Steven Shaviro talks about Godard's extremely close-up images: a pebble held in a hand in Weekend, and of coffee swirling in a cup in Deux ou trois choses que je sais d'elle.
Here is Shaviro:
The abberant scale and unfamiliar lighting of these images defamilializes their objects---or, better, forces us to stop regarding them AS referential objects. They appear in fixed shots, held for a long time: duration has become an independent dimension of the image, and is no longer a function of the time needed for cognition and action. The pebble and the coffee are neither useful nor significant; they work neither as things nor as signs. They are nothing but images, mutely and fascinating soliciting our attention. The pebble rests, the coffee swirls, filling the screen.
Steven Shaviro, The Cinematic Body (1993)
Shaviro is one person I failed to take a course with in Seattle in early 1990s. My friend Tsu-Chung Su from Taiwan had him as dissertation director. I often saw Shaviro at Eliott Bay (Book Company) in Seattle, but I don't think he remembers me at all. A missed encounter.
