Spectatorship and Film Theory : The Wayward Spectator

This book interrogates the relation between film spectatorship and film theory in order to criticise some of the disciplinary and authoritarian assumptions of 1970s apparatus theory, without dismissing its core political concerns. Theory, in this perspective, should not be seen as a practice distinct from spectatorship but rather as an integral aspect of the spectator’s gaze. Combining Jacques Rancière’s emancipated spectator with Judith Butler’s queer theory of subjectivity, __Spectatorship and Film Theory__ foregrounds the contingent, embodied and dialogic aspects of our experience of film. Erratic and always a step beyond the grasp of disciplinary discourse, this singular work rejects the notion of the spectator as a fixed position, and instead presents it as a field of tensions—a “wayward” history of encounters. Acknowledgements 5 Contents 6 Chapter 1 Introduction: Film Theory, a Divided Passion? 7 The One Who Turns Around 7 The Consensual Spectator 15 What a Spectator Is Not 19 Bibliography 21 Chapter 2 The Heteronomy of Subjectivity and the Spectator’s Emancipation 22 Spectatorship as a Discursive Practice 23 The Ideological Unconscious and the Heteronomous Subject 30 The Future of Disillusion: Emancipation as a Knowledge Effect 34 Freud’s Horse 37 The Heteronomous Subject and the Power of Looking on 41 Spectatorship as Tension 44 Bibliography 48 Chapter 3 Everyday Film Theory 49 Film Theory as an Integral Element of Film Experience 49 Breaking the Spell of Theory 52 The Beginnings of Film Theory 56 The Spectator as Infans 59 Rancière’s Lesson 63 Free Use 70 Bibliography 74 Chapter 4 Situatedness and Contingency of Film Experience 76 Contingency and Film Theory 77 Universality and Contingency 79 Radical Contingency and the Psychoanalytic Subject 81 Singular Contingency and Extended Spectatorship 85 If Only a Bat Hadn’t Come into the Story 92 The Inscription of Contingency 96 Bibliography 99 Chapter 5 The Process of Free Association and Film as an Evocative Object 101 Psychoanalysis as Discourse and Practice 104 The Unconscious and the Mastery of Concepts 109 The Metapsychological Spectator and the Regime of Interpretation 114 From Hysteria and “the Great Complex of Associations” to the Interpretation of Dreams 118 Method and Process of Free Associations 125 Film as Evocativev Object 131 Bibliography 136 Chapter 6 The Indeterminacy of Embodiment 138 Ontology and the Phenomenological Turn 138 Non-objectual Embodiment 145 Discursivity of the Body and Incitation to Discourse 148 Visibility and the Visual 152 Embodiment and Contingency 156 If Only a Fly Hadn’t Come into the Body 161 Inaccurate Self-Replications 164 On Choice and the Benefits of Doubt 170 Bibliography 172 Chapter 7 The Spectator as a History of Encounters 175 Partages de l’ombre 175 Spectatorship’s Light 178 Afterimages 184 Man in the Dark 186 Theory as a Form of Forgetfulness 189 It Takes Two (to Be Less Than One) 196 Bibliography 201 Index 202 This book interrogates the relation between film spectatorship and film theory in order to criticise some of the disciplinary and authoritarian assumptions of 1970s apparatus theory, without dismissing its core political concerns. Theory, in this perspective, should not be seen as a practice distinct from spectatorship but rather as an integral aspect of the spectator's gaze. Combining Jacques Rancière's emancipated spectator with Judith's queer theory of subjectivity, Spectatorship and Film Theory foregrounds the contingent, embodied and dialogic aspects of our experience of film. Erratic and always a step beyond the grasp of disciplinary discourse, this singular work rejects the notion of the spectator as a fixed position, and instead presents it as a field of tensions, a wayward history of encounters Front Matter ....Pages i-vii Introduction: Film Theory, a Divided Passion? (Carlo Comanducci)....Pages 1-15 The Heteronomy of Subjectivity and the Spectator’s Emancipation (Carlo Comanducci)....Pages 17-43 Everyday Film Theory (Carlo Comanducci)....Pages 45-71 Situatedness and Contingency of Film Experience (Carlo Comanducci)....Pages 73-97 The Process of Free Association and Film as an Evocative Object (Carlo Comanducci)....Pages 99-135 The Indeterminacy of Embodiment (Carlo Comanducci)....Pages 137-173 The Spectator as a History of Encounters (Carlo Comanducci)....Pages 175-201 Back Matter ....Pages 203-208