Welcome to my learning blog for the Open College of the Arts course ‘Understanding Visual Culture.’ This is my third level one course working towards a BA (Hons) degree in Photography.
I live in Stanley, Co. Durham in the North East of England.
Contact me…. michaelmillmore@googlemail.com
Introduction
In introduction to his film ‘Hypernormalisation’, Adam Curtis says the following:
“We live in a time of great uncertainty and confusion. Events keep happening that seem inexplicable and out of control. Donald Trump, Brexit, the War in Syria, the endless migrant crisis, random bomb attacks. And those who are supposed to be in power are paralysed – they have no idea what to do.
…what has happened is that all of us in the West – not just the politicians and the journalists and the experts, but we ourselves – have retreated into a simplified, and often completely fake version of the world. But because it is all around us we accept it as normal.” (Curtis, 2016)
Curtis’ style of filmmaking is to assemble footage from a wide variety of sources: news programmes, interviews, popular culture, in order to illustrate the unashamedly subjective story he is trying to tell. In approaching this assignment, I take this as inspiration, using current visual culture I will attempt to demonstrate the conflicting nature that faces us from the relentless media noise of modern society. In doing this I see many parallels with Guy Debord’s ‘Society of the Spectacle’ – although first published in 1967 this work appears both prescient and relevant to our image saturated, late capitalist consumer driven world. Debord saw the spectacle as the “everyday manifestation of capitalist driven phenomena: advertising, television, film and celebrity.” (Morgan and Purje, 2016) Using Debord’s text and examples recent examples from visual culture I aim to demonstrate this prescience.
Advertising
“The spectacle presents itself as something enormously positive, indisputable and inaccessible. It says nothing more than “that which appears is good, that which is good appears. The attitude which it demands in principle is passive acceptance which in fact it already obtained by its manner of appearing without reply, by its monopoly of appearance.” (Debord, 2009: 4)
“The spectacle is capital to such a degree of accumulation that it becomes an image.” (Debord, 2009:10)
In ‘No Logo’ (2000), Naomi Klein describes how from the cultural influence (and astronomical growth in wealth) of multinational corporations can be traced back to a management idea from the 1980s: “successful corporations must primarily produce brands as opposed to products.” (Klein, 2000: 3) For ‘pioneering’ businesses like Nike, Microsoft, Tommy Hilfiger and Intel producing goods became only an incidental part of their operations:
“What these companies produced primarily were not things…but images of their brands. Their real work lay not in manufacturing but in marketing.” (Klein, 2000: 4)
In frequently saturated market places, current advertising exists to establish, perpetuate and consolidate brand identity. Often it is a lifestyle that is sold rather than the product itself. An example of this is Coca-Cola – a product that has existed since the late 19th century, has consistently led the way in brand development and was rated the fourth most valuable brand in the world in 2016. (Badenhausen, 2016)
For their 2016 advertising campaign ‘Taste the Feeling’, Coca-Cola used fashion photographers Guy Aroch and Nacho Ricci to create slick image that appear both genuine and aspirational, described as “Norman Rockwell meets Instagram” a style which aspires to capture an authenticity that appears to feature unscripted moments in a contemporary way. (Nudd, 2016) These adverts present images that are youthful, fun, cool, diverse and sexy while all the time emphasising the positive effect the product is having on the lives and friendships of the people depicted through the omnipresence of the bottle of Coke each of the models are holding. The insinuation is blatantly simple: drinking Coke is the way to share this lifestyle.
News
“In a world which really is topsy-turvy, the true is a moment of the false.” (Debord, 2009: 4)
“We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.” (Baudrillard, 1995: 79)
2016 proved a most divisive and controversial year for news and current affairs where assumptions about the power of the media seemed to be both confirmed and refuted. Two high profile ‘shocks’ that were widely touted as not going to happen, Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, have led to much analysis of why the mainstream media appear to have got it so wrong. Much has been made of the impact of social media, fake news and a distrust of mainstream media outlets and politicians. The US election for example is now thought of as a rejection against the status quo – it appears that Hilary Clinton’s professionalism, credentials for office and carefully managed image are major reasons why she was not elected with a section of the electorate viewing her as the representation of the establishment and not representing them. Despite multiple scandals throughout the campaign concerning his views and previous misdeeds, outlandish pledges and an image that was frequently lampooned as ridiculous (comb over hair, orange complexion, badly fitting suits) Donald Trump projected an image of the ‘man on the street’, despite being anything but – one of the richest men in America. Attempts to dismiss his statements made with questionable basis on truth were attacked as conspiracies by the liberal media. Trump’s campaign actively capitalised on a distrust of politicians and the establishment as well as the uncertainty about what is true and what is not.
If it is true that image is all then how can the success of politicians such as Trump, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage be explained?
In the UK concerns about immigration have been a major area of debate for some time, increasing in prominence over the last few years due to the worsening global; refugee crisis. In August 2015 David Cameron described a “swarm of migrants” coming across the channel for in search of a better life. While the comments drew much criticism for the way they dehumanised migrants and seemed to appeal to fear of the ‘Other’, there were also voices of support with newspapers such as the Daily Mail providing front pages with photographs purporting to prove that immigration was out of control. In September 2015, however, a shocking image of a dead child lying on a beach having died trying to flee the war in Syria was widely reported and another picture took the headlines and the mood suddenly changed to demands for intervention in the refugee crisis with many calling for Prime Minister David Cameron to intervene and grant immigrant’s asylum.
By October another picture made the front pages purporting to be of a potential child refugee seeking asylum who appeared to be an adult. Although there was much debate about the authenticity of the image with reports both that the pictured man was actually an interpreter and not an asylum seeker, the implication was clear – it important to support migrants only if they fall into the
category of deserving support and we must be constantly vigilant of those who wish to abuse our hospitality and trick their way in. The truth of the issue became less important than the ideological stance taken by various news outlets.
It appears that much of the current affairs reporting that is presented to us is both contradictory and unable to offer suggestions about what the correct course of action is. Confusion reigns with the ideological stand points of organisations displayed blatantly – the effect of which has been described as post truth.
Social media
“The spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation among people, mediated by images.” (Debord, 2009: 2)
“Here’s me outside the palace of ME!
Construct a self and psychosis
Meanwhile the people are dead in their droves
But nobody noticed
Well actually
Some of them noticed.
You could tell by the emoji they posted.” (Tempest, 2016: 22)
In an essay about the legacy of ‘Society of the Spectacle’, John Harris asserts Debord’s prescience:
“the book is full of sentences that describe something simple, but profound: the way that just about everything that we consume – and, if we’re not careful, most of what we do – embodies a mixture of distraction and reinforcement that serves to reproduce the mode of society and economy that has taken the idea of the spectacle to an almost surreal extreme.” (Harris, 2012)
The way social media has entered our lives, and it could be argued, has replaced experiencing life directly could be classed as this “surreal extreme.” Instagram, twitter, Facebook and the selfie all form part of how many of us project ourselves onto the wider world. In ‘Nosedive’, an episode from the anthology series ‘Black Mirror’, the logical progression of our society continuing to be obsessed by social media is satirised. In the apparently near future, ‘likes’ have become currency, a means of providing societal hierarchy and enabling conformity. In order to gain access (and importantly to continue to be able to use) services approval ratings must be maintained. Failure to do this means affects where you can live and work and who you can socialise with.
Some aspects of celebrity culture have embraced the selfie as a means of projecting their self image. A strata of celebrity who seems to be famous for being famous have emerged. Australian comedian Celeste Barber demonstrates the often ridiculous nature of these celebrity selfies through her Instagram account which shows how the pictures may have looked if made by a real person. It seems that image and images will only gain in currency going forward, compounding the need to live through the prism of technology rather than real lived experience.
Conclusion
When challenged about whether he simplifies complex reality to support his subjective world view, Adam Curtis replied:
“All reality is incredibly complex and chaotic. To make sense of it we have to tell stories about it – which inevitably simplifies. And that is what politicians – and journalists – do. What I try to do is to find new facts and data, things you haven’t thought about, and turn them into new stories. My aim is to use those stories to try and make the complexity and chaos intelligible.” (MacInnes, 2015)
When faced with the question what is reality? I find Curtis’ explanations here reassuring and positive – perhaps the only way to combat and possibly explain the complexity of the modern world is by engaging with it through art be it satire, social commentary or merely playful. The most dangerous thing we can do is believe there is only ever one reality and we also should not be too wedded to our own beliefs.
Bibliography:
Baudrillard, J. (1995) Simulacra and Simulation. Michigan: University of Michigan Press.
Baudrillard, J. (2004) The Gulf War did not Take Place. Sydney: Power Publications.
Badenhausen, K. (Ed.) (2016) The world’s most valuable brands. In: Forbes [online] Available at: http://www.forbes.com/powerful-brands/ [Accessed December 2016]
Berger, J. (1972) Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin.
Blade Runner (1982) Dir: Ridley Scott. USA/Hong Kong/UK: Warner Brothers
Curtis, A. (2016) HYPERNORMALISATION. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/02d9ed3c-d71b-4232-ae17-67da423b5df5#comments [Accessed December 2016]
Debord, G. (2009) The Society of the Spectacle. Eastbourne: Soul Bay Press
Ex Machina (2015) Dir: Alex Garland. UK: UPI/Film4/DNA films
Harris, J (2012) Guy Debord predicted our distracted society. The Guardian, 30th March 2012. Available at:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/mar/30/guy-debord-society-spectacle [accessed January 2017]
Her (2013) Dir: Spike Jonze. USA: Annapurna Pictures
Hypernormalisation (2016) Dir: Adam Curtis. UK: BBC
Klein, N (2000) No Logo. London: Flamingo
Lo and behold, reveries of the connected world (2016) Dir: Werner Herzog. USA: Saville Productions
MacInnes, P. (2015) ‘Adam Curtis: “I try to make the complexity and chaos intelligible.” The Guardian, 24th January 2015. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/jan/24/adam-curtis-bitter-lake [Accessed December 2016]
The Matrix (1999) Dir: The Wachowski Brothers. USA: Warner Bros.
Morgan, T. and Purje, L. (2016) An illustrated guide to Guy Debord’s “the society of the spectacle”. Available at: http://hyperallergic.com/313435/an-illustrated-guide-to-guy-debords-the-society-of-the-spectacle/ [Accessed December 2016]
Nosedive (2016) Black Mirror, series 3 episode 1. Dir: Joe Wright. USA: Netflix
Nudd, T. (2016) Here are 25 sweet, simple ads from coca-cola’s big new ‘taste the feeling’ campaign. Available at: http://www.adweek.com/creativity/here-are-25-sweet-simple-ads-coca-colas-big-new-taste-feeling-campaign-169075/ [Accessed January 2017]
Shore, S. (2007) The nature of photographs: A Primer. (2nd ed.) New York: Phaidon Press.
Tempest, K. (2016) Let them eat chaos. London: Picador.
Unfortunately, the feedback for this assignment confirmed my fear that I had strayed too far from the brief and my submission did not meet the required criteria. While Pauline found the work interesting, she recommends changing the format into either a conventional illustrated essay or extended annotations. She also points out correctly that I do not meet the 2000 word guidance. On a positive note, she found the choice of images interesting and the themed groupings clear. She also understands my rationale for wanting to produce something different because of the amount of reading in the course, however, I did not mean this as a criticism of the material – if anything I have become too involved in the reading and the course has certainly whet my appetite for further study of cultural theory. My motivation for producing a visual essay was simply to experiment and attempt something different. I also wanted to pay homage to the visual essays in Berger’s ‘Ways of Seeing’ which perplexed me when I first encountered them in the course but began to appeal more as I progressed. Pauline makes two points about this that I do not fully consider – Berger presents his visual essays in the context of his book and television series and without this they are quite unsatisfactory – I had not really thought that it was Berger at fault rather than me. In hindsight, I was too preoccupied with not wanting to lead and influence how the images are read by the viewer (even to the point of not fully explaining my rationale) and clearly this was a mistake as the approach fails to demonstrate my learning – as Pauline rightly asserts, Berger was presenting his book without the need to be assessed as a degree student! She also felt that leaving the various quotes unattributed strayed too far from academic convention.
Although Pauline thinks the rationale I included with the images was clearly expressed, she felt this could provide an introduction to the images. She also points out that I do not fully explain my reason for choosing the style of font I used which was intended to evoke the computer age while simultaneously having a retro feel, it is a strange paradox that it is necessary to take this retro approach in order to signify the digital age. She mentions that there is mileage in exploring how computers have developed over the past 20 years and the relationship between this and the increased digital noise we face in modern life – a key point I wanted to make. Another reason for using this font was as an homage to Stephen Shore’s ‘The Nature of Photographs’ which I cite as an influence. The font used in the book resembles a typewriter font which gives the text accompanying the photographs a particular, distinctive feel. Pauline also quite rightly points out that Shore has chosen images that have a particular author/photographer and this influences the way we read the book (even if we are not entirely familiar with the photographers featured by the very nature of their inclusion we are aware they are important.) The anonymous/uncredited pictures I have chosen do not share this.
Suggested possibilities:
Keep the groups of images and write accompanying text relating to the material covered in section 5.
Focus on one group of images – are so many needed? Are there overlaps/duplication?
Use Debord’s ‘Society of the Spectacle’ (as I indicated this had particularly influenced me) perhaps using this as a further text to comment on the quotations or tease out ideas concerning reality.
Decide on a route to pursue: essay or annotations.
