Tacitean Visual Narrative

Philip Waddell

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781350097025
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: History of Ancient Art

Combining the studies of modern film, traditional narratology, and Roman art, this interdisciplinary work explores the complex and highly visual techniques of Tacitus' Annales. The volume opens with a discussion of current research in narratology, as applied to Roman historians. Narratology is a helpful and insightful tool, but is often inadequate to deal with specifically visual aspects of ancient narrative. In order to illuminate Tacitus' techniques, and to make them speak to modern readers, this book focuses on drawing and illustrating parallels between Tacitus' historiographical methods and modern film effects. Building on these premises, Waddell examines a wide array of Tacitus' visual narrative devices. Tacitean examples are discussed in light of their narrative effect and purpose in the Annales, as well as the ways in which they are similar to contemporary Roman art and modern film techniques, including focalization, alignment, use of the ambiguous gaze, temporal suggestion and quick-cutting. Through this approach the modern scholar gains a deeper understanding of the many ways in which Tacitus' Annales act upon the reader, and how his narrative technique helps to shape, guide, and deeply layer his history.

Part One

Lens and Voice

1

Focalizing Empire

In writing his history of the Julio-Claudian emperors Tacitus brings to bear a number of rhetorical and narrative techniques, enabling him to bring his reader into the moment and to experience events in a visual, personal, and at points, authorial manner. In order to achieve these effects, Tacitus controls the gaze of his audience, ensuring that proper attention is paid to subtle references and coloring the way in which readers interpret character motivations and important events. While remaining true to the events of history, Tacitus is able to mobilize sentiment and temporal connection in order to give weight to rumor and suggest multiple, complex layers of hidden meaning.

One of the most visible ways in which Tacitus manipulates reader interpretation is through the use of focalization. Focalization is a major component of what is generally referred to, in both film narrative and traditional narratology, as “point of view.” It is useful for my discussion of Tacitean historiography to divide this broader concept of “point of view” into two primary categories: focalization and alignment.¹ This divide is necessary, as the term “point of view” inherently contains two distinct narrative questions, those of “who sees” and “who speaks.”² In employing the terms focalization and alignment, it is much easier to discuss these two aspects of viewpoint separately and clearly: focalization is concerned with “who sees,” while alignment concerns an alteration in narrative voice, complicating the question of “who speaks.”

For the modern reader, the concept of focalization is readily understandable in the context of film studies. The narrator of a film rarely changes, but the angle from which the camera shoots (and the subject matter it is thus able to capture), does so often throughout the film. It is common for the camera to adopt the perspective of a character, and thus convey to the viewer what that individual is seeing. This is an authorial action, as the selection of camera position dictates the direction of the narrative.³ The filmic viewpoint created by the camera can move from a general depiction of a scene, which allows the audience to construct filmic space within which an action occurs, to that of a specific character. Thus, with little to no prior signaling, film can change its focalization from a point outside the story to within a particular character’s vision, and back again.

In literary texts, focalization occurs when the narrative voice of the work assumes the perspective, opinions, and interpretation of events of a particular character.⁴ This switch may last for an extended period, or may be limited to the choice of a single word. It is important to note that the authorial voice makes this change. Focalization is not concerned with moments in narrative, either filmic or literary, in which a character is speaking on his or her own behalf. When an author employs the technique of focalization, there must be a character who is the recipient of this attention—the focalizer. By changing the authorial voice to reflect the perspective or view of the focalizer, the reader is brought into closer sympathy with that character. Additionally, in telling the story from the perspective of the character, the author is able to direct the gaze of the reader or viewer, showing the audience the exact scenes, images, or impressions that the author desires to portray, and can do so from the ideal angle.⁵

Narrators focalize in order to tell a portion of a story from a particular character’s perspective, allowing the reader to see this character’s thoughts, intentions, emotions, and reactions. In most accounts, this technique is limited in duration and occurs during an excursus or, in some cases, in a moment of heightened drama. Where it would benefit the narrative in some way, such as increasing suspense or either aiding or intentionally obscuring a reveal, an author may choose to show a particular scene from a character’s point of view rather than relate the account from an unengaged perspective. Focalization can also provide reader or viewer with insider access to the focalizer character’s impressions, feelings, actions, or motivations.⁶ This technique may be used to great effect for either protagonists or villains, depending on the type of story being told and the kinds of effects desired by the narrator.⁷ When the reader’s view is focalized through a villain, he or she can see what plans that character is putting into place and can force a strange alliance between reader and villain, analogous to that generally assumed to exist between the reader and the protagonist.⁸ When the villain is powerful or intelligent, the reader may be forced into a helpless and passive perspective, able only to watch as the protagonist is overcome or destroyed by the villain’s plans.

Film critic John Fawell notes that the effect of rendering the audience powerless serves to deepen the audience’s involvement in the narrative: a fact no less true for Sophocles than for Hitchcock.⁹ In failing to assist the protagonist, the viewer becomes a party to evil.¹⁰ The powerless audience, through its inability to intercede, is implicitly culpable. This concept, which Tacitus mobilizes throughout the Annales, brings his reader into the nightmare world of the Caesars, and imbues his history with a true sense of these times.

Focalization and Visual Control

Tacitus’ use of focalization also capitalizes on the reader’s natural voyeuristic pleasure in being privy to information which is unknown to characters in the narrative. Through shared knowledge, the reader has an uneasy alliance with the focalizer who, in Tacitus, is usually a villain. The tension in the narrative is further exacerbated by the element of impending danger and suspense that this situation creates. The reader knows what the villain is going to attempt to do, and in some way hopes that these plans are carried out.¹¹ There is, in this type of narrative, a somewhat unsavory connection between villain and audience.

