Colleagues,
Cheers to an excellent discussion on Rear Window, Freud, and voyeurism. With our Mulvey in hand, we are now well on our way to a delightful exploration of Hitchcock's Rebecca. Attached is the "required" and "optional" reading.
Required:
Screening of Rebecca (in previous class or at home)
“Woman and the Labyrinth: Rebecca”, Tania Modleski (PDF)
“The Master's Dollhouse: Rear Window”, Tania Modleski (PDF)
Optional:
“Call Me By No Name: On ‘Rebecca’”, Tania Modleski (Netflix Rebecca) https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/call-no-name-rebecca/
“Rituals of Defilement: Frenzy”, Tania Modleski (PDF)
Tania Modleski picks up a critique of Laura Mulvey that some of you began to express in Tuesday's class, namely that her evaluation of gender politics leaves a very narrow place for women's spectatorship of or creation within narrative cinema. Modleski and other feminists began to tease out the ways that films (and specifically those of Hitchcock) could be read against the traditional psychoanalytic grain. They analyzed his films in a way that revealed the politicized position of some of Hitchcock's "antagonistic" women (Mrs. Bates, for example), as well as the non-passive nature of many of the feminine leads. The Frenzy optional reading is much recommended as it discusses Psycho and gives a clear example of what the ultimate aim of Modleski's criticism is.
--> Because Modleski also writes from a firmly Lacanian perspective, here is some context that may help understanding the terms she is referencing (last week's Bowie/Lacan optional reading would give more detail)
Lacan's Orders different mental schemas that people switch between as they interact socially:
The Imaginary: this is the order of "non-differentiation" for Lacan, where someone sees every potential object (including other people) as an extension of themselves. It is sometimes associated with psychological immaturity, and the inability to recognize difference. This is the world of Freud's "ideal ego" and mirror-images (the desire to "be like" an ideal self) -- in a cinematic context, think of a young person watching a martial arts movie and deciding they want to practice with their friends.
The Symbolic: this is the order of differentiation and language for Lacan, where people engage socially with the world of difference, and shifting linguistic categories. This is where the symbolic phallus lives, and it is conceptual birthplace of something like phallocentrism. Think of Mulvey's assertion that cinematic narrative language was centered around the actions of masculine characters.
The Real: this is the order of things which cannot be represented in the Symbolic (which for Lacan is also the order of trauma). The Real could contain be a traumatic event in the physical world OR a purely mental gap/block. Think of things that couldn't be represented or spoken of in cinema at various points in time (i.e. drains, toilets, nudity, or where did Brandon + Phillip sleep in Rope?)
Also, a note on Raymond Bellour, a name that shows up in the Modleski: he is often referenced by Modleski as part of a pair with Laura Mulvey as shorthand for Lacanian film theorists who centered their understanding of film on the eminence of masculine subjectivity. Bellour is actually not a feminist, but applies an uncritical reading of Lacan's notions of gender to his film analysis. (His reading of Marnie actually raises interesting questions for feminism, but unlike Mulvey/Modleski he isn't really interested in answering them). Modleski mostly groups them together to make the rhetorical critique that a "feminist" analysis and slightly misogynist one both sketch out a limiting view of women's role in watching movies.
All that to say: happy reading, happy watching, and we will see you next Tuesday!
Cheers,
S/D
