"SPEAKING NEARBY:"

A CONVERSATION WITH TRINH T. MINH-HA

NANCY N. CHEN

NANCY N . C H E N : One of themostimportantquestionsfor myself deals with the personal. In your latest film SHOOTFOR THE CONTENTS Clairmonte Moore refers to himself as"a member of the residual class" which is a euphemism for"living underground, for living outside the norm, and forliving outside of the status quo." Then another characterDewi refers to having the "pull" of being here and there. Ithink that this reflects on the personal and I would like toask how your family background or personal experience hasinfluenced your work,

TRINH T. MINH-HA: Although the ideology of "startingfrom the source" has always proved to be very limiting,I would take that question into consideration since thespeaking or interviewing subject is never apolitical, andsuch a question coming from you may be quite differ-ently nuanced. There is not much, in the kind ofeducation we receive here in the West, that emphasizesor even recognizes the importance of constantly havingcontact with what is actually within ourselves, or ofunderstanding a structure from within ourselves out.The tendency is always to relate to a situation or to anobject as if it is only outside of oneself. Whereaselsewhere, in Vietnam, or in other Asian and Africancultures for example, one often learns to "know theworld inwardly," so that the deeper we go into ourselves,the wider we go into society. For me, this is where thechallenge lies in terms of materializing a reality, becausethe personal is not naturally political, and every personalstory is not necessarily political.

In talking about the personal, it is always difficult todraw that fine line between what is merely individualis-

tic and what may be relevant to a wider number ofpeople. Nothing is given in the process of understand-ing the "social" of our daily lives. So every single workI come up with is yet another attempt to inscribe thisconstant flow from the inside out and outside in. Theinterview with Clairmonte in SHOOT FORTHE CONTENTSis certainly a good example to start with. His role in thefilm is both politically and personally significant. Inlocating himself, Clairmonte has partly contributed tosituating the place from which the film speaks. The waya number of viewers reacted to his presence in the filmhas confirmed what I thought might happen when I wasworking on it. Usually in a work on China, people donot expect the voice of knowledge to be other than thatof an insider — here a Chinese — or that of aninstitutionalized authority— a scholar whose expertiseon China would immediately give him or her the licenseto speak about such and such culture, and whose super-imposed name and title on the screen serve to validatewhat he or she has to say. No such signpost is used inSHOOT; Clairmonte, who among all the intervieweesdiscusses Chinese politics most directly, is of Africanrather than Chinese descent; and furthermore, there isno immediate urge to present him as someone who"speaks as…" Wliat you have is the voice of a person wholittle by little comes to situate himself through thediverse social and political positions he assumes, as wellas through his analysis of himself and of the media in theStates. So when Clairmonte designates himself literallyand figuratively as being from a residual class, this notonly refers to the place from which he analyzes China—which is not that of an expert about whom he has spoken

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jokingly, but more let's say that of an ordinary personwho is well versed in politics. The designation, as you'vepointed out, also reflects back on my own situation: Ihave been making films on Africa from a hybrid sitewhere the meeting of several cultures (on non-Westernground) and the notions of outsider and insider (Asianand Third World in the context of Africa) need to be re-read.

This is where you talk about the intersubjective situation inyour writings.

Right. I have dealt with this hybridity in my previousfilms quite differently, but the place from whichClairmonte speaks in SHOOT is indirectly linked to theplace from which I spoke in relation to Africa. Just as itis bothersome to see a member of the Third Worldtalking about (the representation of) another ThirdWorld culture — instead of minding our own business(laughter) as we have been herded to — it is also bother-some for a number of viewers who had seen SHOOT, tohave to deal with Clairmonte's presence in it. And ofcourse, the question never comes out straight; it alwayscomes out obliquely like: "Why the Black man in thefilm? Has this been thought out?" Or, in the form ofassumptions such as: "Is he a professor at Berkeley?" "Ishe teaching African Studies or Sociology?"

In some ways those questions indicate there's a need forauthenticity. My question about Clairmonte concerns whathe said about identity and I think that the issue of identityruns throughout all of your work. You 've often talked abouthyphenated peoples and I'm interested if in any way thatnotion stems from your personal experience. Have you feltthat people have tried to push you, to be a Vietnamese-American or Asian-American, or woman-filmmaker? All ofthese different categories is what Clairmonte points out to.In your works and writings you distinctly push away thattendency. I think you are quite right in pointing out earlierthat there is a very strong tendency to begin with a psycho-logical sketch like "What are your primary influences…"(laughter) I would be very interested in learning about yourparticular experiences in Vietnam. Could you talk moreabout that?

