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/MICHEL AUDER /I HAD ANOTHER BIRD TO FEED/
KRABBESHOLM
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Michel Auder: I Had Another Bird to Feed
© Krabbesholm & Michel Auder 2010
Text: Canard Auder by Brigitte Cornand, Truth and Meaning in The Feature by Justin Lieberman, XX
by Michelle Cotton
Danish translation by Annemette Fogh
Photos by Michel Auder
Graphic Design by Michael Stickrod, Kurt Finsten, Per Andersen
Edited by Michael Stickrod
Print: Skive Offset
EAN: 978-87-91197-20-8
Krabbesholm Højskole
Krabbesholm Allé 15
7800 Skive, Denmark
Tel: +45 97 52 02 27
[email protected]
www.krabbesholm.dk
Krabbesholm Bøger/Books:
Ideen Om En Stol/The Idea Of A Chair, 2001
Yvette Brackmann: Imagined Communities, 2001
Michel Auder: Krabbesholm – Mon Amour 2001
Jason Dodge: Autumn Winter Spring Summer Autumn, 2001
Ulrik Heltoft: 52 Days, 2002
Pardo House, 2002
Paul Ouwerkerk: Din 1451, 2002
Anton Vidokle: Here, There, Elsewhere …, 2003
Maden På Krabbesholm, 2003
Lars Tingskov Mikkelsen: R.O.N. Reality Or Nothing, 2004
Alejandra Salinas & Aeron Bergman: Monotonous Ornaments, 2005
Ideen Om En Stol #2/The Idea Of A Chair #2, 2006
Tine Maria Kofoed: Billeder, 2007
The Essence Of Light, 2007
Martin Heidegger: Markvejen, 2007
Krabbesholm Højskole: 100, 2007
Goodiepal: Mort Aux Vaches Ekstra Extra, 2008
Goodiepal: Mort Aux Vaches Ekstra Extra, 2009
Søren Lose: Tomorrowland, 2009
/MICHEL AUDER/
/I HAD ANOTHER BIRD TO FEED/
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/CANARD AUDER/
/ANDEN AUDER/
/by Brigitte Cornand/
/af Brigitte Cornand/
from one moment to another – like human thought. Auder lugged his heavy equipment
on his back through New York, or Los Angeles, wherever meetings, hustles, or drugs
might take him. He used all available means, filming everything in his orbit: the
lodgers at the Chelsea Hotel where he lived with his cats, the neighborhood, a storm
from his window, the hornets, spiders, flies, and snails in the garden, and his family:
Alex as a baby, Alex as a teenager, and his girlfriends, Viva, Cindy. He filmed a street
“documentary” on the first visitors to the World Trade Center, crows flying by, more
political events, revolts, demonstrations, trips to South America, to Morocco, and wild
times with the Warhol crowd. IN the case of the latter, he seemed to observe their
every move and gesture, like a voyeur with a thousand eyes. Not a voyeur like in Jean
Eustache’s film, which I dislike, but rather a voyeur with a sensitivity that dazzles us –
and all to what end?
I first met Michel Auder in Paris in the 1980s, at Louise Lawler’s opening at the Yvon
Lambert gallery. I cooked dinner at my apartment, which was pretty pretty run down
back then – what we’d now call Bohemian. I cooked him a “cassoulet”. We drank, we
ate every morsel! An excellent evening was had by all. Michel was with his wife, Cindy
Sherman, who alternated between laughing boisterously and crying her eyes out, as the
mood took her. Daniel Buren balanced his plate on a little stool, Jean-Hubert Martin
sat on the ground, and Herman Dalhed arrived in a dinner jacket, thinking he was
about to meet distinguished collectors.
Later, I called Michel in New York to see if he could find an Andy Warhol or Cindy
Sherman excerpt in his video archives for one of my documentaries, but his response
was always the same:
“No idea where it is … I’ve thousands of hours of tape piled up in my studio … Don’t
have time to look.” Auder never built his stories solely by dipping into what he called
his long past. For over thirty years, he had captured a host of little moments from his
life on video, without ever going near them again.
Keeping Busy dates from 1969. It’s a 16 mm black and white film, damaged in places,
but not to its detriment. In the film, two characters talk about “Blue Movie”, Andy
Warhol’s new X-rated film starring Viva and Louis Waldon. There’s a close up of the
factory’s two charismatic actors, along with Michel, whom we can see, or at least hear
speaking. Then we follow this little band of buddies in Rome (for another film, this
time by Philippe Garrel). The scene is a raucous lunch, to which I’d really loved to
have been invited. Michel has just met Viva. He sketches the portrait of his pretty new
Underground cinema, before the term was became clichéd and ubiquitous, was the
antithesis of Hollywood-style cinematic construction. Underground cinema has a free,
fluid editing style where the notion of time doesn’t exist. It flits, without transition,
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Jeg mødte Michel Auder for første gang i Paris engang i 80’erne til åbningen af Louise
Lawlers udstilling i Galleri Yvon Lambert. Jeg havde lavet middag hjemme hos mig.
Lejligheden, som jeg havde på det tidspunkt, var temmelig nedslidt – nu om dage ville
man vel kalde den for en boheme-lejlighed – og den aften havde jeg lavet en gryderet,
en ‘cassoulet’. Vi drak, vi sang og vi spiste hver en bid! Alle havde en fantastisk aften.
Michel var der sammen med sin kone, Cindy, som enten var ved at dø af grin eller briste
i gråd. Buren balancerede sin tallerken på en lille taburet, Jean-Hubert Martin sad på
gulvet, og Herman Dalhed ankom i smoking, fordi han troede, at han skulle mødes med
fremtrædende kunstsamlere.
stil, hvor tidsbegrebet ikke eksisterer, en stil, som springer uden ophold fra det ene
øjeblik til det andet ligesom menneskers tankegang. Auder slæbte sit tunge udstyr på
ryggen gennem New Yorks eller Los Angeles’ gader, hvor møder, jobs eller stoffer end
førte ham hen. Han brugte alle kneb, det vil sige, han filmede alt inden for rækkevidde:
Lejerne på Chelsea Hotel, hvor han boede med sine katte, nabolaget af samme navn,
en storm, som han så den fra sine vinduer, hvepse, edderkopper, fluer, sneglene i haven,
sin familie,… Alex som baby, Alex som teenager, sine kærester, Viva, Cindy, selv sin
gade-‘dokumentarfilm’ om de første besøgende til World Trade Center, krager, og indimellem politiske begivenheder,… oprør, demonstrationer, … rejser til Sydamerika, til
Marokko, vilde udskejelser med Warhol-slænget, hvor han registrerede selv den mindste bevægelse, lidt ligesom en voyeur med tusind øjne. En voyeur, helt ulig filmen med
samme titel af Jean Eustache, en film, som giver mig kvalme, snarere en voyeur, hvis
følsomhed slår benene væk under os. … Med hvilket formål?
I New York ringede jeg senere til Michel flere gange for at spørge, om han kunne finde
et videouddrag med Andy Warhol eller Cindy Sherman i sine arkiver til en af mine
kunstdokumentarfilm. Men svaret var altid det samme: “Jeg aner ikke, hvor det er …
Jeg har videobånd til tusindvis af timer liggende i mit studie ... Jeg har ikke tid til at lede
...” Auder byggede aldrig bare sine fortællinger op ved at dykke ned i det, han kaldte
for sin lange fortid. På mere end tredive år samlede han mængder af små øjeblikke fra
sit liv på video, som han bare gemte af vejen i et uoverskueligt arkiv.