Although it is disappointing that I have missed the mark on this occasion I have again found Pauline’s feedback invaluable in being able to pick out what I need to do to improve and point me in the right direction. The clarity of expression in Pauline’s writing inspires me to practice and improve my writing style – through all of the feedback I have received I have found thoughts expressed that I have shared or have wanted to present myself and have not been able to. This ability is something that has not only helped me develop through the course but also provides inspiration for the future.
Introduction
In her essay ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’, Laura Mulvey uses examples from films of the 1930s-1950s to illustrate her argument that patriarchal society is reinforced by Hollywood cinema which, geared towards male viewing pleasure in turn relates directly to the construction of the male psyche. The paper is a polemic with the intent of redressing gender imbalance as identified by Mulvey:
“[the essay] takes as its starting point the way film reflects, reveals and even plays on the straight, socially established interpretation of sexual difference which controls images, erotic ways of looking and spectacle.” (Jones, 2010: 57)
Mulvey acknowledges the changing landscape at the time she is writing and anticipates that the “monolithic system based on large capital investment” can be subsumed by an emerging alternative cinema which is becoming possible due to technological advancement:
“The alternative cinema provides a space for the birth of a cinema which is radical in both a political and aesthetic sense and challenges the assumptions of the mainstream film. This is not to reject the latter moralistically, but to highlight the way in which its formal preoccupations reflect the physical obsession of the society which produced it and further, to stress that the alternative cinema must start specifically by reacting against these obsessions and assumptions. A politically and aesthetically avant-garde cinema is now possible, but it can only exist as a counterpoint.” (Jones, 2010:58)
To explore these assertions, I have chosen the film ‘Taxi Driver’, a first-person narrative exploring themes of masculinity, violence and alienation amongst other things. The film was also made around the time that Mulvey wrote her essay and I am interested on whether it confirms or confounds Mulvey’s argument along with how far it can be analysed using the psycohanalytic framework of her paper, specifically Freudian and Lacanian notions of the male Gaze (and the dichotomy between active male and passive female), scopophillia, voyeurism, narcissism and fetishism as well as patriarchal hegemony.
Scorsese is also of the new generation of directors that began to emerge in the 1970s that were steeped in the films of the past and referenced earlier works in their films, a key influence being Hitchcock which is most explicitly demonstrated in the use of his long-time collaborator Bernard Herrmann for the score to ‘Taxi Driver’. A postmodern reading of ‘Taxi Driver’ would emphasise the need of the requirement of the viewer to be able to recognise these references and appropriations in order to make a full reading of the text. Mulvey posits that the gaze in cinema is implicitly male, this is certainly true of ‘Taxi Driver’ as (virtually) all of the film is presented through the eyes of protagonist Travis
Bickle. And yet, although he is a man Travis possesses no power – in fact his masculinity is a prison which traps him in a spiral of loneliness, alienation, self-destruction and delusion.
Taxi Driver and authorship
“The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture” (Barthes, 1977: 146)
Scorsese became synonymous with the ‘movie brat’ generation of directors that came to prominence in the 1970s who had grown up with a love of film and used these as touchstones in their own work. It can be argued that film proved the defining element of Scorsese’s development as frequent childhood illnesses “detached Scorsese from participating fully in the life of the streets but increased his opportunities for observing it.” (Cousins, 2011:339) He gained most of his experience not from directly lived experience but from films.
Conversely, Paul Schrader based the screenplay for ‘Taxi Driver’ on what he termed the low point of his life: in 1972 at twenty-six he was divorced and unemployed, living in his car and drinking heavily. When he was hospitalised with a gastric ulcer he realised he had not spoken to anyone for weeks. During his recuperation, he read about the attempted assassination of Alabama Governor George Wallace by Arthur Bremer. Bremer was an undereducated, lower middle-class man designated as a psychopath by the newspapers who ran extracts from his diary that provided the inspiration for the voice over of the film. Bremer believed that the only way he could achieve the attention he craved and found was lacking was to assassinate a famous politician, he settled on Wallace after failing to penetrate Nixon’s security. It is the combining of Schrader and Scorsese that makes ‘Taxi Driver’ – the brutal realism and authenticity of Schrader’s screenplay combined with the cinematic knowledge and referencing of Scorsese. (Taubin, 2000: 9-10) The vérité style of Schrader’s later directorial effort ‘Blue Collar’ (1978) suggest that ‘Taxi Driver’ would have been a much different film if he had directed. It could be argued that Travis is the surrogate imaging of how Schrader’s life could have easily gone following this experience with the added complexity that Scorsese is only able to articulate the narrative using the references from a life of film study rather than experiences in the real world.
The main two stylistic influences on ‘Taxi Driver’ are film noir and the French New Wave showing Scorsese’s bridging of both the avant-garde and mainstream. Tropes from film noir such as first-person voice over narration, expressionist camera angles and movements, moody jazz inflected score are all present. Film noir is also rooted in post war trauma; for ‘Taxi Driver’ this is Vietnam rather than WWII. Scorsese appropriates some of the stylistic innovations of New Wave directors such as Godard, for example, the jump cut which he uses to emphasise Travis’ fractured psychosis. Early in the film we watch Travis walking toward us on a street, a dissolve makes Travis appear to disappear then reappear in the shot. Usually this type of cut would be used to advance the passage of time in a narrative, here, with Travis only moving slightly closer to the camera, the amount of time that has passed is minimal. The effect is to emphasise early in the film Travis’s fractured state of mind and can be read in reference to Lacan’s notions of the three orders: the imaginary, the symbolic and the real – the small nudges forward are disconcerting and emphasises Travis’ discontinuity.
While it is not necessary to have knowledge of all of the references that Scorsese employs in ‘Taxi Driver’, it could be argued that doing so increases our understanding. Taubin (2010: 37) describes this as “hybrid iconography”, for example the western genre is an influence on ‘Taxi Driver’. (The scene detailed above is a reference to the 1952 western ‘Shane’) With the theme of masculinity being perhaps the most prevalent in the film referencing this most macho of genres adds further layers to Taxi Driver. The alienation and lack of purpose that Travis experiences is in contrast to the convention of the western hero who always has a sense of purpose. Like these heroes Travis also strives to bring order to the lawless, hell on earth he experiences around himself, although ambiguity about whether he is on the right course is prevalent. The change here from hero to anti-hero can be explained in the context of America at the time as it moves away from the trusted order of earlier times to the climate of the late 1970s with the rise of racial and feminist politics and discourse that questioned the status quo.
Taxi Driver and the look
“Looking is powerful. To look is to assert power, to control, to challenge authority.” (D’Alleva, 2012: 104)
Mulvey discusses the notion of the male Gaze in ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ arguing that there is an imbalance in looking that is split between active/male and passive/female. The male is a controlling figure of the film’s narrative and the bearer of the spectators look with whom they can identify. This suggests that power is inherent in the main protagonist, something that Travis is almost completely lacking. For the majority of the film’s running time, Travis is a passive observer of the world around him. His taxi acts as a barrier between himself and the outside world which he views with disdain, a metal coffin on wheels symbolising urban isolation. (Taubin, 2000:10) The view the Travis experiences is literally using his Taxi as a window on the world, a distancing strategy that he combines with viewing his passengers in the rear-view mirror. Using the ideology Mulvey presents in her essay, as a white male Travis should possess a great deal of power in society. This is not the case in the film however, Travis has no power, even African Americans seem to have more agency than him. This perhaps goes some way to explaining his rage. Another reading however is that far from representing a critique of patriarchal order ‘Taxi Driver’ reaffirms this: Travis is a flawed representation of masculinity and he lacks agency due to the non adherence to masculine norms.
Frequently we are made to share Travis’ viewpoint throughout the film, from the opening sequence which uses stylistic strategies more associated with the horror genre to emphasise Travis’s world view of New York as hell on earth to the infamous ‘you talkin’ to me?’ scene in which Travis practices drawing his gun and how he might react in a violent situation. He does this into the mirror and directly to his reflection, so although we see him on the screen the implication is we are looking directly through his eyes. The most powerful aspect of ‘Taxi Driver’ is that the film makes us view the world through the eyes of Travis, what we see is twisted by his pathology and yet we also become complicit, gaining empathy for him despite everything we see.
The ‘you talkin’ to me?’ scene is a key way to understand both the film and the character of Travis. Lacan’s notion of the mirror phase is present here – Travis is literally using his reflection to bolster his self-image, we have frequently seen him unable to interact with other people on a one to basis, a reality at odds with delusional self-narrative he gives us in voiceover. Even here he needs to practice over and over to get his speech right, the camera cutting to edit out his mistakes. Taubin (2000: 22) makes the point that the scene makes it difficult to distinguish between Travis and his reflection, between self and other:
“It is as if Travis implicates us in his paranoid confusion of self and other and of projection and reflection. If we are his mirror, then he is ours.” (Taubin, 2000: 22)
In another scene Travis is watching a film in a porn theatre, the camera watches him move his middle finger up and down over his eyes, breaking his field of vision. By deliberately preventing himself from looking at the screen through this gesture he is intensifying his voyeuristic pleasure, repeatedly enforcing and breaking the prohibition against looking.
Travis Bickle and the ‘Other’
“The Other refers to that which is understood as the symbolic opposite of the normative category. The slave is other to the master; the woman other to the man, the black person to the white person…” (Sturken and cartwright, 2009: 451)
Travis’s relationship with the ‘Other’ can perhaps be encompassed by his interactions with everybody he comes into contact with – he is completely alienated. The lack of respect that is given to him by the female encounters demonstrates that his maleness in itself does not entitle him to a higher social status. The first woman he encounters is the cinema attendant who quickly shows she is in control by threatening Travis’s mild flirtations with eviction by the manager. Betsy is a professional woman with a good job and higher educational level than Travis, clearly out of his league. Despite this she is intrigued by Travis and agrees to go on a date with him. Taking Betsy to a porn film shows Travis to be both socially inept and wilful in his self-loathing – it is like he is desperate to show demonstrate his deviance? Even Iris, the pre-teen runaway prostitute merely humours Travis and shows a higher level of maturity and awareness of herself and the world in the scene they share in the diner.
African Americans represent the one group that Travis can feel superior to and his blatant racism demonstrates this. Sitting with his fellow cabbies in the all-night diner, he can barely conceal his hostility towards the one black man at the table. Travis’s gaze then switches to a group of flamboyantly dressed pimps on
the tables opposite. We see the pimps through his eyes, the camera moves in slow motion towards them emphasising his hatred which seems directed at there very blackness rather than what they do for a business. As he leaves the black cabbie says “see you later killer”, closing one eye and pointing his finger toward Travis as if it is a gun. It is a telling and humiliating moment for Travis where he is mocked, albeit gently, by a black man and also shows that his cabbie colleague has seen the violence inside Travis while foretelling what is to come.
That these two themes of race and gender difference are so overt in the narrative is an indication of the political landscape of mid 1970s America – a time where the optimism of the post war years has given way to counter culture and tension between major segments of society through the civil rights and feminist movements. The Vietnam war is also another important touchstone which has since become synonymous with the decay of ideals that were projected through earlier mythologising genres such as the western.
Psychoanalytical readings of Taxi Driver
“it is the birth of the long love affair/despair between image and self-image which has found such intensity of expression in film and such joyous recognition in the cinema audience.” (Jones, 2010: 60)
Since ‘Taxi Driver’ is clearly both a character study and an examination of personality disorder it is not difficult to apply psychoanalysis to readings of the film. Throughout the difference between the real and imaginary are displayed through the use of voiceover juxtaposed with reality: Travis shows narcissistic tendencies which prove to be unfounded by what we see and how we see others react to him. He craves company and yet is unable to connect with others due to his social awkwardness and his lack of self-awareness transfers this failure onto others. His inability to connect with women for example can be read as a symptom of his inherent identity being under pressure from both feminism and the civil rights movements. Travis’s inner voice has “paranoid delusions of grandeur, contradictory assessments of self and others…pathological narcissism.” (Taubin, 2000: 38)
Travis shows a sexual repression that displays a clear castration anxiety. Despite his frequent visits to the porn theatre there is no suggestion that he is gaining an erotic charge from this, rather, he goes there because this is what he believes he is expected to do as an expression of masculinity. He makes no attempt to consummate his relationship with the two females he comes into contact with throughout the film, although he is also deeply confused about what to do. Betsy is the Madonna he wants to turn into a whore, showing her the darkness within him by taking her on a date to the porn theatre. Taubin (2000: 18) sees this as “a violation, a psychological rape.” Conversely, Iris is the pre-teen whore he wants to save.
Travis only begins to gain agency within the narrative when he decides to buy guns in a scene which is blatant both in its fetish and phallic connotations. Clearly the guns represent Travis’s castration anxiety and serve both as an antidote to this and a way to exact revenge on those who threaten his masculinity. Throughout the film Travis is like a bottle under pressure that you know will explode once the top is removed. The final, violent scenes of the film represent Travis’ release, yet also show his impotence demonstrated by his failure to commit suicide. In a final ironic twist however, the final scenes of the film show Travis hailed as a hero for rescuing Iris and taking out the gangsters, an action he only took because of his failed assassination attempt on Senator Palantine.
An interesting comparison can be made with the later film ‘Falling Down’ (1993) in which the protagonist snaps under the pressure of modernity and begins a vengeful journey across Los Angeles. Unlike Travis, the Michael Douglas character in this film is played as an everyman who we are encouraged to empathise with, a victim of circumstances and an anti-hero we can identify with. Comparing the structure of both films is the most telling comparison, ‘Falling Down’ has a clear, linear narrative and definite denouement. ‘Taxi Driver’ is open ended and we are left with both uncertainty and a sense of foreboding as the credits arrive.