I will. But again, for having been asked this questionmany times, especially in interviews for newspapers, Iwould link here the problematization of identity in mywork with what the first chapter of Woman, Native,Other opened on: the dilemma, especially in the contextof women, of having one's work explained (or brought toclosure) through one's personality and particular at-tributes. In such a highly individualistic society as theone we belong to here, it is very comforting for a readerto consume difference as a commodity by starting withthe personal difference in culture or background, whichis the best way to escape the issues of power, knowledgeand subjectivity raised.

My past in Vietnam does not just belong to me. Andsince the Vietnamese communities, whether here in theU.S. or there in Vietnam, are not abstract entities, I canonly speak while learning to keep silent, for the risk ofjeopardizing someone's reputation and right to speech isalways present. Suffice it to say that I come from a largefamily, in which three different political factions existed.These political tendencies were not always freely as-sumed, they were bound to circumstances as in the caseof the family members who remained in Hanoi (where Iwas born) and those who were compelled to move toSaigon (where I grew up). The third faction comprisedthose involved with the National Liberation Front in theSouth. This is why the dualistic divide between pro- andanti-communists has always appeared to me as a simplis-tic product of the rivalry between, (what once were) thetwo superpowers. It can never even come close to thecomplexity of the Vietnam reality. All three factions hadsuffered under the regime to which they belong, and allthree had, at one time or another, been the scapegoat ofspecific political moments. As a family however, we loveeach other dearly despite the absurd situations in whichwe found ourselves divided. This is a stance that manyviewers have recognized in SURNAME VIET GIVEN NAMENAM, but hopefully it is one that they will also see in thetreatment of Mao as a figure and in the multiple playbetween Left and Right, or Right and Wrong in SHOOT.

How I came to study in the States still strikes metoday as a miracle. The dozen of letters I blindly sent outto a number of universities to seek admission into work-study programs… It was like throwing a bottle to the sea.

NANCY N. CHEN IS A DOCTORAL CANDIDATE IN MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY.

SHE IS WORKING ON HER DISSERTATION, "POSSESSION & THE STATE: DEVIATION & MENTAL HEALTH IN THE PRC," AND

A FILM ON POPULAR HEALING PRACTICES IN CHINA.

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But, fortunately enough, a small school in Ohio(Wilmington College) of no more than a thousand andsome students wanted a representative ofVietnam. Andso there I was, studying three days of the week andworking the other three days at a hospital, in addition tosome other small odd jobs that helped me to get throughfinancially. As an "international student," I was put incontact with all other foreign students, as well as with"minority" students who were often isolated from themainstream of Euro-American students. It was hardlysurprising then that the works of African American poetsand playwrights should be the first to really move andimpress me. By the sheer fact that I was with aninternational community, I was introduced to a range ofdiverse cultures. So the kind of education I got in suchan environment (more from outside than inside theclassroom) would not have been as rich if I had stayed inVietnam or if I had been born in the States. Some of mybest friends there, and later on at the University ofIllinois (where I got an M.A in French Literature andMusic; a Master of Music in Composition; and a Ph.Din Comparative Literatures) were Haitians, Senegaleseand Kenyans. Thanks to these encounters, I subse-quently decided to go to Senegal to live and teach.

When I planned for university education abroad, Icould have tried France (where financially speaking,education is free) instead of the United States. I decidedon the United States mainly because I wanted a rupture{laughter) with the educational background in Vietnamthat was based on a Vietnamized model of the old, pre-1968 French system. Later on, I did go to France afterI came to the States, in a mere university exchangeprogram. It was one of these phenomena of colonialism:I was sent there to teach English to French students{laughter).

During this year in France I didn't study with any ofthe writers whose works I appreciate. Everything that Ihave done has always been a leap away from what I havelearned, and nothing in my work directly reflects theeducation I have had except through a relation of dis-placement and rupture as mentioned. While in Paris, Istudied at the Sorbonne Paris-IV. It was the mostconservative school of the Sorbonne. But one of thehappy encounters I made was with noted Vietnamesescholar and musician Tran Van Khe, who continuesuntil today to shuttle to and fro between France andVietnam for his research, and with whom I studiedethnomusicology. That's the part that I got the most out

of in Paris. So you go to Paris, finally to learnethnomusicology with a Vietnamese {laughter).

This throws my question about intellectual influences orruptures the question (laughter). In all your works, butparticularly your writings on anthropology, ethnography,and ethnographic films, there's a critique of the standard,the center of rationality, the center of TRUTH. I think thatcritique is also shared by many anthropologists, especiallythose in the post-structuralist tradition. Do you think thatthere is more possibility in ethnography if people use thesetools? What do you think would be possible with reflexivityor with multivocality?