Keeping Busy er en sort/hvid 16 mm-film fra 1969, nogle steder helt ødelagt, uden at
det er til skade for filmen. To personer taler om ‘Blue Movie’, Andy Warhols nye film:
Viva og Louise Waldon er stjernerne i filmen, som er uegnet for børn under 18. Nærbilleder af de to karismatiske skuespillere fra Warhols fabrik, hans studie ‘The Factory’,
sammen med Michel, som vi kan se eller høre tale. Så møder vi den lille kreds af venner
i Rom (til en anden film, denne gang af Philippe Garrel) midt i en højrøstet frokost,
Det var undergrundsarbejde i den betydning, ordet havde, inden det blev brugt om
hvad som helst; det var ikke en konstruktion fra Hollywood, men en fri og flydende
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girlfriend, as she is: Diva, Viva Diva, eccentric, funny, with such refined gestures. It’s a
world that no longer exists, but there it is, before our very eyes for our delight.
It reminds me of something Louise Bourgeois wrote in one of her notebooks: “The
sterility of the real, and the magic of memory.”
I didn’t experience the periods featured in these films first hand, but Michel and I have
spoken about them thoroughly, and I’ve seen images of them in his films and videos. I
know his messy Brooklyn studio, just as chaotic as it is in that photo from 1969 where
he poses with all his equipment and video screens, as printed in the catalogue. In fact,
that dinner where we first met could easily have entered into the annals of his video
diary: a plate with a few stray beans, preferably Soissons, and a couple of bacon rinds.
It looked like a still life painting, similar to what we would later see in many of his
projects and ideas in progress, like the images of food in The Feature, from 2006.
The Feature is a tribute to all his actors, friends, and lovers. The film focuses on a single
figure, played by Michel, but a composite of several characters. As some writers like
to do, Michel presents figures he had met in his lifetime, all of which become, in the
end, a single being. He, the artist hero, revisits his past – the places of his childhood, of
yesterday and today. The Feature is a classic film, exploring the great themes of art –
love, death, and life.
There he was, Duck Auder, looking like a teenager, conducting a motley crew of
waitresses, collectors, artists, rabbis, students (of his Duckship), alcoholics, sexy babes,
and losers in search of an ear. Like a maestro, Michel nonchalantly fired off jokes,
usually about snatches of his life, or a current project. He spoke as if he were opening
some invisible encyclopedia at random, in which each person in his vicinity has their
own entry, or like specimens in the Paris store of taxidermist Emile Deyrolle, all of
which might play some role in one of his stories.
“Quack, quack,” says Duck, “yeah, I know the guy sitting at the bar over there. What a
bore.”
“Quack, quack, quack, yeah, I filmed him in … And the chick next to him was one of
the leading lights of the Lower East Side.”
“Quack, quack, quack, quack, well, I’m heading back to the studio to work. I’m
running late, I’ve got two exhibitions, three videos, and folks coming over to see my
work. I don’t know what to show them.”
“Quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, we’ll talk on the phone later. I’ll tell you if I’m
coming for dinner. But now I’ll take off like a wild duck.”
hvor jeg ville have elsket at være med. Michel har lige mødt Viva – han tegner et portræt
af sin kønne veninde, præcis som hun er: Diva, Viva Diva, excentrisk, sjov og med helt
utroligt forfinede bevægelser – i en verden, som ikke længere findes, og som alligevel er
lige foran øjnene på os til vores store glæde.
And with that, he left his “office”. On the way out he has already taken a couple of
photos with his mobile phone, gleaned a few impressions bantering with a colleague
whose work he knows, and so forth. Today’s digital video cameras are tiny, they slip
with ease into a jacket pocket. This is the time when Auder decides to show his work.
The Feature er en hyldest til alle hans skuespillere/venner/elskere centreret omkring en
enkelt figur – som han selv spillede – sammensat af mange personer, sådan som nogle
forfattere kan lide at gøre det, personer, han havde mødt i sit liv, der ender som én figur.
Han – kunstnerhelten – vender tilbage til sin fortid, til sin barndom, verden af i går og
i dag. The Feature stiller de klassiske spørgsmål til kunstens store temaer: Kærlighed,
død og liv.
Thanks to Comte de Buffon’s Histoire naturelle, we know that the duck is a
particularly interesting bird, an animal of both land and air. What’s more, the feathers
of the Eider (Somateria mollissima) are so soft, light and warm that they are used to
produce eiderdown. The duck is quite different from other birds, writes Buffon:
“The eider is about the size of a goose. The plumage of the male is mainly black and
white, and has quite the opposite disposition from what we observe in most birds,
which are generally darker in color on the upper body than the lower. The eider,
When I moved to New York, I called Michel (or Canard “the Duck” Auder, as
his friends call him). It was as if I had just left him the night before. He was at his
headquarters, a restaurant named “Chez Lucien”. Its owner, Lucien Bahaj is renowned
for his generosity towards artists and friends. He’s called Duck because there’s not
much difference between the word Eider and Auder, and both Eider and Auder go
quack, quack, quack.
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Der sad han så, Anden Auder, som en anden teenager, og dirigerede sit brogede mandskab bestående af servitricer, samlere, kunstnere, rabbinere, studerende (under Hans
Nåde, Anden) alkoholikere, labre larver og tabere, som ledte efter nogen, som ville lægge øre til, hvad de havde at sige. Mesteren fyrede nonchalant vittigheder af med bidder
fra hans liv eller et igangværende projekt. Det var, som om han slog op i en encyklopædi på en tilfældig side, hvor hver eneste person, der blev omtalt – ligesom insekterne
i den parisiske konservatorforretning Deyrolles – måske en dag ville optræde i en af
hans historier.
“Rap, rap – Ja, jeg kender godt den fyr, der sidder i baren . . . Dødkedelig.”
“Rap, rap, rap – Ja, jeg filmede ham i … Og den sild, som sidder ved siden af ham, var
et af de store håb på Lower East Side.”
“Rap, rap, rap, rap – Nå, jeg må se at komme tilbage til mit studie for at arbejde … Jeg
er sent på den. Jeg har to udstillinger, tre videoer og folk, som kommer for at se mit
arbejde … Jeg ved ikke, hvad jeg skal vise dem.”
“Rap, rap, rap, rap, rap – Lad os snakke sammen i telefon senere. Jeg giver besked, hvis
jeg kommer og spiser … Men nu vil jeg flyve af sted som en vildand.”
Jeg kommer til at tænke på Louise Bourgeois, som skrev i en af sine notesbøger: “Virkelighedens sterilitet over for hukommelsens magi.”
Jeg var ikke selv med ved de lejligheder, som jeg omtaler, men vi har snakket om dem,
og jeg har set dem i nogle af hans film og videoer. Jeg kender hans rodede Brooklynstudie, lige så uoverskueligt som på fotografiet fra 1969 trykt i kataloget, hvor han
poserer med alt sit udstyr og sine videoskærme. Faktisk kunne den middag, hvor vi
mødtes første gang, være indskrevet i arkiverne til hans videodagbog: En tallerken med
nogle få bønner, helst Soissons-bønner, samt et par strimler baconfedt, som et stilllebenmaleri magen til det, vi senere skulle møde i de mangfoldige projekter og ideer, som
han arbejdede med. Som maden, vi ser i The Feature fra 2006.
