1. 1
Tuché: Encounters with the Real of Acting, Part II
How should we implicate psychoanalysis in the history of the cinema?
Psychoanalysis and cinema are basically preoccupied with the same fundamental
passions: love, hate, and ignorance.
These passions which constitute the mainstay of Buddhist thought were imported
into analytic theory by Jacques Lacan who saw obvious similarities between certain
techniques of the Zen masters and analysts.
What they had in common was an asymmetric structure of communication. Neither
analysts not the Zen masters would answer a question directly in the way that we
expect from pedagogues. They would respond to questions with questions of their
own or with forms of punctuation that became well-known in Lacanian analysis.
Actors and filmmakers understand quite early on that their ability to represent a
range of emotions depends on coming to terms with the fundamental passions.
Only then will they be able to make sense of the ‘promptings’ of the unconscious or
work-through the affects that relate to these fundamental passions.
These, incidentally, are the passions that are most likely to prompt somebody to act-
out repressed conflicts in the psyche.
It is therefore important to understand how they affect human behaviour across a
range of dramatic and cinematic scenarios as a way of rehearsing what is required to
manage these passions without acting out when they increase in intensity.

2. 2
These fundamental passions also govern the co-ordinates of the ‘erotic transference’
in analysis. So by putting in the effort to understand these passions and the way in
which patients struggle with love, hate, and ignorance on the analytic couch, the
actor draws valuable clues to the paths through which psychic ‘resistance’ makes
itself known to the patient.
The resistance to expressing the promptings of the unconscious can take as its object
either the construction of a role in general or the structuring of a shot in particular.
That is probably why a scene may need any number of shots before the actors can
get it right.
It is not irrelevant in this context to ask why a scene is shot repeatedly even when it
is good enough to be included in the final cut?
What is the specific form of enjoyment in re-shooting a scene any number of times?
Why do actors and directors take pride in enumerating the numbers of attempts that
they had to make in order to get it right?
What exactly is at stake is the oscillation between machismo and humility in even
veteran actors that emerges in the context of ‘takes’ and ‘retakes’?
This attitude pertains to the high energy levels needed to shoot the scene to
perfection and the cheerful readiness in being willing to accept that it will sometimes
take many shots to get it right.
The conventional rendition of ‘repetition’ in filming is understood as a grand, artistic
struggle between the actor and the director.
I however assume that this struggle that emerges as ‘creative differences’ is
structural to filmmaking and one that veterans are comfortable with. The problem of
creative differences is something that only beginners are alarmed by.
Repetition in film-making through the ‘retake’ however has a deeper meaning. It
pertains to how the actor situates himself vis-à-vis the lure of the character.

3. 3
In other words, character is a larger category than the actor (which is why a number
of actors can essay the same part). There are, after all, characters like Sherlock
Holmes who refuse to die even if they are killed in the film.
In this model, the actor has a greater transference to the character than the director.
The actor and the director may even be united in this effort to get to the essence of
the character.
What is it that they will encounter on the way to identifying the essence of the
character?
What else but one or more of the fundamental passions? In other words, the lure of
the character in the locus of the Other is that which unpacks the psychodynamics of
the transference as manifest in the fundamental passions.
While the actor may or not have analysed himself experiencing these passions before
commencing a particular role, he find himself experiencing these passions if the lure
of the character has made inroads into his soul.
This is why actors say things like: ‘I would love to play this character’ or ‘I hate the
thought of having to play that character’ or ‘I haven’t the foggiest clue as to how to
play such a character’. The fundamental passions then are forms of hysterical
provocation embodied in the lure of the character.
In the absence of this hysterical element, the actor is reduced to box-office
calculations - which though necessary - are not sufficient to decide whether he
should play a particular role. The actor is more likely to have fun playing a role if he
can dig out what is really at stake in the underlying character, and how that
character relates to the fundamental passions.
Tuché then is an encounter with the real of
a fundamental passion either during or
between the takes. This encounter however
cannot be pre-programmed. It is therefore
important that an actor who is susceptible
to the lure of the character should not
conflate his aim with his goal. The aim is a
response to the hysterical function of the lure; the goal is the by-product of the re-
takes.
SHIVA KUMAR SRINIVASAN