Author Archives: elena

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The only emotion that doesn’t deceive is anxiety

[kml_flashembed movie="http://vimeo.com/1458200" width="400" height="302" wmode="transparent" /]The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema

Slavoj Žižek presents his ideas or analyses of films of directors such as Hitchcock, Kieslowski, Tarkovsky, Chaplin, the Marx Brothers, Cappola and others in The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema. When I watched it I thought this would be a great supplementary material for this class because it offers a different perspective on a number of movies we have seen for this class. In this blog entry I will focus solely on the insights I found fascinating on Hitchcock as a director and his films, however, I would definitely recommend this Guide.
So before I begin I want to emphasize that Žižek uses psychoanalysis as his approach to this movies and some might think that he is seeing sexual themes or underlying motifs where there is not. While I will not argue for the Guide as a whole, I do want to highlight that Hitchcock created his films during the period when Freud and psychoanalysis was growing and given more focus in the U.S. Therefore, it is very likely that Hitchcock used these ideas in his films and intended for the viewer if not identify them, then at least subconsciously experience the effects.
In The Birds the son is split between his possessive mother and the intrusive girl. So the violent attacks of the birds of maternal superego, of the maternal figure trying to prevent sexual relations. The birds are raw incestuous energy. Žižek comments on the first attack that happens and explains that when a fantasy object, something imagined, an object from inner space enters our ordinary reality, the texture of reality is twisted, distorted and that is exactly how desire inscribes itself into reality – by distorting it. At the vocal level, anxiety is silence. For example, when the mother finds the dead neighbor, she runs out of the house with her mouth open, trying to scream but no sound is made. This action is much more effective in eliciting anxiety in the viewer as opposed to her running out, screaming at the top of her lungs. This feeling of the sound stuck in her, the implication of a sound but lack of it is unsettling.
In Psycho, events which take place in the mother’s house are at three levels as if they reproduce the three levels of human subjectivity. Ground floor is ego – Norman behaves there as a normal son; up is the superego, maternal superego because the dead mother is the figure of the superego; and down is the id – the reservoir of the illicit drives. We can see how very interconnected the id and the superego are when Norman carries his mother from the second floor to the basement. Žižek mentions a few things about the scene of Norman cleaning the bathroom after the murder: besides the length, the care and the meticulousness with which it is done and the spectator’s identification with it tells us about the satisfaction we find in work or in a job well done.
According to Žižek, the true tragedy of Vertigo is that it’s a story about two people who, each in his or her own way, get caught in their own game of appearances. For both of them, appearances win over reality. Žižek comments that “the first part, with Madeline suicide, is not as unsettling as it could have been because it’s really a terrifying clause but in this very loss, the ideal survives. The ideal of the fatal woman possesses you totally. What ultimately this fascinating image of the fatal woman stands for is death. The fascination of beauty is always the veil which covers up a nightmare. When you come to close, you see shit, decay… The ultimate abyss is not a physical abyss but the abyss of the death of another person.” In the second part of Vertigo, Scotty attempts to make his fantasy come true. “We have a perfect name for fantasy realized, it’s called nightmare.” This turn of fantasy into reality is always sustained by extreme violence. In order for Scotty to want her, to lover her, he has to mortify her, change her into a dead woman.

In conclusion, the overall sentiment that Hitchcock films evoke is that “it’s not that simply something horrible happens in reality, something worse can happen, which undermines the very fabric of what we experience as reality.”
I hope this brief glance at Slavoj Žižek’s ideas on Hitchcock films peaks your interest, I truly enjoyed watching The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sFqfbrsZbw" width="480" height="385" wmode="transparent" /]

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Halloween, different take

To begin with, I thought you might enjoy this video, which definitely gives a different perception of Halloween.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/Z96yrsPzqlM" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

