Intermediality and Film Consciousness in Gao Xingjian’s La Silhouette sinon l’ombre

Abstract

This article employs Merleau-Pontian phenomenology to deconstruct the mind-body unity in Gao Xingjian's film La Silhouette sinon l'ombre (2003), which shows the protagonist's sensory and bodily encounters with the physical world through a stream-of-consciousness technique. Applying this philosophy allows us to make sense of the apparently unconnected, disparate scenes and understand the relationship between inner and outer worlds by considering the role of subjective positionality. It explains how Gao brings the body to the screen as both perceiving object and subject of perception through an emphasis on sight and touch, and interprets the creative act as the synthesis of activity and interaction. La Silhouette is an important contribution to contemporary francophone films exploring the relationship between artist, viewer and artwork due, firstly, to Gao's tripartite aesthetics, dependent on the full integration of the senses, and secondly to the unique expression of the artist's world via the intermedial, suggesting the coexistence of several consciousnesses.