Deaca, Valeriu Mircea. 2020. Radu Jude: The Death of the Author. Patterns – Models – Designs.

Art
Readings 2019. 8-10 April. New Art Module. Institute of Art Studies. Sofia. 181-191.
МОТИВИ • МОДЕЛИ • ЕСКИЗИ

RADU JUDE: THE DEATH OF THE AUTHOR

Mircea Valeriu Deaca1

Abstract: The paper offers an overview on the cinematographic work of Radu

Jude. An established director with fourteen films in his portfolio, Jude explores
a variety of genres such as classical melodrama (“Alexandra”, 2006), comedy
(“The Happiest Girl in the World”, 2009), parodical intertextual essay (“A Film
for Friends” 2011), historical western (“Aferim!”, 2015), documentary (“The Dead
Nation”, 2017). The paper explores the idea that, despite the diversity of cinematic
approaches, Jude maintains a personal and coherent view and discourse on the
fictional world he depicts. This worldview can be metaphorically rendered as
the “death of the author”. Radu Jude’s movies perform or rather take as working
principle the decay of the concept of author as a unifying stylistic feature. But, at
the same time, this concept is a critical post factum construct that modifies and
corrupts the object it is supposed to describe and explain.
Key words: sense-making, cognitive approach, film analysis, film history, in-
terpretation

The theoretical background

The movies of the Romanian director Radu Jude illustrate the claim that
cinema is a “dispersed” object that does not have a “unique and consistent”
form anymore and is “refractory to any kind of schematization”2. Jacques Au-
mont is also concerned with claims that cinema is made of an infinite variety
of images that exist as subjective experiences, and, consequently, one cannot
come up with a history of film3. He inquires how one, in these conditions,
can make any history of images. For a historian or a film critic, a challenge
is raised. Sooner or later they must propose an interpretative hypothesis and

1  Dr. Mircea Valeriu Deaca is currently teaching film theory at the University of Bucharest,
Department of Cultural Studies, and the Doctoral School of the Faculty of Letters. Research
field: film studies. He published several books on film: “The Carnival and Federico Fellini’s
Films” (2009), “Second Camera” (2011), “Postfilmic Cinema” (2013), “The Anatomy of Film”
(2013), and “Investigations in Cognitive Film Analysis” (2015). He recently published a study
on “Kitchen Scenes in the New Romanian Cinema” (2017). E-mail: [email protected]
2  Casetti, Francesco. Theory. Post-Theory. Neo-Theories: Changes in Discourses. Changes
in Objects. – Cinémas: Revue d’études cinématographiques/Cinémas: Journal of Film Studies,
2007, Vol. 17, No. 2–3, 2007, 33–45.
3  Aumont, Jacques. L’histoire du cinéma n’existe pas. – Cinémas: Revue d’études cinémato-
graphiques, 2011, Vol. 2–3, No. 21, 153–168.

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 a verbal schematic label for the protean experience of images. The film critic
must put forth a verbal reconstruction of the perceptual and cognitive patterns
that constrain film form and content; at best, he can use moving images as
“instruments for thought”4.
In a usage-based conception of meaning, sense-making is dependent on con-
ditions of use. Expressive and content channels of films are fused or entangled
in the conceptualization of a unique and situation. The cinematic immersion
or absorption of the viewer in the salient perceptual presence of situations
(scenes and events) is the result of this entanglement that fuses / integrates in
a substantive block-like conceptualization. As a post-factum re-construction
one can set apart salient and iterated patterns of filmic construction. The
film’s flow gives prominence to some stylistic patterns in which content and
expression are coupled giving birth to a global emergent meaningful whole
i.e. the diagnostic conceptual constructions.
An established director with fourteen films in his portfolio, Jude explores
a variety of genres such as classical melodrama (“Alexandra”, 2006), comedy
(“The Happiest Girl in the World”, 2009), parodical intertextual essay (“A Film
for Friends”, 2011), historical western (“Aferim!”, 2015), and documentary
(“The Dead Nation”, 2017).
Fictional film is conceived by Jude as a machine made of the perpetual
reuse of stylistic commonplaces. One could say that Jude’s lesson is the “death
of the author”. When gathered, his films do not betray any common factor;
eclecticism is the rule. Constructing via the interpretive critical act an overar-
ching schema that would explain unity, is based on a post factum conceptual
construction. This view suggests that the author-concept (as a categorical
concept) or the history of authors (the history of style) is the product of a
reductive and fictional discourse.
A single critical concept implies too much abstracting and loses the speci-
ficity of actual film experience. This suggests that a cinematic grammar could
employ in more appropriate fashion notions that refer to emergent sense-making,
pattern attractors, and fluid dynamics.
Taking in consideration that film – at least in the beginnings – was not
an art; it becomes evident that film’s inclusion among the arts is just one in-
terpretation that grounds the products of the moving pictures industry in the
domain of artistic artifacts. European film history and criticism predominantly
focusing on style highlighted the concept of the “author”.
Moving images are better apprehended as shifting patterns evolving in time
that keep alive the emotions of the viewer. Within this framework, film is the
emergent product of a “transient flow” that controls the viewer’s experience5.

