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Dec 02, 2007 11:44

So I finished this a little while ago and I want some feedback. I don't expect you to know any film theory but just tell me how this flows and be honest, I know I'm a shitty writer.


Since the advent of the first motion picture in the late nineteenth century, film has consistently entertained its viewers by providing thrills and experiences unattainable by the average person. The use of a huge moving image sensationalized daily life and created an astonishing space that appealed to audiences everywhere. The extreme darkness in the theater isolates each spectator which promotes voyeurism. However, this is only part of the reason why film is so attractive. In the essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Laura Mulvey notes that the well established notion of sexual difference is a key factor in the allure of films, specifically in narrative cinema. Furthermore, a psychoanalytic approach to phallocentrism in cinema is needed to understand why spectators are consistently drawn to narrative film.
Phallocentrism is centered on the belief that males are the superior sex. In a patriarchal society, women unconsciously represent castration by physically lacking a penis while her child symbolizes her desire for a penis. Mulvey believes that “Woman then stands in patriarchal culture as signifier for the male other, bound by a symbolic order in which man can live out his fantasies and obsessions through linguistic command by imposing them on the silent image of woman still tied to her place as bearer of meaning, not maker of meaning.” (838) Cinema reflected this notion of phallocentrism until after World War II when film noir introduced the concept of a powerful, alluring woman known as a femme fatale. However, until this period, mainstream film was still centered on leading men, who succeeded in attracting audiences because of how they were portrayed.
Mulvey believes that scopophilia is one of the many pleasures that cinema has to offer. Freud associated scopophilia with “… taking other people as objects, subjecting them to a controlling and curious gaze.” (839) Cinema significantly amplifies this voyeuristic experience by isolating the spectator in darkness and perpetuating the story without audience interference. By increasing the separation between the real and cinematic world, the spectator will readily experience the thrills of voyeurism without consequences. A brilliant example of this is in the opening scene of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. Hitchcock begins with shots high above Pheonix, Arizona at an unreachable height which immediately gives the spectator an omniscient view and an ample sense of control. Through a series of dissolves, he takes the viewer under the partially closed window of a hotel room and exposes two characters in their undergarments. At the time, this was considered suggestive which, in addition to the closed window, further implicated the audience as voyeurs. Hitchcock reiterates this notion of voyeurism in the shot when Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) watches Marion undress through a hole the wall by using a fifty millimeter lens which gives the closest approximation to human sight.
Cinema not only provides the spectator with the experience of visual pleasure, but also expands that scopophilia to narcissism. In her essay, Mulvey relates the development of a child’s ego to the narcissism created by cinema. “Jacques Lacan has described how the moment when a child recognizes his own image in the mirror is crucial for the constitution of the ego.” (840) This mirror phase occurs at a point when the child still lacks coordination but has the ability to recognize himself as a whole being in the mirror. Once the child identifies with the reflection and his bodily movements, his ego will begin to develop and help him identify with others in the future. Thus, the cinema reciprocates the feeling of recognition experienced by a child in the mirror phase. When the camera is directed at someone, the viewer is reminded of a mirror reflection, which allows the spectator to easily identify with the stars on screen. In Psycho, Hitchcock persuades the spectator to identify with a certain character by using various lighting and camera techniques. In the parlor scene, for instance, Marion is sitting near the lamp radiating a comforting glow. By using high-key lighting, Hitchcock suggests that Marion is capable of redemption and evokes sympathy from the audience. The camera shoots Marion at eye level which provides a sense of familiarity allowing the audience to easily identify with her. Meanwhile, Hitchcock places Norman in the corner away from the light creating a dividing line between light and shadow on his face. Coupled with low-key lighting, Norman conveys mystery and secrecy. Also, the picture frames behind Norman are set at conflicting angles which create a sense of uneasiness. However, the spectator’s sympathy for Marion is lost when she is murdered because the protagonist no longer exists. By killing the protagonist, Hitchcock leaves the spectator as vulnerable as Marion was in the shower and subsequently persuades the viewer to focus his feelings elsewhere, namely, Norman Bates. Hitchcock specifically changed Norman’s character from short, old, and dislikable to young, handsome, and sympathetic in order to prolong the narrative.
Mulvey further discusses this notion of spectator identification by noting the sexual imbalance in cinema saying “…pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female.” (841) Thus, the woman’s role in narrative cinema is to act as a catalyst for the male lead to drive the plot. She traditionally functions as a desirable object for the male characters in the story as well as the spectator while the narrative simultaneously satisfies the gaze of both by alternating the visual tension between the two.
Moreover, this active/passive distinction between cinematic men and women has embedded the man’s role as the more significant one, the one that will forward the story.
The man is able then, to control the film fantasy and appear as an embodiment of power. Thus, if the spectator can easily identify with the leading man, then he can share the control of events and the power of visual pleasure that the leading man provides. Much like the infant’s first encounter with a mirror, the male star exemplifies the powerful ideal ego that the common spectator lacks.
However, these two concepts obscure the representation of women in film. The first associates the look of a woman to that of the spectator obtaining visual pleasure through direct scopophilic contact, while the other gives the spectator possession of the woman within the narrative through the link with the leading man. But psychoanalytically, the woman’s lack of a penis represents the threat of castration which the male unconscious will attempt to avoid by either voyeurism or fetishistic scopophilia. Voyeurism is associated with a linear time whereas fetishistic scopophilia can exist outside of linear time through the amplification of beauty into satisfaction. Hitchcock incorporates both components in Psycho. The opening and the peephole scenes are voyeuristic because the spectator sees Marion by identifying with Sam and Norman, respectively. However, when Marion is packing, there is no male protagonist and less screen depth, which allows direct scopophilic contact with the spectator.
In Mulvey’s final analysis of visual pleasure, she discusses Hitchcock’s use of the male hero and voyeurism in Vertigo. Although a male hero is absent in Psycho, its voyeurism is similar to Vertigo in that “the spectator’s fascination is turned against him as the narrative carries him through and entwines him with the processes that he is himself exercising.” (846) This is made apparent in the last scene of Psycho when Norman (or his mother) looks back at the spectator indicating his/her knowledge and recognition of the audiences’ voyeurism throughout the film. This contradicts the notion of power from voyeurism and suggests that the spectator’s scopophilia established a false sense of security because in the end, he has been implicated by another spectator.
Traditional narrative film has consistently and unconsciously provided visual pleasure to its viewers due to the psychoanalytical cause of scopophilia and adversely, ideal ego fervor. The woman’s relation to the threat of castration compels the spectator to engage in voyeurism or fetishistic scopophilia which is completely attainable only through the cinema. Narrative film conventionally alters cinematic space and time in order to convey the illusions of truth and reality so the spectator can constantly obtain visual pleasure through amplified images or power through participation with the main male characters. Hitchcock’s Psycho will remain a timeless masterpiece that not only implicated the spectator in its voyeurism but urged him to question his identity.
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