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Racine's Phaedra as Poetic Photojournalism
Wayne Rowe
Communication
For the Comedie-Francaise’s 1995 production of Racine’s Phaedra, Director
Anne Delbee chose world-famous French photographer Lucien Clergue to
illustrate the accompanying theatre program with ten black-and-white photographs.
Drawing from his background in newspaper and theatre photography, and with
the full cooperation of the Comedie-Francaise, Lucien Clergue expanded the
initial assignment into a high-quality hardcover book—Phaedra—which
successfully blended Racine’s original text, Christian Lacroix’s original costume
drawings, Director Anne Delbee’s commentary, and his own black-and-white and
color photography. This article examines the nature of photojournalism and the
photo essay, as well as the elements of poetic photographic vision, and discusses
Lucien Clergue’s Phaedra as an expression of what the author calls “poetic
photojournalism”.
Introduction
Electronic technological advances have transformed our society from text-based to
image-based. As Marshall McLuhan stated it in 1967,
All media work us over completely. They are so pervasive in their personal,
political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical, and social
consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered.
The medium is the massage. (McLuhan, 1967, p.26)
The photographic image, whether still or moving, is one of the mediums which most often
massages our senses. Today’s photojournalist is an image-based storyteller who writes with
light. Vittorio Storaro, Italian Director of Photography, feels that “photography is the literature
of light…The cinematographer is a writer who utilizes light, shadow, tonality and color,
tempered with his experience, sensitivity, intelligence and emotion to imprint his own style and
personality on a given work” (Schaefer, 1984, p.231). Using Lucien Clergue’s photographic
essay on the Comedie-Francaise’s 1995 production of Racine’s Phaedra as our point of
departure, this article attempts to explain the visual appeal, the emotional impact, the
communication of meaning, the poetry, the working over of the senses that we experience
when we view this story written in light. In so doing, we hope to make the reader more visually
aware and appreciative of the image-based world we live in.
The Nature of Photojournalism
In Life Magazine’s original statement of purpose in 1936, we find the broad parameters
of photojournalism:
To see life; to see the world; to eyewitness great events; to watch the faces
of the poor and the gestures of the proud; to see strange things— machines,armies,
multitudes, shadows in the jungle and on the moon; to see man’s work—his
paintings, towers and discoveries ..... to see and take pleasure in seeing; to see
and be amazed; to see and be instructed. (Edey, 1978, p. 4)
Life Magazine ushered in the Golden Age of Photojournalism and the Photo Essay. Using
a series of sequenced photographs, the photo essay attempts to tell a story visually. Maitland
Edey, former Assistant Managing Editor of Life Magazine found that the greatest photo
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essays have to do with people: with human dilemmas; with human challenges; with human
danger or suffering; with the places that humans can return to as part of their own
experience...where memory lives. (Edey, 1978, p. 20)
To French photojournalist Henri Cartier-Bresson, the objective of a photographic reportage or picture story is “to depict the content of some event which is in the process of unfolding,
and to communicate impressions.” (Lyons, 1966, p. 43). W. Eugene Smith, the “Shakespeare
of photojournalism”, believed that the gravest responsibility of the photojournalist was to
search through the maze of conflictions to the island of intimate understanding,
of the mind, of the soul...and then to render with intelligence, with artistic
eloquence, a correct and breathing account of what is found. (Maddow, 1985, p. 54)
To bring back “a correct and breathing account of what is found”, the photojournalist must
cover his or her subject in depth, leaving no gaps. This is accomplished by shooting at least
nine different types of photographs: the long shot, or establishing shot; the medium shot; the
close-up; the portrait; the interaction shot; the sequence shot; the opening and closing shots.
Of course, what the photojournalist brings back will be determined by what he or she brings
to the assignment: passion, intelligence, sensitivity, intuition, total involvement and concentration, the ability to anticipate an event and the reflexes to react instinctively to it, creative
imagination, poetry, magic, and an openness to the advent of feeling. The work of the greatest
photojournalists combines both reality and magic.