Anthropology is just one site of discussion among othersin my work. I know that a number of people tend tofocus obsessively on this site. But such a focus onanthropology despite the fact that the arguments ad-vanced involve more than one occupied territory, disci-pline, profession, and culture seems above all to tell uswhere the stakes are the highest. Although angry re-sponses from professionals and academics of other fieldsto my films and books are intermittently expected, mostof the masked outraged reactions do tend to come fromEuro-American anthropologists and cultural experts.This, of course, is hardly surprising. They are so busydefending the discipline, the institution, and the spe-cialized knowledge it produces that what they have to sayon works like mine only tells us about themselves and theinterests at issue. I am reminded here of a conferencepanel years ago in which the discussion on one of myprevious films was carried out with the participation ofthree Euro-American anthropologists. Time and againthey tried to wrap up the session with dismissive judge-ments, but the audience would not let go of the discus-sion. After over an hour of intense arguments, duringwhich a number of people in the audience voiced theirdisapproval of the anthropologists' responses, one womanwas so exasperated and distressed, that she simply said tothem: "the more you speak, the further you digyour owngrave."

If we take the critical work in REASSEMBLAGE forexample, it is quite clear that it is not simply aimed at theanthropologist, but also at the missionary, the PeaceCorps volunteer, the tourist, and last but not least atmyself as onlooker. In mywriting and filmmaking, it hasalways been important for me to carry out critical workin such a way that there is room for people to reflect on

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their own struggle and to use the tools offered so as tofurther it on their own terms. Such a work is radicallyincapable of prescription. Hence, these tools are some-times also appropriated and turned against the veryfilmmaker or writer, which is a risk I am willing to take.I have, indeed, put myself in a situation where I cannotcriticize without taking away the secure ground onwhich I stand. All this is being said because yourquestion, although steered in a slightly different direc-tion, does remind me indirectly of another questionwhich I often get under varying forms: at a paneldiscussion in Edinburgh on Third cinema for example,after two hours of interaction with the audience, and oflecture by panelists, including myself, someone came tome and said in response to my paper: "Oh, but thenanthropology is still possible!" I took it both as aconstructive statement and a misinterpretation. A con-structive statement, because only a critical work devel-oped to the limits or effected on the limits (here, ofanthropology) has the potential to trigger such a ques-tion as: "Is anthropology still a possible project?" Anda misinterpretation, because this is not just a questiongeared toward anthropology, but one that involves all ofus from the diverse fields of social sciences, humanitiesand arts.

Whether reflexivity and multivocality contributeanything to ethnography or not would have to dependon the way they are practiced. It seems quite evident thatthe critique I made of anthropology is not new; manyhave done it before and many are doing it now- But whatremains unique to each enterprise are not so much theobjects as the relationships drawn between them. So thequestion remains: how? How is reflexivity understoodand materialized? If it is reduced to a form of merebreast-beating or of self-criticism for further improve-ment, it certainly does not lead us very far. I have writtenmore at length on this question elsewhere ("Documen-tary Is/Not a Name," October No. 52, 1990) and tosimplify a complex issue, I would just say here that if thetools are dealt with only so as to further the productionof anthropological knowledge, or to find a better solu-tion for anthropology as a discipline, then what isachieved is either a refinement in the pseudo-science ofappropriating Otherness or a mere stir within the sameframe. But if the project is carried out precisely at thatlimit where anthropology could be abolished in what ittries to institutionalize, then nobody here is on safeground. Multivocality, for example, is not necessarily a

solution to the problems of centralized and hierarchicalknowledge when it is practiced accumulatively — byjuxtaposing voices that continue to speak within identi-fied boundaries. Like the much abused concept ofmulticulturalism, multivocality here could also lead tothe bland "melting-pot" type of attitude, in which "multi"means "no" — no voice — or is used only to better maskthe Voice — that very place from where meaning is puttogether. On the other hand, multivocality can open upto a non-identifiable ground where boundaries are al-ways undone, at the same time as they are accordinglyassumed. Working at the borderline of what is and whatno longer is anthropology one also knows that if onecrosses that border, if one can depart from where one is,one can also return to it more freely, without attachmentto the norms generated on one side or the other. So thework effected would constantly question both its interi-ority and its exteriority to the frame of anthropology.

This goes back to your previous point that being within isalso being without, being inside and outside. I think thisanswers my next question which is about how if namingidentifying and defining are problematic, how does one goabout practicing? I think that you are saying that it alsoopens up a space being right on that boundary. I would nowlike to turn from theory to filmmaking practice. Yourwriting has often been compared to performance art. Couldyousay that this is also true ofyour filmmaking as well in thefour films that you have made so far?

