Skimming the Surface: Symptoms and Aesthetics of Impulsive Behavior in Luis Buñuel’s That Obscure Object of Desire and Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers.
Thesis RMa Media Studies 2013/2014 Halbe Kuipers
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Egelantiersstraat 14B2, 1015 PL Amsterdam Date of completion: 27/06/14
Supervised by Prof. Dr. Patricia Pisters First reader: Dr. Catherine M. Lord
Second reader: Dr. Abe Geil Department of Media Studies
Table of Contents
...
Abbreviations list --- 4 Introduction --- 5 The critical & clinical: The Impulse-Image--- 14
The fetish and the idol 15 --- Uniqueness and passing from one milieu to another 17 --- Originary worlds 18 That Obscure Object of Desire --- 21 The bourgeoisie milieu 22 The cycle of desire 26 --- Tearing fragments away 28 --- Surface of the fetish 29 --- An obscure object 30 --- Spatial ramifications of the impulses 33 --- Perversity as a way of coping 36 --- Death is still the only escape 38 --- Buñuel’s odd reality 39
Spring Breakers --- 42 A milieu of saturation 43 -- Warped reality 47 --- Digitalized seed 48 --- Actresses and the director: Internal and external 49 - Digital saturation 50 --- Manifold perspective 52 --- Alien and the delirium 54 --- Becoming 57 --- Surface without depths 60 --- Dangers at this stage 62
Conclusion --- 64 Bibliography --- 70
Reference abbreviations
MI – Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 1: The Movement-Image TI – Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 2: The Time-Image LS – Gilles Deleuze, The Logic of Sense
DD – Gilles Deleuze, D as in Desire in L’Abécédaire, avec Claire Parnet AO – Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus
ATP – Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus DI – Gilles Deleuze & Clare Parnet, Dialogues
NI – Patricia Pisters, The Neuro-Image
MC – Patricia Pisters, The Matrix of Visual Culture
DC – Patricia Pisters, Delirium Cinema and Machines of the Invisible MP – Patricia Pisters, Micropolitiek
he hand reaches for a gun, reaches for a semi-automatic, the gun cocks, and cocks again, the eye scans the dock, scans the assailant, the finger pulls the trigger, the gun fires, “spring break motherfucker”; the hand touches a breast, touches a thigh, touches a bottle, the mouth connects to the bottle, gulps the vodka, gulps a breath of air, “spring break motherfucker”; the eye scans the neck, scans the blood, scans the gun again… In an energetic flow of shots in Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers (2013) the impulsive behavior of three of its protagonists go haywire. Through the impulses connections are made to all sorts of things: body parts and objects notwithstanding. While connecting to all these things the impulses seem to have let go of temporal continuity, as these things are from different temporal strata.
he hand caresses the hand, touches the shoulder, touches the neck, the eye scans the eye, scans the neck, the mouth gulps a breath of air, connects to the neck, kisses the neck, the hand grabs the hand again, the hand caresses the hand, the hand touches the neck… The impulsive behavior of the protagonist in Luis Buñuel’s That Obscure Object of Desire (1979) functions completely different. Here the impulsive actions, which are purely sexual of nature, are unidirectional in that they are directed towards the same woman the whole time, in particular to some parts of her. Moreover, this impulsive behavior invokes a reciprocal relation of impulses: The woman that is desired reacts with impulsive behavior of her own, though her impulses are not of sexual desire but rather of greed. The impulsive behavior shapes a continuous difference of predator and prey.
This thesis aims to provide insight in the probable difference between the above forms of impulsive behavior in terms of symptomatology and aesthetics. Both films show pathological characters that are subject to obsessive behavior in the form of impulsive actions; therefore there are certain symptoms that can be distilled. The question this thesis asks is, then, whether the two forms of impulsive behavior in the above films are of a different symptom; that is, should we consider them as different pathologies? The form of impulsive behavior we see in Spring Breakers differs from the form in That Obscure Object of Desire in that: (1) the impulses are very fluid and dynamic in nature: the impulses connect to one thing, then to another, and yet another, not distinguishing between subject or object nor the thing its temporality; (2) the impulses take on bizarre, strange, and unique configurations that do not resemble the more ‘normal’ configurations of greed, sexual desire, or hunger. To confirm whether there is a different
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symptom in both films I ask: how does the impulsive behavior differ in Spring Breakers from that in That Obscure Object of Desire in terms of
symptomatology and aesthetics?
This thesis is first and foremost grounded by the link between cinema and pathology since a particular form of neurosis will be analyzed through the scope of cinema. I will account the main connection between cinema and pathology to affect. Affect is considered as “a prepersonal intensity corresponding to the passage from one experiential state of the body to another and implying an augmentation or diminution in that body's capacity to act.” (Massumi in ATP xi) I will address the importance of affect in regard to each film, and so its relation with the symptoms. In doing so affect becomes an overarching concept that I will utilize as comparative means. Moreover, the role affect plays when it comes to moving images is important: Cinema has a capacity for affecting us beyond the reaches of our cognition. This holds that it is in affect that we find the genesis of new experiences and new signs, and thus it is considered a creative force. Affect as a force then is prior to any mechanism of identification1. The link between cinema and pathology becomes the degree in which cinema can affect us to feel how it is to have such a disorder. Considering the connection between film and pathology, it is not strange that this thesis endeavors to contribute to the understanding of such disorders. Especially when it comes to symptomatology, the description of signs of disorders, film ought to be in a position to contribute.
I hold film to be both symptomatic and productive in what it shows: it is not just a representation of reality (symptomatic), but also productive in constructing our reality about such ideas (productive) (Shaviro 2)2 The idea that a certain symptom can be shown in films as well as produced by them is the impetus for this undertaking. This line of thought – that critical works can produce signs that tell us things about certain disorders – is what French philosopher Gilles Deleuze calls the critical and clinical3. Deleuze once asked
1 The role of the concept of affect goes to the core of Gilles Deleuze’s film-philosophy, which
means to elucidate the genetic force of cinema by means of pure affect, or pure time as Deleuze often calls it in the cinema books. Affect differentiates itself from identification in that it is not a
2 The possible critique a project of symptomatology could have is one of auteurism, which could
go as follows: These symptoms are but an idea of the auteur on how a mental disorder functions: they are not real. Besides the fact that one could say that disorders can just as well be described by artists (see below), I circumvent this critique by holding that these images, these films, are productive in creating the image of these specific disorders just as well. They are not just a representation that needs to validate itself towards an original, rather there is no original there are just the whole amount of images that produce what the disorder is and how we think about it.
rhetorically: “is it our fault that Lawrence, Miller, Kerouac, Burroughs, Artaud, and Beckett know more about schizophrenia than psychiatrists and psychoanalysts?” Deleuze means to emphasize the potential for distilling symptoms from literary work (in Smith xxi). I will follow this line of thought while simultaneously acknowledging that there is also an influence from the clinical to the critical. In their project Schizophrenia and Society – comprised of the two books, Anti-Oedipus (2004) and A Thousand Plateaus (2004) – Deleuze together with French psychoanalyst Felix Guattari develop from the clinical perspective of schizophrenia a critical conception of our capitalist society that is similar to the limit condition that is schizophrenia (Skott-Myhre and Taylor 38). However, schizophrenia as a concept is not the same as a pathological disease. For Deleuze and Guattari schizophrenia as a concept shows a process of “capitalisms awesome schizophrenic production of energy” (AO 34). Then as a critical concept it means to understand the workings of our capitalist society (DC 103).
