2002 – The Differend

Lyotard's term for a dispute resulting from the fact that one party cannot voice her complaints (or points) because the other insists on speaking within a different language game or genre of discourse.

The legitimacy of one side does not imply the lack of legitimacy of the other. But to apply a single rule of judgement to both in order to settle their differences, as if it were a mere dispute, would do wrong to (at least) one of them (and to both, if neither side accepts this rule). Jean François Lyotard

The work's starting point is a scene from William Wyler's The Collector in which the two main characters argue about a Picasso painting. This scene was reshot in 11 versions, each corresponding to a different language.

Apart from the conceptual interest, it was an exercise in making oneself ridiculous in front of the camera, like playing the role of a babbling baby. Unconsciousness has a certain relationship to John Searle's idea of the Chinese room argument.

Shooting multilingual versions was a common practice in the early days of sound cinema, when dubbing techniques were still in their infancy. Actors of different languages were often exchanged on the same sets to shoot the international versions of the film. Sometimes, however, the same actors were used in all versions of the film: the pressure of the early star system meant that famous actors were always needed on screen. This was the case with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, who had to learn the Spanish, Italian, German and French dialogues by heart. They would then deliver them on the set with a very characteristic accent that, for the audience of those versions, was related to what made them funny.

The Collector is a film about the contact between two completely separate spheres of thought, that of an artist and that of her kidnapper. All attempts to create a common space of communication fail. The actors are heterogeneous, even in their own words.