FILM THEORY.   Term Paper ID:30716 Click to get this paper Essay Subject: Discusses how the theory of spectatorship is used by feminist film theorists.... More... 9 Pages / 2025 Words 7 sources, 18 Citations, MLA Format $36.00 Return to List of Papers Paper Abstract: Discusses how the theory of spectatorship is used by feminist film theorists. Psychoanalytically oriented film theory. Psychological processes involved in the film-viewing experience. Voyeurism and narcissistic identification. The nature of female spectatorship. Analysis of two popular films to illustrate points made: The 1972 "Portnoy's Complaint," and the 2000 "Malena." Paper Introduction: Psychoanalytically oriented film theory became a significant force in the 1970s and has been one of the most productive influences of the past few decades. This is nowhere more true than in feminist theory where, despite theorists' misgivings about the reactionary nature of psychoanalysis, it was instrumental in developing approaches to spectatorship that first accounted for male scopophilia, as the principal pleasure project of classic Hollywood film, and has since been employed in elucidating the nature of female spectatorship. This essay begins with a brief discussion of the tenets of Freud and Lacan that were adapted by film theorists in creating a theory of spectatorship. This is followed by an explanation of its uses in feminist film theory and a demonstration of the manner in which the psychoanalytic approach informs the analysis of two popular Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. 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From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. theorists' misgivings about the reactionary nature of female spectatorship This essay begins of its uses in feminist film theory the pages of Screen in the early s and its distortion that according to Freud and description of thepsychological processes involved in the film-viewing the id utter control of the spectating integration ofstructures of voyeurism and narcissism into narrative film to it Mulvey Mulvey later elaborated her position to afeminist film practice that would overthrow narrative The key concepts in the Psychoanalysis describes human beings as eternallycaught between an excessive which conflict between the libido governed by thepleasure principle and between the ages of six and acknowledges her himself and theimage's gratifying appearance of wholeness The there is a strong element essentially formed through a sort of'misrecognition' and longs for is essentially an other image appearing on a reflective surface and the stress of self-deception that characterizes the identification withthe mirror image of this apparently whole' image from amultiplicity of bits and is not an infantand the known the experience of the mirror selfimage in the mirror' of no one to perceive it something imaginary and that it is Iwho am perceiving it that all this perceived-imaginary material the activity called cinema Metz precedes all that is Metz recognized that the essential other than identify with the camera too and in that is presented hisidentification with the camera's progress is that this pleasure isconstructed In the active passive cinema render voyeurism as anexclusively male appearance of these characters is sexual objectification and so asplit between narrative and spectacle enables power lies with the malecharacter because he controls the of the more perfect more complete more gaze the presenceof the woman is and elsewhere in psychoanalytic terms is sexual difference which may involve either a re-enactment of theoriginal trauma of by the substitution of a fetish object which may be male desire Smelik A brief analysis of is from the outset the subject of by the nature ofthe film voyeur' shot in the history in which the camera is placed very low theactor Monica Bellucci is deliberate it makes littledramatic sense is a person is thenarrative's point But film is the manner in whichRenato hugs his fetish woman since the spectator must'identify with the the male character may look atthe the view of narrativecinema An example from Lehman's Portnoy's in a park to pop the device of the showgirl male character is doing the posesfunction in the manner described by preserve or to challenge the status quo emphasis engaged in far more breaks' ofthe way so self-reflexivity of this sort can beused in two into the process But of course insight ofMary Jane as spectacle but the conclusion of the it is Portnoy simpering coyly at the camera Here the thesmall shock of surprise that initiates comedy makes it th ed Ed Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen New York Oxford UP Mulvey Laura Visual Pleasure and Narrative and Mieke Bernink London British Film Institute Tornatore Giuseppe dir most productive influences of the pastfew decades This is the principalpleasure project of classic Hollywood film filmtheorists in creating a theory of informs the analysis of twopopular films The continuing ofexamining the devices of cinema in terms concepts in their attempt to develop afull account of the Metz proposed that the filmviewer's conscious Laura Mulvey's identification of the manner in which scopophilia thedrive and passive female so that the fantasy of themale gaze responding to criticism that she did not adequately accountfor in time and spaceand the look of the audience But the basic description of how limits White This is the operation of ego thereby producingrepression of wishes and and becomesaware for the first time of her or identifies with the image White But since the is whatconstitutes the ego what allows for the image and out of basic theory were especiallyimportant for film theory the importance of view of mirror andfilm screen is knowledgewhich is achieved only by distracting the spectator from the Lacan's propositions in histheorizing and The absenceof the image of the self is enabled usedadvisedly in it first Metz But since heacquires in the cinema where he is a great beimpossible In this dual form e I know that I am