Defence of Plot Holes and Other Logical Incoherencies in Film: Exploration of Susan Sontag’s Aesthetics of Silence

Essay by Chris (Kru’23)

To Makoto Shinkai’s Kimi no Na Wa

This essay houses two camps of writing: a brief exploration of Susan Sontag’s Aesthetics of Silence, and the argument(s) against the use of logic in film critique. The first camp serves solely as a foundational work for the second camp; in writing it I interject mine and Sontag’s ideas, specifying clearly when it’s the latter. By no means is this an adequate replacement for personally reading Sontag’s brilliant essay, so I implore everyone to read her work as a (quite necessary) companion.

1. Meaning and Logic

When we stride unconscious in the time of sleeping reason, we may chance a meeting with the unconscious muse: dreams. Her perfume, the very smell of fantasy, intoxicates us to lay on idyllic pastures and watch the unfurling skies. Yet when we watch the moon speak and the clouds dance, we do not seek to condemn them immediately so: the moon is not supposed to speak!

Instead, we find ourselves drowning in their lullaby. We let the meaningless whispers tickle our ears in that giddy innocence. We let our eyes dance with the clouds on every corner of the sky. To simply enjoy the words, the fantasy of it all, and to ignore the jealous reason, who always seeks to insert itself in your peripheral, is a privilege found exclusively in dreaming.

Stories, similar to dreams, are an otherworldly exploration within our mind and emotion, whose willing exploration of it proves its desirability. However, a polarising standard is erected between the two when we consider their function. While dreams are often surrendered to the perception of childish fantasy and seldom taken seriously*, stories find the exact opposite view: that of a meaningful exploration of human experience.

Yet both, by virtue of being artificial, suffer the inevitable fate of possessing logical flaws. Certainly, we wouldn’t condemn dreams to the crime of logical incoherency; yet oppositely in stories, we not only condemn, but actively seek logical flaws to criticise.

Here a connection arises between our expectation for logical coherency and meaning. When we expect meaning, we respectively expect a degree of logical coherency. Thus, to meaningless dreams, logical incoherencies are tolerated; but to stories, they are often fatal.

*It must be noted that the Freudian Psychoanalysis of dreams — which necessitates a deeper meaning in dreams — is irrelevant in this comparison, as we are not measuring the existence but rather the expectancy for meaning.

2. Logical Incoherencies in Film

In film, logical incoherencies — commonly referred to as plot holes — are often viewed in a negative manner. Barring genres that intentionally weaponizes logical incoherencies, such as abstract or surrealism, most would categorise logical incoherencies in film as flaws, or at least inevitable mistakes.

Plot holes — and by this, I mean the full scope of plot holes: discontinuities, contradictions, even plot armors — have cemented a pejorative reputation in film. Even when they are done intentionally (e.g. for the sake of metaphors, allegory, etc.) the audience would still criticise the filmmaker’s choice of sacrificing logical coherency for their artistic vision. At best, they would claim that it is an understandable mistake that still could’ve — and should’ve — been improved upon.

A big part of this perception stems from the classical interpretation of film as a medium of storytelling and an expression of the artist’s idea — in short, art. Film as art, an artistic expression of an idea, stands better to be appreciated, as like every other idea, when it passes the standards of logical coherency. Additionally, this expression of an idea also entails meaning, ergo a degree of logical coherency is expected to construct said meaning.

Even in the case of art as emotional expressions, logic still applies, only hidden behind layers of manmade conventionality and superstition. We often misconstrue emotional expressions as illogical due to their mercurial nature, but when tenuously analysed, we can see a number of rational reasons for these “illogical” actions.

Hence, by this classical perception of film — as an artistic expression of an artist, entailing meaning of some sort — it becomes understandable as to why logical incoherencies in film are treated so hostilely.

3. Spirituality: The Question within Pure Experience

In The Aesthetics of Silence (1967), Susan Sontag writes an alternative — but necessary — view of art in the modern age.

Every generation needs their own form of spirituality. Spirituality, in essence, is the confrontation of man’s consciousness and their reality.

The early consciousness, brought into life by an unknown being, is forced to confront its given reality. In this critical moment of birth, a categorical distinction — instinctive in nature — arises in their experience, that of the distinction between the “self” (consciousness) and “not-self” (reality).

While it finds reality (not-self) observable through its senses (touch, taste, vision, etc.), the “self”, however, provides no way of examining its being. Yet peculiarly, consciousness can’t seem to deny the existence of the “self” either — an obvious sentiment perhaps, as it obviously can’t deny its own existence. This mystery confounds early man in such a manner that it was compelled to investigate it.

This investigation, of that which cannot be proven empirically (by the physical senses), yet possessing such powerful intuitive truth, is spirituality in its purest form. Given that, spirituality as an investigation of consciousness finds only a single direct clue: consciousness itself. Both become interlinked, the mystery and the investigator.

But what is the actual mystery here? Is it merely: what is the nature of consciousness? Or is there something more to the question?

