Gaze and Film Theory

The interest in cinema and film theory from the psychological point of view began to develop at the beginning of 20th century, and the first person, who attempted to understand the very nature of a film in psychological terms, was Hugo Munsterberg, the author of The Photoplay: A Psychological Study. The book dealt however, only with the parallel between the structure of the conscious human mind and the filmic experience, leaving out the aspect of unconsciousness. It was mainly because of Munstersberg profession, as he was not a psychoanalyst. Till late 1960s the focus on conscious experience of the viewer predominated the film theory, and along the way, many other authorities like Sergei Eisenstein agreed that movie's importance lies in its conscious impact. According to the Eisenstein, the aesthetic factor played the most important role in the film theory (Murphy Psychoanalysis and Film Theory Part 1 1). Film's aesthetic value depended on its ability of transforming reality, which in most cases was connected with montage (2). Not until 1950s did anyone contribute to the already established views and opinions on the film theory. It was Andre Bazin who influenced the cinematic environment with his essays The Evolution Of the Language of Cinema and The Virtues and Limitations of Montage, which criticized Eisenstein's approach towards cinema. Bazin overturned existing conceptions of movie claiming that cinema's true purpose was not the transformation but the objective representation of reality(2). It took many years to think of the cinematic experience in terms of unconscious, but as soon as it appeared, psychoanalytical approach towards film theory eliminated the previous one. Nevertheless, the ideas of Bazin were not permanent and were soon replaced by a new, political film theory, due to increasing number of movies concerned with this topic (3). It was Louis Althusser and his philosophy that provided the political conceptual system for post-revolution film theory (4). Althusser intended to establish a scientific status for his theory in order to claim upon it a degree of autonomy. This desire of scientific fortification attracted him to the theories of Jacques Lacan (4). At the same time other psychoanalysts were also trying to present the Lacanian thoughts concerning the film theory. When they first applied Lacan's thought to the understanding of the cinema, their focus was quite narrow. Lacan himself never theorized about film, so psychoanalysts were trying to transfer some of his most compatible thoughts to the film theory(McGowan 1). The essay, on which they based their assumptions and ideas, was one of the most well-known essays of Lacan, namely The Mirror Stage as Formative of the I Function as Revealed in Psychoanalytical Experience, delivered at the 16th International Congress of Psychoanalysis in Zurich on July 17th 1949, which is commonly known under the name of "mirror-stage essay" (1). The mirror

...