French writer, philosopher, and semiologist, Roland Barthes, in his book Camera Lucida,
undertook to define the essence of photography. He found that photographs that “animated”
him and that he in turn “animated” consisted of two co-present elements: Studium and
Punctum. According to Barthes, Studium “is an extent, it has the extension of a field, which
I perceive quite familiarly as a consequence of my knowledge, my culture” (Barthes, 1981,
p.25). It is by Studium that one takes a kind of human interest in many photos that refer to a
classical body of cultural information, photos that educate, signify, represent, inform, and
reveal the photographer’s intentions. The second element, Punctum, “will break (or punctuate) the Studium” (Barthes, 1981, p. 26). Punctum rises out of the scene, seeks out the viewer,
disturbs the Studium, wounds, pricks and stings the viewer. It is very often a detail.
Photographs without Punctum —“the most widespread in the world”—are called unary
photographs. According to Barthes,
the photograph is unary when it emphatically transforms ‘reality’ without doubling
it, without making it vacillate (emphasis is a power of cohesion): no duality, no
indirection, no disturbance. (Barthes, 1981, p. 41)
Studium is coded and nameable, Punctum is not. “What I can name cannot really prick
me. The incapacity to name is a good symptom of disturbance”. (Barthes, 1981, p. 51).
Punctum has the power to expand, to provoke a satori. “This brings the Photograph (certain
photographs) close to the Haiku”. (Barthes, 1981, p. 49). For Barthes, to be touched by a
photograph is “to allow the detail to rise of its own accord into affective consciousness”.
(Barthes, 1981, p. 55). Furthermore, Punctum creates a blind field outside the frame of the
photograph, “a kind of subtle beyond”. (Barthes, 1981, p. 59).
It is my belief that the greatest photographs and photo essays are distinguished by the
co-presence of Studium and Punctum.. With photographic essays we have the additional
interaction between the sequenced photographs which can account for their presence. In my
view, what characterizes the work of what I have called the “poetic photojournalist” is the copresence of Studium and Punctum throughout the photo essay. Reality and magic. Information and satori. Documentation and poetry. Truth and beauty. Co-presence.
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Lucien Clergue and Racine’s Phaedra
Discovered by Picasso, friend of Cocteau and Cartier-Bresson, founder of the Rencontres
Internationales de la Photographie in Arles, France, and the first and only photographer in
France to receive a Ph.D. for a wordless doctoral dissertation, Lucien Clergue is a “poetic
photojournalist” —one who combines both documentation and poetry, reality and magic,
Studium and Punctum, in his work. In 1957, he published his first book of photographs
illustrating the poems of Paul Eluard. The cover drawing was done by Picasso, the introductory
poem by Cocteau. In a letter from Cocteau to Clergue, Cocteau related Picasso’s admiration
for Clergue’s photography: “he says it could be signed by Renoir”.(Marty, 1989, p. 100).
For Edmonde Charles-Roux, acclaimed authoritative biographer of designer Gabrielle
Chanel, Lucien Clergue is “a visual chronicler for whom photography is a matter of feeling and
spontaneity” (Marty, 1989, p.61). Fifty books later, the artistry, the poetry, the reality are still
there. Clergue’s latest work, the full-color hard cover book entitled Phaedra, grew out of his
being asked to shoot ten black-and-white photographs to illustrate the theater program of the
Comedie-Francaise’s 1995 production of Racine’s Phaedra. It was Clergue’s idea to expand
the initial assignment into a book consisting of Racine’s five-act play in 12 syllable verse,
Christian Lacroix’s original costume designs, Director Anne Delbee’s comments on the actors
and actresses, and Lucien Clergue’s original black-and-white and color photography.
