“Who is speaking?” In the context of a theoretical reconstruction of the concept of enunciation, this fundamental question about subjectivity in language can hardly avoid encountering Michel Foucault’s shrug, when, having infamously riposted with his own counter-question: “Who cares, who is speaking?”, he strove to carry the author off into its post-structuralist grave. Whatever concepts with which we may seek to outline the entity that produces every expressive act – and enunciation theory in no way provides a unified answer to this question – this question insists on identifying the cause, which I, as can already be intimated from the preceding passages, suggest can be conceived of as an absent cause. However we may wish to determine the site of speech in a film – whether it is to be found in the author, narrator, camera, spectator, etc. – the following discussion argues against Foucault’s cheerful positivity, with a language that practically speaks itself, and it seeks to conceptually develop the structural negativity of the cause of speech. In essence, I hope to uncover the paradoxical intertwining of productivity and negativity in the theory of cinematic enunciation. Initially, however, I will discuss two theoretical positions, those of Christian Metz and Raymond Bellour, which seem to shy away from a full confrontation with the negative potential of enunciation, although both authors contributed to establishing the concept in film theory.