To frame and understand these impulsive actions within a cinematic scope I will apply the concept of the impulse-image as described by Deleuze in Cinema 1: The Movement-Image (1993). This concept holds the impulsive actions of characters to be a certain type of image, which in turn is connected to a pair of signs, the symptom and the fetish or idol. Key to this specific image is that it has a strong tendency to return; that is, the impulsive action, in accordance with an obsession, reoccurs continuously, and that ties it to the symptom – we can only diagnose the symptom because it has this consistency. In continuously returning the image also forces the signs connected to it to return; the impulse-image repetitively recalls the same, which are the signs of the fetish or idol. Due to this mechanism the impulse-image is, according to Deleuze, “exhausting” and a cause of “degradation” towards affect (Deleuze MI 129). This exhausting mechanism produces a surface play, in the sense that it makes whatever it desires shallow and degrades it to a mere idea.
In Spring Breakers, however, the impulsive actions seem to connect to a plurality of things. Can we then still say it is the same that returns? Or are there multiple, separate obsessions at work? If so, how are they separated, and why do they seemingly fall amongst the same obsession? (“Spring break motherfucker...” – everything that happens takes place under this rallying cry.) Or is there perhaps an internal mechanism within the impulse-image that explains this apparent discrepancy between the reoccurrence of the same as opposed to difference? So I
ask, is there a change in how the impulse-image functions within That Obscure Object of Desire and Spring Breakers? And in line with the interest in symptomatology, can we speak of the same symptom in That Obscure Object of Desire and Spring Breakers?
Allow me to sketch both films in more detail in order to advance the above questions. Luis Buñuel’s That Obscure Object of Desire shows us Mathieu, played by Fernando Rey, a man of certain social status – Buñuel’s favorite subject, namely the bourgeoisie – who strongly desires a young Spanish woman named Conchita. In a cyclical form of desiring and rejection, we see Mathieu time and time again acting impulsively through his desire for Conchita. Conchita on the other hand shows impulses of greed for Mathieu’s wealth and life-style. But there is an anomaly within the cycle: In this film Buñuel deployed an ingenious cinematic trick of difference in repetition that, as we will see in the analysis, pushes the impulse-image, and thus the impulses of an obsession, to its utter limit: Buñuel continuously switches the actress whom plays Conchita: Conchita is played both by Carole Bouqet as by Ángela Molina. So Mathieu’s desire for Conchita is actually blind towards her actual being. This means that the impulsive-action in That Obscure Object of Desire is not as straightforward as we assumed in the initial observation. The question is what the effect of this deviance is. Furthermore, the film displays a strong form of repression through the rejection of desire: Mathieu literally tries to obtain Conchita but she continuously denies him the final act of sexual consummation. Hence Mathieu is torn between desiring her and wanting to get rid of her, as she is a problem for him in being unattainable.
Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers is a more recent film made in 2013. Here we are shown four young women played by Selena Gomez, Ashley Benson, Vanessa Hudgens, and Rachel Korine – hereafter addressed as ‘the girls’ – during their college time. They have a very strong desire to have a “real experience” which they mean to find during the annual spring break event in Miami. The urge for a real experience and its following behavior soon spirals completely out of control. It starts with the girls setting up a robbery to finance their trip, and eventually, through all the parties, the booze, and the sex, they get into contact with gangster rapper Alien, played by James Franco, who introduces them to a whole new level of violence in his milieu. Most importantly, Spring Breakers features a milieu that is saturated with screens and digital technology. It is exactly this difference, the digital visual culture that makes up this milieu, which will turn
out to influence the pathology heavily. What makes Spring Breakers so different furthermore, is its relation to reality: not only in the film itself does reality become obfuscated and through many temporal rifts distorted, but also is the internal reality of the story coalesced with the external reality – that is, our reality – by deploying the identities of the four actresses, known as former “tweens”4, and morphing them into these pathological characters in his film. Korine blurs the distinction between an external and internal world. Moreover, here, in contradistinction to That Obscure Object of Desire, we find a form of impulsive behavior that continuously attains that which is desired, it just takes possession of it: the girls, more often than not, get what they want by any means.
That Obscure Object of Desire will be the point of departure, the degree zero of the obsessional impulsive behavior. According to Deleuze Buñuel’s film is typical impulse-image, and thus it is typical for the impulse-image. That also means that this film belongs to the overarching aesthetic regime of the impulse-image, which Deleuze calls the movement-image (MI 127-144). Through analyzing both That Obscure Object of Desire and Spring Breakers I will be able to assess whether the difference between the two films falls within the impulse-image itself, or if it adheres to a different aesthetic regime. If it does adhere to a different aesthetic regime the question is whether this affects the symptom and how.
Three aspects – two from the impulse-image and a third that I distill from the psychoanalytical perspective on neurosis – that we can respectively read as a cause, effect, and a mediator, that will form the main threads of this thesis. The first, the cause, is the milieu that the characters of each film inhabit, whereas the second is the surface that is produced. The third, the mediator, is the reality-principle that, in accordance to psychoanalytical theory, functions as an in-between for the cause and effect. Specifically the first two require introduction before explication. The third aspect will get its own part before commencing with the analyses.
The milieu arguably has the most important role. First of all because it is in the milieu in which the pathologies arise. It is not for nothing Deleuze points out that the impulse-image is directly related to the milieu (MI 132). Indeed, this form of neurosis, or any other pathology for that matter, is very much dependent
4 “Harmony Korine: The Spring Breakers director on Disney, pop culture and the world of the
ATL Twins.” DAZED. Retrieved from
on its milieu. That is of interest because both films take place in completely different milieux. We can make use of the differences between these milieux to understand the difference in the impulsive behavior. The similarities, however, are also interesting. One striking similarity is the surplus value that is produced in each of these milieux; that is, in both milieux the basic needs for life are provided for. Notwithstanding basic needs, in the college milieu there is not per se a surplus of riches. Unlike the bourgeoisie milieu of Mathieu, the college girls lack money and thus it becomes a need when they having to pay for the expenses of spring break. It is in such differences that we see how the milieu invokes certain needs; al though it must be noted that such needs do not necessarily have to be so strong that we can speak of an instinctual force which would drive the impulses.
