psychoanalysis and film theory part 1_ a new kind of mirror by paula murphy

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Psychoanalysis and Film Theory Part 1: A New Kind of Mirror by P... http://garnet.acns.fsu.edu/%7Enr03/Psychoanalysis%20and%20

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an international and interdisciplinary journal of postmodern cultural sound, text and imageVolume 2, February 2005, ISSN 1552-5112

Psychoanalysis and Film Theory

Part 1:

A New Kind of Mirror

Paula Murphy

Your study is located at the crossroads of magic and positivism.

That spot is bewitched. Only theory can break the spell.[1]

Theodor Adorno

Introduction

Film theory as we know it today did not come into existence until

the late 1960s, and since then has been dominated by

psychoanalytic ideas. This article seeks to specifically investigate

the influence of Lacanian psychoanalysis on film theory. Its

development will be traced in two articles through classic film

theory, the role of Karl Marx and Louis Althusser, the contributions

of semiotics, the debates surrounding apparatus theory and the

gaze, and finally the input of feminism. While this type of broad


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overview has been attempted in many general introductions to film

theory, it is hoped here to provide a rough sketch of its formative

stages of development, while filling in the detail on a number of

significant issues that highlight Lacans influence.

Classic Film Theory

It was not until after the First World War that it became possible to

identify two particular groups within film criticism. Spearheading

the first of these groups was the figure ofSergei Eisenstein, whose

film-making and theoretical essays in the 1920s established a

conception of the role of the cinema as a primarily aesthetic one.

According to Eisenstein, a films aesthetic value depended on its

ability to transform reality and in his films this usually took the form

of montage.[2] In opposition to Eisenstein were the impressionists

and surrealists. They also believed the main function of the cinema

to be aesthetic, but thought that the camera itself was enough to

render ordinary objects sublime. Their emphasis on cinema as a

visual medium meant that they regarded narrative in many cases as

an obstacle that had to be overcome. This, coupled with their

emphasis on fragmentation, meant that the impressionist / surrealist

tradition was unsuited to the rapidly expanding business of

commercial cinema.

Eisenstein and his followers gradually overshadowed other

theoretical groups to the extent that it was not until after the

Second World War, in the 50s, that any radical development within

film theory took place. This development was primarily due to the

influence of Andr Bazin and his two essays, The Evolution of the


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Language of Cinema and The Virtues and Limitations of Montage,

which critiqued the two most prestigious schools of thought in film

at the time: Eisensteins Soviet school of montage and German

expressionism (Ray 2001, 7). Bazin overturned existing

conceptions of film by claiming that cinemas true purpose was the

objective representation of reality. The expressionists, surrealists

and the Soviet school all evinced a belief in the manipulationof

reality: Eisenstein through abstract montage and mise-en-scene,and

the impressionists and surrealists through their elevation of the

image and disregard for other aspects of cinematography. Bazin

argued that cinema offered the chance of completely objective

representation for the first time in history. His position has come

under severe criticism from post-structuralists, for whom reality is

always a subjective experience.[3] However, it is interesting to note

that contemporary television would seem to have come full circle in

a return to Bazins conception of film: reality TV is the ultimate

symptom of a desire for totally objective, unmediated presentation

of everyday life.

Question Marx

The influence of Bazins theories was short-lived and the political

upheaval that occurred in France in 1968 was the catalyst for a

complete change of direction in film studies. Bazins style of

criticism based around the notion of the auteurand the aesthetic

function of cinema soon became outdated as film studies became

indisputably political: [t]here was no place outside or above

politics; all texts, whatever their claims to neutrality, had their


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ideological slant (Lapsley and Westlake 1988, 1). Film makers and

film critics alike were forced to consider the relationship between

ideology and power and the position of cinema within that

dualism. This new politically-centered, theoretically-driven film

criticism was given a forum in two highly influential French

journals, Cahiers du Cinmaand Cinthique, along with their British

counterpart Screen. The editorial by Jean-Louis Comolli and Jean

Narboni in the October 1969 issue ofCahiersillustrates the radical

new direction that film studies had taken. In a marked reaction

against the subjective, speculative analyses of classical film theory,

Comolli and Narboni stress the scientific basis of their critique.[4]

