The Unattainable Text

If the fragmentation of a game is central to an approach, then that approach has taken up a textual perspective and is doing textual analysis.

“Extrapolated to games, this suggests that if the fragmentation of a game is central to my approach, then I have”

Bellour's (1975) essay 'The Unattainable Text' lists difficulties associated with the textual analysis of music, image, theatre, and especially film.

“In Bellour's (1975) playful, melancholy essay 'The Unattainable Text', he lists some of the difficulties associated with the textual analysis of music, image, theatre, and especially film.”

Bellour argues that in order to grasp the full experience of the multiplicity of operations within a text, the analyst requires a fragment or quote.

“In The Unattainable Text, Bellour (1975, p. 20) draws on Barthes' work to argue that in order to grasp at the”

Bellour states that film fragments fulfil the contradictory function of opening up textuality just as they interrupt unfolding.

“As Bellour (1975, p. 25) states when discussing film stills, such fragments fulfil”

Game theorists attempting textual analysis face a similar conundrum to film analysts, and it is not merely an issue of hardware.

“Bellour is writing at a time when film analysts were compelled to depend on stills, but, for all the differences in context and technology, game theorists attempting textual analysis face a similar conundrum, and it is not merely an issue of hardware.”

Game analysts relying on fragmentation contend with the issues Bellour associates with film stills (loss of movement in time and space) plus those he attributes to theatre, music, and performance.

“Game analysts relying on fragmentation contend with the issues that Bellour associates with the use of film stills (loss of movement in time and space) plus those that he attributes to theatre, music, and performance.”

Textual analysis is best understood as an epistemological stance (a strategy, a perspective) that produces a provisional ontological statement as a by-product: the game is a text, for the moment, because the analyst is doing textual analysis.

“Bellour's essay suggests that textual analysis is best understood as an epistemological stance (a strategy, a perspective) that produces a provisional ontological statement as a by-product: The game is a text, for the moment, because I am doing textual analysis.”

Bellour states that as soon as the analyst quotes a fragment of film, one has implicitly taken up a textual perspective.

“Discussing the analysis of film, Bellour (1975, p. 20) states that as soon as the analyst quotes a fragment of it, one has implicitly taken up a textual perspective, even if feebly and one-dimensionally, even if in a restrictive and regressive fashion, even if one continues to close the text back onto itself although it is [ . . .] the locus of an unbounded openness.”

Bellour laments the implausibility of textual analysis and the unattainability of film as text while affirming the relevance of textual analysis to cinema.

“He laments the implausibility of the process of textual analysis and the unattainability of film as text, while affirming the relevance of textual analysis to the study of cinema.”

Film analysis involves submerging oneself in a quixotic process that constantly mimics, evokes, describes and tries frantically to complete with the object it attempts to understand.

“thus, film analysis involves submerging oneself in a quixotic process: it constantly mimics, evokes, describes; in a kind of principled despair it can but try frantically to complete with the object it is attempting to understand.”

Bellour argued that the film text could not be fragmented without shearing off its defining qualities, including movement.

“Bellour argued that the film text could not be fragmented without shearing off its defining qualities, including movement.”