Endelig forlader han sit kontor. I mellemtiden har han taget et par fotos med sin mobiltelefon, samlet et par indtryk, mens han spøgte med en kollega, hvis arbejde han kender,
og så videre, og så videre. Moderne videokameraer er digitale, de er lette at putte i lommen. Nu er tiden kommet, hvor Anden Auder beslutter sig for at vise sit arbejde.
Takket være Buffon ved vi, at anden er en meget interessant fugl, fordi den både færdes
i vand og på land. Desuden er edderfuglens fjer (somateria mollissima) så bløde, lette og
varme, at de har givet os den berømte edderdunsdyne. Den er helt forskellig fra andre
fugle, skriver Buffon: “Edderfuglen er på størrelse med en gås. Hannens fjerdragt er
hovedsagelig sort og hvid, og farverne er helt anderledes fordelt end hos de fleste fugle,
som almindeligvis er mørkere i farven på overkroppen. Edderfuglen er hvid på ryggen
med en sort eller mørkebrun underkrop …”
Da jeg flyttede til New York, opsøgte jeg Michel Auder (eller Anden Auder, for nu at
bruge hans kælenavn) og det føltes, som om jeg havde set ham i går. Jeg fandt ham i
hans ‘hovedkvarter’, en restaurant ved navn ‘Chez Lucien’, opkaldt efter sin indehaver,
som var berømt for at beværte sine mange kunstnervenner. Fra edder til Auder er der
kun et par tag med svømmefødderne. … Både edderfugl og and siger rap, rap, rap.
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however, has a white back and a black or darkish-brown underbelly …”
“Obsession or confusion?” as Louise Bourgeois would say.
And the story of the ugly duckling? Well, that’s a notion that suits our friend Duck
Auder to a tee!
“I record the life around me,” says Michel, “I intercut it with my observations via my
camera. I use documentary techniques to carry out my portraits. Just like a painter, I’m
a portraitist.”
Now, I pose a question: How does an artist like Auder, who spent a great deal of time
with Warhol, avoid simply making Warholian films and videos? Especially considering
the fact that Andy was such a catalyst for Auder.
And his splendid portraits include Alice Neel, who herself had done an incredible
tableau of Warhol and his stitches, following the attack by Valerie Solanas. Neel was a
master of psychological portraiture when capturing those close to her, whether famous
or not, and she became friends with Auder. Using small brushstrokes, Michel did her
portrait between 1976 and 1982, revealing the great lady speaking of her work and
friends. We see her seated at her easel, painting in her studio, among piles of canvasses,
each one revealing the character of the subject who had posed. Next, we see her feeding
pigeons at her kitchen window, or receiving friends. Look, there’s Taylor Mead! Later,
we find her on vacation, hair blowing in the wind, the sea and the horizon in the
background. As if she were about to set out on a journey. Auder’s very moving portrait
of this wonderful artist, recognized late in her career, doubtless inspired her grandson
Andrew Neel, to make a documentary film about his grandmother some years later, codirected The Feature. After all he’s one of the family!
First, begin by casting all your pet actors: Viva, Taylor Mead, Louis Waldon, Brigid
Polke. Agree to make a Hollywood movie with real funding on the condition that no
one bothers you with any lessons or advice. The result was Michel’s film Cleopatra
1970. He has very little footage from this feature, which borders on a Pasolinian frenzy.
“When I film,” recounts Michel, “I often think of the artists who have influenced me:
Jean Rouch, Mekas, Godard too. Thanks to them, I managed to make films, videos,
because what they were offering was different; there, it was possible.”
Second, take the title of a film, Chelsea Girls, the sheer freedom of which made a lasting
impression on the Michel, as did its use of a split screen to show several actions at once,
and simply augment it. In Michel’s film Chelsea Girls with Andy Warhol, Warhol
becomes one of Michel’s actor – and he is quite a player.
We know the old refrain: every portrait an artist paints is actually part of his own. Just
look at the paintings of Madame Vigée-Lebrun to understand what I mean. Her selfportrait in a straw hat is amazingly similar to the portrait painted of Marie-Antoinette
– and that’s just one example!
To break up and destroy what exists in order to build one’s own work into something
new and beautiful, that is art. Deconstructionist? Perhaps, Duck Auder ought to know,
he was born in Soissons. Oh, and if I may, I’d like to ask Duck Auder a question: who
broke the Soissons Vase? Quack, quack, quack!
Today, this practice has a name: it’s called the reappropriationist movement, and it’s
characterized by young artists in the 1990s who cited works of conceptual art in their
own works.
My favorite scene is of Viva in bed with her newborn Alex. Nearby, stands the cradle,
full of white lace. Brigid Polke is there too. Andy comes into the shot, says a few
words, looks at the baby, and then proceeds to strafe the infant with his Polaroid.
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Besættelse eller forvirring? Som Louise Bourgouis ville sige.
Et spørgsmål om at være den grimme ælling? Det er en forestilling, som passer vores
ven, Anden Auder, fortræffeligt.
Michel: “Jeg registrerer livet omkring mig. Jeg krydsklipper med mine observationer
ved hjælp af mit kamera. Jeg anvender dokumentarteknikker til at lave mine portrætter.
Ligesom en maler. Jeg er portrætmaler.”
Spørgsmål: Hvordan undgår man at lave Warhol, når man hænger ud med Warhol næsten hver dag, når man også laver film og videoer? Og desuden, når man ved, hvilken
katalysator Andy var for Auder.
Blandt hans blændende portrætter er det af Alice Neel, som selv havde lavet et utroligt
tableau med Warhol, som var syet sammen på kryds og tværs, efter at Valery Solanas
havde angrebet ham. Alice Neel blev ven med Michel Auder. Hun var mester i psykologiske portrætter af dem, som stod hende nær. Med små penselstrøg lavede Michel
Auder også hendes portræt mellem 1976 og 1982, hvor den berømte dame taler om sit
arbejde og sine venner. Vi ser hende sidde og male ved staffeliet i sit atelier mellem stakkevis af lærreder; hvert af dem afslører modellens personlighed; så ser vi hende fodre
duer i sit køkkenvindue eller få besøg af venner … Hey, der er Taylor Mead! Senere
møder vi hende på ferie med håret flagrende i vinden, med havet og horisonten som
baggrund. Som om hun skulle til at begive sig ud på en rejse … Auders meget bevægende portræt af denne dejlige kunstner, som først blev anerkendt sent i sin karriere,
har uden tvivl inspireret hendes barnebarn Andrew Neel til at lave en dokumentarfilm
om sin bedstemor nogle år senere, og til at producere og med-instruere Michel Auders
The Feature. Han hører jo trods alt til familien!
1 – begynd med at caste alle dine yndlingsskuespillere – Viva, Taylor, Mead, Louis Waldon, Bridgid Polke … og gå så i gang med en Hollywoodfilm med penge i, på betingelse af, at ingen nærmer sig for at holde foredrag eller komme med gode råd.
Cleopatra 1970, en film, hvoraf han har mistet næsten det hele, grænser til Pasolinilignende vanvid. “Når jeg filmer,” fortæller Michel, “tænker jeg tit på de kunstnere,
som har påvirket mig: Jean Rouch, Mekas, også Godard. Takket være dem lykkedes det
mig at lave film og videoer, fordi det, de kom med, var anderledes; de gjorde det muligt.”
