- character and gesture -

In his essay 'Notes on Gesture' (1992) Giorgio Agamben has developed a theory of 'gestural cinema', arguing that 'the element of cinema is gesture and not image'. He also argued that this theory means that cinema belongs, essentially, to the realm of ethics and politics, rather than aesthetics. 

Agamben focuses on the disappearance of gestures within the Western bourgeoisie at the end of the 19th century. Scientific analysis of gesture begun by Gilles de la Tourette indicating the breake up of gesture into segments. This not only presages film itself (Agamben also mentions the work of Muybridge) but also the loss of any sense of the gesture. Tourette is, of course, best known for naming Tourette's syndrome, which Agamben describes as 'an amazing proliferation of tics, spasmodic jerks, and mannerisms - a proliferation that cannot be defined in any way other than as a generalized catastrophe of the sphere of gestures'. 

The loss of gestures leads to a desperate attempt to recover or record what has been lost. Cinema, especially silent cinema, is the primary and exemplary medium for trying to evoke gestures in the process of their loss. If Deleuze breaks down the image into movement-images, Agamben will further break down the image into gestures. If the unity of the image has been broken, then we are left with only gestures and not images. The image reifies and obliterates the gesture, fixing it into the static image. Liberating dynamic force from the static spell of the image is one of the main goals and qualities of cinema.

Cinema, in Agamben's words, 'leads images back to the homeland of gestures'. If cinema leads us back to gestures then it also leads us back to ethics and politics, rather than aesthetics. Relating to Aristotle's idea of generical difference between action [praxis] and production [poiesis] Agamben argues that the gesture is a particular type of action - it is neither acting or making, producing or action, but instead - enduring and supporting.

Gesture has been separated from its meaning throughout history of art. Pseudo-zygodactylous gesture of El Greco's painting "Il caballero de la mano al pecho" is clearly separated from its original brest-feeding symbolism. 

In early silent movies (Asunta spina), the use of gesture should not be understood simply as calling upon a lexicon, e.g., arms crossed with hands on shoulders “means” despair, but rather, almost as it would in dance, gesture should be seen as elaborating and helping to orchestrate a given dramatic situation. Naturalism in acting provides a definitive break with the range of acting styles that employed gesture toward pictorial ends. The important feature of naturalist acting as it developed in the 1880s was not that it encouraged actors to approximate real life, but to abandon graceful gestures, as well as expressive ones. ('Naturalism and the diva: Francesca Bertini in Asunta Spina' by Lea Jacobs)

Common usage of non-fictional elements in modern cinema result in restriction of gesture. Realism is not enough any more, gesture has to be spontanious, non-acted, caught by accident. Strangely enough, this development forces cinema to explore incomprehensible ellements of human existence. 

Every image is, according to Walter Benjamin, 'charged with history because it is the door through which the Messiah enters'. With his idea of gestural cinema, Agamben redeems cinema froms the site of the messianic promise contained in the image.