What is notably the biggest difference in the milieux is the ubiquitous presence of screens in the milieux of the girls. What we can call digital visual culture has spread into all corners of their existence; most of their existence actually partakes through these mediums: socializing on social networks, dating through date sites, etcetera. It is not strange that in the opening shot we see two of the girls in their lecture room where so many laptop screens flicker in our view. Albeit the screens are physically rarely seen – the opening shot might be the only shot where they are explicitly present – they do have an enormous influence on the milieu. As James Franco rightfully pointed out in an interview with VICE magazine that Spring Breakers is “the embodiment of such technological engagement. It is everything that we are today.”5
At this point it is imperative, as well as possible to ground the probable difference. As I have already stated, the symptom in Spring Breakers seems to be of a different order because of its idiosyncratic nature. And, as said as well, it also results in a different aesthetics. Now considering the nature of the milieu, infatuated in the digital visual culture, and its distinctive aesthetics, there is a certain difference upon which we can test the deviance of the symptom in Spring Breakers as compared to that of That Obscure Object of Desire. The impulse-image is, namely, connected to an aesthetic regime that Deleuze calls the movement-image. The movement-image is characterized by continuity: according to Deleuze the movement-image maintains this continuity because it operates within the workings of the sensory-motor schema, it functions by means of rational connections. If the form of impulsive action in Spring Breakers were to
5 “Spring Break: A Fever Dream.” VICE. Retrieved from
maintain this continuity then it falls amongst the movement-image. If this is the case then we can assume that Spring Breakers simply produces a new constellation, a new setup of the particular impulsive actions. It would mean that there is no actual change but simply a shift in functioning. Or, said in terms of the impulse-image, the symptom would not have changed but the fetish or idol would have taken a different form; there would be different force driving the impulse, like greed, or sexual desire. With That Obscure Object of Desire functioning as a degree zero for the impulse-image we should be able to assess its limits and consequently ascertain whether Spring Breakers either stays within it or moves beyond it, that is, whether it transgresses6 the mechanism of the impulse-image.
The question is whether the symptoms of Spring Breakers stay within the limits of the impulse-image. We have observed that the impulse-image in Spring Breakers seems to function different; that means that there is not just a different fetish or idol attached nor a different constellation, but the symptom is different. Here I will turn to the work of film-philosopher Patricia Pisters that will help to ground what is at work. What she proposes in her book The Neuro-Image (2012) is that through a change in our society invoked by its technological advancements, there has emerged a new aesthetic regime. She calls this regime the neuro-image. Due to this change aesthetics have become subject to digital forces that produce irrational connections: these are connections that do not adhere to the general organization of rationality; they do not adhere to the sensory-motor schema as the movement-image still did. On the contrary, these irrational connections disrupt the sensory-motor schema, freeing affect from its subjugation to movement (from the action-reaction schema). This resonates with the neuro-image as being characterized by saturation: a saturation of screens, a saturation of images, a saturation of perspectives, a too much of everything in this time of ubiquitous connections. This relates to affect in that it the “affect is also the ‘too much’”, which in turn connects to a different pathology, that of schizophrenia (DC 111). In a quick move we have now made the connection between a milieu of digital visual culture, the aesthetics of irrational connections and saturation, and a different pathology, namely schizophrenia. This recalls the project of Deleuze and Guattari on Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Obviously these still thin connections need to be further elaborated when analyzing Spring Breakers. But what matters
6 I am here using the concept of transgression in the manner of Georges Bataille: “‘Transgression’
is the passage to (beyond) a limit which is constituted therein and which has being outside this movement which crosses it.” (in Kazarian 97)
is that this new aesthetic regime and its concomitant new image of thought7 breeds a possible new way of thinking that might shed light on the difference I observed at the beginning, the difference between the two forms of impulsive behavior in That Obscure Object of Desire and Spring Breakers. This is not to say that we should consider Spring Breakers as a neuro-image immediately; above all it is a good measure to find the limits of the impulse-image (the maintaining of the rational connections). But at the same time we should acknowledge that the influence of the digital visual culture is present.
The second aspect that will be a main thread throughout this thesis, the titular surface, is a means to understand what is produced through the mechanism of the impulse-image. As Korine remarks in the interview in Dazed & Confused, “[it] was always about surfaces from the beginning; the way things felt, looked, touched and tasted and the pathology was the residue of that, you know, what leaks beneath that.”8 The impulsive behavior has some relation to a certain surface, while, on the other hand, there is something lurking beneath it, which is then the pathology. This verticality is interesting to research in both films for it characterizes a difference between, a hierarchy, which is produced by the force of the impulses. Notwithstanding this verticality, the surface itself if very flat, we can even read it that manner: a flat meaning. All these strands connected to the surface must be investigated in relation to the impulses, as it will turn out that the surface will get a twofold meaning when faced with the observed symptoms in both films. Furthermore, the surface has an interesting connection to the above-mentioned importance of the digital visual culture. Indeed, the flatness is already salient through the omnipresence of these screens that promote it through their physical structure. Though this is not considered a main importance for the argumentation that this thesis makes, it is a thought provoking connections nonetheless9.
7 An image of thought is “what it is to think, whether that be the grasp of ideal forms, the orderly
reception of sense impressions, or the social construction of the world through language” (Colebrook 2).
8 “Harmony Korine: The Spring Breakers director on Disney, pop culture and the world of the
ATL Twins.” DAZED. Retrieved from
<http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/15870/1/harmony-korine>
9 An interesting connection might surface between this thesis’ focus on the aesthetics and
symptoms of digital visual culture and Giulliana Bruno’s recent research on the archaeology of the screen in Surface: Matters of Aesthetics, Materiality, and Media (2014). Unfortunately it is beyond the scope of this research to take up Bruno’s archaeological approach, but the mere correlation already exposes an importance in the concept of the surface and its connection to digital visual culture.
In order to give structure to this thesis I have separated the whole into two large parts, wherein each part deals with one of the films. I will start with an analysis of That Obscure Object of Desire as the degree zero of the impulse-image. After which I will proceed with an analysis of Spring Breakers. However, before I start with the analyses it is important to give background information on the workings of the impulse-image. I will do this in both a critical and a clinical form. I will sketch an outline on how the impulsive actions work taking both perspectives into consideration, how they are considered, and what the consequences might be. Alternatively this will also introduce the subject as an important aspect in this thesis. We will see how the subject is integral to neurosis, and how in its turn neurosis constitutes the subject.
Part 1
The Critical and Clinical
The Concept of the
Impulse-Image
...
