Drives and Impulses in Cinema

“In herself the woman has not the slightest importance.”

-Budd Boetticher

 

“It is said that analyzing pleasure, or beauty, destroys it.”

-Laura Mulvey

 

            The world in classical cinema has been revolving around the patriarchal system, utilizing the male protagonist as a source of masculine ego and the woman as nothing more than eye-candy. Using various camera techniques, cinematographers appeal to the sexual nature of voyeurism and fetishism. Spawning from the ideals of Freud and Lacon, cinema attempts to feed the audience pleasure by appealing to sexual instincts and drives. While I disagree with the psychoanalytical foundations of both Metz and Mulvey, I will summarize their argument before voicing my own opinions.

            Beginning with Christian Metz’ claim in his work The Imaginary Signifier, he first indicates the reason for popularity of the movies is from the identification process. His claim is founded on the research and work of French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. Metz focuses on Lacan’s mirror argument, a claim that is summed up as the following - a baby looking into the mirror for the first time finally realizes that the separate entities of its body are all actually part of a whole, and this realization creates misrecognition of its own potential. The toddler sees the reflection and thus attains pleasure and happiness. Similarly we, as the audience, see ourselves in the “mirror” that is the movie screen to find ourselves in “reality.” One critical difference between the application of the mirror analogy in psychology and cinematography is the quality of the reflection. The movie screen returns not a perfect imitation of what is put into it, but a twisted, “illusive” picture that only shows shades of truth. But despite this fuzzy imitation, we regardless are enraptured by the beauty of what is presented.

            Metz then goes along bringing up the ideas of voyeurism and ego libido, which are the sexual desires and instincts that bring (guilty) pleasure to the audience. His argument is very interesting as it connects with camera angles and views. The voyeurism is induced by our connection with the camera. “I am the projector, receiving [film], I am the screen; in both these figures together, I am the camera, which points and yet which records” Metz claims. Throughout scenes in movies, many characters look off-screen and thereby strengthen our bond as spectators looking into their lives. The senses of distance (sight, as opposed to touch) help to create a balance between the pleasure that the viewer wishes to obtain and the sexual impulses that could corrupt him. Metz states, “To fill in this distance [from the screen] would threaten to overwhelm the subject, to lead him to consume the object, to bring him to orgasm and the pleasure of his own body, hence to the exercise of other drives.”

            The idea of fetish is a bit more convoluted. According to the idea of penis envy or castration dilemma, young boys are kept in fear of the absent one, the penis, on their female counterparts. The lack of the sexual implement creates a retreat or fear in the children. The idea of fetish in the cinemas is “to restore the latter, threatened in its “goodness” by the terrifying discovery of the lack. Thanks to the fetish, which covers the wound and itself becomes erotogenic, the object as a whole can become desirable again without excess fear.” The love for the equipment and technical aspects of cinema thereby become the fetish of the cinema. “The fetish is the cinema in its physical state.”

            To discuss Laura Mulvey’s Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, I will relate to a film I recently watched, Grease. A story of a group of sexually hyperactive teens, this movie stresses the female as a guilty pleasure to be viewed upon. While initially Sandy (the female protagonist) is a model young woman with exemplary values and morals, she loses herself to the fetish of her lover. Because he is unable to return his love to her because of her own lack of sexual charm, she gives into the demands of men. Mulvey tells us, “traditionally the woman displayed has functioned on two levels: as erotic object for the characters within the screen story, and as erotic object for the spectator within the auditorium.” Sandy at first only had a pretty face, as she always dressed modestly and covered her body. But in the finale, she loses to the stereotypical “Hollywood gal” and appears scantily clad, to the surprise of all the male characters. They all look off-screen as she approaches, and the camera slowly crawls from her legs, to her bust, then to her altered face. The slow movement allows the male characters (and therefore the audience, since we are supposed to be envisioning the characters to be looking and not ourselves) to gorge on the beauty of woman.

            Unfortunately, there is no scene in which the woman gains power over the opposite sex. When a spectator sees the male, he “projects his look on to that of his like, his screen surrogate, so that the power of the male protagonist as he controls events coincides with the active power of the erotic look, both giving a satisfying sense of omnipotence.” This ending in Grease is perfectly summed by Mulvey, “but as the narrative progresses she falls in love with the main male protagonist and becomes his property, losing her outward glamorous characteristics, her generalized sexuality, her show-girl connotations; her eroticism is subjected to the male star alone.”

            Despite Grease’s connection with these two literatures, to claim that they are necessarily true would be incorrect. The idea of castration anxiety is too incongruous. Freud, Lacan, Mulvey, and Metz are over analyzing the role of sexuality in film. The drive for sexuality is nothing more than the drive for sexuality. It is not the fear we gain from the lack of penis nor is it from the empowerment gained from recognizing our potential in the mirror. Humans are driven by impulses that are not necessarily psychologically driven. While the arguments driven by Laura Mulvey and Christian Metz seem to fit well with cinema ideology, their arguments are post hoc and are created from that which already happened, and therefore not necessarily fitting.

As a Response to Shayna's Comment:

Definitely there are more aspects to the captureing of female marvel than merely close-ups. As you mentioned, lighting is a critical part of the whole "experience," so to say. As one of the readings states (sorry, I can't remeber off the top of my head), the unseen is part of what the male audience finds sexually appealing. By angling it in the right position and hiding prominent body parts of the female subject, it creates a craving in the male's mind to discover that unknown that is hidden from him. I can't say that there is an example in Grease, but in the movie We Own the Night, there is a scene in which Eva Mendes travels down a dark hallway filled with smoke. The darkness that envelopes her face and her chest actually accentuates her curves, thereby acting as an almost "reverse-psychology" style, in that while the cinematographer is HIDING more of her, it in essence makes her MORE visible. Also, a popular style of shot to present the female is in individual shots, where the camera is placed far away and all we see in the entire landscape is the setting and the female, so that all the focus and attention is projected onto her. By doing so, the male can see her independently of the fictitious characters on screen, therefore not actually having to identify with the male protagonist who is often the primary identification for the audience.