Interviews and Film Scripts
by
Charlene Regester
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Copyright © 2000 by Charlene Regester, all rights reserved.
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Review of:
Trinh T. Minh-Ha Cinema Interval . New York: Routledge, 1999.
- Cinema Interval capitalizes on two sides of the same self
of Vietnamese filmmaker Trinh T. Minh-ha. Through the publication of
interviews previously conducted with Deb Verhoeven, Homi Bhabha,
Annamaria Morelli, Berenice Reynaud, Margaret Kelly, Linda Tyler, Sarah
Williams, Toroa Pohatu, Tessa Barringer, Kim Hawkins, Paul Kalina, Nancy
Chen, Gwendolyn Foster, and Mary Zournazi coupled with film scripts from
"A Tale of Love," and "Shoot for the Contents," Trinh Minh-ha reveals
much of herself as well as her intentions as a filmmaker. Not having
seen any of her films, I cannot deconstruct these filmic representations
as they coincide with her views. This limitation, however, might
actually prove an asset: my critique will have had to invest entirely in
her verbal revelations and reflections, which are moving, empowering,
and intellectually challenging in and of themselves.
- To contextualize this review, I refer the reader to her other,
more readily available written work, such as Woman, Native, Other:
Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism (Indiana UP, 1989), or perhaps,
When the Moon Waxes Red: Representation, Gender and Cultural Politics
(Routledge, 1991). More specifically, When the Moon Waxes Red
reflects the conceptualization and formation of ideas constructed by
Trinh Minh-ha regarding otherness, being both an insider and outsider,
while Cinema Interval seems to reflect the application of these
ideas to both her filmic representations as well as to her
self-perception as both participant and observer of the Third world.
Whereas in When the Moon Waxes Red she explains, describes, and
discusses the position of insider/outsider, in Cinema Interval
she conveys the applicability of such notions explicitly demonstrated in
her own effort to produce a documentary on Africa though positioned
outside the culture. Trinh Minh-Ha responded to her unique subject
position suggesting that she negotiated her precarious position as a
member of the Third world by providing a voyeuristic gaze of another
Third world culture in that she acknowledged her similarities to and
differences from this culture. It is the hybridity of this culture to
which she was both attracted and fascinated by. Therefore, while When
he Moon Waxes Red represented her attempt to verbalize and
articulate such conceptions, it is in her later work, Cinema
Interval, that we witness the application of these critical
conceptualizations developed to enhance her own filmmaking endeavors and
to reflect her now matured and more critical eye.
- Titling the work Cinema Interval was most appropriate
because it is at the level of intervals that the work best speaks to
what the filmmaker is attempting to achieve on screen. In fact, she
prefaces the interviews conducted with a discussion, associating them
with the theory of intervals proposed by Dziga Vertov. "In his 'hall of
intervals,' where 'frames of truth' are minutely edited, all is a matter
of relations: temporal, spatial, rhythmic relations; relations, as he
specified, of planes, of recording speed, of light and shade, of
movement within the frame" (p. xii). The notion of intervals introduced
in this work is apparently one that she has been re-thinking because
even in When the Moon Waxes Red, one segment of her book is
entitled, "She, of the Interval." Therefore, it is at the interval that
she, as both filmmaker and scholar, forces us to re-examine our
pre-existing views of imposing either/or positions in interpreting the
world. It is her contention that if one is positioned as an outsider
then one occupies the space of both containment and confinement. And as
such, the position of outsider while being doubly determined can be both
privileging and de-privileging. It is as though Trinh Minh-ha is
constructing a third gaze that is somewhere in between the object and
subject that makes her work insightful and compelling.
- In discussing her film, "A Tale of Love," Trinh Minh-ha
demonstrates her skill in forcing the gaze back onto the us -- the
audience, the reader, the spectator. She notes that "death is in every
moment of life; it is, crudely speaking, something we live with the
moment we step into life. So although there's nothing more old-fashioned
than narratives of love, we continue to produce and consume what, in the
widest sense of the term, always comes down to the love story. " (p.7).
