Abstract

Raul Ruiz's film on Klimt and Gustav Klimt's own work are examined in terms of a cluster of related ideas; namely allegory, fragmentation, and ornamentation. Modern allegory, whether cinematic or painterly, is shown to have powers of fragmenting organic forms. Similarly, modern ornamentation is elaborated as a power to dematerialize solid forms reaching towards the infinitesimal in perception. Through these devices of allegorical ornamentation, the Ruizean cinematic image and sound are imbued with polysemia and corresponding pathic sates of intensity. The role of the cinematic closeup in facilitating these processes of fragmentation is also examined. The multi-ethnic polity of fin-dè-siecle Vienna on the brink of its dissolution is perceived through the aesthetic optic of a delirious Klimt on his deathbed.

Keywords: Raul Ruiz's Klimt, Cinematic allegory, Ornament and pathology, Fragment and close-up, Fin-de-siècle Vienna

Who art thou? asked the guardian of the night

From crystal purity I come, was my reply,

And great my thirst, Persephone,

Yet heeding thy decree I take to flight

And turn and turn again, forever right.

I spurn the pallid Cyprus tree,

And take no refreshment at its Sylvan spring,

But hasten on toward the rustling river

Of Mnemosyne, wherein I drink to sweet satiety.

And there dipping my palms between the

Knots and loopings of its mazy stream

I see again, as in a drowning swimmers dream,

All the strange sights I ever saw,

And even stranger sights no man has ever seen.

Klimt