4. Transcendence: The Answer as Proposed in Early Spirituality

As the story goes, God created Adam as the first human in the Garden of Eden. Later, God saw the lonely Adam and pitied them. God granted Adam a partner, born of their own flesh, Eve, and permitted them residence in Eden amongst the other creations.

The Garden of Eden is consistently portrayed as a utopia, an extension of God’s divine good, where every being lives in harmony and absolute denial of displeasure. Eden’s image is coloured with peace and absolute freedom, barred from the one commandment God makes for Adam and Eve: “of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2:16–17).

To live in Eden is, in essence, to live in paradise. Yet in spite of this, man sinned. They chose to disobey the commandment of God to eat the forbidden fruit, tempted by evil who had said: eat this and you shall become like God!

There is a rare humility evident in the story of Adam and Eve, wherein the writer recognizes the fatal, prenatal curse of man. Man would discard peace and freedom, deny themselves of paradise, and even disobey God, for his innate, unstoppable desire: to expand his consciousness, to seek the highest plane of experiencing possible — that is, to be like God*.

Arguably, the greatest prophecy in the bible is the attitude of the consciousness towards reality: the dissatisfaction towards reality, the thirst for a higher experience of reality, a realm beyond consciousness; a desire that is unnegotiable by any promise of peace or freedom, any words of God — religion — or any paradise.

This desire for transcendence manifests itself in different hides throughout religions. Christians called it rebirth: an escape from the materialistic, superficial flesh and its sins; Taoists suggest a state of absolute abstinence of desire; Buddhists describe it as nirvana, etc.

Hermann Hesse puts it well when Siddhartha gains the realisation of his deceitful ego masquerading as an absence of ego: that even the desire for no desires is still a desire. The desire for spiritual transcendence is inevitable, in one way or the other.

Later, it becomes clear that transcendence (the end) of spirituality is as important as the mystery (consciousness) itself, for without any conceivable answer, a mystery would quickly lose its function. This is evident in religion, wherein persistently without fail, their doctrine of transcendence usurps any pre-existing core doctrines.

Thus, transcendence becomes synonymous with spirituality itself, towering over any previous doctrines of spirituality. The mystery of spirituality then is not merely: what is consciousness? It is actually: how do we reach maximum consciousness (transcendence)?

The story of early man prophesied the inevitable expiry of any modes of spirituality — even religion — for man will stop at nothing to reach transcendence, and the tools of spirituality become mere fodder in the grand conquest for godhood.

*Perhaps the writer realises this fate too early and laments on it ironically, by branding man as the only creation whose soul was sculpted in the image of God. Naturally then, man would possess a unique desire — however irrational to the material mind it may be — to actualize the image of God not only in his soul, but in his consciousness. A longing of the soul to return into its rightful body.

5. Spirituality in Art

In later decades, as consciousness continues to expand its limits through obtained knowledge, so must spirituality adapt to this condition. As it does so, it submits to numerous amendments, each time rewriting its form, shedding its old skin.

The modern form of spirituality has undergone extensive metamorphosis until it is scantily recognizable from its infant form. Contemporary spirituality has reached the point where traditional modes of spirituality, practised within religion, no longer becomes enough for the consciousness. This, coupled with the rising of secular atheism, the ongoing discreditation of religious institutions, and the subsequent replacing of religion with naturalism, produces the modern problem: we find that the contemporary body of spirituality is a dying one — in need of an immediate and revolutionary resuscitation.

Contrary to normative belief, spirituality is not confined within religion. Nietzsche wrote the brilliant “God is dead.” passage as a response to the death of religion in the west; not as a critique against religion, but a lamentation of man’s fate — “How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?”. Religion may be dead, but the need for spirituality is eternal. What will replace religion’s seat in the grand conquest of spirituality?

Sontag points this spiritual shift towards art. Art in the modern sense, as the collection of artistic activities, is already a viable ground for spirituality’s conquest. Arts, an elevation of the activity, studies the innate confrontation of consciousness in an artist, and expresses it so in the activity. Any art that recognizes an artist’s conscious expression inherent in their artistic activities is, in essence, a form of practised spirituality.

Thus, the contemporary movement in the landscape appoints art as a new proponent for spirituality. But is this done in bad faith?

Human consciousness continues its crusade, colonising uncharted fields of knowledge unto its own. The unbound consciousness seeks always of a higher plane — more “real” until it is dissatisfied with what reality can only give; now it pushes beyond it — and the activity of art as spirituality serves only as another part of its conquest. Akin to religion, art in spirituality is doomed to expire its use.

In face of this unstoppable force, the modern artist realises the inevitable death of classical art against the unlimited boundaries of consciousness. So, the new artists seek to serve another being, that is: the ultimate end of the spiritual conquest itself, transcendence — beyond consciousness — and denies the glorification of classical art.

The elevation of art, from the activity of conscious expression by the artist into a ground of spirituality — more importantly, the pursuit of transcendence — marks a new moment in art. The modern line of artists cares less about the classical institution of art and is more interested in the pursuit of its grand purpose. In this position, the activity of art is no longer the desired end to which an artist devotes their life to, as art instead becomes a means for a perennial spiritual expression, ultimately leading to spiritual transcendence.

