크리스토퍼 이셔우드의 영화적 글쓰기—「샐리 볼스」와 도시의 피상성
Christopher Isherwood’s Cinematic Writing: “Sally Bowles” and the Superficial City
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In Christopher Isherwood’s short story “Sally Bowles,” the narrator proclaims that he is a camera, recording quite passively what he sees. The narrator indeed shows Sally, the protagonist, singing at a cabaret in Berlin and pursuing pleasure in the restless city, showing her palpable outside reality as if the camera lens captures only the surface of things. What readers see is the superficial side of Sally, not her psychology or consciousness. Such cinematic writing―focusing on the outside, not the inside―helps Isherwood to picture Sally without contriving a melodramatic plot, which often upholds a patriarchal system. While the narrative of melodrama focuses on the internal or moral aspect of women, Isherwood’s cinematic writing neither delves into Sally’s mind nor frames her as one of the typical female characters in melodrama, such as a fallen or wronged woman or a virtuous woman. Instead of easy labeling, Isherwood’s camera-eye helps readers to “look” at Sally and her life in the city. The notion that Isherwood writes as the camera records is deeply related to early twentieth-century urban visual culture. The radical commercialization at the turn of the century changed the face of the city street. However, modern urban space was a site that attracted people to the surface of things, and the act of looking was one of their essential activities. The cinema was the epitome of urban surface culture, requiring people to see the surface of the screen. This essay reconsiders the concept of surface during the early twentieth century and examines the ways in which the superficiality of Isherwood’s cinematic writing is related to contemporary urban visual culture.
Abstract
In Christopher Isherwood’s short story “Sally Bowles,” the narrator proclaims that he is a camera, recording quite passively what he sees. The narrator indeed shows Sally, the protagonist, singing at a cabaret in Berlin and pursuing pleasure in the restless city, showing her palpable outside reality as if the camera lens captures only the surface of things. What readers see is the superficial side of Sally, not her psychology or consciousness. Such cinematic writing―focusing on the outside, not the inside―helps Isherwood to picture Sally without contriving a melodramatic plot, which often upholds a patriarchal system. While the narrative of melodrama focuses on the internal or moral aspect of women, Isherwood’s cinematic writing neither delves into Sally’s mind nor frames her as one of the typical female characters in melodrama, such as a fallen or wronged woman or a virtuous woman. Instead of easy labeling, Isherwood’s camera-eye helps readers to “look” at Sally and her life in the city. The notion that Isherwood writes as the camera records is deeply related to early twentieth-century urban visual culture. The radical commercialization at the turn of the century changed the face of the city street. However, modern urban space was a site that attracted people to the surface of things, and the act of looking was one of their essential activities. The cinema was the epitome of urban surface culture, requiring people to see the surface of the screen. This essay reconsiders the concept of surface during the early twentieth century and examines the ways in which the superficiality of Isherwood’s cinematic writing is related to contemporary urban visual culture.
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