In addition to scientific methodology, they also emphasise the

political nature of their aims which are heavily influenced by

Marxism. They see film as a product that becomes transformed into

a commodity which is also an ideological product of the system,

which in France means capitalism (Comolli and Narboni 1969,

45). Acknowledging their own imprisonment within capitalist

ideology, post-revolution film studies envisaged that theory would

provide the key to unlock their chains. It was through theory that

operations of ideological control in cinema could be recognised,

and through theory that resistance could be asserted. The

post-revolution critics saw the lack of theory in classical film studies

as one of the primary reasons for its impotence:

the classic theory of cinema that the camera is an impartial

instrument which grasps, or rather is impregnated by, the world in

its concrete reality is an eminently reactionary one. What the

camera in fact registers is the vague, unformulated, untheorized,


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unthought-out world of the dominant ideology. Cinema is one of the

languages through which the world communicates itself to itself.

They constitute its ideology for they reproduce the world as it is

experienced when filtered through its ideology. (Conolli and

Narboni 1969, 46)

It was the philosophy of Louis Althusser that provided the political

conceptual system for post-revolution film theory. One of the

driving forces behind Althussers break with traditional Marxism

around 1945 was the desire to establish a scientific status for his

theory in order to bestow upon it a degree of autonomy. This

move was to have a direct impact on film studies as the first

paragraph of Comolli and Narbonis editorial elucidates:

Scientific criticism has an obligation to define its fields and

methods. This implies awareness of its own historical and social

situation, a rigorous analysis of the proposed field of study, the

conditions which make the work necessary and those which make it

possible, and the special function it intends to fill. It is essential

that we at Cahiers du Cinema should now undertake just such a

global analysis of our positions and aims. (Comolli and Narboni

1969, 43)

It was perhaps this desire for scientific fortification that attracted

Althusser to the theories of Lacan. While psychoanalysis had an

enormous direct influence on film studies, it also influenced itindirectly through the Marxist theory of Althusser. In order to

re-conceptualise the simplistic base/superstructure model of society

espoused by Marx, Althusser borrowed the psychoanalytic term

overdetermination in order to articulate the complex web of


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conflicting elements, which combine to generate a historical

movement in society. In psychoanalysis, this term is used to

describe how a mental phenomenon like a symptom can be traced

back to several conflicting and often incompatible desires. J.

Laplanche and J. B. Pontalais define it as [t]he fact that formations

of the unconscious (symptoms, dreams, etc.) can be attributed to a

plurality of determining factors[t]he formation is related to a

multiplicity of unconscious elements which may be organized in

different meaningful sequences, each having its own specific

coherence at a particular level of interpretation (Laplanche and

Pontalais 1988, 292).

Althussers concept of structural causality is also redolent of

Lacanian psychoanalysis. The term refers to the way in which

[m]en are no longer agents actively shaping history, either as

individuals or classes, but rather are supports of the process within

the structure (Lapsley and Westlake 1988, 6). Lacan also

emphasizes the primacy of societal codes (in the form of the

symbolic order) in the shaping of subjectivity. The way in which

the subject is inculcated into the social order is described by

Althusser as interpellation: a process explicated in all its complexity

by Lacan in the Oedipus and castration complexes, the mirror stage

and the acquisition of language. According to Althusser,

interpellation takes place through ideological state apparatuses

(ISAs): family, religion, education, media, etc. In Lacanian terms,

these social and familial structures are saturated with symbolic law.