This is why, as Sontag observes, modern art demands less of the artistic endeavour — more silent. It is a rejection of the absoluteness of the activity of art by the realisation of its limitations — accentuating its limitations — for the boundless human consciousness which art tries to confront will always be unmatchable by the projects of art. Art simply becomes a means to an end; impermanent, fodder to spiritual conquest.

Moreover, the nature of transcendence denies itself to exist in the activity of spirituality itself. By nature of being investigatory, spirituality’s validation exists parasitically in the validation of the mystery itself, consciousness.

Therefore, spirituality is bound to lose its function after transcendence — the uncovering of the maximal consciousness — that is, the solution of the mystery. Transcendence assumes the death of spirituality and all of its modes.

It then follows that the artist’s pursuit for transcendence prophesied the death of art itself, as art would inevitably lose its efficacy post-apotheosis. In the artist’s pursuit of transcendence, their goal then becomes: not to create art, but instead to destroy art. This endpoint of the artist, that is, achieving transcendence in the form of art’s total abolition, is referred to by Sontag as the “Silence”.

6. Previous Ideas of Silence in Art

Sontag’s idea of silence in art is characterised by two main sentiments:

1. The innate inability of art to achieve a transcendent plane pictured by the consciousness — in other words, to fall short in comparison to the pure expression;
2. And subsequently, the futility of pursuing a transcendent plane in art, leading to: opposing art to achieve transcendence (silence).

Sontag is not the first to point out the presence of silence in art. Several artists have realised the innate limitations of art in their pursuit of transcendent arts, pushing some to denounce their previous occupation in classical art.

Edgar Allan Poe, in his work Al-Aaraaf, dreams of Nesace, the embodiment of pure beauty, to which any earthly beauty is incomparable. Nesace and her divine sisters rode the golden star through realms, spreading beauty and music to the desolate universe.

Poe later writes of the confrontation between this empyrean beauty and God the transcendent:

She ceas’d — and buried then her burning cheek

Abash’d, amid the lilies there, to seek

A shelter from the fervour of His eye;

For the stars trembled at the Deity.

She stirr’d not — breath’d not — for a voice was there

How solemnly pervading the calm air!

A sound of silence in the startled ear

Which dreamy poets name “the music of the sphere.”

Ours is a world of words: Quiet we call

“Silence” — which is the merest word of all.

All nature speaks, and ev’n ideal things

Flap shadowy sounds from visionary wings –

But ah! Not so when, thus, in realms of high

The eternal voice of God is passing by,

And the red winds are withering in the sky!

(Al-Aaraaf)

Poe portrays a scintillating idea of beauty, reduced to literal silence in the face of the transcendent — portrayed as God. However in love with Nesace he later shows in the poem, Poe still recognizes a transcendent divider between the two beings: that beauty and the transcendent are unequal.

Decades later, Friedrich Nietzsche as Zarathustra the wandering monk, proclaims his disdain for then-contemporary poets in the excerpt:

Ah, indeed I cast my net into their* sea and hoped to catch fine fish; but I always drew out an old god’s head.

Thus the sea gave a stone to the hungry man. And they themselves may well originate from the sea.

To be sure, one finds pearls in them: then they themselves are all the more like hard shellfish. And instead of the soul I often found in them salty slime.

They learned vanity, too, from the sea: is the sea not the peacock of peacocks?

It unfurls its tail even before the ugliest of buffaloes, it never wearies of its lace-fan of silver and satin.

The buffalo looks on insolently, his soul like the sand, yet more like the thicket, but most like the swamp.

What are beauty and sea and peacock-ornaments to him? I speak this parable to the poets.

Truly, their spirit itself is the peacock of peacocks and a sea of vanity!

The poet’s spirit wants spectators, even if they are only buffaloes!

But I have grown weary of this spirit: and I see the day coming when it will grow weary of itself.

Already I have seen the poets transformed; I have seen them direct their glance upon themselves.

I have seen penitents of the spirit appearing: they grew out of the poets.

* [The Poets]

(Thus Spoke Zarathustra: Of Poets)

Nietzsche paints the poets as servants of the old gods: mere successors of antiquated ideals. Their work he described as vanity, like the ocean’s beauty lost in the buffaloes: that beauty cannot be translated fully in its every spectator, and any serious attempt of beauty is in vain. Finally, he closes with a premonition of the spirit’s escape from the poet: the spirit is weary of poets and their beauties, and seeks instead: outwards of the art.

Essentially similar to the concept of Sontag’s Silence, Nietzsche suggests both: any attempt of a transcendent beauty — that is a beauty fully translated into its audience — is in vain; and crucially, that this innate limitation of art will inevitably drive the spirit weary of the arts and the artist.

The idea of silence is also present amongst the 1850s French poetry circle. Arthur Rimbaud — the French prodigy, whom Sontag brands the “exemplary artist” for his exit from the arts — was obsessed with formulating, in his own words: “a poetic language accessible, one day or another, to all of the senses.” (A Season in Hell). His quest dictated: to create a language of art transcending normative (material) senses of art; an early depiction of a transcendent plane in art.