I like the thought that my texts are being viewed asperformance art {laughter). I think it is very adequate.Viewers have varied widely in their approaches to myfilms. Again, because of the way these films are made,how the viewers enter them tells us acutely how theysituate themselves. The films have often been comparedto musical compositions and appreciated by people inperformance, architecture, dance or poetry for example.So I think there is something to be said about thefilmmaking process; Although I have never consciouslytaken inspiration from any specific art while I write,shoot or edit a film, for me, the process of making a filmcomes very close to those of composing music and ofwriting poetry. When one is not just trying to capturean object, to explain a cultural event, or to inform for thesake of information; when one refuses to commodifyknowledge, one necessarily disengages oneself from themainstream ideology of communication, whose linear

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and transparent use of language and the media reducesthese to a mere vehicle of ideas. Thus, every time oneputs forth an image, a word, a sound or a silence, theseare never instruments simply called upon to serve a storyor a message. They have a set of meanings, a function,and a rhythm of their own within the world that eachfilm builds anew. This can be viewed as being charac-teristic of the way poets use words and composers usesounds.

Here I'll have to make clear that through the notionof "poetic language," I am certainly not referring to thepoetic as the site for the consolidation of a subjectivity,or as an estheticized practice of language. Rather, I amreferring to the fact that language is fundamentallyreflexive, and only in poetic language can one deal withmeaning in a revolutionary way. For the nature of poetryis to offer meaning in such a way that it can never endwith what is said or shown, destabilizing thereby thespeaking subject and exposing the fiction of all rational-ization. Roland Barthes astutely summed up this situa-tion when he remarked that "the real antonym of the'poetic' is not the prosaic, but the stereotyped." Such astatement is all the more perceptive as the stereotyped isnot a false representation, but rather, an arrested repre-sentation of a changing reality. So to avoid merely fallinginto this pervasive world of the stereotyped and thecliche*d, filmmaking has all to gain when conceived as aperformance that engages as well as questions (its own)language. However, since the ideology of what consti-tutes "clarity" and "accessibility" continues to be largelytaken for granted, poetic practice can be "difficult" to anumber of viewers, because in mainstream films andmedia our ability to play with meanings other than theliteral ones that pervade our visual and aural environ-ment is rarely solicited. Everything has to be packagedfor consumption.

With regard to your films you've always been able to showthat even what one sees with one's eyes, as you say in yourbooks, is not necessarily the truth. My next question concernsLaura Mulvey 's comment on language where any tool can beused for dominance as well as empowerment. Do you thinkthat this is also true of poetic approaches to film?

Oh yes. This is what I have just tried to say in clarifyingwhat is meant by the "poetic" in a context that does notlend itself easily to classification. As numerous feministworks of the last two decades have shown, it is illusory to

think that women can remain outside of the patriarchalsystem of language. The question is, as I mentionedearlier, how to engage poetical language without simplyturning it into an estheticized, subjectivist product,hence allowing it to be classified. Language is at the sametime a site for empowerment and a site for enslavement.And it is particularly enslaving when its workings re-main invisible. Now, how one does bring that out in afilm, for example, is precisely what I have tried to do inSURNAME VIET GIVEN NAME NAM. This is an aspect ofthe film that highly differentiates it, let's say, fromREASSEMBLAGE. If in the latter the space of language andmeaning is constantly interrupted or effaced by the gapsof non-senses, absences, and silences; in Surname Viet,this space is featured manifestly as presences — albeitpresences positioned in the context of a critical politicsof interview and translation.

Viewers who take for granted the workings oflanguage and remain insensitive to their very visibletreatment in SURNAME VIET, also tend to obscure thestruggle of women and their difficult relation to thesymbolic contract. Hence, as expected, these viewers'readings are likely to fall within the dualist confine of apro- or anti-communist rationale. Whereas, what isimportant is not only what the women say but what siteof language they occupy (or do not occupy) in theirstruggle. With this also comes the play between the oraland the written, the sung and the said, the rehearsed andthe non-rehearsed, and the different uses of English aswell as of Vietnamese. So, if instead of reading the filmconventionally from the point of view of content andsubject matter, one reads it in terms of language plural-ity, comparing the diverse speeches — including thosetranslated and reenacted from the responses by womenin Vietnam, and those retrieved "authentically" on thesite from the women in the States about their own lives— then one may find oneself radically shifting groundin one's reading. The play effected between literal andnon-literal languages can be infinite and the two shouldnot be mutually exclusive of each other. Everything Icriticize in one film can be taken up again and useddifferently in another film. There is no need to censorourselves in what we can do.

