HUL846: Philosophy and 

Film

Term Paper

Cinema and the Order of the Real

Anshuman Fotedar2006MT50430

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Table of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS...................................................................................3

LACAN'S THEORY OF THE REAL......................................................................4

LACAN ON THE EGO AND THE ID – THE MIRROR STAGE.......................................5

HOW DO WE READ FILMS?..........................................................................6

LACAN ON ART..........................................................................................7

LANGUAGE, DREAMS AND CINEMA – THE FREUDIAN SLIP......................................7

THE ID MACHINE.......................................................................................8

“MONSTERS FROM THE ID!” - THE FORBIDDEN PLANET........................................9

THE BIRDS.............................................................................................10

SOLARIS.................................................................................................11

STALKER.................................................................................................12

VERTIGO................................................................................................13

SUMMARY...............................................................................................15

BIBLIOGRAPHY.........................................................................................16

FILMOGRAPHY..........................................................................................16

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Lacan's Theory of the Real

In his rereading of Freud, Lacan's beliefs shifted from the conception of “a real truth” to conceptions of a

complex and multilayered idea of truth, in which the linguistics representation prevailed over a reality

beyond language that is gone forever, lost to both speaker and listener. His application of de Saussere's

theory of signs (and possibly some of Derrida's ideas) to Freud's psychoanalytic theories resulted in the

notions of the Symbolic Order, the Imaginary Order, and the Real.

The Symbolic is the order of signs. The elements of the sign – the signifier and the signified – have no

“inherent meaning”. They are defined by virtue of their differences with other signifiers and signifieds. The

signified is a mere dictionary entry, since the Real cannot be expressed in language. Derrida replaces De

Saussere's signifier-signified relationship with a chain of signifiers, one signifying another. The 'meaning' is

always just out of reach.

The chain of signifiers, and thus language itself, is firmly fixed within the Symbolic and cannot venture

outside of it. Since signs themselves have no 'essential' meaning, they have no immediate relation with the

Real. All that is there is an imaginary agreement on the so-called 'meaning' of these signs.

Since the only methods of expression/communication available to us are inadequate at representing the

Real, and because they necessarily shape what we can say about, what we encounter in our daily lives and

through our senses is merely a 'reality' different from the Real. In fact, we never actually encounter this

Real. The closest we come to doing so is when we dream, which is why dreams can sometimes be very

traumatic.

So much are we reliant on our linguistic and social version of "reality" that the eruption of pure materiality

(of the Real) into our lives is radically disruptive. And yet, the real is the rock against which all of our

artificial linguistic and social structures necessarily fail. It is this tension between the real and our social

laws, meanings, conventions, desires, etc. that determines our psychosexual lives. Not even our

unconscious escapes the effects of language, which is why Lacan argues that "the unconscious is structured

like a language" [8].

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Lacan on the Ego and the Id – The Mirror Stage

In its initial manifestation, the Imaginary stands for the period in infancy of a child's life when it first

glances at its reflection in the mirror and sees itself as a unified being. This period, which Lacan terms the

mirror phase, marks the first stage of the child's acquiring an identity separate from the mother and marks

the child's first understanding of space, distance and position.

This moment heralds the formation of the Ego in the child where there previously was none. The infant's

look in the mirror is a misrecognition because the infant sees its fragmentary body as a whole and

identifies itself with this illusory unity. In the process, the infant assumes a mastery over the body that it

does not have. Thus the formation of the Ego is based on a self-deception. After this stage, the Imaginary

and the Symbolic are always co-present. The Ego subsequently submits to language, and thus to 'reality'.

The oft-repressed Id remains our only point of contact with the Real.

Lacan used the term suture to signify the relationship between the conscious and the unconscious , which

he also perceived as an uneasy coexistence of the Imaginary and the Symbolic.

Christian Metz took the idea of the mirror stage as the point of departure for his theory of the spectator's

response to film. According to him, the film screen serves as a mirror through which the spectator can

identify himself or herself as a coherent and omnipotent ego. The sense of power that spectatorship

provides derives from the spectator's primary identification with the camera itself. Though the spectator is

in actual fact a passive viewer of the action on the screen, identification with the camera provides the

spectator with an illusion of unmitigated power over the screen images. Within the filmic discourse, the

camera knows no limit: it goes everywhere, sees everyone, exposes everything.