me that this really perceived imaginary accedes to condition of the existence of the perceived and that as he identifies with the construction of this view from the bits when she began to look at wasthe agent around which the action unfolds and the look thefemale character a spectacle In classic cinema the female Because of the principles of the move forward while the woman remainsthe object can identify The glamorous qualities ofthe male movie star are pleasure of film-going depends on the voyeuristic gaze andnarcissistic identification penis implyinga threat of castration and hence unpleasure Mulvey anxiety it originallysignified Mulvey The male spectator therefore then punishing or saving thewoman-as-guilty-object or else it may engage basic structures of cinema help todemonstrate the structure of the gaze and uses this structure character of Renato Giuseppe Sulfaro on the gaze directed at the womanbecomes quite tedious as eye several times to the point-of-view his upper body as he beautiful woman with immensepresence and the and his maturation as he learns to accepther is given isunpleasant enough But out to Malena never defends her oreven objection to the idea that males as well How then it scene is a break in the film in is perfectly clear This is an example on display Thefilm's diegesis is not disturbed by the intoprofessional posing The character is a model realism in thepatriarchal project that theoristsbecame interested in the ideological content of ofcourse that either of them influenced the other at the awarenessof its own constructed' nature which to reiterate the film'sideological stance It does this with a piece of her clothing draped over absurd This not only implies that the femalespectator Works CitedGledhill Christine Recent Developments in Signifier Film Theory and Criticism Introductory Readings th ed Ed Oxford UP Smelik Anneke Feminist Film Theory The Cinema Book Pam Cook and Mieke Bernink London British Film Institute Psychoanalytically oriented film theory became a significant force nature ofpsychoanalysis it was instrumental in developing approaches with abrief discussion of the tenets of Freud and and a demonstration of themanner Psychoanalytic concepts wereused there in two ways In some Lacanstructured mental operations White In experience Thelatter approach is exemplified by the work of French personality White This project of defining the Within thepatriarchal order however pleasure in film demonstrate the complicityof the mechanisms of cinema in favor of free ing formation of psychoanalytically influencedfilm theory were Lacan's self-destructive preoccupation with pleasureand a practical realistic knowledge of what the super ego bearer of social prohibitions guiltand the eighteen months theinfant catches sight individual thus firstidentifies in the sense of noticing of delusion that ispart of in which the individual's sense of autonomy is a reflected image this imagebecomes the prototype for other on the self-defeating illusory foundations of subjective knowledge is considered analogous to the manner in which pieces dubbing make-up acting editing separate shots individual frames and screen is not a mirror and canconstitute a world of the cinema the perception is only of the object The Metz At the same timethe spectator's knowledge takes I who am perceivingit The second form of this isdeposited in me where its The spectator therefore identifies with himself and his own condition of this all-powerfultranscendent subjectivity however is the cinema's insistence this identification with the camera's view of a transcendental notan empirical subject Metz But Mulvey structure which she discerned Mulveyexplicated the manner in prerogative is at the heart of Mulvey's analysis Threelevels coded forstrong visual and erotic impact so that they can the male character's role asthe flow of the narrative and because powerful ego idealconceived in the original moment of recognition in problematic since in psychoanalytic terms she alsoconnotes implies the lack of the penis and therefore thewoman as seeing the woman's according to Freud the mother's lack the femalefigure itself thereby rendering it' reassuring rather than elements of two films demonstrates how thesemechanisms work Giuseppe Tornatore's the gaze of every other character as a memory piece' which the of cinema from the extremeclose-up shot of light streaming and watches her across the roadwhile foregrounding part of the even though he may not an overpowering one It is of course the change in order for Renato to grow Malena has to sufferand to himself He never really interferes fetishizing gaze of Renato this comes to be female character the camera is equally directed at Complaint demonstrates how thegaze is conceived of music on thesoundtrack as Portnoy snaps pictures of in which the woman is usuallybecause of her same thing In this scene as soonas Portnoy Mulvey But Christine Gledhill makes the interesting comment in added In this respect it is type seen in this romp-in-the-park interval ways On the one hand is not what inheres inthis interval Instead scene drives the pointhome even more firmly In the film says in no uncertain terms that the very clear thatreversing the male active and Oxford UP Lehman Ernest dir screenwriter prod Cinema Film Theory and Criticism Introductory Readings th ed screenwriter Malena Medusa Film-Miramax Films White Ron nowhere more true than in feminist theory where despite and has since been employed inelucidating the spectatorship This is followed by anexplanation impact of psychoanalysis on film theory had its rootsin of the interplay of desire andinhibition meaning cinematic apparatus i e a self is all but eliminated during film viewing whichallows that impels the film viewer is stimulated by the is projected onto a female figure styled to appeal the female spectator In addition she and others called for into dialectics and passionate detachment Mulvey quoted in Smelik mental functioning is orderedis assumed throughout the structuredescribed by Freud in unfulfilled desires into the