Although Rimbaud had made some attempts on his quest — e.g. Voyelles, wherein Rimbaud associates vowels with respective colours — he eventually realised that his task is impossible to complete. His previous attempts have hitherto been no more than entertained delusions:

I got used to plain hallucination: I saw quite clearly a mosque in place of a factory, a school of drums made by angels, tilburies on the highways of the sky; a parlor at the bottom of a lake; monsters; mysteries; the title of a music-hall comedy raised up horrors before me.

Then I explained the magic of my sophistries by means of the hallucination of words!

I ended by deeming sacred the disorder of my spirit. I was idle, prey to high fever! I envied the beasts their happiness — caterpillars, which symbolize the innocence of limbo; moles, the sleep of virginity!

I became embittered. I bade farewell to society in something like ballads.

(A Season in Hell: The Alchemy of Words)

The madness of his quest consumes him, condemning him to solitude and near death, until his realisation upon the sea: “I had been damned by the rainbows. Happiness was my doom, my remorse, my worm: my life would always be too vast to be given up to strength and beauty.”

Soon after this epiphany, Rimbaud quit writing and became a merchant until his death.

Rimbaud’s contemporary, Stephane Mallarme, suffers a similar fate. Littered throughout his oeuvre is a dream of an ideal world; his art becomes a vessel for his pursuit of the transcendent plane. Mallarme’s desire to escape reality into the transcendent is pressed against doubts of his art. This contrast is stressed in two works: The Window and The Azure.

The earlier work, The Window, was composed following the death of Mallarme’s father. In it, Mallarme writes of a dying man who dreams of an afterlife in the ideal world:

Drunken he lives, forgetting strainèd herbs,

Cough, clock, the holy oils, the bed he dies on;

And when the evening bleeds upon the curbs,

His eye, where gorged with light is the horizon,

…

Reflected am an Angel! and I die,

And love, in panes of Art with mystery gloomed,

To be re-born, dream-crowned, in the earlier sky,

Where Beauty first burst from its bud and bloomed!

(The Window)

Using physical death, Mallarme constructs a path to the ideal world (referred as the birthplace of beauty) — similar to the concept of Christian rebirth. This dream, however, is fettered by doubts of his art, as made clear in the stanza:

Is there a means, I with the Bitter hedged,

To smash the glass the brute defiles, and flee

Into the azure with my wings unfledged

– At the risk of falling through Eternity?

There is a great fear imbued in Mallarme’s closing stanza. He doubts his “wings unfledged” — or even any means at all — is enough to escape reality and into the ideal world. He fears that his artistic inadequacy — an inkling of doubt towards the efficacy of art — will fail his escape. This fear is then amplified by the tragic realisation in his subsequent work, The Azure:

The everlasting Azure’s tranquil irony

Depresses, like the flowers indolently fair,

The powerless poet who damns his superiority

Across a sterile wilderness of aching Despair.

In flight, with eyes shut fast, I feel it scrutinize

With all the vehemence of some destructive remorse,

My empty soul. Where can I flee? What haggard night

Fling over, tatters, fling on his distressing scorn?

…

(The Azure)

Mallarme’s radical rejection of the ideal world — catalysed by his confirmation of art’s inadequacy before transcendence (ideal world) — is in a total juxtaposition with his previous works. His beloved ideal now he describes as depressing; himself stuck in despair over it. Further:

For there I long, because at last my mind, drained

As is a rouge-pot lying on a closet-shelf,

No longer has the art of decking tearful plaints,

To yawn lugubrious toward a humble death …

(The Azure)

Mallarme — mirroring Rimbaud — now yearns for the common life: a slow and content death. Rimbaud achieved this desire by quitting writing; Mallarme was not given this privilege.

But vainly! The Azure triumphs and I hear it sing

In bells. Dear Soul, it turns into a voice the more

To fright us by its winged victory, and springs

Blue Angelus, out of the living metal core.

(The Azure)

To Mallarme, this late desire is futile, for he knows himself what is undoubtedly true: that the ideal world (the azure) will always behold his soul over mere reality. Mallarme becomes a slave to the transcendent, barred from the freedom of common life by volition of his own soul. He is condemned to neither achieve nor resign his dream. So he ends the poem with:

Where flee in my revolt so useless and depraved?

For I am haunted! The Sky! The Sky! The Sky! The Sky!

Mallarme concludes the impossibility of actualizing the ideal world (transcendent) through his art. Yet at the same time, he is unable to release his desire for it, thus finds himself ultimately: haunted by his beloved dream! (“The Sky! The Sky! The Sky! The Sky!”)

A century later, Pynchon observing the trail of a postmodern rocket remarks: “A screaming comes across the sky.” (Gravity’s Rainbow)

6b. Film as Metaphor: The Inherent Silence in Art

Classical art can be performed in two stages. (I will refer classical art as simply “art” in this chapter to avoid repeating myself)

The first stage: expressions of the artist. This is the birthplace of ideas, a promise of a story. In this birth another death is announced: innocence, both of the artist and the audience. Art is a warning, a threat — but is it only for innocence?

