Masochistic Aesthetic

VISUAL PLEASURE AND THE MASOCHISTIC AESTHETIC Author(s): GAYLYN STUDLAR Source: Journal of Film and Video, Vol.
37, No. 2, SEXUAL DIFFERENCE (Spring 1985), pp. 526 Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of the University Film & Video Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20687658 . Accessed: 13/04/2013 05:04
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VISUAL PLEASURE AND THE MASOCHISTIC AESTHETIC

GAYLYN STUDLAR
Much of thewriting on visual pleasure and the cinema has concentrated on the at tempt to define the parameters of that pleasure and account for its psychoanaly tic underpinnings within the context of classic narrative cinema and the vicissi tudes of a sexually differentiated specta torship. Classic narrative cinema and the cinematic apparatus have been associated with the dominance of a "controlling male gaze" and male psychoanalytic manifesta tions: disavowal, fetishism, and a mirror like identificationwith the unified self as subject. Consequently, spectatorial plea sure has also been linked to the representa tion of the female as a masochistic object for the male's scopophilia/voyeurism. These trends focusing on the nature of a
preGedial life.' My purpose is directed toward exploring some of the basic psychoanalytic assumptions accepted by much of feminist-psychoanalytic film a and wider of range theory examining spectatorial pleasures than those currently discussed. Most particularly, by focusing on the preOedipal rather than theOedipal stage, we can break the impasse inherited from Laura Mulvey's work (among others) on visual pleasure to reach a point whereby film may be capable of forming spectator ial pleasures divorced from issues of castration, sexual difference, and feminine
lack.
specifically male spectatorial pleasure within cinema, the patriarchal limitations

on female
Deleuze's
of
model provides a means of examining the psychodynamics and style

specific texts, as well as a way of
problematic position of the female specta tor have led to several blind spots in the literaturewhich I would like to address within the framework of a model based on Gilles Deleuze's Masochism: An Interpre tation of Coldness and Cruelty and in corporatingAnglo-American research into
representation
in film,
and
the
opening up a general discussion of cinema tic pleasure. Deleuze develops a theory of masochism from his study of the novels of sake ofmasochism.2 Not only do the films of Josefvon Sternbergmade in collabora tionwith Marlene Dietrich bear an amaz ing formal and psychoanalytic resemb lance to Deleuze's description of the masochistic aesthetic in literature,but the formal relations ofmasochism located by Deleuze: fantasy, disavowal, fetishism, and suspense, also enable classic narrative cinema to produce visual pleasure. Beyond their resemblance to Sacher Masoch's novels, Von Sternberg's films have frequentlybeen discussed in relation to visual pleasure and the representation
5 Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the name
GAYLYN STUDLAR isanAssistantProfessor of Film and Television in the Division of Radio/Television/Film at North Texas State
University. studies
dissertationprize from the Society of Cinema dealing with visual pleasure in film and the
aesthetic. and is currently working on a book
She
recently
received
the
1985
masochistic
Copyright? 1985byGaylyn Studlar
JOURNAL
OF FILM AND
VIDEO
XXXVII
(Spring 1985)
of the female. Laura Mulvey, Bill Nichols,

Peter
Christian Metz have all cited Von Stern berg/Dietrich films to briefly illustrate or fullydevelop theoretical points.3 Originally condemned and later praised for their heady visual extremism, their ironically inflatedmelodrama, theirdark ly exotic eroticism, the Von Sternberg/ Dietrich films have often obliquely been linked tomasochism, though this connec tion has never been fully explored. In his analysis of Blonde Venus, Robin Wood observes that the eroticism inVon Stern berg's films is "always colored by sado
masochism alluring ... ... always fascinating with and de always associated
Baxter,
Cahiers
du
Cinema,
and
psychoanalytic configuration that is ex text's pressed through the masochistic fetishism the of punishing idealizing suffering, and careful structuring of the fantasy that suspends the real in the ideal. Both in theirpsychodynamics and formal elements, Von Sternberg's films provide a linchpin for unifying a theoretical discus sion of the representation of the female in classic narrative cinema, the power rela tions of spectatorship, and the uncons cious determinants governing visual
pleasure. female, tableaux vivants of suspended
Masochism
and the Power of the PreOedipal Mother begins with a comparative liter novels ary analysis of Sacher-Masoch's to and those of the de Sade dispel Marquis the misconceived idea that the two perver sions are complementary, that they have similar superego/ego functioning, have virtually interchangeable fantasies, and are differentiated only by a reversal in aim. Deleuze believes psychoanalysis "took a major linguistic and semiological step" by attaching Sade's and Masoch's names to these two distinct perversions, but that thisdelineation of twodistinct sets of signs has been ignored. In his view, sado-masochism is a semiological impos sibility, a confusion of the qualitative differences between the two symptoms, and a reduction of each perversion's complex dynamic to a rudimentary con sideration of their pain/pleasure content.
categorization as a perver
gradation."4 Yet Wood suggests too that Blonde Venus offers a subversively anti patriarchal, daringly radical feminist Woman is exposed stance: "Every myth of in the film, not celebrated." In Ideology and theImage, Bill Nichols also discusses Blonde Venus and finds the paradoxical combination of eroticism centered on Dietrich's presence and the film's "critical attitude toward the ideological aspects of
its own
Deleuze
cannot escape "the objectifications of a phallocentric culture."" Unknowingly, Nichols identifies the essence of maso chism as defined by Deleuze when he writes: The visual styleofBlonde Venus deals not with pleasure primarily self-indulgent pleasure, as many believe-but with the control of plea sure,with themediation of desire by style and performance.6 The ambivalent eroticism of the Von
construction,"
which,
ultimately,
Masochism's
Sternberg/Dietrich films, their coolly considered fatalism and complex view of female "spectacle," as well as their obses sive return to sameness suggest the ruling aesthetic. dynamic of the masochistic Deleuze emphasizes how the formal ex pression of masochism reflects a unique 6
of sion is important to a discussion cinematic spectatorship, which depends upon psychological mechanisms (such as in actual path operative disavowal) ological manifestations of perversions. Unlike a neurosis, a perversion tolerates an open, conscious fantasy that relates to the fixation in an infantile (i.e., pregenital) mode of sexuality.7 Freud regarded per version as the norm forchildhood sexuali OF FILM AND VIDEO XXXVII (Spring JOURNAL 1985)
ty and as a diversion frommature genital sexuality thatbecame pathological when it replaced normal adult, genital sexuality instead of co-existing with it. Perversion was, said Freud, "an original and universal disposition of the human sexual instinct."8 The genesis of all pleasurable looking in infancy, the use of fantasy, and the struc turingof the scopic drive can enhance the understanding of the relationship between
the cinema as an instrument
in Freud's opinion, only a maneuver placate the father and gain his love.9
to
sion" for the spectator-subject and infan tilemodes of sexuality. Deleuze Freud's father challenges centered construct of masochism as an conflicts. Freud expression of Oedipal dealt with the question of masochism's etiology and structure in several essays on Sexuality including Three Essays (1905), Instincts and Their Vicissitudes (1915), A Child isBeing Beaten (1919), and The Economic Problem inMasochism (1924). As he tried to come to termswith the paradox of themasochist's ability to enjoy pain in the pursuit of pleasure, Freud's theory of masochism underwent considerable change, but he continued to affirm Oedipal conflict as the perversion's impetus. Freud believed guilt transformed the male subject's desire for the mother
into an
for "regres
Like Freud, Deleuze positions themale as the fantasizing masochistic subject in his study.This exclusion of the female subject might be taken as a sexist limitation to Deleuze's analysis, but Deleuze is quick to point out that the female can assume the same position in relation to the central figure of the fantasy-the oral mother.'0 Like Daniel Lagache, Gustav Bychowski, and Bernhard Berliner, Deleuze places in the early the etiology of masochism mother/child relationship." By suggesting an oral phase beginning to the perversion and the mother as the actual core char acter (object), Deleuze radically diverges from Freud's father-centered/Oedipal
construct.
Deleuze's theory can be used to call attention to Freud's neglect of pre-phallic stages of life and his preoccupation with the function of the father in the child's psychosexual development. The most obvious result of this preoccupation, declares Roy Schafer in "Problems in was Freud's Psychology of Women," Freud's failure to adequately acknowledge or investigate the role of the "active,
nurturant mother." In Schafer's
the father.Guilt and fear of castration by the father then led the subject to assume a passive position and, in the case of femin
ine masochism, to feel like a woman.
incestuous,
homosexual
wish
for
Masochistic suffering substituted for castration by the father; itbecame a lesser punishment for desiring the mother, but also "a regressive substitute" for that desire. When punishment acquired "libidinal excitation," that, declared Freud was "the essence of masochism."~ To Freud, the presence of themother as the punishing figure in the subject's fantasy was a disguise to hide the father and so too hide the fantasy's homosexual implications for the male subject. Like wise, the latter's identification with the female (in coitus, in giving birth, etc.) was,
shared by many other researchers into preOedipal development in general and masochism specifically, the child per ceives themother not an auxillary to the father,but an independent, powerful, and even threatening figure.'2 The child's preOedipal attachment to this powerful mother figure is a major influence that continues in spite of the increasing impor tance of the father during later stages or themale's passage through the castration and Oedipal complexes. In Deleuze's view, themother is regarded with ambivalence. She is both love object and controlling agent for the dependent child. It is unclear whether masochism develops as a result of actual traumatic
view,
one
OF FILM AND XXXVII VIDEO JOURNAL (Spring 1985)
experience or because of a narcissistic projection of bad mother traits onto the ty over losing the mother is balanced against increasing separation (and even the urge to separate), but the fantasy goal ofmasochism becomes, as Bychowski tells us, the "dual unity and the complete symbiosis between child and mother."4 Rooted in the child's fear of abandonment and ambivalent wish for symbiosis,maso movement chism obsessively recreates the between revelation and concealment, appearance and disappearance, rejection and seduction. The aesthetic result is not the pornographic world of a Sade with its demonstratively obscene, imperative lan guage and endlessly detailed crimes against the female, but a sensual heter ocosm in which the female is mystically idealized as the loving inflictor of
punishment. ' "good" mother.'3 Nevertheless, the anxie
In
the masochistic
be clothed identity must psychic the physical guise of the hidden-behind older man who unites the paternal self (superego/genital sexuality) with the filial self. In Von Sternberg's films,La Bessiere in Morocco, Don Pasquale in The Devil is a Woman, Professor Rath in The Blue Angel are such composite figures who signify the presence of the paternal super ego which must be humiliated. These characters tend to embody those aspects of the superego Freud associated with the maintenance of social stability, including the limitation of satisfaction, the repres sion of instinct.
scenario,
the
son's
InMorocco La Bessiere is portrayed as a man who admits he has been "exacting"