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How Do We Read Films?

The above question is and has been at the heart of Film Studies, in connection with a related question:

Does the diegetic reality of the film mimetically represent reality, or does it have the status of a symbolic,

differential structure?

[t]o what extent does film communicate by reproducing an imprint, in Bazin's term, of reality and of natural

expressivity of the world ...? Or, to what extent does it mediate and deform (or transform) reality and natural

expressivity by displacing it into a more or less arbitrary and non- analoguous system and thence

reconstituting it, not only imaginatively, but in some sense symbolically? [7]

Both problems collide in the question if a movie as such is something that necessarily should be about

something, or if the stance "against interpretation" is in fact the more appropriate attitude in particular

towards post-modern cultural productions. David Lynch expresses his opinion on unequivocal reading of a

filmic text thus (when asked for the 'hidden meaning' of Lost Highway) : "the beauty of a film that is more

abstract is everybody has a different take. ... When you are spoon-fed a film, people instantly know what it

is ... I love things that leave room to dream …". Being particularly vague with respect to the question of

'meaning', Lynch goes on to say " It doesn't do any good ... to say 'This is what it means.' Film is what it

means" (8).

To rephrase the initial question slightly: What is the position of the spectator with respect to a film?

Christian Metz, in his study of cinema as The Imaginary Signifier (9), has tackled the problem from within

a Lacanian framework.

"the unique position of the cinema lies in this dual character of its signifier: unaccustomed perceptual wealth, but at the

same time stamped with unreality to an unusual degree ... it drums up all perception, but to switch it immediately over into

its own absence..."

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Lacan on Art

Culture is forever cut off from immediate contact with Nature. Language and other forms of expression can

only refer to the Real insofar as words or images can hint at it. In [5], he defines art itself with regard to the

inaccessible Thing that is the Real. He says that art is always organised around the void at the centre of the

Symbolic Order, and the impossibility of representing the Real.

Language, Dreams and Cinema – The Freudian Slip

It has been discussed that language is inadequate for the task. What of cinema? What of dreams? They are also forms of communication. Might it be that the 'failings' of language do not apply to them ?

Cinema and dreams continue to rely on signification. In essence, the disconnect between signs and the Real means that they are just as limited as linguistic forms.

In readings of Freud, there is often talk of repressed desires. But it would be erroneous to talk of desires that have been repressed – even subconsciously – as being elements of the Real. Because the Real is forever unknown and inexpressible, all one can ever notice with carefulness is the emptiness of the reality we live out.

Dreams are flights of our unconscious. According to Freud, since the information in the unconscious is in an unruly and often disturbing form, a "censor" in the preconscious will not allow it to pass unaltered into the conscious. Lacan would say that this unruly aspect of the unconscious is borne of its connect with the unknowable that cannot be expressed. During dreams, the preconscious is more lax in this duty than in waking hours, but is still attentive: as such, the unconscious must distort and warp the meaning of its information to make it through the censorship. As such, images in dreams are often not what they appear to be.

In Seminar XI Lacan defines the Real as "the impossible" because it is impossible to imagine, impossible to integrate into the Symbolic, and impossible to attain. It is this resistance to symbolization that lends the Real its traumatic quality. [4]

Cinema that takes it upon itself to point us to the void of the Symbolic must then work through means like hints, missteps, non sequiturs. The parallel in language is the slip of the tongue.

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The Id Machine

The Id machine is an object with the magic capacity of directly realising in front of us, our innermost dreams, desires, and feelings. There is a long tradition of this concept in science fiction.

The story of Stephen King's It revolves around an inter-dimensional predatory life-form that is simply referred to as "It", which has the ability to transform itself into its prey's worst fears. This allows It to exploit the fears and phobias of its victims while also disguising itself when hunting.

In the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling uses the British folklore term Boggart, that alludes to household spirits, to refer to a shape-shifter which, when placed before a person, instantly delves into their Id, picks up the worst fear that is latent and hidden deep inside their psyche, and acquires the shape of that very fear.

But these examples count little towards what we are looking for. While they involve id machines of a sort, they propose explanations for these phenomena that are grounded in reality. Such an explanation precludes the possibility of pointing to what cannot be depicted.