The second stage: the phenomenon. The end-product — if there is even such a thing — of an artistic journey, consisting not just the work, rather the experiencing of the work. It is the promised experience of an art, while critically, it must still belong wholly to the artist — celibate of an audience: the writing about to be read, the music about to exit the stereo, or the film about to perform on the screen.

These two separate stages are bridged by the act of projection. Art, primarily, is the act of projection: that is, the projection of an expression into a work. The experiencing of art by the audience is also an act of projection: the projection of a work into the audience’s conscious realm — but this is besides the point.

Now, consider the reality of projection. (Think of a film projection for the sake of metaphor)

The first stage: the original event, living 3-dimensionally in the physical world. The actors move and talk, the background creates space, the script comes alive, and the camera is ready for the picture.

The second stage: the film about to be projected. Imagine a theatre. The lights dim, the projector whirls on, the speakers flare from the sides, and we are about to be entranced by that giant moving picture in front of us. Yet before we can realise, something crucial is already lost: a dimension. The picture on the screen is now 2-dimensional.

The then 3-dimensional event is forced to conform to a 2-dimensional world by the act of projection. Projection: the creation of art from expression, entails the forcing of raw ideas into a material, public phenomena, necessarily losing a dimension.

The event, being projected, loses a part of itself. It is transfigured. Art, similarly, is the transfiguration of expression. A dilution of an expression. The celebrated murder of its dimension. We realise that innately — perhaps even intrinsically — art requires a silencing of a dimension. With this, art is destined to always fail in wholly translating the conscious expression; and it cannot keep up with consciousness either!

7. Sontag’s Logical Disconnect of Art and Silence

Upon the still sceptic a question forms: can an art ever be silent (transcendent)?

A speech, that is the activity of expressing an abstract concept — both consciously and subconsciously — to a recipient, is the exact opposite of dialectic silence. Speech is encompassed between silences, as it must start after a silence and ends before a silence. Speech can be defined as a disturbance of the plane of silence. But conversely, we can also define silence as the disturbance of the plane of speech. Both states are interconnected, each one defined by the other. It follows that the existence of one guarantees the preceding and the coming of the other, infinitely.

Then, however silent an art is, it will inevitably find its — or at least a — speech in time. Sontag uses the example of Goethe’s accusation towards Kleist for “having written his plays for an ‘invisible theatre’”. An ugly art that has no audience is essentially silent, but eventually, Kleist’s work becomes recognized in the modern audience — who have experienced harder, more transgressive arts. Inevitably, time will reveal higher transgressions of ideas in art, supplying a metamorphosis for previously ugly arts into ‘beautiful’ arts.

The first problem reveals itself: art, eternally imprisoned by time, will always be a form of speech, in contradiction with its end, silence. The existence of one marks the necessary abolition of the other. As long as there is speech (art), there can never be silence (transcendent), thus confirming the absolute need for art’s eventual cessation in order to actualize transcendence.

The abolition of art is what Sontag means by a transcendent silence, a state characterised by the abstinence from participating in art, or the absolute alienation — or liberation — from an audience in art, thereby producing no effect/response.

8. Aesthetics: The Pursuit of Silence

Then, if transcendence is impossible to be realised within art, how does an artist reach this transcendence?

Interestingly, Sontag uses the word “Aesthetic” in her title as a quality of “Silence”. There are two possible interpretations of this word.

Aesthetic, in the modern sense of the word, is derived from Baumgarten, who wrote the philosophical theory of taste in beauty. Aesthetic in Baumgarten’s work means a taste/sense in beauty, and in context of his science of aesthetic, would mean a science/principals of taste in beauty. In this interpretation of the word, an aesthetic of silence would mean the science/mechanisms of taste in silence; the methods of reaching silence.

In the often forgotten, original Greek meaning of the word, aesthetic means the ability to sense (sensibility), that is, to experience reality. In this meaning, an aesthetic of silence then indicates the ability to sense or to experience silence; the attitude towards silence.

A great distinction between the two modes is further implied in Sontag’s closing text, as she expresses doubts on the efficacy of any method of silence, while critically, she stands unwaveringly still in her attitude towards silence.

Both interpretations combined would drive the conclusion that in using the word “Aesthetic”, Sontag proposes not just the method, but also the attitude towards silence. Both are critical and must be equally maintained.

Therefore, the question must not be only: “how does an artist reach transcendence?”; but it must also include: what sense(s) can be used to realise transcendence?

9. Susan Sontag’s Aesthetic of Silence: Language

Sontag proposes a number of aesthetics briefly — among others: the faculty of attention, to look rather than to stare, discontinuity of interpretive memory, etc. — and highlights one particular aesthetic: an approach towards modern language. Sontag recognizes that art, characterised by an act of speech, requires a medium of communication, a language.

Language in essence is a social institution that regulates a standard of meaning from abstract expressions — speech. Like spirituality, language, in its history, has always been forced to evolve accordingly to human consciousness. As the standard of meaning derived from the consciousness expands, language, the regulator, must expand its constitutions.