Deleuze describes impulses as “not an affect, because it is an impression in the strongest sense and not an expression. But neither is it like the feelings or emotions which regulate and deregulate behavior.” (MI 127) Hence the position Deleuze gives to the impulse-image is quite unique, especially regarding affect10. It thus takes up a special position within the movement-image. Governed by a strong force, these impulse-images as described by Deleuze consist of three aspects: (1) the object of impulses are fragments, which is always the ‘partial object’; (2) impulses can be very complex, and unique configurations – surely, they can be simple as the impulse of greed or hunger, but they can also be strange as “the irresistible impulse to whistle in a balloon”; (3) the impulse takes possession of “everything that it can in a given milieu, and, if it can, pass from one milieu to another.” (MI 132)
I take the main characteristic of the impulse-image to be its tendency to reoccur, for that is directly connected to the symptom. The symptom, then, is exactly what we take it to be, an abnormality in our behavior that reoccurs and it is in this sense directly connected to how we perceive symptoms clinically. But there is more to the impulse-image then just its repetitive nature. The second sign connected to the impulse-image is the fetish or idol. The first aspect mentioned above, that the object of the impulses are fragments, needs to be understood as a
10 Deleuze here makes an argument for the odd position the impulse-image has: namely between
idealism and realism. What this surmounts to is that the impulse-image, according to Deleuze, is neither pure affect nor movement. Instead, a force that is so deep and so strong that it produces movement of a different type, which governs the impulse-image. Note that affect is here still subjugated to movement, but in an intensity that is not quite like the other images within the movement-image. The concept of the impulse-image appreciates an energy that is in a sense primordial, invoked by certain incredibly strong embedded values, or instincts (like survival).
ramification of the force of the impulses. The fragment is exactly what is fetishized, that is as it keeps returning it focusses more and more on this fragment. This is the second sign that is connected to the impulse-image, the fetish or idol. The fetish is only a representation, which remains of that which desired and torn out of its context. Buñuel is famous for his shoe fetish11, which is just the representation of the shoe in itself, disconnected from all the values that it can possibly connect to (a woman, a sock, a foot, a protection measure, a fashionable object etcetera), and so it becomes the object of desire. It is a displacement of desire for the object for desire for desire; that is, desire for the representation of the object.
Fetish and the idol
But why are there two signs, the fetish and the idol, that can be interchangeably used? The clinical perspective on obsession can supply us with an answer. In the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel of Mental Disorders it is stated that obsessions are “recurrent and persistent thoughts, impulses, or images”. (as quoted in de Haan, Rietveld, and Denys 3) (For the sake of brevity I will henceforth refer to the “thoughts, impulses, or images” as simply impulses, since it is the current subject.) Indeed, the first qualification of obsession is that it must be recurrent, corresponding with the concept of the impulse-image. The second qualification is that these impulses must also be experienced as intrusive and inappropriate (ibid.). This seems a legit definition, but what then happens to an impulse that reoccurs whilst its subject does not think of it as intrusive or inappropriate? It is important here to remember that from a clinical perspective one only affirms a symptom when it is unwanted: why would a psychiatrist bother with a subject that is happy disregarding the symptom? Psychiatry is there to treat problems, not to make them. So from the clinical perspective it is logical to focus on a negative attitude towards these impulses. Nonetheless, the mechanism that is explained clinically can be useful to understand the impulse-image better.
11 It is not difficult to find remarks on Buñuel’s shoe fetish: “The Not-So-Discreet Charm of Luis
Buñuel”. TIME. Retrieved from <http://content.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,90057,00.html>; “Luis Buñuel’s Fetish-Object Lessons.” The Village VOICE Movies. Retrieved from
<http://www.villagevoice.com/2000-10-10/film/luis-bu-uel-s-fetish-object-lessons/full/>; and “Luis Buñuel”. Senses of Cinema. Retrieved from <http://sensesofcinema.com/2005/great-directors/bunuel/>. Though, as these articles show, it is not undisputed whether it is the shoe, the foot, or the leg that is fetishized. Nonetheless, it is certain to say Buñuel fetishized ‘some part’ with his focus shots on feet.
In “On the nature of obsessions and compulsions” (2013) de Haan, Rietveld, and Denys ask “Thoughts and images [and impulses] (even repulsive ones) pop up all the time – that is normal. So how come these images and thoughts gain such force and cause such anxiety?” (9) The answer for them lies in the attitude people take toward the impulses. That is, once someone starts to worry about a certain impulse it becomes more prominent and gains a tendency to reoccur more often. This is due to the cycle of awareness that has been initiated: When someone gives so much attention to such impulses, it increases in intensity and henceforth gains more attention from our awareness; it is a cycle that keeps increasing in strength as it continues. In obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) this shows through a “hyper-reflexivity” (de Haan, Rietveld, and Denys 9) wherein the patient continuously reflects upon the impulse and its following compulsion making it more prominent as it keeps reoccurring.
It would seem odd to deny the same mechanism of attention to work when affirming a certain impulse. Why would attention not work affirmatively? Think of when you have just bought a new shirt, or seen an interesting commercial, all of a sudden you notice it everywhere; this does not seem to be dependent on a negative attitude towards it but rather dependent on an intensity of the attitude towards it, and this intensity is exempt from any normative judgment; that is, it can be either positive or negative attention. It is not to say that this cycle will always start by means of attention, but it is probable. Attention brings to the foreground that which has in some degree of intensity affected us before and only by consciously affirming that by having an attitude towards it does it return. Then, through the impulses that are affirmed as well as those that are repressed, their prominence increases.
So the obsession functions in twofold: One where the person that is obsessed starts to question his or her identity because the nature of that which returns is at odds with their own self-image or world-image, the other being where the person that is obsessed does not question that which returns but continuous to give it more attention because he or she simply desires it. The former case seems prone to a cycle that gets more severe and causes a greater discrepancy between what returns and the self-image and therefore leading to more anxiety. The latter case, on the contrary, seems to allow the person to indulge in that which he or she desires ever more so, but is closely aligned with delusional behavior (de Haan, Rietveld, and Denys 13).
We can understand the dual setup of the fetish or idol, then, by means of the attitude towards that which returns. Both signs signify the fragments that are torn from the object by the force of the impulse, but they differ in the perceived attitude towards them. It is the fetish that carries the negative connotation and thus is born from the negative attitude towards the impulse, while it is the idol that carries a positive connotation and thus is born from the positive attitude towards the impulse. The impulse-image, then, had already been conceived of as a mechanism that works on both sides of the pole of attitude.
