cinema: for one, the condemnation of narrative, and for another, the fixed positioning of experimental cinema in an art context. Both sides, however, are probably right. Yet when old stories are being discussed, I ask myself if there was not perhaps another oversight, which has proved to be even more damaging: the suspension of the social, artistic experimentation around the production of star quality beyond the parameters of the industry and its logic. Instead of condemning the seductive quality of cinema, perhaps a different notion of seduction should have been investigated—in lieu, however, of a bargain basement displacement of the idea that everyone can be famous for fifteen minutes onto television. If star quality can perhaps, as has been suggested, be thought of as a by-product of, and genuinely specific to, the cinema, as a new, human reaction to the normative, industrial apparatus, then star quality is not that «special something» had by someone who is good-looking and can «master» the «conventional patterns of acting,» but instead is possessed by those who produce the queer surplus that is connected with the non-identity of the norm and its

actor-representatives. Star quality is a new kind of human behaviour, a psychological and political answer to the cinematic apparatus and its social (culture-industrial) function. Warhol recognized this and attempted to create star quality, preliminary attempts, which were seldom or never pursued any further. However, the notion of the star is an alternative to the auteur and deserves to be taken more seriously. Perhaps that is why Julian fumbles around so helplessly with grandiosity, because he is searching for precisely this quality—and is blinded by the notion that he must be the star. But a star is not a person in real life—neither is a star an author who has done his work well, nor an actor, who takes on a normative role because we think he looks good and somehow manages to get through life really well. A star is a star precisely because it is impossible to be a star, because we can only worship stars, not imitate them. In this sense, there are stars only in the movies.