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Dialogues@RU is published
annually
by the
Writing Program at
Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey
Volume Three
Spring 2004
The Myth of the Thousand Words: Exploring the Role of Narrative in La Jetée and 12 Monkeys - Page 3
by Philip Krachun
James Cole serves another purpose as protagonist. Cole’s character serves to illustrate this connection between art, artist, subject, and society. He is exposed to both cultures, and his confusion reflects our own. He is able to step outside and make sense of things on his own. He goes back because he wants to understand. Cole exposes the audience to his superiors’ folly. According to Horak, Cole allows us to view art “as the physical manifestation of human communication. By visually connecting art and audience, viewer and representation,” making the audience “aware of their own subject positioning and allowing them to meditate on the relationship of high and low art” (49). Cole prompts us to think about the way we, as an audience, come to perceive things, and he does so by granting us a first-hand look at the system.
The artist also has a responsibility, as Berger is quick to point out. “The professional photographer tries, when taking a photograph, to choose an instant which will persuade the public viewer to lend it an appropriate past and future” (“Appearances” 89). The artist owes it to society to make his work comprehensible. He facilitates them and seeks to make his work more accessible with compositional devices. His shot must be artistic, but if he wishes his work to promote narrative, he needs to supply clues to his audience. Only then can his picture be worth a thousand words.
In Gilliam’s film the questions scrawled across the headquarters of the Army of the Twelve Monkeys represent the artist’s efforts to throw the metaphorical bone to his audience. Cole unintentionally incites the ingénue, Dr. Railley, to panic after introducing her to concepts from the future (specifically the Army of the Twelve Monkeys). Unsure of everything that is about to happen on the cataclysmic scale, she vents her frustrations on the wall of the headquarters with a can of red spray paint. With the wall she poses her question when the results do not seem forthcoming. “Is there a virus?” Railley asks in badly lettered graffiti, “Is this the source? 5,000,000 die” (12 Monkeys ). The results of her question have already been described.
The reason things worked out the way they did was because “Every photograph presents us with two messages: a message concerning the event photographed and another concerning a shock of discontinuity” (“Appearances” 87). The questions were not meant to steer the future society onto the wrong track-the message was intended as a genuine question. Railley simply did not know, just as the scientists did not know. Had Railley known the discourse of the future society, she would have written “This is the headquarters of those responsible for a biological weapon that will decimate mankind and drive us underground.” Instead, she asks. The implication is that breaking cultural conventions creates a chain-reaction of confusion that destroys the established convention. It becomes a vicious circle. Had the people of the future properly studied or researched the image they would have realized that the question could mean anything. In conjunction with the “we did it” photograph, Cole’s superiors were led astray. “We did it,” seems to be the answer to Railley’s Question, so they drop the matter and make unfounded assumptions. “The contrast between publicity’s interpretation of the world and world’s actual condition is a very stark one” (Ways of Seeing 151). The people of the future believe that their collective point of view “remains credible because the truthfulness of publicity is judged, not by the real fulfillment of its promises, but by the relevance of its fantasies to those of the spectator-buyer” (Ways of Seeing 146). Since the scientists are ready to believe anything, they are willing to break social conventions. Berger says this happens because “every photograph presents us with two messages: a message concerning the event photographed and another concerning a shock of discontinuity” (“Appearances” 86).
With nobody left to explain the graffiti, the people of the future feel free to interpret the graffiti as they wish. They deem the Army of the Twelve Monkeys responsible for the devastation. Because Dr. Railley’s question was misconstrued as rhetorical, she provided the future with misinformation. The irony is that Dr. Railley would never have scrawled the question on the wall if the scientists of the future had never sent James back in time to tell the story of the Army of the Twelve Monkeys. The scientists are responsible for their own red herring because they effectively created the Army of the Twelve Monkeys by sending James back in time to ask questions and supply information about them. As events actually unfolded, the Army of the Twelve Monkeys turned out to be little more than a prankster organization. They were so desperate to believe that they found an answer to their problems that the pictures became a sort of publicity. The scientists take executive action for their society and “invent meaning.” As Berger said, their actions “mask what is happening in the rest of the world.”
So why then, is James Cole chosen? Remember, he is a piece of artwork just as much as the photographs. He is Terry Gilliam’s artistic comment. It is important to note that 12 Monkeys is as much a reaction to as it is a retelling of La Jetée. La Jetée’s storyline is virtually identical-instead of biological warfare, the world is destroyed by nuclear war. The post-war society in Marker’s film also lives underground and attempts to manipulate time travel. Their protagonist is selected because he is tough of mind, like James Cole, and carries within him the vivid memory from before the war. “Having only sent lifeless or insentient bodies through different zones of Time, the inventors were now concentrating on men given to very strong mental images. If they were able to conceive or dream another time, perhaps they would be able to live in it. / The camp police spied even on dreams” ( La Jetée). The camp police, with the ability to spy on dreams know that the protagonist has this memory—because he dreams about it. Since the protagonist knows about the past, his mind will be able to adapt. This becomes important for the same reason that James’ vivid memory becomes important in Gilliam’s film-the ending reveals all and brings the story full circle. But Horak observes “the human ability to remember, to recall a visual, nonverbal imprint in the brain as experience and knowledge, is for Marker a never-ending theme. The narrator in La Jetée says from off screen: ‘Moments in one’s memory are like other moments. They remain conscious only because of the scars they leave behind’” (28). This means that James is a scar. He symbolizes pain. He should be remembered because it is painful for the situations that create him to exist.