Uniqueness and passing from one milieu to another
The second and third aspect of the impulse-image – the uniqueness of the configurations and the capacity to pass from one milieu to another – can be better understood in light of the directors that Deleuze discusses in regard to the impulse-image. For Deleuze there are three directors that typify the workings of the impulse-image: Luis Buñuel, Erich von Stroheim, and Joseph Losey. Each of these directors shows a particular form of naturalism, which, according to Deleuze, the impulse-image is indebted to. What sets the directors apart, however, is that each director has a form of degradation that is unique to the impulse-image: Buñuel deploys a form that is cyclical, whereas Stroheim deploys a “kind of entropy”, and Losey in turn deploys “the reversal against self.” (MI 141) The uniqueness of the impulses, the second aspect discussed by Deleuze, is obvious when looking at the different configurations we within the films of all three directors. Whereas Buñuel favors mostly sexual impulses, Stroheim shows many impulses of greed, while Losey’s impulses are mostly pure violence directed at the person himself. The capacity of the impulses to pass from one milieu to another is more difficult to grasp. The most lucid example is found in the work of Stroheim who creates a slope of degradation that exhausts a milieu, only to continue with another milieu, not stopping till everything has been cast into entropy, which equals total chaos. In Buñuel it shows through the cycle of degradation, how it goes from one milieu to another, but unlike Stroheim, in Buñuel the degradation is cyclical in that it returns to normal only then to pass onto another milieu. The Exterminating Angel shows this best when it passes onto the church after exhausting the initial milieu. What is most important for our cause is that with the passing from one milieu to another different milieux are consolidated. They are juxtaposed and compared: difference between the two
milieux. By exhausting it, by degrading it, the impulse exposes the opposition within the milieu – this is the effect of the originary world that I discuss below – and by doing so consolidates it.
Originary worlds
Being a force of action, the impulse-image transforms its surroundings accordingly. Deleuze explains that the impulse is connected to an originary world, which is so much as “a pure background, or rather a without-background, composed of unformed matter, sketches or fragments, crossed by non-formal functions, acts, or energy dynamisms which do not even refer to the constituted subject.” (MI 128) The originary world is related to the energy we carry with us, it is our instinct or that which makes human animal12. The originary world is a space that is defined by these forces. But it does not determine us. It is the world in the depth of a milieu. (And a milieu is the social environment one lives in -- I will go further into this at a later point.) There is a difficult aspect to grasp in all this as Deleuze denies the impulse to be determinative and instead characterizes it as degrading and exhausting. But how can it not be determinative when deriving from the depth of a milieu? That is because, according to Deleuze, the impulses “are extracted from the real modes of behavior current in a determinate milieu, from the passions, feelings and emotions which real men experience in this milieu.” (MI 129) These extracted bits of “passions, feelings, and emotions” are then indeed but fragments. So there is a depth from which the impulses surge upwards, and that depth is its own consistent world:
The originary world only exists and operates in the depths of a real milieu, and is only valid through its immanence in this milieu, whose violence and cruelty it reveals. But at the same time the milieu only presents itself as real in its immanence in the originary world, it has the status of a ‘derived’ milieu, which receives a temporality as destiny from the originary world. (MI 129)
12 There is a very interesting use of the “animal” here: it has quite a negative connotation, in that it
is working on instinct and therefore restrictive. What is odd is that Deleuze, philosophically, is known also for using the animal in a whole different sense, namely becoming-animal, a concept that can be seen as liberating and beyond the restrictive sense of identity. Though beyond the scope of this thesis, we can wonder why in the one sense the animal is considered restrictive, while on the other hand it is liberating. Arguably it has something to do with the role of instinct, which is considered restrictive within the impulse-image.
Admitting that the originary world would be determinative would entrap us as living beings within the deepest region of our milieux, the originary world. That is something that Deleuze would not allow, if only for its disavowal of affect as creative force. Indeed, it enforces exactly the opposite: the impulse-image degrades and exhausts affect. (MI 127-8)
In order to clarify the idea of an originary world within the impulse-image, let us take the impulses and its derived originary world in Buñuel’s The Exterminating Angel (1962) as an example. What kind of originary world derives from the impulsive-behavior the characters in The Exterminating Angel show, and in turn what kind of derived milieu does it determine? The key to understanding the originary world is to understand the relation between action and space. For Deleuze it is action that determines space, while on the other hand affect delivers a non-determined space13. And since the impulse-image is in-between affect and action, the originary world is also in-between a non-determined and a determined space. What this entails is that the space the impulses feed on, and take in place in, is equally determined by as determinative for the impulses. It is a half way space, where “spaces, objects, and actions belong at once to a real environment and to a primordial domain of fragments and impulses.” (Bogue 83) In The Exterminating Angel the space is obvious since almost the entire film takes place there: the drawing room. Where it starts of as a neat and clean room, by the end of the film, when the group of bourgeoisie folk have been trapped in the room for the entire duration, the impulses, which are numerous -- we see sexual impulses, hunger impulses, survival impulses -- have literally torn out all fragments of the room and left it in chaos. No longer does the surface appearance uphold, the room is no longer a neat representation of the bourgeoisie life, but instead a depiction of the primal instincts that reign within that milieu. The originary world, which lingers under the determined milieu as a sort of swamp that slowly pulls its trespassers in, then finally shows the imposed dichotomy in spatial terms: There is a complete chaos lingering underneath the well arranged and well maintained room: The closet becomes the space where the dead are put away, the couch
13 Deleuze, in using a concept from Pascal Augé and, as often, inversing it, names these
non-determined spaces “any-space-whatevers”, or espace quelconque. Though it is not directly relevant for our cause, it can be helpful to understand this concept in order to understand the originary world. For Deleuze the any-space-whatever is completely non-determined space in which affect reigns: it is the “condition for emergence of uniqueness and singularities” (Bensmaia in Bell). The uniqueness cannot be a key of the originary worlds as the depths of the milieu, the instinctual forces, determine them.
becomes equally a place for the ill as for making love, etcetera. But most importantly, in the case of Buñuel, this chaos erupts in a cyclical manner. First it is the drawing room that goes from an orderly state to its total destruction, where after it is the church – the passing from one milieu to another. Every representative environment within that milieu has the potential to be subjected to the forces of the impulse.
The originary world, as aspect of the impulse-image opens up the possibility of analyzing the films in spatial terms. What we are looking for is how the impulsive actions show how the surrounding becomes a factor of its force. That is, the impulses surge out of the depth and constitute strong oppositions, and often its transformation from one to the other, in spatial terms. We see these oppositions in spatial terms through, for instance, the orderly state versus the chaos; or what is young versus what is old; or what is alive versus what is dead.
