The Real Gaze: Film Theory after Lacan

by Todd McGowan

The Real Gaze develops a new theory of the cinema by rethinking the concept of the gaze, which has long been central in film theory. Historically film scholars have located the gaze on the side of the spectator; however, Todd McGowan positions it within the filmic image, where it has the radical potential to disrupt the spectator's sense of identity and challenge the foundations of ideology. This book demonstrates several distinct cinematic forms that vary in terms of how the gaze functions within the films. Through a detailed investigation of directors such as Orson Welles, Claire Denis, Stanley Kubrick, Spike Lee, Federico Fellini, Ron Howard, Steven Spielberg, Andrei Tarkovsky, Wim Wenders, and David Lynch, McGowan explores the political, cultural, and existential ramifications of these differing roles of the gaze.

Genres: Film, Psychoanalysis, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Psychology, Theory, Cultural

266 pages, Hardcover

First published March 8, 2007

About the author

Todd McGowan is Associate Professor of Film at the University of Vermont, US. He is the author of The Fictional Christopher Nolan (2012), Out of Time: Desire in Atemporal Cinema (2011), The Impossible David Lynch (2007), The Real Gaze: Film Theory After Lacan (2007), and other books.

Reviews

[Dylan]

A really first-rate book, for a couple of reasons: first, McGowan's razor-sharp understanding of and ability to articulate what Lacan's work is all about. The structure of this book is a little odd in that it's four sections with a bunch of short chapters; the first few chapters in each section are crisp and lightning-fast articulations of fundamental Lacanian principles, followed by a flurry of examples from cinema. Very digestible, very readable, and I'm guaranteed to go back and revisit these when I want to sharpen concepts or simply revisit and see where McGowan and I agree/diverge once I've read a bit more (or a lot more) Lacan. Reason #2 is that McGowan's main point in the introduction, which was clearly a more or less freestanding essay before being expanded, constitutes a pretty radical (and to my mind correct) intervention in psychoanalytic film theory: that the Mulvey + Metz lineage completely misunderstood and misapplied Lacan's concept of the gaze. It founded a discourse which, though it taught us a lot about the political dynamics of spectatorship, was ultimately disconnected from Lacan's quite robust ideas about the relationship between vision/the imaginary and desire. The gaze is not a way of looking that gives us imaginary mastery over what we look at; it is the way that the object ("as objet petit a") looks back at us. Cinema can bring us into confrontation with the absence that structures our vision, or it can create fantasies which help us to ignore it.

[Planetka · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mam tego białego kruka. Dałam za niego w antykwariacie jedynie 60zł, a chodził na Allegro po 300zł. Do rzeczy. McGowan zaczyna tam, gdzie Żiżek skończył. Podczas gdy Żiżek wprowadził do teorii kina lacanowskie pole wyobrażeniowe, McGowan wprowadza realne. Robi to głównie poprzez tytułowe "realne spojrzenie", czyli przez wprowadzenie terminu obiektu małe a. Realnym spojrzeniem nazywa moment, w którym widz znajduje się w pozycji pragnienia, moment w którym internalizuje w sobie, pragnienie, które obserwuje na ekranie. Jeśli bohater pragnie, to widz pragnie bardziej, bo zawłaszcza pragnienie bohatera, a ponieważ zawłaszcza, to znajduje się w pozycji władzy. A gdy mówimy o relacji podległości i władzy, to w zasadzie mówimy o filmie politycznym (fabuła nie ma tu większego znaczenia, może to być nawet i film romantyczny). McGowan pisze zatem o polityczności kina i roli pragnienia, fantazji oraz tego jak różnie są one (nie)realizowane. McGowan kontynuuje zatem za Lacanem, stojąc w opozycji do filmoznawców lat 70tych, którzy używali teorii Lacana, by gardzić filmami Hollywood, piętnując je za bycie narzędziami wspierającymi ideologiczność kina. Widzieli w nich wyłącznie laurki dla kapitalizmu i romantyczne wydmuszki. Tymczasem Żiżek i McGowan wskazują na pęknięcia między pragnieniem i fantazją, które finalnie kwestionują porządek społeczny. Oczywiście, bywają filmy, w których widać spójność między fantazją a pragnieniem i tylko te filmy istotnie traktują jako ideologiczne.

[Jason Clemence · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic. Concepts like objet petit a and "il n'y a pas de rapport sexuel" seem abstract and confusing until McGowan lays them out in his trademark coherent and accessible way. Should be read by theorists and film buffs alike.

[Valentín Serrano García · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must for all those interested either in Lacanian philosophy or in filmic theory.

It overcomes old psychoanalitic analysis which were mislead (and which distorted Lacan teachings). So many authors have been so mistaken about how to employ Lacanian concepts to the cinema for such a long time...

[Aaron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Without even relating them to film studies, Todd McGowan has an extremely accessible concept of Lacan and gives a very clear overview of his ideas (better than Zizek's Lacan anyway). objet petit a, lack, neurosis, Other and other, and so on, are all covered and interjected with analysis of some of the great directors. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the gaze, even if you are not interested in film theory or Lacan.

[Miguel Fernandez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely incredible, McGowan's writing on Lacan and new Lacanian film theory is a masterclass on how to write about dense material in digestible case studies. This will for sure be a text that I come back to repeatedly.

[Nathan Miao · Rating 5 out of 5]

great articulation of new lacanian film theory a la zizek and copjec rather than mulvey et al