Conclusion
It is difficult to argue that ‘Taxi Driver’ restores any sort of gender balance as it is difficult to imagine a film that deals with issues of maleness in more detail. The principal creators of the film are all men and there are very few women featured, however, this is hardly a celebration of patriarchy. Travis Bickle is a damaged man, possibly as a result of the war in Vietnam which is a symptom of late capitalism and used as a symbol of the decline of the American dream in the film. He is alienated in both the literal and Marxist sense and is unable to find his place in society as either a man or a citizen. Although the film can hardly be held as a positive portrayal of masculinity it seems to be suggesting that the psychosis Travis experiences is a symptom of the society which appears to be breaking down, by extension this leads us to ponder what the alternative would be – something new or a return to what has come before? ‘Taxi Driver’ is a complex portrayal of an anti-hero it is difficult to like and yet we are able to identify with the extreme feelings of loneliness, lack of connection and alienation Travis feels and experiences. If we are honest with ourselves the extreme narcissism, deluded sense of self and fear of the ‘Other’ are all parts of the human psyche that we experience to one degree or another. In the end, it shows that texts can have both multiple contradictory meanings and a hateful world view can be expressed without meaning that is shared by the creators. At the films denouement, we are left with a feeling of foreboding about what is to come, the final shot of Travis’s eyes in close up, looking into the rear view mirror for something it appears only he can see, echoes a shot in the opening sequence. The suggestion is that the cycle will begin again and there is nothing we can do about it.
Bibliography:
Barthes R. The death of the author in pps. 142-148 Barthes, R. (1977) Image, Music, Text. London: Fontana Press.
Cousins, M. (2011) The story of film. London: Pavilion Books
D’Alleva, A (2012) Methods and Theories of Art History (2nd Ed.) London: Laurence King Publishing
Freud, S. (1991) On Sexuality: Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality and Other Works. London: Penguin.
Lapsley, R. and Westlake, M. (2006) Film theory: An introduction. (2nd ed.) Manchester: Palgrave.
Mulvey, L (1975) Visual pleasure and narrative cinema
pps. 57-65 Jones, A. (ed) (2010) The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader (2nd edition). London: Routledge
The Pervert’s Guide To Cinema (2006) Dir: Sophie Fiennes. UK/Austria/Netherlands: Amoeba Film/Kasander Film Company
The Pervert’s Guide To Ideology (2012) Dir: Sophie Fiennes. UK/Ireland: BFI/Blinder Films/Film4
Sturken, M. and Cartwright, L. (2009) Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Taubin, A. (2000) Taxi driver. London: BFI Publishing.
Taxi Driver (1976) Dir: Martin Scorsese. USA: Columbia Pictures
Williams, L. (ed.). (1994) Viewing positions: Ways of seeing film. London: Continuum International Publishing Group
Zizek, S. (2006) How to Read Lacan. London: Granta.
My immediate response to Pauline’s feedback was admiration for the clarity of her writing and her ability to seemingly effortlessly articulate ideas I shared but had somehow not been able to express in my essay. The indication that my submission is solid and that the choice of ‘Taxi Driver’ works well as an examination of visual performance and conflicted masculinity is reassuring. As is the reassurance that my summation of Mulvey’s position of how patriarchal society is aligned with Hollywood cinema.
Pauline is direct in emphasising her frustration that I submitted assignments 4 and 5 together which makes any recommendations she may make towards the fifth assignment redundant. At the time, I did this I felt driven by the simple pragmatism that the final assignment needed to be submitted at a certain point for me to hit my deadline. The reality of the situation however was that assignment four sat virtually completed quite a while before the final date and I can only explain my failure to submit earlier to be based on a lack of confidence in what I had produced and feeling that by taking some more time I would be able to improve the essay. This lack of certainty is something I need to be very mindful of as I progress in my studies as I now recognise how much of a barrier to my progression it has become.
The main piece of criticism Pauline offers is that the areas of theory I am referring to could be more clearly demonstrated, particularly in the introduction. Below is a summary of the recommendations Pauline makes:
This is not something I had considered at all but something that makes perfect sense as soon as it was mentioned. I must admit to not picking up on this suggestion when I read the brief.
These are all points that I felt I had covered in the essay. Going back and reviewing however I realised that I was not explicit enough with this referencing. The points about post modernism and the reading of Bickle’s flawed masculinity being the issue rather than a critique of masculinity itself are both points that I totally missed in my writing and would be useful to include.
I agree with this but worry it could lead to too much digression.
The inspiration for the film was something I originally included but ended up editing out as it felt too biographical and moving away from the theoretical basis of the assignment. The notion of Scorsese creating narratives from films rather than lived experience is an interesting one particular when combined with the way screen writer Paul Schrader based Bickle on a combined imagining of himself at a very dark time in his life and the attempted assassination of Alabama governor George Wallace by Arthur Bremer in 1972. Schrader had recently gone through a marriage break up, was out of work, living in his car and drinking heavily. When he became hospitalised with a gastric ulcer he realised he had not spoken to anyone for weeks. His recovery coincided with coverage of Bremer following the assassination attempt, and his imagination was captured. Like him, Bremer had been living out of his car and had become convinced that killing a politician was the surest way to get the attention he felt starved of – when he failed to penetrate Nixon’s security he turned his attention to Wallace. Segments of Bremer’s diary were published in the papers and Schrader was fascinated by the way this undereducated, lower middle class, Midwestern psychopath would talk to himself in his diary – this became the basis for the use of voice over in ‘Taxi Driver.’ (Taubin, 2000: 10)
Where this becomes particularly interesting is in combination with the way Scorsese takes Schrader’s screenplay, what appears to be a deeply personal self-meditation, and adds the stylistic elements to the film which come from his own limited experience of life – films. Another telling scene in ‘Taxi Driver’ is the scene where Scorsese features as one of Travis’ customers. Sitting in the cab he describes in lurid, misogynist and racist terms how he will punish his wife and her lover’s infidelity. Scorsese says his decision to play the scene was pragmatic after the actor booked dropped out – budget and time constraints meant recasting was not an option. This feels disingenuous to me, Scorsese would have been well aware of how his self-inclusion in this most controversial scene would have been read and assertions of the reasoning are likely to be to distance himself from what the character says. Another scene has Scorsese witnessing Travis walks past him as he approaches to pick up Betsy from her office. This is both a direct reference to Hitchcock’s cameos in his own films and something more – Scorsese’s gaze never flickers from Bickle, his head following his movement across the frame so there is no doubt he is watching him. It is as if he is telling us as the viewers we need to keep a close watch on Travis.
I felt I had done this but reviewing the essay again realised I could be more explicit about this as clearly the context is very important to ‘Taxi Driver’ is an important consideration of how the film finally looks.
I assume that Pauline is referring to Lacan’s notion of the three orders: the imaginary, the symbolic and the real. The scene shows Travis walking towards the camera, first in an extreme long shot which then dissolves into a medium shot before again dissolving into a close up. The street is deserted except for Travis and the effect of the dissolves is that he appears and reappears before our eyes which is one of the first clues towards his disturbed psyche. Usually, cuts represent the passage of time, and while this is true of this scene, the small nudges forward are disconcerting which emphasises the technique and Travis’ discontinuity above all else.
‘Rear Window’ – there are comparisons to be made with the theme of voyeurism and the spectacle, the way James Stewart has his view confined can be compared to the barrier that is made by Travis’ taxi, and, the link of the way Scorsese references Hitchcock in ‘Taxi Driver’.
‘Falling Down’ has the effect of drawing the viewer into the merging of self and the damaged persona – although most viewers would totally understand the psychological disintegration represented in this film whereas ‘Taxi Driver’ is much more ambivalent.
‘Rear Window’ was certainly a film I had thought about in relation to ‘Taxi Driver’, particularly as it is also cited by Mulvey in her essay. ‘Falling Down’ does have many similarities with ‘Taxi Driver’ but the character’s breakdown is presented in a much more simplistic and superficial way that I would not want to make comparisons. I thought about referencing other films in my essay but was worried about becoming side tracked – it seemed important to retain focus on ‘Taxi Driver’ as the main text.
Again, the cultural context of the time was in my mind and it is only on rereading that I realised I had not made as much of this as I thought I had.
I agonised over my use of this term, which I intended to be used in the sense that this is the term that Travis would have used, if not something worse and more derogatory. (The terms spooks and niggers are used in the film, for me the whole point of their inclusion is that to leave them out would have been unrealistic – they emphasise a casual racism and demonstrate the racial tension of the time.) Pauline’s comments take me back to my worries about a lack of suitable alternative terminology that I felt when I wrote my essay. I have chosen the term ‘African American’ as a replacement but I must confess it is the best of a group of terms that I find are all unsatisfactory. (For example, coloured, people of colour, dark
skinned.) All of these terms seem to be loaded with liberal apologism, perhaps it is only right however that I feel uncomfortable using these terms as a white man.
It is a strange paradox that in studying Understanding Visual Culture I have spent little time looking at images with my head stuck mostly in books full of dense writing and few pictures. For this reason I have chosen to produce a visual essay in response to the last assignment for the course. Reading Berger’s Ways of Seeing in one of the early projects I distinctly remember finding it difficult to formulate a response to the visual essays in the book. At first I thought it was because the images are dated, but on further reflection I realised that without the comfort of words to guide my responses I was finding having any sort of response difficult – this was because I was trying to second guess Berger rather than have confidence in my own reading.
Along with wanting to experiment with a different approach for this assignment, and push myself out of my comfort zone at the same time, I also wanted to acknowledge the influence of Debord’s Society of the Spectacle on me during the course. For me the first exercise that requires reading this was a revelation. Taking the advice of the course notes I stuck with the piece, reading and rereading until it began to make sense and eventually I could see elements of what had already been studied falling into place. Debord and the Situationists had real purpose and believed in changing the world through their work. As I move toward the next part of my degree having a purpose for my work is something that I am preoccupied with and I know I will continue to find inspiration and strategies for producing work through what I have studied during this course.
Originally I intended to write about the way technology, and particularly social media, is altering our ability as human beings to engage with each other and even make sense of the real world. Two recent films were an inspiration to me: Hypernoramalisation directed by Adam Curtis (who I have previously discussed in assignment 2) and Lo and behold, reveries of the connected world directed by Werner Herzog. Both films can be described as documentaries but this does not really do justice or accurately describe what they are. Both film makers present an unashamed subjective world view, and while I do not agree with everything they say I admire their assured confidence.
I originally thought about producing a slideshow/film in the spirit of Curtis’ work but decided against this, deciding on a book format – which seems fitting given how important books have been to me throughout the course! A slideshow would mean that the amount of time each page could be viewed would be controlled, instead I wanted the viewer to have the ability to flick between pages and take as much time as needed to study the images. I decided to use quotes from different texts (Society of the Spectacle, Simulacra and Simulation by Baudrillard, a poem by Kate Tempest, the films Blade Runner and Her – I also shortlisted many other quotes from both the course and popular culture that I did not use) as a lead into the images and broad theme setting. One of my favourite photo books is The Nature of Photographs by Stephen Shore and I used this as inspiration. Shore uses short, enigmatic sentences as accompaniments to the photographs he has chosen in the book, with the effect being to kick start the imagination and study the images in way you may not have otherwise. For the images I brainstormed some topics that I felt would fit with the theme of how reality exists in the modern, digital world. They included: Famous people, reality TV, politicians, advertising, business, dead celebrities, scandal, technology, films, news, globalisation, google, facebook, art, commodities and consumerism. I wanted to appropriate images off the internet as the process of doing this would form some sort of curation, I was also interested about what results would come back in my search results. This proved much more difficult than I anticipated and I spent a great deal of time looking for the right images to use. I also did not want any text in the image collages which compounded my difficulties, I wish I had decided that this was the approach I was going to take earlier as collecting images that for the brief over a period of time would have led to better results. I was also shocked by how difficult it was to find pictures I had seen before but could not remember where – for example I recall reading an article about an artist potentially being sued by Donald Trump for producing photoshopped images of him in outrageous situations but could not find the article again.
Stylistically I wanted the text elements of the project to have a retro computer feel and chose a blocky font and green writing reminiscent of an early personal computer. It was important for me that the quotes I chose had no context and I deliberately left off the authors details. For the images I wanted the effect to be haphazard, with the pictures different sizes, overlapping and arranged randomly. The finished effect does not have the effect I envisaged, however, I am not sure how I would change it. If the pictures were the same size and aspect ratio the effect would be too ordered. Perhaps featuring more images slightly smaller would be a better approach however. Each quote has two pages of images in response, the intention is that they would sit next to each other as a double page spread. Each page has a different response to the quote so that the reader can infer further meaning from their juxtaposition. Unfortunately, on exporting to PDF this effect was lost, I will attempt to find a way to rectify and if I cannot will publish as a linear document.
I hesitate at this point to say any more about my image choices as this will influence how meaning is read in the essay. I am unsure if I have managed to fulfil the brief for this assignment but I have enjoyed the process of putting the essay together, albeit that finding the right pictures and preventing repetition has proved to be much more challenging than I had first envisaged.
Bibliography:
Baudrillard, J. (1995) Simulacra and Simulation. Michigan: University of Michigan Press.
Baudrillard, J. (2004) The Gulf War did not Take Place. Sydney: Power Publications.
Berger, J. (1972) Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin.
Blade Runner (1982) Dir: Ridley Scott. USA/Hong Kong/UK: Warner Brothers
Debord, G. (2009) The Society of the Spectacle. Eastbourne: Soul Bay Press
Her (2013) Dir: Spike Jonze. USA: Annapurna Pictures
Hypernormalisation (2016) Dir: Adam Curtis. UK: BBC
Lo and behold, reveries of the connected world (2016) Dir: Werner Herzog. USA: Saville Productions
Shore, S. (2007) The nature of photographs: A Primer. (2nd ed.) New York: Phaidon Press.