Although both Cahiers du Cinemaand Cinthiqueused the

philosophy of Althusser as the basis for their critique of ideology,


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they did so in different ways. For Cinthiqueall films were hopeless

victims of the ideology of the ruling class and had to be rejected in

their entirety, whereas Cahiers du Cinemadivided film into seven

different categories, only one of which it wholly condemned,

although this was the largest category: films which are imbued

through and through with the dominant ideology in pure and

unadulterated form, and give no indication that their makers were

even aware of the fact (Comolli and Narboni 1969, 46). This

emphasis on the ideological nature of films and of signification in

general owes an obvious debt to the philosophy of Lacan. But

although there are several points of connection between the two

theorists, the Althusserian and Lacanian subject are nonetheless two

distinct and often opposing entities. For Althusser, interpellation

fixes the subject into a position of permanent blindness to the

ideological mechanisms of his/her society. The Lacanian subject is

ceaselessly developing and changing through language, and

although constituted by the symbolic order is the producer as well

as the product of meaning (Lapsley and Westlake 1988, 53). This

idea is explored more fully in the following section in relation to the

graph of desire.

Cinematic Semiotics

Robert Lapsley and Micheal Westlake isolate two aspects of Lacanian

theory, which were to prove crucial to film studies. The first is

Lacans reversal of the Cartesian notion of subjectivity. Rather than

the subject creating and naming the world, Lacan states that is in

fact language itself, which creates the world, the


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conceptengenders the thing (Lacan 1989, 72). This idea has

many implications for filmic criticism, as speech can thus be

conceived of as already saturated with the predominant ideology,

making it difficult or even impossible to utilise speech to criticize

ideological norms. In fact, Lacan even goes so far as to say that

language can neverfully articulate what the subject wishes to say:

the unsignifiable order of the real is evidence of this.

The second of Lacans theories that proved indispensable for

film studies is his re-reading of Ferdinand de Saussure. Lacan

reverses Saussures formula for the sign, placing language above

reality (S/s). He states that, [f]or the human being the word or the

concept is nothing other than the word in its materiality. It is the

thing itself. It is not just a shadow, a breath, a virtual illusion of

the thing, it is the thing itself(Lacan 1987, 178, my italics).

Language murders the thing and takes its place. In this model of

the sign, there is an endless sliding of signifiers over signifieds,

which is temporarily halted by the point de caption. The graph of

desire (Lacan 1989, 335) articulates succinctly the complexities

inherent in signification. The horizontal vector represents the

signifying chain, and intersects with the vector S at two points.

The first point of intersection denotes the constitution of the

signifier from a synchronic and enumerable collection of elements

in which each is sustained only by the principle of its opposition to

each of the others (Lacan 1989, 336). In short, this point

represents the signifier, which attains its status through its

difference from other terms in the system of language. The second

point of intersection denotes the moment of punctuation, in which


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the signifier at the first point of intersection attains its full meaning

retroactively. The two points of intersection are not symmetrical,

nor are they intended to be. The first is a locus (a place rather

than a space) and the second is a moment (a rhythm rather than a

duration) (Lacan 1989, 336). The elementary cell of the graph

cited here is simplistic, but serves to illustrate the relationship

between subject and meaning.[5]

Meaning isproduced aprs-coupby the subject through the

retroactive nature of punctuation (the second point of intersection)

in the subjects enunciation. However, the subject is also produced

by signification, as the meaning of the signifier at the first point of

signification is a differential meaning, not an inherent meaning.

This means that the subject must choose from a selection of

signifiers that are available to him/her, which themselves shape and

define the signified. Collectively, these signifieds construct the

world in which the subject exists, and so construct subjectivity

itself. For Lacan, there is an unending flux between the subject and

signification, and this idea occurs in film studies in several different

ways.

Christian Metz defends the analysis of cinema from a

linguistic or semiotic point of view because although it is not a

languein the Saussurian sense of the word, it is certainly a

language. Metz argues that the cinema does not constitute a

languefor three reasons: because there is no intercommunication;

because it is duplication of reality rather than the unmotivated,

arbitrary relationship between signifier and signified and finally

because it lacks the double articulation thatis the hallmark of


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natural language (Lapsley and Westlake 1988, 39). Natural

language can be described as having a double articulation because

it is comprised of both words (morphemes) and smaller units,

phonemes, which signify nothing in themselves, but when

combined produce morphemes. While the camera shot could in

theory be likened to the phoneme, there are numerous difficulties

with this equation. There are an infinite number of shots to select

from, but there are a finite number of words. Moreover, the

meaning of the shot is not defined by its paradigmatic dimension,

i.e. by the other shots which could have been selected, whereas the

meaning of words isdefined paradigmatically. Because of these

difficulties in analyzing cinema through its paradigmatic

relationships, Metz instead embarked upon an analysis of the

syntagmatic relationships in cinema: his grande syntagmatique

(Lapsley and Westlake 1988, 40).

