity of the
weave-a rhythmic and musical construction and an unrolling of the
Mexican spirit and character.10
10. This description of Eisenstein's Mexican project, extracted from correspondence with Upton
Sinclair, is reprinted in S. M. Eisenstein, Que Viva Mexico, London, Vision Press, 1951, p. 10. For the
fullest account of this entire episode, see Sergei Eisenstein and Upton Sinclair, The Making and
Unmaking of "Que Viva Mexico!" Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1970.
52 OCTOBER
However striking the similarities of intent (and they do, indeed, contribute to
the basis of my claims), there is, within the similarity, an equally striking
difference. Deren's project, elaborated in postwar America, is one from which the
historical dimension has been abstracted, and it is with special interest that we
realize that it is precisely with the reinsertion of history within her project that
collapse begins. Scrupulous observer that she is, she begins to realize, as she
penetrates the Haitian culture, that she is dealing with a form that defies the
aesthetic boundaries that are hers. It is with the realization that Haitian dance was
not, in itself, a dance form, but part of something larger, a "mythological ritual,"
that she begins to perceive "the total integrity of cultural form," and its distinctive
elements, "which eventually led me to look for the possible interpolation of
another culture, to investigate the history of the Spanish and Indian period of the
islands, and finally, the determination of the Indian influences." 11This leads to an
assessment of the complex dialectic of power relations amongst white men,
Indians, and blacks which subtends the rituals of Vodoun. And it was the full
recognition of both the culture's integrity and of the complex historical processes
inscribed within the culture that seems to have precipitated her acknowledgment
of defeat, the eventual abandonment of the project. The humility of this acknowl-
edgment can be read as the supreme testimony to her rapture of discovery and
intensity of involvement in the experience of community in myth.
From Mexico and Haiti, each returned to the tasks of theory and the
difficulties of practice. Deren's struggles with poverty and professional alienation
compose a mirror reflection of Eisenstein's difficulties within the hardening
structure of the state-supported industry under Stalinism. For both, the redis-
covery of the deepening division between their own work and that of dominant
practice intensified the pace of theoretical intervention. Divine Horsemen is the
impressive product of Deren's Haitian investigations. We may now begin also to
consider whether her theoretical proposals on the nature of poetic cinema, which
elicited the unanimous hostility of her male interlocutors in the symposium of
1953,12 do not demand a comparative reading with Eisenstein's paper, "Film
Form: New Problems," which elicited, upon its delivery at the All-Soviet Confer-
ence of Filmmakers of 1945, a collective lynching by his peers. And I would tend to
favor a reading of Anagram as an attempt to define a method and range of issues
within film theory that might benefit from a parallel consideration of Eisenstein's
major late theoretical text, "On Non-Indifferent Nature."
From Mexico and Haiti, each returned, as well, with the memory of a
determinant experience, one which was to permeate all subsequent theory and
practice, further accentuating their problematic status as filmmakers. This was the
memory of their encounters with the ecstatic.
11. For a fuller account of this development, see Divine Horsemen.

12. This is discussed in "Film and the Radical Aspiration."
It has become evident, as the publication of Eisenstein's late manuscripts

proceeds both in Moscow and in the West, that we must begin to consider the
period of his development from his return to Moscow until his death in 1948 in
terms that require a thorough and careful account of this major event in his
career. It is evident as well that the complex of futurist and constructivist
allegiances, of ideological commitments of the immediately postrevolutionary
period-those which marked both theater and film work from 1923 through
1929-do not suffice to give us a whole and coherent view of the later work. It is
clear, furthermore, that neither the tightening constraints of production condi-
tions on the one hand, nor shifts of interest within current Soviet psychological
theory on the other, account for the radical and dramatic transformation of the
work of the later years. What is needed is an understanding of the ways in which
the Mexican experience and the encounter with the mythic precipitated a major
renewal of both theory and practice.
This experience was, like everything else in Eisenstein's development,
subject to the transformational process of assimilation on the terms available to
him within the growing constrictions of his situation. The language of the later
essays, their syntax, imagery, repertory of simile and metaphor, confirms one's
sense of these developments and of these constraints. Thus for Eisenstein both
Piranesi and El Greco, subjects of extended meditation, are seen as "bursting
limits, exploding, like rounds of canon fire, the notions of school and movement,
escaping the limits of realism as it is currently understood."'13And when he finally
allows himself to recall Mexico, he evokes the "vertigo" induced by the sight of the
carvings at Uxmal: "a human profile decomposed, or the sight of serpents' heads
fragmented in an indescribable dissolution in the galleries behind the pyr-
amid . . ," or the manner in which the "battlements of the building's decorative
lower section suddenly reveal themselves as a system of monstrously deformed
jaws." The process which has engendered these images of formal decomposition
he then describes as one which is "inaccessible to a normal state of consciousness."
And this state of consciousness to which he returns, obsessively, is termed ecstatic.
But the category of the ecstatic in the later writings is never precisely localized or
contained. Writing in 1937 of El Greco, he describes the artist's passage from "the
representation of ecstatic characters to the ecstatic representation of characters." 4
(One recognizes in this remark the kind of demand defined in the celebrated essay
on Griffith in which he claims that it is not the cradle's rocking movement that
Intolerance required, but rather the pervasive rhythm which might have rocked
the film.)15 This proliferating and intensifying concern with the ecstatic, Eisen-
13. See S. M. Eisenstein, "El Greco y el Cine," in Cinematisme: peinture et cinema.

14. Ibid.
15. Sergei Eisenstein, "Griffith, Dickens and the Film Today," in Film Form, New York, Harcourt
Brace, 1949, pp. 195-255.
54 OCTOBER
stein's obsessive and constant insertion of this category within all the parameters
of his later theoretical discourse, seems to demand, in addition to a psychoanalyti-
cally informed study, an attempt at retrieval of the role of a tradition other than
that of constructivism, that of symbolism in all its troubling ideological ambi-
guity. But if we are to arrive at a more accurate understanding of the graphic
exacerbation, the particular temporality, the textual paradoxes of Ivan the
Terrible, we must come to understand the way in which for Eisenstein, as for
Deren, the condition of the ecstatic was "the incandescence of obsession."
Letters from Mexico
to Maxim Strauch and Ilya Trauberg
SERGEI EISENSTEIN
translated by TANAQUIL TAUBES
[8-10 May 1931]
Julio D. Saldivar
Hacienda Tetlapayac
F.C.M. EDO. HGO
Dear Makkushka !
I was very pleased to receive your letter. It was really marvelous to read that
someone takes some interest in me, aside from their interest in Mexico. I am not at
all accustomed to that. If my "doppelganger" is, deep within his "soul," an old,
sentimental Jew, then he's in for even harsher treatment than a "second" V. V.
[Mayakovsky]. You see, I don't even have anyone to cry to on the telephone. Not
only here where the country doesn't run on telephones ... You and Pera2 are
perhaps the only ones who know that I'm quite without "armor"-I don't mean
in the sense of a battleship. There is a kind of lizard here [the armadillo], a cross
between a common lizard and a turtle, out of which they make elegant little
baskets by sticking the tail into the neck, degutting it, and lining the inside with
scarlet or sky-blue silk. Sometimes they use them to make mandolins, which moan
piteously. My very tender "doppelganger" bleeds continually and his armor has to
be constantly mended and tightened to keep it from completely ... falling apart.
Not as Pudovkin would tighten his-I don't discipline mine. And not in V. V.'s
style either-I don't keep mine in check. The vigor of our so-called creativity lies
in the dialectical fusion of "blood" and "iron" !!! This becomes monstrous only
when there is a break in the creative process, and during moments of rest. "Oh, if
one could only produce without rest!" But I also have a third self. Actually, I
1. Of the letters written to Maxim Strauch from Mexico, Strauch reproduces two in his contribu-
tion to Eisenstein in the Reminiscences of His Contemporaries (Moscow, 1974). "Makkushka" derives
from Strauch's childhood nickname, Mak.
2. Eisenstein married Pera Atasheva in October 1934.
56 OCTOBER
think he's the main one: a cross between the "flying Dutchman," a conquistador of
the Americas, and a "victim of the evening" soaked in blood and tears. He is a
quiet, closet scientist with a microscope, searching out the mysteries of creative
processes and phenomena, which submit to analysis only with difficulty. Now,
of course, this respectable fellow is in a situation of high comedy: between
earthquakes, drought-ridden tropics, tropical downpours, and other such
elements-on carriages, airplanes, trucks, horseback, steamers, and from time to
time, on trains, he carries himself as if he were in Voltaire's armchair. To put it
more simply, the theoretical work continues without interruption. Analytic
methods of great refinement and endless synthetic amplifications present
themselves on the most curious occasions (crocodile hunting or at Indian dances
involving turkeys, during which each dancer has to strangle a live turkey-there
are twelve dancers, the one who doesn't succeed in wringing his turkey's neck is
beaten up by the other eleven! we could not film it!! and other similar attractions).
If only I had time to explore Quetzalcoatl, Kukulcan, and other Mexican gods,
to be able to set it all down in a book . .. and one more monument to "vulgar
materialism" would go down in the history of the "mechanists." My position, let's
say, is not one of belief in Deborin's spiritualism.3 I will start believing in God
(with a capital G!!!) the moment I discover a mechanically insoluble obstacle in
my work-I am happy to confess that so far this hasn't happened. My theoretical
work has come a long way from its position prior to my departure. Fortunately,
it's headed in the direction of ever-greater simplification, clarity, and scale. I'm
even managing to get a great deal of reading done. Such serious things as Levy-
Briihl-Reasoning Among Primitive Peoples (en francais).4 Besides providing
vast corroborative material, it is, of course, the indispensable key to future battles
with . . . Sutyrin! 5 1 haven't learned to speak Spanish yet. No time. I can't afford to
spend one percent of my attention on it. I want to learn the language
automatically. So far, I can read Ibanfiez'sBlood and Sand in Spanish without
much difficulty (and understand more than when I first read Zola in the original!).
Although I have deftly adjusted to "armchair" work in a Pushkin-like
"kibitka"6-my own kind of thinking gyroscope!-I still feel a terrible need to
settle down and finally consolidate the theoretical organism. Yes, and what's more,
I'm doing a great deal of drawing!
Actually, the filming, theory, and drawing are done in "relays" so as to keep
going at all costs. Yesterday I rode horseback at a gallop for five miles-the horses
here are devils (they belong to Mexican cowboys! )-through maguey fields (a
thorny cactus). Not only did I keep my seat like a thoroughbred "charro"
3. Possibly a reference to Abram Deborin's attitude toward Marxism.

4. Lucien Levy-Bruhl, Les fonctions mentales dans les societes inferieurs.
5. V. Sutyrin was an activist in RAPP, the Writers' Association that had assumed control of
published work (1925-32).
6. A covered cart or sledge.
Letters from Mexico 57
(cowboy), but I even felt that the constant exertion and gallop with these horses
matched my normal state of being! Whither are we bound and do we not rush in
vain!!!
As merchandise, the film is wonderful.
But now I'm "spoiled." Once I embodied the "ideal spectator." Then
everything turned out well. Now I seem to have become too refined; I feast my eyes
on . .. reality, regardless of any need to select and put in order. Of course, the
visual is on a higher level, but I'm afraid that the standard visual "thermometer"
is gone. Perhaps it's simply a "trauma" from the sad fate of The GeneralLine;7 in
any case, reality now seems unrepresentable. We'll see. I'm working with a great
push. Almost alone, because Grishka8 is having stomach trouble. Influence of the
tropics on northern intestines! So, it seems I have given you a complete account of
myself. Don't judge me too severely-"Tu l'as voulu, Georges Dandin"-you
asked for it! I have to finish up now-we have to ride twenty-five miles to a ball
organized for the regional Indians. We're to recruit "typage" for the episodes of
savage passion in the maguey fields. We're getting ready "to drive ahead" so there
will be little time to write. You, however, should write more often and just as
thoroughly as you've been doing.
I am very dissatisfied with what you and Ida are doing.9 One must apply
pressure, pull strings, debase oneself, be diplomatic, crafty, cunning, and again
press. The main thing is to do. To really get down to it. You have what it takes:
real force. You have to drop the Oblomov act.10What do you mean by "I asked for
a leave but didn't go to Leningrad"?11 Maybe what you both need is to work in
Leningrad? I don't know what is being done there now, but you should be on the
lookout. You are at the point where your actual age begins to merge with the
gallery of "characters" in your range. You remember, I often spoke to you about
that, and you shouldn't waste this time for any reason. The same goes for Idka!
What idiocy!
Thanks for "The Old Man in Felt Boots" 12-it's very good, but it is only a
small, a very small fraction of what it should be. Don't forget that all "prominent
figures" are first and foremost great businessmen. Without enormous
"organizational" preparation nothing ever gets anywhere or comes to anything:
what Victor Hugo and Diego Rivera have in common is that both are great
7. After the departure from Moscow of the Eisenstein group, their revised film was released
publicly under the title Old and New (November 7, 1929).
8. Grigori Alexandrov, collaborator on the Mexican film.
9. Strauch's actress wife, Judith Glizer. They lived in rooms adjoining Eisenstein's on Chisty
Prudy Street.
10. The central character of Ivan Goncharov's novel, Oblomov, became a catchword for laziness,
evasion, and lack of initiative.
11. In Leningrad, N. Loiter organized a new theater and invited Strauch and Glizer to join it.
12. Glizer had written and acted in a sketch performed at the Writers' Club-a monologue of a
bearded old peasant.
58 OCTOBER
fighters! That fact is at the base of all "genius." It's only in fairy tales that roast
geese fly magically into your mouth ... I can "see" you from here-there you are,
gazing at the remarkable things Meyerhold is doing and . . . delighting in it all.
You are gazing and thinking, this is quite sufficient! I think it's foolish of you not
to have taken GIK's offer.'3 As for theory, of course nothing comes easy-the
"mechanists" are going to make it very hard for us. We will have to be in total
control of the method to be able to put it at the service of practice, our own
practice-practical work is of the utmost consequence. Fifty percent of my reason
for going to GIK was to be able to have it all down cold, "to show it." You seem to
have plenty of leisure.
Well, it seems the whole thing is turning into a total checkmate. And the car
is ready to go.
One more thing. Learn to find a place where you can apply what it is you
want to do. Go to the club. Organize something for yourself and Idka. Find
materials. Playing small roles, even with Meyerhold,'4 is not work.
Later in the day.

Having returned, I'll continue. We still didn't find the girl. We have the
young man. The enclosed supplement No. 2 gives you an idea of the "fortress" we
live in. Haciendas have their own style, more like fortified castles than estates. All
around, as far as the eye can see-maguey. You'll get a photo of them.
In the center of the hacienda's ground plan you will notice a familiar word-
a golden word ... Titina.15 One would like to have, inside these insurmountable
walls, a "Pianola" with "Titina" sitting on top. We will protect her-
preeminently from Eduard Kazimirovich [Tisse] in every spare moment from
filming. Valeska. Valeska. Valeska . .16
In any case, combining her with Mexico is amusing! I recently got a letter
from her: ". . . Pudovkin was here, he took down your address and is planning to
write . .." (Evidently taking down my address is one of Lodik's [Pudovkin's]
favorite pastimes!)
Now I'll wind up this excessively long letter.
(NB. A strict word-count has been kept, and I suggest that you respond with
no fewer!)
I embrace you warmly.
Write.
Your Starik [Old Man].
13. Strauch was invited to teach at the State Cinema Institute.

14. In 1931 Strauch played small roles in two Meyerhold productions: Ilya Ehrenburg's Trust D. E.
and Yuri Olesha's List of Benefits.
15. The heroine of Chaplin's song, sung to the Russian group in Hollywood, and later used in
Modern Times (1936).
16. Valeska Gert, the German dancer and actress.
Give Judith my sincere blessings, my best wishes and greetings. The work
here needs a few more months, after which I'll make my way back across Japan.
One way or another, till we meet again soon.
Hacienda Tetlapayac, Hidalgo, Mexico.

8-10 May 1931
Write to "Hotel Imperial," only don't send letters registered-they forward all
ordinary mail.
[Strauch also quotes fragments of other letters from Mexico:]
. . . Very sorry that you're both enduring nonsense about the repertoire [at
the Theater of Revolution?].
Apparently you'll have to wait for my return, as I am bringing a wonderful
play about Hollywood17 . .. There's a role for you-"a bullet"-as if it had been
written especially for you . .. And for Idka two roles-for her choice.
... I want to stage the Hollywood play myself. Somewhere, where we can all
work. Will this work out-I don't know. I want it for "old times' sake."
[this was signed]
With fatherly blessings
Sergo.
[17 September 1931]
Dear Makkushka!
I must say there isn't much point in proving to you that you are an
intolerable creature. But you've already endured the punishment for silence. I am
over my head in difficulties but at such times my writing becomes volcanic, and in
the last two or three weeks you might have received a goodly share of model
pastoral epistles and exhortations. Didn't I deliberately write you that I took for
granted and deserved answers to the letters I had written you! Our difficulties are
not altogether over, so you've managed to get the tail of the writing period. Now,
point by point.
Of course the main thing is your work.
17. Eisenstein bought the Soviet rights to Once in a Lifetime, by George Kaufman and Moss Hart.
60 OCTOBER
Your comment about Ilyusha 18rather surprised me. It's true I've seen hardly
anything-except for two reels of Express19 (in Leningrad, rough cut), but it
seemed to me that in the compositions, at least, he does satisfactory work.
Moreover, everyone who has seen Express praised him highly. You'll see this more
clearly, and I enclose a letter to him, which I hope will help you in what you
should say to him. This is what should be done: you were an eyewitness to the way
in which I "drove" the directors in the necessary direction in the case of The
Mexican or Tsar Hunger.20 You are now far more experienced than I was at that
time. Again, it's a question of prestige. If you take Ilyusha in the right direction,
you'll naturally be able to steer him as you should. He is painfully touchy. I
forcefully knocked the last vestiges of his image of himself as a "leading"
journalist out of him. I don't know what he's like now. But if you could, without
offending him, prevail upon him, using "my example," that is, using my way of
speaking, intonation, and so on (but for you, taking on my image would be easy!),
you could shape him into obedience and submission, exploiting his conventional
reflex to my "authority." Don't laugh, but take this very seriously and please
"don't feel ashamed." Otherwise you're a fool and the work with the old man
[Meyerhold] and me didn't teach you anything (besides a superficially critical
attitude). Or else-as I would like to believe-you must now be very skilled as few
others are. After all, you've also had a taste of bad directors, which, if one already
has a foundation, is even more useful for self-development. (It's very likely that the
business with Valkii [Smyshlayev] and Tikhonovich21 gave me more than did the
winter with the old man!) Again, there's your impudence, enough for anything-
from getting into a theater without a ticket to smacking a fellow straight in the
mug, even if that mug has "a museum significance"!
Therefore, of course, you have to take Ilyusha and his film secretly into your
hands. One always has to go through this. As he doesn't have a little pointed
beard, you will have to wear one for him. If you can't do it directly, or if Ilyusha
has some sort of pathological fixation on some piece of junk (actor, situation, a
section of the scenario) and it's impossible to talk him out of it-use irony. Your
nature makes it very easy for you to produce the effect of a "frightening and
mysterious man behind glasses." An unrelenting ironic stance is a powerful
weapon, and it should work on Ilyusha whose self-confidence I hope isn't inborn
18. Ilya Trauberg, younger brother of Leonid Trauberg, completed his first film, Blue Express
(December 1929), based on an idea by Sergei Tretyakov. The younger Trauberg had worked on the
Leningrad scenes of October. Strauch was at the time playing the chief role of Franz in Trauberg's Dlya
vas naidyotsya rabota (Work Will be Found for You). This film, completed in 1932, is the subject of
Eisenstein's September letters to Strauch and Trauberg.
19. The American title of Blue Express was China Express.
20. Two plays designed by Eisenstein, Jack London's The Mexican at Proletcult, and Andreyev's
Tsar Hunger at the Foregger Workshop.
21. V. Smyshlayev and V. Tikhonovich were directors at Proletcult. Eisenstein studied and worked
with Meyerhold through the winter of 1921-22.
(or he would be "a bride in whom one can already see a sad widow"-that is, a
goner). Generally, this "mask" is one that requires the least fuss and works very
successfully. Only please, open up and get out of this thick apathy of loose,
vacillating bodies of people who understand so little! You must. Seriously, I am
strongly hindered, but because of all the difficulties, the work drags on. I think it's
good merchandise. The photography, shot by shot, is great. What it will be as a
whole-we'll see. It is well planned and conceived. I hope I have the guts to finish
it.
All that you write pro the old man surprises me a bit. I wouldn't expect it of
you. I warned you about the "theater of the actor," a position directly opposed to
mine when we were still in Proletcult. Meyerhold never put together a "whole"
production, remember how his "Cuckold"22 was totally unbearable from the
audience's viewpoint-a series of tricks, acted set pieces. I explained the illusions
to you-that for him it is enough to follow the actor in performance and that it is
totally irrelevant whether or not the performer does what should be done. I was
attracted to that because it is the only way to master the actor's working method,
not applying it empirically as the old man does, but systematically, and in an
informed way, as method of expression, as I tried and am still trying to do. The
moment I realized these principles I characteristically grew fed up with "acting"
and transferred to the nonacted cinema. (In "weak" moments I feel a regressive
tendency toward actor, theater, and so on, sometimes even now!)
The issue of "unity and wholeness" is not a question of the Moscow Art
Theater, but one of dialectics. Funnily enough, there was a rumor here that the old
man had died (later we learned that the rumor was Ehrenburg's! ) and I drafted an
obituary (don't tell him-he would die of suspicion alone!!). Putting together
sensibly what I know of Meyerhold, I came to the conviction that he is a very
curious "nondialectic" type and the epitome of "dualism" (for theater, there is a
domain of psychology). That being so, the dualist, going to the extreme, slides
into a monistic dialectic . .. but does not take the leap. Between Meyerhold (in his
development, concepts, interpretations, and even in his personal relations) and the
dialectical process there is that perceptible difference which exists between "a
unity of opposites" and "contrast"; in practice this means a gulf. Contrast is a
surrogate "unity of opposites" for "the poor." Just as there is dualism, there is
also a simple mechanical understanding of the monism of dual polarities. (It's
characteristic that Greek philosophers, though idealists, were still dialecticians,
and it was the Romans, the Yankees of antiquity, who "simplified" the dialectic
concept into a static one, from which pairs of opposites evolved outside a unity!)
This analysis of the old man will probably go into my book (if such a book is to
be!) as an example of dialectics remaining "on the very periphery," cringing from
a real dialectic principle. It is curious in every way: from Meyerhold as a whole to
22. Meyerhold's production of Crommelynck's Le Cocu Magnifique was staged in 1922.

