Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (week 5)

Mulvey, Laura. "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema." Film Theory and criticism: Introductory Readings. Eds. Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen. New York: Oxford UP, 1999: 833-44.

Psychoanalysis noun
a system of psychological theory and therapy that aims to treat mental disorders by investigating the interaction of conscious and unconscious elements in the mind and bringing repressed fears and conflicts into the conscious mind by techniques such as dream interpretation and free association.

Patriarchal adjective
of, relating to, or characteristic of a system of society or government controlled by men : patriarchal values.

Scopophilia noun
pleasure from looking, seeing other people as objects. sense of power from looking.
In psychoanalytic terms, the drive to look and the general pleasure in looking. Freud saw voyeurism (the pleasure in looking without being seen) and exhibitionism (the pleasure in being looked at) as the active and passive forms of scopophilia. The concept of scopophilia has been important to psychoanalytic film theory in its emphasis on the relationship of pleasure and desire to the practice of
looking.

"To begin with (as an ending), the voyeuristic-scopophilic look that is a crucial part of traditional filmic pleasure can itself be broken down. There are three different looks associated with cinema: that of the camera as it records the pro-filmic event, that of the audience as it watches the final product, and that of the characters at each other within the screen illusion. The conventions of narrative film deny the first two and subordinate the them to the third, the conscious aim being always to eliminate intrusive camera presence and prevent a distancing awareness in the audience."

We are encouraged to forget the choices of camera angles and cinematic techniques - seeing it as natural.
Deliberacy in cinematic choices.
   
also-
-John Berger, (2009). Ways of Seeing (Penguin Modern Classics). Edition. Penguin Group(CA).
-Natural Born Killers (1994) [DVD]. Directed by Oliver Stone. USA: Warner Bros.