Tempest, K. (2016) Let them eat chaos. London: Picador.
Introduction
In her essay ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’, Laura Mulvey uses examples from films of the 1930s-1950s to illustrate her argument that patriarchal society is reinforced by Hollywood cinema which, geared towards male viewing pleasure in turn relates directly to the construction of the male psyche. The paper is a polemic with the intent of redressing gender imbalance as identified by Mulvey:
“[the essay] takes as its staring point the way film reflects, reveals and even plays on the straight, socially established interpretation of sexual difference which controls images, erotic ways of looking and spectacle.” (Jones, 2010: 57)
Mulvey acknowledges the changing landscape at the time she is writing and anticipates that the “monolithic system based on large capital investment” can be subsumed by an emerging alternative cinema which is becoming possible due to technological advancement:
“The alternative cinema provides a space for the birth of a cinema which is radical in both a political and aesthetic sense and challenges the assumptions of the mainstream film. This is not to reject the latter moralistically, but to highlight the way in which its formal preoccupations reflect the physical obsession of the society which produced it and further, to stress that the alternative cinema must start specifically by reacting against these obsessions and assumptions. A politically and aesthetically avant-garde cinema is now possible, but it can only exist as a counterpoint.” (Jones, 2010:58)
To explore these assertions I have chosen the film Taxi Driver, a first person narrative exploring themes of masculinity, violence and alienation amongst other things. The film was also made around the time that Mulvey wrote her essay and I am interested on whether it confirms or confounds Mulvey’s argument along with how far it can be analysed using the psycohanalytic framework of her paper. Scorsese is also of the new generation of directors that began to emerge in the 1970s that were steeped in the films of the past and referenced earlier works in their films, a key influence being Hitchcock which is most explicitly demonstrated in the use of his long time collaborator Bernard Herrmann for the score to Taxi Driver. Mulvey posits that the gaze in cinema is implicitly male, this is certainly true of Taxi Driver as (virtually) all of the film is presented through the eyes of protagonist Travis Bickle. And yet, although he is a man Travis possesses no power – in fact his masculinity is a prison which traps him in a spiral of loneliness, alienation, self destruction and delusion.
Taxi Driver and authorship
“The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture” (Barthes, 1977: 146)
Scorsese became synonymous with the ‘movie brat’ generation of directors that came to prominence in the 1970s who had grown up with a love of film and used these as touchstones in their own work. It can be argued that film proved the defining element of Scorsese’s development as frequent childhood illnesses “detached Scorsese from participating fully in the life of the streets but increased his opportunities for observing it.” (Cousins, 2011:339) He gained most of his experience not from directly lived experience but from films.
The main two stylistic influences on Taxi Driver are film noir and the French New Wave showing Scorsese’s bridging of both the avant-garde and mainstream. Tropes from film noir such as first person voice over narration, expressionist camera angles and movements, moody jazz inflected score are all present. Film noir is also rooted in post war trauma, for Taxi Driver this is Vietnam rather than WWII. From New Wave directors such as Godard, Scorsese appropriates some of stylistic innovations such as the jump cut which he uses to emphasise Travis’s psychosis. Early in the film we watch Travis walking toward us on a street, a dissolve makes Travis appear to disappear then reappear in the shot. Usually this type of cut would be used to advance the passage of time in a narrative, here, with Travis only moving slightly closer to the camera, the amount of time that has passed is minimal. The effect is to emphasise early in the film Travis’s fractured state of mind.
While it is not necessary to have knowledge of all of the references that Scorsese employs in Taxi Driver, it could be argued that doing so increases our understanding. Taubin (2010: 37) describes this as “hybrid iconography”, for example the western genre is an influence on Taxi Driver. (The scene detailed above is a reference to the 1952 western Shane) With the theme of masculinity being perhaps the most prevalent in the film referencing this most macho of genres adds further layers to Taxi Driver. The alienation and lack of purpose that Travis experiences is in contrast to the convention of the western hero who always has a sense of purpose. Like these heroes Travis also strives to bring order to the lawless, hell on earth he experiences around himself, although ambiguity about whether he is on the right course is prevalent.
Taxi Driver and the look
“Looking is powerful. To look is to assert power, to control, to challenge authority.” (D’Alleva, 2012: 104)
Mulvey discusses the notion of the male Gaze in ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ arguing that there is an imbalance in looking that is split between active/male and passive/female. The male is a controlling figure of the film’s narrative and the bearer of the spectators look with whom they can identify. This suggests that power is inherent in the main protagonist, something that Travis is almost completely lacking. For the majority of the film’s running time, Travis is a passive observer of the world around him. His taxi acts as a barrier between himself and the outside world which he views with disdain, a metal coffin on wheels symbolising urban isolation. (Taubin, 2000:10) The view the Travis experiences is literally using his Taxi as a window on the world, a distancing strategy that he combines with viewing his passengers in the rear view mirror. Using the ideology Mulvey presents in her essay, as a white male Travis should possess a great deal of power in society. This is not the case in the film however, Travis has no power, even the blacks seem to have more agency than him. This perhaps goes some way to explaining his rage.
Frequently we are made to share Travis’s viewpoint throughout the film, from the opening sequence which uses stylistic strategies more associated with the horror genre to emphasise Travis’s world view of New York as hell on earth to the infamous ‘you talkin’ to me?’ scene in which Travis practices drawing his gun and how he might react in a violent situation. He does this into the mirror and directly to his reflection, so although we see him on the screen the implication is we are looking directly through his eyes. The most powerful aspect of Taxi Driver is that the film makes us view the world through the eyes of Travis, what we see is twisted by his pathology and yet we also become complicit, gaining empathy for him despite everything we see.
The ‘you talkin’ to me?’ scene is a key way to understand both the film and the character of Travis. Lacan’s notion of the mirror phase is present here – Travis is literally using his reflection to bolster his self image, we have frequently seen him unable to interact with other people on a one to basis, a reality at odds with delusional self narrative he gives us in voiceover. Even here he needs to practice over and over to get his speech right, the camera cutting to edit out his mistakes. Taubin (2000: 22) makes the point that the scene makes it difficult to distinguish between Travis and his reflection, between self and other:
“It is as if Travis implicates us in his paranoid confusion of self and other and of projection and reflection. If we are his mirror, then he is ours.”
In another scene Travis is watching a film in a porn theatre, the camera watches him move his middle finger up and down over his eyes, breaking his field of vision. By deliberately preventing himself from looking at the screen through this gesture he is intensifying his voyeuristic pleasure, repeatedly enforcing and breaking the prohibition against looking.
Travis Bickle and the ‘Other’
“The Other refers to that which is understood as the symbolic opposite of the normative category. The slave is other to the master; the woman other to the man, the black person to the white person…” (Sturken and cartwright, 2009: 451)
Travis’s relationship with the ‘Other’ can perhaps be encompassed by his interactions with everybody else he comes into contact with – he is so completely alienated. The lack of respect that is given to him by the female encounters demonstrates that his maleness in itself does not entitle him to a higher social status. The first woman he encounters is the cinema attendant who quickly shows she is in control by threatening Travis’s mild flirtations with eviction by the manager. Betsy is a professional woman with a good job and higher educational level than Travis, clearly out of his league. Despite this she is intrigued by Travis and agrees to go on a date with him. Taking Betsy to a porn film shows Travis to be both socially inept and wilful in his self loathing – it is like he is desperate to show demonstrate his deviance. Even Iris, the pre-teen runaway prostitute merely humours Travis and shows a higher level of maturity and awareness of herself and the world in the scene they share in the diner.
Blacks represent the one group that Travis can feel superior to and his blatant racism demonstrates this. Sitting with his fellow cabbies in the all night diner, he can barely conceal his hostility towards the one black man at the table. Travis’s gaze then switches to a group of flamboyantly dressed black pimps on the tables opposite. We see the pimps through his eyes, the camera moves in slow motion towards them emphasising his hatred which seems directed at there very blackness rather than what they do for a business. As he leaves the black cabbie says “see you later killer”, closing one eye and pointing his finger toward Travis as if it is a gun. It is a telling and humiliating moment for Travis where he is mocked, albeit gently, by a black man and also shows that his cabbie colleague has seen the violence inside Travis while foretelling what is to come.
Psychoanalytical readings of Taxi Driver
“it is the birth of the long love affair/despair between image and self-image which has found such intensity of expression in film and such joyous recognition in the cinema audience.” (Jones, 2010: 60)
Since Taxi Driver is clearly both a character study and an examination of personality disorder it is not difficult to apply psychoanalysis to readings of the film. Throughout the difference between the real and imaginary are displayed through the use of voiceover juxtaposed with reality: Travis shows narcissistic tendencies which prove to be unfounded by what we see and how we see others react to him. He craves company and yet is unable to connect with others due to his social awkwardness and through his lack of self awareness transfers this failure onto others. His inability to connect with women for example can be read as a symptom of his inherent identity being under pressure from both feminism and the civil rights movements. Travis’s inner voice has “paranoid delusions of grandeur, contradictory assessments of self and others…pathological narcissism.” (Taubin, 2000: 38)
Travis shows a sexual repression that displays a clear castration anxiety. Despite his frequent visits to the porn theatre there is no suggestion that he is gaining an erotic charge from this, rather, he goes there because this is what he believes he is expected to do as an expression of masculinity. He makes no attempt to consummate his relationship with the two females he comes into contact with throughout the film, although he is deeply confused about what to do. Betsy is the Madonna he wants to turn into a whore by showing her the darkness within him by taking her on a date to the porn theatre, Taubin (2000: 18) sees this as “a violation, a psychological rape.” On the other side, Iris is the pre-teen whore he wants to save.
Travis only begins to gain agency within the narrative when he decides to buy guns in a scene which is blatant both in its fetishism and phallic connotations. Clearly the guns represent Travis’s castration anxiety and serve both as an antidote to this and to exact revenge on those that have made him feel less of a man. Throughout the film Travis is like a bottle under pressure that you know will explode once the top is removed. The final, violent scenes of the film represent Travis’s release, yet he shows himself to still be impotent through his failure to commit suicide at the very end. In a final ironic twist however, Travis is shown as being held up as a hero for rescuing Iris and taking out the gangsters, an action he only took because of his failed assassination attempt on Senator Palantine.
Conclusion
It is difficult to argue that Taxi Driver restores any sort of gender balance as it is difficult to imagine a film that deals with issues of maleness in more detail. The principal creators of the film are all men and there are very few women featured, however, this is hardly a celebration of patriarchy. Travis Bickle is a damaged man, possibly as a result of the war in Vietnam which is a symptom of late capitalism. He is alienated in both the literal and Marxist sense and is unable to find his place in society as either a man or a citizen. Although the film can hardly be held as a positive portrayal of masculinity it seems to be suggesting that the psychosis Travis experiences is a symptom of the society which appears to be breaking down, by extension this leads us to ponder what the alternative would be – something new or a return to what has come before? Taxi Driver is a complex portrayal of an anti hero it is difficult to like and yet manages to get the viewer to empathise with Travis. In the end it shows that texts can have both multiple contradictory meanings and a hateful world view can be expressed without meaning that is shared by the creators. At the end we are left with a feeling of foreboding about what is to come, the final shot of Travis’s eyes in close up, looking into the rear view mirror for something it appears only he can see, echoes a shot in the opening sequence. The suggestion is that the cycle will begin again and there is nothing we can do about it.
Bibliography:
Barthes R. The death of the author pps. 142-148 Barthes, R. (1977) Image, Music, Text. London: Fontana Press.
Cousins, M. (2011) The story of film. London: Pavilion Books
D’Alleva, A (2012) Methods and Theories of Art History (2nd Ed.) London: Laurence King Publishing
Freud, S. (1991) On Sexuality: Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality and Other Works. London: Penguin.
Lapsley, R. and Westlake, M. (2006) Film theory: An introduction. (2nd ed.) Manchester: Palgrave.
Mulvey, L (1975) Visual pleasure and narrative cinema in pps. 57-65 Jones, A. (ed) (2010) The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader (2nd edition). London: Routledge
The Pervert’s Guide To Cinema (2006) Dir: Sophie Fiennes. UK/Austria/Netherlands: Amoeba Film/Kasander Film Company
The Pervert’s Guide To Ideology (2012) Dir: Sophie Fiennes. UK/Ireland: BFI/Blinder Films/Film4
Sturken, M. and Cartwright, L. (2009) Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Taubin, A. (2000) Taxi driver. London: BFI Publishing.
Taxi Driver (1976) Dir: Martin Scorsese. USA: Columbia Pictures
Williams, L. (ed.). (1994) Viewing positions: Ways of seeing film. London: Continuum International Publishing Group
Zizek, S. (2006) How to Read Lacan. London: Granta.
Read the chapter by Laura Mulvey called Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema on pps 381 – 389 of the course reader making notes.
Notes on the Gaze
Sturken and Cartwright (2009) define the in relation to visual arts as:
“the relationship of looking in which the subject is caught up in the dynamics of desire through trajectories of looking and being looked at among other people.” (Sturken and Cartwright, 2009: 442)
The gaze can be both motivated by the subjects desire for control over the object it sees, and the object can likewise capture and hold the look.
Pooke and Newall (2008) assert that in the field of art, gaze refers to the viewers engagement with the art object and is frequently suggestive of a power dynamic between the object and the spectator. The term Gaze is used prominently in film and gender studies.