62 OCTOBER
the most trivial detail of his work-we find one single principle: the absence of a
conceptual "unity," an absolutely inevitable symptom of everything he does.
What do you think of this? Perhaps it hasn't been put clearly or strongly
enough (that is, beyond demonstration). Although you know him well enough to
be able to smell the truth of what I write about him . . .
[Strauch here deletes a passage critical of Meyerhold, and quotes from an
undated "next letter": "Go and see the 'old man's' work more often. He'll die and
you won't find anything like it anywhere. Give him my greetings and tell him that
I love him."]
I am sending you a group photo with the Spanish ambassador and the
Foreign Minister, Senor Xenaro Estrada, because he absolutely duplicates your
make-up in "Lena" 23(the picture on the postcard is of the annual Spanish fiesta
"Covedonga" here). The Spanish Republic hasn't reached the point of "red
carnations"; little berries and apples arrive from time to time. But the
ambassador24 is an old acquaintance-he once interviewed me on Chisty Prudy
for his book and for the Spanish-American newspaper! From the moment of our
mutual recognition he will be an ambassador for us!
Well, I should finish this and write Ilyusha [Trauberg] a letter to place in
your envelope. You can give it to him sealed or unsealed, but you must read it
(the way in which it's forwarded to him depends on the degree, temporary or
continuous, of warmth and intimacy in your relations with him). In general
he is not Room;25 one really has to influence him (in moderation) and with a
maximum of real collaboration. Don't misunderstand me; he is not only good, but
I think he will be worthwhile. And it is worth being persistent.
Give my heartfelt greeting to "the old man" and to Zizi.26Also my regrets
that we will be in different cities this winter (which applies to you too! . . .).
When you write, give my regards to the household and pray for me, just
to make sure we didn't "pray badly!" Sometimes I am truly reminded of the
Mugan steppe27 (it's true that the proletariat there doesn't feed on bananas,
which, served with cream, sounds like a delicacy!).
I embrace you.
Your Old Man.
23. Lena [Goldfields], a play by Valerian Pletnyov, was produced by Eisenstein for Proletcult in
1921.
24. Julio Alvarez del Vavo, author of La Nueva Rusia (1926).
25. Abram Room, for whom Strauch played in Barbusse's Ghost that Will not Return (1930).
26. Zinaida Reich, Meyerhold's wife and actress in his theater.
27. Location for part of the filming of Old and New.
[Enclosure to Ilya Trauberg]
Dear Ilyusha!
This letter will fall short of the usual outpourings of tenderness, not for
want of them (that's quite unthinkable!), but because this is a business letter, to be
sent through Maxim Maximovich, who is indiscreet and capable of examining it.
This letter attempts to address in full another of his indiscretions, namely, that he
has talked against you, as does not befit the relation of a disciplined actor to his
director. But that is very superfluous evidence of the actual reason for the slander,
namely, that the director is not on the highest level. Without giving concrete
instances, M. M. expresses his imperfect satisfaction with what you are doing. No
factual evidence is available to me, but my work with M. M. over a period of many
years convinces me that his purpose is reasonable, and that I would probably
agree. He is a very thoughtful man, who has passed through the hands of good,
capable directors and wallowed a little with bad ones, which can, I think, be useful
for self-development. For it forces one not only to develop a critical resistance, but
to work out as well (from inside) "one's own variant"-in reply to the director's
mistaken ideas. I began my work as a designer with directors of just this sort, and
it brought me considerably more than my winter with Meyerhold, where I found
myself in conditions (apart from the obligations of discipline) of sincere
prostration before perfect mastery. I was very glad to hear from Pera [Atasheva]
(and why not from you!) that M. M. was going to work with you. He can be of
enormous use to you. It is true that he is very modest and has a rather
contemplative disposition. To be able to use him you have to tug him completely
in your direction. While he was my assistant,28 I was indebted to him for many
valuable suggestions, much advice, and personal initiative. It is my belief that
advice (highly qualified advice) can't harm anyone, and if you still have my senile,
decrepit admonitions in mind, then you will recall how I always listen
attentively, and if the analysis does not reveal too much of a personal bias, then I
can really exploit it. There should be no question of "personal conflict" in your
work together; it's a family affair. After all, you are both from my own spacious
nest. My only concern is that you should both enjoy a maximum of fruitfulness
and success in your work. In all work there is a moment of "check"; you've let
yourself slip, and then suddenly something stops and one's forced to put oneself
"under suspicion" (as Meyerhold said: true in relation to ... others!). To sniff
out falseness, the possibility of evasion, an insufficient rigor in one's own work, a
break in the idea, and so on. It often takes place at the screening of a large quantity
of rushes, unseen for a long while. And this happens to be of quite vital usefulness
(after, perhaps, two-three days of hysterics, and that, too, is hygienic, not
28. Strauch worked as assistant director on Battleship Potemkin (1925), October (1927), and Old and
New (1929).
64 OCTOBER
dangerous!). I don't know how it is with you, but it happens to me regularly,

always. No matter if this letter appears to be a "check" on self-analysis. Without
recalling this to Fridke,29you may remember how useful my "check" turned out to
be for Oblomok30-after it, [Ermler] discarded everything he had shot for the
beginning and reshot the whole beginning, finding in himself everything that was
needed. I am quite sure that your case is not so serious-the success of "Express,"
which I haven't seen, confirms it. But after every regular period of work, it is not a
bad thing to turn and take a look at "what you were, and what you have become,
and what you now have." (I know this for myself and from experience.) Maxim
will certainly be very useful to you in this because he has a wonderfully true eye
and an interest in directing (that means an interest wider than the limits of his
role). He has always had it, as long as we've worked together in theater and
cinema.
Naturally, it would be nice if you wrote me about what you are doing.
Though I'm old, decrepit, and worn out by life, I might still be of some use to you.
Of course it may be that you are now such a fire chief on the film front that the
senile voice of "bygone falcons" is not for you . . .
Anyway-why the devil don't you ever write?
If this is your silent little answer to the last letter I sent you from Hollywood,
then it's no use: your letter arrived there with its materialized fantastika right in
the midst of thunderclaps of an approaching break-up, and the storm in the
Paramount swamp washed over the letter's suppositions-and I made straight for
the Mexican shore.31I hope that you will never-either now or in the future-have
to go through the peripeteia we've experienced these last years, be it in Europe, the
States, or Mexico. Though it's all marvelous and fascinating, looking back on
what has happened, I sometimes ask myself: where did I get the nerves to endure
all this! ? It has not been without roses (there were quite a few!), but there also
have been enough fangs!
Right now I feel a wild impulse to return, but all sorts of difficulties are
prolonging our stay. There seems to be no single article or situation in
international film affairs that I haven't taken on-you know that for me
knowledge is the sweetest fruit!
Answer this-let's set up an epistolary exchange in anticipation of those
happy days when I shall once again be able to embrace you.
Your Old Man
Mexico DF, 17 September 1931
Address: c/o American Embassy.
S. M. Eisenstein, Mexico, DF.
29. Friedrich Ermler.

30. Oblomok imperii, Ermler's film of 1929, shown in the U.S. as Fragment of an Empire.
31. Ilya Trauberg's letter to Eisenstein reached him in Hollywood in the midst of the Paramount
crisis and his departure for Mexico.
Bayreuth: The Centennial Ring
ANNETTE MICHELSON
In August 1876, Marx, together with his daughter Eleanor, set out from
London for Carlsbad, where he planned, as in his visit of the year before, to take
the waters. He found, to his discomfort and annoyance, the region from Nurem-
berg through Weiden, Neukirchen, Irrelohe, and all the way to Carlsbad, overrun
by tourists. The ruling class of Europe and the East were converging upon
Bayreuth for the first complete performance of the Ring cycle, which was to
inaugurate the Festspielhaus and the "Fool's Festival." 1 Marx, in correspondence,
declared his scorn for the enterprise, complaining, moreover, that the single focus
of attention and conversation in Carlsbad that season was Wagner and his
domestic affairs.
With the passing of a century and the momentous production of the Ring
commissioned from Boulez and Chereau in celebration of Bayreuth's centenary, a
wheel has come full circle. It is the completion of this centennial project upon five
years of presentation (1976-1980) that we wish to mark by publication of two texts:
Jean-Jacques Nattiez's analysis of that production and a conversation between
Boulez and Michel Fano held during the third season of presentation. It is our
view that this production of the Ring will stand as more than a chapter in the
history of Bayreuth or, more generally, of performance; it is our conviction that it
1. This account is drawn from Yvonne Kapp, Eleanor Marx, New York, Pantheon Books, 1976,
vol. 1, pp. 173-74. It is confirmed by the account of Eleanor Marx's young acquaintance, George
Bernard Shaw: "When the Bayreuth Festival Playhouse was at last completed, and opened in 1876 with
the first performance of The Ring, European society was compelled to admit that Wagner was 'a
success.' Royal personages, detesting his music, sat out the performances in the row of boxes set apart
for princes.... His own account of it contrasts the reality with his intentions in a view which would be
bitter if it were not so humorous. The precautions taken to keep the seats out of the hands of the
frivolous public and in the hands of earnest disciples, banded together in little Wagner Societies
throughout Europe, had ended in their forestalling by ticket speculators and their sale to just the sort
of idle globe-trotting tourists against whom the temple was to have been strictly closed. The money,
supposed to be contributed by the faithful, was begged by energetic subscription-hunting ladies from
people who must have had the most grotesque misconceptions of the composer's aims; among others,
the Khedive of Egypt and the Sultan of Turkey!" (The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the
Niblung's Ring, New York, Dover Publications, 1967, p. 127).
66 OCTOBER
constitutes a major stage in the renewal of performance as textual production

within our culture.
If we are to understand the meaning of this intervention, we must neverthe-
less begin by situating it within the evolution of Bayreuth performance as a whole,
and most particularly in relation to the revision of Wagnerian scenography
proposed in the postwar period by Wieland Wagner. That work appears in
retrospect as one of closure, marking the definitive implementation of the
nineteenth century's most ardent and compelling view of the Wagnerian project,
that of Baudelaire. Consider the following fragment from the celebrated account
of his experience of Tannhduser:
I recall that from the first measures on I was subject to one of those
felicitous impressions, known to almost anyone of an imaginative bent,
in dreams, while asleep. I felt released from the constraints of gravity,
and I recaptured in memory the rare delight which circulates in high
places....
I then spontaneously began to evoke the delectable state of one
deep in revery, in total solitude, but a solitude of vast horizons and
bathed in a diffused light. I soon became aware of a keener gleam, a
luminous intensity so rapid in its growth that the dictionary's shades of
meaning would not suffice to express this steady intensification of
burning brilliance. It was then that I fully apprehended the idea of a
soul afloat within a luminous field, of an ecstasy compounded of
insight and delight, hovering above and far removed from the natural
world.
One might easily discern the differences amongst these three
interpretations. Wagner speaks of a choir of angels bearing a sacred
chalice; Liszt sees an edifice of miraculous beauty, mirrored in a
shimmering haze. My own dream boasts few material objects; it is
vaguer and more abstract, but the main thing in this question is to
concentrate on the similarities.... We find in all three versions the
sense of spiritual and physical bliss, of isolation; of the contemplation
of something infinitely great and infinitely beautiful; of a light whose
intensity rejoices the eye and soul to the point of swooning; and,
finally, the sensation of space stretched to the furthest conceivable
limits.2
Wieland Wagner, literally sweeping the stage of the debris of nineteenth-

century scenography, shaped the Wagnerian performance as a deliberate, ritual-
ized progress across the naked "disc of the world," enveloping the still, sparse,
symbolic groupings of his design with perpetually shifting modulations of light.
2. Charles Baudelaire, "Richard Wagner et Tannhauser," Oeuvres Completes, Paris, Editions

Gallimard, Pleiade, 1961, pp. 1213-14.
Bayreuth: The Centennial Ring 67
In so doing, he installed the spatiality of abstraction, its horizon of immensity, its

infinite extension of optical depth, thereby confirming and intensifying Wagner's
spectacle as apparitional in character.3
Baudelaire, pursuing the account of his experience, had said,
No musician excells, as Wagner does, in the depiction of space and
depth, material and spiritual.... He has the art of rendering through
subtle gradations all that is excessive, immense, ambitious in the
natural and spiritual man. The sound of this ardent and despotic music
sometimes seems to recapture for the listener, against the ground of
shadow torn assunder by revery, the dizzying imaginings of opium.4
And it was, in fact, the radical simplification of Wieland Wagner, with its
amplification of scale, which redefined the depth of theatrical and acoustical
space and the span and spectrum of diffused light as the axes of Wagnerian
scenography. To this revision he also brought the inclination to symmetry, its
consequent formalization of composition, and a direction of actors such that "the
actor does not play the action (designated by the libretto), but in the action." 5 One
example among many (and it is taken from his staging of Tannhduser) is
Wolfram's delivery of "Blick ich umher," with his hands resting immobile on the
strings of his harp, so that
the spectator-listener cannot associate the actor's position with the
performance of a gesture whose material result he would perceive in
listening to the orchestra and which would be dictated only by the
context of the anecdote, the result being that he automatically attrib-
utes to this position of the body an expressive value which reveals not
the external behavior of the character in this scene, but his inner feeling
within the dramatic situation.6
The consequence, both immediate and far-reaching, of this essentializing

process and its abstractive techniques was, quite naturally, the de-temporalization
of the spectacle, or rather the reenforcement of the apparitional as atemporal. This
is the ground of that quality which Adorno defines as the Wagnerian "phantasma-
goria," through which time, as "the decisive factor of production," is nullified in a
transparency of acoustical theatrical representation which generates the "illusion
of eternity."7 And it is the texture, dynamics, timbre, depth of Wagner's orchestra-
3. My sense of Wieland Wagner's work, unlike that of Chereau's, derives not from personal
experience, but from the abundant literature and photographic documentation available, among
which I would cite Claude Lust, Wieland Wagner et la survie du theatre lyrique, Lausanne, Editions de
l'Age d'Homme, 1969.
4. Baudelaire, p. 1214.
5. Lust, p. 88.
6. Ibid., pp. 87-88.
7. Theodor W. Adorno, Essai sur Wagner, trans. Hans Hildenbrand and Alex Lindenberg, Paris,
Editions Gallimard, 1976, p. 117.
Nineteenth-century stage machinery for the Rhine
maidens in Das Rheingold, Scene I.
tion which Adorno, in an especially interesting passage, analyzes as the medium

of the phantasmagorical effect, firstcelebrated by Baudelaire, later to be realized by
Wieland Wagner. Most succinctly expressed by Adorno, quoting Paul Bekker, this
is "the illusion of the absolute reality of the unreal."8
The history of Bayreuth's scenography, then, may be schematically described
or plotted as follows: the long struggles to implement phantasmagoria through
the unwieldy theatrical mechanics of nineteenth-century realism; a decade's
consummation of the phantasmagorical mode of representation in the work of
Wieland Wagner; and the restitution, through the free play of concrete and
contradictory, articulate detail, of temporality and history in a reading that is
allegorical. The machinery which transported the Rhine maidens in their fear-
some "maiden" plunge of 1876 has been left in the cellar where it has laid for over
forty years; but Chereau's dragon (the work of Richard Peduzzi, his exceptionally
fine designer), mounted on wheels and whipped about the stage by black-robed
attendants, marked the unmasking and acknowledgment of the means of produc-
tion of a stage spectacle in time, a spectacle of production in history.
8. Ibid., p. 120.
Patrice Chereau (director), Richard Peduzzi (set
designer), Jacques Schmidt (costume designer). Die
Walkiire, Act II. Bayreuth, 1978. (Photo: Siegfried
Lauterwasser.)
It was Chereau's constant insistence on both the concrete materiality of the

dramatic action and its means of production which, joined with Boulez's charac-
teristically admirable clarity of reading, set this production apart. Restoring the
Ring's temporality, Chereau went even further; in the second act of Die Walkiire
he installed at the center of the action the incessant revolution of the pendulum
which marks a time, an order, over and against the temporal structure of the score
itself. It is here, in the tension between the two temporalities, that we find the locus
of the deep and seminal complicity of Boulez and Chereau in the textual pro-
duction of this Ring.
It is that tension, consistently maintained throughout the work's four
sections, extended in the succession of disjunctions, gaps, breaks, clashes, en-
croachments, overlaps, enjambments, dissonances, paradoxes through which the
relation of musical to dramatic structure, of drama to myth, is articulated-all of
this composing a text that is at every point polysemantic. It is through that
succession that the Wagnerian project is presented as issuing from a framework of
contradiction whose organic form is that of allegory, rigorous in its abundance of
concrete narrative detail and purposeful anachronism.
70 OCTOBER
It is known that Chereau dismisses any view of this work as implementing

the Shavian reading of the Ring. His rejection of the notion of Siegfried as
Bakounin is, however, quite beside the point, for Shaw's argument is other,
elsewhere. Like Chereau, Shaw, writing a quarter century after Baudelaire, spoke
for the Wagnerian project as allegory, and proposed nowhere more sharply and
powerfully than in his description of the third scene of Das Rheingold the
juncture of myth and social process as its site:
This gloomy place need not be a mine: it might just as well be a match-
factory, with yellow phosphorous, phossy jaw, a large dividend, and
plenty of clergymen shareholders. ... In the mine, which resounds
with the clinking anvils of the dwarfs toiling miserably to heap up
treasure for the master, Alberic has set his brother Mime ... to make
him a helmet. Mimmy dimly sees that there is some magic in this
helmet, and tries to keep it; but Alberic wrests it from him, and shows
him, to his cost, that it is the veil of the invisible whip, and that he who
wears it can appear in what shape he will, or disappear from view
altogether. This helmet is a very common article in our streets, where it
generally takes the form of a tall hat. It makes a man invisible as a
shareholder, and changes him into various shapes, such as a pious
Christian, a subscriber to hospitals, a benefactor of the poor, a model
husband and father, a shrewd, practical, independent Englishman, and
what not, when he is really a pitiful parasite on the commonwealth,
consuming a great deal, and producing nothing, feeling nothing,
knowing nothing, believing nothing, and doing nothing except what
all the rest do, and that only because he is afraid not to do it, or at least
pretend to do it.9
It is this sighting of the present within the mythic, this identification of the
"picture of Niblunghome under the reign of Alberic [as] a poetic vision of
unregulated industrial capitalism as it was made known in Germany in the
middle of the nineteenth century by Engels' The Condition of the Working Class
in England in 1844," which is neither trivial nor irrelevant to the critique of the
spectacle of phantasmagoria. Like Shaw, Chereau, together with Boulez, might
say, "They frantically deny these facts, and then declare that I have connected
them with Wagner in a paroxysm of senseless perversity." 10
9. Shaw, pp. 17-18.