Based on the Greek legend, the structure of Racine’s Phaedra follows Aristotle’s three
unities of time, place and action. The drama takes place in one day in one place and concerns
itself with one action: the resolving of a human dilemma brought about by an “adulterous” and
“incestuous” passion—Phaedra’s “raging thirst” for her stepson, Hippolytus. Paralleling
Aristotle’s dictum, photojournalist Clergue shot all the photographs for his book in one place
and in one afternoon. During the dress rehearsal, he was allowed to move freely on stage on
the condition that he be “invisible” and that he not ask for any special treatment. Shooting
conditions were particularly difficult due to the presence of mirrored walls on stage, numerous
props which became obstacles, closed off stage wings, and an electrician’s strike in Paris
which resulted in constantly changing light levels due to lighting tests. “It’s part of the game”,
was Clergue’s reaction to these photographic challenges. He relates that while shooting he
was always thinking about the different kinds of shots he needed to help tell the story visually
to his audience: close-ups, interaction and portrait shots, etc. Using two Minolta single-lensreflex cameras, three lenses (28mm, 35mm, and 50mm) and shooting ISO 800 film, he was
completely free to select camera angle and point-of-view, camera-to-subject distance, stage
position, lens, color effects, overall composition, etc. He was even able to double expose his
film in the camera to create some symbolic effects. In one particularly masterful shot, he reexposed a roll of film previously shot at the bullfight in Arles (but never developed) with a scene
between Phaedra and Hippolytus, her stepson. The result was a perfect allusion to the
impending death of Hippolytus after his encounter with a “raging monster...half bull...half
dragon.”
And while Clergue contributed to “the literature of light” through his use of cameras, film,
lights, and lenses, it should be pointed out that photography is not about equipment.
Photography is about seeing. All through the shoot, Clergue’s central focus was on documenting the story of Phaedra poetically with his camera. The photographs with which I have chosen
to illustrate this article both document the story line and rise, in Barthes words, into “affective
consciousness”( in McLuhan’s words, they touch, affect, and alter us). Co-presence. Studium
and Punctum. Documentation and Poetry. Realism and Magic. Truth and Beauty. With his love
of the theatre and his gift and passion for photography, Lucien Clergue has created a poetic
photo essay which documents the visible and reveals the invisible.
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Opening Shot: Anne Delbee's avant-garde stage setting
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RACINE'S PHAEDRA AS POETIC PHOTOJOURNALISM
Portrait Shot: King Theseus and his wife, Phaedra
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Portrait Shot: Phaedra and Hippolytus, son of Theseus
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RACINE'S PHAEDRA AS POETIC PHOTOJOURNALISM
Close-Up Detail Shot: Chistian Lacroix's original costume design for the character of
Hippolytus
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Decisive Moment Shot: Empathic camera angle reflects Phaedra's state of anguish and
despair
Decisive Moment Shot: Phaedra confides her love for Hippolytus to Panope, her lady-in
waiting, with Hippolytus in foreground
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Interaction Shot: King Theseus, Phaedra, and Hippolytus
Special Effects Shot: Double-exposure featuring Panope and symbolizing the intrigues and
interactions of court life
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Special Effects Shot: Double-exposure symbolizing the impending death of Hippolytus
Closing Shot: Dramatic eye-level close-up of the death of Hippolytus
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References
Barthes, R. (1981). Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. New York. Hill
and Wang.
Clergue, L. (1996). Phedre. (Phaedra). Paris. J & D Editions.
Edey, M. (1978). Great Photographic Essays from Life. Boston. New York
Graphic Society.
Lyons, N. (Ed.). (1966). Photographers on Photography. New Jersey.
Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Maddow, B. (1986). Let Truth Be The Prejudice. New York. Aperture.
Marty, C. (Ed.). (1989). Lucien Clergue: Photographies Inedites. Marseille.
Sud.
McLuhan, M., and Fiore, Q. (1967). The Medium is the Massage. New York: Bantam Books.
Schaefer, D., and Salvato, L. (1984). Masters of Light. Los Angeles: University of California
Press.
Personal Interview
Clergue, L. (cassette recording, July 11, 1998). Arles, France.
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