when it comes to women. He has never
The masochist's desire forpain reflects the attempt to negate the father and disavow his likeness-the phallic inheritance-in the son. Finding its ideal ego in the mother, the narcissistic ego of the child seeks the destruction of the superego as a
repressive temptuous force. The masochist is con of the superego's "expectation"
found a woman good enough forhim until, ironically, he meets drive singer Amy Jolly, a woman of dubious social and sexual repute. Amy's lack of interestdoes not deter La Bessiere, neither does Amy's interest in a handsome young private in the Foreign Legion. When Amy's legion
naire deserts
that punishment could make him avoid forbidden pleasure. The ultimate triumph of the ego is only suspended by punish ment or humiliation, for it is not the son who is guilty, but the father: .while the sense of guilt has great masochism, itacts only importance in
as a cover, as the humorous outcome
Bessiere. At their engagement dinner, she abruptly leaves when she hears Private
Brown's
her,
she
agrees
to marry
La
returns to announce
Brown, who may
patrol
re-entering
the La
that she must
city,
then
find
be wounded.
Bessiere
of a guilt that has already been sub verted; for it is no longer the guilt of the child towards the father,but that of the father himself, and of his likeness in the child . ..When guilt is it is experienced masochistically, already distorted, artificial, and os tentatious; similarly the father is experienced as already abolished symbolically. 16 8
volunteers to take her to his rival. The dinner party scene climaxes with La Bessiere's required and relished public moment of masochistic exhibitionism. With a derisory, self-knowing laugh, he tells his guests, "You see, I love her. I'd do anything to make her happy." La Bes
siere's humiliation serves a twofold pur
submission to the pose. In the male's female's own desire (Amy's desire for Brown), the superego is repudiated. His passive acceptance ofAmy's desire under cuts a key elements in the patriarchal society's definition of male identity: The male is expected to control the female, especially the female's sexuality. Through OF FILM AND VIDEO XXXVII (Spring JOURNAL 1985)
La Bessiere the fatherand the superego are humiliated, defeated, but the scene also demonstrates masochistic triumph. La Bessiere's actions prove the resiliency of his masochistic desire, a desire that is unchanged by Amy's presence or absence. His telltale laugh and public announce ment conform to themasochistic need to The loved one's indiffer display suffering.
ence, desire. her absence, even her death
affirm the masochistic
only
can
omnipotence
of
Within the masochistic aesthetic, fantasies that have the structure of later develop mental periods (i.e., the primal scene fantasy, the Oedipal family romance are into brought regressive adher fantasy) ence with themasochistic wish. Different levels of masochistic fantasies interplay,
interlock, combine, and
characters representing partial psychic identities (i.e. composite father/son), are Jacob Arlow doubled, or condensed. comments on this rather confusing
aspect: .. .unconscious fantasies have a
fragment,
even
as
systematic relationship to each other. Fantasies are grouped around certain basic instinctual wishes, and such a group is composed of different ver sions or differenteditions of attempts to resolve the intrapsychic conflicts
over these wishes. Each version corre
fantasies from different stages of develop ment and the imposition of masochistic Most fantasies over an Oedipal structure. often inVon Sternberg's films, theOedipal structure is expressed through a love triangle of one female and two males. In Blonde Venus the family romance is present in the Helen Faraday/Ned Far aday/Nick Townsend triangle and also doubled in the Helen/Ned/little Johnny Faraday triangle that makes the family romance literal. In confirmation of Deleuze's explanation of themasochistic scenario as based on an alliance ofmother and son, Helen and her child are united from thevery beginning of the film with its water imagery (birth-womb). Their attach ment is intensely close and overshadows her relationship with both husband and lover.Helen's oral aggressiveness towards Johnny is contrasted with her sexual passivity toward all other males in the film.Nick Townsend's "Gimme a kiss," declaration toHelen echoes Helen's words to Johnny from an earlier scene when she passionately grabs her son to plant a kiss on his mouth. She then turns to Ned to allow him a circumspect kiss on the
cheek.
to a different "psychic sponds moment" in the history of the in

