Page - 76 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 02/02

76 | Alyda Faber www.jrfm.eu 2016, 2/2, 69–98 at the eyes of an image of a fluffy grey kitten to avoid hurting it, even when we know it is just a picture (NG 2). In other words, more-than-reciprocity emerges in seeing and being seen, as if the representation of a human or animal face or body elicits respect beyond the painting’s “thingness”, displacing the usual re- lation of person to thing, of strong and weak. This implicates the viewer of the film in an almost vertiginous layering of looking – looking at people looking at figures in paintings (who are also looking)32 – resonant with Jean Luc Nancy’s sense of parable’s address. In his view, parable doesn’t convey a particular mes- sage or understanding of a “text”, but makes the person looking (and hearing) aware of his or her capacity for looking and hearing. Any message is incidental to the awareness of this capacity for responsiveness.33 Ludwig Wittgenstein suggests such a richly sensorial awareness with his remark, “My attitude to- wards him is an attitude towards a soul. I am not of the opinion that he has a soul.”34 My attitude is a sensual awareness of reciprocity with another that, in being gifted to her, redounds to me. Throughout the film, in the discussions of the gallery staff and commenta- tors, paintings share attributes of human animality and spirituality: described as “organic”, they begin to age as soon as they are made (NG 84–85); they suf- fer “misguided” restoration efforts (NG 51); despite their being centuries old, it is not possible to definitively interpret them, or to understand particular de- tails (NG 55); they change depending on where and by whom they are seen, in 32 Hamacher/Wiseman 2015. 33 Nancy 2008, 9. 34 Cited by Zwicky 2009, 116. Fig. 2: Film still, National Gallery (Frederick Wiseman, US 2014), 02:33:39.