With the impulse-image explained the stage is set for the analysis of That Obscure Object of Desire. Because this film serves as our degree zero it is imperative to see how the impulse-image functions within it, and to acknowledge the limits of concept. The above has taught us that there is a difference in the attitude towards the ever returning impulse, and that it is because of this that there are two signs connected to the impulse-image: the fetish and idol. That is the first thing that we can verify with the characters of That Obscure Object of Desire. Moreover, we can use the other aspects described above, the constellations, its unicity, and its effect that Deleuze calls the originary world to understand what this type of neurosis does and how it functions. (That Obscure Object of Desire does not make use of the aspect of moving from one milieu to another, so we cannot look at that in this analysis.) As said in the introduction, this is to be the degree zero of understanding this symptom in order for us to assess the difference with the pathology in Spring Breakers.
Part 2
That Obscure Object of Desire
The Symptoms and Aesthetics
of Neurosis through the
Impulse-Image
...
e runs into a train while looking back onto the platform anxiously. When Mathieu sees the person whom he is running from, the young woman named Conchita, he does not hesitate, he walks into the train gets a bucket of water, walks back out again and empties it on her. Mathieu seems satisfied in that he stopped her from entering the train, al though she does board it without him knowing. Mathieu walks back to his coupé and takes his seat. His fellow passengers all glance at him, being surprised by his actions but none dares to question them. It is, however, the young daughter of one of Mathieu’s fellow passengers who blatantly asks him why he did such a thing. Though her mother hushes her for being impolite, Mathieu thinks his actions are justified so he offers to explain the story behind it, which the rest agrees to listen to.
By means of a flashback we get to see the story of Mathieu and Conchita. This story roughly consists of a number of periods that Mathieu and Conchita are together, before they break up again. For the sake of clarity it is useful to divide That Obscure Object of Desire into these separate parts. Starting from where the flashback starts there are roughly five encounters between Mathieu and Conchita. The first encounter, their acquaintance, is set in Mathieu’s home where Conchita has taken up a job as maid. The second encounter is a while after, when Conchita has fled Mathieu for the first time but they meet again in Lausanne and get together in Paris. After yet another break up, this time orchestrated by Mathieu, they meet again in Seville, to where Conchita moved after being deported out of France. The fourth time they meet, after a heavy break up in which Mathieu even physically harms Conchita, is in the train where Mathieu tries to flee from
Conchita, and thus the scene the film starts with. The final scene is when they have once again made up and stroll through Paris only to meet their end by a terrorist bomb explosion.
We end up with a cycle of desire and rejection in which Mathieu and Conchita continuously meet. Each encounter carries its own particular aspects that are of interest for understanding the workings of the impulse-image in That Obscure Object of Desire. I will work through several aspects that will help understand the impulse-image, the symptom it produces, and the accompanying fetish. I will start with sketching the milieu Mathieu and Conchita are in respectively in order to give both a context as well as initialize the impulse-image. Afterwards, in the following order, I will deal with the micro- and macrophysics of the impulses, the perversity that sets in in order to cope with the discrepancy invoked by the impulses, and finally the death instinct that governs the impulses. The bourgeoisie milieu
When Mathieu is questioned for his behavior as he takes a seat in the train a moment occurs that is in many ways characteristic for this film, but also for Buñuel’s oeuvre as a whole. The simple act of (not) questioning his behavior is in itself interesting for it is, next to the misè-en-scene we has so far seen, a perfect example of the actualization of Mathieu’s milieu. The young girl who is not as well trained in manners yet simply asks why Mathieu would do such a thing, while the others, even though intrigued, withhold themselves from asking because it would be rude. Two standards are directly brought forward: The act of throwing water over someone which is considered odd, and asking questions about ones behavior which is considered rude. These standards lay bare the norms and values that the social environment is made up of. His fellow passengers, consisting of a judge, who is also a friend of Mathieu’s cousin – it is typical for the milieu how close this person is to Mathieu – a mother with her daughter, and a psychology professor who is coincidentally a dwarf, characterize Mathieu’s milieu in many ways. First, they are all certain of the fact that Mathieu’s action cannot be considered normal. Hence they are very interested in his explanation of the action. But aside from this there are also the norms and values of the people themselves that we see through their appearances and the way they communicate. Just the simple fact that they would not ask, even though they are extremely curious shows us their manners. Mathieu has obviously stepped into a cabin with peers, as
they address one another with certain manners by which they not only make the normative values explicitly known but also embody these norms. This is indeed the milieu that Mathieu is in. It is the milieu that we can characterize as being that of the bourgeoisie.
Influenced heavily by evolutionary thinking through the Darwinian theory of natural selection, the milieu becomes a determinative force for human behavior. It is a conception that was present in the writings of Émile Zola. We know from Zola’s writing, and the movement that followed it, that there was a strong belief in the forming of human beings through their social environments. (Williams 217) Impulses are then actions that are derived from the particular milieux. It is then in the milieu that we can find the causes for the impulses. Thus human behavior was always subject to thoughts about their environment, “excluding the hypothesis of some controlling or directing force outside human nature” (ibid.). As Williams accurately described it:
A new importance was given to the environment of characters and actions. (Environment in its special and now primary sense of the conditions, including the physical conditions, within which someone or something lives and develops, was an associated development from the earlier general sense of surroundings.) Character and action were seen as affected or determined by environment, which especially in a social and social-physical sense had then to be accurately described as an essential element of any account of a life. (Williams 217; emphasis added)
The gist of understanding impulses is then to be found in describing the milieu, for the milieu, according to Williams, is a condition for the impulses. What we should recognize about these milieux, however, is that they are first very broad, they encompass all norms, values, institutions, etcetera, that can be existent in a social environment. Secondly, milieux have many similarities with one another. When it comes, for instance, to values about death we can acknowledge that many milieux might have similar values.
The fact that That Obscure Object of Desire deals with the goings of the bourgeoisie should not come as a surprise since it was director Louis Buñuel’s favorite topic. It is through the bourgeoisie that Buñuel shows us how ridiculous these manners often are, especially the manners that are enforced in an almost ascetic manner. These extreme manners are especially useful because the stronger certain norms and values are, the stronger the force can be that derives from it.
Certain norms and values that we see in That Obscure Object of Desire are, for instance, the difference between the rich and the poor: Mathieu is wealthy, whereas Conchita is poor and struggles to get by together with her mother. Another value that resonates clearly is that of age: how youth is something desired whereas old age is despised. The church that plays a role of importance in Conchita’s life also counts as a strong form of norms and values within her milieu. And the value of not questioning Mathieu’s behavior that I described earlier is an example of a value that is smaller of scale than values about social position or what is considered good in terms of age. Of course this is far from a full description of the milieu that Mathieu and Conchita live in. There are far more values of different degrees that play a role in determining the impulses. I will continue to describe these values as I commence the analysis.