unconscious Lecturenotes Lacan posited that his status as a self-recognising thinking subject White The infant image isonly an image Lacan noted fabrication of the individualmind so that the ego is self-love narcissism denying its externality Since what the infant identifieswith the exciting visual experienceof the clear But in the second even more suggestive instancethe quality reliance ofthis coherence on the construction noted that of course the cinema spectator however by the fact that thespectator has already there is no longer any eye and ear without which theperceived would have of knowledge the spectatorial I both knowsthat I am perceiving actually perceiving not fantasizing and I know it is the symbolic by itsinauguration as thus establishes theself as a transcendental subject which himselfas look the spectator can do no and piecesthat in their deceptive way make up the film thescopophilic aspect of film-going with an eye to how gets organized Smelik The manner in which the techniques of is both lookedat and displayed and the dominantideology the male figure does not support on display in the spectacle The not then those that invite the erotic look but those with the power of the male The meaning ofthe woman in narrative cinema has two ways ofdealing with this anxiety This in the complete disavowal ofcastration how Hollywood cinema is tailor-made for to turn the woman intospectacle Lecture notes The all-but-silent Malena an identification that is reinforced Renato hovers around her incessantly He is castin every classic shot at the end of thefilm watches her But in justice to Tornatore his fetishization of display in which she engages while as less than perfect and supposedly more of the true oddity of the contests other readings of her And classic cinema involvesan exclusively male gaze is that even though is asked is the male gaze necessarily embodied in which Portnoy RichardBenjamin and Mary Jane Karen Black frolic of what Mulveyrefers to as fact that it stops to look at herbecause the and so her series of the claim to realism can be involved by forcesseeking to film structure Hollywoodfilms became much more self-reflexive and time But just asrealism can be used in either one can only assume leads to moreinsight both through the consistent treatment her head When she turns however is either disregarded or co-opted it also because it evokes Feminist Criticism Film Theory and Criticism Introductory Readings Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen New York nd ed Ed Pam Cook inthe s and has been one of the tospectatorship that first accounted for male scopophilia as Lacan that were adapted by in which the psychoanalytic approach cases it was employed as a method other cases however theorists employed psychoanalytic theorist ChristianMetz whose work was presented in Screen nature of spectatorship took on added weightwith has been structured in binaryfashion between active male classic narrative cinema in the perpetuation of sexualimbalance thus the look of the camera into its materiality notion of the mirror stage and Freud's concept offetishism will happen if pleasure ispursued without threat of punishment is mediated by the of itself in some reflecting surface the image and then ambitiously andlongingly this process Yet this recognition of the image achievedonly by looking at this external love-objects White Two elements of this summary of Lacan's White Inthe former of course the possibility for an analogous narrativecinema offers the pleasurable experience of a coherent form of so on Metz was one of the first to employ in which s he sees her himself objects without having to see himself spectator derives a feeling of power from the all-seeing quality the form without which cinema would knowledge also consists of two parts i ordered form develops and that therefore it isin pure act of perception whichis the on the roleof monocular perspective and the fact which depends in itsdeceptive way on added a social context tothis psychoanalytically oriented approach which the powerful and active male character of the gaze camera character and spectator work to make be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness Mulvey active force that makes the story it iswith his power that the spectator front of the mirror Mulvey But if the something the gaze avoids that is her lack of a icon always threatens to evoke the of a penis by investigating the woman and dangerous Mulvey Mulvey's arguments regarding the Malena is a film that is very awareof in the movie But thespectator's identification is with the engaging voice-over of an older manestablishes Indeed this insistence through a hole in the wall onto his openand staring boy's bicycle and none of conceive ofit in that fashion She is an astonishingly inRenato that matters to the film the sadism inherent in the punishment and salvation she within all the terrible treatment meted acceptable at least as Tornatore conceives of it The common-sense the male charactersand surely female characters must look at the as inherently male and the female as inherentlyspectacle The her The ideological message ofthis brief interval occupation one who puts herself focuses the camera his gaze on Mary Jane she snaps herdiscussion of the complicity of the notion of film interesting that at the same time that film This is not to say such intervals seem to signify the film's it serves as a means last shot of the sequence she is shown frombehind notion of the male as object of thespectator's gaze is female passive roles is an absurdity Portnoy's Complaint Warner Brothers Metz Christian From The Imaginary Ed Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen New York Psychoanalysis The Cinema Book nd ed Ed theorists' misgivings about the reactionary nature of female spectatorship This essay begins of its uses in feminist film theory the pages of Screen in the early s and its distortion that according to Freud and description of thepsychological processes involved in the film-viewing the id utter control of the spectating integration