Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Psychoanalysis in Film Theory
compiled by Chayan Ray
The concepts of psychoanalysis have been applied to films in various ways. However, the 1970s and 1980s saw the development of theory that took concepts developed by the French psychoanalyst and writer Jacques Lacan and applied them to the experience of watching a film. The film viewer is seen as the subject of a "gaze" that is largely "constructed" by the film itself, where what is on screen becomes the object of that subject's desire.
Laura Mulvey's article engaged in no empirical research on film audiences. She instead stated that she intended to make a "political use" of Freud and Lacan, and then used some of their concepts to argue that the cinematic apparatus of classical Hollywood cinema inevitably put the spectator in a masculine subject position, with the figure of the woman on screen as the object of desire. In the era of classical Hollywood cinema, viewers were encouraged to identify with the protagonist of the film, who tended to be a man. Meanwhile, Hollywood female characters of the 1950s and 60s were, according to Mulvey, coded with "to-be-looked-at-ness." Mulvey suggests that there were two distinct modes of the male gaze of this era: "voyeuristic" (i.e. seeing women as 'whores') and "fetishistic" (i.e. seeing women as 'madonnas').
=> Mulvey incorporates the idea of phallocentrism (presense of the male phallus/penis) into "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema". Specifically relating the phallocentric theory to film, Mulvey insists on the idea that film and cinematography are inadvertently structured upon the ideas and values of a patriarchy. The male still has a fear in the form of a castration threat, and sometimes looks at a woman's body, devoid of a phallus, and becomes insecure.
=> Within her essay, Mulvey discusses several different types of spectatorship that occur while viewing a film. Viewing a film involves subconsciously engaging in the understanding of male and female roles. The "three different looks", as they are referred to, explain just exactly how films are viewed in relation to phallocentrism. The first "look" refers to the camera as it records the actual events of the film. The second "look" describes the nearly voyeuristic act of the audience as one engages in watching the film itself. Lastly, the third "look" refers to the characters that interact with one another throughout the film.
=> The main idea that seems to bring these actions together is that "looking" is generally seen as an active male role while the passive role of being looked at is immediately adopted as a female characteristic. It is under the construction of patriarchy that Mulvey argues that women in film are tied to desire and that female characters hold an "appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact". The female actor is never meant to represent a character that directly effects the outcome of a plot or keep the story line going, but is inserted into the film as a way of supporting the male role and "bearing the burden of sexual objectification" that he cannot.
=> The concepts of psychoanalysis have been applied to films in various ways. However, the 1970s and 1980s saw the development of theory that took concepts developed by the French psychoanalyst and writer Jacques Lacan and applied them to the experience of watching a film.
The film viewer is seen as the subject of a "gaze" that is largely "constructed" by the film itself, where what is on screen becomes the object of that subject's desire.
The viewing subject may be offered particular identifications (usually with a leading male character) from which to watch. The theory stresses the subject's longing for a completeness which the film may appear to offer through identification with an image; in fact, according to Lacanian theory, identification with the image is never anything but an illusion and the subject is always split simply by virtue of coming into existence.
=> In the essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema", Laura Mulvey introduced the concept of The Male Gaze as a feature of power asymmetry. Theoretically, the male gaze has much influenced feminist film theory and communications media studies.
The male gaze's defining characteristic is that the viewing audience are forced to regard the action and characters of a text from the perspective of a heterosexual man; the camera lingers on the curves of a woman's body, and events occurring 1 to women are presented mostly in the context of a man's reacting to said events. The male gaze denies women human agency, relegating them to the status of objects, hence, the woman reader and the woman viewer must experience 2 the text's narrative secondarily, by identifying with a man's perspective, the male gaze.
"Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" further says that sexism can exist not only in the content of a text, but also in how the text is presented, and in its implications about its expected audience. Extending the previous, theorists note the degree to which people are encouraged to gaze at women in advertising that sexualizes a woman's body even when the woman's body is unrelated to the advertised product.
=> In Feminist Theory, the Male Gaze expresses an asymmetric (unequal) power relationship, between viewer and viewed, gazer and gazed, i.e. man imposes his unwanted (objectifying) gaze upon woman. Second Wave feminists argue that whether or not women welcome the gaze, they might merely be conforming to the hegemonic norms established to benefit the interests of men — thus underscoring the the power of the male gaze to reduce a person (man or woman) to an object.
=> The Gaze and psychoanalysis (important)
Child development theorist, Jacques Lacan established that the concept of the gaze is important in "the mirror stage" of infantile psychologic development; children gaze at a mirror image of themselves (a twin sibling might function as the mirror-image), and use that image to co-ordinate their physical movements. He linked the concept of the gaze to the development of individual human agency. To that end, he transformed the the gaze to a dialectic, between the Ideal-Ego and the Ego-Ideal. The ideal-ego is the imagined self-identification image — whom the person imagines him- or herself to be or aspires to be; whilst the ego-ideal is the imaginary gaze of another person gazing upon the ideal-ego, e.g. a rock star (an Ideal-ego) secretly hoping his/her school-era bully-tormentor (Ego-ideal) is now aware of his/her (the rock star) subsequent success and fame, since school times.
