In this newspaper we will discuss the positioning of Laura Malvey in her work "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema". We will also discuss how Mulvey's thesis may be convincing in a single instance but examined to its constraints in another using two cases.
The psychoanalytic interpretation of the position of women visitors gets back to the famous essay by Laura Mulvey "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema", the original thesis which was that the film form is organized by the unconscious of the patriarchal culture and that woman as a spectator is obviously imposed the guidelines of an "foreign" game - getting of the male kind of pleasure - for example, inherently scopophilic pleasure from the study of the female body.
But the issue in this work isn't only and not so much about the pleasure itself, but about more serious things - the way the "vision" is the occasion of identification development of the topic through the visible practices and the way the power is contained in to the play - that is, the question is lifted in the work about the ideological ramifications of the essential cinematic equipment.
Mulvey argued that ideology is involved with creating the subjectivity of the average person at the amount of the unconscious - that is certainly how a feminine spectator, through borrowing the male gaze, needs the ideology of a patriarchal world, which is imposed.
Laura Mulvey in "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" explains the way the traditional Hollywood film cases the scopophilic view: "In a world ordered by erotic imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between productive/male and unaggressive/female. The determining male gaze projects its phantasy on to the feminine form which is styled accordingly. In their traditional exhibitionist role women are together viewed and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visible and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness. " (Malvey, 1975). The woman, exhibited as a erotic object, operates as a leitmotif of erotic spectacle.
The formulated problem in this context may be solved through a strong deconstruction of the perspective machine, which takes its woman as a graphic, and a man as an owner of the perception. Mulvey proposes to eliminate the voayeristic-scopophilic point of view, constantly destroying cinematic rules that postulate such view.
Will this be the perfect solution is of the condition? Mulvey's emphasis on the research of the precise of the cinematographic system, with all its radical and provocative judgements, seems to be legitimate. The true is the question of the discursive mediation properties. However, in general, the psychoanalytic criticism of aesthetic representations may also have a deep methodologic effect.
In our work we must give two good examples from aesthetic culture and discuss how Mulvey's thesis may be convincing in one instance but analyzed to its limits in another.
For this discourse I propose for taking two motion pictures: "Rare Windows" by Alfred Hitchcock and "Kill Costs" by Quentin Jerome Tarantino.
The film "Rare Home window" by Alfred Hitchcock is convicing the thesis of Laura Malvey that Man is the bearer of the look while Girl connotes to-be-looked-at-ness. The main character of the film is put in such conditions that he must be scopophilic. A photographer Jeffries has damaged his leg and today he must watch everything going on outside through the screen. The film discloses to us one of the primary needs of men - peep through the keyhole, figuratively speaking. It is very impossible to keep away from such a forbidden fruits. And the blame of everything is curiosity, namely it steps the main mechanisms in a man, allowing to just forget about other similarly important needs (food, break, love-making) and thrilling the imagination at the same time. With this film everything is concentrated around the person, Jeffries, women are just a background here.
In this film we can see many displays convincing Malvey's thesis. Jeff Jeffries (Stewart), a shooter who works in mag and has damaged his lower leg, is compelled to miss in the four surfaces and also have fun just because of peeping in to the lifestyle of the lawn, and neighbors with binoculars. Having discovered the suspicious habit of one of these, he involves the firm opinion that the second option has murdered his wife. Being motionless himself, Jeff enlists the aid of Lisa (Kelly), a tranquil blonde working model in the fashion house - here she is particularly beautiful. The girl is desperately deeply in love with him and for that reason agrees to execute for him a dangerous "work down". Of all works by Hitchcock this can be an exercise in scopophilia in which the viewer is nothing at all remaining to do but to be a part of the process. It's like to stay Hitchcock himself within 112 minutes. "Look out the window and find out what you should not see" - says Jeff to the nurse (Ritter), and the audience looks through the home window and views what the main character perceives.
A men chained to the couch, staring out the windows is one area of the film. The next part shows what he perceives, and the third one - how he reacts to what he sees. This is the purest manifestation of the thought of narrative cinema.
Another verification of Malvey's thesis is how Jeffries renews his erotic interest for girl when she enters the other apartment and Jeffries views her at distance. This is actually the ability from a voyeurism viewpoint because Jeffries is managing the aesthetic the spatial and the temporal. In addition the camera moves are dictated by the male hero, Jeffries.
Now let's dicuss another film, where Malvey's thesis that Man is the bearer of the appearance while Girl connotes to-be-looked-at-ness in traditional Hollywood movie theater is tested to its limits. As an example I would like to use the film "Kill Expenses" by Quentin Tarantino. With this film we see a strong girl who denies Malvey's view of women in the Holywood cinema.
Having been four years in coma the girl-victim wakes up in the hospital in surprise and with the atrophy of muscles, but in a few momemts after waking up she commits a dual murder and steals the car of one of her victims. Further, in the course of the movie she can not stop, especially since the recalls, who is responsible for the fact that she has lost her baby, her partner and everything the guests at the marriage, where her conquering occurred.
The female identity Uma Thurman (the bride-to-be) wears little makeup or does her head of hair in a way to arouse the male audience through her physical looks. Additonally she hardly smiles on the camera drawing a variation to the feminine characters in traditional Hollywood theatre.
The episode when the bride in cold bloodstream composes a list of five titles of her future victims, the key and the latest which is Invoice also deserves a particular attantion. Here we see not really a classical woman who appears as an erotic object, but a strong, manlike heroine. Further, throughout the first part the violence on the first two brands in the list of death follows.
Even in the sight of the primary heroine, the bride-to-be, we visit a getting rid of, glowing white-hatred and this is the limitation of Malvey's thesis that that Man is the bearer of the look while Woman connotes to-be-looked-at-ness in classical Hollywood cinema. The monologues of the type are also uncommon for a classical woman:
"Look lifeless, right? Well, I am not dead, the fortune smiled at me, that's what I could let you know. It so occurred that the last Bill's bullet drove me into a coma. In coma I had been destined to rest for five years. I QUICKLY woke up. . . And immediately I ran, as it is educated by one ad, "fret and fume. " I fumed and raged, and craved, and found bloodstream. In total, until today, I wiped out 33 people. Only one remained. "
So, even as we can see, the bride is a solid, manlike female persona, uncommon for the Hollywood cinema.
To make a final result it should be said that inside our work we have discussed the position of Laura Malvey in her work "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema". We've also talked about how Mulvey's thesis may be convincing in a single instance but examined to its limitations in another using two samples. For discussion we got two films: "Rare Home window" by Alfred Hitchcock and "Kill Charge" by Quentin Jerome Tarantino.