10. Ibid., p. xvii.
Chereau's Treachery
JEAN-JACQUES NATTIEZ
translatedby THOMAS REPENSEK
Wagner is not only a musician; and he

certainlydidn't want only to be a musi-
cian. He was born into the theater.He
was perhaps inspiredmore by thespirit
of the stage than the spiritof music.
-A ndrbSuares
PermanentDisgrace
In theprogramforthe 1977BayreuthFestivalsuperbphotographsof the'76

Ring were published alongside quotations which testifiedto the hostilitythat
Bayreuthproductions have provoked over the last 100 years: "... the German
people have nothing in common with thisdisgracefulincompetence.. ." (1876);
"Anotherkind of centenary-100 yearsof Bayreuthunder attack" (1976). In his
briefintroductorytext,Wolfgang Wagner wrote,"The argumentshave scarcely
changed over the years, except perhaps for an increase in threatsof violence
(murder,arson)-which a contemporaryGerman sociologistwould undoubtedly
be able to explain."
Three recurrentthemesemergefromthis narrative:
a) Nationalism (including xenophobia and racism): "the internationaliza-
tionof Bayreuth-forwhich Cosima is responsible,forshe is 100percentFrench-
have had theupper hand at Bayreuth,
involvesgreatrisk..... Since 1888foreigners
while Germans are treatedas if theywere foreign"(1896). "Responsibilityrests
withtheGermanpeople to safeguardtheirmostpreciousassets" (1925). (Concern-
ing Grace Bumbryin the role of Venus): "Of courseit's not racial prejudice! Yet
may I say that you have been extremelycarelessof thosewho love Wagner and,
moreover,shown extraordinarybad taste by allowing a black singer to appear
beneath 'thesesacred vaults' and, what's more,on a German opera stage" (1961).
72 OCTOBER
"Afterseeing theTetralogyat Bayreuthin 1976,I began to feelonce more my old

hatredforFrance and the Frenchin general" (1976).
b) Essentialism (the spiritual nature of the Ring cannot be changed):
(regardingWieland's 1952 production of the Ring): "How can this incoherent
'modernism'ever harmonizewith the universality,the eternallyhuman inspira-
tion of Wagner'sdramaticconception?" (1953). "We need a new Wieland to clear
away all thisconfusionand lead us back to theenduringvalues of theTetralogy"
(1976).
c) Respect for the composer's intentions(here thereare many examples to
choose among): (concerningthe use of projectionsin Parsifal): "If theinheritors
of theBayreuthlegacydid notrespecttheirmaster'smemoryenough to respecthis
will, thentheyshould at least have had thecommon sense to recall thatWagner's
musical drama, being essentiallyromantic,can only be staged as a romantic
vision" (1925). "The scenic directionsat the beginning of the firstact of Die
Walkiireare, like the notes of the score and the words of the libretto,eternally
valid" (1928). "This production of the Tetralogy is a milestone of shame in
festivalhistory.. . . Wagnerclearlyintendedhis worksto be performedin realistic
settings.. ." (1933). "Shouldn't Bayreuth'shighestlaw be faithfulconformity to
Wagner's will?" (1935). "Should we maintain tradition,that is, Wagner's inten-
tions,the detailed exposition of his scoresand theoreticalwritings,or should we
adopt new methods perhaps more in harmonywith contemporarythought?"
(1925).
The nationalistreactionsreflecthow deeply the Boulez-Ch&reaucombina-
tion disturbedsome people. But we are moreinterestedin theothertwoquestions:
Does the Ring have an essence? Should the directorrespect the composer's
intentions?They raise aesthetic,scenographic,and hermeneuticissues which,
when strippedof all emotion,meritserious consideration.
First,we should ask why it is alwaysfidelityto Wagner'sintentionsthatis at
issue. What is the statusof opera?' Obviously, an opera is the combinationof a
verbal text,a musical text,and dramaticaction, but it can trulybe said to exist
only in performance.The only evidence we have of Wagner's intentionsis the
score (a book), in which his stage directionsfunctionless as categoricalimpera-
tivesthan descriptivesupplementsto thelibretto'slack ofvisual illustrations.2On
1. What follows is the application of semiological analysis to the problem of opera. The reader
who sharesour intellectualorientationwill easilydiscern,evenas withWagner,Ch&reau,theobserver
at Bayreuth,theauthorof thisarticle,and his reader,the threedimensionsof the semiological model:
the poetic, the neutral (or the material),and the aesthetic.
2. Wieland Wagner:"Wagner's stagedirectionsare nothingmorethanamplificationsofhis scenic
visions intendedforthose unable to read the score" (Wieland Wagner, "Richard Wagner:un eternel
scandale," interviewwith W. Panofsky,Musique en Jeu,22, p. 95). Claude Lust: "Who does not think
thatthe stagedirectionsfoundin thescoreare clarifications intendedforthereader,thattheyhave only
referentialvalue for the stage director,and that, consequently,theyshould be freelyinterpreted?"
(Claude Lust, Wieland Wagner,Lausanne, La Cite, p. 82).
Chbreau's Treachery 73
the basis of this evidence,how is the stage directorto proceed? He must literally
bring the work into being, but with a dual constraint:the impossibilityof
recapturingtheaestheticof an era twenty,thirty, or a hundredyearspast,3and the
of
necessity assigning to the work a meaning that the spectatorwill understand.
Scenic interpretationis always exegetical.4The stage directorcan choose decor,
costume,movement,pose, and gesturefortheprincipals and chorus; butwhereis
meaning to be found?
This is the problem. Wagner's evidence-the poem and the score-is not in
itselfproof of his intentions.A symbolicobject-a sentence,a work-acquires
meaning only through the situation of its creation and its reception,which,
especially forworks of art,are not necessarilythe same.5This explains why the
meaning WagnerintendedfortheRing is not immediatelyapparentfromhis text,
but mustbe reconstitutedthroughdocumentsexternalto it: a theoreticalarticle,a
letter,hearsay,not to mention the intellectualclimate of the age. Fixed in the
flatnessof a sheetof paper, and accessiblein a briefperiod of time,thescoreis the
resultof a complex creativehistorywhich,in thecase beforeus, extendsovermany
years(1848-1874).
For today'sreaderand particularlythe stagedirector,the storyof theRing is
theone he reads in thelibrettoscore,introducinginto his interpretation (exegesis)
what he knows of the political, social, aesthetic,ideological, and theoretical
contextin which Wagnercreatedhis work. Moreover,therealizationof thework,
thelifeit takeson when it is broughtto the stage,is not theworkofan individual
existing outside of time, but a man with his own history,idiosyncrasies,and
imagination. The result-the performance-is in turn interpretedby the
audience-including the author of this article-who have (or do not have) their
own view of the work, theirown understandingof Wagner,theirown previous
exposure to Ch&reauand Boulez. Is it necessaryto add thatthereaderof thisarticle
also drawsupon a similarreserveof knowledgeand experiencewhich causes him
to interpretand evaluate our commentaryin a particularway?
In short,theperceptionof the stagingof an opera, and necessarilyofa work
as complex as theRing, releasesa continuous hermeneuticshock,an interpretive
blow. The work interpretedon stage todayis the resultof a tensionbetweenthe
3. "The argumentwhich proposes thatWagneras stagedirectorwas a 'prisonerof thestyleofhis

time' is obviouslyjustifiedand is not meant to slightWagner'stheatricalsense. It is takenforgranted,
however,thatfortheaterto be of its timeits stylemust be contemporary"(Wieland Wagner,p. 95).
4. Musical interpretationalso evolves but is less clearlydocumented:we have no recordingsof
Wagner before1904,and the conditionof thosewe have leaves much to be desired.When we listento
an interpretation by Boulez we cannot recall all past performancesof the Ring. But decor is another
matter.We have only to leaf throughone of the festival'scommemorativecatalogues or visit the
basementof thetwo-year-old Wagnermuseumin Wahnfried,wheremaquettesofproductionsfromthe
verybeginningare on display, to grasp in a fewminutes theplastic evolution of Wagner's stage.
5. Concerningthisquestion and relatedissues, see J.-J.Nattiez,Fondementsd'une semiologie de
la musique, Paris, UGE., 1975,p. 191.
74 OCTOBER
imaginationof the reconstituted creator,thedeceptiveevidenceof a literary/musi-

cal textbearingwithinitselfa range of possible scenicforms,and theexegesisofa
directorand conductor."It is," writesBoulez, "a continuouspast-future exchange
which floodsthe work and ourselvesas well." 6
In the pages that follow I will attemptto clarify-with all the subjectivity
inherentin an all-inclusiveinterpretive enterprise-thesedifferent superimposed,
oftencombined,and discontinuouslevels of meaning.7
Chbreau'sInterpretation
For Chereau, the centralfigureof the Tetralogyis not Siegfriedbut Wotan.

Siegfriedis free,but his is the useless freedomof unconsciousness.8Wotan needs
the blind libertyof "an ignorantman of action,in orderto retainpower."9 "The
'Schmiedelied' is a crucial moment:Siegfriedhimselffails to understandwhyhe
forgesthe sword.. . . It mustbe forgedto accomplishWotan's plan. It is libertyin
constraint,the unforeseeableforeseen,an instructiveact thatis sidetracked,made
part of a plan." '1 To clarifyhis interpretation,Chireau doesn't hesitate to
interpolatean appearance by Wotan: he draws a curtainto reveal the forgethat
will enable theheroto fashionNothung. Siegfriedonly vaguelyunderstandswhat
it is: "He knows intuitivelythereis somethinghe does not have: ifhe neverdoubts
(fears),he will never be trulyhuman." 11Wotan is, therefore, the motiveof the
action. Unlike Siegfried,Siegmund is consciously free,and this is why Wotan
mustdestroyhim.'2 "This 'conception' of Siegfriedgeneratesa 'conception'of the
entireRing for me."'" Chereau's Tetralogy is a play on power. "The primary
discourseof theRing, its obvious message,is not thebirthof thisfreeman ... but
Wagner's astonishingvision of power, political power, society,and the modern
6. Pierre Boulez, Patrice Chereau, "Commentaires sur 'Mythologie et ideologie,'" Bayreuther

Programmhefte1977, VI-Siegfried,p. 14. These commentarieswere published in relation to the
followinginterview:PierreBoulez, PatriceChereau, "Mythologieet ideologie," change de vues surla
mise en scene de la Tetralogie en 1976 avec Carlo Schmid, BayreutherProgrammhefte 1977,IV-Das
Rheingold, p. 1-23 and 104-110. I will quote extensivelythroughoutthis articlefromboth,and will
henceforthreferto themas Commentaryand Interview,respectively.
7. Recognition is due to Patrick Beck, Jean-PierreDauphin, and Jacques Pecheur,who, in the
courseof a friendshipformedduring theaterintermissionsand dinnersafterward, helped theauthorto
clarifyhis initial ideas.
8. Interview,p. 3.
9. Commentary,p. 18.
10. Interview,p. 21.
12. Interview,p. 4. In anotherinterviewChireau indicatedthathe was impressedby the following
statementby ErnestBloch: "There was a hero who was free,and thatwas Siegmund,but Wotancould
not tolerateit." (Numa Sadoul, Bayreuth,Richard Wagner,Centenairedu Ring, notesand interviews
with P. Chereau, R. Peduzzi, J. Schmidt,P. Boulez, Paris, revueOpera, 1977,p. 94).
YAf
00~4i
Das Rheingold,SceneIV. (All photosillustrating

thisessay,unlessotherwise
noted,arefromthe
1978presentationof thecentenaryRing at Bayreuth,PatriceChereau,director;RichardPeduzzi,set
designer; costumedesigner.
JacquesSchmidt, Photographs
bySiegfried
Lauterwasser,
courtesy
Festspielleitung
Bayreuth.)
State.The Ring is perhapslike a premonition,a descriptionof themechanismsof

power-how it is seized,how it is lost-of theterribleperversionof societiesbased
upon the preservationof power, of the mechanismsof thepowerfulStateand its
oppositions, of 'that State born always in half-light'(A. Glucksmann), which
ordersfromthebeginningits own apocalypse,since its exclusiveconcern
quickly
becomes the maintenanceof its power."4" This quote fromGlucksmann,who
used a photographof Ch6reau's stagingof G forthecoverof his
itterdiimmerung
Master Thinkers, situates Ch&reau's thought within the context of a certain
contemporaryphilosophical debate.... Chereau fillshis stage with symbolsof
degradedpower. First,magnificentValhalla: in the '77 versionit is an immense
towerwhose base and summitcannot be seen: "Valhalla should be so
represented
thatits formremainsundefined, while conveyingtheidea of thematerializationof
power, of its ideology.... It is importantthatthe spectatorneverbe farenough
away to see it entirely.It should be, in a sense,limitlesslylarge;largerthantheeye
can see." 15Chereau beginsthetwilightof thegods in Das
Rheingold: his Valhalla
15. Interview,pp. 14-15.
76 OCTOBER
....
......
..
MV
00
Vo
Ax:.,
"z:
WE
. ......
..
....
-X wi
....
.......
Das Rheingold,Scene I. (Photo: WilhelmRauh, 1980.)

Chereau's Treachery 77
is already vanquished; to conceal Freia the giants pile gold betweenpoles like
thoseused by Venetiangondoliers,suggestingthe sudden disappearance to come.
The gods no longer ascend but descend to reach this Valhalla; and Wotan, in a
scene Chereau compares to the medievaldance of death,leads theothergods to a
place theyalready no longer believe in. Throughout, Wotan faces the gradual
collapse of his illusions.
Yet as the gods are destroyed-everyproductionof theRing has always more
or less representedthis-humanity slowly emerges.Never has this been better
realized; it has oftenbeen entirelyignored by directorswho conceiveof G6tter-
diimmerungas theend of theworld.'6For Chereau,humanitybeginsto live when
Siegmund meetsSieglinde.And what a meetingit is! We feelthejubilant presence
of theirbodies, the attractionof two beings able to release theirsensuality.The
conclusion of thefirstact of thisDie Walkiireis unforgettable. The looming for-
est literallyshattersHunding's house and moves fivemetersacross the stage.
Siegmund throws himself on Sieglinde, consummatingthe act of love, and a
splendid velvetcurtainfalls over them.
Siegfried,however,becomes thefailedattemptof a new race: afterhis death,
he is abandoned like a useless scrap. And at the veryend, when Brfinnhildehas
thrownherselfonto the funeralpyre, the chorus turnsto the audience: we are
there, the futureis in our hands without our knowing what it holds. This
hominization'7 parallels the disintegrationof Nature: from the firstscene of
Rheingold theriveris blockedbya dam. And when Siegfriedforgeshis sword,two
wheels,one of which is toothed,emergedfromthewings,suggestingtheadventof
the industrial age. In the firstscene of Gbtterdiimmerung, the Rhine, utterly
destroyed, disappears,and thewaterwheel no longerturns.Humanityis heirtoan
uncertainfuturein a world it has transformed.
Staging VersusMusic
The '76 Ring gave rise to a numberofsatires,oftenpublishedat theauthor's

expense,including one by ProfessorFaerberof Berlin,spokesmanforan Associa-
tion to Safeguard the Work of Richard Wagner.'s "An excellent, or rather
16. It has been said thatWieland Wagner'sconceptionof theRing was influencedby thedropping
of the bomb on Hiroshima.
17. The anthropological termis borrowedfromJacques Gomila, "Richard Wagner:grand intel-
lectuel on intellectuelorganique de la bourgeoisiepangermanique?" Musique en Jeu,31 (May 1978),
58-64.
18. There are precedentsforthis.In 1953,Wieland's stagingprecipitatedtheformationofa Society
for Wagnerian Studies to "determineauthenticityon the basis of the theoreticalwritingsand stage
directionsof the Master."The society'smanifestostatesthat "competentWagnerianseverywhere are
alarmed at how the works of Richard Wagner are being presentedto misrepresentcompletelyhis
intentionsby interpreters whose pleasure is contradiction"(italics added).
78 OCTOBER
'adequate,' staging avoids the 'tradition/innovation'dilemma; the only reliable

criterionis accuracyof interpretation." 19His argumentis based primarilyon the
idea that staging should be subordinatedto musical text,and thatconsequently
the directorshould have a technicalknowledgeof the Wagnerianmusical idiom.
For Faerberthe leitmotifhas a precisedenotativemeaning: "Wagner'smusic
neverfalters:it cannot mislead us because it is the vehicleof primarymeaning; it
alone translatesthe contentand the veryformof dramaticaction." Interpretedin
thisway,measures49 to 81 of thepreludeofDas Rheingold evokewaves; measures
90 to 106,the formationof the solid elements;and a chordin A flatmajor further
on, "the birthof life fromthe liquid elements" (Kurt Overhoff).20
If the music conveysprecise meaning, then it can be used to interpretthe
action and the characters'psychology.Accordingly,Wotan can be describedas
follows: "In his quest forpower,he is less self-assertivethan self-protectivein the
face of danger. .. [his only error] the imprudence of a moment ratherthan
premeditated evil."21 Faerber supports this interpretation--whichis totally
differentfrom Chereau's conception-with the "melodic expression [which]
translatesabove all uprightness,truthof character."22The discordancieshe finds
between motif and action can only begin to be enumeratedhere: Wotan runs
ahead of the "Wanderer chords," the stage should remain empty until
Brfinnhilde'sarrival,23the forgingof the sword is not synchronizedwith the
hammer's blows,24Wotan's movementscontradictthe music,25etc. There is a
science, then, of the leitmotifthat enables us to determineits meaning with
accuracy:"Can a young director,workingalone, resolvein one yeara problem to
which he could devotehimselfforthe restof his life?"26
I have paraphrasedthisargumentherebecause it reflects theopinion of many
musicians who have seen, heard, and been infuriated by the Chereau-Boulez
interpretation. The Valhalla theme in particular has been used to condemn
Chereau's conception of Wotan. "The castleof Valhalla was built as a symboland
affirmation of Wotan's power. The tonality of the Valhalla theme assertsthe
nature of this power. Whoever is pierced by the resonance of the tubas at the
beginning of scene two will rememberit for the rest of his life (unless the
conductoris PierreBoulez)." 27Boulez explains his interpretation: "The firstview
of Valhalla is hardlytriumphant,but uncertain,dreamlike,a fantasy,a mirage.
19. U. Faerber,The BayreuthFestival's CentenaryRing, Berlin, 1977,p. 5.