Lacan further developed his concept of the gaze, saying that it does not belong to the subject but, rather, to the object of the gaze. In Seminar One, Lacan told the audience: "I can feel myself under the gaze of someone whose eyes I do not see, not even discern. All that is necessary is for something to signify to me that there may be others there. This window, if it gets a bit dark, and if I have reasons for thinking that there is someone behind it, is straight-away a gaze".
=> The mirror stage (important) describes the formation of the Ego via the process of identification, the Ego being the result of identifying with one's own specular image. At six months the baby still lacks coordination, however, they can recognize themselves in the mirror before attaining control over their bodily movements. The child sees their image as a whole, and the synthesis of this image produces a sense of contrast with the uncoordination of the body, which is perceived as a fragmented body. This contrast is first felt by the infant as a rivalry with their own image, because the wholeness of the image threatens them with fragmentation, and thus the mirror stage gives rise to an aggressive tension between the subject and the image. To resolve this aggressive tension, the subject identifies with the image: this primary identification with the counterpart is what forms the Ego. (Dylan Evans, op.cit) The moment of identification is to Lacan a moment of jubilation since it leads to an imaginary sense of mastery. (Écrits, "The Mirror Stage") Yet, the jubilation may also be accompanied by a depressive reaction, when the infant compares his own precarious sense of mastery with the omnipotence of the mother. (La relation d'objet) This identification also involves the ideal ego which functions as a promise of future wholeness sustaining the Ego in anticipation.
The mirror stage shows that the Ego is the product of misunderstanding - Lacan's term "méconnaissance" implies a false recognition - and the place where the subject becomes alienated from himself: the process by which the ego is formed in the Mirror Stage is at the same time the institution of alienation from the symbolic determination of being. In this sense méconnaissance is an imaginary misrecognition of a symbolic knowledge that the subject possesses somewhere. It must be emphasized again that the Mirror Stage introduces the subject into the Imaginary order.
chainz06@gmail.com
The concepts of psychoanalysis have been applied to films in various ways. However, the 1970s and 1980s saw the development of theory that took concepts developed by the French psychoanalyst and writer Jacques Lacan and applied them to the experience of watching a film. The film viewer is seen as the subject of a "gaze" that is largely "constructed" by the film itself, where what is on screen becomes the object of that subject's desire.
Laura Mulvey's article engaged in no empirical research on film audiences. She instead stated that she intended to make a "political use" of Freud and Lacan, and then used some of their concepts to argue that the cinematic apparatus of classical Hollywood cinema inevitably put the spectator in a masculine subject position, with the figure of the woman on screen as the object of desire. In the era of classical Hollywood cinema, viewers were encouraged to identify with the protagonist of the film, who tended to be a man. Meanwhile, Hollywood female characters of the 1950s and 60s were, according to Mulvey, coded with "to-be-looked-at-ness." Mulvey suggests that there were two distinct modes of the male gaze of this era: "voyeuristic" (i.e. seeing women as 'whores') and "fetishistic" (i.e. seeing women as 'madonnas').
=> Mulvey incorporates the idea of phallocentrism (presense of the male phallus/penis) into "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema". Specifically relating the phallocentric theory to film, Mulvey insists on the idea that film and cinematography are inadvertently structured upon the ideas and values of a patriarchy. The male still has a fear in the form of a castration threat, and sometimes looks at a woman's body, devoid of a phallus, and becomes insecure.
=> Within her essay, Mulvey discusses several different types of spectatorship that occur while viewing a film. Viewing a film involves subconsciously engaging in the understanding of male and female roles. The "three different looks", as they are referred to, explain just exactly how films are viewed in relation to phallocentrism. The first "look" refers to the camera as it records the actual events of the film. The second "look" describes the nearly voyeuristic act of the audience as one engages in watching the film itself. Lastly, the third "look" refers to the characters that interact with one another throughout the film.
=> The main idea that seems to bring these actions together is that "looking" is generally seen as an active male role while the passive role of being looked at is immediately adopted as a female characteristic. It is under the construction of patriarchy that Mulvey argues that women in film are tied to desire and that female characters hold an "appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact". The female actor is never meant to represent a character that directly effects the outcome of a plot or keep the story line going, but is inserted into the film as a way of supporting the male role and "bearing the burden of sexual objectification" that he cannot.
=> The concepts of psychoanalysis have been applied to films in various ways. However, the 1970s and 1980s saw the development of theory that took concepts developed by the French psychoanalyst and writer Jacques Lacan and applied them to the experience of watching a film.
The film viewer is seen as the subject of a "gaze" that is largely "constructed" by the film itself, where what is on screen becomes the object of that subject's desire.