2 – Tag bare titlen på filmen Chelsea Girl – som gjorde et uudsletteligt indtryk på
kunstneren på grund af dens suveræne frihed, og fordi den viste flere handlinger samtidig takket være split-screens – og tilføj “Chealsea Girls with Andy Warhol”. Andy
Warhol bliver på den måde Michels skuespiller. Og Warhol er ikke nogen dårlig skuespiller.
Vi kender det gamle omkvæd: ethvert portræt er en del af dit eget. Man behøver bare at
kigge på Madame Vigée-Lebruns malerier for at forstå, hvad jeg mener. Hendes selvportræt i stråhat ligner til forveksling det portræt, hun malede af Marie-Antoinette – og
det er blot ét eksempel.
At nedbryde og ødelægge det, som findes, for at gøre sit eget værk til noget nyt og smukt,
er også kunst. Dekonstruktion? Anden Auder burde vide det, han blev født i Soissons.
Og jeg spørger Anden Auder: Hvem slog Soissons-vasen i stykker? Rap, rap, rap!
En sådan praksis har i dag et navn: den hedder reappropriationist-bevægelsen og refererer til 90’erne, hvor mange unge kunstnere citerede andres konceptkunstværker i deres
egne værker.
Min favoritscene – Viva i sengen med sin nyfødte Alex – vuggen står ved siden af pyntet
med hvide blonder – Brigid Polke er der også – Andy kommer ind i billedfeltet, siger et
par ord, kigger på babyen, og begynder at beskyde barnet med sit polaroidkamera.
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/TRUTH AND MEANING IN “THE FEATURE”/
/TRUTH AND MEANING IN “THE FEATURE”/
/by Justin Lieberman/
/by Justin Lieberman/
The Feature, 2008, 180 minutes, co-directed by Michel Auder and Andrew Neel.
its meaning. Its scope is massive, encompassing a period of time no shorter than 40
years, and yet it is an extremely focused film, one which drives at its point directly and
without hesitation or moral compunction. In this, it is an act of autobiographical documentary filmmaking with little or no precedent. It has been said of The Feature, that it
shows us a man whose life is more interesting than his art. (1) This is a view which presupposes to know that the life and art of Michel Auder are one, or at least that his art
presents us with an accurate account of the details of his life. It is incorrect, but not for
the obvious reason which it seems to take for granted. Here, I would like to discuss the
particular way in which the art of Michel Auder actually precedes what we might think
of as his life while simultaneously creating a space in which a life-as-art might emerge.
Myself – “Who is this filmmaker you talk about in The Feature, Phillipe something?
You say all the films were lost, and he took copies and scratched them up. You say, ‘
That’s how the films ended, you know? In a puff of smoke.”
Michel Auder – “in 1968 some french guy was running a festival in geneva and i gave
him all my films went to america and forgot about it for 5 years forgot his name for
ever ... and i just made up his name.”
Michel Auder’s films and videos up to The Feature (2008) depict a bohemian world of
excess inhabited by artists, writers, junkies, prostitutes, and the idle rich. Throughout
the seventies he produced a number of short films which seemed to evince a desire to
break down the boundaries between art and life, recording unscripted events as they
unfolded among a group of his friends and acquaintances. These films are often rife
with provocation, transgression, sex, drugs, and emotional outbursts, and Auder himself tends to take a central role even when he does not appear on the screen. The Feature, made in collaboration with Andrew Neel, is both a continuation and a dramatic
rupture within the timeline constituted by this oeuvre, one that both alters and posits
Michel Auder uses and re-uses old footage and old photographs extensively in his
work. The images presented in this book do not merely represent past production.
Many of them are new works printed for the first time here. This is also true of large
sections of his recent film The Feature. These aged materials seem to invoke a kind
of authenticity. They almost shamelessly parade their access to the real. Why is this
the case? Theodor Adorno refers to this phenomenon in an essay regarding the phonograph. The more audible the technology itself (the scratchier the record), the more
“present” the speaker. The more accurately the original sound is captured and reproduced, the more alienated and distant the speaker becomes. Is this not also the case with
44
its meaning. Its scope is massive, encompassing a period of time no shorter than 40
years, and yet it is an extremely focused film, one which drives at its point directly and
without hesitation or moral compunction. In this, it is an act of autobiographical documentary filmmaking with little or no precedent. It has been said of The Feature, that it
DA life is more interesting than his art. (1) This is a view which preshows us a man whose
NS
supposes to know that the
Klife and art of Michel Auder are one, or at least that his art
OV of the details of his life. It is incorrect, but not for
presents us with an accurate account
E
the obvious reason which it seems R
toStake
Æ for granted. Here, I would like to discuss the
particular way in which the art of MichelTAuder
TE actually precedes what we might think
LS in which a life-as-art might emerge.
of as his life while simultaneously creating a space
The Feature, 2008, 180 minutes, co-directed by Michel Auder and Andrew Neel.
Myself - “Who is this filmmaker you talk about in The Feature, Phillipe something?
You say all the filmsDwere lost, and he took copies and scratched them up. You say, ‘
NS you know? In a puff of smoke.”
That’s how the films A
ended,
K
OV
ER guy was running a festival in geneva and i gave
Michel Auder - “in 1968 some french
Æ about it for 5 years forgot his name for
him all my films went to america andSforgot
TT
ever... and i just made up his name.”
EL
SE
EF
FØ
ØL
LG
GE
Michel Auder uses and re-uses old footage and old photographs
extensively in his
R past production.
work. The images presented in this book do not merely represent
Many of them are new works printed for the first time here. This is also true of large
sections of his recent film The Feature. These aged materials seem to invoke a kind
of authenticity. They almost shamelessly parade their access to the real. Why is this
the case? Theodor Adorno refers to this phenomenon in an essay regarding the phonograph. The more audible the technology itself (the scratchier the record), the more
“present” the speaker. The more accurately the original sound is captured and reproduced, the more alienated and distant the speaker becomes. Is this not also the case with
ER a bohemian world of
Michel Auder’s films and videos up to The Feature (2008) depict
excess inhabited by artists, writers, junkies, prostitutes, and the idle rich. Throughout
the seventies he produced a number of short films which seemed to evince a desire to
break down the boundaries between art and life, recording unscripted events as they
unfolded among a group of his friends and acquaintances. These films are often rife
with provocation, transgression, sex, drugs, and emotional outbursts, and Auder himself tends to take a central role even when he does not appear on the screen. The Feature, made in collaboration with Andrew Neel, is both a continuation and a dramatic
rupture within the timeline constituted by this oeuvre, one that both alters and posits
45
of address. Nor is it a film like Rashomon, where multiple points of view destroy the
notion of singular truth. At no point are we given another narrative besides the singular
chain of events related to us by Auder himself, and despite its audacity, this is nevertheless the truth of the film. That this truth seems to come into conflict at times with
“what really happened” should lead us to the conclusion that the object of interrogation here is the Real itself. The Feature is not a work which presupposes its authors’ access to the Real. For all of its parody, it does not seek to reveal any particular hypocrisy
on the parts of its subjects. Auder knows no more than they do, and does not pretend
otherwise. The Feature’s attitude towards the Real continually presents itself as one of
nonchalance or ambivalence. “Who cares what really happened?”(2) But this is not, as it
might at first seem, an attitude of cynical disavowal or a lapse into solipsism. It is actually the “proper” attitude insofar as it is the only one which can allow the Real to occur.