Modern origins of the gaze are based on psychoanalytic theory and relates to visual and sexual attentions and the implications of gendered human perception that these contain. Gazing is considered central to sexual attraction and has both a positive and negative identification, for example, narcissistic (loving/productive) and nihilistic (hating/destructive.) (Harris, 2006)
D’Alleva (2012) states:
“Looking is powerful. To look is to assert power, to control, to challenge authority.” (D’Alleva, 2012: 104)
A distinction is made between Gaze and gaze (lower case g): Gaze – the process of looking which constitutes a network of relationships, gaze – a specific instance of looking. Freud saw desire as crucial to the process of looking. Lacan saw the Gaze as one of the main manifestations of the four fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis: the unconscious, repetition, transference and drive. For Lacan, the Gaze gives structure and stability to our fantasies of Self and Other. Looking at art is not a neutral process but one where the viewer is a desiring subject open to the captivation asserted by the work being viewed. The function of art is to trap the Gaze because the viewer is (falsely) put in the position of the eye.
Film theorists of the 1970s (such as Laura Mulvey and Christian Metz) used the theories of Freud and Lacan to posit that in cinema the Gaze of the spectator on the image was implicitly male and objectified women on screen. Lacan’s analysis of the Gaze (for example, the mirror-phase) form an important part of feminist discussions of how women are constructed as the object of a ‘male gaze’ in film and visual arts with a particular feminist interest being the relations between looking, imagery and power in society.
Notes on ‘Visual pleasure and narrative cinema’ by Laura Mulvey
In ‘Visual pleasure and narrative cinema’, Laura Mulvey drew on psychoanalytic theories of Freud and Lacan to challenge patriarchal models of viewing. Hollywood cinema of the 1930s-50s was used to illustrate how pleasure in looking is split between the active/male protagonist/hero who possesses the Gaze and moves the action forward, and, the passive/female who is the object of the desire and the object of the Gaze.
Arguing that Hollywood cinema is geared toward male viewing pleasure, and related directly to the construction of the male psyche. This both reinforced patriarchal society and Mulvey used the psychoanalytical paradigms of scopophillia, voyeurism and narcissism:
Scopophillia – the pleasure in looking and being looked at (exhibitionism.) Pleasure in using another person as an object of sexual stimulation through sight. Active scopophillia implies a separation of erotic identity of the subject from the object on the screen. Is a function of sexual instincts.
Voyeurism – the pleasure taken in looking while not being seen to be looking. This carries negative connotations of a powerful, even sadistic, position within the Gaze.
Narcissism – identification with the image seen – linked to construction of the ego. Demands identification of the ego with the object in screen through the spectators fascination and recognition of his like. Is a function of the ego libido.
Mulvey linked pleasure gained from the male gaze in three ways:
Each of these strategies places the female in a position in which she has no control or agency: women are there to be looked at and the watching men project their fantasies onto the females portrayed on screen. The on screen male is a man of action and command which mirrors the underlying assumptions of a phallocentric and patriarchal society. Patriarchal culture positions woman as image and man as bearer of the image.
Mulvey argued that the reason Hollywood cinema followed these conventions of gender roles (women as visual fetishes; spoken for, bearers of meaning, and, men as vigorous agents; speakers, makers of meaning) is because this is hard wired into the social psyche and thus unavoidable. When woman is referred to as the bearer of meaning this is a reference to the way a woman’s body is organised by Lacan’s concept of the signifier of difference – that is the penis she does not have marked by castration and the threat that she is. Her body, which is complete with beauty but damaged by phallic absence, is the fetish that makes the site of the lack – the difference that forms the possibility of meaning and on which language is built.
A common criticism of Mulvey’s paper is that the Gaze she discusses is strictly male (also white and heterosexual) and this view does more to fix identity than free it. However, this misses the point that the essay is a polemic in which the male Gaze is a strategic necessity in order for Mulvey to make the case that although Hollywood narrative cinema appeared to be innocent entertainment it is really an instrument of patriarchal ideology. Despite what they term the “intellectual problems” of some aspects of Mulvey’s work, Lapsley and Westlake (2006) believe that her theories made a difference beyond academia as she rendered visible what had been invisible: the violence within representation and the reproduction of patriarchy within mainstream cinema. She revealed and confronted the self interested and misogynist nature of representations of women by white, middle class heterosexual males and contributed to the transformation of gender based relations of domination.
Watch ‘Vertigo’ and make notes on how it stands up to Mulvey’s analysis.
Scottie, The main protagonist of Vertigo is obsessed: he falls in love with a woman who apparently dies and seeing another woman who resembles her cannot help himself but remake the second in the image of the first – with eventual tragic results. (Hitchcock, in typically sardonic fashion, described the film as a twist on the Hollywood staple ‘boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy meets girl again, boy loses girl again’ Sammader, 2012) Under scrutiny it is a preposterous story and a commercial flop on release, now however it is regarded as a classic, possibly Hitchcock’s best film and was voted greatest film ever made by the BFI in 2012. Whether intentional or not Scottie’s moulding of Judy into the vision of Madeline has parallels with Hitchcock’s sadistic treatment of actors and his own obsession with a certain type of leading lady, a fetishised cool blonde. It could also be read as an analogy of the Hollywood star system in which the stars (especially the women) are no more than property to the studios.
Themes of the film include desire and artificiality, subjectivity, female objectification and the male Gaze. Hitchcock was influenced by Freud and surrealism and draws on Freud’s theories of scopophillia. Stylistically the film is almost entirely shot from Scottie’s perspective with the audience becoming complicit in his voyeurism. Dreamy tracking shots are used in the sequences where he follows both Madeline and Judy, the camera moves with Scottie and reflect his snatched glimpses, wonderment and desire. The pastel colours of the films design give a overemphasised artificiality which add to the dreamlike quality. Occasionally our gaze is returned by Novak as Madeline/Judy – at these points we feel her accusing our voyeurism. Reflecting on Vertigo’s narrative, the entire film seems completely implausible, particularly why Madeline/Judy would allow herself to be first manipulated into Elster’s murderous scheme and then allow Scottie to change her appearance. The only logical explanation is that, as Mulvey argues, woman is presented as image and man as bearer of the look. This emphasises the inherent sexual imbalance in which the (active) determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure (passive) which is styled accordingly.
Mulvey has the following to say about Vertigo: the look is central to the plot – oscillating between voyeurism and fetishist fascination. This is typical of Hitchcock with the male hero (James Stewart/Scottie) seeing exactly what the audience sees, his role being to portray the contradictions and tensions experienced by the spectator. The subjective camera of Vertigo predominates with the narrative being almost entirely based around what Scottie sees or fails to see – his erotic obsession and subsequent despair is shown entirely from his point of view. Scottie’s voyeurism is as blatant as is his sadistic side – he follows, watches and falls in love with a perfect image of female beauty and mystery. In the second half of the film his obsessive involvement with image is demonstrated as he tries to reconstruct Judy as Madeline and force her to conform to every detail of his fetish: “Her exhibitionism, her masochism make her an ideal counterpart to Scottie’s active, sadistic voyeurism.” (Jones, 2010: 64) His erotic interest can only be sustained with her playing and replaying her part, through repetition he breaks her down and exposes her guilt – his curiosity wins through and she is punished.
“In Vertigo, erotic involvement with the look boomerangs: the spectator’s own fascination is revealed as illicit voyeurism as the narrative content enacts the processes and pleasures that he himself is exercising and enjoying.” (ibid)
While Scottie is caught within the symbolic order with all of the attributes of the patriarchal super ego, the spectator is lulled into false security and exposed as complicit, caught in the moral ambiguity of looking: “Vertigo focuses on the implications of the active/looking, passive/looked at split in terms of sexual difference and the power of the male symbolic encapsulated in the hero.”
How does the portrayal of some contemporary black music in video match up to Mulvey’s insights?
Snoop Dogg feat Pharrell Drop It Like It’s Hot HD
Contemporary black music – particularly rap music – has a reputation for being a macho domain where image is paramount and for treating women as little more the objects. I do not profess to be an expert on this style of music and spent sometime looking through various music videos on YouTube before coming across this video: ‘Drop it like it’s hot’ by Snoop Dogg feat. Pharrell from 2009. Snoop Dogg is an artist who has been around for years and fulfils many of the stereotypes of what makes a rapper – glamourous surroundings, expensive consumer goods and a sexualised view of women. The women in this video are literally featured to be no more the glamourous window dressing, fawning and fussing over the stars in the video Snoop Dogg and Pharrell. They are shown dancing with the two male musicians, twerking next to a Rolls Royce, stripping, pouring drinks for Snoop Dogg and dancing together in a scene that could represent a club setting. They represent a juvenile wish fulfilment and are entirely there for the scopophillic pleasure of the (supposed) male viewer. The video is so outlandish and offensive that I would be inclined to think it is a parody, however, there is no sense of irony contained in it. As a final aside – I note that most versions of this video have the lyrics edited to remove potentially offensive words. An interesting choice to keep the visual content intact while censoring the lyrics of the song which shows the perceived power of words over images.
Annotate Manet’s ‘Olympia’ in terms of the gaze and the various characters, within and without the image.
Manet’s ‘Olympia’ (1863) was considered scandalous and vulgar when first displayed, interestingly this has nothing to do with the model being nude but rather the unconventional subject depicted and her seemingly oppositional returned gaze. Rather than depicting an idealised subject based on history or myth as was the convention of nineteenth century painting, the model is a prostitute, and, most significantly, rather than complying with codes of humility and compliance her returned gaze is ambiguous and unsettling. Manet based the composition of the painting on Titian’s Venus of Urbino (1538) and comparing the two paintings emphasise the differences and why ‘Olympia’ caused such controversy. Firstly the subject matter – Titian is depicting Venus, an ideal representation of the female form and sexuality while Manet has painted a courtesan, someone not normally presented in paintings. We can deduce ‘Olympia’ is a prostitute as this name was one often used for courtesans – the black cat shown at the bottom of the bed is a symbol of prostitution. (As opposed to the dog shown in Titian’s painting which represents fidelity.) Both of the women in the picture are similarly undressed, reclining and holding one hand over their waist. Titian’s Venus is coy with her head cocked to one side. She has a look that could appear to be adoration or love, there is no sexual connotation to her pose and although she appears relaxed in her nakedness, the hand she holds over her genital area is appears to rest naturally rather than being held for any reasons of modesty. In ‘Olympia’ the model’s hand seems to be placed deliberately, again modesty is not the motivation here rather she is demonstrating control over her body. The position suggests that while her nakedness can be looked at for free, anything further will require payment.
The most striking aspect of Manet’s painting, as previously mentioned, is the way the model in ‘Olympia’ returns our gaze. Unlike Titian’s model her head is held high and points directly out of the painting – there can be no doubt that the subject of her gaze is the viewer. This is further emphasised by the way the black servant in the painting is ignored despite appearing to bring a gift of flowers – her stare seems to challenge the viewer. Given the typical audience at the time would have been white, middle/upper class, western male this surely would have made them feel uncomfortable when confronted by the reality of a depiction of a ‘type’ they would not have been used to seeing represented in panting. The viewer is forced to confront their scopophillia along with the attendant feelings of shame that are linked to this.
Bibliography:
Buchanan, I (2010) Oxford Dictionary of Critical Theory. New York: Oxford University Press inc.
Cousins, M. (2011) The story of film. London: Pavilion Books
D’Alleva, A (2012) Methods and Theories of Art History (2nd Ed.) London: Laurence King Publishing
Foster, H. et al. (2012) Art since 1900: Modernism * Antimodernism * Postmodernism. (2nd ed.) London: Thames & Hudson.
Harris, J. (2006) Art History: The Key Concepts. New York: Taylor & Francis
Howells, R. Negreiros, J. (2011) Visual Culture 2nd Ed Cambridge: Polity Press
Lapsley, R. and Westlake, M. (2006) Film theory: An introduction. (2nd ed.) Manchester: Palgrave.
Macey, D. (2000) The Penguin Dictionary of Critical Theory London: Penguin books
Mulvey, L (1975) Visual pleasure and narrative cinema
pps. 381-390 Evans, J. and Hall, S. (eds.) (1999) Visual Culture: The Reader. London: Sage
pps. 58-65 Jones, A. (ed) (2010) The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader (2nd edition). London: Routledge
Pooke, G. and Newall, D. (2008) The Basics: Art History. Oxford: Routledge.
Samadder, R. (2012) ‘My favourite Hitchcock: Vertigo’ The Guardian, 10th August 2012. Available At: https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/aug/10/my-favourite-hitchcock-vertigo [Accessed 10th October 2016]
Sturken, M. and Cartwright, L. (2009) Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Vertigo (1958) Alfred Hitchcock. Dir. USA: Paramount Pictures
Williams, L. (ed.). (1994) Viewing positions: Ways of seeing film. London: Continuum International Publishing Group
Read chapter 5 of the course reader, Panopticism by Michel Foucault on pps. 61 – 71 and make notes.
Notes on the Panopticon/panopticism:
The Panopticon was conceived by English philosopher and social reformer Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) as a model of prison architecture enabling, what he thought was, a therapeutic form of total surveillance. The design of the Panopticon was based around a concentric building comprising of rings of cells at the centre of which stands a guard tower. This system enabled guards to view prisoners without being seen themselves which causes the inmates to modify their behaviour – what Bentham described as gaining power of “mind over mind.” (Sturken and Cartwright, 2009: 107) The success of the Panopticon design is that a guard does not have to be present – what matters is the idea of being viewed at all times which becomes fixed in the mind of each prisoner – and this is what keeps them under control in a regime of silent discipline. Bentham saw the chief virtue of the Panopticon as being the reduction of the need for violent forms of coercion – the lack of privacy would have a remedial effect on the prisoners, forcing them to internalise socially approved standards of behaviour and rehabilitate themselves for re-entry into society.