dividual's develoment.'7
Masochistic fantasies often take on aspects of or assume the form of the primal scene with thewatching/hearing child, oral stage fantasies of abandonment or devourment by themother, or the exaggerated rivalry of the Oedipal the triangle. Within dynamics of the perversion, later phase fantasies do not function independently, but reflect the masochistic wish that informs them all. Blonde Venus demonstrates this kind of blending of
The ambivalence of the oral fantasy that equates devouring by the mother with blissful incorporation is expanded upon in the film's abundant oral imagery. Johnny imitates a crocodile's jaws and declares he is a crocodile as he plays in the tub; Helen's seductive 'Hot Voodoo" song is African masks with accompanied by huge spike toothed mouths. In Helen's perfor mance in thisnumber, she is split into two figures,the threateningbeast (gorilla) who prowls amidst a frightened audience, and the female as pleasurable spectacle. Helen's treatment of Johnny infantilizes him. He is said to be five years old, but sleeps in a crib and is hand fed and carried by her. The phallic imagery appropriate to his actual age is represented in Johnny's rocking horse, toy gun, and trumpet, as
OF FILM AND VIDEO XXXVII (Spring JOURNAL 1985)
well as numerous mechanical toys often used to suggest a direct comment on Ned's symbolic impotence. In keeping with the requirements of the perversion, Blonde Venus ultimately assigns guilt to the father, not the sexualized female or the desiring infant. Mother and child are reunited in an ambivalent "happy ending" with the father as nominal head, but only within the limits of the child's marking off the limits of his reality and his parents'. The union of themother and child serves as the impetus for the restoration of the marriage inwhich the fatherhas proven to and be both economically sexually superfluous. Particularly relevant to cinematic specta belief that torship is Jean Laplanche's masochism has a unique interdependence with fantasy not exhibited in other perver Reik and sions. Although Theodore Deleuze agree that fantasy plays a vital function inmasochism, Laplanche goes so far as to place masochism at the origins of fantasy:
Fantasy ... is thus intimately related,
Ifwe press that idea to its necessary conclusion, we are led to emphasize theprivileged character ofmasochism in human sexuality. The analysis, in its very content, of an essential illustrate itwell: the child, impotent in his crib, isUlysses tied to themast or Tantalus, on whom is imposed the spectacle of parental intercourse. Corresponding to the perturbation of pain is the sympathetic excitation which can only be translated regres sively through the emission of feces: the passive position of the child in relation to the adult is not simply a passivity in relation to adult activity, but passivity in relation to the adult fantasy intrudingwithin him.20 The infant passively submits to fantasy and to pleasurable pain. Laplanche believes that "the masochistic fantasy is
fundamental."21 Like fantasy-the "primal scene"-would
in its origin, to the emergence of the masochistic sexual drive.'8 Laplanche places fantasy within the con text of the primal scene, the child's helplessness, emerging sexuality, and relationship to the mother. While Chris tianMetz has suggested that the voyeur ism of cinematic spectatorship is an "unauthorized scopophilia" that is not only in "direct line from the primal gaze," but sadistic to one degree or another, Laplanche's work suggests an alternative
view:19
believes sadism implies an identification with the suffering position, but Laplanche takes thisview to its logical conclusion: "It is within the sufferingposition that the enjoyment lies."22Even though Laplanche helps to define the unrealized relevance of masochism to considerations of spectator ial pleasure, it should be noted that he does not consider the qualitative differ ence in this turning of aggression on self to projecting it) and, as (as opposed Deleuze carefully establishes, the impos sibility of a simple, straightforward turn ing around of the sadistic impulse.23
Nevertheless, Laplanche's statement,
Freud,
Laplanche
To fantasize aggression is to turn it round upon oneself, to aggress one self: such is themoment of autoero ticism in which the indissoluable bond between fantasy as such, sex the unconscious is uality, and confirmed.
taken in connection with Deleuze's theory, can be used to challenge current concepts of power relations in cinematic spectator ship as a primal scene scopophilia. The voyeuristic separation of subject/screen object does not automatically align the spectator with sadism, as Metz implies in The Imaginary Signifier: If it is trueof all desire that itdepends
10
on the infantile pursuit of its absent object, voyeuristic desire, along with certain forms of sadism, is the only desire whose principle of distance symbolically and spatially evokes this
fundamental rent.24
mode
sadism is the one Contrary to Metz, in which the separation of perversion object and subject is not required or maintained. Sade's work, judged as the prototype of sadistic object relations, demonstrates that the sadist is driven to penetrate, tomaim, to destroy the object in order to bring about the directly exper ienced pleasure of orgasm for himself and to negate the object in a way that is not possible through the sadistic "look." Masochistic desire, in contrast, depends
on
of desire is expressed through a sexuality that is infantile, fragmented, polymorphous, inclusive of a multitude of possible sites of pleasure. Masochism is a subversive desire in that it is culturally unassimilable, for only genital sexuality, through its procreative function can ac tually be placed in the service of the patriarchal family unit.
Deleuze's
structure. As Sylvia Keiser has noted, closing the gap between the desiring subject and the object actually threatens masochistic gratification because the masochist's ego boundaries are not well established; the increased boundary loss of orgasm cannot be tolerated.2sHence, the need to control desire, which is expressed in the masochistic aesthetic's masquer ades and repeated journeys that delay consummation, the aestheticizing "cold
ness"
separation
to guarantee
a pain/pleasure
theory of masochism calls into question psychoanalysis's preoccupation with the castration complex, the genital "supremacy" of themale as interpretedby the patriarchy, and the overwhelming influence and authority of the father in the psychosexual development of the child. In placing the beginnings of masochism in the oral stage, the phallic stage origins of disavowal and fetishism are also brought into question, as is the notion thatmale pleasure and identitydepend on a position
of control.28
Bisexuality and Spectatorial Response Freud continually returned to an emphasis on the polarity between masculine and feminine although he recognized the bisexuality of every human being, that everyone has inhis/her biology "aspects of
or
desire and prolongs pain. Like themaso chist, but unlike the sadist, the spectator must avoid the orgasmic release that destroys the boundaries of disavowal, takes him/her outside the limits of normal spectatorship and into the realm of the
"true
of gesture
and
style that desexualizes
thinking that defines the infantile use of the cinematic object.26 In finding pleasure through pain and in violating the taboo against the regressive pleasure of infantile,nongenital sexuality, masochism stands against the very base line structure of society's patriarchal family unit-the psychic progress to geni tal sexuality. As a desire that finds "the pleasure of unpleasure,"27 themasochistic
voyeur,"
and
disrupts
the magical
Freud's concept of bisexuality was some times vague, inconsistent, and misguided in its biological specificities, but the fundamental theory has not been proven wrong and the psychological implications of the theory surpass the anatomical or physiological aspects of sexual dimor we are concerned with thenotion phism. If of sexually differentiated spectatorship, its reflection of human sexuality and the search forpleasure, we must also consider the likenesses (or potential likeness) between the sexes as well as the differ ences, the social construction of sexual difference and gender identity as well as the shared drives that may have their origin in a kind of biological "essen tialism."30
potentials
for
the
opposite
sex."29
11
In his study "The Drive to Become Both Sexes," Lawrence Kubie details two that may psychosexual manifestations express a psychological imperative toward bisexuality: (1) the reverse of penis envy and (2) the urge to become both sexes: ...overlooked is the importance of the reverse and complementary envy of the male for the woman's breast, for nursing as well as his envy for the woman's ability to conceive and to bring forthbabies ... from childhood, and throughout life, on conscious,
preconscious, and unconscious
in varying proportions or emphases, the human goal seems almost invaria bly to be both sexes, with the inescap able consequence thatwe are always attempting in every moment, and every act both to affirmand deny our gender identities.3'
levels,
gender identity." In film studies, Ray mond Bellour, Janet Bergstrom, and Nick Browne have all discussed the fluidity of the film spectator's identificatory posi tioning.34Bergstrom asserts that the spec tator can "take up multiple identificatory or whether successively positions, This freedom of iden simultaneously."35 tification relates directly to the use of the masochistic aesthetic to develop a theory of bisexual response that confronts some of the assumptions behind theories that polarize the positions of sexually differen tiated spectators. Yet, any theory of spectatorial response must deal with the
issue of the
Bergstrom writes:
spectator's
socialization.
Eva Feder Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel, same or and others confirm these Kittay, similar goals and stress the inability of orthodox Freudian theory to explain male envy of the female except in terms ofmale or autoerotic sexuality (homoerotic desires).32 What ismost intriguingabout the reversal of penis envy (womb envy) and the bisex ual goal of becoming both sexes is their contradiction of the expected, "natural" identification patterns divided according to gender. They also suggest an ability (as well as a reason) for simultaneously desiring the opposite sex while also iden with it in a primal way that has tifying important implications for film theory and concepts of gender-differentiated spectatorship. Freud suggested that identitychange-the repetition of rediscovering identity-was in and of itselfa source of pleasure. In "A Child isBeing Beaten," he detailed the free shiftingof identities with fantasy and the fantasizing "spectator's" changes of
A greater attention to themovement of identifications-whether according to theories of bisexuality, power relationships (as in S/Z) or in some to be the next other terms-seems in attemptingmore accu logical step to account for the quality of our rately involvement as spectators. Whether
for a "counter" arguing terms of understanding cinema or in the mechan
isms of fiction film, it is necessary to avoid a strictly biological mascu line/feminine dichotomy while ac knowledging the lived experience of women and men generally in our culture to be different.36 The anatomical aspect of thewish to cross gender identitymay be interpreted as an indication of thewish to cross the polar ized gender-role stereotypes fostered by a patriarchal society. Envy of the opposite sex in terms described by Kubie also may be exacerbated by socialization in which female/male division of psychological traits is encouraged and androgyny dis couraged. Kittay argues that "the force of the child's affectional ties to themother creates a sense of identitywith her that fuels the subsequent envy . .. the general society devaluation ofwoman renders this identification, along with the desire to
12
JOURNAL
OF FILM AND
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(Spring 1985)
bear children, farmore problematic [for the male] than the bare biological, pro
creative difference would warrant."37
Don
Through the mobility of multiple, fluid identifications, the cinematic apparatus allows the spectator to experience the pleasure of satisfying"the drive to be both sexes" that is repressed in everyday life dominated by secondary process. The cinema provides an enunciative apparatus that acts as a protective guise like fantasy or dream to permit the temporary fulfill ment ofwhat Kubie regards as "one of the deepest tendencies in human nature," but like thewish and counterwish to fusewith and separate from themother, thewish to change gender identity is also an am bivalent desire.
in blames Concha; Pasquale Shanghai Express Doc blames Magdalene for theirbreak up and her "fall"; inBlonde Venus Ned blames Helen for similar reasons. In the latter,Ned demonstrates the easy shiftof function for characters in themasochistic scenario, their ability to embody the "sadistic" or "masochistic"
essence in the scenario.
As inMasoch's novels, Von Sternberg's characters easily find justification for their masochistic behavior through melo dramatic plot predicaments, but Von Sternberg's irony deconstructs theirmas querade of normality, victimization, and passivity. In Blonde Venus, Ned is first seen as he tries to sell his body tomedicine for study: Doctor, I have a ratherpeculiar request to make. You see, I want to sell you my
body...
Within theVon Sternberg/Dietrich films, the masochistic male assumes the traits associated with patriarchal society's defin
ition of the
passivity, the willing acceptance of pain, and and the need to use masquerade a Don In is The Devil Woman, deception. Pasquale may blame Concha for being "a devil of a woman" and "the most danger ous woman alive," but he admits he had two options: "to kill her ... or to leave
her." Don
female,
i.e.
submissiveness,
Tell me, are you married? I wouldn't have come here if I weren't. Ned actively pursues themasochistic aim of submission. The absurdity of his request is compounded by the visual
treatment
third." In the masochistic third option, Don Pasquale returns toConcha to tellher that lifewithout her means nothing. He allows himself to be shot in a duel to satisfy her desire for another man. As a determined masochist (and the most determined of any Von Sternberg char acter), Don Pasquale's own misognyistic railings cannot disguise his need to suffer
at the hands of a beautiful woman.
Pasquale
remarks,
"I
chose
Von
Sternberg's males often attempt to disguise the compulsive psychological forces that govern their behavior. Caught between masochistic desire and society's repressive power, theyblame thewoman's sexuality and the threat of mobile desire she represents. In The Devil is a Woman
and snaps the jaws of a skull, then offers dollars toward a cure that costs Ned fifty fifteenhundred. Ned's request is doubly absurd-he has poisoned himself with his radium experiments. Later, he tells his wife (Dietrich) that his scientificdiscover ies are potentially worth a fortune, but Ned can think only of themost humili ating solution to his financial problems: selling his body as an object for scientific When Ned's plan fails, his wife scrutiny. decides to return to the stage to earn money forhis European cure.While Ned's body is rejected as worthless to science, Helen exploits her body as a highly valued economic commodity on the stage an in the right bed. Ned then becomes the "sadistic" essence of the scenario when he
given
the
scene:
the doctor
sits
AND VIDEO XXXVII OF FILM JOURNAL (Spring 1985)
13
vengefully reacts toHelen's infidelity.He sells the rights to his work to repay her, thenblames Helen forall his futurefailure; he will be unable to exploit his life's pursuit. Plot predicaments cannot hide the absurdity in the masochist's determined Ned is characterized by quest for suffering. Helen as "weak," and the film confirms in the hypocrisy of his his weakness embodiment of the superego: the obses sively "moral" reaction of themale to the female's sexuality is a projection of his
own failure.
but evidence of the male's