- Because "A Tale of Love" wrestles with questions of power, Trinh
Minh-ha comments on the symbolism associated with the protagonist, Kieu.
Kieu's tumultuous and wretched love life, her being forced into
prostitution, her passion and sacrifice have all been extensively
written about and used as an allegory for Vietnam's destiny. But no one
has really linked Kieu's denouement to Vietnam's geopolitical,
socioeconomic, or artistic and ethical situation today. Perhaps I can
venture into saying that independence entails complex forms of
re-alignment, and that Vietnam's opening up, which for many means
assimilation of the free West, can be, despite all the mistakes and
drawbacks, a way of keeping Her distance from all three power nations:
China, Russia, and the U.S. Infidelity to others and to one's own
ideals, even when dictated by circumstance, can only lead to difficult
places, and hence, there's definitely no simple happy ending here (p.8).
- If the film becomes symbolic of Vietnam's attempt to be both
embraced by world powers yet not consumed by these world powers then the
difficulty that Vietnam faces becomes glaringly apparent. The
implications rendered by Trinh Minh-ha's assessment of Vietnam's unique
position are far reaching to the extent that any Third world culture
attempting to establish its space and liberation is forced to
interconnect with those in positions of power and dominance and who in
doing so run the risk of being influenced by these powers; an influence
that could have dire consequences both internally and externally.
- At times, Trinh Minh-ha is politically empowering when questioned
regarding the commonality of experience shared by oppressed or
marginalized groups. She responds by saying that what is important is
not the diversity of experience, but the discovery of whose interest it
serves to make separations between oppressed groups.
- In responding to questions concerning "Surname Viet" and "Shoot
for Contents, " she explains that these films reflect the use of a
documentary style that involves re-inscription, construction, and
de-construction. It is these attributes unique to the documentary that
she finds adaptable to her own filmmaking style and technique. Moreover,
Trinh Minh-ha declares that she has found way of affirming difference
through the technique of repetition. Rather than reproducing the same,
Trinh-Minh-Ha contends that repetition allows one to continue saying the
same but with a slight shift in focus which ultimately becomes creative.
- As for "Shoot for Contents," Trinh Minh-ha is forced to come to
terms with her similarity to and difference from Chinese culture with
which, historically, Vietnam has had a strained relationship. A
character in her film [Dewi] proclaims, "I'm an American-born Chinese,
and I find myself in a very fascinating position of trying to understand
China, but being American. So, I have the pull: one hand on dryland over
here, and one hand on dryland over there. And yes, my position is just
as fragile, I feel sometimes. Because, with my hands spread out I find
my feet wet" (p.176). Perhaps, this position reflects Trinh Minh-Ha's
own position as a Vietnamese now ingratiated into American culture but
not in abandonment of her own. Even more so it is through this
characterization that she can contest, challenge, and attempt to resolve
her own inhibitions or idiosyncracies regarding Chinese culture in view
of the historical struggles shared with her own country. This identity
problematic was again re-visited in "Surname Viet," where she claims "I
have finally been able to come to terms with Vietnam or with a national
identity; a film focusing on Vietnamese women or on female identity and
difference That's why it was extremely important for me not to approach
it from a legitimized 'insider's' point of view, but rather from a
number of spaces locating me somewhere between an insider and an
outsider" (pp 29-30). Addressing her own position as a female
filmmaker, Trinh Minh-ha argues that she positions women in that space
for both political as well as aesthetic reasons and it is a choice made
not to exclude but rather to include. She expands her views on the
privilege associated with occupying such a position by asserting that
when you are thrust into the position of other, you are often forced to
have to face yourself and when you opt to avoid such a position you are
merely delaying the benefits that this de-priviledged position provides.