I'm also intrigued by your works where you mention"talking nearby instead of talking about"— this is one ofthe techniques you mention to "make visible the invisible. *How might indirect language do precisely that?

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The link is nicely done; especially between "speakingnearby" and indirect language. In other words, a speak-ing that does not objectify, does not point to an object asif it is distant from the speaking subject or absent fromthe speaking place. A speaking that reflects on itself andcan come very close to a subject without, however,seizing or claiming it. A speaking in brief, whose closuresare only moments of transition opening up to otherpossible moments of transition — these are forms ofindirectness well understood by anyone in tune withpoetic language. Every element constructed in a filmrefers to the world around it, while having at the sametime a life of its own. And this life is precisely what islacking when one uses word, image, or sound just as aninstrument of thought. To say therefore that one prefersnot to speak about but rather to speak nearby, is a greatchallenge. Because actually, this is not just a techniqueor a statement to be made verbally. It is an attitude in life,a way of positioning oneself in relation to the world.Thus, the challenge is to materialize it in all aspects of thefilm — verbally, musically, visually. That challenge isrenewed with every work I realize, whether filmic orwritten.

The term of the issue raised is, of course, muchbroader than the questions generated by any of thespecific work I've completed (such as REASSEMBLAGE, inwhich the speaking about and speaking nearby serve as apoint of departure for a cultural and cinematic reflec-tion) . Truth never yields itself in anything said or shown.One cannot just point a camera at it to catch it: the veryeffort to do so will kill it. It is worth quoting here againWalter Benjamin for whom, "nothing is poorer than atruth expressed as it was thought." Truth can only beapproached indirectly if one does not want to lose it andfind oneself hanging on to a dead, empty skin. Evenwhen the indirect has to take refuge in the very figures ofthe direct, it continues to defy the closure of a directreading. This is a form of indirectness that I have to dealwith in SURNAME VIET, but even more so in SHOOT.Because here, there is necessarily, among others, a lay-ered play between political discourse and poetical lan-guage, or between the direct role of men and the indirectrole of women.

That leads me to some questions that I had about your latestfilm because you choose Mao as a political figure and he isalso one who plays with language. There is a quote in thefilm: "Mao ruled through the power of rhymes and prov-

erbs. " I think this is a very apt statement about the scope ofthe film. I'm curious as to "Why China?" You mentionedbefore about how your next project or your next film is arupture from the previous one. So was going to China justa complete change from SURNAME VIET/3

It's not quite a rupture. I don't see it that way. Nor doI see one film as being better than another; there is nolinear progress in my filmic work. There is probably onlya way of raising questions differently from differentangles in different contexts. The rupture I mentionedearlier has more to do with my general educationalbackground. So why China? One can say that there is nomore an answer to this question than to; "Why Africa?"which I often get, and "Why Vietnam?" {laughter)y whichI like to also ask in return. Indeed, when people inquirematter-of-factly about my next film in Vietnam, I cannothelp but ask "why Vietnam?" Why do I have to focus onVietnam? And this leads us back to a statement I madeearlier, concerning the way marginalized peoples areherded to mind their own business. So that the area, the"homeland" in which they are allowed to work remainsheavily marked, whereas the areas in which Euro-Ameri-cans' activities are deployed can go on unmarked. Oneis here confined to one's own culture, ethnicity, sexualityand gender. And that's often the only way for insiderswithin the marked boundaries to make themselves heardor to gain approval.

This being said, China is a very important step in mypersonal itinerary, even though the quest into Chineseculture has, in fact, more to do with the relation betweenthe two cultures — Vietnamese and Chinese — thanwith anything strictly personal. The Vietnamese peopleare no exception when it comes to nationalism. Ourlanguage is equipped with numerous daily expressionsthat are extremely pejorative toward our neighbors,especially toward Chinese people. But Vietnam was thesite where the Chinese and Indian cultures met, hencewhat is known as the Vietnamese culture certainly owesmuch from the crossing of these two ancient civilizations.