20. Ibid., pp. 10-11.
21: Ibid., p. 15.
22. Ibid., p. 16.
23. Ibid., p. 52.
24. Ibid., p. 66.
25. Ibid., p. 65.
26. Ibid., p. 72. We can be thankfulWieland Wagner did not wait until he became Herr Doktor
Professorto stage his grandfather'sworks.
27. Ibid., p. 20.
The tonality,the quality, the dynamicvalue of the sound, the explicit notation
'sehr weich,' all combine to color this dream with a highly vaporous musical-
ity.... The Valhalla theme becomes confidentand assured, employs a more
triumphantidiom when it is sustainedbythethemeoftheswordwhich,however,
concludes it, markingits disappearance fromRheingold." 28
Faerberand Boulez arriveat diametricallyopposed conclusions on thebasis
of the same text,the same musical data (tonalityand orchestration).Faerber's
argument,however,restson a semiological conception of the leitmotifthathas
been superseded.He claims to be able to extractfromthemusic a meaningwhose
precision allows it to dominate the action. It has been recognizedfora long time
now, even in the Michelin guides of music, that the meaning of the leitmotifis
derivednot only fromits inherentmusical sense but also fromits context-stage
action, narrative,poetry. Yet the poem itselfdoes not possess a single, clear,
definitivemeaning-we will returnto this later. The meaning attributedto the
leitmotifis the resultof a dialectic betweenthatattributedto the music and that
attributedto the book.
It is unnecessaryto constructa more complex theoryof the leitmotifthan
alreadyexists,but the followingpoints should be emphasized:
a) Of course,purelydenotativeleitmotifslike thatof the dragon or thering
exist,but does theirmeaning remain the same throughout?Why do we hear the
dragon motifwhen Brfinnhildeasks Siegfried,"When I consume you with my
eyes,don't you go blind? When I touch you, don't you catch fire?"Accordingto
Wieland Wagner,this means thatBrfinnhilde"wants to possess Siegfriedecstati-
cally, barbarously,as savagelyas Fafnermaneuversto win the treasure."'29
b) And what of two successivemotifs?Accordingto Jean Molino's narrative
theory(1975), the juxtaposition of two words is sufficient to produce a story,for
example, TIGER-NIGHT. 'The mind immediately inventsa network of relationships
between the two terms,investingthem with meaning. But this meaning is not
necessarilythat which their author intended,nor is it the same for different
readers.3"It seems to me thatleitmotifsoccurringin successionare relatedto this
elementarynarrativeform,for beginningwith the interpretationgiven to each
theme,a narrativeis constructedthatgivesmeaning to theirjuxtaposition. Take,
for example, the very end of G6tterdiimmerung:"Curse of the ring-Rhine
Maidens-Valhalla-redemption through love (Liebeserl6sungsmotiv)-divine
power-Siegfried-twilight of the gods." What can this mean? Verbal logic
provideswhat's missing: "This is a summaryof thework:firsttherewas thecurse
of thering,stolen fromtheRhine Maidens, who spoke too freely.Valhalla had to
be paid for with gold. Humanity is redeemedthroughlove, fordivine power,
28. Commentary,pp, 4-5.

29. Wieland Wagner,p. 115.
30. Two initialed entwinedheartson the trunkof a tree-this is a storyof love-but what do we
know about what it meant forthose who inscribedtheminto the bark.
80 OCTOBER
defeatedbyitsown creation,Siegfried,is terminatedin thetwilightof thegods." It

immediatelybecomes clear that this is and is not the hypotheticalnarrative,for
what does the themeof redemptionmean? For Wagner,did it mean man saved by
a woman's sacrifice(Senta, Elisabeth, Elsa, Isolde, Kundry,Cosima)? Siegfried
saved by Brfinnhilde?The gods saved by the death of the redeemerSiegfried?
Humanity saved by the death of them both? "It is a message for everyone,
everywhere," writesChereau, "but like all soothsayerstheorchestrais neverclear;
its message can be interpretedin different ways. Once we have heard this theme
announce thecharacterof Siegfriedand heard its progressto theend, can we ever
hear it innocentlyagain, can it everhave thevalue it had? Don't we hear,don't we
have to hear it with misgiving,irresolution?The gods no longerlive,and human
values must be rebuiltand reinvented:beforetheabyss,man listenswithdifficulty
to this oracle which rises fromthe centerof the earth."3' At thiscrucial moment
Chereau has chosen to pose the question of man.
Since fidelityto Wagner'sintentionhas such apparentimportance,consider
what he has written.The termleitmotivwas not used by Wagnerhimselfbut by
Heinrich von Wolzogen who, in publishing the firstcommentaryon the Ring,
inauguratedthat traditionwhich reducestheTetralogyto a catalogue of descrip-
tivethemes.Wagnerwas irritatedby this: "The edition[piano duet transcription]
of Gbtterdlimmerung contains explicit readings like 'motifof Wanderer'sjoy,'
'motifof misfortune,'etc. People will thinksuch nonsense is my doing."32
Such imitativeinterpretations arenot surprisingifwe consultone oftherare
textsWagnerdevotedto the leitmotif:"To become a workof art,thenew musical
dramaticformmusthave theunityof a symphonicmovement;to accomplish this
it mustdevelop an initimaterelationshipnot only with a fewscatteredfragments
of arbitraryvalue but with the entiredrama. This unityis expressedin a fabricof
fundamentalthemes[Grundthemen]thatextendthroughouttheentirework,that
oppose, complete, and transformone another,exist apart and togetheras in a
symphonicmovement;it is, however,the dramaticaction, as performanceand
representation,that determinesthe modalities of separationand reunion,which
[in symphonicform]were always borrowedfromthe vocabularyof dance.... A
young friendof mine, I remember,consideredthe question of the leitmotif-he
was the firstto use it in this sense-more fromthe point of view of its dramatic
effectthan its structuralimportancein the musical composition (unversedas he
was in the technicalaspects of music).""33
This textis importantfortwo reasons: Wagnerstatesthatthe termleitmotif
was not his own; and he insiststhat,although theleitmotifmay be controlledby
the action-story, plot, narrative-it is not only a semantic unit but also a

32. Cosima Wagner,Die Tagebiicher,II, Munich, Zurich,Piper, 1977,p. 772.
33. Richard Wagner,Oeuvres en prose, Paris, Delagrave, 1924,Vol. XII, pp. 284-285.
Chireau's Treachery 81
morphological phenomenon whose purely musical dimension (formaland syn-

tactical) is at least as importantas its semanticfunction.
The recent Bayreuth Ring has created an uproar not only because of
Chereau's reintroductionof a narrativedimension to the operaticstage,but also
because of Boulez's transformation of the Tetralogyfroma catalogue of musical
themesinto a dynamicmusical work. In thissense,Boulez's interpretation of the
leitmotifseems to correspondperfectlywith Wagner'sown understandingof it:
"The progressivelysubtle transformation of the motifsis determinedby neither
the imperativesof dramaturgynor the sheer pleasure inherentin a virtuoso
manipulation of the music. Rather,it is theresultof having to integratethemost
rigorousfunctionsand essentialcharacteristics of music into a theatricalcontext,
withoutsacrificingthedrama to a formalstructurethatis alien to it." Inspiredby
Beethoven'slate period, particularlythe idea of variation,Wagnercontinuedhis
inquiry "withoutarrivingat the same formalconclusions,and withoutadopting
Beethoven'sformalsystem,which would have negatedhis dramaticstructure."134
Thus the allegation that Ch&reau's staging is misconceived because it
contradictsthe "semantic evidence" of the orchestralargumentis based on an
erroneousunderstandingof the leitmotif.
Chireau Versus Wieland
But thereis more than one way in which stagingmaybe setin opposition to
music. Is it irresponsibleto agree with Carlo Schmid's estimationthatChereau's
Ring supersedesall others,particularlyWieland Wagner's?35Wieland's concep-
tion of operatic production, as Lust has convincinglyargued, is based on the
ensemble,thatis, the union of poetryand music. In a certainsense Ch&reauis in
opposition to Wieland: Wieland lights his stage with subtle variationsof color,
Ch&reauwith glaring white light; Wieland's stageis empty,Ch&reau'sthronged;
Wieland's Windgassenimmobile,Ch&reau'sKollo active.These are not accidental
differences:"Wieland Wagner doesn't focus light on a stage setting,he createsa
settingwith colored light.Ratherthan lightingthestage he projectsa dimension
of floatingcolor in space. White light is neverused." 36"The genius of Wieland
Wagner's staging is above all his knowledge of the expressivepossibilities of
immobility.We findit hard to believe that directors... are unaware that if a
singercontinuouslymoveshis armshe hides his body."37Wielanddirectsa theater
34. Commentary,pp. 4-5.

35. I am in no position to speak about Wieland's Ring, which I have not seen. But I can compare
two styles,Chereau's and Wieland's, of which I have seen Lohengrin (1958), Tannhduser (1961),
Tristan (1962), Parsifal (1962), and Die Meistersinger(1963).
36. Lust, p. 115.
37. Ibid., p. 104.
82 OCTOBER
of music, not a theaterof words. According to Lust, this is accomplished by

projectinga musical score into space: "By reading textand music separatelywe
arriveat an understandingof thereal drama,forthemusic of the drama createsa
form that is equivalent to its 'dramatic restatement.'The book servesonly to
designate the object of the interiordrama, on which the composer builds.""38
Wieland is particularlyinterestedin translatingthe psychological drama of his
charactersthrough gesture and movement,within the limits of musical time,
rather than the "real" time of spoken theater:"The musical drama does not
unfold in the space of the action, in its universeof circumstances,but in the
affectivetime of the musical story,in that one-dimensional universe which
becomes a new objective universe.... The musical performanceof an opera is
enough to bringit to life;thedramais alreadyperformedin itsstaging."39All that
is necessaryto produce a workis the tensionthatgives birthto thedramaticidea.
Wieland "attemptsto recreatethis tension on stage by means of a pure visual
narrative,unencumberedby detail, thatreveals to the audience at once the truth
experiencedas life in a dramatic situation."40 In a word, the stage production
expresses interioritythrough a historical framework."Wieland Wagner trans-
formsa character'spassion into a unique visible objective truth.. . all purely
narrativedescription,all intellectualexplanation is out of place and futile."41
Here Ch&reaustands in absolute opposition to Wieland.
I do not want to discreditwhat once inspiredmy admiration:thememoryof
Lohengrin, Parsifal, and Tristan lives on. Lust's mistake was simply to have
postulated for musical theateran immutable essencewhose principles Wieland
had supposedly discovered:"[The new principlesof stage production thatwere
developed] reflectonly Wieland Wagner'sstateof mind at the time he conceived
his interpretation,his general understandingof the work and his role as stage
director.Only this general understandingshould be imitated,to enable young
directorsto discover analogous principles on theirown."42 Chereau is a great
directorpreciselybecause he forces us to recognize that, as giftedan artistas
Wieland was, he did not necessarilyhave the last word. He utilized dramatic
tension, of course, but to sustain a storythat wasn't told. In the end we lost
interest;we mightas well have listenedto oratoriosconductedby Bohm.
For Wieland, the time of musical theateris the time of the music. For
Chereau, the time of Wagnerian music is theatricaltime.Ch&reaudoes not reject
or disparage Wieland's interpretationbut presentsinstead a narrativevision of
operatic art, which, although it appeared ridiculous in its traditionalcontext,
becomes valid when seen with eyesthattakeseriouslywhat appears to be fantasy.
38. Ibid., p. 65.

39. Ibid., p. 81.
40. Ibid., p. 177.
41. Ibid., p. 181. Italics added.
42. Ibid., p. 178. Italics added.
Chireau's Treachery 83
Chk'reau'sStyle
"Wagner subordinateseverythingto narrativedemands."43 "Text, music,

stage action, orchestra,they are all governedby the laws of theater.The first
importantthing I discoveredabout the Ring in rehearsalwas to what extent
Wagnerstruggledwith theproblemof what to put on stage,what storyto develop
with music.. . what kind of narrativewas appropriateto 'operatictheater.'His
solution was to tell a mythicalstory,this recourseto mythologybeing Wagner's
great 'musical,' hence theatrical,intuition."44Chereau does not maintain the
validity of this conception for all opera: Verdi, Offenbach,and Mozart pose
different problems.45Here, however,the singeris an instrumentof action: never
beforehave opera singersmovedso much,as ifsuddenlyfreedfromthenecessityof
watching the conductor.Valkyrie that drag bloody corpses on stage; a Hagen
accompanied by altar boys; a Sieglinde who runs aimlessly around the stage,
terrifiedby the storm;a Siegfriedwho, in his second act, cracklingwith spirit,
climbs a tree: this is directorial house-cleaning! "[The singers'] movements
should be paced by the movementof theirown and the orchestra'smusic."46"A
certainrythmiccorporealexpressionis necessary,"accordingto Boulez, "to enable
thesingersto act and move correctly."47It has been all butforgotten
thatan opera
singercan use his entirebodyto expressdramaticintensity."My conceptionof the
Ring depends primarilyon the actors.I have believedfora long timethattheyare
the primarysource of the emotion elicitedby a theatricalproduction."48
Chereau's animated stage appears excessiveonly because opera companies
have forso long embalmed theirsingerswith boredom.This is why his staging
always seemsto be hyperbolic:Wagneropened thedoor to admitSpring;Chereau
tearsdown the walls and lets theforestinvade thestage. Siegfriedhears theforest
murmuras treesmove and clearingstakeshape. Does Hagen kill Siegfried?Three
spear thrustsprovoke somersaults;Alberich's spear drips blood. Cinema is also
invoked: the cog wheels are directreferenceto the posterforModern Times, and
Wotan's globe recallsChaplin's in theDictator.Freia carriedin thearmsofgiants:
King Kong. Nibelheim: FritzLang's Metropolis.
Chereau and Peduzzi constructan "image of the present." Theirs is no
longerthechasteromanticismof literaryanthologies,but romanticismdominated
by "confusion,appearances,ambiguities,thatdisorientus and threatento destroy
our balance."49 A realist romanticism,so to speak, in which today's sullen
disillusion is in proportionto yesterday'soptimism. "The world of Gbtterdaim-

45. Sadoul, p. 93.
47. Ibid., p. 14.
ActII.
Siegfried,
merungis a world whereit is difficult to believeany longerin anything."50This

Ring's "color" is borrowed from cinema: its decor ranges throughall shades of
black, white, and gray. "In the universe of the Ring," Carlo Schmid has said,
"mold growson everythingand everythingis in a stateof decay."51
In orderto interpretthisstorywhich concernseveryone,Ch&reau,in perfect
accord with Boulez, restoresthe full value of the text. "In Wagner, the song is
essential to the comprehensionof the text,whereas Verdi can be sung without
listeningto the words."52Boulez has specifieda sortof declamatoryrhythm"by
giving special emphasis to expressivepronunciation. Moreover,I have softened
theorchestra'ssound in accompaniment:thesingersno longerhave to strainto be
heard; theycan allow theirnatural speech to flowfreely."53
Chereau thus joins forceswith narrativity.But what storyis he telling?
Perhaps his greatestinnovation,and at thesame timetheone least recognized,is
his frontalattackon the illusion of thedramaticworkby tellingseveralstoriesat
once: the Germanic and Scandinavian mythologyof Wagner's inspiration,
Wagner's relationshipto his own time,his personal life.54To this Chereau has
added what the Tetralogy can mean to us today. His greatestsuccess is to have
riskedtellingus simultaneouslyall the different tales thatcan be read in thework.
This explains whyCh&reaudeliberatelycombinesdifferent stylesof costume,
decor, even acting: commedia dell'arte between Mime and Siegfried,bourgeois
drama between Fricka and Wotan, childish enchantmentin Siegfried.This is
undoubtedlythefirsttimethata directorhas chosen to inscribewithin thevisible
options of a stage production,ratherthan within the spectator'scultural back-
ground and imagination,all possible interpretations of a plot as complex as this.
The one-dimensionaldramaticnarrativeis dead.
Chbreau's Four Stories
Ch&reau tells fourstoriesat the same time.

a) Firstthereis the myth.Nothing has been omittedor modified:theRhine
gold; the giants-real giants for once-singers held aloft so that,beside these
monsters,the gods are reduced to insects;55characterswith spears; a dragon on

52. Chereau, in Sadoul, p. 95.
53. Ibid., p. 104.
54. There is no reason to exclude this:it should notdisturbus to see in Frickaand Wotan an echo of
the conflictbetweenMinna and Richard. And what of his obsession with the concept of redemption
throughwoman in all his work? Liszt was able to see it: "Do you not feel that the dagger and the
wound whichyou have in yourheartwill followyou everywhere, and thatthewound will neverheal?"
(letter,April 8, 1853,Richard Wagner,Franz Liszt, Correspondance,Paris, Gallimard, 1975,p. 204).
55. Not to mention the Nibelungen whose leader was a real dwarf.Chereau hoped to findfifty of
themin the vicinityof Bayreuth.
''''''iii'-i
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.
J
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wheels which,manipulatedbyKabuki-likefiguresin black,springsstraightout of

the forestof Macbeth or the fairytales of our childhood: "In Siegfried,I have
attemptedto expresstheatricallythemagic offairytales.. . . Playfulnessshould be
the dominantspiritof the firsttwo acts: it's a child who's on stage ... ; it should
become serious only afterthe hero discoversfear."56Unlike his recentpredeces-
sors, Chereau has kept all the literal mythologicalapparatus: the bear of Act
One of Siegfried,the dragon. (Live horses on stage had to be discontinued...
fortechnicalreasons!)
b) The second storyis the mythas conceivedby Wagnerin the nineteenth
century:"I've always claimed not to understandtheZeitlosigkeit.Everymythol-
ogy belongs to a specifictime."57"What is a theatricaldirectorfor if not to
constructmagnificent images in which theaudience can recognizeits anguish,its

57. Ibid., p. 18.
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future,and its fears?This is what Wagneraccomplishedin theRing throughthe

use of Germanic myths."58"Wotan is no less mythological for wearing a
frockcoat.A mythologyof the nineteenthcentury,of our industrialpast, exists
today.... There is a saga of theindustrialworld(theSchmiedeliedcertainlyseems
to be a part of that)."'59Chereau explains Wagner's recourse to Germanic
mythologyas an attemptto providea historyfora new Germansocietyconfronted
with Friinkapitalismus,seeking to unifyitself."What directorwouldn't wonder
about the gods behavinglike a typicalbourgeoisfamily?" 60This explains thecog
wheels of the nascentindustrialage at the edge of thestage in Rheingold, scenes
two and four,and Siegfried,Act One.
c) But Chereau and Peduzzi do not stop here.They prolong thehistoryof the
destructionof nature to include the onslaught of the industrialage: Siegfried's
forgeis a power press;and although Hunding's house is in theclassical style,the
fireescapes attached to the facadesin the finalscene of G3tterddmmerung evoke
the streetsof New York. What Wagner's myth means to us today constitutes
Chereau's thirdstory."If we are returningto Wagner'sRing, ifwe are stagingit
once again, it is because we feel Wagner's message bears repeating,and that
ancient myth,this structureincorporatingideas fromthe Edda, the nineteenth
century,and Schopenhauer,still has practical value; thatrecourseto mythology,
fairytales, German philosophy, and the common stockof Indo-European folk
legend helps us to speak about our condition in 1977."61 "What is fidelity?"
Boulez wonders."Is it respectforwhat lacks permanence?Or beliefin theworkas
a regenerativevehicle of new truthsthat will be decipheredaccording to their
time, place, and circumstance?... Myth forces us to reflecton our present
condition,it provokesa response,it forcesus to concentrateour attentionon the
eternalproblemsit contains,''62
Tradition has always dictatedthat the singerswear conventionalmedieval
costumes. By abstractingcostumes and decors,Wieland Wagner set his produc-
tions in a mythological,archetypaldimension,outsideof time.Chereau,however,
maintains in 1976 the nineteenth-century characterof the Ring, making the
transitionfrom 1850 to the present by employing a varietyof modern styles:
Siegfriedwears a dinnerjacket; Mime carriesa suitcase;Brfinnhildeis dressedin
an imposing white albatross robe. Within Valhalla's concrete fortressstand
Corinthiancolumns like thosein thefinalscene of G6tterddimmerung: Peduzzi is
like the utopian architectwho consideredNorthAmerica an appropriatesetting
forthe Parthenon.
d) Chereau also proposes a fourthstory,which is the most difficultone for

59. Ibid., p. 91.
60. Ibid.
61. Ibid., p. 93.
62. Ibid., pp. 13-14.
ActI (top).Gotterdaimmerung,
Die Walkiire, ActI
(bottom).
88 OCTOBER
Bayreuthtraditionaliststo accept because it questions theWagnerianmythitself.