But this expansion proves to be flawed. A conflation, or a desynchronized standard of meaning in modern language alarms the likes of Saussure, or even — as Sontag uses in her example — Nietzsche.

In the contemporary landscape, language has evolved into a system based on value comparison instead of physical references. Its members direct their own meaning from others, by comparing what it ought not be, ought to be, but not actually is. Hence, a word is never independent of others, and necessarily implies the existence of other words in its utterance.

Saussure explains this by using two modes in an expression, that is, a signifier — the expression — and a signified — the concept. For example, the word “cold” is a signifier of the signified concept of cold. Linguistically, the word “cold” is defined by what it ought not be: sold, bold, old, etc.; and conceptually, “cold” is defined from what it ought not be: not hot, not warm; or by what it ought to be: a degree of temperature, a quality belonging to frozen matters.

In this view, the meaning of one word lies in another word as a reference for comparison. A word cannot exist independently of other words. However, it then follows that the meaning of the referential word lies too in another word. This continues on and on until language, stripped from its glorious facade, is mere chains of meaning with no real beginning.

Meaning in language becomes illusory, a void even, as the search for it leaves one eternally enthralled in the maze of meanings, tragically not knowing that its centre is nonexistent.

Simply, “talking for the sake of talking” becomes the mode of rationale behind contemporary language. A speech refers to another speech, which refers to another speech, endlessly repeating and echoing across history. Language is chained by its history, its objective meaning lost and later forcefully embedded either ritualistically or abstractly.

In its ritualistic form, a word becomes an unbudgingly cold replica of its original form. The speaker performs the word ritualistically, submitting fully to historical-socio standards of meaning, that is, to the external mandate.

Conversely, in its abstract form, a word fluctuates its form between speakers. Language becomes unreliable and its purpose manifests its own defeat. The speaker expresses the voice subjectively, submitting fully to his inner interpretation, that is, to the ego.

Both would prevent the artist from ever expressing or realising their fullest ideas, for their instrument of art itself denies their transcendence. It fetters them to the boundaries set by its previous owners, and it lies to the audience of the artist’s intention, only filling them with past interpretations.

This also applies to spoken language — the norms of speaking — and visual language, the languages of film. Film, perhaps, is one of the most biased and deeply restrictive media of art, as it employs three different kinds of contemporary language at once: language, sound, and visual — at times even conflating with one another.

Contemporary language and its epigones, with all its intrinsic flaws, are in contradiction with the state of transcendence. Hence in Sontag’s view, an aesthetic of silence includes a complete overhaul in the conception of language.

10. Truth-Based Logic in Correlation with Transcendence

However, Sontag stops before fully dignifying another, arguably even bigger, enemy in art for the pursuit of transcendence, namely, logic — specifically the subsect built upon truths and its reasoning thereof.

To understand this, we must first distinguish the kind of logic used in film critique, namely, truth-based logic or empirical reasoning. Broadly speaking, it is the faculty of logic based upon physical claims that are empirically validated.

A physical claim is any statement or claim that bases its validity, that is to judge whether it’s true or false, in a physical reference. Consequently, truth is a physical claim that is found empirically to be true, that is to have an agreement between a claim and its point of reference. For example, “fire is hot” is a physical claim, since its validity lies in the physical reference, a fire, following the claim, that it is hot. If a fire is indeed hot, then the claim is a truth. If not, then it’s false.

By gathering a number of these proven truths, an orderly system of rationale can be formed. This system can be called truth-based logic, and any system of rationale and reasoning built upon these truths are a part of this logic.

This definition would include branches of logic such as empirical reasoning, common sense, every branch of the scientific method, and would also apply to aspects in film such as plot coherency, logical consistency and continuity, and reasonable characters. This definition, however, does not include dialectic logic.

Distinctly, this kind of logic is applied foundationally in film critique to lambast logical flaws such as plot holes, characters who lack common sense, etc. Evidence for this can be found in an analysis of every plot hole critique: that an aspect of the plot betrays a sense of well-known truth(s).

Granted, this may well be true: undeniably, plot holes do betray well-known truths. But what does it matter?

Consider the nature of transcendence: to experience a higher — more holistic — experience of reality beyond the material lens. It must be noted that transcendence posits two states of consciousness. Firstly, a higher experience of reality: that is to surpass the given physical reality; and secondly, beyond the material lens, meaning: unbounded by the superficial ego.

Thus at least two prerequisites for transcendence are known to us: the surpassing of the physical, observable reality; and the release from ego.

11. Proposed Aesthetic of Silence: Logic

By virtue of transcendency’s nature, to detach from the physical and the ego, it follows that any modes of rationale intrinsically built on both qualities must be purged when pursuing nirvana.

To erase the validity of truth-based logic in this new view of art, it will be argued that logic is both physical — consequently limited by physicality — and ego-driven, thus making it unsuitable in a spiritual transcendence.

Argument One: Logic Relies on the Physical

Truth-based logic, by definition, relies on a system of physical reference. Its foundation lies in physical dependency, and its application is justified through empirical proof. Both core sources for truth-based logic prove its necessary dependency on the physical realm.