Metz divides the narrative syntax of the cinema into eight

parts, ranging from the smallest segment, the autonomous shot to

the largest segment, the sequence. While Metzs analysis set up a

detailed schema for understanding a films construction, it was

nonetheless open to criticism. Segments from films could not be

categorized as neatly as Metz imagined and he was also criticized for

being so formulaic that there was little room for practical

interpretation of the workings of meaning and ideology within

cinema. Metzs grande syntagmatiquedid elicit several progressive

critical responses however. Film director Pier Paolo Pasolini argued

against Metzs proposition that there was nothing in the cinema to

correspond to phonemes, which would align it to languages dual


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articulation. Pasolini names the smaller units of cinema cinemes,

which represent reality, or objects from reality. Through a process

of selection and combination cinemes were formed into shots,

analogous to languages morphemes. Umberto Eco criticized

Pasolinis naivety in supposing that the cinema could articulate an

unmediated reality. Rather, Eco argues that reality is represented in

the cinema through a system of cultural codes which are intimately

connected to ideology. He states also that cinemes could not be

equivalent to phonemes, since phonemes only possess meaning in

combination, whereas cinemes possess meaning in isolation.

Against Metzs uni-articulation and Pasolinis double-articulation,

Eco contends that the cinema has a triple articulation made up of

semes, smaller iconic signs which only attain meaning in relation to

semes, and finally the conditions of perception (Lapsley and

Westlake 1988, 45), which takes into account the audiences

perception of light, shade, textures, colours, etc. which contribute

to their understanding of the filmic text. Later on, Eco revised this

model slightly, suggesting that signs are better thought of as

sign-functions correlating a unit of expression with a unit of

content in a temporaryencoding (Lapsley and Westlake 1988, 46,

my italics), recognizing that signs are defined by their context and

that their meaning cannot be fixed.[6]

The relationship between the subject and the narrative text

in the cinema was explored by many film critics and much of the

remaining sections are concerned with an analysis of this

relationship from various critical viewpoints. One such critic is Colin

McCabe, who was on the editorial board for the revolutionary British


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film journal Screenin the 1970s and was also a regular

contributor. Screentook on board the challenge of analyzing the

relationship between ideology, subjectivity and signification, and

did so through psychoanalysis, semiotics and Althusserian Marxism.

It is in the structuralist mode that McCabe theorizes the production

of meaning in film in the article that will be discussed here.[7]

The model for McCabes analysis of film is a literary one. Since the

dominant mode of film was (and still is) realism, McCabe finds his

model in the classic realist text, the nineteenth century novel, which

he defines as one in which there is a hierarchy amongst the

discourses which compose the text and this hierarchy is defined in

terms of an empirical notion of truth (McCabe 1974, 54). The

Marxist influence of McCabes analysis is obvious. Extrapolating the

hierarchical divisions within the realist novel allows him to uncover

the mechanisms of ideology within the text. McCabe divides the

realist novel into narrative prose and object language. Narrative

prose is characterised by the omniscient narrator, informing,

commenting and providing judgement on the object language, the

language of the characters, represented in inverted commas.

McCabe states that the narrative prose is the first order of hierarchy

in the novel. It functions as a metalanguage that can state all the

truths in the object language (McCabe 1974, 54). The narrative

prose attempts to conceal its status as metalanguage: since its

words are not spoken, it is almost as if they are not there. Its

invisibility hides its function as purveyor of the dominant ideology.

In film, McCabe believes that the camera is analogous to the

metalanguage of the classic realist novel: [t]he camera shows us


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what happens it tells the truth against which we can measure the

discourses (McCabe 1974, 56).