Auder has occasionally been compared to Nan Goldin, a photographer whose images
seem to hinge on their unmediated access to real people, situations, and emotions. This
is a mistake. Goldin’s work posits the Real as being solidly located in the human body.
Her themes of sex, death, and relationships are expounded in ways that are unquestionably direct. We may see people role-playing, but what we are being shown is not the
role but the humanity of the player as it occurs in this or that person’s corporeal form
and its attendant fragility. Goldin tears away the mask, and in doing so the body becomes a sort of fetish object onto which meaning is projected. (3) This is far cry from
Auder’s work, in which there is no “human subject” behind the role being played. In
The Feature, it is the role itself that is human, and this is what makes the work so difficult to confront. Because when we look too closely at these subjects, they simply disappear. In Auder’s videos the surface behavior is the true location of each subject. A human body as shown in The Feature may in fact be the character, and the subjectivity the
characters possess may in fact be produced by these bodies, but it cannot (as opposed
to Goldin) be located there. In The Feature, the self of the subjects is like a ghost in the
machine. This means that the truth of Auder’s subjects is not that they are limited, finite
beings and when they are dead there will be only rotting remains, but instead that they
successive generations of video recording equipment? As the image quality becomes
more clear and crisp up to and including current hi-def cameras and monitors, we become more and more skeptical of what it is we are seeing. It is not necessarily the patina
of age that lends mechanical reproduction its convincing qualities, but the willingness
of the machine to disclose itself as mediator. In The Feature, obviously staged footage
shot by Andrew Neel with new equipment is interspersed with the “real” footage from
years ago. Our first reaction is to see the recent footage as a fictional framing device for
the older work which was “true” and unmediated by staging and intention. (Staging
and intention are of course the locations to which we displace our need for mediation
in the absence of the palpable presence of technology.) We might think of it as a process
of fictionalizing one’s own autobiography. If we approach it in this way, we find that
within the film there are events which are “lies” and events which are “true”. But what
determines this difference has little or nothing to do with the events as they happened,
only with the particular technology used to represent them. From this standpoint, it is
easy to imagine footage shot recently with an old camera, and inserted into the “true”
sections of the film. These would then be no more or less truthful than the others like
them. What this reveals is not that everything in the film is now false and/or unreliable.
Instead it presents a picture of truth as appearances, and in looking at The Feature, we
find that this is precisely the case.
Despite factual manipulations and its collaborative nature, The Feature does not seek
to present a deconstructed view of the author. Auder’s voiceovers maintain a singular
and even tone throughout. It is driven by a particular outlook, a particular point of
view. What we see is never a pastiche, a lot of examples of different points of view. Authorship asserts and maintains its presence in every scene. In The Feature, it is not the
author whose role is to be questioned through an examination of “real” facts, but rather
reality and history whose role it is to be questioned by the author.
So the object of interrogation in the Feature is not the author nor any particular mode
46
of address. Nor is it a film like Rashomon, where multiple points of view destroy the
notion of singular truth. At no point are we given another narrative besides the singular
chain of events related to us by Auder himself, and despite its audacity, this is nevertheless the truth of the film. That this truth seems to come into conflict at times with
“what really happened” should lead us to the conclusion that the object of interrogation here is the Real itself. The Feature is not a work which presupposes its authors’ access to the Real. For all of its parody, it does not seek to reveal any particular hypocrisy
on the parts of its subjects. Auder knows no more than they do, and does not pretend
otherwise. The Feature’s attitude towards the Real continually presents itself as one of
DA
nonchalance or ambivalence.
NS “Who cares what really happened?”(2) But this is not, as it
might at first seem, an attitude
K of cynical disavowal or a lapse into solipsism. It is actuO
ally the “proper” attitude insofarVasEit is the only one which can allow the Real to occur.
R Nan Goldin, a photographer whose images
Auder has occasionally been comparedSto
Æ
TTreal people, situations, and emotions. This
seem to hinge on their unmediated access to
EL
is a mistake. Goldin’s work posits the Real as being
SEsolidly located in the human body.
FØ in ways that are unquestionHer themes of sex, death, and relationships are expounded
LG being shown is not the
ably direct. We may see people role-playing, but what we are
ER
role but the humanity of the player as it occurs in this or that person’s corporeal form
and its attendant fragility. Goldin tears away the mask, and in doing so the body becomes a sort of fetish object onto which meaning is projected. (3) This is far cry from
Auder’s work, in which there is no “human subject” behind the role being played. In
The Feature, it is the role itself that is human, and this is what makes the work so difficult to confront. Because when we look too closely at these subjects, they simply disappear. In Auder’s videos the surface behavior is the true location of each subject. A human body as shown in The Feature may in fact be the character, and the subjectivity the
characters possess may in fact be produced by these bodies, but it cannot (as opposed
to Goldin) be located there. In The Feature, the self of the subjects is like a ghost in the
machine. This means that the truth of Auder’s subjects is not that they are limited, finite
beings and when they are dead there will be only rotting remains, but instead that they
successive generations of video recording equipment? As the image quality becomes
more clear and crisp up to and including current hi-def cameras and monitors, we become more and more skeptical of what it is we are seeing. It is not necessarily the patina
of age that lends mechanical reproduction its convincing qualities, but the willingness
of the machine to disclose itself as mediator. In The Feature, obviously staged footage
shot by Andrew Neel with new equipment is interspersed with the “real” footage from
years ago. Our first reaction is to see the recent footage as a fictional framing device for
the older work which was “true” and unmediated by staging and intention. (Staging
and intention are of course
DA the locations to which we displace our need for mediation
NS presence of technology.) We might think of it as a process
in the absence of the palpable
K
of fictionalizing one’s own autobiography.
If we approach it in this way, we find that
OV
ER are “lies” and events which are “true”. But what
within the film there are events which
SÆ to do with the events as they happened,
determines this difference has little or nothing
T
EL
only with the particular technology used to T
represent
them. From this standpoint, it is
E F and inserted into the “true”
easy to imagine footage shot recently with an oldScamera,
ØLtruthful than the others like
sections of the film. These would then be no more or less
GE
them. What this reveals is not that everything in the film is now
R false and/or unreliable.
Instead it presents a picture of truth as appearances, and in looking at The Feature, we
find that this is precisely the case.
Despite factual manipulations and its collaborative nature, The Feature does not seek
to present a deconstructed view of the author. Auder’s voiceovers maintain a singular
and even tone throughout. It is driven by a particular outlook, a particular point of
view. What we see is never a pastiche, a lot of examples of different points of view. Authorship asserts and maintains its presence in every scene. In The Feature, it is not the
author whose role is to be questioned through an examination of “real” facts, but rather
reality and history whose role it is to be questioned by the author.
So the object of interrogation in the Feature is not the author nor any particular mode
47
ambiguous nature of his story. This does not serve to withdraw meaning from the life
of the characters, but rather to preserve it by allowing it to have occurred for a reason
which does not succumb to the prerogatives of fetishistic notions of free will and selfhood. The Feature is a film that allows people and events to emerge as subjects in and
of themselves. Auder’s vision of the life of an artist hinges on the notion of free acts,
yet The Feature does not propose these acts as a result of will. There is no “cause”, no
individual subject’s assertion. Auder is not a puppet-master of his subjects who uses
editing as an instrument of control. Nor is he a revisionist, modifying events to suit
his purposes. The acts emerge fully formed out of a space that permits them to occur.