In ‘Discipline and Punish: the birth of the prison’ (1975), Michel Foucault explored the idea of the Panopticon which he believed represented an emblematic of shift not only the treatment of prisoners but in organizational rationality of society as a whole. He saw the Panoptic model as being transferrable, and indeed present, in not only prisons but hospitals, educational establishments and the workplace. Foucault was interested in the psychological nature of the Panopticon, the relentless ‘inspecting gaze’ – a feature he viewed as both fascinating and disturbing. Unlike dungeons, which remove prisoners from sight and give them some protection from scrutiny, the prisoners of the Panopticon imagine themselves being constantly watched – and it is this that keeps them in line. They internalise the figure of the imagined observer and modify their behaviour as subjects under surveillance even when no one is watching. Foucault suggested that in modern society we behave as if we are under a scrutinizing, panoptic gaze: we internalise the rules and norms of society as we imagine ourselves to be constantly under a watchful eye that expects us to behave in this way.
Howells and Negreiros (2011: 108-9) compare the Panopticon to CCTV – similarly these cameras do not need to be turned on to exercise a disciplinary function because we self censor and self regulate so effectively. They assert that the relationship between image and power which is enacted through the internalising of the inspecting gaze is a phenomenon associated with the emergence of modernity. The previous relationship could be designated ‘spectacular’, that is, overt displays of power made visible to ordinary people. For example, heavily ritualised power structures such as monarchy, totalitarian regimes and religion – all of which function as a warning against subversion of the status quo. Although the function of power is less overt due to the prevalence of surveillance, it is no less ideologically determinant. Sturken and Cartwright (2009: 108-110) agree that camera surveillance is a form of intrusion that we have come to accept: the physical form of the inspecting gaze that we imagine. Photographic images form part of what Foucault termed the docile bodies of the modern state: citizens who participate in the ideologies of the society through a desire to conform. Homogenous media and advertising images that promote the ‘perfect look’ are manifestations of this.
Notes on ‘Panopticism’ by Michel Foucault in Evans and Hall (1999) pps. 61-71.
The extract begins with a description of the measures taken when the plague appeared in a town in the 17thC: a system of surveillance based on permanent registration – the plague is met by order – it’s function to prevent disease being transmitted by the mixing together of bodies. The evil of prohibition is outweighed by the danger of increased fear and death.
The leper gave rise to rituals of exclusion and the plague to disciplinary projects. The plague stricken town is the utopia of the perfectly governed city and ideal exercise of disciplinary power: traversed with hierarchy, surveillance, observation and writing.
In the 19thC the projects of exclusion and discipline begin to come together in the form of the psychiatric system, the penitentiary, the reformatory, the approved school and the hospital.
Description of Bentham’s Panopticon: at it’s periphery an annular building, at the centre a tower pierced with wide windows that open into the inner side of the ring. The peripheric building is divided into cells, each of which extend the whole width of the building. Each has two windows – one inside corresponding with the windows of the tower, the other, outside allowing light to cross from one end of the cell to the other. A supervisor is placed in the central tower. Each cell has place for a madman, patient, condemned man, worker or schoolboy. The principles of the dungeon, to enclose, deprive of light, are reversed with only enclosure being preserved.
“Full lighting and the eye of the supervisor capture better than darkness, which ultimately protected. Visibility is a trap.”
The negative effect of the “compact swarming masses” found in places of confinement as depicted by Goya are also avoided.
The lack of contact between confined individuals who are constantly seen by the supervisor, prevents disruption as invisibility is a guarantee of order. The crowd/collective effort is abolished and replaced by a collection of separated individualities. From the guardians point of view it is replaced by a multiplicity that can be numbered and supervised. From the inmates point of view a separated and observed solitude:
“Hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that ensures the automatic functioning of power.”
The surveillance is permanent in its effects even if it is discontinuous in its action: the inmates are caught in a power situation of which they are the bearers themselves. Bentham laid down the principle that “power should be visible and unverifiable.” In the peripheric ring of the Panopticon, “one is totally seen without ever seeing.” In the central tower “one sees everything without ever being seen.”
Any random individual can exercise power by being the observer in the tower – even the director’s servants. It does not matter what motivates the observer, in fact, the more anonymous and temporary the greater the risk of the prisoner being surprised and anxiously aware of being observed.
No restraints are required: “he who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power.”
The Panopticon makes it possible to observe inmates and draw comparison and differences: it can be used as a laboratory to carry out experiments. For example – to correct individuals, monitor the effect of medicines, monitor the effectiveness of varying punishments, teach different techniques to workers, bring up children under different systems of thought.
“The Panopticon is a privileged place for experiments on men, and for analysing with complete certainty the transformations that may be obtained from them.”
The Panopticon is a generalised model of functioning and way of defining power relations in the everyday life of men as opposed to “ruined prisons littered with the mechanisms of torture.” In each application it is the perfect exercise of power: it can reduce the number who exercise it, while increasing the number of those on whom it is exercised.
Many video artists today use themselves as their subject (e.g. Lindsay Seers). Think about this in relation to panopticism.
Lindsay Seers presents a curated version of her life as her artwork using aspects of her biography (which may or may not be true) as her inspiration. Some of her works are presented as identifiable artworks while other aspects are less easy to define and categorise presented in the documentary mode or as interviews with her mother and psychologists which could either back her biography or be part of a fabrication. For example, Seers’ says that she was mute and had an eidetic (photographic) memory until the age of 8. This disappeared and she uttered her first words when she recognised her reflection in the mirror for the first time, however, the experience had such an effect as to drive her to ‘become’ a camera in an attempt to recapture the immediacy of experience she felt during these early years. Her early works involve turning herself into a ‘human camera’ – by putting photographic paper in her mouth and using the opening and shutting of her jaw as the camera shutter to make exposures. This results in images framed by her teeth, stained with saliva and tinged with the blood from her cheeks.
Seers’ work is an example of what Mike Brennan terms ‘neo-narration’: the practice of artists using a variety of narrative devices to produce art. The narrative that Lindsay Seers presents could be read as an extended performance piece, it is impossible to tell which (if any) of the aspects of her personal biography that she presents as both the subject matter and inspiration is real. This is almost a curation of her life – as viewers we are left with the choice of taking everything presented as the truth, in which case Seers is being almost confessional in what she is showing us, or, questioning how much truth there is in what we see. Either way, the effect is to distance us from the reality or at least puts Seers in control of her own narrative. The total scrutiny someone in the public eye is put under could be likened to the inmates experience in the Panopticon – Seers both takes control and subverts this by putting herself in our apparent full gaze. In a way the wish of many people to curate their lives through social media and present a particular image of themselves could be seen as a less sophisticated example of Seers work – this sort of presentation only shows a particular side of ourselves that we want to project to the world at large.
Find six images in any medium: two that are the result of looking, two of observing and two of surveillance and explain your choices.
Before attempting this part of the project I felt it important to consider and define looking, observation and surveillance. For each of the headings I have chosen photography as examples because of the way a photograph gives the illusion that it is a representation of the real world.
Looking:
Looking is the most seemingly benign of the three ways off seeing we are asked to consider – we look all of the time, it is a normal and natural part of our day to day lives, it is one of our key senses that allow us to negotiate the world around us. Except, we do not look in a neutral way – our mind is constantly making judgements about what we see. Our understanding of ourselves is fundamentally based upon the looking at the world around us, we also gain awareness about ourselves by recognising (or even disregarding) visual clues of others who are looking at us. The act of looking can have a sinister edge – when does looking stop and voyeurism begin?
Judith Joy Ross: Untitled, 1988 (from the series Easton Portraits)
This portrait appears at first benign but on closer inspection presents a problematic view of adolescence and emerging sexuality. Three girls wearing swimsuits stand together for what appears to be holiday snapshot. The closer we look however, the more we can read from the image and the more ambiguous it becomes. The first two girls appear to be twins, although there are subtle differences in body shape which could potentially suggest they are sisters rather than twins. They stand conventionally looking straight toward the camera, and therefore the viewer of the photograph, their smiles are not exactly forced but have the appearance of not being natural – we can imagine them being asked to ‘say cheese’ by the photographer, their hands are crossed at their waist, hands tightly held together suggesting a subconscious lack of confidence in their body image or a need to cover their modesty as much as possible. Another girl stands next to the twins – she appears to be a similar age and does not share the family resemblance of the other two girls. Her pose is quite different from the sisters – she appears relaxed with arms by her side, hips slightly tilted in a way that could be read as provocative. Her smile is natural and she has an air of assured confidence. Unlike the other two girls she is looking to the side rather than straight at the camera. This leads us to consider who she is looking at and question why she has chosen not to perform for the camera, who is it that she is the recipient of her gaze and why does she choose not to look at us? Behind the three girls a male figure, out of focus, shirt off, can just be made out in the background. He is posed in such a way that it is obvious he is viewing the girls. To be looking at them in such a way from behind, so they are unaware of him, appears potentially disturbing – we wonder about his motives. This also has the effect of provoking discomfort in the viewer: are we any better than this man – looking on young girls uninvited and unwanted way? If this is a family snapshot what right do we have to be studying the picture? What right do we have to be making such judgements about the young girls in the picture and what does that say about us?
Garry Winogrand: New York, 1969
Street photography, a genre that Garry Winogrand is perhaps the most famous exponent, relies on catching fleeting, often candid, moments. In this picture, taken at a tilted angle that only adds a sense of immediate spontaneity, you feel the protagonists putting the photographer (and the viewer) under scrutiny. A young couple kiss in a doorway at the side of the frame, the man has his back to the camera and does not witness the picture being taken. The girl however sees exactly what is happening, her eyes open and pointed directly toward the camera lens. Another girl stands in the centre of the frame also looking straight toward us. Her expression is challenging, and yet we are left to wonder about the relationship between her and the kissing couple. Is she a friend playing gooseberry to the courting of her more attractive companion? Is she simply a passer by? The suggestion is that it is okay for her to be witnessing the passionate scene but not the photographer, and maybe she is right – her gaze is certainly so powerful that most people would not have dared to press the shutter. Winogrand however is unafraid and seems to recognise the power that this double returned gaze creates in the viewer.
Observation:
Observation has connotations of objectivity and looking with purpose, of gaining empirical knowledge. For example, a physician would be said to observe their patients in order to arrive understand their symptoms and arrive at a diagnosis or cure. It suggests a planned activity with a tangible outcome.
Martin Parr: Pisa, Italy (from the series Small World 1987-1994)
Martin Parr has made his photographic career through observing. His images often show the world in a different light – not necessarily in a quirky way but more accurately he demonstrates a view of the world that is not usually presented. His Small World series from which this image is taken explores themes of global tourism, particularly our need to document our travels photographically. This image shows tourists in Pisa in front of the famous leaning tower recreating the same pose of seemingly holding the tower up. Of course, this optical illusion is only visible from the angle of their particular photographer. Parr shows the wide view of a number of tourists recreating the same pose which wittily and directly shows the absurdity of the situation combined with the need for the majority of visitors to do the same thing – as if some sort of ritual.
George Georgiou: Last Stop
For his photographic series Last Stop, George Georgiou wanted to explore the diversity and vibrancy of London. To do this he chose to take pictures from the seat of a bus as it travelled around. His viewpoint therefore was always confined to both the route of the bus and what was in front of him at any given time. All street photography relies heavily on chance, and clearly Georgiou always had the choice of when to press the shutter and which direction to point his camera, however, the constraints of the project make this for me an exercise in observation. In this image multiple readings could be taken from the people in the scene varying from the dramatic beginnings of an argument or disagreement to simply a conversation between friends. The three people in the centre of the image could be friends enjoying an afternoon drink – the man standing could be a waiter explaining what the establishment has to offer. Or this could be someone who has seen the couple in the bar and has come in to confront them about something. The hand on the man’s head could either be the most comfortable way for him to sit or an involuntary reaction to what he is being told. The woman in the background could be with the man standing and arriving either to back him up or try to pull him away or she could simply be an unrelated customer. The waiter in the foreground could be reacting to what is being said behind him or simply in the process of turning to face the other way.
The fact that because of reflections and the behaviour of the light in the picture it is obvious we are looking through glass adds another dimension to the image for me and is what makes it observation. This has connotations of animals a the zoo, we are observing the people in this image as they behave in a completely natural way unaware of being watched which would have caused alterations in behaviour as we have seen in the previous images above.
Surveillance:
In some ways surveillance is the simplest of the three terms to define as it refers to attentive observation to gather information. This can either be overt, like CCTV cameras that behave in a similar way to the Panopticon by making us seen without us having the ability to see who is watching us. And covert, for example undercover surveillance – images taken without our knowledge or consent. Often surveillance is an instrument of power used to assert control.
Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin: Yekaterina Samutsevich of Pussy Riot, 2013 (from the series Spirit is a Bone)
It seems that we have somehow come to accept being under constant surveillance by CCTV cameras as the norm. Indeed, many now welcome the feeling of safety that these imply. With their ‘Spirit is a Bone’ project, Broomberg and Chanarin explore one of the ways surveillance may evolve. They experiment with a Russian made face recognition system that scans individuals faces as they move through public spaces using multiple cameras from multiple angles – a 3D model of an individuals face is produced that can be stored for reference and potentially used in a similar way to finger prints in the future.
The image here, which has an eerie, death mask type quality, is of a member of the band Pussy Riot who have been vocally critical of the current Russian political system and President Putin. The power here is not in the image itself which is unspectacular, but the possibilities of what the technology could mean. The applications in an oppressive regime like that in Russia (and of course the memory of the way photographs were used and altered during the Soviet era also resonate) is truly frightening. Perhaps the application in the so-called ‘free world’ is just as terrifying, perhaps more so, as the sort of surveillance here relies on complicity rather than repression.