The viewing subject may be offered particular identifications (usually with a leading male character) from which to watch. The theory stresses the subject's longing for a completeness which the film may appear to offer through identification with an image; in fact, according to Lacanian theory, identification with the image is never anything but an illusion and the subject is always split simply by virtue of coming into existence.
=> In the essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema", Laura Mulvey introduced the concept of The Male Gaze as a feature of power asymmetry. Theoretically, the male gaze has much influenced feminist film theory and communications media studies.
The male gaze's defining characteristic is that the viewing audience are forced to regard the action and characters of a text from the perspective of a heterosexual man; the camera lingers on the curves of a woman's body, and events occurring 1 to women are presented mostly in the context of a man's reacting to said events. The male gaze denies women human agency, relegating them to the status of objects, hence, the woman reader and the woman viewer must experience 2 the text's narrative secondarily, by identifying with a man's perspective, the male gaze.
"Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" further says that sexism can exist not only in the content of a text, but also in how the text is presented, and in its implications about its expected audience. Extending the previous, theorists note the degree to which people are encouraged to gaze at women in advertising that sexualizes a woman's body even when the woman's body is unrelated to the advertised product.
=> In Feminist Theory, the Male Gaze expresses an asymmetric (unequal) power relationship, between viewer and viewed, gazer and gazed, i.e. man imposes his unwanted (objectifying) gaze upon woman. Second Wave feminists argue that whether or not women welcome the gaze, they might merely be conforming to the hegemonic norms established to benefit the interests of men — thus underscoring the the power of the male gaze to reduce a person (man or woman) to an object.
=> The Gaze and psychoanalysis (important)
Child development theorist, Jacques Lacan established that the concept of the gaze is important in "the mirror stage" of infantile psychologic development; children gaze at a mirror image of themselves (a twin sibling might function as the mirror-image), and use that image to co-ordinate their physical movements. He linked the concept of the gaze to the development of individual human agency. To that end, he transformed the the gaze to a dialectic, between the Ideal-Ego and the Ego-Ideal. The ideal-ego is the imagined self-identification image — whom the person imagines him- or herself to be or aspires to be; whilst the ego-ideal is the imaginary gaze of another person gazing upon the ideal-ego, e.g. a rock star (an Ideal-ego) secretly hoping his/her school-era bully-tormentor (Ego-ideal) is now aware of his/her (the rock star) subsequent success and fame, since school times.
Lacan further developed his concept of the gaze, saying that it does not belong to the subject but, rather, to the object of the gaze. In Seminar One, Lacan told the audience: "I can feel myself under the gaze of someone whose eyes I do not see, not even discern. All that is necessary is for something to signify to me that there may be others there. This window, if it gets a bit dark, and if I have reasons for thinking that there is someone behind it, is straight-away a gaze".
=> The mirror stage (important) describes the formation of the Ego via the process of identification, the Ego being the result of identifying with one's own specular image. At six months the baby still lacks coordination, however, they can recognize themselves in the mirror before attaining control over their bodily movements. The child sees their image as a whole, and the synthesis of this image produces a sense of contrast with the uncoordination of the body, which is perceived as a fragmented body. This contrast is first felt by the infant as a rivalry with their own image, because the wholeness of the image threatens them with fragmentation, and thus the mirror stage gives rise to an aggressive tension between the subject and the image. To resolve this aggressive tension, the subject identifies with the image: this primary identification with the counterpart is what forms the Ego. (Dylan Evans, op.cit) The moment of identification is to Lacan a moment of jubilation since it leads to an imaginary sense of mastery. (Écrits, "The Mirror Stage") Yet, the jubilation may also be accompanied by a depressive reaction, when the infant compares his own precarious sense of mastery with the omnipotence of the mother. (La relation d'objet) This identification also involves the ideal ego which functions as a promise of future wholeness sustaining the Ego in anticipation.
The mirror stage shows that the Ego is the product of misunderstanding - Lacan's term "méconnaissance" implies a false recognition - and the place where the subject becomes alienated from himself: the process by which the ego is formed in the Mirror Stage is at the same time the institution of alienation from the symbolic determination of being. In this sense méconnaissance is an imaginary misrecognition of a symbolic knowledge that the subject possesses somewhere. It must be emphasized again that the Mirror Stage introduces the subject into the Imaginary order.
chainz06@gmail.com
T-R-Y
It’s easy
If you try
You won’t know it
If you quit
I know
You have it in you
To be the one
I am looking for
But you don’t want to try
At all
You don’t want to try
Why?
But there’s a light
At the end of the tunnel
At the end
You will see the sky
That reminds me of my childhood
Where I used to sigh
But you would never try
You would never try
God knows why
Na na na….
If you try it
You will do it
You will do it I am so sure
You are my man
You will know
But you would never try
You would never try
Why?
I don’t know…
a-wey awwey a-wey aweey...
Monday, December 1, 2008
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