4  Aumont. L’histoire du cinéma, 164.

5  Poulaki, Maria. Network Films and Complex Causality. – Screen, 2014, Vol. 3, No. 55, 379–395.

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 In a usage-based conception of meaning, sense-making is dependent on
conditions of use. Differences between documentary and fiction pertain to
cultural institutional conventions and approaches. Even the concept of art
is based on a verbal categorization (labeling) of the artifact6. Laurent Jullier
highlights the personal idiosyncratic uses of film features “fuzzy concepts”.
In domains of interaction (semantic domains) patterns are discernible but they
are “contentless” as long as they are not coupled with meaning structures.7
In other words, any expressive pattern is devoid of meaning until it is not
constrained by a top-down content. Since bottom-up and top-down influence
is bidirectional, the coupling, at each conceptualization, changes the shape of
the conscious experience. The expressive cues are different at each occurrence
and the concept at stake is different in each expressive setting/ design.
Meaning is task dependent. For instance, in film, a circular camera has
different meanings as a function of contextual goal-concept (e.g. strictly
ornamental function, providing narrative information, cuing the dizziness
or emphasis on the character)8. Low-angle framings can cue us to see the
importance of the character or can direct our focus on the grandiose setting
that surrounds them. For instance, Jullier states that the uses one can apply
to movies are idiosyncratic and diverse9.
Therefore, the “author” is a concept constructed by the critic for discur-
sive goals. The scholar’s interpretation is based on a goal-concept (context of
use) and selection of cues. Verbal labeling means thinking in categories, i.e.
enhancing differences between categories, and augmenting similarity inside
the boundary of a category. Specific patterns are instantiated in individual
movies at successive levels but their shape and meaning depend upon their
inter-coupling. Discursive and top-down goal-concepts influence the emer-
gent meaning at each conscious experience of the audiovisual stimuli. As a
post-factum re-construction one can set apart salient and iterated patterns of
filmic construction. The film’s flow gives prominence to some stylistic patterns
in which content and expression are coupled giving birth to a global emergent
meaningful whole i.e. the diagnostic conceptual constructions.

6  Odin, Roger. De la fiction. Bruxelles: De Boeck Universite, 2000.

7  Jullier, Laurent. Le cinéma comme forme de communication floue. Revue française des
sciences de l’information et de la communication 9/2016: Tendances contemporaines en com-
munication organisationnelle Émergences, 2016, 1–18.
8  Hojberg, Lennard. The Circular Camera Movement. Style, Narration, and Embodiment.
Projections. – The Journal for Movies and Mind, 2014, Vol. 8, Issue 2, 71–88.
9  Jullier. Le cinéma comme forme de communication floue...

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 The movies
Having set the theoretical framework in place, let us turn to some of Jude’s
movies. For instance, in the short “The Tube with a Hat” [Lampa cu căciulă],
(2006) the narrative of a Kiarostami-like journey of the father and son pair in
town in order to fetch a broken television set privileges “a minimalist mise
en scène, […] and sophisticated camerawork and sound design refusing any
additional music”10. The formal diagnostic constructions are the medium shot
and the long shot that include character’s bodies in frame

Figure 1

Figure 2

10  Nasta, Dominique. Contemporary Romanian Cinema. The History of an Unexpected Miracle.
London and New York, 2013, 147–148.

