The Gaze: Masochism, Identification and Phantasy in the Spectator

Abstract

The primary concern in this chapter, and the following one, is the gaze as it has been theorised in terms of film, and what some of the implications of these readings are. In order to do this we will take up some of the key points of film studies in the last thirty years, and then offer alternatives to some of these. In one sense what is being set up here is the idea that we can never fully articulate the processes of the gaze in film, simply because the complexity of what is involved constantly moves the issues beyond description and analysis. No longer is the gaze just a term for perception, but now includes issues such as subjectivity, culture, ideology, gender, race, and interpretation. This chapter will tend to locate such issues, rather than explicate any single one, for what is of primary concern here is how the theory of the gaze fits into so many of these other issues and concerns.

What I look at is never what I wish to see.

(Lacan)