By Jason Haggstrom, June 8, 2012
In the thirty years since its release, Alien has become a film of hot debate amongst film theorists. Academic analyses of the film draw attention to many differing themes that lead to feminist, Marxist, psychoanalytic, and other readings. But these theories exist in a vacuum of their own space, playing to each author’s pet theories rather than looking to analyze the film from the screen and then out. Most critiques, academic and otherwise, ultimately conclude that Alien is a feminist film because of its representation of the workplace as a home to equality and a place where traditional gender roles have been obliterated. But there’s something else lingering under the surface: fear. Not the fear of the devouring Alien, but a fear and anxiety of a future where the equalizing of the sexes might lead to the blending of sexual biology as well. What is ultimately revealed by Alien is the anxiety of men during the era of second-wave feminism in which the film was produced.
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By Jason Haggstrom, October 5, 2011
Jane Campion’s In the Cut is a film designed explicitly as an example of feminist filmmaking. The film might be classified as a thriller or even a slasher film, but viewing the film with such genre expectations would only lead to dissatisfaction. In terms of plot, In the Cut is a film about a serial killer. But the film dodges narrative convention at every turn in order to present something entirely different. There are no clues to drive the audience towards a suspect; to guess at his identity would be arbitrary and beside the point of the film. In fact, the serial killer plot is relegated to the background. To view the film in terms of its plot and the conventions of the thriller genre can only lead to frustration as the film does not work through such a reading. Instead, if we are to connect with the film, In the Cut must be read as a study of the psychoanalytic theory of cinema presented by Laura Mulvey in her landmark essay, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” I have no intention here of providing a value judgment on Mulvey’s theories. Instead, my aim is to illustrate how director Jane Campion integrated Mulvey’s theories into her film, and then subverted them in order to strike another blow against “the monolithic accumulation of traditional film conventions” that Mulvey was so interested in breaking down. Director Jane Campion uses the language of cinema and the machinations of plot to render the film around the subjectivity of a woman, to challenge the myth of romantic love and the “cult of the female star,” and to establish a world where the male gaze is presented not as a pleasurable vantage point for the audience but a viewpoint to be feared.
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