Michael Renov's "The Subject in History: The New Autobiography in Film and Video"

Renov states that he privileges "a writing practice that couples a documentary impulse - an outward gaze upon the world - with an equally forceful reflex of self-interrogation. This double or reciprocal focus effects an unceasing, even obsessive, exploration of subjectivity that situates itself within a matrix that is irreducibly material and of necessity historical" (105). What is interesting is this idea of the documentary impulse and the obsessive nature. This reminds me of Reeves' video "Obsessive Becoming." He seems to be obsessed with his past and bringing certain truths to light. However, what is fiction and what is nonfiction? Renov introduces the idea of a "new autobiography." How does this relate to the essayistic (a la Barthes) and the autobiographical? Derrida suggests that these two are related - meaning is mobilized along a dynamic borderline between the "work" and the "life," the system and the subject of the system 105). With the essay, Barthes states that "one cannot get to the heart of a refrain, you can only substitute another one for it" (106). It seems he is talking about nomination here. Substitution. How about the autobiographical? Is this nomination? In Reeves' video, he uses images and text that enthrall him, and some images that perhaps substitute words that describe how he feels towards himself or towards Milton (such as the boxing imagery). In Barthes' autobiography, he uses photos that are interesting to him (they have punctums for the author). His text also mentions things that are "called out" to him. Are these aspects part of Renov's "new autobiography"? We as viewers or readers are not as fully involved as we are when the autobiography is a traditional chronological retrospective narrative, or are we involved on a different level? Are there people who are more willing to involve themselves with this "new autobiography" and people who do not recognize the autobiographical in this "new autobiogrpahy"?