- Regarding her style as a writer, Trinh Minh-ha asserts: "one
movement is to go forward in an argument; another movement is to
constantly come back to oneself; and the third, for example, is to
create form and with the unintended reflexive communication among words
themselves" (p.37). Structurally, Trinh Minh-ha's deliberate and
contrived effort to provide a third voice represents the in-between
position of subject and object similarly observed in her commentary on
writing.
- Envisioning herself as one who gives voice to Third world
cultures, Trinh-Minh-ha comments on how and why she finds the stereotype
useful. It is her contention that the stereotype can be skillfully used
to deconstruct the type in a way that results in not perpetuating the
type but in diminishing the type.
- Although at times, Trinh Minh-ha is ambiguous, her ambiguity both
represents her brilliance and yet also creates discomfort in the reader
seeking clear cut answers. She turns the question back onto us, asking,
"When some of us call ourselves Asian Americans, or gays and lesbians,
are we simply endorsing the labels that we have been given, or are we
re-appropriating these labels, thereby situating politically such
namings, not in the phase of assimilation-for-survival, but rather in a
phase of struggle where marking is also affirming ourselves critically?"
(pp 48-49). In this instance, she again explores the two-sidedness of an
issue such as marking which can be both enslaving and liberating. Yet,
it is her assertion that marking can be utilized to affirm rather than
to placate to the label that has been imposed for politically charged
identifiable purposes.
- Interviewer Berenice Reynaud noted that "The truth is, a first
encounter with Trinh's films is often unsettling for the viewer, because
it decenters his/her positioning as a subject. Instead of centering the
subject/viewer with the comfortable notion that a quantum of 'knowledge'
about something was provided by the film, it sends him/her back to
his/her own essential displacement — what Trinh calls 'the trial of
the subject'" (pp 51-52). In this regard her films then force us a
spectators to become more critical in our viewing and more questioning
of our selves.
- Trinh Minh-ha shares her views on how her work is likely to be
received, declaring that your identity will often become the focus in
criticism of your work and this remains inescapable. Thus, as a
filmmaker or artist these are the conditions or constraints under which
you have to operate — as you become the subject of another's gaze.
- Cinema Interval concludes with a return to the
insider/outsider positioning, when Trinh Minh-ha states of "A Tale of
Love" that:
It is through the politics of denationalizing the refugee and the
émigré, that a person-who-leaves becomes normalized, being
systematically compelled to undergo the process of giving up their home,
their country, their language, their identity, their proper name.
… Hardly have the newcomers reached the host territory that they're
made to experience the mutilation of their name which, if not entirely
changed, can only survive in fragments — shortened, misspelled,
mispronounced, or replaced by an equivalent. In this denationalization
of the foreigner, we can better grasp the complexity of loyalty and
betrayal in relation to love, to freedom, to one's own
subjectivity…." (p.264).
It is her insight in reading how Third world cultures are viewed
and the critical eye which she has developed for discerning how
otherness is constructed that keeps her work fresh, provocative,
intriguing, and invigorating.
- The strength of Cinema Interval is its ability to capture
the intersection between the filmmaker's intellect and her skill as an
artist. However, for me, a film historian and not filmmaker, this same
strength becomes potentially a weakness. In fragmenting her work, with
film scripts and interviews, her work at times seems too multi-varied in
its intent even though the film scripts are often interspersed with
visual photos from specific film scenes--she perhaps will lose some of
the readers, particularly those on-the-fringe whom she most dearly
sought for ingathering. Yet, for filmmakers and scholars, or even for
just seekers of intellectual open-mindedness concerning marginalized
groups, this work is a challenge worthy of the effort to fathom and
appreciate it. The fusion of multiple positions and perspectives
produced out of a discourse centered around the juxtaposition of
self/other, insider/outsider, scholar/filmmaker, westerner/non-westerner
infuses a work designed to capture both the intellectualism of a scholar
and the aesthetic skill of a filmmaker. For those already fascinated
with Trinh Minh-ha's work as both filmmaker and scholar, Cinema
Interval, by Trinh Minh-Ha, is a must-read.
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