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Dialogues@RU is published
annually
by the
Writing Program at
Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey
Volume Three
Spring 2004
The Myth of the Thousand Words: Exploring the Role of Narrative in La Jetée and 12 Monkeys - Page 1
by Philip Krachun
So they say that a picture is worth a thousand words, that the camera never lies. These are maxims that have followed us through childhood with little more than a casual thought in their direction. People eventually start thinking that pictures take on some kind of narrative voice all their own in the false hope that a picture is worth a thousand words, when in reality, a picture is nothing without some kind of context. Photographer Chris Marker recognized this dilemma and incorporated it into the film La Jetée, which would later form the basis for Terry Gilliam’s comment on the role of intrinsic meaning 12 Monkeys.
What is a picture but a symbol? A photograph is little more than a moment arrested in time, a shot plucked from the environment by a wary photographer. It is little more than a record of light, technically speaking, but can photographs have another dimension-meaning? In an essay entitled “On the Invention of Photographic Meaning,” Allan Sekula states that “The photograph is imagined to have a primitive core of meaning . . . and] is a sign, above all, of someone’s investment in the sending of a message” (87). This seems to suggest that photography is another means of discourse, which is to say that thoughts and ideas can be expressed through pictures. There is some credibility to the claim that a picture is worth a thousand words; simply acknowledging a motive in the creation of a thing implies meaning on some level; the picture definitely has something to say, even if the maxim is not taken literally.
The implication is that photographs, in the context of meaningful and artistic discourse, have stories or messages packaged within, leaving its captive audience with a responsibility to find that meaning. “The meaning of a photograph,” writes Sekula, “like that of any other entity, is inevitably subject to cultural definition” (84). But, warns John Berger in his essay “Appearances,” “one can play a game of inventing meanings” (86). Berger is really warning us against creating a world devoid of coherent artistic meaning. Berger places at least some of the responsibility for finding this meaning on the audience. It must take care not to find the wrong meaning. The audience owes it to the artist to find the correct meaning. “The photograph, as it stands alone, presents merely the possibility of meaning. Only by its embeddedness in a concrete discourse situation can the photograph yield a clean semantic outcome” (Sekula 91). This is to say that the culture of the image has the responsibility of assigning meanings, so that there is some level of authority behind established meanings, and “the meaning of any photographic message is necessarily context-determined” (“Appearances” 85). The society from which the artwork comes provides a mine of meaning for the audience.
Since artistic meaning is context-determined, one must now determine the context of the artwork. This is the point in which the maxims begin to run out of breath. Society must speak for the artwork, and since conventional cultural interpretation can occasionally differ from the interpretation of the artist, the system strips the photograph itself of any real ability to speak. Or, more accurately, the system strips the artist of his ability to speak according to his own system of meaning. Berger describes a time when he was in a similar situation. “Faced with the problem of communicating experience, through a constant process of trial and error, we found ourselves having to doubt or reject many of the assumptions usually made about photography” (“Appearances” 84). Evidently, there were disagreements between the meaning intended by the artist and the society chosen to interpret those meanings. “When we speak of the necessary agreement between parties engaged in communicative activity,” warns Sekula, “we ought to beware of the suggestion of freely entered social contract” (85). The artist, chained into the social contract, has a new responsibility to cater to certain cultural conventions in the creation of his works. Should he break this social contract, he owes it to society to make concessions and offer his personal interpretation in some other way. Otherwise, “what the photograph shows goes with any story one chooses to invent” (“Appearances” 87) since the audience has no established system for interpreting the symbols. This is the dilemma.
This is one of the subjects that Terry Gilliam’s masterpiece, 12 Monkeys, deals with; the film directly grapples with the quest for photographic meaning. Based on the 1962 French film-noir La Jetée, by Chris Marker, 12 Monkeys is the story of James Cole, a “volunteer” selected to go back in time based on his vivid recollection of a memory or dream. He comes from a world destroyed by biological warfare and driven underground, but this world is our own. Time travel has been developed as a last ditch attempt to prevent-or at least research-the fall of man. The scientists of the future are grasping at straws at this point. They have very little history to work with, because the virus struck quickly and lethally, decimating 99% of the world’s population. There seems to have been time enough to photograph what this new culture can only assume were the key elements and players leading up to the world’s destruction. Cole is sent back in time to gather information that will, with any luck, enable the scientists to bring mankind back to the top of the food chain. With no established set of meaning, the scientists seems inclined to think that one group, “the Army of the Twelve Monkeys,” was responsible.
The scientists originally selected James Coles because he has a persistent memory that dates back to a time before humans abandoned the Earth’s surface. More specifically, the memory is contemporary to Cole’s time travel destination. Since the memory remains intact despite the pressures of underground civilization, the scientists infer that Cole has a very strong mind-and a strong mind is essential for a time-travel test subject. Since he can not survive on a strong mind alone, the scientists attempt to expose Cole to as much relevant information as possible. In preparation for his trip through time, Cole views several photographs of events, places, objects, and messages from the months immediately prior to the virus’ release. This is the closest that the future can come to an actual history lesson. The scientists want to prepare Cole as best they can. Berger talks about this kind of education through pictures in his book Ways of Seeing, in which he writes that the oil paintings of the past, much like the photographs of the twentieth century, were “thought of as a permanent record. One of the pleasures a painting gave to its owner was the thought that it would convey the image of his present to the future of his descendants” (146).
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