Lecture 3: Film Theory - 'The Gaze' and Phychoanalysis

Video game example

1^st person or 2^nd person perspectives

1^st = Intense feeling that you are the game

3^rd= interactive movie, you are controlling the person

Lecture looks at decisions, power and the way we look at the world

Key Points

Theory’s/Ideas – Power of looking

Terms- Scopophilia, suture, intra, extra-diegetic, narcissist

Film theory _ Feminist phycoanalysis

Authors: Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Laura Mulver, Kaja Silverman

Misconceptions of institutional ‘gaze’

Mixture of behavior/mental illness

Way of thinking applied to parts of society

It’s about sex

How we treat and examine objects

Laura Mulvey

Visual Pleasures and Narrative Cinema 1975

Hollywood film – Sexist as it represents the gaze as powerful and male

Hero (normally male) guides the plot.

Women are looked at as sexual objects

Freudian Theories

Scopophilia – Looking at others as objects

Narcissistic Identification – Mulvey – Identify with hero in film

Jacques Lacan

Mirror stage – Child less perfect than reflection

-       Ideal ego reflected

Extension of Mulvey’s theory

-       Viewers see through eyes of actors

-       Follow their gaze without guilt

-       If actor speaks to audience gaze is broken

Gaze point – Structure

Gaze draws viewers to see through eyes of actor

When broken viewers become aware of their gaze

Types of Gaze

Spectators (View looking at image -Most common)

Intra-diegetic gaze (Someone looking at another)

Extra-diegetic – Gaze of person looking back at us

Contradiction

Attach negative suggestions

Contradiction support how Cinema works

Contradiction is challenged to create confutation

Conclusion

-       Type of gaze encourage power

-       Objectify & Identify identification (Scop/Narc)

-       I.e. Cinema thrive on Contradiction

-       Visual culture