and defensive reaction
pathological
power.
to maternal
intrapsychic conflict caused by this male's identificationwith repression of the the mother is often projected onto the female in a patriarchal society. As Nancy Chodorow comments: A boy, in his attempt to gain an elusive masculine identification, often comes to define his masculinity largely in negative terms, as that which is not feminine or involved
with women ...
The
If the male spectator identifies with the masochistic male character, he is aligned with a position usually assigned to the female. Ifhe rejects identificationwith this with position, one alternative is to identify the position of power: the female who inflicts pain. In either case, the male spectator assumes a position associated with the female. In the former, he iden tifies with the culturally assigned feminine characteristics exhibited by the male within the masochistic scenario; in the latter, he identifies with the powerful
female who represents the mother of
tries to reject his mother and deny his attachment to her and the strong dependence on her that he still feels. He also tries to deny the deep person al identification with her that has developed during his early years. He does this by repressing whatever he takes to be feminine inside himself, and, importantly, by denigrating whatever he considers to be feminine in the outside world.39 With the release of the regressivemodes of pleasure through the structure of the
cinematic
Internally,
the boy
life preoedipal identification.
and
the
primary
The identifications offered by themaso chistic scenario/fantasy can be simultan While eously pleasurable and threatening. themasochistic fantasy allows themale to act out a submissive, "feminine" position, itmake evoke other conflics. Identifica tion with the female normally repressed may be difficult to integrate. In a pa triarchythatpolarizes female/male along a continuum of lack/phallus, passive/active, iden inferior/superior, characteristics tified as feminine or with the feminine tend to be rejected. Consequently, males have a particularly difficult time integrat ing their earliest primary identification with the mother. Janine Chasseguet Smirgel believes thatmale contempt for women is not, as Freud believed, an inevitable result of theOedipus complex,
partake in the pleasurable possibilities of gender mobility that defy the societal standards for carefully defined sex role and gender identification. The fantasies offered by themasochistic aesthetic may be violently denied by the spectator or accepted within the confines of a disavowing mechanism that categor izes the depicted actions/images as ones that do not represent the spectator's
conscious separate values. aesthetic The entity images' provides status a means as
apparatus,
the
spectator
can
of enjoying the fantasywithout guilt, for the spectator is not in control of these "unbidden images.""0 Ernst Kris ex plains: The maintenance of aesthetic illusion promises the safety towhich we were aspiring and guarantees freedom from
14
FILM AND OF VIDEO XXXVII JOURNAL (Spring 1985)
guilt, since it is not our own fantasy we follow. It stimulates the rise of feelingswhich we might otherwise be hesitant to permit ourselves, since they lead to our own reaction which, without this protection, many in dividuals are unwilling to admit to
themselves.4'
(Marlene Dietrich), to her fiance, The Grand Duke Peter of Russia (Sam Jaffe),
whom "So
Frederica,
a minor
Prussian
princess
ridicules Sophia's expectations. He scoffs:

you want him ... to be handsome well, he is all ... and tall, and more." strong that, and husband
Sophia
has
never
seen.
Alexei
In this respect, Mary Ann Doane's ap plication of Lacan's mirror ofmisrecogni tion theory erroneously assumes that only control or mastery can bring pleasurable Current discourse, in emphasiz feeling.42 the spectator's (and particularly, the ing male spectator's) false mastery over the image, has located pleasure only in terms of a very limited notion of itsvicissitudes of the pleasurable and possibilities spectatorship. Visual Pleasure, Polarities, and the Elision ofMasochism The oral mother may be the one element of absolute continuity in themasochistic scenario of desire, but characteristic of the perversion, with its "acting out" of fan
tasy, is
to-be,Alexei takes himself as the referent of his description in an absurdly comic juxtaposition of traits that is ultimately tragic in its result: His eyes are like the blue sky,his hair
the color of
In describing
Sophia's
sleepless because of his desire to receive you in his arms and he can also read and write. The truth is thatPeter is an insanely cruel littlecreaturewho has absolutely no sexual interest in his new wife. Alexei lies to protect the interests of the state which to demands a "machine of marriage" produce a son. Tossing his mane of hair away with a gloved hand, curling his lip as he spits out his lies to a naive girl who waits on every word, Alexei seems to be testing the limits of his own performance appeal. Naturally, Sophia falls in lovewith
him.
ebony
...
and
he
is
tion of various ego or superego functions, their shift in power positions from inflict tion of partial psychic identities (i.e., the composite father/son figure who repre sents the punishment of the father). In The Scarlet Empress Count Alexei, "Master of theHunt," firstappears as the The Greek, a equivalent to Masoch's character representingboth the imposition of the father into themasochistic fantasy and the new, androgynous man who will be born out of the "rebirth" from the cold oral mother. As with other Von Sternberg males such as Antonio in The Devil is a Woman and Nick Townsend in Blonde Venus, Alexei is transformed into a figure of masochistic suffering. Alexei is entrusted with bringing Sophia
ing to receiving pain, and their representa
the participant-players'
assump
Alexei's
desire for Sophia (renamed is initially depicted as a Catherine) product ofmale narcissism seeking valida
tion in sexual
in tion directed towards Don Pasquale The Devil is a Woman is easily applied to Count Alexei: "You always mistook your vanity for love." But Alexei's practice at seduction gives way to the "authentic" desire ofmasochism. Alexei becomes the excluded commentator, the aroused but impotent bystander to the spectacle of Catherine's political ascendency through sexual mobility. Alexei is the father/son who must be punished. figure The reasons and result of this flux are in reference to by Deleuze 15
conquest.
Concha's
accusa
explained
Sacher-Masoch's
novels:
Masoch
is animated by a dialectical ... spirit by the world technique of dialectial reversal, disguise and redu plication In the adventure with Lud wig IMasoch does not know at first whether his correspondent is a man or a woman; he is not sure at the end
whether he is one or two people .. .
flourished a fan behind which he stole a discreet kiss fromDietrich ... there is a genuine interplay between male
and female, but even more, there is a
perverse interchange of masculine and feminine characteristics.45 This "perverse interchange"might be seen as a type of liberation from the polarities of masculine and feminine dominating notions of identity in the patriarchal
structure.
Dialectic does not simply mean the free interchange of discourse, but or dis implies transpositions of kind this placements resulting in a scene being enacted simultaneously on several levels with reversals and reduplication in the allocation of roles and discourse43 This same "dialectical spirit" is found in Von Sternberg's films. Bill Nichols has observed the repetition of scene with exchanges of power positions in the back stage scenes between Helen Faraday and Venus.44 Nick Townsend in Blonde a re-enacts The Scarlet Empress Similarly, bedchamber scene with Alexei now serv ing as the servant to Catherine and her lover-a position formerly held by Catherine when she was forced to wait upon the Old Empress and her lover is repeated, doubled, (Alexei). Desire given mirror reflection in a process that confuses sex roles and gender identities. In Morocco La Bessiere is the tophatted, tuxedoed suitor to Amy; Amy becomes the tophatted, tuxedoed suitor to Private Brown. In The Devil is a Woman, Don Pasquale gives flowers and money to Concha; Concha passes them along to her
lover. Dietrich's
Subject/object, male/female, active/pas sive, control/acquiescence, rebellion/sub mission, introjection/abandonment, sus pension/anticipation, contracted agree ment/institutionalized possession, dis avowal/knowledge, voyeurism/exhibi tionism-all vital components of maso chism's scheme of desire and dynamic of perverse pleasure become paradoxical "oppositions" because masochistic desire -in finding its pleasure in pain-is the most paradoxical of all desires that in its most fundamental structure confronts the very applicability of a construct of
polarities.
Masochism's complexity and its intricate formal expression in film also reveal the in psychoanalytic film shortcomings theory's reliance on polarities as a meth or theoretical basis. Paul odological Schilder reminds us:
... to think in polarities ... is merely
pointed by the effeminized masculine beauty of Alexei in The Scarlet Empress, Tom Brown in Morocco, and Antonio in The Devil is a Woman. Andrew Sarris has remarked of Tom Brown (Gary Cooper): As forCooper, it is difficult to believe that this natural American landmark ever planted a rose behind his ear of
cross-dressing
is counter
a habit without regard for the real structure of things, and excusable only as a preliminary step for the explanation of theworld.. .46 Unfortunately, polarization was a promin ent feature of Freudian theory.47As a result,most psychoanalytic approaches to cinematic pleasure have reflected this same polarization-and its limitations. Laura Mulvey's influential article, "Visual uses Pleasure and Narrative Cinema"
16
FILM AND OF VIDEO XXXVII JOURNAL 1985) (Spring
polarities of masculine/femin ine, active/passive, and voyeurism/feti shistic scopophilia to formulate a theoryof cinematic pleasure. Claiming that all of classic narrative cinema divides the func tion of the look into pleasures based on biological difference-the fundamental polarity of the sexes, she writes:
... the female ... figure her poses of a deeper a penis,
Freudian
... Fetishistic scopophilia, on the other hand, can exist outside linear time as the erotic instinct is focussed
on workthe look .. alone ... many .provides Sternberg's pure exam
ples of fetishistic scopophilia.49 deterministic view of the Mulvey's female's function in cinema leads to a crucial "blind spot" in her theory of spectatorial pleasure. The neglected area, explains D. N. Rodowick, is the role of masochism in the structure of the look:
... Mulvey defines fetishistic scopo
implying a threat of castration and hence unpleasurable. Ultimately, the meaning of woman is sexual differ ence, the absence of a penis as visually
ascertainable ... Thus the woman as
problem
lack
for the gaze and icon, displayed enjoyment of men, the active con trollersof the look always threatens to the anxiety it originally evoke signified.48 Mulvey states that narrative film ismade for thepleasure of the male spectator alone who, in identifyingwith the male pro the pleasure of tagonist, experiences "indirectly" possessing the female. Yet, the female's image also evokes castration anxiety in themale spectator. He has two means of escaping this anxiety:
... preoccupation with the re
of the philia as an overvaluation object ... but he [Freud] would also add that this phenomenon is one of the fundamental sources of authority defined as passive submission to the Mulvey's thesis, though, the structure of the look isbased on two givens: it is fundamentally a source of control, of mastery, and it is fundamentally masculine, the product of patriarchal society. The concept ofmasochism is deferred by the political nature of her argument. How could themasculine look signify both the exercise of power and submission to power?'0 The logical conclusion ofMulvey's theory is thepairing ofmasochism with fetishistic scopophilia, but she is forced to limit the male spectator's position to that of a controlling lookwhich views the female as
an object: in sum, masochism ... Within
enactment
of the original trauma (investigating thewoman, demystify ing her mystery), counterbalanced by
punishment or sav
ing of the guilty object ... or else complete disavowal of castration by the substitution of a fetish object or turning the represented figure into a fetish so that it becomes reassuring
rather than a danger (hence over
the devaluation,
valuation, the cult of the female star). This second avenue, fetishistic scopo philia, builds up the physical beauty of the object, transforming it into The first something satisfying in itself. avenue, voyeurism, on the contrary, has associations with sadism . .. this sadistic side fits inwell with narrative
never as a source of authority. Spectatorship is determined solely by the workings of the castration complex which constructs the female into an image of lack, of threat, a passive, in a visual-and fetishized object -structure theoretical of immutable polarities. identification-and Reconsidering Disavowal and Fetishism
object
for
possession,
not
Can visual pleasure be explained other than in a theory that hinges on the role of
OF FILM AND VIDEO XXXVII JOURNAL 1985) (Spring
17
castration fear and thedefinition of sexual difference defined as castration threat? Are disavowal and fetishism regarded as fundamental structures of visual pleasure byMulvey and Metz necessarily based on castration fear and thus indicative of an exclusive male psychology that would exclude the female from the fundamental structures of cinematic scopic pleasure? Because masochism develops from an oral stage, infantile fixation centered on the mother, its etiology has not been closely associated with castration fear; possession or non-possession of the phallus is a in issue its psychodynamics.5' secondary As a clinical entity and as an aesthetic, masochism undermines a Freudian based theory of scopic pleasure that reduces the female to an indicator of lack/phallic fetish in a pattern of castration fear and assuagement such as that advanced by Mulvey. Masochism has been aligned with fetishism,but itsoral stage beginnings also call into question the narrow definition of disavowal and fetishism that have been applied to cinematic spectatorship. The dominance of Freudian accounts of the origin of disavowal and fetishism in psychoanalytic film studies can necessitate a thorough examination of these tenets to show why they cannot adequately account for all male spectatorial pleasure derived from the representation of the female. Disavowal was defined by Freud as the "denial of reality throughword and act."52 According to Freud, the original dis avowal was themale child's denial of the mother's lack of a penis. The child thinks the mother has been castrated by the father and fears for the safety of his own penis. As a result of viewing female genitalia, the child interpretstheperceived difference between the sexes as a maiming of the female and a personal threat.Two possible reactions ensue, either "horror of the mutilated creature or triumphant contempt of her."53 Freud latermodified
this conclusion to lessen the implication that all women were then foreverdespised by everymale child. In the revised theory, the child applies these devaluing attitudes toward selectively chosen females who "probably have been guilty for the same forbidden impulses as he himself." Re spected females, such as the mother, "retain the penis long after this date."54 If the child's glimpse of female "castra
tion" arouses an even more extreme
reaction, then the child would resort to fetishism, to freezing the last moment when belief in the female phallus was still possible. The fetish served as a talisman reassuring the child that themother still possessed a phallus, at least in the form of the fetish. From that moment of sight turned into denial of knowledge, fetishand female are treated with a mixture of hostility and affection that reflect their function as a mechanism forpatching over the overwhelming fear of castration. Current psychoanalytic research dealing with the preOedipal period suggests that
both disavowal
less") and fetishism are operative much, much earlier than the phallic stage iden tified as their origin by Freud. However, disavowal and "phallic fetishism" involv ing castration fear are not being disputed here. This studydoes take exception to the assumption that (1) castration fear is the single psychoanalytic impetus for dis avowal and fetishism, and (2) that this phallocentric interpretationof the etiology of disavowal and fetishism is the only available and meaningful one even within a patriarchal society and the context of classic narrative cinema as its product. Feminist-psychoanalytic criticism follow ing in the wake of Mulvey's milestone article has continued to formulate itsbasic stance regarding the function of the female's cinematic image and the plea sures of the controllingmale gaze on these Freudian concepts. This discourse at
(the "I know
but neverthe
18
tempts to account for the fetishisticnature of cinema throughmale spectatorial plea sure defined by castration complex anxie ty,as the fetishistic signifierof, as Mulvey says, the "traumatic moment of its [de sire's] birth: The castration complex."" The basic assumptions underlying the Freudian view of disavowal and fetishism have only occasionally been questioned in film theory. In "On Pornography," John Ellis suggests that the "massive dissemina tion of images of female genitals that
characterizes ...
disputes Freud's belief that the sight of female genitalia (the supposed, horrifically cause of disavowal) evokes what terrifying Freud declared to be "the frightof castra tionwhich probably no male human being is spared."56 Ellis is convinced that Freud overstated the male child's "horror" in discovering the female's lack of a penis, and that he grossly overestimated the child's ability to understand what Freud insisted was the child's literal viewing of the female's supposed castration. Ellis of the believes Mulvey's adaptation Freudian theories of disavowal and feti shism preclude any explanation of the prolific vaginal imagery of the pornogra The pleasure evoked by this phic sector.57 counters the entire theory of imagery fetishism and visual pleasure offered by Pollock writes in Griselda Mulvey. "What's Wrong with Images ofWomen": [The] directness [ofvaginal imagery] radically questions the psychoanaly tically based analyses of images of women undertaken by Claire John ston and Laura Mulvey and the no tions of castration fears and the
phallic woman.58
the pornographic
sector,"
In contradistinction to psychoanalytically oriented film theory, clinical research and modern psychoanalytic theory have not leftFreud's theory on this issue intact. In "Fetishistic Behavior: A Contribution to Its Complex Development and Signi Robert Dickes summarizes the ficance," various revisionary findingsand compares this recent research with Freud's. Accord ing to Dickes, much of the research into both childhood and adult fetishism shares a common conclusion: "the fetish repre sentsmore than the female phallus." Like to fetishism is believed masochism, demonstrate a prolonged need forprimary the powerful with identification Most mother.59 children, preOedipal regardless of sex, use transitional objects to soothe the separation from themother. If the separation has been too early or too extreme, the transitional object may be retained to restore the defensively mother's body and protect the primary identification with her. In a reversal of Freudian theory, researchers into fetish ism such as Charles Socarides, M. Wulff, Robert Bak, and Joseph Solomon general ly agree that fetishism originates as a preOedipal, not an Oedipal phenomenon, with its basis in a crisis of primary identification.60 Socarides suggests that
fetishism
nection with phallic or genital sexuality." He believes the fetish represents "not simply the imagined penis of themother,
but also
"may
have
no
etiological
con
abdomen, and other parts of her body fromwhich he [the infant]did not wish to
be
the breast,
the swollen,
pregnant
Pollock and Ellis are the clear exceptions in film theory: thegeneral trendhas shown little skepticism concerning Freud's ac count of fetishism and, consequently, has been content to accept the constructs of visual pleasure that depend on these interpretations.
phallic fetish, themother's fantasy penis, as the child's attempt to create the mother as the hermaphrodite parent, the fantasy projection of the child's drive to become both sexes. The original motive for this is the male child's own "wish for female genitalia, thewish fora child and thewish to undo separation from the mother by being likemother in every way."6' Dickes, on the other hand, considers the
separated."
Socarides
regards
the
19
traditional Freudian view of the fetishas a talisman to relieve castration anxiety an example of a "late stage of the develop
ment of a fetish.
reached."62 Dickes connects the earlier forms of fetishism with the adult
perversion:
Ordinarily
...
never
phallus given to themother as "the ideal organ of neutral energy" that symbolically permits the mother to give birth to the child without the father or the superego in a formula that is analogous to theAmazon myth of the use of themale for concep tion.66 Masochistic disavowal transcends
the male's reaction to female "castration"
Numerous
including pre oedipal experiences play a vital role in the production of this symptom com plex. The fetishdoes not arise de novo in the adult, nor does itappear only in the phallic phase ... Thus there exists a continuum from the earliest objects through transitional objects to child hood and adult fetishes.63
factors
and his own castration fear. Rather than relegating thewoman to a position of lack, it exalts her to a position of idealized wholeness imitated in the son's fetishistic wish to restore identification and oneness with her. For themale spectatorwho participates in the disavowing, fetishistic pleasure of viewing the female, this identification is a fragile,dangerous enterprise that threatens society's view ofwhat should differentiate
male from female.67 and The "norms" rest on of a the ten
If,as Kittay, Zilboorg, and others theorize, the child wants to insure the presence of or be reunited with the first object of oral gratification and erotic stimulation (the breast), as well as have the breast (and perhaps, the womb) himself, then feti shization of the female reflects the child's disavowal of his own lack in relation to the mother and the attempt to create a physically observable bisexuality, of hav ingboth male and female sexual character istics, in the object (the female), and in himself."
In Deluze's own explanation of masochis
male,
according
to Chasseguet-Smirgel,
uous gender identity that finds itsorigin in the problem of dis-identifying from the mother. Although the girl also shares this developmental dilemma, the patriarchal
sanctions
Greenson,
Chodorow,
his "feminine" side intensify the male's crisis of identity.68 The male may be more likely to sustain fetishism because of problems with resolu tions of gender identity, but this predominance of clinically studied adult fetishism inmales does not appear to be related to any sexually differentiated scopic drive. Disavowal and fetishism are not exclusively male psychoanalytic man ifestations originating from the castration complex. Females are capable of both, but the extreme pathological forms of feti in the female shism are less "visible" population because women can "hide" impaired sexual function.69The complex development and varieties of disavowal and fetishistic activity suggest that female need not be totally excluded from the very structures of cinematic pleasure on the basis of her inability to disavow and
against
the male's
integration
of
tic disavowal, fetishism accords power to the female through a disavowal that has a totally different aim than expected. The disavowal of sexual difference abolishes the father and positions the female as the ideal ego. The oral mother completes the child's identity (as narcissistic ego) and makes possible (through the fantasy) his parthenogenetic rebirth, which is the fantasy solution to separation from the mother and loss of the symbiotic union that cannot be restored in reality.65Al though Deleuze does link disavowal to castration, he does not define it as an inevitable indicator of feminine lack. Masochistic the fetishism abolishes father's functions. Deleuze describes the
20
FILM AND XXXVII OF VIDEO JOURNAL 1985) (Spring
fetishize as Mary Ann Doane has suggest ed in "Film and the Masquerade Theorising the Female Spectator."70 The full psychoanalytic importance of dis avowal and fetishism for both the male and female spectatormust be reconsidered in order to understand the fullpossibilities and meaning of libidinalized looking. The Female Gaze: Erotic Rapport and the Exercise of Authority "Perversion," says Irving Buchen in The Perverse Imagination, literally means
"turning across."71 across" Von.
boundaries of gender even as it defies current accounts of the aims of "fetishistic scopophilia?"73 Laura Mulvey asserts that the fetishistic scopophilia exemplified by Von Sternberg's films turns the female
into films
castration fear. Dietrich's