McCabe defines two aspects of the classic realist text in both

novel and film. He states that [t]he classic realist text cannot deal

with the real as contradictory. In a reciprocal movement the classic

realist text ensures the position of the subject in a relation of

dominant specularity (McCabe 1974, 58). The real here does not

signify the Lacanian real. It refers rather to the real events which

are related in the subjective discourse of the cinema and conversely

in the object language or dialogue of the realist novel. He is stating

therefore that realist narrative cannot accommodate a tension

between metalanguage and object discourse. The nature of the

genre means that the object discourse must subscribe to the

commentary of the metalanguage, and therefore to the status of

metalanguage as ideologically motivated. However, while tension is

impossible between these two hierarchical levels within the film or

the novel, it ispossible for either to resist the dominant ideology of

society. So while the two elements are necessarily harmonious

within the narrative of filmic text, in unison they are capable of

critique:

the classic realist text (a heavily closed discourse) cannot deal

with the real in its contradictionsit fixes the subject in a point of

view from which everything becomes obvious. There is, however, a

level of contradiction into which the classic realist text can enter.

This is the contradiction between the dominant discourse of the

text and the dominant ideological discourses of the time. (McCabe

1974, 62)


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While McCabes analysis provides a useful account of the invisible

operations of the camera as commentator and interpreter of the

action, it fails to provide a theoretical analysis ofhowthe spectator

receives this ideological cinematic code and the exact nature of the

relationship between spectator and film. This task required an

analysis of the subjects relationship with other subjects, images,

language and culture, and film critics found a theoretical paradigm

that explicated all of these factors in psychoanalysis. The emphasis

on the occasion of consumption (the dialectic between subject and

film in the cinema, when he/she is engaged in the act of

perception) is one of the most important differentiating factors

between film theory and literary criticism. This is the central focus

of the branch of film studies known as apparatus theory, which

relies most heavily on philosophy of Lacan.

Apparatus Theory

Metzs foundational essay The Imaginary Signifier is an exemplary

account of the film/spectator relationship, providing what was to

become a model for the use of psychoanalytic theory in film

criticism. In the scientific manner that characterized post-revolution

film studies, Metz sets out to define exactly what the cinema is and

how it differs from the other arts. He proposes that the main

distinguishing factor is that the cinema is a signifier whose presence

is absence, i.e. the act of perception takes place in real time, but

the spectator is viewing an object which is pre-recorded and thus

already absent: it is the objects replicain a new kind of mirror

(Metz 2000, 410). He states that, [m]ore than the other artsthe


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cinema involves us in the imaginary: it drums up all perception, but

to switch it immediately over into its own absence, which is none

the less the only signifier present (Metz 2000, 410). Metzs

definition of the cinema is an accurate one, although he

over-emphasises the difference between film and other arts. All of

the arts involve an element of presence in absence: reading a book

or listening to a piece of music are activities where the action is not

directly present. Even the act of watching a play where the actors

are present on stage necessarily involves the agreed absence of

reality (suspension of disbelief), which is a fundamental convention

of drama.

Watching a film necessarily involves for Metz an instance of

identification, since without identification meaning cannot be

generated for the subject. The spectator continues to depend in

the cinema on that permanent play of identification without which

there would be no social life (Metz 2000, 411). The question of

what exactly the spectator identifies withproves to be more

difficult. The obvious answer is a character in the film, but Metz

points out that not all films contain characters. Even in instances

where characters are present, there cannot be total identification:

the screen is a mirror but not in a literal sense. Metz concludes that

the spectator must identify with the cinematic apparatus itself, and

its re-creation of the act of looking: the spectator identifies with

himself, with himself as pure act of perceptionas condition of

possibility of the perceived and hence as a kind of transcendental

subject, anterior to every there is (Metz 2000, 413).

Identification is with the projector, the camera and the


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screen of the cinematic apparatus. The projector duplicates the act

of perception by originating from the back of the subjects head

and presenting a visual image in front of the subject. The various

shots of the camera are akin to the movement of the head. As

vision is both projective and introjective, the subject projects

his/her gaze and simultaneously introjects the information received

from the gaze. The cinema replicates this experience, with the

screen functioning as the recording surface for what has been

introjected. Opening the eyes to view the film, I am the projector,

receiving it, I am the screen; in both these figures together, I am

the camera, pointed yet recording (Metz 2000, 415).

