Health & safety

For the health and safety requirements for our psychoanalytical film, we considered a range of things, such as making sure the camera equipment was safely put away when we were not recording aspects of our film because all of our video was filmed out on location, so we had to be careful it didn’t get stolen. Due to a lot of our film being hand held, we ensured that the camera was fastened around the director’s neck at all times, to prevent it being dropped. We made sure that when we used the tripod, it was put together properly so that it stabilised the camera at all times. Subsequently, we also made sure that the tripod wasn’t obstructing pedestrians.

lacan film challenge

Applying Laura Mulvey

In this scene from the transformers the female protagonist is shown in an objectifying way. The camera lingers on the females body in close up shots to clearly focus upon her appearance and body shape. This automatically creates the male gaze as the camera moves down the females body like a male is looking at her.

Laura Mulvey

Laura Mulvey coined the term 'male gaze'  in 1975. She believes that in film audiences have to view characters from the perspective of a heterosexual male. For example, the camera lingers on the curves of a female body, and events which occur to women are presented largely in a context of the mans reaction to these events. This regulates women to the status of objects. The female viewer must experience the narrative secondarily, by identification with the male. 

The theory suggests that the male gaze denies some human identity and are only to be admired for physical appearance. However, the presence of a female in a mainstream film text is somewhat vital. Often a female character is not there to have any real importance herself it is how she makes the male protagonist within the text feel or act that is the importance. 

Mulvey states that the role of a female character in the narrative has two functions:

- As an erotic object for the characters within the narrative to view

- As an erotic object for the spectators within the cinema to view

Applying Lacan Theory

In the film Enemy the main male protagonist is portrayed as never being fulfilled. This is shown throughout particular scenes in the text. In some scenes the male protagonist is seen having sex but then after never looking happy, he is always looking like he has a desire which is never going to be filled or achieved. The lighting throughout the film also connotes this idea as the lighting is very low key and a very dull colour this shows his feelings throughout the scenes.

Jacques Lacan Theory

Jaques Lacan was a French psychoanalyst who reconceptualized Freud using post-structuralism.  Lacan rejected attempts to link psychoanalysis with social theory, saying 'the unconscious is the discourse of the Other' -- that human passion is structured by the desire of others and that we express deep feelings through the 'relay' of others. He thus saw desire as a social phenomenon and psychoanalysis as a theory of how the human subject is created through social interaction. Desire appears through a combination of language, culture and the spaces between people. Lacan focused largely on Freud's work on deep structures and infant sexuality, and how the human subject becomes an 'other' through unconscious repression and stemming from the Mirror phase. The conscious ego and unconscious desire are thus radically divided. Lacan considered this perpetual and unconscious fragmentation of the self as Freud's core discovery. Lacan thus sought to return psychoanalysis on the unconscious, using Ferdinand de Saussure's linguistics, structural anthropology and post-structural theories. Lacanian psychoanalysis is rather ruthless in its aggressive challenging that seeks to dismantle the imaginary sense of completeness (as in the Mirror phase) and to remove illusions of self-mastery through a mirror image. A strong ego is seen as defensive deceit and expressing it during analysis is seen as resistance to change. Fear of disintegration and lack drives the person to realize themselves in another imaginary individual. Lacan's theory was the mirror theory. He said when toddlers first see their selves in the mirror they see a perfect version of theirselves which they look up to and want to fulfil. This then carries on later in life with desires. Everyone has a desire and as soon as that desire is filled we want something else. we are never truly happy with ourselves.  Lacan created the idea of 'lack' and that it causes desires to arise. This is similar to Freud's approach of the ID acting on the hedonistic lifestyle whereas the superego acts on moral principles and what 'lack' relates to is the ego which is in-between.

Applying Freud's Theory

In this scene from Jaws the shark is the ID. The female protagonist is swimming in the water but the shark wants to eat her. This is intensified by non - diegetic sound adding an atmosphere to the scene as the camera is filming from the sharks perspective. The lighting is also low key as it is filmed underwater and at night time this also adds tension to the scene as it is unclear as to what is going to happen.