Its reliance on a physical reference fetters logic to the material realm, a realm defined by its physical limitations. It is very similar — if not identical — to an a posteriori knowledge. A posteriori, defined by Kant (Critique of Pure Reason), is any knowledge based on experience — knowledge known through empiricism. A posteriori knowledge is distinctly different from its partner, a priori — that is any knowledge not based on experience.

Kant provides two distinctions between the two faculties of knowledge, being: only a priori knowledge possesses the trait of universality and necessity. To posit that a claim or knowledge is universally and necessarily true, is to mark said claim as an a priori knowledge.

For example, the claim “a triangle has three sides” is an a priori knowledge. It is an a priori knowledge because it posits a universality, that this claim applies in any given condition, and necessity, that it is necessarily true. Furthermore, we can know instinctively that this claim is true, even if we can’t empirically prove it — at best, an empirical proof of this claim can only prove its validity in a numbered instance, not all instances. Since we have no empirical proof for this, this knowledge does not base itself with experience, thus confirming that it is not an a posteriori knowledge, but rather, a priori.

A posteriori cannot be objective, as any objective judgement — possessing universality and necessity — is by definition a priori. Similarly, truth-based logic may not possess objectivity because of its personal and specific ties to physical references. Therefore, truth-based logic does not only depend on the physical but is consequently limited by it — both in formulation and application.

Argument Two: Logic is Ego Driven

Truth-based logic necessarily requires an ego to interact with the physical realm and extract truths. Without an ego to experience the physical realm, no physical claim can be made. The ego is a necessary condition to experience reality, formulate claims, and verify claims.

Three critical distinctions can be known about this ego:

1. The ego is different from the consciousness in that the former is subsumed by the latter, which assumes every aspect of the self — memory, knowledge, ego, etc.

2. The origin of this ego cannot be external, since it precedes any empirical experience. Hence, it must be of internal (self) origin.

3. This ego is unique in its position, being a bastion against hyper-scepticism as Descartes puts it; cogito ergo sum. Its existence is transcendently true, as to even doubt it would confirm itself.

Since the ego is a necessary condition for any experiencing — and thus precedes any truth and its logics thereof — then the original ego must operate with a different system of rationale than truth. This ontological nature of ego is a bizarre mystery that has led many to investigate.

Because of this, the theology of ego can be found in almost all religions, the original modes of spirituality. However, the ontological ego is of minimal importance to their theology compared to the subsequent response towards it. The flesh and original sin in Christianity, samsara in Buddhism and Hinduism, desire and loss in Taoism, to name a few, all point to the branding of ego as a superficial agent that must be rid to attain transcendence.

A common theme within religion’s view of ego is the condemnation of the material world that has usurped the infant form of ego — the pure, transcendent ego.

Ego’s sin lies in its somewhat forced interaction with its given reality. Mistakenly, it accepts reality as a comrade of beings on a level plane of truth. It seeks to define itself through reality, but given the inadequacies of physical reality, instead forces reality unto itself.

The validity of reality latches on like a parasite to this ego, itself oblivious to this insect. Ego now fears of becoming disconnected with its reality — in the form of death — and forgets its transcendental form. It is then precisely this self, the tainted, superficial ego, that transcendence seeks to destroy in order to purify it into its highest form — of transcendence.

Thus, this kind of ego dependent logic is deeply unsuited for the pursuit of spiritual transcendence. To cater to truth-based logic in spirituality is essentially committing a spiritual suicide.

Truth-based logic may assume its appropriate position in other fields of knowledge — such as material science — but spirituality, based on truth-based logic’s dependency upon the material and the ego, must vehemently refuse its mandates. Hence, art as spirituality must also deny truth-based logic.

12. Additional Argument: All Truth is Relative

Famously, all truth is relative (subjective). This is indeed true, as the nature of truth itself relies upon the ever-malleable interpretation of the physical world. Interpretations of the material reality fluctuates between people, driven by a plethora of factors outside of our conscious control.

A common rebuttal of this claim is: if all truth is relative, then surely that statement (truth) is relative, which contradicts itself. This rebuttal is popularised by a lack of distinction between physical claims and other forms of claims.

The claim of “all truth is relative” is not a physical claim, since its point of reference, truth, is not a physical matter. While truth does reference a physical matter, truth itself ostracised from its personal reference, is not a physical matter. Collective truth, subtracted from its physical reference, is immaterial in essence.

Therefore, “all truth is relative” is not a physical claim, but a metaphysical one. A metaphysical claim is not subject to the limitations of a physical claim since it does not build itself upon truths; rather, meta-truths, or truths detached from its physical reference.

For example, “it is either night or not” is a physical claim, but “statement p is either true or false” is a metaphysical claim since it subtracts the physical references in the physical claim, “it is night”, and replaces it with a metaphysical reference, statement p. The physical claim is vulnerable to subjectivity — as “night” can have a number of different definitions — but the metaphysical claim applies in all possible interpretations, or in other words, possesses objectivity.

Therefore, the claim of “all truth is relative” can stand objectively true without contradicting itself. Additionally, a proper rebuttal for this claim must contest metaphysically that truth can be objective — a near impossible task that has yet been done. If all truth is indeed relative, it then follows that any logic which bases itself on truth must be subjective.