At the end of Rheingold, Loge, looking like a Daumier caricature,draws the
curtainon thelivelydance of thegods. The dam is seenforwhat it is, a stageeffect.
Some of theactorswear black tiein imitationof theaudience in theorchestraseats
(who is actuallyin costumeat Bayreuth?).In 1976,Valhalla was made to look like
a little Festspielhaus; in 1977, it included the doorway to Wahnfried,and the
Corinthian columns referredto above were identical to those that decorate the
interiorof the concerthall.63
Whyshould we still be duped bythemystiquethatWagnerpromotedforhis
entirelifeand in which he wantedus to participate?The pilgrimageto Bayreuth,
the sacred mount, the mystical abyss? Enough! Without destroyingillusion
thatis the sourceof theatricalpleasure, "the public is called upon to witnessand
reflectupon theillusion of theater,of myth;at theend of theperformance, reality
reclaims the universe of our dream."64 This is why, at the end of Ch&reau's
Gbtterdiimmerung, we are not only disorientedbut uncomfortable,facingactors
who look at us and say, "Now it's up to you." Chereau thereforetackles the
narrativeheterogeneity of the Ring: The gods may in factrepresentus both as
primitive tribeand bourgeoisfamily;Rheingold is therefore both a comedyand a
65
tragedy." Heterogeneity, but also discontinuity:"What troublesme is knowing
thatit's not exactlytheEdda, not exactlyBuddenbrooks,but a combinationof the
two in everypossible way, and more.And that the meaningfinallyresidesin the
combination."66 "The problem of,stagingis preciselythatof orchestrating these
differentelements, keeping in mind that a purely mythologicalreading may
defuse the work.. . and that a purely political reading may diminish it to the
same extent,reducing it to its circumstances."67Chbreau's greatestaccomplish-
mentseems to have been to preserve,throughstylisticvariation,theunityof each
of these"multiple levels of signification"(Boulez), to make themreadilyavailable
to us.
Chereau contra Wagner
The same notion of fidelitywhich lies behind the violent criticismof the
centenaryRing has also been used by Chereau, Boulez, and theirsupportersin its
defense.Carlo Schmid: "Monsieur Chereau, you have been more than a director;
you have accuratelyinterpretedthe philosophy that Wagner transformedinto
63. This was the same forthe 1882 productionof Parsifal,but thesame device,one hundredyears
later,achieves a significanceof the second power.
64. Boulez, in Commentary,p. 3.
Chibreau'sTreachery 89
music and elevatedto the level of myth."68Numa Sadoul: "Seldom has Wagner
been as present in his work, seldom has a Ring as accurately,faithfully,and
lovinglyrepresentedhim. Throughout, the author'sintentionhas been faithfully
preserved."69Ch&reau: "I am guided by Wagner'sintentions;I follow his direc-
tions or ratherI always take my cue fromWagnerthe stagedirector.... I follow
even thesmallestdetail of the textnourishingmyselfwithwhat's there,including
its contradictions";70 and, concerningthe finalscene of Rheingold: "[The gods]
know now that the apple has a worm in it; this informationis given in the text,
writtenin the words and the music. .... This is preciselywhat Loge says."71
Boulez: "This declamatorystyle was intended by Wagner, especially for the
dialogue." 72"The Wagnerianorchestraexiststo accompany thesingers;Wagner
said this in 1876!"7h Textual evidence,the author's intention:is thisso evident?
The question of Wagner's intentioncannot be settledso easily.
The centenaryproduction coincided with the appearance of certaindocu-
mentswhich should give a freshimpetus to Wagnerian studies,even modifythe
traditional conception of certain works. We certainlypossess a great deal of
informationabout Wagner's creativestrategies:almost all thedraftsfortheRing
librettohave been published (Strobel 1930,1933); Curtvon Westernhagen'sstudy
(1973) is a detailed examination of the genesis of the score. And if only three
volumes of the completecorrespondencehave appeared (G. Strobel,editor,1967,
1970,1976),therecentlypublished completeeditionof Wagner'smusic assembles
fromhis letters,articles,and essaysalmost everything he eversaid or wroteon the
Ring (Breig and Fladt, 1976), not to mention such peripheral sources as the
unexpurgatededition of My Life (1963) and, of course,Cosima's Journal.
The definitive studyof thecreationof theRing based on thisnew documen-
taryevidenceremainsto be written.I do not intendtojudge Chireau's strategiesin
light of thisbodyof information,but will draw on certainspecificinformationto
considerseveralquestions raised by the debate overfidelity.
Firstof all, what are we to thinkof the priorityaccordedto theaterby both
Boulez and Chereau? This is perhaps the easiest question to answer. We may
wonder how someone like Faerber,who values the precision of his philological
conclusions,can claim that "Wagnerian drama is neverthe expressionof a total
art form" and that "Wagner always granteda certainpriority,even a decided
preeminence,to themusic."74Even a cursoryreadingofWagner'scompleteprose
worksrevealsthathe thoughtofhimselfless (thatis, not at all) as a reformer of the
68. Interview,p. 1.
69. Sadoul, p. 87.
70. Ibid., p. 92.
71. Interview,p. 9.
72. Sadoul, p. 104.
73. Ibid., p. 105.
74. Faerber,p. 6.
90 OCTOBER
musical idiom-which he neverthelesswas (withoutbeing clearlyaware thathe

was, nor particularlywanting to be)-than as a reformer of opera as an institu-
tion. Consider the followingquotation fromA Communication to My Friends,
thatimpressiveleap into thefuturein which Wagnerliterallyprogramstherestof
his life: "[With my Tannhiiuser]I understoodclearlyfor the firsttime thatthe
habitual way we had of presentingour operas absolutely contradictedwhat I
required. The simple material effectof vocal sound has always assured the
primacyof the singer;theactorwas secondary,even incidental;correspondingto
thisquite naturallywas an audience thatcultivateditsear at theexpenseofitseye.
Now, I was going in exactly the opposite direction:I wanted the actor in first
place, and only then the singer,who would reinforcethe actor."75
Secondly, is the Ring a mythabout societyin 1850? According to Carlo
Schmid, "Wagner borrowed certain elements from Germanic myths,and we
borrowdecors and costumes that appear designed to distanceus fromourselves
and from reality,but which in fact lend realityan appearance of substantial
truth."This strategyof distancingwas intendedto bringout "an essentialaspect
of thenineteenthcentury,of theindustrialrevolution:incipientcapitalism."76To
judge this interpretation,we should read what else Wagnerwas writingbetween
1848 and 1851while he was workingon thelibretto:Artand Revolution, The Art
Workof the Future,Artand Climate, and Opera and Drama. These texts,which
Wagner clearlyidentifiesas coinciding with the genesis of the Ring,77tell-with
variationsunnecessaryto include here-the same story:In thebeginning,people,
priests,actors, poets, music, poetry,and dance all existed togetherin perfect
union. Man lived in harmonywith nature. Then the wicked Romans appeared
and civilization began to decline. Christ tried to save what was leftbut failed.
Things deterioratedfurtherwith the birthof industrialsociety.The novel was
here, music there,and theatersomewhereelse. But a new age is coming; social
revolutionwill sweep away the old order,reestablishharmonybetweenman and
nature. The total work of art, in which music, poetry,and theaterbecome a
harmonious whole, will be possible thanks to me, Richard Wagner, poet and
musician, and humanitywill be saved.
This is only a slight exaggeration.The reader need only turn to those
theoreticalessayswhich, like Hugo's Prefaceto Cromwell,offeran extraordinary
mythof the origin of music and opera. Only afterreading it can we honestlysay
whetheror not Chireau has rediscoveredin thispictureof natureand civilization,
one of the essentialaspectsof Wagner's thoughtand one of thepossible meanings
of the Tetralogy.
75. Richard Wagner, Une communicationa mes amis, followed by Lettresur la musique, trans.
Jean Launay, Paris. Mercurede France, 1976,p. 99. Italics added.
76. Interview,p. 1.
77. In the letterto M. Villot, R. Wagner, Une communicationd mes antis,p. 208.
Chbreau's Treachery 91
There remains finallythe general conception of theRing, and particularly

the functionaccorded to Wotan. It is well known thatWagnerwrotethe libretto
beginningat the end, with the Death of Siegfried(November 1848).Then, when
he decided to go back to Alberich's theftof the gold, about which he had been
thinkingsince October 1848,78 he wroteYoung Siegfried(betweenMay 3 and June
24, 1851). In November1851,he began Das Rheingold and Die Walkiire,which he
finishedbetweenJune 1 and November3, 1852. In Decemberof the same yearhe
revisedseveralminor but significantdetailsof theselast twoprojects,givingthem
the formin which we know themtoday.Gbtterdiimmerung is ratherfarremoved
from the Death of Siegfriedin severalways. Siegfriedis certainlythe centerof
both, but with Das Rheingold and Die WalkfireWotan appears. With his
introduction,Wagnerneverstops asking himselfwhat his own workmeans.Thus
theparadox of chargesof infidelity: what we read todayis theresultofso complex
a gestationthateven its authorwas uncertainabout its meaning.The meaningof
the totalityof the work is differentfrom that intended by the poet at each
particularmomentin the creationof thework.
But is Siegfried,as Ber6nice Reynaud claims, the centralcharacterof the
Ring simply because "he was the initial source of Wagner's fascination,from
which he returnedto theoriginal transgression in orderto explain thefateof the
gods"? 79What in factoccurs is a decentering.Houston Chamberlain,Wagner's
son-in-law,recognizedthis in the last chapterof his book, Das Drama Richard
Wagners,whereWotan is provento be thecentralcharacterof theRing. In a letter
dated September 22, 1892, Cosima thanked him for a copy of the book and
particularlyforthis interpretation. She makes the followingvaluable statement:
"The suggestionto christentheTrilogy Wotan,made by a cleverfriendof ours,
was seriouslyconsidered."
This establishesWotan's original position in thedrama.But how should his
characterbe interpreted? In the "Myth of the Nibelungen, a sketchfora drama"
(1848), Wagner describesthe gods: "With sublime action, thegods imposed order
on theworld, harnessedthe elementswithwise laws, and consecratedthemselves
to the tendercare of thehuman race. Their powerwas supreme.But thetrucethat
broughtthemto power was not foundedon reconciliationbut forceand trickery.
The goal of theirdominion overtheworldwas moralconscience,but theevil they
pursued remaineda part of them."
Wotan can therefore only be tormented, forhe knows thathe mustmakeuse
of "freewill" in his attemptto redeemmankind: "The Gods prepareman forthe
sublime taskofredeemingtheirown transgression."80so The conclusion of thisdraft
78. Cf. "Le mythe des Nibelungen consid&recomme esquisse d'un drame" (Wagner 1929, II:
109-125).
79. B&rknice Reynaud,"L'Anneau du Nibelung: du mythei l'intentionmusicale," Musique en Jeu,
22, p. 43.
80. Ibid., p. 112.
92 OCTOBER
of thepoem is apparentlyoptimistic:"Listen then,GreatGods, yourcrimeis paid

for:thankthehero who takesresponsibilityforyourmistake."He concludeswith
a eulogy to Wotan: "Let but one reign,you, Fatherof all; so thatyourpower be
eternal,I lead him to you: receivehim well, he is worthy."81This is thesourceof
the firstprose draftof Briinnhilde'slast words in the firstversionof theDeath of
Siegfried(fromwhich Wagner gave public readingsbeginningin 1849):
Nur einerherrsche: Only one master:

Allvaters!Herrlicherdu! Magnificent!Fatherof all!
Freue dichdes freiestenHulden! Rejoice in yourhero,freestof all!
Siegfriedliihr'ichzu: I bring to you Siegfried:
biet ihm mindlichenGruss, greethim with tokensof love,
dem BuirgenewigerMacht! the promiseof power forever?82
We aren't yet at the point where Valhalla is engulfedin flames.On the

contrary,love is a positive factor in the exercise of power, whereas, in the
Tetralogyit must be renouncedif power is to be conquered.
But as Wagner began the task of editingthe threeworks thatprecededthe
Death of Siegfried,he began to feelless sureof himself.He crossedout thestanza
quoted above,83probablybeforeMay 1849,and wrotein the marginto theright:
Selige Siihnung Expiation divine

ersah ich den hehren I learned fromthe gods,
heilig awigen sublime and sacred,
einigen Gottern! eternal,unique!
Freueteuch Rejoice then
des freiestenHelden! freestof heroes!
GdttlichemBrudergruss To godlike brotherhood
fidhrtseine Braut ihn zu! he is led by his bride!
But in the leftmargin thereis the following stanza, which, according to

Strobel,was writtenbeforethe one on the right:
Machtlos scheidet Powerlessleaves he

die die Schuld nun meidet who of guilt now is free.
Eurer Schuld entsprossder From yourown guilt a joyous
frohesteHeld hero is born,
81. Ibid., p. 124.

82. Richard Wagner,GesammelteSchriftenund Dichtungen,Leipzig, Fritzsh,1887,new edition,
Hildesheim,Olms Verlag, 1976,II. p. 227.
83. Cf. O. Strobel, "Zur Entstehungsgeschichte
der G6tterdiimmerung,"
Die Musik, 1933, pp.
336-341.
dessen freiethatsie getilgt: expiation in his freewill:

erspartist euch der bange Kampf spared you are the fearfulfight,
um eure endende Macht: the twilightof yourpower:
Erbleichetin Wonne vor des with rejoicing turnpale at the
Menschen action of
That, Man,
Vor dem Helden, den ihr gezeught! of the hero to whom you gave life!
Aus eurerbangen Furcht From fearfuldread released
verkiind'ich euch selige throughblessed death redemption.
Todeserlaisung
Even if Wagnereventuallyabandoned thesetwo drafts,theyare particularly

significant,especially the second, for in them the poet, in the company of the
"eternal,unique" deities,introducestheidea ofresponsibility, ofdivine transgres-
sion which requiresthedeathofa freehero.It is thisaspectofWotan's personality
thataccounts forthe tragicdimension of theTetralogy.
Wotan's characterthusundergoesa radical transformation: he renouncesthe
will to live in order to be saved. Wagner had thispessimisticconceptionof the
Ring even beforereading The Worldas Will and Idea in September-October 1854.
Previously,in a long discussion of theRing addressedto Roeckel (January25), he
had developed a thoroughlySchopenhauerian view of Wotan: "He is carriedto
the summit of tragedy:to will what is necessaryand to accomplish it alone."
Wagner himselfadmits thathe hadn't yetread Schopenhauer.84And in My Life
he admits that Wotan's character was revealed to him only after reading
Schopenhauer: "Tragedy, [Herwegh] said to me, is expressed precisely in
Schopenhauer's awareness of the nonexistence of the visible world; every
great poet, everygreat man, has had the intuitionof this void. This made me
think of my Nibelungen poem and I realized with surpise thaton the uncon-
scious level of poetic conception I had been aware ofwhat had so oftenconfused
me in theory.It was at that moment that I firstrealized who my Wotan
reallywas." 85
This last sentence,writtenin 1854, is crucial. Fiftycopies of the Ring,
containingthenew versionof theDeath ofSiegfriedcompletedin December1852,
were published in 1853; as soon as the work was finished,Wagner began to
question its meaning, even to modifyhis interpretation of it.86How thencan we
resistthe temptationto modifyit now?
Reworking the Death of Siegfriedduring the fall of 1852,Wagnerwrotea
84. Cosima Wagner,Die Tagebiicher,II, March 29, 1878,p. 73.

85. Richard Wagner,Ma Vie, Paris, Plon, 1927,III, p. 101.
86. This was not thefirsttimethishad occurred.In Une communicationa mes amis, Wagnerstates
that he did not really understandElsa's characteruntil afterthe fact (p. 111). Cosima stated that
Wagnerhimselfhad absolutelyno idea (kein unverstdindlich) what the scene betweenWaltrauteand
Briinnhildewas about (Cosima Wagner,Die Tagebiicher,I, p. 402).
94 OCTOBER
long passage that contains the 1853 Privatdruckin which Briinnhildeaddresses

the people. It is inserted immediatelyafter the "So-werf-ichden Brand/in
Walhalls prangendeBurg" of the definitiveversion:87
Ihr, bliihendenLebens You who prosperin life,

bleibend Geschlecht: the race thatendures:
was ich nun euch melde, what I am about to say,
merketes wohl! mark well!
Sah't ihr vom ziindendenBrand You have seen Siegfriedand Briinnhilde
Siegfriedund Briinnhild'verzehrt; consumed in the raging pyre;
sah't ihr des Rheines T6chter you have seen the Rhine Daughters
zur Tiefe entfiihrenden Ring: returnthe ring to thewaves:
nach Norden dann look northwardthen
blicktdurch die Nacht: across the night:
erglinztdortam Himmel shining in the heavens
ein heiliges Gliihen; a sacred light;
so wissetall'- realize-
dass ihr Walhall's Ende gewahrt!- it is Valhalla's destructionyou see!-
VergingWie Hauch Eclipsed in a breeze

der G6tterGeschlecht; the race of the gods;
lass' ohne Walter I leave behind
die Welt ich zuriick: a rudderlessworld:
meines heiligstenWissens Hort my sacredhoard of knowledge
weis' ich der Welt nun zu.- I give to know.-
Nicht Gut, nicht Gold, Not gold, estate
noch g6ttlichePracht; nor the splendorof gods;
nicht Haus, nicht Hof, neitherhouse nor home
noch herrlicherPrunk; nor glorious display
nicht triiberVertriige false unions
triigenderBund, ambiguous pacts
nicht heuchelnderSitte customs' pretense
hartesGesetz: stringentlaws:
selig in Lust und Leid only love blesses
lisst-die Liebe nur sein. pleasure and pain.88ss
Called to witness the death of the Gods, humanity survives.Only love

(nature) triumphsover power, conventions,and false laws.
87. Richard Wagner,Gitterdiimmerung, ed. bilingue,Paris, Aubier-Flammarion,1972,pp. 292-3.