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“Monsters from the Id!” - The Forbidden Planet

Another manifestation of the Id machine in film is The Forbidden Planet (1956). A father and his daughter

(who has never met another man) living together on a planet otherwise devoid of intelligent life have their

peace disturbed by the arrival of a group of space-travelers. Strange attacks by an invisible monster soon

start to occur, and, at the film's end, it becomes clear that this monster is the result of the interaction of the

father's unconscious with an ancient machine built by the previous inhabitants of the planet to materialize

any object that they could imagine.

As a character realises, the natives had conceived this device to be a crowning feat in their development as

an advanced technological civilisation, but they had forgotten to take into account "monsters from the id!".

This machine in fact led to their destruction.

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The Birds

The big question about The Birds, of course, is the stupid, obvious one, Why do the birds attack? [v]

One may interpret the attacks of the birds as the jealousy of the mother - the standard Oedipal imbroglio of incestuous tension between mother and son, and the intrusion of the girl. But the monster, the phantasmatic apparition, should not, nay cannot, be explained in familiar terms. Not because it would be a great reduction or loss of meaning. The horror of the manifestations is in the fact that they hint at a Real that one cannot even begin to articulate.

“It is not enough to say that the birds are part of the natural set-up of reality. It is rather as if a foreign dimension intrudes that literally tears apart reality. We humans are not naturally born into reality. In order for us to act as normal people who

interact with other people who live in the space of social reality, many things should happen. Like, we should be properly installed within the symbolic order and so on. When this, our proper dwelling within a symbolic space, is disturbed, reality

disintegrates.” [v]

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Solaris

In Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris, the planet Solaris is

composed of the mysterious matter which seems to think, i.e. which in a way is the direct materialization of Thought itself…, the traumatic Real, the point at which symbolic distance collapses, the point at which there is no need for speech, for signs, since, in it, thought directly intervenes in the Real? This gigantic Brain, this Other-

Thing, involves a kind of psychotic short-circuit… directly materializing our innermost fantasies which support our desire. [1]

When Kelvin is confronted with the spectral clone of his deceased wife, although he appears to be deeply sympathetic, spiritual, reflecting and so on, his basic problem is how to get rid of her. Kelvin realises not so much his desire as his guilt feeling.

In Gibarian's case (in the book by Lem, not in the film) the id-machine generates, in 'reality' itself, his ultimate phantasmic partner that he would never be ready to accept in reality - the primordial maternal apparition of the gigantic Negress.

This brings us to Lacan's concept of human sexuality. In our fantasies, we conjure up images of a partner with qualities that we would want in a mate. And our psychosexual lives then revolve around this fantasy.

So why does the Matrix need our energy? I think the proper way to ask this question is to turn it around. Not why does the matrix need the energy, but why does the energy need the matrix? [v]

That is to say, why does our libido need the universe of fantasies? Why can’t we simply enjoy it directly, with simply a sexual partner and nothing else?

We need a virtual supplement because our libido needs an illusion in order to sustain itself. The physical act of intercourse then becomes a masturbatory act, albeit with a prop – the “partner” who fills in for the fantasy mate. However, as with other desires, the actual fulfilment of this fantasy would be traumatic. Actually being confronted by it in the world of senses would be too much for us to bear, as it was for Gibarian.

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Stalker

The idea that the fulfilment of desire can be traumatic is seen again in Stalker. In fact, the problem with the Room is that it does not fulfil what you think you wish, but the effective wish of which you may be unaware.

The horror of this situation is related in the anecdote that the Stalker relates to the Writer and the Scientist about another stalker who loses his brother in a mysterious tunnel in which people vanish, and breaks the stalker’s code by going himself into the room to pray for his brother’s life. He gets home, finds he has become a millionaire, and promptly hangs himself.

“Solaris is the Thing, the blind libido embodied, while the Zone is the void which sustains desire. … in the midst of the Zone, there is the "chamber of desires", the place in which, if the subject penetrates it, his desire-wish is fulfilled, while what

the Thing-Solaris returns to subjects who approach it is not their desire but the traumatic kernel of their fantasy...” [1]

The problem of Solaris is over-satisfaction: your wishes are materialized before you even think of them. In Stalker, the Chamber does fulfill desires, but only to those who believe with direct immediacy - which is why, when the three adventurers finally reach the threshold of the room, they are afraid to enter it, since they cannot be sure what desire is uppermost in their unconscious. So what ends up happening is that the Writer and the Scientist never enter the Chamber. For most people, there is reason to make the same choice in this situation.

