Manifesto: Re Self in Film

Early critical responses to The Fall sought to position it as "narcissistic" on account of the extent to which Whitehead himself was visible onscreen. In these notes, originally prepared in 2007, Whitehead considers such claims and explains the intellectual rationale influencing his decision to include himself in the film.¹

In the Post Modern World none of us have an "authentic" self—created from within rather than imposed from without—we are no longer free to choose the self we evolve and create under the tyranny of the fascism of the media—transforming us also into a commodity. Our identity is created by the media, we are treated as mere consumable objects—we have become a VIRTUAL self even to ourselves. A mockery of self-hood.

My putting "My-self" into the film is quite deliberate—the film is about the theft of the self by Media images—me, Alberta, M. Monroe, Kennedy etc.—thus my role in the film is a parody of a self—the self that dares to be a voyeur filming everything and everyone else (many of them enacting performances in theatre, poetry, music, street protests), everything becomes ritual, SACRED PERFORMANCE. Everything and everyone becomes a performance on the virtual stage, the sage of the Media's multiple network of transparent screens . . . a kind of collective of submission, collective prostitution.

I put the IMAGE of myself in the film—not myself. A parody of myself—a self so engulfed by the film process I was creating and enacting, a routine which I know is so utterly subversive that I must be seen to be "acting/performing—(q.v., the film Performance).² So I present myself, a sacrifice, as an actor acting in a movie, enacting a naïve boy-meets-girl movie love story. (Reminding the audience of the possible illusion that this film cannot be a real film without the predictable romantic narrative thread developed around the interaction of two characters. Haxell Wexler decided he also needed to present this in his film Medium Cool. The exterior documentary is the frame in which he then directs his actors, acting a lie.).³ Both of the two "characters" in the film are mere narcissistic reflected echo mirror images of our "real" selves. Each seen on screens or contact [sic] sheets . . .

This kitsch "boy who meets girl" theme is common to both films. However, the romance is short lived, it soon falls through. The separation was, in truth, exactly what happened with Alberta and I. In reality. We had both ruthlessly "used" each other (an unspoken aside while enjoying the pleasures of a real sexual affair), both seduced by the allure of "making a film"—in which she becomes a movie actress (her dream come true) and is SEEN as such, so much more than a mere fashion model in Vogue magazine—(she goes up one rung on the ladder of success of the Media world of values)—and I acquire a pretty girl as the female-interest/image in the film—a girl who also happened to be the fashion model seen "everywhere" hovering above us, a multi-media celebrity queen, plastered in two dimensions and glorious colour on huge billboards all around New York advertising Newsweek magazine.

"Made-up" as Queen Nefertiti . . . the most beautiful head and mask in the history of art . . . was I living with Alberta Tiburzi or Queen Nefertiti? Maybe at times I wasn't sure which . . . but ideally with both.