It looks at you : the returned gaze of cinema / Wheeler Winston Dixon. [electronic resource]

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dixon, Wheeler W., 1950-

Series:

The SUNY series in postmodern culture

The SUNY series in postmodern culture It looks at you

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Motion picture audiences.

Motion pictures--Influence.

Motion pictures.

Motion pictures--Social aspects.

Gaze--Psychological aspects.

Gaze.

Gaze in motion pictures.

Motion picture audiences--Influence.

Motion pictures--Psychological aspects.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xv, 238 p. ) ill. ;

Place of Publication:

Albany : State University of New York Press, c1995.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This book is a study of one of the most insidious and pervasive phenomena in the study and reception of cinema: the "returned gaze" from the screen in which the audience is actually surveilled by the film being projected on the screen. Rather than the usual process of watching a film, in those films which return the gaze of the viewer, the film looks at us, confronting our voyeur's embrace of the spectacle it presents. The book cites examples as diverse as Andy Warhol's Vinyl, Laurel and Hardy two-reel comedies, the films of Jean-Marie Straub, Jean-Luc Godard, Roberto Rossellini, and Wesley E. Barry's Creation of The Humanoids. It also discusses the history of the returned gaze in video, pornography, surveillance systems, and the related plastic arts.

Contents:

It looks at you: the returned gaze of cinema/video reception

Surveillance in the cinema; the black box

The trans/gendered gaze: the "I" of the beholder

The politics of desire: spectacles of the forbidden

Dreams of the state: control of the spectatorial body

The armed response: the screen's gaze returned, or the Gorgon's mirror.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. 203-226) and index.

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

ISBN:

1-4384-0125-6

0-585-04543-7