Let us go back to Mathieu meeting his fellow passengers in the train for there is a specific characteristic of Buñuel’s cinematography concerning these values that I have left unaddressed. As much as this scene was determinative for Mathieu’s milieu, the professor stood out. Is it normal to consider a dwarf to be the professor of psychology? And moreover, is it normal for the others to find it such a common thing while Mathieu’s outburst is considered out of the ordinary? This is not to give a normative judgment in respect to dwarfs, but it is to question the normality of something odd. And it is specifically this oddness that Buñuel utilizes here. It is the oddness that we know from his oeuvre that is strongly influenced by surrealism. I would argue that what we witness here is Buñuel’s renowned comical aspect. What Buñuel does, and does so often throughout his oeuvre, is that he takes something that is considered normal and then makes the opposite happen. It is the creation of gap between expectance and what actually occurs. Buñuel carefully introduces the absurd into the normal. But the absurd is limited; it is not capable of introducing difference in itself, which is change. According to Deleuze the absurd “in this context is only the ‘other’ of the proposition, a negative determination.” (Kazarian 93) Or as Edward Kazarian paraphrases Deleuze, “we can say that the problem with the absurd is that it fails to be genuinely deviant, genuinely different.” (ibid.) So, as much as the absurd ridicules the normal, it simply constitutes a “negative determination” or opposition to the normal in which it simultaneously solidifies the normal just as much.
In one of Buñuel’s most famous films, The Discrete Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), we are shown this mechanism at large. The whole film
revolves around a dinner, but that dinner never actually happens. At least the dinner guests never get to take a single bite, never get to sit and enjoy the meal. Every single time the guests are close to eating something would interrupts them. Sometimes it is something external that interrupts the guests, like a robbery, but most of the times it is the own behavior of the guests, like the couple that cannot restrain themselves from making love at that precise moment. The whole film revolves around what is expected and what actually happens, and the distance that lies between these two. This comical aspect, or simply satire, is seen as a key aspect of many of Buñuel’s films.
With this we have grasped an important aspect that will run throughout the entire film. It is Buñuel’s intention to ridicule certain standards by juxtaposing them with unexpected standards or simple oppositions within the same milieu. But as said above, in ridiculing certain standards this approach also defines these standards: By placing something opposite to the standard, like the dwarf professor, the standard is necessarily reiterated; the deviance cannot exist without the standard. This satirical approach will turn out to be determinative for both Mathieu and Conchita in regard to their impulses.
What is most important about the milieu is that it constitutes a plane upon which these norms and values exist. We can call this the “plane of organization” upon which the determined milieu rests. This plane is assembled with oppositions upon which the impulses feed, but, in falling back onto the plane, the impulses also constitute these oppositions: rich and poor, man and woman, young and old, predator and prey, etcetera. Deleuze refers to the conception of the plane of organization as follows, “a whole organization which effectively trains thought to operate according to the norms of an established order.” (DL 18) Life itself is captured, power finds its home, and the established order governs. It is what we think, how we act, and how we ought to act and think within a certain milieu.
Within his milieu Mathieu is clearly a wealthy man. Conchita on the other hand is a young but poor woman. Also, Mathieu is considered old – as Conchita, when being disgusted of him, says “you disgust me, you are old, you are disgusting.” – whereas Conchita is considered young. All these values together assemble the plane into a stratified form. It is stratified for all the norms and values situated on it are of a different degree. Whereas some values are far more embedded, others are only whimsical at best. All these different layers interact in constituting the impulses, and get constituted by it. Mathieu and Conchita’s reciprocal impulses not only work through the dichotomy of rich and poor, but
also through young and old, and through ugly and beautiful. These values intersect one another and are part of the force of the impulse while as it falls back onto it it them as values.
Cycle of desire
To understand the impulses in That Obscure Object of Desire, and to understand the role of the milieux within it, let us take a look at one of the main forms of impulses that we can easily distinguish: Mathieu’s desire for Conchita. On the basis of the repetitiveness and its belonging to the subject that is Mathieu, we can easily recognize this as a form of impulsive behavior. Now how does it function? There are two major aspects that characterize the impulsive behavior we see in That Obscure Object of Desire. First, Mathieu himself often rejects the impulses for they are at odds with his self-image and world-image. Second, the impulses never attain that which they desire so strongly, which is Conchita. Let us begin with a closer look at the former aspect.
At multiple stages in their cyclical affair Mathieu expresses the problems he has with his own behavior towards Conchita. For example, the moment he sits with his friend in a lounge and discusses his relation at the ending of the third meeting of Mathieu and Conchita. Mathieu makes clear that he is at a loss and that something needs to be done in order for him to maintain himself. Indeed, Mathieu literally speaks of maintaining himself, as if otherwise he could lose himself. The measure his friend takes is drastic but it is fully insinuated by Mathieu: Conchita and her Mother get deported from France and move back to Seville. Because the measure taken is so drastic it is a perfect example of the problems Mathieu has with his own behavior. It is not surprising, however, that Mathieu takes such drastic measures for Conchita had just been hiding her young male friend in Mathieu’s house, leading to their second breakup.
For Conchita there are also impulses towards Mathieu, since she acts towards (and away from) him with a similar force. But her impulses have a different constellation, a different setup. Where the impulses that Mathieu shows are clearly sexual, the impulses that Conchita shows are not. This is a simple fact we can distill from Conchita’s continuous rejection of every sexual advance that Mathieu makes. Conchita her impulse are rather based upon a force of greed: What she desires most is the life that Mathieu’s wealth can give her. She more than once remarks that she wants a “life with Mathieu” which can easily be
translated into a comfortable life that involves no money problems. This impulse of greed, then, functions in exactly the same manner as we have seen the sexual impulse of Mathieu work. The force continuously pushes Conchita towards Mathieu, but it is through her values that she also refuses to fully engage into a sexual relationship. At one point she lashes out to Mathieu and says she finds him “old and disgusting, revolting even”, where we finally hear exactly what is causing the discrepancy between Conchita’s impulses and her self- and world-image. For Conchita her own behavior is just as problematic as Mathieu’s behavior is for himself. Though with a different force and different normative values that clash, it is nonetheless the same mechanism. What arises then is a reciprocal relation of the impulses. Mathieu’s impulses are continuously clashing with the impulses that Conchita experiences. These forces colliding only strengthens them as both Mathieu and Conchita give more prominence to them because of the arising discrepancies.
Deleuze already laid this reciprocal setup of the impulses in his conception of the impulse-image. He remarked that the impulses are always a matter of action-reaction in that they invoke another impulse to react upon it. It is a relation of predator and prey, where dependent on the perspective taken the one that enacts the impulses becomes the predator where the other becomes the prey, and vice versa. The opposition of predator-prey is typical for the dichotomies that we find throughout the impulse-image on so many levels. The plane of organization breeds the impulses, but also feeds upon them when they fall back onto it.