Every work I have realized was designed to transformmy own consciousness. If I went to Africa to dive into aculture that was mostly unknown to me then, I went toChina mainly because I was curious as to how I coulddepart from what I knew of Her. The prejudices that theVietnamese carry vis-a-vis the Chinese are certainly his-torical and political. The past domination ofVietnam byChina and the antagonistic relationship nurtured be-

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tween the two nations (this relationship has only beennormalized some months ago) have been weighing soheavily on the Vietnamese psyche that very often Viet-namese identity would be defined in contradistinction toeverything thought to be Chinese. And yet it meritslooking a bit harder at the Vietnamese culture — at itsmusic, to mention a most explicit example — to realizehow much it has inherited from both China and India.It is not an easy task to deny their influences, even whenpeople need to reject them in order to move on. Ananecdote whose humor proved to be double-edged wasthat, during my stay in China, I quickly learned torestrain myself from telling people that I was originallyfrom Vietnam — unless someone really wanted to know(precisely because of the high tension between the twocountries at the time.) The local intellectuals, however,seemed to be much more open vis-a-vis Vietnam as theydid not think of Her as an enemy country but rather, asa neighbor or "a brother." This, to the point that one ofthem even told me reassuringly in a conversation: "Wellyou know it's alright that you are from Vietnam; after all,She is a province of China." {laughter)

So it reifies that power relationship…

Yes, right…{laughter) O n a personal level, I did want togo further than the facades of such a power relationshipand to understand China differently. But the task wasnot all easy because to go further here also meant to goback to an ancestral heritage of the Vietnamese culture.I've tried to bring this out in the film through a look atpolitics via the arts.

I think Wu Tian Ming's commentary in the film gives a verygood description of the present state of the arts in China. Ihave another question. In your book When the MoonWaxes Red there is a chapter on Barthes and Asia. This iswhere you talk about his notion of the void and how it isimportant not to have any fixed notions of what Asia issupposed to be about. You 've stated that SHOOT FOR THECONTENTS is precisely about that void, but one of thedifficulties about creating a space where there can be a voidis the fact that some people are unnerved by it; there is alsothe possibility of reifying stereotypes, of reifying the notion ofAsia as other or as exotic, or feminine, or mysterious. Do youthink that this was something you had thought aboutcarefully in making your film or in the process of makingyour film did this issue come up?

It always does, with every single film that I have made.And the risk of having viewers misread one's filmsthrough their own closures is always there. The onlyconsistent signs that tell me how my films may haveavoided falling into these ready-made slots is the contro-versial and at times contradictory nature of the readingsthey have suscitated. But to say the space of the Void canreify stereotypes is already to reify the Void. Perhapsbefore I go any further here with SHOOT, I should ask youwhat in the film makes you think that people could fallright back on a stereotyped image of China?

Possibly when there are different scenes of China. In the filmone cuts from one location to another, so you see scenes thatare in northern China and then the next few frames you seeXishuanbanafrom southern China and theyareallconflatedas one image or representation of China. I saw this film withseveral China scholars and they were very concernedwith theimage of China as being enigmatic, as a space that is a voidwhich cannot be defined, and the possible reification ofChina as a mystery.

Are these scholars from here in the States or from China?

These aren't Chinese friends.

Maybe that is one difference worth noting, because as Imentioned earlier, there is no speaking subject that isapolitical, and sometimes I have had very differentreadings of my earlier films from Africans than fromAfrican-Americans for example; not to mention Euro-Americans… although generalizations are never adequate,and you will always have people who cross the lines. Firstof all, to take up the point you make about conflating theimages from different cultures across China: the film hasa structure that momentarily calls for this deliberateviolation of internal borders, but other than that, thisstructure is devised precisely so as to emphasize theheterogeneity of Chinese society and the profound dif-ferences within it — hence the impossibility to simplytreat China as a known Other. If you remember, it is atthe beginning of the film, when Mao's concept of TheHundred Flowers is being introduced that you see asuccession of images from different places in China. Thisis the very idea of the hundred flowers which the visualsindirectly evoke. But as the film progresses, the culturaldifferences that successively demarcate one region fromanother are sensually and politically set into relief, and

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never do any of these places really mix. The necessarytransgression and die careful differentiation of culturalgroupings have always been both structurally very im-portant in my films, in SHOOT, as well as in the threeprevious ones.

As far as the Void is concerned, the commentcertainly reveals how people understand and receive theVoid in their lives. For some, "void" is apparently onlythe opposite of "full." As absence to a presence or as lackto a center, it obviously raises a lot of anxieties andfrustrations because all that is read into it is a form ofnegation. But I would make the difference between thatnegative notion of the void, which is so typical of thekind of dualist thinking pervasively encountered in theWest, and the spiritual Void thanks to which possibili-ties keep on renewing, hence nothing can be simplyclassified, arrested and reified. There is this incrediblefear of non-action in modern society, and every emptyspace has to be filled up, blocked, occupied, talkedabout. It is precisely the whole of such an economy ofsuture {laughter), as film theorists calls it, that is at stakein this context of die Void.