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 The situation depicted and the documentary style evoke the realist stance.
In a metaphorical interpretation, the father-and-son pair represents the generic
viewer of films. In “Alexandra” (2008) Jude pursues the same neo-realist
style. The movie is a “slice of life” realist depiction of the difficulties of a
divorced couple confronted with identity problems raised by their four-year-
old daughter11.
“The Happiest Girl in the World” [Cea mai fericită fată din lume], (2009)
tells the short episode of a young provincial girl who has won a car in a
commercial campaign for a soda beverage. The film evokes John Cassavetes
directorial style and “free cinema’s” approach to filmmaking. In a “a nonchalant
realist way” (148. medium shots and extreme long shots are integrated with in
depth staging12. The frustration of the young girl’s dreams is metaphorically
rendered as framed obstacles impeding the perceptual access of the viewer

Figure 3

In 2011 Jude produced a long take (plan-séquence) movie, “A Film for

Friends” [Film pentru prieteni], (2011) in which a man records himself in
medium close-up framing leaving a video-message to his family, friends and
neighbor-acquaintances. After a long monologue in which accusations and
reproaches for his failures are mixed with self-indulging laments about his
pitiful fate, he shoots himself in the head

11  Nasta. Contemporary Romanian Cinema, 148.

12  Nasta. Contemporary Romanian Cinema, 148.

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Figure 4
His attempt fails
and he will be found
by his neighbors ag-
onizing on the floor.
Jude highlights the
bloody scene. The
medical staff called in
by the neighbors will
rescue and evacuate
him and the camera
will continue to record
the empty apartment
until the end of the
movie

Figure 5

Jude operates here a radical shift of style. The movie is an intertextual

parody of the Romanian minimalist trend. Jude exploits the medium shot

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and the square frame format of the amateur tripod camera. A wide range of
elements refer to the minimalist movies of his fellow directors.13
Some components are better viewed as ironic “commentaries”. For in-
stance, the cramped minimal framing is to be metaphorically interpreted as
the character being “framed”, i.e. trapped in a situation, e.g. “Police, Adjec-
tive” [Polițist, adjective], (2009, dir. Corneliu Porumboiu). The background
is ironic in the sense that it is the story of a character that exposes himself
in excess in a self-referential filmic artifact but fails to reach the goal of the
epic drama of death-on-screen, i.e. a naturalist docudrama. In Jude’s polemic
cinematographic discourse, minimalist film is the narcissist self-pitiful ex-
posure of the director-author as the privileged social victim. In Jude’s view,
minimalist film is the failed attempt at creating a genuine realist mirror of a
corrupt society and a false excuse for the director’s lack of creative stamina,
e.g. the others are to blame for the situation I am in.
“Everybody in Our Family” [Toată lumea din familia noastră], (2012) is
a “hysterical episode” in which “every emotion, sarcastic remark, threat or
self-abasement is recorded in meticulous fashion” in order to show “a conflict
that spirals out of control, eventually into absurd violence.”14. Jude’s camera
work – unlike his previous works - moves around the cramped setting of a
small apartment. The cinematography favors the extreme and close shot,
handheld shaky camera, “bad” framing (no establishing shot), and emphasis
on fragmented bodies

Figure 6

13  For the New Romanian Cinema’s features and style see Pop, Doru. Romanian New Wave
Cinema. An Introduction. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2014.
14  Nasta. Contemporary Romanian Cinema, 148–149.

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 In the end the protagonist gets wounded and has to stop the bleeding in
a pharmacy.
Again, Jude changes cinematography in “Aferim!” (2015) and exploits the
western pattern of extreme long shots that highlight wide settings, the in-depth
staging that profile group “tableaux vivants”, and the soft, imperceptible,
tracking motion of the camera

Figure 7

In the epilogue a runaway gypsy serf is emasculated by his master.

“Scarred Hearts” [Inimi cicatrizate], (2016) is a melodrama about the sad
story of the life of an author-writer, who spends his last days at a sanatorium
for tuberculosis patients. His ill body fades away but he tries to keep a grip
on the joys of life, e.g. the joy of philosophy and creative writing, the love
for his parents, the romantic love he entertains for a young woman and the
friendships with his fellow patients. Medical care is depicted as a series of
scenes of torture and pain. Once again, Jude changes the cinematographic
style and uses a still camera that privileges the central perspective in a square
composition.

Figure 8. Andrea Mantegna, Christ, 1480, Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

188
 One diagnostic framing is the long medium shot of the lying body in “the
anatomy lesson”-like position

Figure 9. Rembrandt van Rijn, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, 1632, Mauritshuis
Museum, The Hague

In this movie, Jude exploits

references to classical painting as
ostentatiously exhibited exercises
of aesthetics. For instance, victim-
hood is depicted as a Christ-like
epiphany15.

