After having established the “determinate functioning” and systematic appearance of the Cecafumo cityscape shot in relation to the narrative of Mamma Roma – “The shot is inserted each time Mamma Roma or Ettore begins or concludes a line of action meant to improve his or her social position” (116) – Rhodes now argues the opposite, that its repetition is uncontrolled and unprovoked – which is to say, incessant (“it keeps returning” [121]) and therefore symptomatic of a “maddening” disavowal.
“Furthermore, the shot’s power extends out of its own indeterminate functioning in regards to the narrative. Again, its muteness and repetition and detachment from the characters’ point of view all contribute to make the shot ever more strange. Meanwhile, it brushes so close to familiarity (it ‘recalls’ neorealism; it almost suggests subjectivity grounded in point of view; it keeps returning) that it maddeningly seems to solicit and refuse comprehension through the simple fact of its mute, insistent reappearance. This shimmering opacity induces a restless, uncertain experience that draws us into the register of the sublime.” (121)
Drawing upon vaguely psychoanalytic concepts (trauma, disavowal, the uncanny) to characterize this shot, or the repetition of this shot, Rhodes describes the repetition as the effect of a kind of “organizing intelligence” (127) or subjectivity coextensive with the film itself (and not with Mamma Roma). Thus the image’s recurrence is described in terms of an affective, experiential subject, as a matter of traumatic repetition – “It is something not so much understood as suffered” (120); it marks “the ‘pain’ of a ‘failure of expression’” (121) – but its appearance, “diegetically,” is non-subjective. For Rhodes, that is, this shot specifically resists attaching itself to a character or assuming a point of view.
Rhodes then turns to Micciché who argues that the shot does not correspond to a strong and completed narrative nucleus, that it is “discontinuous” within “the diegetic fabric of the film,” and that it is therefore not a “subjective image,” but an “ideological image.” “Thus the image’s logic and its message belong to the organizing intelligence of the film, to Mamma Roma, if you will, but not to Mamma Roma.” (127) Though it’s safe to say that this particular logic of repetition does not find its means of expression in a character, neither do most shots: which is to say, it’s simply not clear why this logic should secure the impossibility of that shot (which is not, mind you, the same exact shot) becoming “inhabited” by a character, by a point of view – or at least opening onto that possibility, rather than specifically canceling it out. Rhodes, however, defines point of view in opposition to repetition, as if subjectivity itself – and, by extension, shots that represent subjectivity through point of view – cannot only not be ideological but is by definition insulated from pregiven forms, patterns, and repetitions.
“But we would be wrong to ascribe the landscape image to Mamma Roma’s point of view. First, this shot has been repeated too often at too many different moment following too many different types of shots for us legitimately to believe that it belongs to any character’s point of view. It has established its own autonomous functioning.” (126)
In point of fact, arguing that the final instance of the “sublime” panorama is also not a point of view shot is especially difficult because it is the first instance where the shot does approximate, and rather clearly suggests, the point of view of Mamma Roma. Which is why Rhodes is forced to admit that the point of view of Mamma Roma is at least “solicited.” However, following a rather contorted logic, Rhodes declares outright his agreement with Micciché, who “argues forcefully, and I agree, that the shot ‘is never – not even when it seems to be – a subjective image but is instead always an ideological image, and it does not function within the film as a diegetic surplus (which would enrich the story) but rather an ideological surplus (which enriches the meaning of the film).’” (127) So even where the shot “seems to be” subjective, it’s not “really” subjective – which is a fancy way of rendering this argument unfalsifiable (and unverifiable).
In anticipation of the more predictable objections, Rhodes lingers on this last scene, struggling to recast the shot sequence as one that specifically neutralizes the possibility of a point of view. So, though the shot does “solicit our identification of the sequence as point of view,” it is only a simulation:
“I want to add to Micciché’s analysis the further consideration that the work of this shot sequence (shot/countershot, character looking/putative object of vision) is precisely to solicit our identification of the sequence as point of view. Furthermore, an identification of the sequence as such solicits our identification with Mamma Roma. These solicitations, however, are lures, ideological snares. We are meant to understand that such a pursuit of identification (of shot with character’s vision, of our emotions with those of Mamma Roma) is exactly what this film means to disrupt, to interrogate.” (127)
Rhodes here cleverly turns the appearance or possibility of the point of view in the final shot into the lure, or snare, of ideology itself, and in such a way that to affirm the shot as suggestive of a point of view (and not a “point of view” qualified by quotes) is to fall for the trap, the trap of “sentimentality.” For Rhodes’ argument, to be sure, much is made to hang on this final shot not being subjective, to the extent that subjective means “sentimental,” as in the comparable scene in Umberto D where the image dramatically assumes the character’s point of view (looking down, out a window) (127), though for this viewer the comparison seems overly literal and rather inappropriate. Yes, it’s a shot looking out a window; but beyond that, it’s hard to see how the one and other relate to the same object or the same state of affairs. (One could just as well refer to the final scene of Germany: Year Zero, though to what end, I don’t know.)
In any event, the more obvious, or less counter-intuitive, reading of the final shot would make room for the possibility that it does in fact suggest, or “solicit,” Mamma Roma’s point of view. This seems to me not only intended, but essential to the film’s trajectory: it marks a final, dramatic coincidence of the film’s and Mamma Roma’s points of view. As Rhodes himself points out, “The shot [of the Cecafumo cityscape] is inserted each time Mamma Roma or Ettore begins or concludes a line of action meant to improve his or her social position.” But in each case, the damning representation of the cityscape or the INA Casa Tuscolao project – beginning with the “ironic” nod to Renaissance architecture – contradicts the optimism and false hopes of Mamma Roma’s dialogue. It’s as if she has not yet learned that her “dreams [are] fostered by the INA Casa Tuscolano project’s masquerade of progress and social equality” (125), a critique reflected or anchored in the framing and representation of the projects.
In other words, as a viewer, we are consistently clued-in, behind Mamma Roma’s back, to the fate that awaits to her. Thus, in the final image, Mamma Roma finally “gets it”: the ideological image to which we have been privy all along is suddenly, through her loss and wretchedness, “inhabited” by her, subjectively. Or, from another perspective, this image which was previously extra-diegetic becomes diegetic; the “organizing intelligence” of the film now coincides with her “intelligence.” That the image is not entirely or exclusively a point of view shot does not seem to me evidence of a “lure” or “solicitation”: aside from the fact that point of view shots don’t have to be strictly or exactly from the point of view of a character to approximate it or reference it, the framing of this final shot seems to be strategically oriented to mediate or convincingly “span” subjective and objective views. In being loosely centered on Mamma Roma, it prevents the “ideological image” from being eclipsed, and vice versa. In this way, without devolving into a pure sentimentality, Mamma Roma and Mamma Roma do finally coincide.
