Revising the analogy between the cinema screen and Lacanian Mirror with regards to the nature of the cinematic image

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Associate Professor at Art University Faculty of Cinema and Theater, Tehran University of Art, Tehran, Iran.

2 PhD student art university Tehran

Abstract

Since 1970s during which the psychoanalytical film criticism inspired a vast range of writings in various disciplines(Cinema studies, anthropology, philosophy and so on) the most popular approach was predicated upon the analogy between the Lacanian concept of specular image and the cinema image according to which the film analysts though of cinema screen as the Lacanian mirror. According to this approach-an gradually a model for studying film in a psychoanalytic manner- that was offered by Jean Louis Baudry, Reymond Bellour, Chrstian Metz, Peter Wollen and Laura Mulvey, the cinema spectator is compared to the infant who (mis)recognizes her/himself in her/his mirror reflection and identifies with it. The correspondence between the mirror image of self and the cinematic image provided theoretical grounds for some major psychoanalytical trends such as “the screen as the mirror” and “the Suture theory”. A number of post-modern thinkers, namely Slavoj Zizek revised the Suture theory and in doing so, they rediscovered and reapplied some Lacanian concepts and integrated them in the model.
Their main goal were to- through the split which is believed to exist between the imaginary and the symbolic order exemplified in the split existing between the unconscious and the conscious identity represented in a mirror image of self- show the split between the interior and the exterior of the artificial identities that The other bestows upon its subjects. For some, this split that could be concluded from a cinematic experience shows that the Ideological Apparatus (Cinema discourse) fails to produce unifies subjects. The split, as a form of resistance as a happy yet bleeding wound remains forms a lack and leaves s stain on the cinematic image as well as it represents the impotency of the cinematic apparatus for making unified subjects out of its spectators.
Such a split or lack was denied by some, like Gilis DeLeuze who posited themselves against Lacan and Lacanian approach to film, yet it seems that the analogy set between Lacan’s mirror and cinematic image has not drawn on a precise assumption of Lacan’s psychoanalysis. Sutue theory, with theorists such as Pier Odart and Zizek relyed on such analogy to try to analyze and explain the ways through which the split between the interior-exterior realm of the cultural-visual objects and the interior truth of the artificiality is sutured through the mediations of the desire of the audience and meanwhile reveals it.
In this essay and through a comparative analysis across the Lacan’s texts and the remodeling of suture theory, the very basic presumptions on which the theory is based would be interrogated: Is the cinematic screen could be considered as a Lacanian mirror? To begin with, in the essay would be reviewed the ways through which a mirror image is constructed in the gaze of the viewer, then the nature cinematic image would be analyzed and subsequently the comparison between the mirror and cinematic image with regards to their relations to their viewer would follow and Under the new light the analogy would be observed and revised.

Keywords

References

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Journal of Fine Arts: Performing Arts & Music
Volume 25, Issue 4
December 2021
Pages 25-32

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