88. Richard Wagner,GesammelteSchriftenund Dichtungen,II, p. 228. Louis II bitterly regretted
the loss of this last stanza. He was so insistentabout it that Wagnerfinallyset it to music forhim.
The presenceof man is so centralan issue here thatin May 1856,Wagner

revised the finalscene to include a chorus: "End forthe Death of Siegfried:after
settingfireto the funeralpyre,Bruinnhildeturnstowardthosewho remain. She
doesn't call for the resurrectionof the fallen, but prophesies to Hagen a long
period of reincarnation,followedby theredemptionforwhich she is destined,for
she knows thatshe will not be reborn.To thosewho rehmain, she offersthechoice
betweenHagen's destinyand her own: if you love life, turnaway fromme and
look at him! She goes to her horse and speaks silentlyto it fora long time.The
chorus expressesits growingresolve to decide in her favor,until, at last, it turns
withresolutionto faceher;she mountsherhorseand jumps triumphantly into the
fire."
Schopenhauer has tread this ground. It is an obvious allusion to the
Brahminicalcycleof reincarnationconcluding in finalredemption.In fact,in the
notebooks this sketchoccurs next to a briefoutline fora Buddhist opera, The
Conquerors.In a letterto Franz Miller, June22, 1856,Wagnerwrotethat"forthe
firsttimein theentirework,at theveryend, men and women are going to have to
reveal themselvesand play a largerrole." He also wrote thathe would have to
rewriteonce more Briinnhilde'slast words,which he did:
Fiihr' ich nun nicht mehr Since I take him no more

nach Walhall's Feste, to Valhalla's feast,
wiss't ihr,wohin ich fahre? do you know whereI go?
Aus Wunschheimzieh' ich fort, I fleefromdesire,
Wahnheim flieh'ich auf immer; eternalflightfromdreams;
des ew'gen Werdens I close behind me
off'neThore the open doors
Schliess' ich hintermir zu: of the eternalfuture:
nach dem wunsch-und wahnlos to the absence of desire,
heiligstemWahnland holiest task
der Welt-WanderungZiel, of world transformation,
von Wiedergeburterlijs't, fromreincarnationfreed
ziehtnun die Wissendehin. she sets out now who knows.
Alles Ew'gen Do you know
Sel'ges Ende, how I found
wiss't ihr,wie ich's gewann? this blessed end of eternity?
TrauernderLiebe The deep sadness
tiefstesLeiden of love in mourning
schloss due Augen mir auf: it was thatopened my eyes:
enden sah ich die Welt.- I saw the world end.89
89. Ibid. VI, pp. 255-6.

96 OCTOBER
In a letterto Roeckel datedAugust 23, 1856,Wagnerexplained thattheother

version,"only love blessespleasure and pain," was a bitpompous, and, moreover,
thatBrfinnhildedidn'tknow what to do withthatsortoflove. Byrelocatingit in a
Schopenhauerian context,Wagner believed that he had found "the true funda-
mental orderof things."
This fails, however,to take Cosima's influenceinto account; for her, the
terms Wunschheimand Wahnheim sound artificial.90 In the end, the firstand
second versionsdisappeared completely,alles Cosel'n zu gefallen(July22, 1872),
"just to please Cosima."91 But thereasons thatWagnerhimselfprovidesare more
interesting:"Since the meaning of these versestranslatedperfectlyin the effect
produced by thedrama set to music, it should be clear thattheymust be deleted."
Wagnerwanted to avoid redundancy:it is alreadyclear thathappiness is achieved
only by renouncing desire and illusion, meaning, finally,the will to live. The
chorus is deleted then forprimarilyaestheticreasons: "He thought,and rightly
so," writesCosima in her journal forDecember 20, 1869, "that it disruptedthe
stylisticunityof thewhole. 'And somethinglike a finalchorusis completelyout of
place in a worklike this,'he said." 92But thereis undoubtedlymoreto it than that.
With theprospectof such a bleak future,burdenedwitha heritageof lostillusions
(Wihnen), mankind should say nothingand considerthis immensequestion in
silence.
Chereau has understoodand translatedthe emergingconditionof suffering
humanity. "There is a theatricalaspect of Gbtterddmmerung" he writes,"that
should not be overlooked:theabruptintrusionof thechorus,ofall humanityonto
thestage. .. . I asked thesemen and women to expressthedepthof theirquestions
and their doubt.... This is my way of understandingthe impasse in which
Wagner found himselftwenty-five yearsafterbeginning to writethe Ring: what
conclusion, how to conclude?"93
Humanity listensto theorchestraloracle twice:in thelast scene and during
theFuneral March,which has been omitted.This departurefromtraditionelicited
strongreactions:"Far fromexpressingimmobility,thismusic embodiesa move-
ment measured by more than rhythmalone .... Ch&reau has falsifiedthese
expressiveelementsof themusic bygivingpriorityto a staticstagetableau."94But
what was Wagner's view of this?
In September 1871, according to Cosima, he said, "I have writtena great
chorus, but a chorus that will be 'sung' by the orchestraafterSiegfried'sdeath
90. Cosima's biographer,Du Moulin Eckart (1929) claims this statementoccurs in her private
journal in March 1872,but it does not appear in the 1976 edition.
91. Cf. the precedingnote; Du Moulin Eckartnotes September28, 1871,but thejournal indicates
nothingon thatdate.
92. Cosima Wagner,Die Tagebiicher,I, 1876,p. 180.
94. Faerber,p. 69.
ActII.
G6tterd~immerung,
. .. ... ....::::SIR,::::
.........
Liwgo,
98 OCTOBER
during the orchestralinterlude.The Siegmund theme will be heard, as if the

choruswereexplaining thatthiswas his father,thentheswordmotif,and thenhis
own theme.The curtainwill rise, Gutrune will enter,thinkingshe's heard the
sound of his horn. How could words create the same impressionas each theme
reintroducedin thisway? Musical expressionis uniquely suitedforthis." Hasn't
Ch&reauintuitivelyrediscoveredone of Wagner's deepestideas?
As forthe finalscene,we only have to recall the directionsin the definitive
score: "The men and women consider with deep emotion (Ergriffenheit)the
flamesthatrise into the sky." In the libretto,published by theauthorin 1872,he
speaks of a "silent seizure (Erschiiterung)."95
Why give such a detailed account of the genesis of this part of the Ring?
Undoubtedly because the meaning chosen for its conclusion retrospectively
definesthe meaning of the entirework. But especially to illustratean attemptto
assign a narrativelogic to an ensemblewhose visibleelementsare, like the tipsof
an iceberg,complex, mobile, and hidden fromview. That logical inconsistencies
of action inhere in Wagner's textis hardlysurprising.96 To theseactual discon-
tinuities (the work that results) should be added those expresslyintended by
Wagner: "I intend to use three different dramas, each with its own unity,to
representmy myth.""97 Afterfinishingthe love duet between Siegmund and
Sieglinde,Wagnerwroteto Liszt on July3, 1854,expressinghis surpriseat how it
contrastedwith Rheingold.98And the fairytale exists in the myth,forWagner
explicitlyidentified thesourceofSiegfriedin theGrimmtale: Mdrchenvon einem,
der auszog, das Fiirchtenzu lernen.99
The amount of interpretative data available to the stage directoris so great
thatno single Ring production,on one level or another,can possiblyescape self-
contradiction.The Bayreuthstage is not a classroom,but musicological research
does show that the textand score of the Ring are susceptibleto various levels of
interpretation. Ch&reau'sconceptual bias is based on a tensionbetweena historic
creation,a text,and a contemporaryreadingthatbringsto thestage severalof the
possible narrativescontained within the Ring.
95. Richard Wagner,GesammelteSchriftenund Dichtungen,VI, p. 256.

96. Cf. the biographyby ErnestNewmann (1933), vol. II, chap. XVII.
97. Cosima Wagner,Die Tagebiicher,II, p. 161.
98. R. Wagner,F. Liszt, Correspondance,p. 287.
99. ConversationwithKietz,1849,and letterto Uhlig, May 10, 1851.In 1849,when theprojectof the
entireRing had not yet absorbed him, and just aftercompleting the Death of Siegfried,Wagner
consideredwritinga comic opera inspiredby a tale by Grimm.In a letterto Uhlig he wrote,"What a
surpriseit was for me to realize that this boy (who learned fear) was none other than the young
Siegfriedwho would win the treasureand awaken Brfinnhilde.It is decided. I will begin writing
Young Siegfriednext month."
Chbereau'sTreachery 99
In Praise of Treachery
Are we any closer to answering the question posed earlier:how can both
partisansand criticsof the '76 Ring invoke theprinciple of fidelityto intention?
First of all-and here we disagree in principle with both Boulez and
Chereau-the text in itselfcannot constituteconclusive evidence. Certainlythe
sehr weich of the Valhalla theme is part of the music, but this "content" has
meaning only as Boulez interpretsit; by translatingthis notation into dramatic
action, he finallygives it meaning. The same applies to the libretto.Ch&reau
frequentlydeliberatelygoes against the letterof the text.For example, when he
puts the woodbird in a cage, his ideological, theatricalintentionsare clear.
Ideologically, the bird, who accomplishes what Wotan himselfdoes not dare
admit (to lead Siegfriedto Brfinnhilde),belongs to a naturewhich is itselfalready
captive.Theatrically,thecage representson stage an off-stage character;neverthe-
less Siegfried"sees it perchingpeacefullyon the branch."
What's going on? "Actually, I was tryingto tell the story,"'100 Chereau
remarkedconcerningthe textand his intentions.But Ch&reauisn't the only one
who has recreateda story.The musicologistwho retracesthe genesis of the text
(Strobel) or the score (von Westernhagen)must firstassemble his evidence.Then
he interpretsit. This is the procedureof any historicalinvestigation.Paul Veyne
calls it the constructionof a plot, a literaryterm quite appropriate to this
context.101 The musicologist reconstitutesfrom dispersedsources one possible
storyof a textwhose final formwe possess, choosing one threadfromamong
severaland developing it. Strictlyspeaking, themusical historian,like any other
historian, constructsa tale. The stage director,the audience, the critic also
constructtheirown plot: thestoryWagnerwanted to tell,thestoryof thelibretto,
the storytold by the structureof the motifs.A different standard of selection
determineswhich elements will be used to fabricatethe plot of each story,
assigning to each a value subject to variation.If diversetheoreticalpositions can
all speak of "fidelityto intention,"it is because the intentionof one is not the
intentionof another.
Several things follow fromthis position. First of all-something that has
been said a hundred timesbefore-this Tetralogyis uneven. I sometimeswould
100. Sadoul, p. 92.

101. "Facts do not exist in isolation, inasmuch as we call the frameworkof historya plot, a very
human, hardly'scientific'combinationof materialcause, purpose,and chance; in a phrase,it is a slice
of life,which thehistoriancutsas he chooses,and in which factshave an objectiveand relativerelation
to one another..... The word plot remindsus thattheobjectof thehistorian'sstudyis as human as the
play or the novel, War and Peace or Antonyand Cleopatra.... What facts,then,are worthyof the
historian'sinterest?It all depends on thechosen plot; in it a factis neitherinterestingnor uninterest-
ing. ... In historyas in the theater,it is impossibleto expresseverything,not because it would require
too manypages, but because theredo not existelementalhistoricalfacts,factualatoms. If we cease to
see eventsin the contextof theirplot, we are drawn down into the abyss of the infinitesimal."(Paul
Veyne,Commenton ecritl'histoire,Paris, Seuil, 1971,pp. 46-47).
100 OCTOBER
have liked (my plot...) Chdreau to emphasize a particular detail. Afterthe

astonishingthirdact of Die Walkiire,thesame decorin thethirdact ofSiegfriedis
somewhat disappointing; somethingnew should have appeared. I would have
liked to have seen an expansivenessin the decor to equal the two lovers'joy and
the danger that threatensthem. Why not improve the dragon motifI spoke of
earlier? With his genius for clarifyingdifferent layersof sound, Boulez could
certainly have made this easier to identify.This statement,attributedto Wagnerby
Cosima, should also be takeninto account: "This kiss of love is thefirsttouchof
death,theend of individuality.This is thesource ofSiegfried'sfear."102 A morbid
anxietyinfectsthe raptureof firstlove in this scene, enshroudingthe characters'
actions: "So will I drinklifefromthesesweetlips, evenifI die fromit" (Siegfried);
"The light is extinguished:everythinggrows dark around me... the terrorthat
overcomes me runs wild"; "Let us die laughing, laughing we die" (Briinn-
hilde).103
Here then is my plot forthe genesis of the Ring: Once he had settledon a
meaning forWotan,thecomposerreallydidn'tknowwhat to do withSiegfried.In
a letterto Roeckel dated August 23, 1856,he made it clear thatalthough he no
longer believed in the Hellenistic optimism on which the book was based,
Siegfriedwould neverthelesspreservehis individualityin order to be happy.
Chereau's pessimisticinterpretationis somewhat removedfromthe character's
proper psychologicalstate.Was the Siegfriedof 1876still forWagnerthe "purely
human" hero of 1848, the precursorof a new age? Can this ever be positively
stated?
It becomes apparent that acceptance or rejection of Chereau's position
depends in the finalanalysis on the importance,the weight accorded to certain
elementsof the plot. Why not admit that what finallyelicits acceptance of this
production,with its weaknessesand what may be called its errors,is thebrilliant
effectof its entirety.I still feel the effectof certainpowerfulimages: Briinnhilde
and Wotan's farewell;Erda's veil leftbehind in Wotan's hands; Wotan's attempt
to steady the great balance of time,crying,"Das Ende! das Ende!"; the Norns,
spidersof fatecaught in theirown web. None of this,of course,occursin the text.
"Opera means theater,"Butor has said. A contradictionperhaps. But given the
searchingpessimismand thesymphonicnarrativity of thisRing, so much beauty
is happily received;and if Boulez and Chereau have betrayedWagner,thenwe side
with the traitors.
102. R. Du Moulin Eckart,Cosima Wagner,Miinich and Berlin,Frei Masken, 1929,I, p. 460.

103. Richard Wagner,Siegfried,Paris, Aubier-Flammarion,p. 265.
A Conversation
PIERRE BOULEZ and MICHEL FANO
translated by THOMAS REPENSEK
Fano: I would like to begin by asking how we can define modernity in music
today, in terms of both its creation and its reception. After a beginning that we can
designate very generally as Stravinsky, the Vienna School, and so on, how are we
to situate musical thinking today, including its violent and even terrorist currents?
Before you answer I will just add-because Bayreuth is always a little in the back
of our minds-that it seems clear to me that the productions I have seen are
certainly examples of modernity (and not modernism), inasmuch as its thought is
modern because enlightening.
Boulez: Modernity really begins, I think, with the rejection of the preconceived
frame of reference. It's a definitive and, I would say, a priori rejection. This is of
primary importance, because the preceding generation-excepting, of course,
Stravinsky and Schonberg-developed a sense of remorse. They had been, in fact,
ultramodern, but a time came when they needed security, when they bVgan to lose
their balance and panicked, or whatever. In any case, they fell back on a model in
order to rethink the problems in safety. And, for me, the concept of modernity
involves first that state of circumstances in which thinking cannot be physically
adapted to things as they exist, in which thought must invent, for expressive
reasons, the formal structure of invention itself. I think that this modernity has
had its precursors-for example, Beethoven in his late works and Wagner in the
theater were truly innovative-when what follows totally disregards what has
preceded it. A moment arrives when things must change. And I believe that this
occurs somewhat in spite of itself, in former times that is, when the preconception
of the existing form, the existing frame, was firmly established, in which creative
thinking was completely framed. There was to begin with a struggle between this
formal frame, in which everyone had his place, and individualism, which broke
the frame apart. At the beginning of this century the frame was suddenly shattered,
in spite of itself, and the consequences were works which generally speaking had
no need of formal musical concepts. The most advanced works of the time were
ballets or theater works, whose formal concept conflicts with theatrical form,
102 OCTOBER
which is completely different from that of music. "Le Sacre du Printemps,"

therefore, is an example, and "Erwartung" a typical one, in which the theatrical
concept-the extramusical concept I would say-really forced people to think of
the music in a different way. In any case, they took advantage of the opportunity to
escape from the formal musical framework. The same applies to Webern, whose
most advanced work is always involved with a text. It was the text that finally led
to a formal framework different from that of music.
Fano: You mention "Erwartung"; why "Erwartung" and not "Pierrot Lunaire"?
Boulez: Because, from a certain point of view, "Erwartung" is more daring.

"Pierrot Lunaire" employs small closed forms, a succession of twenty-one closed
forms, which are easier to organize because they are intense, separated moments on
their own. Naturally, there is continuity from moment to moment, but the work is
nevertheless easier to organize, and in my opinion depends much more on the
traditional romantic lieder cycle. Compare it, for example, with Schumann, who
composed cycles that were obviously structured with repeated themes, etc., and
you clearly see "Pierrot Lunaire" as extremely derivative. Just as "Erwartung" is
not without precedent, if you like, in Wagner and even Strauss. But "Erwartung"
really went further in combining all the formal elements in a continuous line that
is remarkably long for something as chaotic as this twenty-five minute work. It is
very long, practically continuous, and when you examine it closely, you see that it
is very difficult to make cuts in it. There is no point, or hardly any, of stabilization.
Fano: The idea of parts ...
Boulez: Yes, the idea of parts almost doesn't exist. Which is not the case, for
example, in Berg, where of course whole elements closed in on themselves do exist,
linked together, but completely closed. "Erwartung," on the other hand, is for me
the prototype of a kind of open form, whose development is unknown, and the
only point of reference, especially at the beginning, is the dramatic impulse. Only
the unfolding of the story itself is unclear. It's not a story where you go from one
point to another. It's a story where there is nothing to understand in the logical
sense of the term. There is no conclusion and it's not clear what actually has taken
place. It could continue, it could already have begun, it's a sort of temporal rift, a
scrap of time torn off that ends. Moreover, the end of "Erwartung" always leaves
people up in the air, because in effect it is an end without conclusion, a little like
the "Drowning" in Wozzek, but the "Drowning" has an end, and suddenly an
equilibrium is established. The end of "Erwartung," however, is the fragment of a
veil that has been completely torn away. And like the beginning, it hesitates; we
don't really know where it's going; it's like a photograph or a film not quite in
focus. Something is visible but it could as easily be a lamp as the edge of a wall-
who knows?-until gradually the focus is adjusted and the objects come into view.
A Conversation 103
And then, at the end, a sharp rift occurs, like a fragment of an identifying feature
suspended in air. I find that absolutely remarkable. In Stravinsky, of course, in the
"Sacre du Printemps," you still have the organization by dances, that is, the use of
parts, but parts that refer to one another; these are easily retained in transitions,
but the organic continuity of this work cannot be explained in terms of musical
continuity. Not at all. Naturally, very general laws, laws of contrast, do apply;
after something lively, something slow; after something strong, something soft,
etc., but...
Fano: The large musical rhythms ...
Boulez: Yes, but that's not where we find the meaning of form; it's too elementary.
That is form's negative aspect, its nondescriptive, restrictive side; that is, you have
something that is strong, something that is not soft. It is perhaps a massive
structure, for example, and then another structure cut away from it. Very well, but
these are what I call envelopes. What's inside is more complicated than that.
Fano: I am thinking again about modernity. I don't remember if it's an article by