Nobody who understands the necessity of the Voidand the vital open space it offers in terms of creativity,would ever make that comment (which is mystifying initself as it equates void with enigma and mystery),because the existence of everything around us is due tothe Void. So why all this anxiety? What's the problemwith presenting life in all its complexities? And, as wehave discussed earlier, isn't such a reaction expected afterall when the authority of specialized or packageableknowledge is at stake? Among other possible examples,I would also like to remind us here, that when the filmopens with a remark such as "Any look at China is boundto be loaded with questions," that remark is bothsupported and countered by the next statement, whichbegins affirming "Her visible faces are miniscule com-pared to her unknown ones," but ends with the ques-tion: "Or is this true?" As in a throw of the dice, thiscasual question is precisely a point of departure for thefilm and the reflection on the arts and politics of China.It is later on followed by another statement that says"Only in appearance does China offer an everchangingface to the world." So the knowable and unknowable arenever presented as being mutually exclusive of oneanother.

A distinction that may be useful here is die onetheorists have made between a "radical negativity" and

a negation. The negation is what the negative, dualisticreading of die void points to; while a radical negativityentails a constant questioning of arrested representations— here, of China. This is where Bardies' statement onthe stereotyped being the antonym of the poetic, is mostrelevant. There are a few immediate examples that I canmention (although specific examples never cover thescope of the issue raised, they just tell you about the singleproblem involved in each case) in terms of the choices Imade in the film to prevent its readings from closing offneady within the knowable or unknowable categories.Again, the question of language: the dialogue betweenthe two women narrators features not only a differencein ideology but also a difference in the modes of speak-ing. Both modes can easily be mis/identified: one as theillogical, elliptical and metaphorical language of poetry,and the other as the logical, linear and dogmatic languageof political discourse. If the film is entirely done withonly one of these two languages, then the risk of it fallinginto the confines of one camp or the other is very high.But in SHOOT, you have both, and the narrators' dialogueis also punctured all along by the direct speeches of theinterviews, or else by songs which offer a link between theverbal and the non-verbal.

Also by the text itself where you have English and Chinesecharacters as well as Confucius and Mao…

Exacdy. Sometimes, it is strategically important toreappropriate the stereotypes and to juxtapose them nextto one another so that they may cancel each other out.For example die fact that in the film, the "Great Man"can be both Confucius and Mao, makes these two giants'teachings at times sillily interchangeable. Such a merg-ing is both amusing and extremely ironical for those of uswho are familiar with China's history and the relendesscampaigns Mao launched against all vestiges of Confu-cianism in Chinese society. The merging therefore alsoexposes all wars fought in the name of human rights asbeing first and foremost a war of language and meaning.In other words, what Mao called "the verbal struggle" isa fight between "fictions." The coexistence of oppositerealities and the possible interchangeability of their fic-tions is precisely what I have attempted to bring out onall levels of the film, verbally as well as cinematically. Ifthe only feeling the viewer retains of SHOOT is that of anegative void, then I think the film would just be fallingflat on what it tries to do; it would be incapable of

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provoking the kind of vexed, as well as elated and excitedreactions it has so far.

You mention the viewer quite often and in another inter-view you once said that audience-making is the responsibil-ity of the filmmaker. Can you talk about who your viewersare, what audience, or for whom are you making a film, ifsuch a purpose exists?

There are many ways to approach this question and thereare many languages that have been circulated in relationto the concept of audience. There is the dated notion ofmass audience, which can no longer go unquestioned intoday's critical context, because mass implies first andforemost active commodification, passive consumption.Mass production, in other words, is production by thefewest possible number, as Gandhi would say {laughter).And here you have this other notion of the audience,which refuses to let itself be degraded through standard-ization. For, as Lenin would also say, and I quote bymemory, "one does not bring art down to the people, oneraises art up to the people." Such an approach wouldavoid the levelling out of differences implied in theconcept of the "mass" which defines the people as ananonymous aggregate of individuals incapable of reallythinking for themselves, incapable of being challenged intheir frame of thought, and hence incapable of under-standing the product if information is not packaged foreffortless and immediate consumption. They are theones who are easily "spoken for" as being also smartconsumers whose growing sophisticated needs requirethat the entertainment market produce yet faster goodsand more effectual throwaways in the name of betterservice. Here, the problem is not that such a descriptionof the audience is false, but that its reductive rationalereinforces the ideology in power.