Added to this atmosphere of tension is the audience’s anxiety as to whether or not the protagonist will be able foil the villain’s plan. The narrator adds suspense by controlling knowledge: by showing the protagonist’s obstacles and the villain’s machinations, the audience is left with a sense of immediacy and fear. The reader has more information, but is powerless to assist,¹² reinforcing the uncomfortable association. The more charismatic the malefactor or, in some cases, the more uninteresting the protagonist, the stronger the bond forged between reader and villain. Tacitus exploits this natural tendency, focalizing through villains (and their victims) in order to achieve these feeling of suspense and unease.

The Third Man

The creation of suspense through focalization is well-demonstrated in film. In Carol Reed’s The Third Man (1949), we follow a hack American western novelist, Holly Martins (Joseph Cotton), as he tries to find out what has happened to his friend, Harry Lime (Orson Welles) in post-war Vienna.¹³ After tracking down leads from the false report of the accident that supposedly killed Lime, the two friends meet at the Prater amusement park at the foot of the Riesenrad, one of the earliest Ferris-wheels. The viewer, along with Holly, has discovered that Harry was heavily involved in the black-market sales of cut-dosed penicillin.

When Holly and Harry finally meet, Harry suggests they talk in the closed compartment of the Riesenrad. Harry explains his amoral stance by noting that “Holly, you and I aren’t heroes.” Holly, still grappling with Harry’s callousness, asks whether Lime has ever seen his victims. Lime, as he moves to unlock the door of the car near the top of the wheel, says “You know, I never feel comfortable in these sort of things. Victims? Don’t be melodramatic.” Lime then opens the door of the car, and invites Holly to “look down there.”

Figure 1.1 The Third Man, directed by Carol Reed © London Film Productions 1949. All rights reserved.

At this point in the film, the filming changes from the third person medium shot showing both Holly and Harry, to a view of the amusement park. Invited by Harry, Holly, and we as viewers, look down at the amusement park filled with tiny people. Harry then, in voice-over, comments on what Holly and we are seeing: “Would you feel any pity if one of those … dots stopped moving forever?” Harry’s pregnant pause on the word “dots,” taken with the change in perspective high in the air show a use of focalization. We, along with Holly, briefly see the world as Harry sees it, complete with Harry’s thoughts.

The illusion doesn’t last long, as the shot changes to Harry, in profile, as he continues, “If I offered you £20,000 for every dot that stopped would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money or would you … calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man, free of income tax. Only way you can save money nowadays.” After this speech, the filming returns to the shot-reverse-shot normal for conversations that allows the viewer to watch whomever is speaking.

The effect of this change in perspective on the viewer is instant and visceral. For a moment, Holly and we have looked at life through Harry Lime’s warped and amoral view, where people are all “suckers,” and life should be lived even at the expense of others. Tellingly, Holly’s information in The Third Man all comes through visual means; viewing pictures of Harry’s victims and, later, visiting their hospital ward. Changed by these sights, Holly must ask Harry whether he has seen them. Harry evades the question by bringing the viewer into his own point-of-view. It is through this focalization that Harry is at his most seductive and dangerous, when, we imagine, Holly might waver and support his onetime friend.

The use of focalization in The Third Man allows us, along with Holly, to be briefly tempted by Harry’s selfish and destructive ideas. This shared view, through focalization, involves the viewer in Harry’s guilt and eventual downfall. Although Holly helps the police chase and eventually kill Harry, we as viewers can’t forget that we, for a time at least, shared Harry’s view.

Figure 1.2 The Third Man, directed by Carol Reed © London Film Productions 1949. All rights reserved.

Pompeian Ariadne

This use of focalization in the visual arts is also found in the works of ancient Rome. A parallel example of this type of focalization in Roman material culture is the set-piece of the Ariadne story.¹⁴ In the myth, Theseus, after escaping from the Labyrinth with the help of Minos’ daughter Ariadne, abandons her on Naxos either, depending on the tradition, of his own free will or at the urging of Dionysus. Ariadne, then, is usually shown on the beach, watching unhappily as her lover’s boat sails away.¹⁵ In some images she is shown alone, but in others she is joined in her sorrow by Eros, other mourners, or additional spectators. In certain instances, the image of her sorrow is paired with that of her coming joy, as her future lover Dionysus is shown either in anticipation or in the process of discovering her alone on the shore. There were a number of extant depictions of this myth left to us in Pompeii, however, due to deterioration of the pictures many are only available now via nineteenth-century sketches or renditions. One example, preserved in a line drawing by Discannio, was found in the Casa delle Fortuna (Pompeii IX.7.20), and is shown at Fig. 1.3.

In this image, Ariadne is shown mourning, semi-nude, on the beach as Theseus’ ship sails away in the distance. The story of Ariadne would have been well known to a Roman audience, and seeing the image of her sorrow would naturally elicit pathos.¹⁶ As we (the external viewers) stand beside her, we see the boat out at sea and feel a modicum of her loss and pain. In this way, positioned as an additional viewer to the scene, we s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part One Lens and Voice
• 1 Focalizing Empire
• 2 Vox Caesaris, Vox Taciti: Imperial Alignment
• 3 The Directed Gaze and the Construction of Meaning
• Part Two Transition and Connection
• 4 Shadows over Rome: Temporal Suggestion
• 5 Eloquent Collisions: The Quick-Cut
• Notes
• Works Cited
• Index Locorum
• General Index
• Copyright