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 âpoint of view.â It is useful for my discussion of Tacitean historiography to divide this broader concept of âpoint of viewâ into two primary categories: focalization and alignment.1 This divide is necessary, as the term âpoint of viewâ inherently contains two distinct narrative questions, those of âwho seesâ and âwho speaks.â2 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 âwho sees,â while alignment concerns an alteration in narrative voice, complicating the question of âwho speaks.â
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 characterâs 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 attentionâthe 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 characterâs perspective, allowing the reader to see this characterâs 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 characterâs 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 characterâs 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 readerâs 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 villainâs plans.
Film critic John Fawell notes that the effect of rendering the audience powerless serves to deepen the audienceâs 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
Tacitusâ use of focalization also capitalizes on the readerâs 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 audienceâs anxiety as to whether or not the protagonist will be able foil the villainâs plan. The narrator adds suspense by controlling knowledge: by showing the protagonistâs obstacles and the villainâs 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 Reedâs 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 âHolly, you and I arenât heroes.â Holly, still grappling with Harryâs 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 âYou know, I never feel comfortable in these sort of things. Victims? Donât be melodramatic.â Lime then opens the door of the car, and invites Holly to âlook down there.â
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: âWould you feel any pity if one of those ⊠dots stopped moving forever?â Harryâs pregnant pause on the word âdots,â 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 Harryâs thoughts.
The illusion doesnât last long, as the shot changes to Harry, in profile, as he continues, âIf I offered you ÂŁ20,000 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.â 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 Limeâs warped and amoral view, where people are all âsuckers,â and life should be lived even at the expense of others. Tellingly, Hollyâs information in The Third Man all comes through visual means; viewing pictures of Harryâs 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 Harryâs selfish and destructive ideas. This shared view, through focalization, involves the viewer in Harryâs guilt and eventual downfall. Although Holly helps the police chase and eventually kill Harry, we as viewers canât forget that we, for a time at least, shared Harryâs 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 Minosâ 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 loverâs 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 Theseusâ 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...