In the film Donnie Darko, Donnie is shown a portal, a window to view another part of the world, while he is watching a movie. The delicious irony is of course that film is just such a portal. It allows us to see an entirely different location as if it were right in front of us. The only difference between film and a portal is film feels natural, so we don’t even realize what’s occurring.
As I read Christian Metz, I often found myself thinking he was grossly overanalyzing film as a psychological experience. For example, the idea of voyeurism is often taken too far. To me a voyeur is someone who watches the taboo, or that which they should not be watching. In contrast a spectator is one who watches something they are supposed to be watching and cannot interact with that event. Finally, a bystander is one who can interact with the action but chooses not to.
The problem I have with this analysis is it hardly talks at all about the role of the director. It is the director who has the most control over how we act as an audience. If we stand agape at the chariot race in Ben Hur, then we are spectators. If we feel uncomfortable with a violent scene, we are voyeurs.
However, for the most part, film makers try to makes us feel like false bystanders. Watching and contemplating a film, but never interacting with the action on screen. In fact, we never feel a desire to join the film, and are rather content just to watch it unfold. This is due to both our rationality and the bystander effect, where few people want to take the lead in changing an action they are watching. Still, for a film like Rocky Horror Picture Show the audience gets directly involved with the film, deciding to be bystanders no more.
Metz wants us to believe that we enjoy film due to a subconscious voyeuristic desire. However, I feel this is all wrong. I feel we enjoy film because it is simply a great representation of real life. I also feel that are feelings are affected far more by the choices of the director than by some obsolete Freudian metaphors.
In contrast to Metz, I feel Laura Mulvey is analyzing the psychotic aspects of film in the right way, by looking first at the filmmaker. She treats film as it is a work of art. Thus she works to analyze the artist first and only then moves to analyze the viewer. Also she doesn’t take the psychological theory too far, applying sexual desires to the depiction of women in film. I believe film theory has for too long made mountains out of molehills. Film theorists need to understand that sometimes the simplest answer is the best, and the reasons I like film are very simple and easy to understand. But that’s just my opinion.
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6 comments:
I really appreciate your insight on the role of the viewer, especially with respect to the director's choices. It seems the director decides whether we'll be spectators, bystanders, or voyeurs in any given scene, and this depends on what type of interaction the director wants us to experience. No matter what we call it, though, the audience ultimately has no input or choice into what unfolds on screen. The truth is that we're just looking at a rapidly blinking image.
I really enjoyed reading this post-you have clearly thought critically about the articles you have read. I'm not sure, however, that I completely agree with you. Bel Destefani defines Voyeurism in her wiki entry as "to view other people and their actions without their knowledge." Voyeurism does not require that what you are seeing is taboo-for instance, I would not feel weird if when I looked out my window I saw someone sitting in the middle of the quad reading. The person reading does not know I am watching, and I don't think there is anything taboo about me pondering for a couple of seconds what he or she is reading. This could be me reading to much into your post, like you advise against in your title :).
Another thing you said that struck me as somewhat jarring was "In fact, we never feel a desire to join the film, and are rather content just to watch it unfold." I feel like good directors make you want to jump out of your seat and warn a character of impending danger. In the opening scene in Alfred Hitchock's Psycho , for example, I wanted to alert the female character that she was about to get knifed to death. I feel like this is part of getting sutured into the film; yes you know you are not actually a part of the film, but you feel like you are living in the film and thus invested in it. Christian Metz describes in his book The Imaginary Signifier how we allow ourselves to be "duped" by the action only because we know we are not really falling for it: "The instance it establishes between the action and ourselves comforts our feeling that we are not duped by that action: this reassured (behind the rampart), we can allow ourselves to be duped by it a little bit longer." I know you are not a fan of how Christian Metz analyzes film, but I feel here that he is indirectly commenting on how the director sutures the audience into a film and gets them the suspend their realities for a couple hours.
I agree somewhat with you, when I start seeing psychoanalytic theory being applied too heavily, I become wary - sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Still, its obvious that most women in movies are there simply for the pleasure of the male gaze - i'm interested in an attempt to understand the phenomenon in an academic sense.
For me, there are films I enjoy even though I don't believe its a great representation of real life. In some cases I watch it like the passive bystander you mentioned (though the readings make me think this is impossible). Other times, (especially with childhood favorites) I am not content with being just a voyeur and want to insert myself more directly in the action.
I definitely agree with you concerning psychoanalytic theory and film. First of all, I'm not much of a fan of psychoanalytic theory (even though it is pretty fascinating) simply because it lacks empirical evidence and Freud completely got that penis envy thing wrong, I think. But also because, as you say, I think I enjoy film more for its simple pleasures rather than some twisted voyeurism. My problem is that I think using psychoanalytic theory to analysis films is taking away from the simplicity of just watching the film. Mulvey, as you say, explains it better with her use of primary and secondary identification.
Also, it's interesting that you bring the director into the mix. I hadn't considered him/her at all. Perhaps it is the director himself that is acting as the voyeur in films and we are just watching the recordings of a voyeur. I'm not sure, but it is funny to consider.
I completely agree with your observation about the role that the director plays in eliciting specific responses. I think that it is incredibly important to consider the director's understanding of how humans will respond to specific images and events, and how that is translated into a manipulation of the viewer's feelings and reactions.
I also agreed with your distinction between the viewer as a voyeur and as a spectator. However, I think that the term voyeur is accurate in its implication of an enjoyment of viewing something that is taboo. In real life, we are limited to our own personal experience, and are denied the possibility of entering the intimate reality of another human. When we view sex scenes, fights between family members, scenes involving illegal activity, etc, we are being shown something that is normally restricted to us. We enjoy having that opportunity to witness another person's "private life", and for that reason, I think that our pleasure can be considered voyeuristic.
"Sometimes a cigar, is just a cigar."
--Sigmund Freud
"Sometimes a cigar is a phallic metaphor, representing the brutal male hegemony that dominates contemporary society and human history."
--Psychoanalytic Theory
I tend to agree with your assertion that Metz seems to have gone off on a tear with the idea that film is a voyeuristic pursuit on the part of the viewer. To me, the term "voyeurism" is a reference to an obsessive, borderline pathological behavior that attempts to glean satisfaction (probably sexual) from the sense of control or "God's Eye" perspective gained from their obsessive observation.
And even though I might know all this, that doesn't mean that I AM one...even though I am a film viewer.
However, even I, the antithesis of all things psychoanalytical, have to agree with some of the crossover does make sense. We, as film viewers, DO get to see some of the most intimate inner details of the personal lives of the characters on our screens. And, if we're being brutally honest, we enjoy watching these intimate, gory details that we get to see. Now, I'm not saying that we are necessarily voyeurs or peeping toms...but there's a reason why "Rear Window" did so well at the box office...
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