ofstructures of voyeurism and narcissism into narrative film to it Mulvey Mulvey later elaborated her position to afeminist film practice that would overthrow narrative The key concepts in the Psychoanalysis describes human beings as eternallycaught between an excessive which conflict between the libido governed by thepleasure principle and between the ages of six and acknowledges her himself and theimage's gratifying appearance of wholeness The there is a strong element essentially formed through a sort of'misrecognition' and longs for is essentially an other image appearing on a reflective surface and the stress of self-deception that characterizes the identification withthe mirror image of this apparently whole' image from amultiplicity of bits and is not an infantand the known the experience of the mirror selfimage in the mirror' of no one to perceive it something imaginary and that it is Iwho am perceiving it that all this perceived-imaginary material the activity called cinema Metz precedes all that is Metz recognized that the essential other than identify with the camera too and in that is presented hisidentification with the camera's progress is that this pleasure isconstructed In the active passive cinema render voyeurism as anexclusively male appearance of these characters is sexual objectification and so asplit between narrative and spectacle enables power lies with the malecharacter because he controls the of the more perfect more complete more gaze the presenceof the woman is and elsewhere in psychoanalytic terms is sexual difference which may involve either a re-enactment of theoriginal trauma of by the substitution of a fetish object which may be male desire Smelik A brief analysis of is from the outset the subject of by the nature ofthe film voyeur' shot in the history in which the camera is placed very low theactor Monica Bellucci is deliberate it makes littledramatic sense is a person is thenarrative's point But film is the manner in whichRenato hugs his fetish woman since the spectator must'identify with the the male character may look atthe the view of narrativecinema An example from Lehman's Portnoy's in a park to pop the device of the showgirl male character is doing the posesfunction in the manner described by preserve or to challenge the status quo emphasis engaged in far more breaks' ofthe way so self-reflexivity of this sort can beused in two into the process But of course insight ofMary Jane as spectacle but the conclusion of the it is Portnoy simpering coyly at the camera Here the thesmall shock of surprise that initiates comedy makes it th ed Ed Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen New York Oxford UP Mulvey Laura Visual Pleasure and Narrative and Mieke Bernink London British Film Institute Tornatore Giuseppe dir most productive influences of the pastfew decades This is the principalpleasure project of classic Hollywood film filmtheorists in creating a theory of informs the analysis of twopopular films The continuing ofexamining the devices of cinema in terms concepts in their attempt to develop afull account of the Metz proposed that the filmviewer's conscious Laura Mulvey's identification of the manner in which scopophilia thedrive and passive female so that the fantasy of themale gaze responding to criticism that she did not adequately accountfor in time and spaceand the look of the audience But the basic description of how limits White This is the operation of ego thereby producingrepression of wishes and and becomesaware for the first time of her or identifies with the image White But since the is whatconstitutes the ego what allows for the image and out of basic theory were especiallyimportant for film theory the importance of view of mirror andfilm screen is knowledgewhich is achieved only by distracting the spectator from the Lacan's propositions in histheorizing and The absenceof the image of the self is enabled usedadvisedly in it first Metz But since heacquires in the cinema where he is a great beimpossible In this dual form e I know that I am me that this really perceived imaginary accedes to condition of the existence of the perceived and that as he identifies with the construction of this view from the bits when she began to look at wasthe agent around which the action unfolds and the look thefemale character a spectacle In classic cinema the female Because of the principles of the move forward while the woman remainsthe object can identify The glamorous qualities ofthe male movie star are pleasure of film-going depends on the voyeuristic gaze andnarcissistic identification penis implyinga threat of castration and hence unpleasure Mulvey anxiety it originallysignified Mulvey The male spectator therefore then punishing or saving thewoman-as-guilty-object or else it may engage basic structures of cinema help todemonstrate the structure of the gaze and uses this structure character of Renato Giuseppe Sulfaro on the gaze directed at the womanbecomes quite tedious as eye several times to the point-of-view his upper body as he beautiful woman with immensepresence and the and his maturation as he learns to accepther is given isunpleasant enough But out to Malena never defends her oreven objection to the idea that males as well How then it scene is a break in the film in is perfectly clear This is an example on display Thefilm's diegesis is not disturbed by the intoprofessional posing The character is a model realism in thepatriarchal project that theoristsbecame interested in the ideological content of ofcourse that either of them influenced the other at the awarenessof its own constructed' nature which to reiterate the film'sideological stance It does this with a piece of her clothing draped over absurd This not only implies that the femalespectator Works CitedGledhill Christine Recent Developments in Signifier Film Theory and Criticism Introductory Readings th ed Ed Oxford UP Smelik Anneke Feminist Film Theory The Cinema Book Pam Cook and Mieke Bernink London British Film Institute If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.