Merry Alpern: Dirty Windows #23
Merry Alpern’s series ‘Dirty Windows’ are voyeuristic images taken from her friends loft apartment of a gentlemen’s club on the other side of the airshaft between the buildings. Alpern would wait with her camera and tripod for any activity to present itself at the two visible windows 15 feet and one flight down from her friends flat. Sights recorded range from people going to the toilet to drug taking and sex. Alpern describes herself as an anthropologist fascinated by the different ways the same activity played out (for example, how each man after urinating shakes his penis a little differently, but none seem to wash their hands. Angier, 2006:61)
The images, as can be seen in the picture here, in this series have an overt voyeurism – like a Peeping Tom except the photographer is female. Does that make the images any less lascivious I wonder? Stylistically the grainy, high contrast shots give a raw look that is in keeping with the seedy nature of the subject matter and puts the viewer in to the mind space of the voyeur. I wonder if Alpern would have been so compelled to make these images if the view was less sensational, and if so would they have gained any recognition or notice?
Thoughts…
I have found this project to be fascinating, particular the final question of what constitutes looking, observation and surveillance. Even looking back at the images I have chosen now I can see a great deal of crossover between the headings and I am not sure whether I have encapsulated fully this question – or indeed whether this is even possible.
The power of images is the major theme of UVC and indeed visual culture as a subject in itself. The more I think about it the more nuanced and far reaching this subject is however, the power of images is not simply abut top down systems of control but also about a complex series of interlocking and overlapping themes and concerns. Power is both present within a societies dominant ideology and also with citizens. Control is not about oppression in late capitalist societies but about making us all complicit in the overarching systems. If we take Foucault’s notion of panopticism and apply it as a metaphor for conformity to social norms, we realise how we co-opt ourselves into a world where surveillance is the norm and willingly give away our freedoms and rights – after all, the only people who have anything to worry are those who have something to hide.
Bibliography:
Andreasson, K. (2014) Broomberg and Chanarin’s best photograph: Pussy riot in 3D. The Guardian, 6th February 2014. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/feb/06/broomberg-chanarin-best-photograph-pussy-riot [Accessed on 19 September 2016]
Angier, R. (2006) Train your gaze: (a practical and theoretical introduction to portrait photography). Lausanne: AVA Academia
Borromeo, L. (2010) Tate makes surveillance an art form. The Guardian, 28th May 2010, Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/libertycentral/2010/may/28/tate-modern-surveillance-art [Accessed on 14 September 2016]
Brown, M. (2010) Tate modern in display of voyeurism for photography curator’s debut. The Guardian, 26th May 2010 Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/may/26/tate-modern-voyeurism-exhibition-photography [Accessed on 14 September 2016]
Buchanan, I (2010) Oxford Dictionary of Critical Theory. New York: Oxford University Press inc.
Clarke, G. (1997) The photograph: A visual and cultural history. New York: Oxford University Press.
Evans, J. and Hall, S. (eds.) (1999) Visual Culture: The Reader. London: Sage
Howells, R. Negreiros, J. (2011) Visual Culture 2nd Ed, Cambridge: Polity Press
Jasbar, A. and Augschöll, D. (N.D.) Interview with Judith Joy Ross. Available at: http://www.ahornmagazine.com/issue_8/interview_ross/interview_ross.html [Accessed on 19 September 2016]
Macey, D. (2000) The Penguin Dictionary of Critical Theory London: Penguin books
Morrison, B. (2010) Exposed: Voyeurism, surveillance and the camera. The Guardian, 22nd May 2010. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2010/may/22/exposed-voyuerism-exhibition-blake-morrison?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other [Accessed on 14 September 2016]
Pooke, G. and Newall, D. (2008) The Basics: Art History. Oxford: Routledge.
Sturken, M. and Cartwright, L. (2009) Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Tate.org.uk. (2016) Exposed: Voyeurism, surveillance and the camera Available at: http://www.marthagarzon.com/contemporary_art/2010/03/exposed-voyeurism-surveillance-and-the-camera/ [Accessed on 20 September 2016]
Wombell, P. (2015) Data Iconoclast in British Journal of Photography, December 2015. London: Aptitude media
Read the article by Jacques Lacan entitled The Mirror-Phase as Formative of the Function of the I on pps 620 – 624 of Art in Theory 1900 – 2000 making notes.
Notes on the Mirror-Phase
Lacan’s notion of the Mirror-Phase (or stage) is derived from Freud’s theories of narcissism and studies of child psychology and development. It refers to the period in which the ego is formed in childhood.
Lacan reworked Freud’s developmental model the basis for this being their agreement that infants have no sense of self or identity between themselves and their mother – that is, between Self and Other. Like Freud, he proposed three stages of development from child to adult:
Freud – oral, anal, phallic.
Lacan – Real, Imaginary, Symbolic.
During the Real stage all of the babies needs are satisfied, there is no absence, loss or lack. Between 6-18 months the baby begins to distinguish between the body and everything else in the world. The idea of the ‘Other’ results from the realisation that it is separate from the mother. This creates anxiety and loss – the baby shifts from having needs to having demands which cannot be satisfied with objects. The baby has the mistaken sense of itself as a whole person when recognising their image in a mirror. This creates the ego and sense of self – the mirror stage is also the realm of the Imaginary. Our sense of Self is built by misidentifying with the mirror image – a perfect self with no insufficiency or ego ideal. Following the mirror stage when the baby has formulated a sense of otherness, they enter the Symbolic which is the realm of culture and language. As humans become speaking subjects they designate themselves by the ‘I’ that was discovered in the Imaginary. They must obey the laws and rules of language which Lacan terms the ‘law-of-the-father.’ A notion which links to Freud’s theories of Oedipus, Electra and castration complexes. (D’Alleva, 2012: 96-7)
The mirror-phase was also based on studies carried out by Henri Wallon in the 1930s which compared the reaction of young children on seeing their reflection with that of chimpanzees. The humans were fascinated while the chimpanzees were uninterested which led Wallon to conclude that the babies had recognized the image in the mirror as their actual selves. (Buchanan, 2010: 322)
Lacan proposed that between the ages of 6-18 months, by looking at their own mirror image, babies began to build their ego and become self aware. However, the infant mistakenly sees itself as independent and apart from others in the world despite lacking motor coordination and skills: they see both the ideal ‘I’ and ideal ego, they recognise their image as both ‘me’ and not ‘me’, both themselves and different – a split in recognition that forms both the basis of alienation and at the same time pushes them to grow. The mirror-phase offers both self-recognition coupled with misrecognition and self fragmentation – it is not about the mirror as a reflection of the self but about the mirror as the constitutional element in the construction of the self. (Sturken and Cartwright (2009: 101, 212, 449)
For Chandler the mirror-phase is the defining moment of the Imaginary – the private, psychic realm where the construction of the self is initiated by visual images reflected back by an other with whom we identify. We see our mirror image and this induces a strong, defined illusion of a coherent and self governing personal identity. This also marks the child’s emergence from a matriarchal state of nature to a patriarchal order of culture. (Chandler, 2008: 93)
Eagleton states that we both recognise and identify with our mirror reflection (it is part of ourselves) and also find it alien (not ourselves.) Therefore, the image the child sees in the mirror is an alienated one – a misrecognition that is a pleasing unity not experienced in their own body. Lacan sees the Imaginary as a realm of images where we make identifications but also misconceive and misrecognise ourselves through this very act. As a child grows they continue to make such imaginary identifications continuing to build their ego which Lacan sees as the narcissistic process whereby we bolster a fictive sense of selfhood by finding something in he world with which we can identify. (Eagleton, 1996: 142-3)
Lacan was associated with the Surrealist movement. Find two examples of Surrealist work that might have echoes of the mirror phase and annotate them to show how.
My selections here are from painters associated with surrealism who have both produced work that literally features a mirror and appear to draw inspiration from the notion of the mirror-phase.
Paul Delvaux: ‘The Mirror’ (1939)
A woman sits in a room facing a mirror, however, her apparent reflection does not represent the scene in front of the mirror – it shows a naked with an outdoor scene behind her. The woman in the foreground with her back to us seems to be of wealthy means – she is wearing an expensive looking gown, her seat is ornate and padded which echoes the ornate gilt frame of the mirror she is facing. Strangely, the wall paper in the room in which she is seated is peeling and the ceiling seems in a state of disrepair, the floor is also bare floorboards. We assume the figure in the mirror is a reflection of the seated woman because her pose is the same, however, her nakedness indicates this is an imagined view we are witnessing. A small section of the room, the bare floorboards and peeling wall paper can be seen in the mirror and behind this is an outdoor scene showing a row of trees, one tree standing alone and to the side, and buildings in the background. This again appears to be imagined because the scene covers what appears to be the back wall of the room.
One reading of this scene could be that the reflected image is the woman’s idealised or unconscious view of herself. If we do not take the poor condition of the room’s interior as literal this could represent her inner feelings towards the apparent trappings of her status in society – the dress she wears could also be a symbol of this so being naked could be either the freedom she longs for or the uninhibited way she views herself outside of the trappings of her life. Conversely, the decay of the room could represent the woman’s real life or mental state with the idealised reflection being her own incorrect perceptions. The lone tree in the background seems to be significant and could back up the notion of freedom or difference as it appears to be the same as the others in the row and yet stands apart. This could represent the woman – on the surface the same as anyone else, and yet underneath different and separate. The lack of clothing could merely be a metaphor for the masks of conformity that we use to comply with societal convention.
René Magritte: ‘Dangerous Liaisons’ (1936)
A woman is shown holding a large mirror over her torso – she appears to be naked. She is standing straight on, the mirror covers from the top of her legs to her head which is tilted down and to the side, her eyes are closed. The reflection in the mirror appears to be of the same woman because the style and colour of her hair and skin tone matches. Clearly this cannot be the case however, a fact that is driven home by the body in the reflection standing at a different angle and being a different perspective. The figure in the mirror is standing to the side with buttocks facing the viewer, one breast is visible with the arms held underneath across the chest.
One reading of this image is that the woman is using the mirror to protect her modesty, which could be backed up by the coy cocking of her head to one side. What we see in the reflection is our projection of what we imagine beneath, a fantasy extended by the more provocative posing. The closed eyes could also suggest that we are witnessing the imagined self perception of the woman represented as a dream state. This could either be a projection of her inner feelings of sensuality, an idealised image of herself, regret at feeling repressed (backed up by covering herself with the mirror) or, her response to objectification. Potentially however, the reflection is not a manifestation of the woman holding the mirror’s subconscious at all, but, the reflected imaginings of the (male?) viewer. The reflection could be the fulfilment of the viewers wish that the woman holding the mirror would be less repressed and more sexually confident or the projection of masculine fantasies of female sexualisation – the reflection of the woman is provocative (brazenly so?) despite evidence that the woman holding the mirror (reality?) is not like this.
It is interesting that both artists here have chosen to represent female nudity in their paintings – as men do they have the right to explore notions of the female sexual subconscious? It is true that the female nude is an established artistic convention but to extend this objectification to female inner thoughts seems to be somewhat presumptuous.
Find two examples of the way the contemporary media make use of Lacan’s ideas and show how.
Willamson (1995) makes some interesting observations about Lacan’s notion if the mirror-phase and how this relates to advertising. She states that advertisements alienate our identity in constituting us as one of the objects in an exchange that we ourselves must make, thereby appropriating form us an image which gives us back our own ‘value’. Advertisements dangle before us an image of an Other; but invite us to be the Same. This capitalizes on our regressive tendency toward the Ego-ideal.
I have chosen two advertisements which deal with body image in very different ways:
This advertisement for Protein World weight loss powder caused controversy because of its depiction of what critics saw as an unrealistic and potentially damaging projection of unrealistic body image. The advert invites the viewer to identify recognise the representation of the ideal physique, slim and toned, as something attainable through the use of the advertised weight loss product. The further connotation is that this type of physique is the only body type that is acceptable for wearing beach wear, anything else being inferior. What we recognise is a reflection of our imperfections rather than the ideal which is represented – the aim being that we use the advertised product as a way of achieving this. Although complaints to the UK advertising watchdog deemed that the advert did not violate advertising guidelines it was met with much criticism in both the press and more directly by members of the public with billboards being vandalised on the London underground and in New York.
This still from an advert to promote awareness of eating disorders (available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJuAGbsPu4w) is a powerful take on how the self can be distorted in a negative way. The ad depicts a teenage girl in her underwear looking at herself in the mirror. She is of typical body shape and by no means overweight yet focusses on what she her believes to be imperfections, at one point pulling at her side which is more like skin than fat. At the end of the advert, the camera pulls back and shows a painfully thin girl from the back. We are confronted with the fact that the images we have been viewing are the girl’s perception of herself rather than reality – the final shot shown here of the thin and normal girl together powerfully demonstrates how our view of self can be perverted into a negative and destructive one rather than ideal.
Thoughts…
I have made a conscious effort here to gain the information I need for the project rather than getting obsessed with too much detail. For example, looking at the mirror-phase could easily open up into something much broader…self, other, ego, id, superego, the gaze etc. etc. Some of this I note are topics to be studied in further exercises.