13. Subjective Logic and Meaning in Art

We, the audience, are conditioned to inscribe meaning in classical art. We expect every art to have meaning, whether explicitly, implicitly, or meta-wise — however scarcely its meaning may be. In the later stages of this, we are even conditioned to disqualify the status of an art when it lacks any meaning.

In doing so, we enclose art in a tight box of expression. Meaning becomes the limitation of an artistic expression. Furthermore, meaning, derived from its parents, logic and language, finds another limitation, namely, subjectivity.

By forcing meaning into art, we are limiting it as a subjective expression. Subjectivity is a double-edged sword. Art as a subjective expression provides a substantial amount of good to the audience, among which, a personal relation. Unfortunately, it can also harm art in its longevity.

By nature of being subjective, art can never have an objective quality. An optimistic result of this idea is that no art can ever be objectively bad, but conversely, no art can ever be perfect. A more pessimistic take on this idea can be found in a deeper investigation into the nature of meaning.

Classical art is eternally enslaved by meaning, an offspring of language and logic, who in turn are also enslaved by historical and societal standards. As previously mentioned, language relies on the expression of an abstract representation in the speaker’s mind. However, the mind, one which actively participates in historical and societal norms, is liable to be influenced by said norms — critically, to the point of being moulded by it.

Meaning, in essence, is a historical-socio standard given to the audience outside of their control by privilege of being social. Consequently, art is then eternally boxed within historical-socio standards, and any attempt of art to break out of its box will result in its instant disqualification as an art, as it would lose any meaning.

The artist then is forced to choose the lesser of two evils. To satisfy the audience by limiting their expression inside historical-socio standards, or to be disqualified from art by actualizing their expression. It is the modern odyssey, with the artist as Odysseus, toyed between Scylla and Charybdis. Even more tragically, they will never meet Penelope again, for they are trapped in Circe’s island as guinea pigs for the hungry audience.

In this position, it must then be realised that any hope for salvation lies in nothing but a total revolution of art. The proposed spirituality of art by Sontag is one such example.

In this new view, art is liberated from the constricting standards of meaning. Its servitude lies beyond historical and societal norms in a promise of transcendence. Obviously, the audience may still inscribe a meaning to the art, but it will possess no value. Art is simply beyond the standards of meaning.

It then follows that logic has no intrinsic value in art. Its efficacy in classical art no longer applies in this new form of art. As with meaning, the audience is still free, or even innately required, to use logic in their experiencing of art — it must be accepted that it is near impossible for the audience to completely rid this conditioned mode of rationale. But in this new view, they must now also accept that this rationale is severely and completely inadequate, both as a method and an attitude towards art.

14. Aesthetic of Silence: Ironic Logic

Film in the classical definition of art is the artistic expression itself, thus the use of logic in its judgement is natural. But film, seen through the lens of art’s spirituality, places it in the role of an instrument, with the symphony as the artist’s path towards transcendence. To use logic in our judgement towards the film would be a mistake, since the artist’s work is no longer contained within the film itself, but in the grand pursuit of their conscious transcendence.

Logic then becomes an outdated instrument of critique, limited by its time. Unfortunately, logic with all its limitations is unbudgingly still a universally practised mode of reasoning in art critique. To completely disregard this is to display ignorance.

In face of this similar challenge, Sontag closes her essay by considering the possibility of succumbing to philosophical irony — for besides irony, are any methods at all sufficient to reach true dialectic silence? Indeed, new art then forces logic to confront itself with irony.

An ironic logic is a self-aware logic, possessing the power to observe itself through itself. In other words, it is a conscious logic, aware of itself, its shortcomings, its inherent flaws, and its own inevitable death. Such a system of logic that denies itself is the only tenable logic in the new art. Consequently, its value then must be the total absence of one — for no one does not deny its being, even itself.

This kind of logic, which has no value, can serve nothing. It has no purpose, no function, and no justification for existing in art but as a remnant of its old form. Thus, two propositions can be drawn from this new position of logic.

Firstly, any position that regards logical coherency in film as something positive, including the centrist position — for example, “plot holes are not necessarily bad, but still the film would’ve been better if there were none in the first place” — are completely mistaken, as they presuppose that art would be improved with logical coherency — how can anything be improved (increased in value) by something that intrinsically has zero value?

Secondly — and perhaps more importantly — the character of an artist is tested upon meeting the question: should we trade logical coherency in plot and character for the sake of artistic vision (metaphors, allegory, nuance, etc.)? When an artist answers yes, it hitherto should not be regarded as a mistake. Rather, it should be celebrated as a deeper understanding of the spiritual nature of art, that it is a journey towards transcendence instead of mere expression of ideas.

In conclusion, if we are to accept art as spirituality — which as Sontag points: we already have — then art demands a completion of transcendence. Included in this manifesto is: the denial of any credibility truth-based logic has hitherto had as an instrument of critique. Thus, any critique towards the logical coherency of a film is immediately rendered invalid.