Identification takes place in the imaginary order. The

imaginary is governed by the symbolic, and the cinema is no

exception to this rule. Any theorization of the imaginary in cinema

must pre-suppose the symbolic since the cinema is a system of

signifiers which signify an absent signified. Metz does not explicitly

acknowledge that the cinematic experience replicates the experience

of the child in the mirror: if the screen takes the place of the

childhood mirror, then both can be said to create a version of

reality that is based upon an illusion. However, Metz does identify

the cinema as characteristically imaginary, since what is depicted is

already a reflection of reality. He focuses on the imaginary at the

expense of the symbolic and this issue has been taken up by several

feminist critics who will be discussed in part two of this article.

This emphasis on the imaginary generated a large amount of

theoretical analysis. Like the childhood mirror, the imaginarycompleteness that the screen represents merely serves to disguise an

inherent lack. The means by which this imaginary completeness is

created is known as suture.

Stephen Heaths ground-breaking work, Narrative Space,


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provides an informed description of suture, foregrounded by a

detailed discussion of filmic narrative space in general. Pivotal to

Heaths analysis is the notion of central projection and he outlines

the development of this idea from fifteenth century Italian painting

to early photography. It is defined as the art of depicting

three-dimensional objects upon a plane surface in such a manner

that the picture mayaffect the eye of an observer in the same way

as the natural objects themselves (Heath 1993, 69). Central

projection, which we now regard as natural, dominates modern

cinema. For the illusion of central projection to be fully accurate, it

is essential for the eye of the spectator to be positioned in the

central point of perspective. Anamorphosis is the term that is used

to describe what happens when a painter or a film maker plays with

central projection. This is the distorted sensation experienced when

an image draws the eye to one side. Heath cites Holbeins The

Ambassadors as an example of anamorphosis: playing between

appearance and reality, it situates the centre of the projection of

the paintingobliquely to the side, the sense of the paintingonly

falling into place (exactly) once the position has been found

(Heath 1993, 69). Although unacknowledged by Heath, the

emphasis on the importance of subject position in maintaining the

illusion of reality contains strong echoes of Lacans optical

experiment, in which the position of the subject is crucial in order

to maintain the delicate balance between the three orders[8].

Watching a film is also based on an optical illusion in which images

on a flat screen appear three-dimensional and realistic. The

identifications engendered by film narrative centered around the


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imaginary order are similarly based upon mconnaisance.

Heath divides filmic space into space in frame and space out

of frame. The space in frame is narrative space. It is narrative

significance that at any moment sets the space of the frame to be

followed and read (Heath 1993, 69). This narrative space is

characterized and delimited by various conventions. For example,

most films contain a master-shot in the opening sequence: a shot

that shows the whole setting in order to allow the spectator to

integrate themselves into the spatial layout of the film. The

conventions of the 180 and 30-degree rules also regulate the

narrative space of the cinema. The 180 degree rule means that the

camera rarely goes beyond the 180 degree line of the screen, in

front of which the spectator would be placed within the narrative

space of the film. In order to avoid a jump in narrative space,

which would interrupt the illusion of total visual access to the

narrative space of the film, the 30-degree rule is common practice,

which means that the camera should not attempt a sudden jump of

more than 30 degrees. All of these conventions function to

maintain the illusion of reality that the cinema creates. The illusion

or misrecognition that is inherent in the cinematic experience

centers around the complex issue of suture.

The term originates with Lacan, who uses it only once in his

seminar of 1965, and was later transformed into a concept by

Jacques-Alain Miller in his article for Les Cahiers pour lanalyse, later

printed in ScreenasSuture (Elements of the Logic of the

Signifer). In this article, Miller theorizes the notion of suture as the

relationship between the subject and the signifying chain.


