Page 97 - Cinematic Thinking Philosophical Approaches to the New Cinema

Carlos Saura 87

of offering and bringing into presence, which at the same time holds back
and suspends.
This double meaning of bringing into presence and holding back de-
scribes aptly the workings of Sauras films, in which many scenes function
as such double gestures of a disclosure that simultaneously holds something
back, in effect introducing more ambiguity into an already complex text.
What is crucial in Saura is that this holding back is not limited to denial or
obscurity but involves also a futural perspective: an opening on the not-yet-
existent future, which "holds back" the present from closing on itself and
stabilizing its perspective. The poietic rhythm in Saura does not produce
"simple" disclosures, which would allow something to be fully or unques-
tionably present, but evolves a more complex play of possibilities, which
keeps the future inscribed in the present as a force opening the present to
new possibilities. This force is manifested remarkably in the ending of Elisa,
vida mia, which, folding the film back on its opening scene, ends up inten-
sifying its play of possibilities, since the image of Elisa rereading /recreating
the memoir reopens the film and projects it into the future beyond the
film's ending.
In Sauras oeuvre from the 1970s, Elisa, vida mia holds a special
place, since it presents this kind of cinematic poiesis as an explicit the-
matization of the problem of artistic creation and of filmmaking. This
autotelic gesture becomes evident already in the initial overlaying of the
image with Luiss voice in the opening shot. Indeed, Elisa, vida mia can
be taken as Sauras signature portrayal of the workings of the artwork, and
specifically of the film-work. In "The Origin of the Work of Art" Hei-
degger remarks that art in its poiesis is eminently historical, in the specific
sense of making history, that is, of opening up the temporal dimension of
possibility as the proper realm of human dwelling. That is why Agamben
declares that humans have a poetic status on the earth, which means that
it is poiesis that opens, makes possible, for humans the originary space of
their world. Writing in a clearly Heideggerian idiom, Agamben suggests
that rhythm should be thought precisely as what grants human beings this
poetic dwelling: "In this authentic temporal dimension, the poetic status
of man on earth finds its proper meaning. Man has on earth a poetic sta-
tus, because it is poiesis that founds for him the original space of his world.
Only because in the poetic èjtoX'H n e experiences his being-in-the-world
as his essential condition does a world open up for his action and his exis-
14
tence." Thus rhythm here does not concern structure or style, aisthesis or