Conclusion: Method-Free Orientation

The book's conclusion argues that, with regard to the aesthetic judgement of films, the best orientational method is the absence of method. This does not mean that aesthetic criticism should aim to be entirely unmethodological, but rather that any general method for mastering disorientation will itself be vulnerable to disorientation, and that the critic must be alert to this possibility and hence flexible in method, responsive to the demands films make of us rather than forcing them to fit our predetermined categories. The arguments put forward in the book are briefly summarized, and – after returning once more to John Ford's The Searchers – it is concluded that in many cases disorientation and confusion are not defects to be remedied, but rather crucial to both how and what films mean.

Distinguishing the Indistinguishable: Figures of Imperceptibility and Impossibility in Lost Highway and Caché

This chapter develops the account of figuration constructed in the previous chapter by means of an exploration of a particular figurative operation which it dubs "figurality by indiscernibility". Jacques Tourneur's Night of the Demon (1957), Michael Haneke's Caché (2005), and David Lynch's Lost Highway (1997) all contain images that are visually indistinguishable but which we come to understand to be in some sense distinct. The work of the art historian James Elkins on different kinds of "impossible" image is drawn upon in order to demonstrate the richly disorientating potential of this particular mode of figuration.

Homes for Displaced Figures: Pedro Costa’s Colossal Youth

This chapter consists of a close reading of Pedro Costa's 2006 film Colossal Youth. It demonstrates the many distinctions that it puts in play, arguing that one of the film's achievements is that it does not break down distinctions so much as displace or disorientate them, managing thereby to simultaneously orientate and disorientate the viewer. How it does so is traced by means of the networks of significance which the film puts into play (which are also set out in an appendix that breaks down the film and identifies the structure of motifs that runs through it) and a range of different kinds of figuration, involving figures as persons, as metaphors, and as the kind of shapings that were explored in chapter five. It concludes by proposing that the film demonstrates how the notion of "home" can disturb or confuse the distinction between the literal and the figurative, and shows that a home is something that – just as was argued with regard to a film's coherence in chapter four – needs to be achieved.

Sink or Swim: Immersing Ourselves in Jean-Luc Godard’s Adieu au langage

This chapter consists of a close reading of Jean-Luc Godard's 2014 3D film Adieu au langage. It explores the different immersive qualities of the film (including those generated by its 3D technology) and their relation to the questions of orientation and disorientation that this book has been investigating. It is argued that the film's bewildering surface can mislead us into thinking it is less concerned with narrative than is in fact the case, and that – considering that in some parts of Switzerland "adieu" can mean "hello" as well as goodbye – Adieu au langage need not only be read as a dismissal of language and narrative but also as Godard's way of welcoming them, albeit in a qualified and deliberately confusing manner.

Metalepsis in Film and Its Implications

This chapter concentrates on the rhetorical figure of metalepsis as an important example of the ways that the two senses of confusion distinguished in the prospectus can intersect in narrative films. In film, metalepsis refers to situations in which ontological layers that "should not" be able to intersect nevertheless do so, such as when Buster Keaton enters the cinema screen in Sherlock Jr. (1924). The theory of metalepsis, and what it helps reveal about the ontology of fiction, are explored largely by means of French theory and philosophy (Genette; Souriau). Finally, it is argued that metalepsis can serve as an important reminder that questions about a film's rhetoric – the way it addresses the viewer – can not always be neatly separated from its diegesis. Diegetic status (e.g. whether an event is "real" within the fictional world, or instead a dream, fantasy, or memory) is not a "fact" but a product of a film's rhetoric.

Genres within Genres within Genres: Nested Narrative and Metalepsis

This chapter explores the relationship between genre and orientation by means of studies of two films with heavily nested narratives that are distinguished by genre: Cloud Atlas (Tom Tykwer, Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski, 2012) and The Forbidden Room (Guy Maddin and Evan Johnson, 2015). The more distinct narrative levels a film contains, the more opportunities for metalepsis, and hence for the generation of disorientating effects. But these two films indicate the range of possible ways that complexity and disorientation may relate to one another. Structural diagrams of the two films demonstrate that simplicity of structure by no means necessarily results in ease of orientation for viewers.

Achieving Coherence: Diegesis and Death in Holy Motors

This chapter consists of a close reading of David Lynch's 2006 film INLAND EMPIRE. It proposes that the film is best regarded neither as a puzzle to be solved nor as a bewildering experience that cannot be approached fully rationally. Rather, the ways that it both responds to and resists our inquiries contribute to its distinctive aesthetic, affective, and narrative texture. This is demonstrated by means of three different reading strategies, each of which develop out of gaps, or persisting disorientations, in the preceding strategy. It is concluded that INLAND EMPIRE demonstrates how orientation can be in tension with completeness. There are many ways in which we can grasp Lynch's film, but each of them leaves out one or more aspects of the film, and which things are left out can drastically affect our interpretation.

Prospectus

This prospectus sets out the project and plan of The Cinema of Disorientation under three headings. First, its topic – "inviting confusions" – is explained. Drawing on eighteenth-century aesthetics (Baumgarten, Kant), two senses of "confusion" which are important for the argument of the book as a whole are distinguished: the familiar affective sense ("I'm confused!") and a sense that is closer to "fusion" or "interpenetration" rather than it is to "muddle". Next, the body of work that the book concentrates on – the group of films that can be regarded as comprising the "cinema of disorientation" – is introduced. Finally, the importance of the concept of figuration in this book is introduced, and illustrated with examples from John Ford's The Searchers (1956). The prospectus closes with an outline of the structure of the book as a whole.

‘Disappeared where it’s real hard to disappear’: Three Ways of Getting Lost in INLAND EMPIRE

This chapter articulates and defends an account of cinematic figuration. A definition of figuration as "signification that is significantly aligned with articulation" is constructed, defended, and distinguished from some other accounts, such as that of Kamilla Elliott. Like chapter one, this chapter also draws on traditions of French thought. The work on film of philosopher Jacques Rancière (specifically on Nicholas Ray's 1948 film They Live by Night) and of film scholar Nicole Brenez is used to show that figuration, understood in the manner proposed, can be of great help in grasping that disorientation is not simply a negative experience but is, instead, a field of possibilities with its own characteristics which can be distinguished and discussed.

Figuring (Out) Films: Figuration in Narrative Cinema

This chapter consists of a close reading of Leos Carax's 2012 film Holy Motors. The consistency of the film's diegesis – or the lack thereof – is explored in order to defend the proposition that it is less useful to describe a film as either being coherent (or not) than to see coherence as something that a film can achieve (or fail to do so). Coherence is distinguished from cohesion and consistency, and it is argued that – contrary to what is often assumed – narrative or diegetic inconsistency need not result in the emotional alienation of the viewer. The chapter concludes that Holy Motors represents, among other things, a serious investigation of grief, and that (despite its many contradictions, inconsistencies and moments of apparent incoherence) one of its most significant achievements is that it does not thereby fundamentally disorientate the viewer.