Moreover, as explained above in the critical chapter on obsession, the mechanism of such an obsession can work because of the discrepancy that arises within one’s self-image or world-image. With both Mathieu and Conchita this is clearly the case. He acknowledges that his behavior is out of the ordinary, at least for himself, and that is even dangerous for himself. She expresses it more so in her actions to take on sexual relationships with people of her own age, but also makes it explicit when lashing out at Mathieu. Everything revolves around the self-image and world-image that they have. And this self- and world-image is a product of the milieux.
Now this discrepancy that both Mathieu and Conchita are subjected to is enforced by the impossibility to actually attain what is desired. Throughout the entire film both Mathieu and Conchita never attain that which they desire: Mathieu desires to own Conchita, and that is to have his ways with her sexually; Conchita desires to have a life with Mathieu, to enjoy his wealth and to live in a way she can’t at the
moment because of her social position. So it is not only the attitude both have towards the impulses, but also the unattainability of their object of desire that leads to frustration. On every return the impulse turns out to be more frustrating then before because still it does not succeed in attaining that which is desired. So the self-image and world-image work in conjunction with the unattainability in order to produce the hyper-reflection of an obsession.
So the impulses are directly connected to the milieu in how they function at large – both the impulses of Mathieu and of Conchita were taken over the entire film. It is in the milieu that the impulses find their impetus; but what are their effects consequently? This begs the question how these impulses work on a micro-level.
Tearing fragments away
When Mathieu and Conchita first meet, in Mathieu’s house when Conchita is hired as a maid, the first things that Mathieu notices are Conchita’s hands. He notices the delicacy of her hands and remarks that she must have never worked before because her hands are so smooth. The hands are more than just a metaphor, they are a part of the milieu: one has delicate hands in such a milieu, in contrast to the hands of the working class people. We see her hands when she is filling the wine glasses, when Mathieu makes his first advance to her, and when she comes to his chambers he takes her by the hand: The eye glances at the hand, the eye scans the hand, the hand touches the hand, the hand caresses the hand, the hand squeezes the hand, the head move towards the hand, the lips kiss the hand… The hands gain a particular role in the actions of Mathieu: The hands are first stage of Mathieu’s desire for Conchita. That is to say that the desire Mathieu has for Conchita moves through the hands and flows into Conchita. “The object of the impulse is always a partial object.” (MI 132) and we see that here in the behavior of Mathieu. But it are not only the hands that Mathieu’s desire moves through: Mathieu at multiple stages also has a thing for Conchita’s neck, while at a later moment when Conchita is undressed before him it are her breasts which become the object of desire. But disregarding which part of Conchita that Mathieu’s desire at the moment flows through, in the end Mathieu never really fully desires ‘Conchita’. Exactly what Conchita remarks when she says “You do not really love me. You do not truly love me I can feel it.”
If it is not Conchita whom Mathieu really loves, then what is it that he desires? Here we can once again understand the role of ‘lack’ that plays such an important role in That Obscure Object of Desire. As Conchita always rejects Mathieu he never fully gets that which he desires. Now on each and every occasion they meet the impulsive actions become stronger in their desire. And as the impulses become stronger in each encounter, the actions focus more and more on a part of Conchita. During their fourth encounter, when Conchita has moved in with Mathieu, there is a perfect example of this. Mathieu has been holding back his desire in a manner that frustrates him endlessly. But now she stands half naked before him and he can no longer hold back his desire. His hands lash out at the sight of Conchita’s breasts and grab them with a force that shows little to no affection but rather pure lust. This on the one hand characterizes the strengthening of the mechanism at the basis of the impulsive actions, since it seems to spiral out of control. But on the other hand it shows us the effects of these actions as well: Only fragments remain of what is the person Conchita; the more and more these impulsive actions find place, and the more and more they get denied and thus cause frustration for both being denied and for wanting it more, the less does there remain of what was Conchita. And that makes her remark that Mathieu does not completely love here seems justified. We cannot speak of love because it is pure lust that remains, lust through desire for the partial-object. In the end Conchita to Mathieu is nothing more than her hands, her breast, her neck: “The joys of the impulse” – the lust – “cannot be measured against the affect, that is, against the intrinsic qualities of the possible object.” (Deleuze MI 133) Which is, simply put, the result of the force of the impulses: They tear out a fragment from its original context, to consequently redirect all desire upon that fragment; the fragment becomes the virtual center around which desire revolves (LS 343). That fragment is desired with such force that it gains traction and repeatedly reoccurs, denying the object – which is a subject here, namely Conchita – as a whole. The impulse produces desire for a mere fragment of the object, for an idea that is the virtual center. It is the fetishizing of some-thing; it is the fetishizing of Conchita.
Surface of the fetish
What we also see being constructed through this mechanism is the titular surface. The continuous tearing away of fragments from the object (or subject) leads to a shallow space that is inhabited by these mere representations. For Mathieu, when
he touches Conchita he is touching a certain partial-object. Whereas normally that partial-object would allow Mathieu to connect with the entire landscape of whom Conchita is (DD), the desire is now restricted to just that particular part. In doing so the desire starts to be ‘cut-off’ from the potentiality that is Conchita. In any case a form of organization arises where this shallow space acts as a surface on. But at the same time we should not forget the depth that is inextricably tied to this surface, for the surface has no means of being the cause of the impulses, it is merely its effect.
With this we have a manner to understand what happens to affect as a creative force. Indeed, Deleuze remarks that the impulse-image exhausts and degrades affect (MI 132). How does that work in such mechanism? Since all impulsive actions of Mathieu towards Conchita produce the same – it produces the representation of Conchita as a fragment torn out from the original object – there is no longer any room for a creative force. The symptom is then a return of the same that is restrictive towards affect, towards a creative force, and which rather produces mere fragments of that which is desired. These fragments that get fetishized are but mere representations and a degenerate of the affect.
The surface here, then, is a spatial plane where affect is reduced to the same, time and time again. By going onto such a surface, by skimming it, the neurotic disconnects himself from the world in its continuous change. He skims but a fragment, to build with it his own shallow world, a world where the desire is caught and where the “intrinsic qualities of the object” (MI 133) are negated. Mathieu in that sense desires this shallow surface of Conchita while simultaneously for him Conchita is that surface. The mechanism is however confused by certain choices made by Buñuel.
An obscure object
Buñuel approaches the desire and the fetishized partial-objects in a peculiar manner. When we look at the first time Mathieu and Conchita meet, and we see Mathieu touching and caressing Conchita’s hands continuously, it becomes apparent that Buñuel does not, and will continuously refuse to take a close-up of the partial-objects. The camera thus does not cooperate in fragmentizing Conchita even though Mathieu is enacting this. We remember from the second aspect of the impulse-image that the partial-object and the close-up go along side each other: “So the impulse-image is undoubtedly the only case in which the close-up