Nattiez or some program notes where he refers constantly to a text of yours which I
would like very much to see.
Boulez: Yes, an interview with Carlo Schmid. The interview itself wasn't very
interesting, so a lot of commentary was added to fill in the gaps.
Fano: In that interview you say, "The future is flooded by the past"; well then,
can't modernity be thought of precisely as this transitional flooding, which would
distinguish it from modernism? This ebb and flow between what has always been
important in the past and what should be important in the future occurs in today's
present; this is what constitutes modernity.
Boulez: Modernity is that and more. What is at stake between modernity and
modernism? I think it involves the assimilation of the past in such a way that
memory is no longer a factor, so that memory can dispense with this assimilated
past completely. The trouble with what I call random autodidactism, however,
is that people don't know. There may be rejections, predispositions, or even
affinities. Affinities or rejections that are limiting because, basically, they have not
been absorbed. And when they have been absorbed, the memory can reject them
because it has taken what it needs and couldn't care less about the rest. And,
interestingly enough, the work absorbed is very important, much more important
because it's been closely examined, but at the same time it is no longer important
because it has been disposed of, voided. In this way the past becomes important
and is, at the same time, disposed of. If this step is bypassed, there's a deficiency.
Those who want to begin without bother about the past, or who reject the past as
104 OCTOBER
such, are involved with reactions that are quite infantile, because they don't
advance by way of rejection; they skip the assimilative step. It is a preventive
rejection, which has never helped or immunized anyone.
Fano: I'd like to discuss the questions of necessity and chance, and, in doing so, to
think of Bayreuth and of the character of Siegfried as defined so well by Nattiez-
spirited, manipulated, and so forth. The problem of necessity and chance has
preoccupied composers for the last fifteen years, and your "Third Sonata" is very
significant in this regard. "Eclat," another work I am well acquainted with,
defines the composer's strategy toward the interpreter in a different way. How do
you experience these two relationships, and how especially do you think the
audience perceives them? This is a crucial problem, since there is generally only
one version, one itinerary. How, therefore, does the audience confront the work
from the very beginning?
Boulez: Now that is a question, like many others of course, with which I've always
been concerned. "Are we or are we not aware of what is going on?" Naturally, it is
very easy on the printed page. Take a poem, for example; if you're looking at the
page, of course you see its structure, a structure that may change. But imagine that
you deliver it orally. You commit yourself to a particular presentation. You have
no choice but to say one sentence after another. Take Mallarme: I recently reread
his celebrated projected book, and about the readings he wanted to give; precisely
that, but with variations: to reveal to a certain number of people, through different
readings, a complete understanding of the circuits. I remember when there were
works of that sort (aleatoric they were called) with structures that repeatedly
changed. There was a time when it was considered interesting to perform the same
work twice in the same concert, so that, it was claimed, we would understand the
difference. That sort of thing never interested me, because I don't think that is
what a multiple work sets out to accomplish. A multiple work should be
encountered differently at different times. We do not necessarily see-I am
referring especially to a solo work where the immediate gesture is everything-we
do not see the code in operation. A multiple work is paradoxical because when we
hear it, we hear it as one. We really hear one unique version without being able to
determine what constitutes its multiplicity. Therefore, a work is made because it is
not determined and yet, what is finally heard-a version-is determined. Now,
that made me think about composing a similar work, because I think that the
work must necessarily have a formal curve in whatever way it develops. Although
the form must be conceived at a higher level, it should be conceived so as to be
perceived as a fixed form in a specific rendering. I think all too few have looked
into this sort of thing. What really interests them is the explosion of the moment. I
call it the rehearsing of cliches.
The expression of the moment, improvised expression, doesn't interest me
very much because it emerges from habits of thinking and of action-reflexes. It
A Conversation 105
may be interesting as psychodrama, but generally speaking, it is not interesting

from the point of view of musical structure, because the expression is, frankly,
banal. Therefore, what I find interesting about a multiple-circuit work is that, if it
is listened to as a work, it has a definitive form. But this definitive form will not be
the definitive form heard at another time. Yet, if you listen to the work several
times, exactly the same things will register, but at different locations or in different
contexts, with a different gesture even; in any case, the work will have a completed
form, set for one time. It is completion at a specific time that interests me. Not
mobility as such.
Fano: Yes, I understand, yet you still want the work to be heard several times.
Boulez: Yes, of course. When you listen to a work, for example "Opus 106," which
is a complex work, you listen to it again; you don't listen to it only once in your
life.
Fano: Of course.
Boulez: You listen to it many times. In order to understand its complex relation-
ships, you have to listen to it a number of times to really understand its tonality.
It's the same thing, yet when you listen a second time, you don't listen to exactly
the same thing again. You listen to the same elements, only they are disposed not
in a different way but-how should I say it?-the form remains almost the same.
Fano: When we made a film together fifteen years ago you evoked different views of
the same landscape in order to understand why we take one road rather than
another. Were you thinking of a city?
Boulez: Yes, absolutely-Venice in fact.
Fano: Why Venice?
Boulez: Because Venice seems to me to be the most anxiety-ridden city and this is
what constitutes a city for me. Because a city is a labyrinth. And I believe that a
work should be fundamentally a labyrinth. A labyrinth that occurs only once, or
that is reexperienced always in the same way, so there are always several interpre-
tations of the same labyrinth. But a labyrinth where you are probably not always
in the same circumstances, in the same situation. And this labyrinthine work is for
me one of the keys to what I want to do, to what I think I must do.
Fano: The "Third Sonata" just now?
Boulez: No, but I am going to begin work on it again.

106 OCTOBER
Fano: But "Eclat" involves a completely different set of circumstances.
Boulez: Yes.
Fano: And I think it might be interesting if you would clarify this because in
"Eclat" one gets the impression really that the harp-or whatever instrument it is,
I forget which one-is really Siegfried.
Boulez: Oh yes, absolutely.
Fano: And that I find rather curious.
Boulez: Of course you understand, I spoke about ...
Fano: Monitored liberty.
Boulez: Yes, that's it. A string, a puppet's string. But a puppet that can answer
back. As I've already explained, there is the excitement of not knowing exactly
when. There is stimulation and anxiety which certainly changes the game. I am
considering the issue of interpretation from this point of view: there is very little
difference between interpretations by one or by two persons. The codes can be
completely assimilated by both, by the soloist or the two together. There is
freedom that cannot be seen. In a small group, freedom is visible. For freedom
cannot be grasped by everybody, only a single individual can take it. And the
others react, or don't react, or even go to pieces. I've experimented quite a bit with
this and written about it.There are passages in which everything is in very definite
measure, everyone is together; then I stop marking time, and because it is a very
difficult tempo, it goes completely out of synchronization. After a certain time, I
resume a certain measure, and everyone takes it up again. It's a way of signaling to
players to let go, of losing them and retrieving them again.
I have seen what happens, for example, when the classical repertory is
performed. There is an accident. Obviously accident is the state of circumstances
in which the code no longer functions. Something is lost, optically, as a result of
the code's no longer functioning. It would be interesting to use that very loss of
code to understand how the music falls off.
Fano: Theatrical experience.
Boulez: It's theatrical experience, and a musical experience when somewhat more
complicated things are at issue, when we realize that someone has not been
following. Then I know I have lost them. Like Tom Thumb in the forest, I really
lose them. Then I leave a trail of pebbles to bring them back. This is where you see
the code, a collective code, that is, which is addressed to the individual or group as
A Conversation 107
such. Then the group becomes fragmented. I did this to a certain extent in "Le
Domaine," which I divided into three sections. It is a continuation of "Eclat,"
whose chord structure is similar. I let people go, I began to conduct, and then I
stopped. That's all. And since the rhythms were too complicated to really be
together, it broke apart. What's interesting about groups is their coincidence/non-
coincidence. Our music has always developed essentially by'coincidence. Impro-
vised music, let's call it random music, is total noncoincidence. The two extremes
are all very well, but there is all that space in between which makes it possible to
go invisibly from one to the other. That is, there is a transition from chaos to
absolute order. Extreme situations interest me for only very short periods of time,
on the whole. They very quickly become monotonous, unambiguous. Without
ambiguity we quickly understand. And in "Eclat," there will be a great expansion.
The first part is, therefore, this totally free thing, then there is a part that is
completely unified, and then, after a certain amount of time, I go back and forth;
that is, instead of giving signals that simply correspond to someone's event, I
supply signals that correspond, for example, to the event of several persons, and
then I let it go and the event disappears. It's an event that begins in order and then
ends because I am occupied with something else.
Fano: But, and I ask this for precision's sake, is the solitary event completely
written?
Boulez: Completely written, yes.
Fano: Except that it's no longer maintained.
Boulez: No. You are aware of what is going on and when you conduct, you can
direct with one hand, two hands, etc., and finally when things become very
complicated, you no longer notice the tempo. You're therefore no longer inter-
ested in producing very complicated superpositions of three and four, with tempi
that follow in the order three and four or five and seven. It serves no purpose.
Especially if the writing is complicated. If a beat is perceived, the relationship can
exist. If the writing is complicated, the internal beat is so fleeting you can bring
together events with different beats, but that doesn't count. What I find interesting,
therefore, is to start something, and then something else. This superimposition
becomes clouded, because (since we're speaking of complexity) it is precisely
because you want it to disappear.
Fano: It's a historic question then! Don't you think that this development has
been largely determined by the sort of "over-stipulation" of a certain period,
ending, in '28 or '29, in the "Klavierstiicke"?
Boulez: Yes.
108 OCTOBER
Fano: Is there a connection?
Boulez: A territory was invaded and one saw that the limits of absurdity had been
reached. They began to realize that much more subtle results could be achieved by
a specificity of gesture. The musical gesture had been completely lost sight of. The
musical gesture enables you to do things that the "measuring" of things no longer
allows. At certain times this liberty, this monitored liberty as you call it, is much
more productive than the yoke of calculation, which has its limits. What's more,
there is an enormous loss of execution in performance, because it can be so
complicated that you only pay attention to the execution, and even fifty percent of
that is lost. So I always avoid it. Sometimes, however, it's intentional. I have done
that in certain parts for the harp where I wanted harp echoes, and I wanted it to
continue but more or less by chance, and I wanted it precisely noted. So I
determined very small values, minims, so that at least they would never overlap; I
don't remember which harp, the first or the third, anyway I really don't give a
damn because they are the same chords that cut across the different chords of the
harp. There is a quarter-tone harp, another kind of harp, and a half-tone harp.
You have the same chords on all three. It's impossible for them to do it together
because they attempt to be rhythmical in the correct way, and it's really impossible
to do in a very simple succession, but I know that; I do it intentionally and when I
work I say, "not so slowly, like this, ta, ta, ta .. . " Then when you get to a normal
tempo, it goes "blll," but that is what seems right to me.
Fano: This brings us to my third point: repetition and difference. How much of a
complex phenomenon is perceived? And finally, where is pleasure located? And
understanding? How does the mind perceive the difference between repetition and
difference?
Boulez: I'm interested in the notion of envelopment. When you have a complex
phenomenon, you always have to compensate for it with some kind of simplicity.
There can only be brief moments in a work when all the components are complex.
When this occurs, what is heard is dispersed; it is rendered chaotic, because the
constituent parts cannot be separated. The amount of information is too over-
whelming to be differentiated; each component is apprehended rather by chance;
you grasp what strikes you suddenly. So what I do is work with a negative
aspect of this. For example, if I accentuate rhythmic sequences, I sometimes
practically annihilate the entire harmonic content; that is, the harmonic context
doesn't shift, or it shifts very little. You can only hang onto a more specific
auditory phenomenon. Or if the instrumentation is highly inflected, overcharged,
finely wrought from an acoustic point of view, there is an aspect of it that I usually
never approach. Or I use large envelopes-you referred to the "Third Sonata"-
which make the registers, for example, so clear that they cannot be mistaken.
Thus, all the green structures in the "Third Sonata" are in the center. They are
A Conversation 109
only slightly inflected on purpose, and all the other structures are, well, here and
there. They begin in a distant register, and approach the central register as the
curve is being defined; you have the green structure which is stable, and the red
structure which is a zigzag and which gradually approaches the green structure
through the register. It is, therefore, impossible not to hear this contrast. The
second contrast that one cannot fail to hear is the relationship between sound
blocks and sound points. You sense very clearly when a structure is approaching;
that's a point and these are blocks. I make use of categories in this way-not
rudimentary, but well-determined, clearly visible envelopes-in order to really
work at a deeper level. For example, in "Eclat," when the instruments of the small
accompanying group come in, the instrumentation is such that we are not aware
that there is a complete change in instrumentation, form, and the way the sonic
material is used, that creates a completely different universe. I think this is very
important.
There are always large envelopes. The most difficult thing I've done was in
"Explosante fixe" where I attempted an exclusively permutational form, that is,
where the form undergoes no evolution whatsoever. There is, for example, an
element A, which will recur fifteen times; an element B, which will recur let's say
twelve times; an element C, which will recur seven times, etc.; and then a central
element that occurs only once. There will be a lot of permutations among the
elements. And each time, these elements regain exactly the same form of expres-
sion, that is, the same register. Element A, for example, will always be in the same
register; element B, always in the same deep register; and element C, always in the
middle register. Element A will always be highly ornamented while the notes in B
will be quite severe, and so on. It's very difficult, especially when the work is
complex, but I think these permutations can be located since they move always in
the same directions. The things that are much more difficult to locate are located,
but only because they are associated with a clearly identifiable characteristic.
Working with Wagner and Berg pointed me in this direction. I noticed that
especially for something complex they use a lot of mnemonic devices. For
example, in Wozzek or Lulu, when there is a reprise, it is always in the same
register so that it functions mnemonically. It is almost always the same sounds
which are heard, and even people who do not have absolute pitch still receive
some kind of descriptive return. They don't know how it happens, but there can be
no doubt that the descriptive effect is there. When things must evolve and
transgress the mnemonic, there are changes.
Fano: In Wozzek, for example, a scene is improvised from a chord, and for
someone who doesn't expect it, the development goes in a completely different
direction, while structurally, it's similar. In Lulu, the F major at the beginning
reappears precisely . . .
Boulez: Precisely. Some things have to be signaled while others, on the contrary,
110 OCTOBER
transgress the signal-moments when you get lost. Wagner also used semaphors
like this in a way.
Fano: Listening to the work is progressively instructive: the work's code is

revealed as it unfolds, and then it becomes amazingly clear. Which is to be
expected since it's meant to be recognizable.
Boulez: There are themes I call developmental and themes that, while not
regressive, involve "a return to." Mnemonic themes to give the memory something
to hold on to. We are certainly aware, in complex works like those of Wagner and
Berg, that the memory needs to cling to the markers that are there, that are
immediately recognizable, and function descriptively. Yes, it's been called the
"Who's Who of the Gods," but without it the opera wouldn't work.
Also, it's a subtle technique. For example, the leitmotiv in Pelleas. The
music is wonderful, and in this sense it has its subtleties. And you'll notice in
Gbtterdammerung that sort of constant interweaving is magnificent. What I've
noticed in the evolution of Wagner's Tetralogy from its very beginning is that
there is a basically neutral musical text into which references are inserted, and
from time to time something of that neutrality suddenly appears, a little recitative.
Proportion is completely overthrown. It's amazing, because you sense this vast
information project that constructed itself.
When he composed Rheingold he certainly didn't know how he would use
those themes twenty-five years later. We hear it, therefore, in a way that is different
from the way in which he composed it, without intending to. You hear, for
example, a given motif, and when you know the evolution it will undergo in
Gotterddmmerung you say, my God, it's really very slight, but what potentiall
What's interesting is that there are themes that are pliable, that lend themselves to
that sort of thing, which he developed, and others that he abandoned. There are
themes like those of the deaths of Siegmund and Sieglinde that you could imagine
his using again. But no. He uses them once or twice and then stops. As themes, he
never manages to entirely remove them. Even as motifs, they only recur as
references to a particular situation.
What you said has made me think of the structural system in which
Wagner sometimes uses quotations, quoting himself; he quotes a complete-
ly formed structure, replaces it, or recaptures elements of it. He rebuilds a struc-
ture. This is what I tend to do more and more, to construct the music's form,
to displace or relocate completed structures, to have the elements interact in a
different way, and to introduce other elements along the way. There is always this
mnemonic ambiguity, what we think we know, what in the final analysis we don't
know and are not sure of recognizing and recognize nevertheless. This is what
constitutes its interest, since we are speaking about different repetitions, about a
repetition we recognize as different, a difference that has had the sense of
repetition. So, if you consider the beginning of Rheingold, really, I think the
A Conversation 111
American Minimalists . . . (laughter). Their use of repetition is only fortuitous,

that of autodidacts.
Fano: It's really extraordinary, because that finishes it; it's a joke.
Boulez: And it involves a kind of "nerve." I think of people listening to it then, to

that material which moves without moving. It's a stroke of utter genius. And it's
one of the things that is most impressive to direct-when you have this thing that
moves without moving, the two or three times it recurs in G6tterddmmerung,
when Hagen keeps night watch and sees the sun rise. Also there are those eight
horns that come in one after the other. It's astounding that sort of ascent, rather
short as a prelude, but really amazing. The primitive quality of the American
movement is (laughs) ... but I think they haven't thought things out. They
haven't considered anything seriously.
Fano: Would you say something about the problems associated with material and
instrument? There has been an extraordinary development of instruments; the
composer's relationship to the instrument is now completely changed; he can
elicit from it some extremely interesting effects which may also influence the
creation and writing of the work.
Boulez: It seems to me that today, whether by rather conventional means-which

also act to shatter convention-or by unconventional ones, or by means outside of
convention, both in the domain of instruments and in electronics, there is a
fundamental preoccupation with material. Where does it come from? Primarily, I
think, from the fact that instruments are conceived of in terms of a certain capacity
and from the fact that this capacity has been more or less fulfilled. An object
invented for a given purpose certainly has resources of which even the inventor is
unaware. But these resources are not infinite. There comes a time when they are
exhausted unless you begin resorting to extreme situations-for example, using an
electric razor to clean a street. It is obviously possible, but proves nothing. And
there is a fair amount of that sort of use of instruments. It's an attempt to entirely
avoid the sonority produced by an instrument in its intended function, to utterly
subvert that function. This is no solution to the problem, but an evasion. You can
tap on a violin, but you produce an extremely primitive sound compared to the
one that a violin could produce. It's not shocking but irritating, this reduction of
the efficiency of an extremely specialized object, to use a violin to produce a sound
that could as easily be made with a cigar box.
If this material is instrumental, then it is really related to function. One
shouldn't ignore the limits of function; that is naive, and even silly. There is a
moment when the function of the instrument must change, and these functions,
having undergone change, will then provide the material with a new dimension.
Of course, by evading this problem we will not find a solution. On the other hand,
112 OCTOBER
I also believe that electronic technique as panacea is quickly exhausted if it is used