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spectator to remain in his/her position as voyeur. Suture became

an important concept in film studies in both Britain and France until

it underwent another transformation with the advent of

deconstruction, where it became a vague notion rather than a

concept, as synonymous with closure: suture signaled that the

gap, the opening, of a structure was obliterated, enabling the

structure to (mis)perceive itself as a self-enclosed totality of

representation (Zizek 2001, 31). Heaths narrative space is thus

dependent upon the action of suture since the cinema, as much as

the childhood mirror, poses for the spectator an absence, a lack,

which is ceaselessly recaptured forthe film, the process binding

the spectator as subject in the realization of the films space (Heath

1993, 88).

From its very beginning then, throughout its influence by

Marxism and semiotics, film theory has relied on psychoanalytic

theory to provide a philosophical, pseudo-scientific and sociological

basis for the conceptualization of the spectator. However, the

psychoanalytic subject espoused by film studies is not without its

critics. Many have accused the discipline of diluting Lacanian

theory to serve their own purposes, reducing the complexities of

the Lacanian subject to a deceiving simplicity. In the second part

of this article, the writings of Joan Copjec and Slavoj Zizek on the

issue of the gaze will be analysed. These critics, along with otherdiscussed in part two, show that far from the cinematic screen

being a mirror akin to the mirror of childhood described in Lacans

mirror stage, that the mirror is in fact a screen, and that the

spectator is not the one who looks, but rather is being looked at.


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Bibliography

Adorno, Theodor, 1980. Letter to Walter Benjamin inAesthetics

and Politics. ed. by Frederic Jameson. London: Verso.

Comolli, Jean-Louis and Jean Narboni, [1969]. Cinema/Ideology

Criticism (1) in Contemporary Film Theory, ed. Anthony Easthope.

New York: Longman, 1993. [pp. 43-51]

Heath, Stephen, 1993, FromNarrative Space in Contemporary Film

Theory. ed. by Anthony Easthope. New York: Longman. [pp.

68-94]

Lacan, Jacques, 1989. Ecrits: a Selection. Translated by Alan

Sheridan. London: Routledge.

Lacan, Jacques, (1953-4), Le Sminaire. Livre 1. Les crits

techniques de Freud, 1953-4, ed. Jacques Alain Miller, Paris: Seuil,

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trans John Forrester, with notes by John Forrester, Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1987].

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Some Brechtian Theses in Contemporary Film Theory, edited by

Anthony Easthope. New York: Longman, 1993. [pp. 53-67]

Metz, Christian, 2000. The Imaginary Signifier in Film and Theory:

An Anthology, ed. by Robert Stam and Toby Miller. Oxford:

Blackwell. [pp. 403-435]

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Mysteries in Cultural Studies. Bloomington: Indiana University

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Introduction. Manchester: Manchester University Press.


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Roudinesco, Elisabeth, (1994), Jacques Lacan: Esquisse dune vie,

histoire dun systme de pense. Librairie Arthme Fayard. [Jacques

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Notes

[1] Letter to Walter Benjamin inAesthetics and Politics, edited by Frederic Jameson, p. 129.

[2] Eisensteins stance on this issue was foregrounded by the earlier pictorialism movement,which sought to disguise the photographic image by disguising it as art (Ray 2001, 3).

[3] Ray states that Bazins philosophy is an example of what Derrida names unmediated

presence (Ray 2001, 8).

[4] While the aesthetic bias of Eisensteins criticism was rejected, his theoretical writings

were admired. Along with his Russian contemporaries, he was perceived as contributing to

the theoretical matrix of film studies (Comolli and Narboni 1969, 50).

[5] Lacan develops this graph in four stages in The Subversion of the Subject and the

Dialectic of Desire in the Freudian Unconscious (Lacan 1989, 323-360).

[6]This view also bears the influence of post-structuralists like Lacan and Derrida who insist

upon the temporality of meaning in signification. For Derrida, il nya pas hors de contexte:

there is nothing outside the context.

[7] Colin McCabes analyses are not confined to structuralism. On the contrary, he is a

well-regarded film critic who is capable of analyzing in many different modes. This particular

article has been chosen as an example of structuralist criticism.

[8] See seminar 1.

an international and interdisciplinary journal of postmodern cultural sound, text and imageVolume 2, February 2005, ISSN 1552-5112

psychoanalysis and film theory part 1_ a new kind of mirror by paula murphy

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