THE LAST DATE

THE LAST DATE: A film presented by the female gaze

 

Purpose

This project will focus on the female gaze in film. As we have learned in class, the majority of films throughout history have been crafted both through and for the male gaze. Even films with female protagonists or films that attempt to share women’s narratives often present women through the male gaze. I would like to explore a shift in film making by doing it in a very obvious way — making a film that only looks at men through the “eyes” of a woman. I will combat the male gaze by creating a short film that is filmed only through the female gaze and the only object of the gaze is men.

Contribution

My contribution will be a film that does not look at women at all. I will shift the gaze entirely onto men. I would like to do this through a short film that is shot through the perspective of a young woman going on a first date. The camera will never show the woman and will focus solely on the man she is going on the date with — the object of the gaze. Laura Mulvey describes one option for women as an object of the gaze in film as a castration threat. I would like to portray the man in my film as a female castration threat — a threat to her physical wellbeing through the potential for sexual violence. While Freud does not talk about women, I believe the threat of sexual violence can function to turn men into a female castration threat. Because Freud does not really discuss women, the term “castration threat” has to be slightly adapted here to represent a women’s loss of autonomy through sexual violence. While there is no actual sexual violence in the film, the threat of it happening and the sense of uneasiness is what makes the movie a horror film. I would like to make this film in an extended over the shoulder cut that lets the viewers participate in the date only from the perspective of the woman. In usual movie editing, there is an alternating over the shoulder cut that allows the viewer to sympathize with both characters. In my film, I would like to isolate the male character, forcing the viewer to sympathize solely with the female gaze.

The largest potential problem for this project will be navigating technical difficulties. I am not very experienced with editing technology so I will have to plan ahead to make sure that I am able to film the video and edit it correctly. Another concerned will be clearly articulating the goal of the film. While it may be clear to me, I want to make sure that the threat the female character is facing comes across clearly on the screen.

Methodology

The most central expert for this project will be Laura Mulvey. I would like to use her analysis of the female as a castration threat in Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema to mirror the male object of the gaze to a female castration threat in my film as closely as I can. I will also be using Mulvey’s later essay Afterthoughts on Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema to explore the female gaze and female spectatorship. I believe that out of all the authors we have read so far in class, she will be the most influential to this project. I am also very interested in the film Rebecca and the way Rebecca seems to drive the entire plot, although she is never seen on screen. This film, along with the class discussion, has influenced my project a lot and I will rely on further analysis of Rebecca to complete my project.

Research

I did more research into horror film angles to figure out how to best shoot my film to convey the fear felt by the female victims. I wanted to convey the fear without ever having anything said outright, so the angles and methods of making the film were really important. I also researched traditional horror film transitions. Because the film is short, the transitions were crucial to show the passing of time and create a believable date feeling. 

 

Bibliography

ER PASİN, E.Gülay. A Restricted Look at Psycho: On Gaze and Voice Over. University Faculty of Communication Journal / Istanbul Üniversitesi Iletisim Fakültesi Hakemli Dergisi, no. 51, July 2016, p. 49.

Fluhr, Nicole. Freud as New Woman Writer: Maternal Ambivalence in Studies on Hysteria. English Literature in Transition 1880-1920, no. 3, 2010, p. 283.

Lippert, R. A Male View?” Texts on Feminism Film Theory. Psyche, vol. 48, no. 11, Nov. 1994, pp. 1088–1099.

Malone, Alicia. The Female Gaze : Essential Movies Made by Women. Coral Gables, FL : Mango, 2018.

Mulvey, Laura. Afterthoughts on “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” New York University Press: Washington Square, New York, 1999.

Mulvey, Laura. Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. New York University Press: Washington Square, New York, 1999.

Peirse, Alison. The Feminine Appeal of British Horror Cinema. New Review of Film & Television Studies, vol. 13, no. 4, Dec. 2015, p. 385.

Pravadelli, Veronica. 3. The Male Subject of Noir and the Modern Gaze. University of Illinois Press, 2014.

Shimamura, Arthur P., et al. How Attention Is Driven by Film Edits: A Multimodal Experience. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, vol. 9, no. 4, Nov. 2015, pp. 417–422.

Waldmah, Diane. ‘At Last I Can Tell It to Someone!’: Feminine Point of View and Subjectivity in the Gothic Romance Film of the 1940s. Cinema Journal, vol. 23, no. 2, Winter 1984, pp. 29–40.