The Fright of Real Tears

The Fright of Real Tears: Krzysztof Kieślowski Between Theory and Post Theory is a 2001 book by the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek which uses free associative film interpretation to tangentially examine the films of Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski while avoiding the debate between cognitive film theory and psychoanalytic film theory. It was published by the British Film Institute in 2001.

In the book's introduction, "The Strange Case of the Missing Lacanians", Žižek explicitly positions himself in opposition to the rational and empirical approach to studying cinema which is argued for by David Bordwell and Noël Carroll in their anthology Post Theory. At the heart of The Fright of Real Tears is the debate between linear reasoned film theorising based on evidence, endorsed by Bordwell and Carroll, and free associative film interpretation (sometimes referred to simply as "Theory") that references doctrines from psychoanalysis and Marxism endorsed by Žižek. The "missing Lacanians" referred to in the introduction's title are the (according to Žižek, non existent) Lacanian film theorists Bordwell criticizes for introducing the concept of "the gaze" into film studies. Žižek argues that Bordwell has misunderstood the Lacanian concept of the gaze a misunderstanding he partly blames on a lamentable (in Žižek's eyes) appropriation of Lacan by cultural studies. Žižek notes that Lacan's concept of the gaze is easily misunderstood as belonging to the subject, whereas Lacan actually believed that the gaze was on the side of the object (TFRT, p. 34). Žižek contentiously characterizes Post Theory as a movement in film studies, which Bordwell denies, and argues that it demonstrates intellectual immodesty. Although he notes that those he calls "Post Theorists" insist on the importance of empirical research in their work, Žižek believes that such a position implicitly exempts the investigating "Post Theorist" from consideration. For Žižek, this is an illegitimate short circuit. Citing Bordwell's work on the idea of a trans cultural universal which directs and guides the spectator's attention, Žižek writes that "the very notion of a trans cultural universal means different things in different cultures" (p. 17). Žižek's statement is not self defeating and does not itself imply the existence of trans cultural universals, he argues, because all cultures do not share the same notion of "universality". Bordwell has responded in detail to criticisms regarding trans cultural universals in the book, Figures Traced in Light. Bordwell responds to Žižek's other criticisms in the online essay, "Slavoj Žižek: Say Anything".

In Chapter One, "Universality and Its Exception", Žižek draws on the linguistics research of Steven Pinker and the metaphysics of G. W. F. Hegel to argue for the structural necessity of what he calls "the exception" to universality. Pinker claims that our linguistic capacity derives from the interaction between two agencies: firstly, our ability to memorize strict rules and, secondly, our ability to then remember some odd exceptions to those rules. The example Žižek cites is the way in which children must learn the exceptions to verb patterns (saying 'bled' instead of 'bleeded', for example) in order to develop linguistic competence. The rule, then, does not function without its exception. Žižek claims that the structural necessity of the exception also applies to film genre. The issue of genre has always been a problematic one for film theorists (see, for instance, the debate over whether film noir is an aesthetic style or a genre). For Žižek, we locate the highest example of any genre in its exception, which Žižek defines as the work which articulates the conventions of the genre in an unconventional, non formulaic way. An example here might be Martin Scorsese's film GoodFellas, which is often praised as being the ultimate gangster film, yet is hardly a typical example of the genre.

The "fright of real tears" referred to in the title of Žižek's book originates in Kieślowski's justification for moving from the documentary film form to making fictional feature films instead: "I'm frightened of real tears. In fact, I don't even know whether I've got the right to photograph them. At such times I feel like somebody who's found himself in a realm which is, in fact, out of bounds. That's the main reason why I escaped from documentaries" (Kieślowski, quoted in TFRT, p. 72). Žižek freely associates between the prohibition on real tears in Kieślowski to the Old Testament ban on images in order to remove degrading over visibility from ethical significance. In contrast to the popular idea that we can only get to know the real person lurking beneath their adopted social persona once they 'drop the act', Žižek asserts that we can only get to know the truth of an individual's desire when we see them playing a fictional role. The example Žižek uses is that of a computer nerd who, as part of an interactive online game, adopts the persona of a sadistic murderer. It is not the case, claims Žižek, that this choice of persona hides a meek character beneath the fiction but, rather, that "in the guise of a fiction, the truth about [the geek] is articulated" (TFRT, p. 75). The fictional cinema of Kieślowski is then contrasted with a more general tendency in the European art film to 'show it all'. For instance, there is a growing list of mainstream films which contain scenes of unsimulated sex which, as a consequence, contain hardcore imagery more usually associated with pornographic films. However, Žižek also contrasts Kieślowski's position with the tendency of modern media to produce a discourse in which everything is openly and obscenely declared, such as confessions by public figures like the former U. S. President Bill Clinton. What this trend unintentionally produces, claims Žižek, is a situation in which discourse becomes impotent and words no longer have any power or effect. For a Marxist such as Žižek, this has important implications for political power struggles. Žižek therefore celebrates Kieślowski as a great artist for maintaining an aesthetic approach which insists on the fictional nature of truth and reality.