Figure 10.
Philippe de Champaigne, The Dead Christ,
1654, The Louvre Museum, Paris

15  “The Dead Nation” [Țara moartă] (2017), and “The Two Executions of the Marshal” [Cele
două execuții ale Mareșalului] (2018) are documentaries. “I Do Not Care If We Go Down in
History as Barbarians” [Îmi este indiferent dacă în istorie vom intra ca barbari] (2018) is a fiction
movie that tells the endeavors of a young author reconstructing a historical event of the Romanian
Army from 1941. This film also mixes cinematographic styles.

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 Discussion and conclusion
One could say that Jude’s lesson is the “death of the author. Jude freely
changes the cinematography, the narrative style, and the generic gist of drama
(e.g. melodrama, found footage, historical western, slice of life of a family crisis,
etc.) from one movie to another; eclecticism is the rule. Some elements are
transferred, e.g. the metaphoric mapping of the victim-antihero as an instance
of the author or the violent short sequence displaying blood. The fall and death
of the protagonist mirrors the condition of the artist: victim of evil influences
(the family, the others, illness). The theme of the author is included with each
new movie in a multimodal aggregate. The constructed meaning is different
with each new occurrence. Each movie constructs new emergent wholes out
of leased expressive patterns and bits and pieces of content components (e.g.
the minimalist commonplaces, expressive patterns, local motifs and themes).
Constructing via the interpretive critical act an overarching schema that would
explain unity is based on a post factum conceptual construction. This view
suggests that the author-concept (as a categorical concept) or the history of
authors (the history of style) is the product of a reductive and fictional discourse.
Categorical thinking imposes a hermeneutical model that does not do jus-
tice to the rich diversity of the cinematographic experiences of the viewer. A
single critical concept implies too much abstracting and loses the specificity
of actual film experience. Each film experience of the viewer contemplating
the same movie is different from the previous one. Each filmic artifact is the
emergent product of various levels and channels of conceptualization. This
state of affairs suggests that a cinematic grammar could employ in more
appropriate fashion notions that make reference to emergent sense-making,
pattern attractors, and fluid dynamics.

Literature Cited

Aumont, Jacques. L’histoire du cinéma n’existe pas. – Cinémas: Revue d’études

cinématographiques, 2011, Vol. 2–3, No. 21, 153–168.
Casetti, Francesco. Theory. Post-Theory. Neo-Theories: Changes in Discourses.
Changes in Objects. – Cinémas: Revue d’études cinématographiques/Cinémas:
Journal of Film Studies, 2007, Vol. 17, No. 2–3, 33–45.
Hojberg, Lennard. The Circular Camera Movement. Style, Narration, and
Embodiment. Projections. – The Journal for Movies and Mind, 2014, Vol. 8,
Issue 2, 71–88.
Jullier, Laurent. Le cinéma comme forme de communication floue. Revue
française des sciences de l’information et de la communication 9/2016:
Tendances contemporaines en communication organisationnelle Émergences,
2016, 1–18.

190
Nasta, Dominique. Contemporary Romanian Cinema. The History of an
Unexpected Miracle. London and New York: Wallflower Press, 2013.
Odin, Roger. De la fiction. Bruxelles: De Boeck Universite, 2000.
Pop, Doru. Romanian New Wave Cinema. An Introduction. Jefferson, North
Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2014.
Poulaki, Maria. Network films and complex causality. – Screen, 2014, Vol.
3, No. 55, 379–395.

Film references

Aferim! (Radu Jude, 2015).

Cea mai fericită fată din lume/The Happiest Girl in the World (Radu Jude,
2009).
Cele două execuții ale Mareșalului/The Two Executions of the Marshal (2018).
Film pentru prieteni/A Film for Friends (Radu Jude, 2011).
Îmi este indiferent dacă în istorie vom intra ca barbari/I Do Not Care If We
Go Down in History as Barbarians (2018).
Inimi cicatrizate/Scarred Hearts (Radu Jude, 2016).
Lampa cu căciulă/The Tube with a Hat (Radu Jude, 2006).
Polițist, adjectiv/Police, Adjective (Corneliu Porumboiu, 2009).
Țara moartă/The Dead Nation (2017).
Toată lumea din familia noastră/Everybody in Оur Family (Radu Jude, 2012).

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