(4) This space is opened up by a dialogue between Auder the filmmaker and Auder the
character (as well as the other characters) which reverberates in a kind of self perpetuating feedback loop. From these reverberations emerge subjects capable of having made
choices, and choices capable of having been free. In this way, The Feature at first models, and then ultimately embodies the process of the emergence of consciousness.
are infinite beings, their subjectivity transferred from one machine (their bodies) to
another (the video). No substantial loss takes place in this transference. While this may
initially sound like a McLuhan-ism, a key factor is that no substantial gain takes place
either. There is no transcendence in the transfer. No digital ecstasy accompanies it. Viva
does not become a saint, nor Michel himself. They do not become more or less real.
They continue on as they were, their subjectivity completely intact.
By sanctioning the notion of a singular authorial voice, The Feature allows reality to
occur unimpeded by a structure that might “make sense” of it. It is common observation that a sign of the success of a collaborative artistic effort would be just this singularity. This is easy to discern in Feature, where both Neel and Auder place themselves
at the service of the narrative. But in this case, the act may be even more radical than it
first appears, because the narrative of the film is nothing short of the life story of one of
its authors. Auder’s singular authorial voice is thus embedded in the very structure of
the film, from its first moments to its last. Yet he does not attempt to take possession of
it. The film is a collaborative project between Auder and Neel, and this finds its perfect
correlative in the “collaborative project” we see between Auder and every other human
subject who appears on the screen. Here we begin to experience the nature of Auder’s
permissiveness, his extreme disregard for authority in all forms, most of all his own. We
might say that The Feature first performs a dissolution of authority, and secondly a reification of the notion of collective authorship in which the many speak as the one.
Auder’s body of work is not prolific in the sense that we usually understand this word.
It does not illuminate a broad section of culture through the application of his vision to
an endless range of of topics. Instead, it is a tightly focused beam set behind himself and
casting his shadow forward in time. This shadow would have darkened his path from
the beginning of The Feature to the end, causing him to walk blindly. But this is not
what happened, because forty years later, he turns around and points this light backwards, illuminating the path for himself to walk. The Feature retroactively posits a life
lived with singular purpose.
The ethical decisions regarding the character of Michel Auder and his supporting cast
actually seem more questionable than they might have outside the narrative, where they
would be mitigated by an infinite number of increasingly complicated factors, an endless procession of “Yes, but, ...”. The character Michel seems to drift through his own
life as an observer, a voyeur, a man without qualities, but when we examine the nature
of this drifting, we can see that the filmmaker Auder has ruthlessly censored these
mitigating factors which might have given it a “purpose”, thereby intrumentalizing the
Throughout the film, Auder returns to moments from his past, inserting intentions,
reasons, free choices and, along with Neel, coherent narrative structure into a life that
might otherwise be an unwatchable chaos of thousands of hours of recorded events in
real time. Indeed, the tapes, films, and hard drives sitting on his shelves are just that.
But The Feature is not the map of of Borges. It is not a life-size map of reality, laid over
48
ambiguous nature of his story. This does not serve to withdraw meaning from the life
of the characters, but rather to preserve it by allowing it to have occurred for a reason
which does not succumb to the prerogatives of fetishistic notions of free will and selfhood. The Feature is a film that allows people and events to emerge as subjects in and
of themselves. Auder’s vision of the life of an artist hinges on the notion of free acts,
yet The Feature does not propose these acts as a result of will. There is no “cause”, no
individual subject’s
DAassertion. Auder is not a puppet-master of his subjects who uses
NS of control. Nor is he a revisionist, modifying events to suit
editing as an instrument
K
his purposes. The acts emerge
OV fully formed out of a space that permits them to occur.
(4) This space is opened up byEaR
dialogue between Auder the filmmaker and Auder the
SÆ which reverberates in a kind of self perpetuatcharacter (as well as the other characters)
TT
ing feedback loop. From these reverberations
EL emerge subjects capable of having made
SE In this way, The Feature at first modchoices, and choices capable of having been free.
FØ
els, and then ultimately embodies the process of the
emergence
of consciousness.
L
are infinite beings, their subjectivity transferred from one machine (their bodies) to
another (the video). No substantial loss takes place in this transference. While this may
initially sound like a McLuhan-ism, a key factor is that no substantial gain takes place
either. There is no transcendence in the transfer. No digital ecstasy accompanies it. Viva
does not become a saint, nor Michel himself. They do not become more or less real.
They continue on as they were, their subjectivity completely intact.
DA
N
SK of a singular authorial voice, The Feature allows reality to
By sanctioning the notion
OV that might “make sense” of it. It is common observaoccur unimpeded by a structure
E a collaborative artistic effort would be just this singution that a sign of the success of R
SÆ
larity. This is easy to discern in Feature,
TTwhere both Neel and Auder place themselves
EL the act may be even more radical than it
at the service of the narrative. But in this case,
SE
first appears, because the narrative of the film is
nothing
FØ short of the life story of one of
LG
its authors. Auder’s singular authorial voice is thus embedded
in the very structure of
E
the film, from its first moments to its last. Yet he does notRattempt to take possession of
it. The film is a collaborative project between Auder and Neel, and this finds its perfect
correlative in the “collaborative project” we see between Auder and every other human
subject who appears on the screen. Here we begin to experience the nature of Auder’s
permissiveness, his extreme disregard for authority in all forms, most of all his own. We
might say that The Feature first performs a dissolution of authority, and secondly a reification of the notion of collective authorship in which the many speak as the one.
GE
R
Auder’s body of work is not prolific in the sense that we usually understand this word.
It does not illuminate a broad section of culture through the application of his vision to
an endless range of of topics. Instead, it is a tightly focused beam set behind himself and
casting his shadow forward in time. This shadow would have darkened his path from
the beginning of The Feature to the end, causing him to walk blindly. But this is not
what happened, because forty years later, he turns around and points this light backwards, illuminating the path for himself to walk. The Feature retroactively posits a life
lived with singular purpose.
The ethical decisions regarding the character of Michel Auder and his supporting cast
actually seem more questionable than they might have outside the narrative, where they
would be mitigated by an infinite number of increasingly complicated factors, an endless procession of “Yes, but, ....”. The character Michel seems to drift through his own
life as an observer, a voyeur, a man without qualities, but when we examine the nature
of this drifting, we can see that the filmmaker Auder has ruthlessly censored these
mitigating factors which might have given it a “purpose”, thereby intrumentalizing the
Throughout the film, Auder returns to moments from his past, inserting intentions,
reasons, free choices and, along with Neel, coherent narrative structure into a life that
might otherwise be an unwatchable chaos of thousands of hours of recorded events in
real time. Indeed, the tapes, films, and hard drives sitting on his shelves are just that.
But The Feature is not the map of of Borges. It is not a life-size map of reality, laid over
49
virtue of the contrived and transparent narrative, that the real begins to come into view.