only as such. Wouldn't you agree that in today's electronic world there are many
who have taken refuge in order to camouflage basic weaknesses in training or
invention or in both? The problem, then, clearly seems to me that electronic
material exists only as a function of composition. If it is like a display of
exceptionally fine merchandise, exotic fruits for example, it is also completely
spoiled, because there is no connection whatsoever between the function of the
material and the inventive purpose for which this material is intended. A kind of
total conditioning of the one by the other is needed. Material existing independent
of thought is inconceivable to me.
Fano: Of course.
Boulez: And this is where Cage and others fail completely. They speak with a kind
of imperial voice: "The material has no importance whatsoever; I make music
with whatever is available." This isn't true. It's only a decision. But a decision
isn't enough. It should have actual consequences. But, when we are dealing with
facts, material does not adapt itself to the organization of time simply because we
have decided it will.
Fano: Certainly.
Boulez: That is complete free will, and it yields no return at all, absolutely no
advantage. It is something I have repeatedly discussed in my lectures at the College
de France, the idea of a structure of responsibility in relation to this material.
There is a specific moment when responsibility is established, and if you decide
that this responsibility does not exist, then you are pretending, for, in fact, it does
exist. This is why we cannot even talk about order or validity, or anything else,
since there is absolutely no really responsible relation between material and
invention. For me, this is an extremely important point, and it's understandable
that many composers are bothered by the fact that instruments, the instrumental
corpus that we still use, are strongly limited by the past. But this realization is not
sufficient. Transformation is necessary, and at a given moment a transformation is
made in either of two ways: by using conventional material in a different way, that
is, by an accumulation such that in the resulting ambiguity the character of the
instrument disappears. Orchestration makes it possible to have sounds that are so
complex in themselves and so complex in their rapid succession that their origin
cannot be determined. In "Eclat," for example, when I produce very short sounds,
mixing two or three notes, it's not clear which instrument produced them and you
would have difficulty in deciding, "There's a mandolin-guitar," or whatever. Or,
in the other works I am orchestrating I make transitions so fleeting, so rapid that
you can't analyze them. The effect of conventional instruments can be mitigated in
the richness that results from extensive superimposition, such that analysis is
practically impossible.
A Conversation 113
Fano: We already see that in Wagner. There are instrumental combinations that
defy analysis when heard for the first time.
Boulez: He was the first to orchestrate in this way. For lack of a better term, I call it
acoustical instrumentation.
Fano: Yes, it expresses the sense of something closely controlled. Since IRCAM
concentrates on this sort of research, we might ask how your work as a composer is
concerned with this problem. IRCAM has initiated an extremely interesting kind
of research; do you intend to make use of it yourself?
Boulez: Yes, from now on. That is, what interests me, to begin with, is the
transition from instrument to electronics. I conducted some misleading experi-
ments at first, about twenty years ago, when our studio was still rather primitive
and we couldn't really do much, at least nothing more refined than instruments
themselves. I was never really convinced by the electronic experiments, apart from
a very few, because, quite frankly, the thinking behind this material was really
rather unsound in terms of what we know about musical composition. And as I
see it, this was the result of the material-the electronic equipment-having a sort
of unlimited efficiency and, at the same time, an extremely limited output because
it was not conceived basically as a function of a certain order of musical thinking
and because it did not go beyond a physical, mechanical proliferation of events,
over which no control could be maintained. I do not mean that control shouldn't
sometimes be lost, or that things cannot be invented without being written. That's
not what I mean. But control of function and control of creation should be there.
You don't just turn one machine on while another works at the same time-a kind
of gadget, an inkblot method, which doesn't go very far. Then it's reduced to a
psychological test.
What really interests me is the two extremes. On one hand, sound trans-
formed by the instruments; on the other, not only the transformation of sound but
its being made anonymous. This is what I tried to do and will attempt to improve
on and actually accomplish in "Explosante fixe." You begin with an instrument
that has a very distinctive sound and transform it so that the resulting sound could
be from a flute, a violin, a cello. You don't know how to recognize it and you
might say, "Well, it's the sound of a flute and not a cello." What interests me is this
total pulverization, pulverization that is further increased by that of the loud-
speaker, because I find, due to the resistance involved, a greater affinity between the
amplified sound of a flute and the amplified sound of a cello than between the
amplified and unamplified sounds of a flute. Amplification has already pulverized
the material; we sense that the sound comes from a loudspeaker. But I noticed
once-it wasn't a musical experiment, but a Peter Brook play in which there was a
part at the beginning in which the voices were normal and very few were
amplified, and a second part in which the voices were amplified for almost the
entire time, with very few natural voices-finally I noticed that, of all the actors
114 OCTOBER
who were on stage whose voices were electronically transmitted, it was impossible
to distinguish who was saying what and where the voice was coming from. The
source and location of the sound in the confusion of men's and women's voices
were impossible to determine. But the great unifier, if I may call it that, was the
loudspeaker. What seemed interesting to me was having instrumental music
rendered anonymous and completely pulverized by the transforming, strangulat-
ing passage through the loudspeaker system. This relationship between personal-
ity and anonymity is both interesting and productive; with a flute we can make a
bell-to make a foolish comparison-and at the same time this bell is anonymous.
It no longer has any power. You still sense personality if you have very personal
things for instruments, for example, double repetitions for the flute; you know
very well that that could only come from a flute.
You have to give the instruments extremely specific characteristics for those
characteristics to stand out or remain recognizable. But they are recognizable as an
envelope, although no longer as the central event. It's very interesting to do that
and it's what I want to do in "Explosante fixe." Many of my ideas come from
different areas by means of which a musical phenomenon seems suddenly to be, of
necessity, something else. You must have seen the Japanese Bunraku theater
where the puppet is manipulated by three people, the musician, and the narrator
along side them. I would like to have a flute, for example, played by three or four
people who really make a puppet out of it, that completely change it. One will be
completely manipulated by the other and create a sort of vast personal dimension
to the game, that will be completely subsumed in something much larger.
Personally, I have little sympathy for electronic instruments that people
directly control, because they can't do much. They can step on a pedal once in a
while, press a key, but really ...
Fano: The synthesizer has become an electric organ, which is uninteresting.
Boulez: What's interesting is to use the synthesizer only as a transmitter. For

example, determine a modulation limit to make it possible to play at the same
time, at the same rhythm as the others, so that the modulation limit becomes
unrecognizable. Or perhaps make a recording of the time. It's a very complicated
notion (laughs); I have someone record-he presses a key that records only those
notes by altering the characteristic or not altering it; and then, when that
sequence, let's say structure A, recurs, I restate beneath it the first A structure, but
reduced to its general outline; and as I restate the B sequences, I add only the
essential points of the outline, so that the last sequence will be cut to the bone, a
combination of all the others, progressively reduced, a piling up of reductions,
and on top of this charnel house we will have the last structure.
I am interested in reinforcing the function of written music with mechanical
characteristics that function as extensions of them, but differently. There is a se-
quence, for example, with a series of intervals. This series of intervals is recorded,
A Conversation 115
then you put them in random sequence. Every time you restate a sequence, you
have the same sequence but in a completely different form, with octaves all
through, that is, randomly occurring changes in octave. Finally, you have all these
changes combined, in summary form, like the first structures, only then they are in
a series that we could call completely random and superimposed. Or sequences
that are rhythmically very complicated, that clash with a transformation sequence
that is rhythmically quite fixed. You have a rhythmic transformation sequence, for
example; you superimpose on it a sequence that is absolutely rigid, that has no
organic similarity with what it transforms; the superimposition of the nonorganic
transformation mechanism over an organic structure makes things happen.
Fano: Certainly, but you're talking about the electronic system used in terms of its
actual nature.
Boulez: That's it. Not just a small transformation, but the use of the electronic
function as such.
Fano: I've discussed this at length with Jean-Claude Risset. It is interesting to use
the computer as backup to the composer.
Boulez: I am pleased to hear you say that. Jean-Claude and I have had long
discussions about it, to mesh the mental circuits of composition with such a
machine, to organize a virtual work in which the composition circuit is organized
but in which there's nothing more, in which the material is infiltrated, so that the
composition circuit organizes the material.
Fano: It's a marvelous idea.
Boulez: Analysis of the mental process of composition is phenomenally impor-

tant. I think our goal should be to create a work where only process exists, which
could be applied to different material categories that anyone could set in motion at
the very moment they were heard. The work as potential coming into existence
only when the listener decides to allow it to exist.
Fano: As in Mallarme.
Boulez: Yes. And with today's equipment. The overlapping of the completely
random organization can be played with. If it doesn't work, there will be an
opening. If, for example, the structure rejects a certain type of material, the
structure will not function and the results will be paradoxical, and I see that as ...
Fano: I would like now to raise the question of what we might call music outside
of itself, the relations-and these are at the very center of the issue-of . . .
116 OCTOBER
Boulez: Of music and the theater.
Fano: Of music with what is not music. I've felt this as I've been watching and
hearing the Ring. An important question must be asked. How is it that
something so contemporary has no current extension? And why is it that creative
people refuse to deal with this problem, the form of opera? I am not referring to
certain operatic composers, but let's say the few really important composers. Are
the instruments lacking? What's the problem?
Boulez: There are many factors. One main problem is the immobility of all that
enormous machinery. It's a direct product of the nineteenth century and has
evolved very little since then, not only in its deployment of energy and people, but
in its architecture as well. The design of the opera theater is extremely confining
today and practically impossible to change. Replacing the traditional operatic
stage would entail enormous financial risk. Other productions would have to be
suspended while the new system was being set up; reconstructing the relationship
between orchestra and stage could force the theater to close. Dismantling and
rebuilding would be astronomically expensive. As for the theater at Bayreuth,
what is extraordinary is that we've seen nothing like it in a century! The theaters
have still not adopted that kind of plan. And we still have the Italian style theater
of the eighteenth century, but on a very much larger scale. Instead of fifty
musicians, we have one hundred and twenty. There's absolutely no acoustical
justification for that immense "pool" of musicians in front of the stage. And then
visually, you know, it's really awful; that barrier, that curtain of sound between
the singers and the audience that makes it impossible to see; even if you're
upstairs, you've got that pool underneath you, a lot of people simultaneously
bobbing about.
There's another problem to be considered. To a certain extent, the theatrical
revival of the postwar period took place in very small theaters. The only author
whose work was on a large scale, and that rather late, was Genet. All the others,
Beckett in England, for example, always produced on a small scale, a small
number of actors, plays in condensed form.
In any case, the great innovative directors, Chereau in France and Stein in
Germany, were the ones who created theatrical spaces completely unlike those to
which we had become accustomed. This renewal of the theater, even if it often
used conventional means, took place in the large, warehouse-like spaces that were
created for them. The example of Peter Stein in Berlin, who really created his own
theatrical space, is extremely significant. Ronconi's Orlando Furioso could not
have been presented in a traditional theater.
It therefore seems to me that the renewal of musical theater must have been
influenced by what I call the warehouse. I intend to do something at IRCAM on
"Theater and Music," inviting composers, and especially directors, people like
Chereau certainly; Stein, who is an extremely important exponent of contempo-
A Conversation 117
rary theater; the heirs of the Living Theater; and others in that direction. Take
Peter Brook for example. His life in the theatrical establishment ended at a certain
point. He wanted to structure a theater of his own, in its own context, whose
representational forms could no longer be accommodated within a conventional
framework.
What is true for theater is even truer for musical theater. The formal
apparatus of an opera house is much more imposing, from a social as well as
technical point of view, than that of the dramatic stage. This is part of the
problem. To accept this situation means painting over the old form-a rainbow in
acrylics let's call it-to make it more contemporary, but the framework remains
the same. That's why I want to experiment theatrically at IRCAM-to liberate it
completely. Because there we can do anything, really. In the context of the city ...
Fano: Don't you think the cinema has something to offer here?
Boulez: I'm sure it does.
Fano: How do you think the cinema can be used?
Boulez: Although I'm not really sure, I would say a cinema of excess. What I mean
is the restraints are of a different kind. All the theatrical arts are rigorously held in
check, in one way or another. Cinema is controlled commercially. If there's no one
to underwrite the enormous expense, without guarantee of return, nothing will
happen. Or you are faced with the alternative of things like the State, perhaps,
assuming responsibility, creating certain special circuits, or using television-but
a channel that would be almost completely free of control. Personally I see little
chance of this solution. You know as well as I do (and you're better informed),
first, how few interesting films there are, and second, that there are almost no
interesting films with interesting sound tracks in distribution.
Fano: This is where commercial factors exert their control. You don't have
enough time to do the work, and the incompetent are employed. If all these
conditions were to occur simultaneously, do you think that a presentation whose
image and sound are thereby completely "frozen" could produce effects as
astonishing as those that we experience living today? But this isn't an aesthetic
constraint we are dealing with here.
Boulez: No. Well, I think that film should play a part in performance today. Have
you seen what Svoboda did with direct projection of television images on a screen?
Fano: In Czechoslovakia?
Boulez: Yes.
118 OCTOBER
Fano: It wasn't a story about a dancer who arrives in an airplane, walks down the
stairway, and finds herself in the middle of a stage, was it?
Boulez: No. What I saw was mostly faces. For example, there was someone very
important who was being photographed by a camera and you could see his face on
ten television screens at the same time, with only slightly different framings to
distinguish them. When you saw him speak, you saw a proliferation of faces in
different sizes. It's a very interesting technique.
Fano: Of enlargement?
Boulez: Yes. Today film conditions our eyes to vast spaces. That scale doesn't exist
on stage, of course. The self becomes isolated, yet the space does not increase in
size. When I recently saw Beckett's Not I, there was that mouth; it would be
extraordinary to see a mouth speaking like that projected intermittantly, enlarged
forty times, filling the entire stage. Such a multiplication would be amazing. The
dimensions have to be expanded, but not all to the same extent. There is a danger
with film because it is completely self-contained and very difficult to integrate. I
could imagine much more easily, for example, a cameraman taking the pictures as
they were being simultaneously projected on screen.
Fano: Yes, I see. Would you say, then, that in this audiovisual age, as it's called,
Wagner alone remains-a remarkable figure?
Boulez: He succeeded perfectly in realizing the necessary conditions of his vision,

but since then advances have been minimal. We've even regressed with the
Italianate theater, which is so much less interesting from a theatrical point of
view. Wagner really wanted a theater of illusion.
Fano: And even the organization of the performance-it's amusing to hear people
say, "Bayreuth's impossible, with all that ceremony." But once you organize a
production in such a functional way so that there's no more jostling, when the
theater is designed so that a row can be emptied in thirty seconds and the theater
filled or emptied in a minute, now that's something you no longer find in theaters.
None of the pushing and shoving, everyone satisfied, and it begins exactly at the
right time to listen to music, four o'clock in the afternoon.
Boulez: Yes, it's an amazing feat of organization. The man was extremely astute.
And then, especially in a town like Bayreuth, where everyone comes only for the
performance and is completely cut off from everything else.
Fano: I would like to put a question about the gap that seems to exist between, on
the one hand, the laboratory, where serious research is conducted, as represented
A Conversation 119
by IRCAM, where a certain way of rethinking the concert form goes on, one
which you have imposed on your audience in France, and which seems to modify
the audience's desire to hear; and, on the other hand, the people who will perform
the music and who are completely ignored. It's a question of pedagogy. You have
acted at the source, on what can be done in terms of composition, and the options
within the composer's reach. You have questioned the possibilities of reception;
but there remains that large middle ground of the performer.
Boulez: That is a real problem. One human life unfortunately is not enough to
deal with it all. In France I have suggested setting up at La Rochelle, no, at
Royan-since a festival already exists there-not a festival this time, but confer-
ences where performers and composers could study. Although no institution
exists, perhaps one could be established, starting with the Ensemble Inter-
Contemporain, consolidating it with IRCAM. It might work, although it's range
would be limited, since it would fail to address music in all its aspects. To my way
of thinking, one organization should embrace a working knowledge of perfor-
mance, composition, and diffusion, all at the same time. But how can it be done by
an institution such as the Conservatory? Under an imaginative individual it could
be done. But you can't do it two weeks out of the year. It requires some
permanence. I am ready to provide some sort of fleeting input from time to time,
something; otherwise, I don't see how it's possible.
It's a problem on all levels; it's a problem of elementary education: teaching
six-year-old children not music, but how to listen-music hearing. I realize very
well that education has to precede theory with doing. Because doing is more
important than receiving. At the same time, doing is not enough, because the gift
of spontaneity, which is a child's gift, does not last. I assume this from their
graphic education. Children's drawings are really lovely, sometimes quite funny,
and full of imagination. But when they reach the age of ten or twelve, it's over.
Fano: There is no connection between that and their future adult experience?
Boulez: No, but I think it's also physiological; at a certain age this ability, this
spontaneity disappears; culture isn't the only determining factor. A child's
spontaneity simply disappears, and his relationship to the world changes. I
remember as a child I would examine a fly or a spider to see how it was put
together. And now I admit I'd have to be forced to look at a spider the way I used
to, when I would move one of its legs to see how it reacted. There is a kind of
naivete of the imagination, an artlessness that disappears. Certainly from this
point of view, the simplicity of this relationship with the world disappears. This
is what we call growing up, developing. You can't always be a child. Moreover, I
have often said that I am extremely skeptical about education. The great masters
have shaped very few great students, and great students have sometimes come from
among completely unknown people. Why was the relationship established, and
120 OCTOBER
how is it established? I would say that education is as mysterious as genetics.

There is something, finally, about its consequences that is impossible to grasp.
Fano: There is perhaps, at the limit of absurdity, no need for musical education. I
will explain. In terms of instrumentation, in this sense, the Ensemble Inter-
Contemporain, which of course is the best organization of its kind in Paris, is
made up of first-prize winners from the Conservatory and students whose tastes
have matured since the completion of their degrees. And then, the creative
individuals usually stayed something like six months at the Conservatory.
Perhaps it's not important. What's important is the question.
Boulez: Certainly, unless you're dealing with an exceptional person, like

Messiaen, for example. But how many of those who came to him failed to find
anything? It's like a detonator. Contact with someone interesting can have that
effect. But the person able to set off the detonation is not necessarily interesting in
himself.
Fano: Absolutely. Nevertheless, in terms of education, Messiaen was that sort of

person. Something made him a detonator. I remember the first thing we studied in
his class, the "Suite Lyrique." His analysis was utterly amazing. It was the
detonator for me.
Boulez: Yes, I think that's it. When you grasp what you've been looking for. Of
course, you don't find it in some ordinary person, but in someone who may have
something interesting, and you take it. But it's the same thing for instrumen-
talists. How many really great pianists have been formed by other great
pianists? None at all. And the more I think about this, the less I believe in
education. I don't believe in heredity. A brilliant father can produce an imbecile,
and an imbecile can have a bright child. That goes without saying. Genetics has
not solved this problem yet either. It's something we don't understand. Anyway,
it's fortunate for us because if you could be sure that by attending someone's class
or having a brilliant father you could be a bright student or child, as on a sort of
stud farm, there would be something about such a mechanistic operation that
would be a little horrifying. The more I think about it, the more I favor this
random nature of the individual. If there's a sort of chance in which I do believe, it
is that sort. Take my own case, as a simple example. I was born into a milieu
where there was little music, in a small town where nothing of musical interest
existed, but I survived.
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BIOGRAPHY
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Maya Deren October October 014 Autumn 1980

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Art Theory I Criticism I Politics

Catrina Neiman An Introduction to the Notebook of

Published by the MIT Press

editors OCTOBER is published quarterly

Art and Anthropology: The

Cover photograph: Siegfried, Act II. Bayreuth, 1978.

GREGORY BATESON, who died earlier this year, gained his

An Introduction to the Notebook

1. A complete bibliography is available in Film Culture, 39 (Winter 1965), which contains an

All the quality of children's games which fascinated me and induced

12. Ibid., p. 14.

Sidewalk Chalk Drawings, ca. 1948. (Photos: Maya

Bateson and Mead were among the anthropologists participating in the

Deren wrote her "Thematic Statement" in February 1947 as part of her

Stills enlarged by Maya Deren from her Haitian

21. Ibid., p. 17.

influence which I am sure pervades this book, particularly in that it

23. Divine Horsemen, p. 12.

of cross-professional cooperation which could serve as a model precedent in the

32. "Thematic Statement," p. 14.

So the artist, beginning in reality-in that which already exists-

Dear Gregory Bateson:

December 12, 1946

Psychosomaticism is the re-creation in immediate terms of unrecollected memory.

Anyway, here, suddenly, is the strange fever and excitement. Is it because in

1. S. = Sasha (Alexander) Hammid, filmmaker and Deren's husband (1942-47); G. =Gregory

posers-impregnating the orchestral instruments? Or women be actresses, but

This is the limitation of pragmatism-it is noncreative by being nontheoretical.

2. "Creative Cutting," Movie Makers, May, June, 1947.

This metamorphosis point ... is important. It is how time operates on a two-

TIME TIME TIME - not SPACE

ENERGY - not MATTER

6. "ReligiousPossessionin Dancing,"EducationalDance, March,Auguist-September, 1942.

I feel that his dominance-submission, succor-dependence structure is wrong. That

Bateson's treatment of the frustrated Balinese climax principle9 has always

functional relevance, unconscious, to be sure, and therefore not purposive in any

This morning went to dig up stuff on political science-Hook, etc.-and began

Oh, to hear a nice polemic battle again!

Roll 2. I am struck repeatedly by a sense-as in the crowd of people in the

But certainly there is no inter-identification between spectator and performer in

concepts as competition,15 for it is a competition for the attention of the spectator,

In any case, exhibitionism is a personally motivated activity. One exhibits

Roll 8. Sanoer, Baris Gede.16The extreme precision of this ensemble dancing is of

Freud wouldn't do so well in Bali. Hooray for the Balinese.

On reading over that clothes-come-apart business on the previous page in that

I think I understand now why I am having such difficulty eliminating shots or

Theoretically (I say this because I can't think of an example) or conceptually, one

to me a basic difference between an emergency valve of that kind and a valve or

Mechanism Parent-Child Adult Mechanics

Iatmul might be described as follows:

Thus, Iatmul might be described as a steady state of compensatory sequential

America would be an A (until a revolution) A', BB', C or C'c (revolution) C or

And a man will look like:

extraordinarily high tolerance structure. But there is no society or organization

Man is distinguished for consciousness, time perspective, and original energy. So

To recognize the irrevocable, inviolable relationship between ends and means

That morality which automatically makes synonymous understanding and

It is for this reason that I reserve understanding, forgiveness, until a moment of

Life depends, above all, on the path

continues, in a passage that reads like a blow-by-blow description of Eisenstein's