articulates, not an
a "perfect"
product
to assuage "excess
male
image in the
feminini
ty" asMary Ann Doane has suggested, but an androgynous eroticism highly charged by sexual ambiguity. Julia Lesage has commented on the appeal of Dietrich's image towomen: I am interested inMarlene Dietrich's underground reputation. She seems to represent for some women a kind of subculture icon. She has a certain power inVon Sternberg's films. Ifher portrayal doesn't escape completely from the totality of Von Sternberg's male fantasy, the effectof her role is not totally explained in an analysis that sees women's desire primarily in
terms of castration and lack ... Die
pression
"turns
of the masochistic
the argument
Sternberg's
ex
aesthetic
spectator must be achieved exclusively through a controlling, essen tially sadistic gaze. But what of the female spectator? What is her reaction to these films and to their representation of the female? Finally, how does the female function within the structures of the look in theVon Sternberg/Dietrich cycle? for themale InMulvey's discussion ofVon Sternberg's films in "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," she observes that Dietrich is fetishized "to thepoint where thepowerful look of themale protagonist (characteris tic of traditional narrative film) is broken in favor of the image of direct erotic rapportwith the spectator ... there is little or no mediation of the look through the most
eyes of the main male male
that pleasure
trich fascinates women as a lesbian figurewith whom they identify.74 The Von Sternberg/Dietrich heroine is the object of male desire, but she is not the passive object of a controlling look.
Dietrich her looks back. to her She seems
her objectification, as in the scenes where offers a self-referential comment on the relationship of the spectatorial gaze to the spectacle of female exhibitionism. Posses sion of the performer through the gaze is Jolly wanders through the nightclub man a attempts to hold her by audience; her clothing. She stops, stares at him, then pulls away. A similar sequence of events occurs in Blonde Venus. The female subverts the power of themale gaze. The Von Sternberg/Dietrich heroine is often a prostitute (Blonde Venus, Dishonored, Shanghai Express), or sexually promis cuous (The Scarlet Empress, Morocco, The The experienced Devil is a Woman.)
really nonpossession. In Morocco, Amy response on-screen audiences
to question
important absence
gaze."72
protagonist The
...
the
is that of the
direct "ero
tic rapport" created between Dietrich and the film spectator complicates the rela tionship of identification and object cathexis as they apply to a sexually differ entiated spectator. Unmediated by a "controlling" male gaze, does this direct eroticization of the image, this imaginary closing of the gap between spectator and image, allow the female spectator a possi ble identification with the character, but also a libidinalized one, a position of crosses the desire that subversively
controlling
OF FILM AND VIDEO XXXVII (Spring 1985) JOURNAL
21
female in these films becomes a paradox ical figure.Freud considered the prostitute to be the signifier of infantile, polymor phous sexual pleasure, the representative of all perverse possibilities.75 In another sense, the prostitute also represents the
female as
like the narcissistic oral infant,only has to demand. His wishes are all important.76 Von Sternberg and Dietrich complicate this portrait of the experienced female
who "knows" and accepts men's desire.
"pure
receptacle."
The
male,
While prostitution defines the Dietrich character in these films as an exploitable economic value, her rebellious submission to patriarchal society leads her to display herself in confirmation of, as Michel Foucault called it, "power asserting itself in the pleasure of showing off, scandaliz ing, or resisting."77Von Sternberg's films emphasize the active aspect of the female's gaze and the passive element in themale's look. The male gaze is not totally absent from these films, but it is qualified, not only by itsmasochistic aim, but through the handling of space. Bill Nichols has discussed the curious lack of exchanged looks between characters in Blonde Venus. Nichols attributes this to an emphasis on decor, but it can also be regarded as an important part of the control of desire.78 When masochistic looks are exchanged, the absence of eyelinematches contributes to a fracturing of cinematic space that compromises the controlling power of the male gaze as it does appear in the films. For example, in The Scarlet Empress Catherine (Dietrich) is forced intomarriage with the verymad and very repulsive heir to the Russian throne.During themarriage negotiations, Catherine's determined efforts to see her betrothed were frustrated and finally deflected onto Alexei, the royal family's envoy. Now, at the ceremony, her would be-lover, Count Alexei, helplessly over sees the union thathe has been instrumen tal in bringing about through his official state function.His look at Catherine could
be interpreted as a classic example of the controlling male gaze. His penetrating stare at her is not matched by Catherine's gaze. Her look (which was previously linked to her attempt to establish her own desire) is fragmented, confused, as is the space created between Alexei and Cather ine. She is shot in a highly eroticized series of gradually intensifying close-ups that "fetishize" her as object for the spectator's "unmediated" gaze, but also reinforce the spectator's empathy with Catherine (plea sure with the suffering position as La planche might say?). Alexei's gaze re affirms his immobility, his inability to by prevent Catherine's "possession" another. His position and gaze fulfill the description given by Laplanche of the infant'sUlysses-like position, the primal
scene fantasy, and masochism.
Conversely, themasochistic emphasis on the active aspect of the female's gaze may be illustrated through reference to Morocco. La Bessiere initiates the look with Amy Jolly as his object, but his gaze of fascination leads to masochistic self abnegation in the face ofAmy's desire for Private Brown. Amy's desire is set when makes her tuxedoed debut in a she first rowdy Moroccan nightclub. She looks Brown over with an appraising, steady gaze from her position above him on stage.
Brown is reduced
ine" position, to the status of "fetishized" object. Amy throws him a flower;he wears it behind his ear. At the end of the film, Amy looks at Brown start out across the desert with his patrol. Suddenly, a reverse close-up shows Brown turning around to smile. The third shot in the sequence reveals the source gaze of that highly eroticized close up on Brown-Amy, who smiles back then decides to follow Brown into the Sahara. La Bessiere now assumes the position of thehelpless and abandoned child-lover as he watches Amy disappear over a hill with the camp followers. In the Von Sternberg/Dietrich films, the
to the passive,
"femin
22
femmefatale does not steal her "controll ing gaze" from themale, but exercises the authority of the preOedipal mother whose gaze forms the child's firstexperience of love and power. The spectator, like the infant, isdesiring, but helpless, thepassive recipient of the pleasures which the mother controls through her presence or absence. The female in these films looks directly at the spectator, in defiance of the implicit cinematic rule against an illusion breaking confrontation of gazes. This act is akin to the powerful oral mother's return of the gaze; her gaze asserts presence and power. The masochistic gaze leads to the male's subjugation to the female, not his control of her. Even in this, however, polarized notions will not suffice:male masochist's "passivity" is informedby the theatrical attempt to hide his activity, his complicity in the alliance's power rela tions. Likewise, the female's authority
contains passive elements.
prephallic stages of development in shap ing spectatorial pleasures. Out of the re-enactment of the fundamental human conflict of separation/individuation, the masochistic aesthetic gives voice to the fantasies that form the core to later dilemmas ofmaturation. The influence of the archaic stages of infantilepsychosexual development on the psychic reparation made possible through the cinema must be explored beyond the boundaries estab lished by the Freudian and Lacanian models currently dominating psychoan alytic film theory.Masochistic pleasure reveals that our desires are not simply Oedipal ones, nor are theygoverned solely in terms of lack/phallus. Even when it is confined to the unconscious, desire cannot be renounced, just as the steps to psychic
maturation retained. are not forgotten, but are
Notes
mother.
In returning to the fantasies originating in the oral period, themasochistic aesthetic suggests the power of a desire not "born with the castration complex," but born out of the child's desire forblissful symbiosis, itspainful pleasure in helplessness, and its sense of ambivalence in viewing the Conclusion The approach offered in the integrationof Deleuze's theories with research into preOedipal development seems a promis ing one. By emphasizing the relationship between formal elements in the textand its structures, the model psychoanalytic presented in this study permits close textual analysis and the exploration of modes of representation as itencourages a discussion of generalized theoretical con cepts of cinematic pleasure. The association between the psychody namics of the masochistic aesthetic and preOedipal life reveals the importance of
tion Coldness andCruelty(NewYork: George of Braziller, 1971). This article is a further developmentof some
arguments first put forth in my article, "Maso chism and the Perverse Pleasures of the Cin (January-February 1985).
Gilles
Deleuze,
Masochism:
An
Interpreta
ema," QuarterlyReview of Film Studies 9, 4 2Richard von Krafft-Ebing,Psychopathia
trans. F. J. Rebman from the 12th Sexualis, ed. (n.p., n.d. [orig. ed. 1886]; rpt (New German York: Special Books, 1965). pp. 131-218. 3Laura Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narra tive Cinema," 16 (Autumn Screen 1975): 14-15; Performance," (Bloomington: pp. 104-132; in his Ideology and the Image Indiana University Press, 1981), Peter Baxter, "On the Naked
Bill Nichols, "Blonde Venus: Playing with
Miss Dietrich,"Wide Angle 2 (Spring Thighs of 1978: 18-25;ChristianMetz, The Imaginary

trans. Celia Britton, Annwyl Wil Signifier, Ben Guzzetti Alfred liams, Brewster,
Film Institute1980).
4Robin Wood,
225 (November-December 1970): 5-13, rpt. in Peter Baxter, British ed., Sternberg (London: "Venus de Marlene," Film
(Bloomington:IndianaUniversityPress, 1982), No. p. 78;Cahiers du Cinema [a collectivetext],
Comment 14 (March-April 1978): 60, 62, 63.