The paradox of this is that in order for them to be real, Auder’s pointless, pithy acts of
blasphemy must occur in a godless universe, one that is materially determined. Reality
must necessarily be structured like a fiction. There is another way in which which Auder structures his own existence, and this has to do with bohemia. Bohemian existence
and it’s relationship to artistic production is constantly reaffirmed. So much so that it
begins to take on the structure of a belief system. Auder himself seems to play the role
of “the guy with the camera” in the various bohemian communities he inhabits. Here
it would seem that Harry Smith and Michel Auder converge. Both continually align
themselves with fringe elements of society (junkies, artists, prostitutes). Both document
these milieus that they might be preserved, with a sincere belief in their value. But while
Smith assumes an ethnographic role (albeit one that is highly complicated by the way in
which he posits himself as an other through the particularly modern ways in which he
frames his subjects), Auder rejects even this minimal distance. We might say that while
Smith’s work pictures conflict between multiple iterations of the modern, Auder’s insists upon the modern as singular and as himself as a practitioner. Unlike Smith, whose
bohemian position and ethnographic take on the similarities between the modern and
the pre-modern affords him a privileged position in relation to both, Auder’s work
evinces an almost impossible belief in the modern from the standpoint of a participant
in the ongoing project of its construction. This is the key that explains the odd things
Auder’s documentary practice seems to take for granted in dealing with such highly
documented subjects as Andy Warhol, Cindy Sheman, Eric Bogosian, and Harry Smith
himself. He does not strive for an accurate or even systematic representation of these
subjects. They appear on the screen only insofar as their presence serves the narrative.
It is interesting to note that the films are staked neither on the obscurity nor the recognition of their subjects. In fact, despite their celebrity, this recognition-of-subjects adds
little or nothing to our understanding at all. In the face of so many highly individualistic personalities all playing themselves, this would seem nearly impossible. But the feat
accomplished via the folding of the bohemian (the social relationships which produce
reality. Here Auder’s work diverges from that of his contemporaries Jonas Mekas and
even Harry Smith, who sought to obliterate certain boundaries between art and life
entirely. With The Feature, what we are seeing is the emergence and unfolding of the
mechanism of consciousness. The collaborative retroactive positing of coherence into
the narrative of Auder’s existence is perfectly analogous to the way in which consciousness asserts itself. (5) Auder’s life exists only insofar as it appears to itself, and it does
this in full view of the public through the film. Likewise in public, Auder assumes the
responsibility for his life. In this way we can see that The Feature is not confessional
per se, in that Auder is not involved “revealing” himself or what he thinks of himself.
Everything in the film might or might not have been subjected to revision, but we can
only ever take this revision as the truth. In one scene, Auder smashes bottles in a graveyard and kicks at the stones. He declares defiantly, “Blasphemy!”. We assume he is angry at god for sentencing him to death. Then he turns, walking away from the camera,
and says something which we can only define as profoundly ambiguous. “If you don’t
mean it, it’s not blasphemy.” What does this mean? Is he retracting his act of blasphemy
by saying that he didn’t mean it? Asking god for forgiveness without really asking,
the way a child might retract an insult? Or is he asserting that he did in fact “mean” it,
denouncing all false acts of blasphemy as unworthy of his own? The third possibility
is of course that the entire act was a charade for the camera. An act of blasphemy committed for the camera is not really an act of blasphemy at all, just as a true atheist would
be incapable of such an act. To strike out at god, one must believe god is watching. We
know that this scene is part of the movie that is “fake”: it belongs to the category of
new footage made with Neel that was created in order to frame the old stuff. And yet
here we are confronted with the fiction that is more real than real. The artifice is incredibly clear. Auder is not a great actor. His defiant claim of “Blasphemy!” was stilted and
awkward from the very beginning. These scenes are framed in a deliberate way that recalls certain conventions of television. But the retraction/assertion that comes right after is all too real for it’s hesitant tone, and even more so for its ambiguity. Now we can
see that it is only in these segments of The Feature, the ones that are the most “fake” by
50
reality. Here Auder’s work diverges from that of his contemporaries Jonas Mekas and
even Harry Smith, who sought to obliterate certain boundaries between art and life
entirely. With The Feature, what we are seeing is the emergence and unfolding of the
mechanism of consciousness. The collaborative retroactive positing of coherence into
the narrative of Auder’s existence is perfectly analogous to the way in which consciousness asserts itself.D(5) Auder’s life exists only insofar as it appears to itself, and it does
AN public through the film. Likewise in public, Auder assumes the
this in full view of the
SK
responsibility for his life. In
this way we can see that The Feature is not confessional
OV
ER “revealing” himself or what he thinks of himself.
per se, in that Auder is not involved
SÆ
Everything in the film might or might
Tnot have been subjected to revision, but we can
only ever take this revision as the truth. TInEone
LS scene, Auder smashes bottles in a graveE F “Blasphemy!”. We assume he is anyard and kicks at the stones. He declares defiantly,
ØL walking away from the camera,
gry at god for sentencing him to death. Then he turns,
GE
and says something which we can only define as profoundly
R ambiguous. “If you don’t
mean it, it’s not blasphemy.” What does this mean? Is he retracting his act of blasphemy
by saying that he didn’t mean it? Asking god for forgiveness without really asking,
the way a child might retract an insult? Or is he asserting that he did in fact “mean” it,
denouncing all false acts of blasphemy as unworthy of his own? The third possibility
is of course that the entire act was a charade for the camera. An act of blasphemy committed for the camera is not really an act of blasphemy at all, just as a true atheist would
be incapable of such an act. To strike out at god, one must believe god is watching. We
know that this scene is part of the movie that is “fake”: it belongs to the category of
new footage made with Neel that was created in order to frame the old stuff. And yet
here we are confronted with the fiction that is more real than real. The artifice is incredibly clear. Auder is not a great actor. His defiant claim of “Blasphemy!” was stilted and
awkward from the very beginning. These scenes are framed in a deliberate way that recalls certain conventions of television. But the retraction/assertion that comes right after is all too real for it’s hesitant tone, and even more so for its ambiguity. Now we can
see that it is only in these segments of The Feature, the ones that are the most “fake” by
virtue of the contrived and transparent narrative, that the real begins to come into view.
The paradox of this is that in order for them to be real, Auder’s pointless, pithy acts of
blasphemy must occur in a godless universe, one that is materially determined. Reality
must necessarily be structured like a fiction. There is another way in which which Auder structures his own existence, and this has to do with bohemia. Bohemian existence
and it’s relationship to artistic production is constantly reaffirmed. So much so that it
DA structure of a belief system. Auder himself seems to play the role
begins to take on the
NS
K in the various bohemian communities he inhabits. Here
of “the guy with the camera”
OV
it would seem that Harry Smith
ERand Michel Auder converge. Both continually align
themselves with fringe elements ofSsociety
(junkies, artists, prostitutes). Both document
Æ
TT with a sincere belief in their value. But while
these milieus that they might be preserved,
EL
SEthat is highly complicated by the way in
Smith assumes an ethnographic role (albeit one
FØ
which he posits himself as an other through the particularly
LG modern ways in which he
frames his subjects), Auder rejects even this minimal distance.
ER We might say that while
Smith’s work pictures conflict between multiple iterations of the modern, Auder’s insists upon the modern as singular and as himself as a practitioner. Unlike Smith, whose
bohemian position and ethnographic take on the similarities between the modern and
the pre-modern affords him a privileged position in relation to both, Auder’s work
evinces an almost impossible belief in the modern from the standpoint of a participant
in the ongoing project of its construction. This is the key that explains the odd things
Auder’s documentary practice seems to take for granted in dealing with such highly
documented subjects as Andy Warhol, Cindy Sheman, Eric Bogosian, and Harry Smith
himself. He does not strive for an accurate or even systematic representation of these
subjects. They appear on the screen only insofar as their presence serves the narrative.