I started doing quite a bit of reading about surrealism before also stopping myself and trying the approach of looking at works and making selections based on what seemed to fit the topic of the mirror-phase. This proved more difficult than I thought as the general art history books I own did not really have what I wanted and a google image search resulted in a great deal of results – many of which where not relevant. I always look at present and past student blogs when working on a project, and on this occasion found the images I eventually chose via former UVC student Keith Greenough: https://keithguvc.wordpress.com/2012/09/27/project-the-mirror-phase/ I did have a number of other images that I considered including but kept coming back to these as they seemed to encapsulate what I understood by the mirror-phase. I have asked for some support from art history students via the OCA student forum with recommendations of websites and books they use for general art history research. The advise gained here will hopefully help with subsequent projects.
Bibliography:
Buchanan, I (2010) Oxford Dictionary of Critical Theory. New York: Oxford University Press inc.
Chandler, D. (2008) The Basics: Semiotics. Oxford: Routledge.
D’Alleva, A (2012) Methods and Theories of Art History (2nd Ed.) London: Laurence King Publishing
Eagleton, T. (1996) Literary theory: An introduction. (2nd ed.) Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers
Evans, J. and Hall, S. (eds.) (1999) Visual Culture: The Reader. London: Sage
Foster, H. et al. (2012) Art since 1900: Modernism * Antimodernism * Postmodernism. (2nd ed.) London: Thames & Hudson.
Lacan, J. ‘The mirror-phase as formative of the function of the I’ pps. 620-624 Harrison, C. and Wood, P. (eds.) (2002) Art in Theory 1900–2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas. Oxford: Blackwell.
Macey, D. (2000) The Penguin Dictionary of Critical Theory London: Penguin books
Minsky, R. (1995) Psychoanalysis and gender: An introductory reader. New York: Taylor & Francis.
Murray, C. (ed.) (2002) Key writers on art: The twentieth century. New York: Taylor & Francis
Pooke, G. and Newall, D. (2008) The Basics: Art History. Oxford: Routledge.
De Botton, A. (2016) PSYCHOTHERAPY – Jacques Lacan. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OnhOXq7m4w&list=PLwxNMb28XmpcpxBm1RoGRx4mVKNRIrKkG&index=7 [Accessed on 6 September 2016]
Sturken, M. and Cartwright, L. (2009) Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Sweney, M. (2016) ‘Protein world’s “beach body ready” ads do not objectify women, says watchdog’ In: The Guardian Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jul/01/protein-world-beach-body-ready-ads-asa [Accessed on 10 September 2016]
Williamson, J. (1995) Decoding Advertisements: Ideology and Meaning in Advertising. London: Marion Boyars.
Zizek, S. (2006) How to Read Lacan. London: Granta.
Read, and make notes on, the essay by Freud The Dissolution of the Oedipal Complex.
Buchanan (2010) argues that the Oedipus complex is the central organizing myth of psychoanalysis. In ‘The Interpretation of Dreams’ (1913), Freud, discussed how his clinical experience led to the conclusion that experience as a child had a major determination on the adult lives of his more neurotic patients.
Freud’s idea of the Oedipus complex originated from his self analysis of his own dreams – his jealousy of his father and affection for his mother reminded him of the Sophocles play ‘Oedipus Rex’. In the play, Oedipus, not knowing the identity of either, kills his father and marries his mother. On finding out the truth he blinds himself. Freud concluded that the themes of ‘Oedipus Rex’ continued to resonate after 2500 years because of their universality and that it also encapsulated childhood development:
“Psychoanalysis holds that all children develop a love attachment to the parent of the opposite sex, thus, the little boy loves his mother and wants to usurp his father.” (Buchanan, 2010: 351)
Macey (2000) agrees that the Oedipus complex is a cornerstone of psychoanalysis and a way of describing the child’s sexual attraction to the parent of the opposite sex and jealousy of the parent of the same sex. It assumes a primal state where only maleness exists – a girl does not have a penis due to castration, which is symbolised by the blinding of Oedipus, a girl may believe she has been castrated by a jealous mother who resents her sexual feelings toward her father. Conversely, a boy fears castration by a jealous father. For a boy, the dissolution of the Oedipus complex occurs when this truth is accepted and he begins to identify with his father. For a girl, the Oedipus complex begins to dissolve when her desire to regain the penis she has lost is replaced by the desire to have a baby.
Pooke and Newall (2008) state that a child enters the Oedipal phase at around 5/6 years old when the child’s relationship with their parents becomes the focus of their sexual development. Boys recognise their sexual anatomy matches their fathers, but their mother does not have a penis. This results in anxiety that desire for the mother will result in castration by the father as well as triggering the urge to kill the father who they now see as a rival and a threat. On noticing genital difference, girls perceive they have already been castrated which leads to the acceptance of passive sexual role.
Freud recognises that the two natures of masculine and feminine are present within each individual, proposing that everyone is inherently bisexual. Failure to fulfil the early stages of sexual development lead to the emergence of neuroses: this can be inhibited behaviour patterns or regression to an earlier stage of sexual development with aspects of sexual identity incompletely developed, for example, fetishism or narcissism.
Minsky (1995) adds that castration anxiety is compounded by parental threats to remove the penis in relation to the young child’s masturbation.
Freud defended reactions against his ideas of the Oedipus complex as being proof of their validity: he believed the myth would not provoke such outbursts if it did not reveal an inner truth. (Buchanan, 2010: 351)
Look at Edvard Munch’s Ashes (1894) and make notes as to how Freud’s ideas help you to understand this image.
Edvard Munch: Ashes (1894)
In ‘Ashes’ (1894) Munch depicts two characters in a woodland setting. An apparently male figure is shown in the bottom left, his body hunched over, hand on top of his head. He is clearly in some form of distress or perhaps regret, his clothes and hair are almost entirely black which echoes his mood. Behind him, a female figure is standing upright, both hands on her head, her expression is difficult to read but it appears to suggest some sort of drama. Her appearance is dishevelled – her red hair is wild and flowing, her dress is unbuttoned revealing a red undergarment – a flash of colour in the otherwise sombre palette of the rest of the painting.
If we read the painting on a literal level, it would seem to depict a sexual encounter between the two characters. The drama and seeming regretful melancholy of the scene would suggest this has not been a happy occurrence – the liaison may have been illicit (a reference to Oedipus?) and what we are seeing is the aftermath of regret, or, the advances of the female character have been spurned by the man. The dynamic pose of the woman and use of red to signify passion seems to contrast starkly with the repressed pose of the man.
The atmosphere of the painting suggests either heightened reality or a dream state , perhaps the male character’s inner thoughts, dreams or memories. His placement in the bottom left seems significant as it separates him from the background which would align with this view. If we assume that the picture represents the symbolic rather than literal a number of conclusions can be reached: this is the memory of an illicit liaison, regret for being unable to consummate a sexual encounter, recognition of the male characters sexual repression which could also be read as confusion over sexuality. All of these readings would fit with Freudian concepts of unresolved sexual development in childhood leading to neuroses in the adult.
Once you know about Munch’s unremittingly bleak biography it is hard to separate this from his work. Yet, the title of the painting ‘Ashes’ would suggest the subject of the painting is death. “Illness, madness and death were the dark angels who watched over my cradle and accompanied me throughout my life” he wrote. (Hudson, 2012) Both his mother and elder sister died from tuberculosis, he said the image of his father praying for days on end after the death of his mother, kneeling in anguish, left him terrified at five years old. His younger sister was diagnosed with mental illness so it could be her hysteria that is being depicted here.
Munch’s failed relationship with Tulla Larsen, a beautiful, independently wealthy but also powerful and controlling woman, could also be an influence – the male character being Munch himself and the woman Tulla. Unable to commit to Tulla (Munch believed he was unfit to father children and that solitude fuelled his art) their on-off relationship eventually came to an end when she married one of Munch’s younger colleagues. Ironically, Munch felt betrayed by this and is said to have brooded for years about it. With this knowledge ‘Ashes’ can be read as a portrait of both Munch’s regret about not being able to fulfil Tulla’s passionate needs, his own sexual repression (as opposed to Tulla’s passion) and his fear of a strong female partner.
Castration anxiety may help to explain the images featuring a dominatrix or simply a large woman and a small man. Seaside postcards of the so-called humorous variety often feature this sort of image. Find two or three images of this or some other genre that might be explained in part at least by Freud and by annotation show how.
Richard Billingham: Ray’s a Laugh
Freud would have had a lot to say about Richard Billingham, his childhood and his family situation. He would have had even more to say about his ‘Ray’s a Laugh’ photographic series: snapshot images of his disfunctional family intended to be the basis for paintings for Billingham’s degree course. The pictures were never intended for publication but eventually became both a critical and commercial success. They show his highly unconventional home life: his father Ray, a chronic alcoholic, fuelled by the home brew a neighbour supplied, drinking then sleeping – unable to tell if it is day or night. His mother Liz: a large woman with arms covered in tattoos, obsessed with animals – her flat full of pets and assorted brightly coloured kitsch items, her own ‘psychological space’ that was ‘carnivalesque’ and decorative. (BBC)
In Billingham’s own words:
“I was living in this tower block; there was just me and him. He was an alcoholic, he would lie in the bed, drink, get to sleep, wake up, get to sleep, didn’t know if it was day or night. But it was difficult to get him to stay still for more than say 20 minutes at a time so I thought that if I could take photographs of him that would act as source material for these paintings and then I could make more detailed paintings later on. So that’s how I first started taking photographs.” (BBC)
And from the back of the book jacket of ‘Ray’s a Laugh’:
“This book is about my family. My father Raymond is a chronic alcoholic. He doesn’t like going outside and mostly drinks homebrew.
My mother Elizabeth hardly drinks but she does smoke a lot. She likes pets and things that are decorative. They married in 1970 and I was born soon after.
My younger brother Jason was taken into care when he was 11 but is now back with Ray and Liz again. Recently he became a father. Ray says Jason is unruly. Jason says Ray’s a laugh but doesn’t want to be like him.”
In the chosen picture, Liz is shown side on to the right of the frame, side on and facing Ray who is seated. Her fist is clenched and she is clearly unhappy at Ray, so much so that it appears the scene could burst into a physical attack. Stylistically, Liz is out of focus and overexposed due to the use of flash and being closer to the camera. This emphasises her angered state and the heightened nature of the scene. Ray is sitting low in the frame emphasising how small and weak he is in comparison to Liz. He is looking away apparently impassive, who knows what transgression has prompted the confrontation? Ray’s lack of response is pitiful and sums up his relationship to both Liz and life in general.
Charlotte Cotton, in her essay RAL, sees as ‘Ray’s a Laugh’ as a way Billingham has used creativity to reconcile himself with his chaotic and dysfunctional childhood. It seems to me that propositions such as this are presented by critics and commentators who cannot comprehend a family life that was merely a reality for Billingham. Despite the conflict presented in the picture here, there is also a theme of love and acceptance that runs throughout the series – my hunch is that this is how Billingham truly felt about his family.
Anders Petersen: Café Lehmitz (1967-1970)
This image by Anders Petersen is from a series of photographs of the regulars at a bar in Hamburg, Café Lehmitz, he frequented in the late 1960s. A man, shirt off and eyes closed, is held in an embrace by an older woman. His eyes are closed as his head rests on her neck, her mouth is wide open, laughing which strongly contrasts with his seeming serenity. We know nothing of the relationship between these two, although the woman appears older than the man. The pose suggests a mother/son rather than sexual relationship – it is possible that the woman is comforting the man somehow? Her wide open mouth gives the image a sinister edge however – this is not something the man would see having succumbed to her embrace. It is almost as if the look by the woman is some sort of celebration of finally getting the man into her clutches – where he sees a warm, motherly act of tenderness she has different motives and has used this as a way of drawing him in.
Thoughts…
My first encounter with Freud was with the second project in the course and I distinctly remember feeling shock at the language and subject matter of the essay. I also failed to see how a paper over a hundred years old was anything other than of historical interest – I certainly did not see how this was relevant to the study of visual culture. Approaching this project however, I felt much more comfortable tackling Freud and engaging with the notion of the Oedipus complex (despite the much more shocking connotations this has as opposed to fetishism.) Maybe all of this reading is starting to sink in?
Bibliography:
BBC (N.D.) Photography – genius of photography – gallery – Richard Billingham available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/photography/genius/gallery/billingham.shtml [Accessed on 6 September 2016]
Badger, G. (2001) The genius of photography: How photography has changed our lives. London: Quadrille Publishing.
Billingham, R. (2014) Ray’s a laugh. New York: Errata Editions.
Buchanan, I (2010) Oxford Dictionary of Critical Theory. New York: Oxford University Press inc.
Butler, J. (2006) Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York: Taylor & Francis.
Cotton, C. (2014) RAL. in Richard, B. (2014) Ray’s a laugh. New York: Errata Editions.
D’Alleva, A (2012) Methods and Theories of Art History (2nd Ed.) London: Laurence King Publishing
Evans, J. and Hall, S. (eds.) (1999) Visual Culture: The Reader. London: Sage
Foster, H. et al. (2012) Art since 1900: Modernism * Antimodernism * Postmodernism. (2nd ed.) London: Thames & Hudson.
Freud S. (1924) ‘The Dissolution of the Oedipus Complex’ pps. 313-322 Freud, S. (1991) On Sexuality: Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality and Other Works. London: Penguin.
Hudson, M. (2012) Edvard munch: Images from the depths of the soul In: The Telegraph (28th June 2012) available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-features/9320749/Edvard-Munch-Images-from-the-depths-of-the-soul.html [Accessed 29 August 2016]
Macey, D. (2000) The Penguin Dictionary of Critical Theory London: Penguin books
Minsky, R. (1995) Psychoanalysis and gender: An introductory reader. New York: Taylor & Francis.
Pooke, G. and Newall, D. (2008) The Basics: Art History. Oxford: Routledge.
Understanding Visual Culture 
