Research-group-sjm

Keywords for this Research Group: AFFECT, GAZE, GENDER

Members: Susanna, Jue, Marieke

This is how we do it.

core text

Laura Mulvey

• Essay: Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ (1975, p177 The Narrative Reader) -
• Essay: Afterthoughts on “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” Inspired by Duel in the Sun (1989, p181, The Narrative Reader)
• Book: Death 24x Times per second (2005). pdf [1]

Find the two essays in this book --> File:The Narrative Reader - Martin McQuillan.pdf

synopsis

Synopsis by Jue

branching text

• The new brutality film: race and affect in contemporary Hollywood cinema - Paul Gormley

• Why be nonbinary - Robin Dembroff [2]
• Why I am not a feminist - Jessa Crispin

• Feeling, Emotions, Affect - Eric Shouse [3]
• Mind the Screen (selected chapters) [4]
• File:The Narrative Reader - Martin McQuillan.pdf
• On the origin of Stories - Brian Boyd maybe later
• Stories [5]

• The Emergence of Cinematic Time - Mary Ann Doane
• Stillness in the Moving Image: Visualizing Time and Its Passing - Laura Mulvey (2003)
• Invention of Hysteria - Georges Didi-Huberman
• Fire and Ice - Peter Wollen (1984)
• Photography and Fetish - Christian Metz (1985)

related films

for potential movie night! Add a one-line reason for why should watch the film on the film.

• Afternoon Delight - Jill Soloway
• The Florida Project
• Capernaüm
• Guusje America - Video Home System
• White Noise - Antoine d'Agata
• Marnie - Hitchcock
• Vertigo - Hitchcock
• Lost Highway - Lynch
• Belle de Jour
• Beach Rats - Eliza Hittman
• Alma Har'el - Bombay Beach

Susanna's thought: would it be a good idea to (re-) watch these films in chronological order and make some comments on their historical context? -- Jue: Comments on historical context would be useful. I think we are already doing it by pairing of Vertigo + Lost Highway. Let's see what we find relevant to expand on after the first movie night.

Discussions

Next: Movie night 23.03

Screening: Vertigo+Lost Highway

17.03

We met to discuss the two essays. We started with Mulvey's conscious use of psychoanalysis as a framework and expressed our frustration towards the outdated vocabulary in Freud's theories. Susanna provided visual references (posters and still shots) to all the movies mentioned in Visual Pleasure.

Threads mentioned in the discussion:

• the three looks, i.e. gazes, in the cinema: the camera, the spectator, and from one character to another
• female poses (e.g. Rear Window)
• Hitchcock's storytelling and cinematography
• meme as an analogy of "stillness" (or fetishizing process) with new technologies
• the lack of perspective/analysis of the female spectator
• humanism as the new feminism

We were reminded of our own upbringings and how that contributed to how we viewed and experienced gender.

We then formulated the questions we want to further research. (via an interview-style conversation).

In terms of writing.

Specific research questions: Laura Mulvey as a point of departure

Jue

• physical space: What are spaces for illusions? what are the psychological processes of collective viewing? What is the difference between cinema and gallery?
• cinematography: how do focus, camera movement, editing affect the spectator's identification process (whom are they identifying with)? What do close-ups do?
• film theory: how do interacting layers of narrative and icon change the spectator's distance with the subject on screen?

Susanna

• How does the female spectator identify? How do female filmmakers come around male-centered conventions?
• The 3 female gazes

Marieke

• How can you create a narrative/discourse? Why do some become more accepted as truth?

Proposed content of the reader

We envision a reader consisting of:

• a selection of essays from the titles we will be reading
• one article (academic and/or creative) written by each of us
• transcript of one interview-style discussion

Next actions

Organize the "branching text" above to reflect our specific research questions.

Movie night #1 is happening on Saturday 23/03.

06.03 (day of forming research group)

Questions from our practice

- How has the spectator/observer/viewer/audience changed over time?

- How do we feel/relate to people when we present an idea/image as a certain gaze (doesn't have to be defined according to gender)?

- What is gaze?

- Should I/we, as female artists be aware of our gaze and our gender when creating culture?

The male gaze is slowly becoming an outdated term.

Let's define gaze intuitively: We look at something for some time, we are intrigued, and we try to understand from our own (cultural) framework of reference.

- Why do filmmakers want to show work? What is inside the filmmaker?

- What's in our work?

Marieke:::subvert norms: make a statement to make the audience (for the lack of the word) aware - how do people relate?

Jue:::meditation: affect - how are people moved in cinema?