It is interesting to note that the films are staked neither on the obscurity nor the recognition of their subjects. In fact, despite their celebrity, this recognition-of-subjects adds
little or nothing to our understanding at all. In the face of so many highly individualistic personalities all playing themselves, this would seem nearly impossible. But the feat
accomplished via the folding of the bohemian (the social relationships which produce
51
objects of his desire, these objects would have then lost their meaning, and this would
have been a far greater loss than the objects themselves. The wife and the apartment
would have become part of a stable unchanging landscape rather than a moment within
an ongoing narrative of struggle. Michel the character recognizes the falsity of his situation. And so he sacrifices these things, along with his marriage, precisely in order that
he might be rewarded with their loss. Like every free act in the film, the drastic nature
of the refusal is twofold. At its base level, it is a refusal by the character Michel directed
at himself, a personal decision made so that he might be able to live with himself. But
it is once again at the level of the universal that the act finds its true meaning, when the
filmmaker Auder retroactively posits it. It is the radical refusal of an individual directed
towards a society caught in the loop of its own self-congratulatory monologue.
divergent narratives within a group) into the modern (singularity of narrative with regards to the group as an ensemble) creates a situation within the the film that also has
the effect of folding each individual into the whole. The film assumes the role of the
singular historical account of the individuals it portrays, and in each and every scene it
is this account that takes precedence, rather than the individuals. The weight lies with
the modern. (6)
Here is where we might enter an into an understanding of the structure of film’s climactic “final decision”, which appropriately does not belong to Auder. Cindy Sherman decides to end their marriage, and once again we experience Auder’s permissiveness with
his subjects in allowing events to take place. Auder is extremely careful with his editing
in these final scenes, allowing us to see no more than we need to in order to understand.
Michel has moved from inhabiting a series of squalid apartments shared by various
drug addicts and fuck-ups to a perfect example of a sophisticated Manhattan bourgeois
interior inhabited by a working professional celebrity of what Adorno would have
called the “culture industry”. This is nearly all we see of his marriage to Sherman. Michel the character walks through the halls of the apartment, and the shiny stainless steel
appliances are shown in a sequence that also includes a small electric chair painting by
Warhol (or is it a photograph by Lawler?), hung in a tasteful salon arrangement along
with other well-known artworks. Might Auder have been there when it was made? It
is the world that has changed here, and the character refuses to adapt. The reality of
the situation is a historical one. It is the passage from the down-and-out bohemian art
world of the 70’s to the “professional bohemianism” of the 80’s. From an unspoken solidarity among individuals, to a new world of competitive individualism reaffirmed by
financial success. The beginning of the Reagan era signaled the ultimate subsumption of
bohemia into the mechanism of capital. This is a nearly insufferable loss to Michel, who
can only respond to this desublimation of individualism with a kind of petulance.This
refusal on the part of the character of Michel is his final free act of the film. Here we
can see the way that a free act must necessarily be structured as a confrontation and dismissal of one’s own desire. Had Michel continued on with this existence, accepted the
1. J. Hoberman, Village Voice, Review of The Feature
2. Here we should recall the recent scandal surrounding James Frey’s book A Million
Little Pieces, and answer this question : “Oprah Winfrey and a large part of the American public.” Is this reaction to fabrication in biography not the one of a public which
cannot reconcile itself to what it perceives as a rupture between truth and meaning?
3. I owe this insight to John Miller, (The Body As Fetish from The Price Club)
4. Along these lines it is important to note that The Feature is not a humanist film.
Auder’s permissiveness is not the result of a politically correct consideration of his subjects’ otherness. This would be laughable idea to anyone who had seen the film.
5. Slavoj Zizek on Hegel’s “Positing the Presuppositions” from The Parallax View
6. If we were going to carry this all the way, we might say that the films parallel the
transformation of a bohemian rabble into a revolutionary subject proper, simply by
treating them as such.
52
divergent narratives within a group) into the modern (singularity of narrative with regards to the group as an ensemble) creates a situation within the the film that also has
the effect of folding each individual into the whole. The film assumes the role of the
singular historical account of the individuals it portrays, and in each and every scene it
is this account that takes precedence, rather than the individuals. The weight lies with
the modern. (6)
DA
Here is where we mightNenter
SK an into an understanding of the structure of film’s climactic “final decision”, whichOappropriately
does not belong to Auder. Cindy Sherman
V
decides to end their marriage, andEonce
RS again we experience Auder’s permissiveness
with his subjects in allowing events toÆ
take
TTplace. Auder is extremely careful with his
ELno more than we need to in order to
editing in these final scenes, allowing us to see
S
understand. Michel has moved from inhabiting a E
series
FØ of squalid apartments shared
LG of a sophisticated Manhatby various drug addicts and fuck-ups to a perfect example
R
tan bourgeois interior inhabited by a working professionalEcelebrity
of what Adorno
would have called the “culture industry”. This is nearly all we see of his marriage to
Sherman. Michel the character walks through the halls of the apartment, and the shiny
stainless steel appliances are shown in a sequence that also includes a small electric
chair painting by Warhol (or is it a photograph by Lawler?), hung in a tasteful salon arrangement along with other well-known artworks. Might Auder have been there when
it was made? It is the world that has changed here, and the character refuses to adapt.
The reality of the situation is a historical one. It is the passage from the down-and-out
bohemian art world of the 70’s to the “professional bohemianism” of the 80’s. From an
unspoken solidarity among individuals, to a new world of competitive individualism
reaffirmed by financial success. The beginning of the Reagan era signaled the ultimate
subsumption of bohemia into the mechanism of capital. This is a nearly insufferable
loss to Michel, who can only respond to this desublimation of individualism with a
kind of petulance.This refusal on the part of the character of Michel is his final free
act of the film. Here we can see the way that a free act must necessarily be structured
as a confrontation and dismissal of one’s own desire. Had Michel continued on with
this existence, accepted the objects of his desire, these objects would have then lost
their meaning, and this would have been a far greater loss than the objects themselves.
The wife and the apartment would have become part of a stable unchanging landscape
rather than a moment within an ongoing narrative of struggle. Michel the character
recognizes the falsity of his situation. And so he sacrifices these things, along with his
marriage, precisely in order that he might be rewarded with their loss. Like every free
DA
act in the film, the drastic
NSnature of the refusal is twofold. At its base level, it is a refusal
K
by the character Michel directed
O at himself, a personal decision made so that he might
be able to live with himself. ButVitEis once again at the level of the universal that the act
RS
finds its true meaning, when the filmmaker
Æ Auder retroactively posits it. It is the radical
refusal of an individual directed towards Ta Tsociety
EL caught in the loop of its own selfSE
congratulatory monologue.
FØ
LG
ER
1. J. Hoberman, Village Voice, Review of The Feature
2. Here we should recall the recent scandal surrounding James Frey’s book A Million
Little Pieces, and answer this question : “Oprah Winfrey and a large part of the American public.” Is this reaction to fabrication in biography not the one of a public which
cannot reconcile itself to what it perceives as a rupture between truth and meaning?
3. I owe this insight to John Miller, (The Body As Fetish from The Price Club)
4. Along these lines it is important to note that The Feature is not a humanist film.
Auder’s permissiveness is not the result of a politically correct consideration of his subjects’ otherness. This would be laughable idea to anyone who had seen the film.
5. Slavoj Zizek on Hegel’s “Positing the Presuppositions” from The Parallax View
6. If we were going to carry this all the way, we might say that the films parallel the
transformation of a bohemian rabble into a revolutionary subject proper, simply by
treating them as such.
53