Re: [-empyre-] on existence: body narratives

[Christina McPhee <christina112@earthlink.net>]

Michelle writes,


. I wonder if it is possible to exist
> without being recognized? What does existence mean
> when it is only negatively and cruelly constituted
> through torture and dismissal? How do I, as an
> individual and critic, offer Ana comfort while
> attending to her critical consideration through the
> self? Offers of physical or emotional support, while I
> mean them, end up seeming unreal.
>
> In my own experiences of being figured as "victim,"
> even though I watched the flooding of New Orleans from
> the weird space of my childhood bedroom, I have found
> that I cannot successfully answer people's questions
> about the current and past places of New Orleans.
> People often want some quick answer that echoes the
> media's "truth." Most of us in the city want to talk
> both of something else (please!) and in a different
> way. I certainly find it hard that people both want me
> to recycle through the old story and then turn away
> from the length of the narrative.


The new film by American filmmaker Liza Johnson, "South of Ten,"  was  
screened recently at the Flaherty Film Seminar at Vassar College.   
Liza was present for the seminar Q and A afterwards and had some  
things to say about this problem of how to tell the 'story' of trauma  
after Katrina.   The film is so new I haven't been able to find much  
online reference to it, but here is some info on the filmmaker herself:
> http://www.zoominfo.com/directory/Johnson_Liza_158388749.htm

South of Ten (2006) synopsis:

"Using the decimated landscape of the Mississippi Gultf coast as its  
backdrop, South of Ten restages quotidian activities of survivors of  
Hurricane Katrina.  A gilr flees a makeshift tent city.  A man finds  
a trombone.  A worker watches the ocean from under a moving house,  
while its owner gazes at the view from her shifting living room.  In  
ten very short stories, residents of the destroyed
Mississippi Gult Coast act out atmospheric scenes of everyday life  
and the relentlessness of labor in their extreme terrain. "  (52nd  
Flaherty Film Seminar, IFS, Inc
> http://www.flahertyseminar.org/

From my notes on Liza's comments at the seminar -- hopefully not too  
garbled:

"Their bodies bear witness to that [trauma].  [I decided to] ask less  
of them in terms of [verbally] testifying...were ready to feel yet  
not ready to be put into language."

"They [survivors] were very interested in being 'seen' , willing to  
perform" i. e. to give the news media what they wanted, parallelling   
Michele's observation (above)  that spectators
> > People often want some quick answer that echoes the
> > media's "truth.

To get around being told what the survivors assumed she'd want to  
hear as a media person, Liza developed, with the survivors, a series  
of scenes that 'has no news hook' to register "affect/shared feeling/ 
textures/waiting"

She did this by asking survivors to pick a typical activity (like  
chopping wood for cooking fires, riding a bicycle down a street of  
devastated houses ).  She filmed the staged activities as performed by t
by the people there. They were not professional actors.  Rather they  
acted out through their bodies and gestures what the reality of  
living in the aftermath of Katrina is.


Christina