The question "for whom does one write?" or "forwhom does one make a film?" was extremely useful somethirty years ago, in the 60s. It has had its historicalmoment, as it was then linked to the compelling notionof "engaged art." Thanks to it, the demystification of thecreative act has almost become an accepted fact; thewriter or the artist is bound to look critically at therelations of production and can no longer indulge in thenotion of "pure creativity." But thanks to it also, thenotion of audience today has been pushed much furtherin its complexities, so that simply knowing for whom youmake a film is no longer sufficient. Such a targeting of

audience, which has the potential to change radically theway one writes or makes a film, often proves to be nomore than a common marketing tool in the process ofcommodification. Hence, instead of talking about "dieaudience," theorists would generally rather talk about"the spectator" or "the viewer." Today also, many of ushave come to realize that power relationships are notsimply to be found in the evident locations of power—here, in the establishments that hold the means ofproduction — but that they also circulate among andwithin ourselves because the way we write and makefilms is the way we position ourselves socially and politi-cally. Form and content cannot be separated.

Furthermore, in the context of "alternative," "ex-perimental" films, to know or not to know whom you aremaking a film for can both leave you trapped in a formof escapism: you declare that you don't care aboutaudience; you are simply content with the circulation ofyour work among friends and a number of marginalizedworkers like yourself, and you continue to protect your-selfby remaining safely within identified limits. WhereasI think each film one makes is a bottle thrown into thesea. The fact that you always work on the very limits ofthe known and unknown audiences, you are bound tomodify these limits whose demarcation changes eachtime and remains unpredictable to you. This is thecontext in which I said that the filmmaker is responsiblefor building his or her audience.

So of importance today, is to make a film in whichthe viewer — whether visually present or not — isinscribed in the way the film is scripted and shot.Through a number of creative strategies, this process ismade visible and audible to the audience who is thussolicited to interact and to retrace it in viewing the film.Anybody can make REASSEMBLAGE for example. The partthat cannot be imitated, taught, or repeated is therelationship one develops with the tools that define one'sactivities and oneself as filmmaker. That part is irreduc-ible and unique to each worker, but the part that couldbe opened up to the viewer is the "unsutured" process ofmeaning production. With this, we'll need to ask whataccessibility means: a work in which the creative processis offered to the viewer? Or a work in which highproduction values see to it that the packaging of informa-tion and of fiction stories remain mystifying to the non-connoisseur audience—many of whom still believe thatyou have to hold several millions in your hand in orderto make a feature of real appeal to the wide number?

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You've answered on many levels but your last point drawsattention to the state of independent art and experimentalfilm here in the U.S. Could you comment on yourexperience with or interactions with those who try tocategorize your work as documentary, as ethnographic, asavant-garde feminist, as independent! Could you talkabout the process of independent filmmaking instead ofmore mainstream films?

Independent filmmaking for me is not simply a questionof producing so-called "low-budget" films outside thefunding networks of Hollywood. It has more to do witha radical difference in understanding filmmaking. Here,once a film is completed, you're not really done with it,rather, you're starting another journey with it. Youcannot focus solely on the creative process and leave theresponsibilities of fundraising and distribution to some-one else (even if you work with a producer and adistributor). You are as much involved in the pre- andthe post- than in the production stage itself. Once yourfilm is released you may have to travel with it and thedirect contact you have with the public does impact theway you'll be making your next film. Not at all in thesense that you serve the needs of the audience, which iswhat the mainstream has always claimed to do, butrather in the sense of a mutual challenge: you challengeeach other in your assumptions and expectations. So forexample, the fact that a number of viewers react nega-tively to certain choices you have made or to the direc-tion you have taken does not necessarily lead you torenounce them for the next time. On the contrary,precisely because of such reactions you may want to

persist and come back to them yet in different ways.In my case, the contact also allows me to live out the

demystification of intention in filmmaking. With thekind of interaction I solicit from the viewers — askingeach of them actually to put together "their own film"from the film they have seen—the filmmaker's intentioncannot account for all the readings that they have medi-ated to their realities. Thereby, the process of indepen-dent filmmaking entails a different relationship of creat-ing and receiving, hence of production and exhibition.Since it is no easy task to build one's audiences, theprocess remains a constant struggle, albeit one which I amquite happy to carry on. Viewers also need to assumetheir responsibilities by looking critically at the represen-tative place from which they voice their opinions on thefilm. Ironically enough, those who inquire about theaudience of my films often seem to think that they andtheir immediate peers are the only people who get to seethe film and can understand it. What their questions sayin essence is: We are your audience. Is that all that youhave as an audience? {laughter}. If that is the case, then Ithink that none of us independent filmmakers wouldcontinue to make films. For me, interacting with theviewers of our films is part of independent filmmaking.The more acutely we feel the changes in our audiences,the more it demands from us as filmmakers. Therefore,while our close involvement in the processes of fundraisingand distribution often proves to be frustrating, we alsorealize that this mutual challenge between the work andthe film public, or between the creative gesture and thecinematic apparatus is precisely what keeps independentfilmmaking alive.

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