I definitely experience fear and anxiety while watching Halloween. One of the most obvious techniques that the film uses to create suspense is the music, which builds up to a crescendo as the process of stalking and killing progresses. The camera movement is shaky, switching from Michael’s point of view to the victim’s, which creates a sense of disorientation, an unsettling feeling, and puts the audience in a moment-to-moment viewing position. The villain is hidden from the viewer, more often brought into awareness by the heavy breathing, which makes him appear more dangerous and evil.  Lastly, the ending does not give a resolution but leaves the viewer with a sense of imminent danger still present, which has a powerful effect. The film builds up tension continuously, pretends to conclude to a release of the anxiety (the numerous times Michael was perhaps dead), and quickly returns to a stressful state, and in the end leaves the audience with these feelings. Halloween makes numerous references to Hitchcock’s Psycho throughout the film: the stabbing with the knife, falling down the stairs, using theme music to alert the audience to approaching danger, as well as other stylistic techniques. I contemplate that perhaps most importantly both films share simplicity in eliciting fear: a near lack of gore, blood, and graphic violence. By showing less, the films give the audience more – a very emotionally disturbing experience.

Of course, one of the most prominent themes in Halloween is sexual promiscuity and the price of this “sin.” It all begins with Michael witnessing an illicit sex act, which some might argue is what turns him from an innocent boy to the monster he is. This particular loss of innocence is portrayed as the root of the evil in the film. The only girl who survives Michael’s killing spree is the only virgin, while the sexually experienced girls are killed. In addition, they are open about their sexuality, the murder follows the sexual act, the easiness with which this “sin” is lived out intensifies the theme of the film. It is only the women who are pursued for being sexually active; the one male who is killed dies because he was just there. The film clearly speaks to the society’s anxiety of the change in women’s attitudes and roles, however, it is only women who are judged for their sexual behavior. This difference in treatment has persisted over the years and is unlikely to change as long as we continue to place such high value on gender differences, which are not as great in quality or quantity as they are perceived to be.

Here is another different view of the film.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/J3oontXKRzo" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

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Night of the Living Dead and the implications for society

Night of the Living Dead is different from the film noir in many aspects and yet similarly it addresses societal issues, perhaps even more effectively. Firstly, the film does not have narration, follows a linear structure of events and employs characters that are ordinary people as opposed to glamorous ideals. In addition to these factors, in my opinion, the fact that the movie is in black-and-white gives it a documentary feel – that it is really happening. Previously, I disagreed with the position in chapter 2, Monaco that reality is shown in black-and-white and color adds a quality of make-believe, Night of the Living Dead is the first film so far where this is so and color makes it similar to other zombie movies, where it is clearly imagination at work. (for comparison I provide the trailer of the film in color)

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/GUtoCpeAyS0" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

The ending of the film is hopeless and depressing.  Although, the order is restored, it is done at the cost of violating a principle of social justice, and doesn’t leave the viewer optimistic. The relief of anxiety is within the grasp of the audience as the troops come to eliminate the living dead and rescue Ben, however the audience never feels it. As Phillips points out, the threat materialized into reality and “the end had begun.” After creating this feeling of dread in the viewer, the film finishes with pictures, which are reminiscent of the images of Vietnam War.

Night of the Living Dead does not leave much hope for humanity as it creates less differences and more resemblance between the living dead and the humans. As the humans fail to cooperate and communicate with each other, their end seems inevitable. While the characters are constantly listening to the news reports that turn out to be misleading.

The one aspect Night of the Living Dead has in common with film noir is that it reinforces strict gender roles: Barbara is catatonic and inactive, Judy is devoted to the male, which leads to her demise, and Helen is a middle-aged woman filled with dissatisfaction. All female characters display negative female stereotypes.

The film incorporates the issues of the period in which it was made and by using various techniques which remove the distance between the viewer and the film, thus impacting the audience in a closer and deeper way.

One psychology note on the film: research has shown that humans tend to cooperate and bond in a stressful situation when facing the same fate.