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September 20, 2003
Have you had a chance to look at the article by Keith Ansell Pearson that is in the Library? I'd like to raise a point from the article.
Pearson sees in Klossowski's book what he describes as a superior existentialism. This being the authenticity of self-dissolution as opposed to the inferior existentialism that is concerned with the authenticity of self-completion. He is completely correct in seeing Klossowski as concerned with self-dissolution. After a paper Bataille gave on sin during the Second World War, Sartre demanded of him that he could not have it both ways, either we were vacuums seeking completion or we were plenitudes seeking dissolution. Bataille replied that he preferred the latter alternative.
In a recent paper Ivan Krisjansen and I published in the journal Studies in French Cinema on Catherine Breillat's film Romance we described the position Pearson calls superior existentialism as surrealism. The article survived the review process and was published without the designation ever being questioned. More recently we sent the same journal a follow-up article on Breillat's next film, A ma soeur, (For My Sister). Again we emphasized that the film was surrealist, relying on the previous paper as textual support, but one of the reviewers wrote back that that this wasn't surrealism and that Bataille and Klossowski weren't surrealists. We stuck to our guns, redrafting the paper to explain what we meant and sent it back to the editors. Were currently waiting to hear back from them.
In the meantime, what do you think? This idea of dissolution is found in Nietzsche, recognised by Salome, and taken up by Bataille and Klossowski. But is it at least part of what is meant by surrealism? That is the question. Is it surrealism or superior existentialism? What's the difference? Does it matter?
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