From: Erstarr-AT-aol.com
Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 10:11:29 EST
Subject: Re: voyeurism


Hi Stuart.

     There is a strain of cinematic thought that likens the filmwatching 
experience to voyeurism, and this is manifest in films such as Hitchcock's 
VERTIGO and Michael Powell's PEEPING TOM.  In VERTIGO, for example, James 
Stewart's character, Jeff, is housebound, due to a broken leg.  He spends his 
time looking out of his apt. window into the apt. house across the street.  
Each of the apartments he spies on is like a separate movie unfolding.  To 
underscore the link, Jeff is a photographer (not that much different from a 
filmmaker), and his chair even resembles the traditional director's chair.

     There is another aspect to voyeurism in film studies, as posited in 
feminist film theory and expressed in a seminal article by Laura Mulvey.  
Mulvey claims that films are by nature scopophilic; that is, they involve the 
love of looking, or as Mulvey puts it "the gaze."  According to feminists, 
mainstream cinema is geared to the MALE gaze, so women are often objectified 
on screen, often as sex objects. The gaze can be implemented by the camera 
practically caressing a female character, through an on-screen male gazing 
lustily at a female character, or through a male in the audience checking out 
a woman on screen, via identification with a filmic male.  
A good example of all three occurs about 1/3 of the way through Orson Welles' 
LADY FROM SHANGHAI, where the camera zooms in on the femme fatale played by 
Rita Hayworth, looking seductive while sunbathing aboard her husband's yacht. 
 Welles is Michael, a hired hand, who is irresistably drawn from below deck 
to her side, as if she were Circe.  (In fact, the name of the boat is Circe.) 
 And, of course, the males in the audience are supposed to identify with 
Michael, the film's protagonist.  Maybe it would help if you thought of the 
gaze as a cinematic version of a guy reading PLAYBOY.  

     While there are examples of the female gaze, as in DESPERATELY SEEKING 
SUSAN and ORLANDO -- both made by female filmmakers -- these are rare 
exceptions.   

     Hope this helps.

ERS


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