5Nichols, pp. 131-132. 6Ibid., pp. 110-111. 7Sigmund Freud, "A Child is Being Beaten,"
FILM AND XXXVII OF VIDEO JOURNAL 1985) (Spring
23
Books, 1963), pp. 109-110. as one of the Freud perversion regarded in the child's of development normal processes sexual life. (p. 120) Fantasy was a key part of perversion: "A phantasy of this kind ...
PsychologyofLove, ed. (1919), inSex and the Philip Reiff (New York: Mamillan, Collier
of maso the oral mother believes is the good mother on whom bad mother the bad traits are projected. By assuming with the Oedipal functions associated mother and the uterine mother functions) (sadistic the the good oral mother, mother (prostitution), Deleuze chism ideal of masochism, and,
retained for the purpose of auto-erotic gratification can... only be regarded as a primary trait of perversion." on the Theory of 8Freud, "Three Essays Complete and ed. Jean should 3d ed., trans, Worh, Psychological 23 vols. James Strachey, (London:
transforms these functions for this is one of the means says Deleuze, the father from the symbolic order, eliminating
Sexuality," (1905) The Standard Edition of the
Quarterly 9 (1940), pp. 323-26, 333.

14Bychowski, p. 260. Bychowski to restore
infantile trauma. See "Libido result of actual in Masochism," and Reality Psychoanalytic parallels
(pp. 54-55) Berlinerbelievesmasochism is the
Hogarth Press, 1953-66) 7:231.
man (Baltimore: JohnsHopkins University

Press, pp. 117, 124-28. 10Deleuze, pp. 58-60. Kinder Marsha and
Death
that perversion suggests Laplanche a deviation not be considered from to what is an it is an exception instinct because norm. Jean Laplanche, undefineable Life and in Psychoanalysis, trans. Jeffrey Mehl
masochisti wish Deleuze in his analysis of the

through a rebirth. symbiosis 15Deleuze, pp. 16-22. 16Deleuze, p. 95. and 17Jacob Arlow, "Ego Psychology
9Freud,"A Child is Being Beaten," inReiff,

I have discussed the
1976), p. 23.
masochism.
American Study ofMythology,"Journal of the PsychoanalyticAssociation 9 (1961):377. See Deleuze, pp. 37-38 on the shiftof roles in than sadistic use of fantasy ismuch different
in masochism. that displayed 19Metz, pp. 62-4. 20Laplanche, p. 102. 21Ibid., p. 91 22Ibid., p. 91. 23Deleuze, 18Jean Laplanche, p. 97. Deleuze believes the
the
withDeleuze's inclusion of thefemale problems of themodel in which the question is not a matter of gender, but of which position the or that of the makes thefantasy (which sadistic), childwho wishes to be controlled (making the
For another see alliance fantasizing subject takes: the controlling parent as subject. She has suggested a useful expansion
pp. 91-4. 24Metz, p. 60.
scenario masochistic). fantasy consideration of the masochistic
Psychoanalytic Quarterly 21
162-63.
25Sylvan Keiser,
"Body
Ego During
(April 1959):
Orgasm,"
Victor Smirnoff, "The Masochistic Contract," International Journal 50 of Psycho-Analysis
(1969); 666-71.
48-54. See also Daniel pp. HDeleuze, et la Structure de la "La Psychanalyse Lagache, La Psychanalyse 6 (1963): 36-47; Personante," "Some Aspects of Maso Gustav Bychowski, Journal of the American chistic Involvement,"
Heath, 26Stephen of Cinema Questions Indiana University Press, 1981), (Bloomington: p. 188-89. in that a body not be forgotten "It must in the cinema, in a film, is present in its absence,
Psychoanalytic Association 7 (1959):248-72;

Bernhard Berliner, "On some Psychedynamics
"Problems Sch?fer, of Women," Journal Psychology ,2Roy
of Masochism," PsychoanalyticQuarterly 16 (1947):459-71. ican Psychoanalytic Association 22 (1974):

Freud's of the Amer in
as 'voyeuristic' but voyeurs is often described watch people not films, though no doubt many in the pleasure obtain elements of voyeurism in-seeking cinema engages." 27Laplanche, p. 104. "Masochism 12 (1980):3. a similar and Subjec 28Kaja Silverman, tivity," Framework, Silverman makes
to thebody in tracesof an image (very different of a film The position of the spectator theatre).
"The Idea of Resistance," Sch?fer, 463-64; 54 International Journal of Psycho-Analysis See also Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel, (1973):278. and Female "Freud Sexuality: The Considera the Dark Continent," International For Journal and
in her point and mine article, but her theory of masochism hold little in common either in our fundamental or in the issues we definition of the perversion
tionof Some Blind Spots in theExploration of

of "The Mothers Eye: Better for
deal with. She fails todefine masochism except

as a vague amalgamation of instinctual unplea are linked sure, negation, and passivity. These in a manner that totally ignores the etiology and as defined by Freud of the perversion dynamics or anyone else. The etiology of masochism is especially relationship in exploring crucial the spectator's as a dream screen to cinema
Psycho-Analysis 57 (1976): 275-86; Annaliese

Riess,
Child Worse," The Psychoanalytic Study of the 33 (1978):381-405.

"Deleuze, pp. 42-49, 54-55.
24
FILM OF AND XXXVII VIDEO JOURNAL (Spring 1985)
QRFS)
Concept Women
phenomenon.
(See my previously "An Examination
cited article, of Freud's
Mary
Ann
Doane's The
29Robert Stoller
Spectator."
SE 7:220. In 1938,he still Theory ofSexuality,"

affirmed its role Interminable,"
of bisexuality
ofhis theory 1974),p. 345. Freud's introduction

came in "Three Essays on the in "Analysis 23: 216-53. Terminable and
of Bisexuality," in Jean Strouse, ed., and Analysis (New York: Grossman,
attributeto the female is regardedsolely as a

result of the patriarchal nature of narrative film,
the Female "Theorising trans-sex identification they
of the impossibility of forginga feminine itself with spectatorial position thatcan identify
the represented female itself with masochism. 35Bergstrom, p. 58. 36Ibid. p. 196. 38Chasseuguet-Smirgel, Structure and 39Nancy Chodorow, "Family Feminine in Women, Culture, Personality," S. Rosaldo and Louise and Society, ed. Michelle 37Kittay, pp. 99-100. without also aligning
30There seems to be
SE
little doubt that
to the biological tial," may offer an alternative of feminists like Luce Irigaray who essentialism have argued, without evidence it seems, for a
influences appear to have a much psychological greater influence on sexuality or gender iden ones. Evoking tification than the biological as important, as "essen sexual dimorphism
of the female 31 Lawrence
femininelibidodefinedby her interpretation of femalenesscreatedby biology,by the"two lips

sex." Irigaray, "Women's Exile,"
to Become "The Drive Kubie, in Symbols and Neurosis," Selected Papers ed. Herbert J. of L. S. Kubie, International Universi (New York: Schlesinger Both Sexes," 283; Eva Feder Con Explanatory inFeminist Theory, cept," in Mothering: Essays New ed, Joyce Trebilcot (Totowa, Jersey: & Co., Rowman & Allan Littlefield, Adams 32Chasseguet-Smirgel, "Womb Envy: p. An "Masculine 257-96. and Feminine: Some Biological
Ideologyand Consciousness 1 (1977):62-77.
^Mardi and Jon Horowitz, Image Formation 2d ed. New York: Appleton Cognition, Century-Crofts, 1978), pp. 139-50. as Horowitz refers to "unbidden images" intrusions into perception that are autonomous over image formation, cinema. 4'Ernst Kris, a situation not unlike
Stanford Lamphere (Stanford: UniversityPress, 1974),p. 50.
and so signalthesubject's lossof ego autonomy

the Psychoanalytic Explorations in
tiesPress, 1971),pp. 195,202.
Art (New York: International Universities

Press,
Kittay,
Cine-tracts 11 (Fall 1980):25-32.