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Vertigo

The protagonist of Vertigo is broken by the loss of his ideal woman Madeleine. When he discovers another who looks just like Madeleine (in fact she is the woman who acted out the fiction of Madeleine, but he does not know yet), he is consumed with the idea of recreating his fantasy. Madeleine was, after all, fantasy – a faked personality, the gaps of which Scottie filled in to create his ideal.

Saleswoman: I think I know the suit you mean. We had it some time ago. Let me go and see. We may still have that model.

Scotty: Thank you.

Judy: You’re looking for the suit that she wore, for me.Scotty: I know the kind of suit that would look well on you.Scotty: No, I won’t do it!Scotty: Judy.It can’t make that much difference to you. I just want to see what…

Scotty: No, I don’t want any clothes. I don’t want anything. [v]

And then...

“When Judy, refashioned as Madeleine, steps out of the door, it’s like fantasy realised. And, of course, we have a perfect name for fantasy realised. It’s called “nightmare”... It is as if in order to have her, to desire her, Scottie has to mortify her, to

change her into a dead woman.” [v]

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”Scottie is not really fascinated by her, but by the entire scene, the staging. He is looking around, checking up, are the fantasmatic co-ordinates really here? At that point when the reality fully fits fantasy, Scottie is finally able to realise the

long-postponed sexual intercourse.” [v]

Scotty brings it upon himself to materialise his desire, and aptly demonstrates the Lacanian concept of the partner essentially being a masturbatory prop.

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Summary

I have attempted to reconcile how the Lacanian concepts of the three realms apply to the reading of cinema as an art that attempts to indicate the impossibility of representing the Real, yet also attempts to hint at this order which is so central to our lives. I have also discussed Lacan's views on the nature of human sexuality and examined depictions of interplay between the sexes in cinema through this lens.

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Bibliography

[1] Zizek, S. (1999), “The Thing from Inner Space on Tarkovsky”, Angelaki, 4:3, 221-231

[2] Spackman, N.A. (2001), “An Epistemological Fall : Tarkovsky’s Humanist Interpretation of Lem’s Solaris ”, Perspectives, Vol 10

[3] Haladyn, J., & Jordan, M. (2009). “Simulation, Simulacra and Solaris”. Film-Philosophy, 14(1), 253-273

[4] Lacan, J., The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: Book II: The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis 1954–1955 (W. W. Norton & Company, 1991)

[5] Lacan, J. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: Book II: The Ethics of Psychoanalysis 1959-1960 (W. W. Norton & Company, 1991)

[6] Lacan, J. “The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis". Trans. A. Sheridan. Ed. J. Miller. New York: Norton, 1977.

[7] Wollen, P. “Readings and Writings: Semiotic Counter-Strategies”. London, 1982, 2.

[8] Szebin, F., Biodrowski, S. “A surreal meditation on love, jealousy, identity and reality.” Cinefantastique, April 1997.

[9] Metz, C. “The Imaginary Signifier. Psychoanalysis and the Cinema”. Trans. C. Britton, A. Williams, B. Brewster and A Guzzetti. Bloomington, 1982.

Filmography

[i] The Forbidden Planet. Dir: Fred M. Wilcox. Prod. Nicolas Nayfack. Screen. Cyril Hume. Perf. Walter Pidgeon, Leslie Nielsen, Anne Francis. (1956)

[ii] The Birds. Dir: A. Hitchcock. Screenplay: E. Hunter. Perf. Tippi Hedren, Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy. (1963)

[iii] Solaris. Dir: A. Tarkovsky. Screenplay: A. Tarkovsky. Perf. Natalya Bondarchuk, Donatas Banionis, Jüri Järvet. (1972)

[iv] Stalker. Dir: A. Tarkovsky. Screenplay: Arkadi Strugatsky. Perf. Alexander Kaidanovsky, Anatoli Solonitsyn, Nikolai Grinko. (1979)

[v] The Pervert's Guide to Cinema. Dir: S. Fiennes. Screenplay: S. Zizek. Perf. S. Zizek. (2006)