43Deleuze, "Nichols, p. 21. pp. 129, 132.
1952), p. 54. 42Doane, "Misrecognition
and
Identity,"
held, 1984), pp. 94-128; Gregory Zilboorg,

and The conservative Bruno Bettelheim has his own controversial analysis of womb (Glencoe, 111.: The Free Press,
Cultural Aspects," Psychiatry 71 (1944):

given
envy in SymbolicWounds: PubertyRites and

theEnvious Male
45AndrewSarris, The Films of Josef von Modern Sternberg(NewYork: The Museum of Art,Doubleday, 1966),pp. 29-30. 46PaulSchilder,Goals and Desires of Man (NewYork: Columbia UniversityPress, 1942),
p. 212. use of the terms mas 47Of course, Freud's in relation to his use of culine and feminine active and passive come to mind as an instance
"A Child "Freud, pp. 108-32. 34Raymond Perversion,"
has attributed penis envy Chasseguet-Smirgel in females as a reflection of the subject's desire, not to have what the male has for its own sake, but to have the one thing the mother lacks. is Being Beaten," in Rieff,
1954),p. 260.
have reclaimed Mitchell Freud, one sees him as dispassionately complacently reproducing must be confronted. "Visual
of thispolarization. ("AnOutline ofPsychoan alysis" SE 23:141 -207). Feminists likeJuliet

but whether recording or patriarchal
Bellour, camera
and Sexual Difference Spectator-in-the-text: 1975-6):26-38.
1979): 106-34; JanetBergstrom,"Enunciation

(Part I)," camera The obscura Rhetoric of
Neurosis, "Psychosis, obscura 3-4 (Summer
dynamics, the phallic monism of his theories

48Mulvey, Pleasure," p. 11. of Differ 14-15. 49Ibid.,pp. 50D. N. Rodowick,
3-4 (Summer 1979):333-69; Nick Browne,"The (Winter
Stagecoach," Film Quarterly 29
ence,"Wide Angle 5 (1982):7.
"The Difficulty
The female'sability to identify with the male gaze/spectatorial position and also shift to with the represented identification femalehas been emphasizedby LauraMulvey in"Afterth
and Narrative Cin ought on 'Visual Pleasure in the Sun, "Framework ema,' Inspired by Duel
"A Case of Masochistic PerversionandOutline

of a Theory," to castration con fear. M'Uzan relationship cludes that the masochist "fears nothing, not even castration." International Journal of
5'The role of castration anxiety is a controversial subject. Michel contradicts Freud's
inmasochism de M'Uzan's
the nature ofmasochistic punishmentand its
estimation
of
15/16/17(Summer 1981), pp. 12-15 and also
PsychoAnalysis 54 (1973):462. Theodore Reik
OF FILM AND XXXVII VIDEO JOURNAL 1985) (Spring
25
that castration believes anxiety is not of in the dynamics of the perversion. significance inModern Theodore Man, Reik, Masochism trans. M. H. Beigel and G. M. Kruth (New also York: 214.
power (bear a child) while also repairing her (through without separationfrom fetishism) his phallic integrity, (p. 286). See endangering
also Chasseguet-Smirgel, p. 283. 65Deleuze, pp. 108-111. 66Ibid., p. 110.
?Freud, "Fetishism," (1927) in Reiff, p.
Farrar,
Straus,
1941), p. 390.
of theLibido," inReiff,p. 174.

55Mulvey, p. 11 56Freud, "Fetishism," Ellis,
Consequences 53Freud, "Some Psychologial Between the Distinction of the Anatomical in Reiff, p. 214. Sexes," 54Freud, "The Infantile Genital Organization
has also 67Kaja Silverman of fetishism in "Masochism 12 (1980):5-6. Framework pp.
suggested this view and Subjectivity,"
California John
tion ofMothering (Berkeley: University of

1978), pp. 193-196. pp. 136-38. See also p. 304. On female voyeurism 90-91. On female fetishism Objects, and also see see and . T.
pp. 283-83; Greenson, 68Chasseguet-Smirgel, The Reproduc 370-74; Nancy Chodorow,
in Reiff, p. 214;
Press, Stoller, Perversion, 69Socarides, Stoller, pp.
Freud's
Screen 21 (Spring 1980):102. raphy," Metz's explanation of fetishismduplicates

terror of the absolute interpretation castration. supposed by the mother's p. 102. See also "Some Freud, of the Anatomical in Reiff, p.
"Photography/Pornography/Art/Pornog
The ImaginarySignifier, pp. 69-70.

57Ellis, Psychological Distinction 187. 58Griselda Images Consequences Between the Sexes," "What's Screen "Fetishistic of
evoked
Transitional "Parents, Dickes, Childhood pp. 315-16, Fetishes," into Young Womanhood,"
Fetish and ItsPersistance Spiegel,"An Infantile

"Further Considerations
Child!! Study of the

Greenacre,
(1967):402-25,and Phyllis
Regarding
Psychoanalytic
Pollock, of Women,"
Wrong Education Behavior:
with 24 A
Child, Fetishism,"PsychoanalyticStudy of the 10:188.

pp. 80-82. 70Doane, "Theorising," from Irigaray to establish a Doane borrows the female cannot separate theory in which
(Autumn 1977):30.
59Robert Dickes,
Contribution to ItsComplex Development and Association 11 (1963):320. Psychoanalytic

Charles Socarides, Phase "The Development Preoedipal American Theory Significance," Journal the American of a
Fetishistic Perversion: The Contribution of W. H. Gillespie, The General 1960):281-311;

of Sexual Perversion," International Journal Conflict," of the 8 (April Association Psychoanalytic
herself from the "over-presence" of the female body and so cannot assume a reflective position to Doane, towards sexual difference. According the female cannot "disown" what is seen as the can. See Freud, "Female male SE Sexuality,"
seems to suggest, more 21:233. Freud than Doane allows, that the female also can separate the "visible and the knowable," and so is capable of the disavowal. The Perverse 7'Irving Buchen, (New York: New York University p. 85. 72Mulvey, pp. 14-15. 73I must give credit to Mariam consider ed the subversive Imagination Press, 1970),
Journal ofPsycho-Analysis37 (1956):396-403; M Wulff,Fetishism andObject Choice inEarly Childhood," Psychoanalytic Quarterly 15
"Transi 465-68; Joseph C. Solomon, (1945); and Obsessive tional Phenomena Compulsive Transitional in Reality and Fantasy: States," ed. Simon A. Grol and Phenomena, Objects nick, Leonard 248-56; B?rkin, and Werner Muenster
that suggesting Mulvey's pointmightbe used to

aspect of the unmediat films. See her Sternberg's Fetishism and the Problem of German Critique, No. 31
Hansen
for
berger (New York: JasonAronson, 1978), pp. male," The Psychoanalytic Studyof phase of the Robert Bak, "Fetishism," the Child, 13:352-74; sociation 1 (1953):285-98. pp. 291, 306-307, 309. See also 61Socarides,
Transitional in Grolnick, Objects p. 315. and of the American Psychoanalytic As P. J. van der Leeuw, "The preoedipal
No
Female Discourse: Ulrike Ottinger's Ticket of

Return," New
in Von gaze "Visual Pleasure,
Journal
"Women
(1984). 74Julia Lesage quoted in Sylvia Bovenschen, 13 (Winter 1978),pp. 89-90.

and Film," New German Critique No.
maintains
64Kittay, p. 104; Zilboorg, pp. 388-90; masochist believes it is Deleuze states that the possible to be both sexes, (pp. 59-60). Bak
is possible it that the normal male child believes to emulate the mother's positive
Bak, p. 286. 62Dickes, p. 327. 63Dickes, "Parents, Childhood Fetishes,"
on the Theory of 75Freud, "Three Essays SF 7:191. Sexuality," A Reading Intersections: 76Jane Gallop, of of Nebraska Sade Press, (Lincoln: University
Vol.
1981),p. 82. 77Michel Foucault, The History ofSexuality:

I: An Introduction, trans. Robert 108-109.
(New York: Pantheon Books,

78Nichols, p. 112.
1978), pp.
Hurley
26
XXXVII AND FILM VIDEO OF JOURNAL 1985) (Spring

Masochistic Aesthetic

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VISUAL PLEASURE AND THE MASOCHISTIC AESTHETIC Author(s): GAYLYN STUDLAR Source: Journal of Film and Video, Vol.

VISUAL PLEASURE AND THE MASOCHISTIC AESTHETIC

specifically male spectatorial pleasure within cinema, the patriarchal limitations

model provides a means of examining the psychodynamics and style

Copyright? 1985byGaylyn Studlar

of the female. Laura Mulvey, Bill Nichols,

OF FILM AND XXXVII VIDEO JOURNAL (Spring 1985)

InMorocco La Bessiere is portrayed as a man who admits he has been "exacting"

that she must

affirm the masochistic

to a different "psychic sponds moment" in the history of the in

OF FILM AND VIDEO XXXVII (Spring JOURNAL 1985)

OF FILM AND VIDEO XXXVII (Spring JOURNAL 1985)

style that desexualizes

OF FILM AND VIDEO XXXVII (Spring JOURNAL 1985)

AND VIDEO XXXVII OF FILM JOURNAL (Spring 1985)

but evidence of the male's

life preoedipal identification.

FILM AND OF VIDEO XXXVII JOURNAL (Spring 1985)

ridicules Sophia's expectations. He scoffs:

OF FILM AND VIDEO XXXVII (Spring JOURNAL 1985)

FILM AND OF VIDEO XXXVII JOURNAL 1985) (Spring

OF FILM AND VIDEO XXXVII JOURNAL 1985) (Spring

(the "I know

OF FILM AND VIDEO XXXVII (Spring JOURNAL 1985)

OF FILM AND VIDEO XXXVII (Spring JOURNAL 1985)

FILM AND XXXVII OF VIDEO JOURNAL 1985) (Spring

castration fear. Dietrich's

OF FILM AND VIDEO XXXVII (Spring 1985) JOURNAL

OF FILM AND VIDEO XXXVII (Spring JOURNAL 1985)

ema," QuarterlyReview of Film Studies 9, 4 2Richard von Krafft-Ebing,Psychopathia

Bill Nichols, "Blonde Venus: Playing with

Miss Dietrich,"Wide Angle 2 (Spring Thighs of 1978: 18-25;ChristianMetz, The Imaginary

(Bloomington:IndianaUniversityPress, 1982), No. p. 78;Cahiers du Cinema [a collectivetext],

Comment 14 (March-April 1978): 60, 62, 63.

FILM AND XXXVII OF VIDEO JOURNAL 1985) (Spring

Sexuality," (1905) The Standard Edition of the

Quarterly 9 (1940), pp. 323-26, 333.

(pp. 54-55) Berlinerbelievesmasochism is the

Hogarth Press, 1953-66) 7:231.

man (Baltimore: JohnsHopkins University

masochisti wish Deleuze in his analysis of the

9Freud,"A Child is Being Beaten," inReiff,

pp. 91-4. 24Metz, p. 60.

scenario masochistic). fantasy consideration of the masochistic

Victor Smirnoff, "The Masochistic Contract," International Journal 50 of Psycho-Analysis

Psychoanalytic Association 7 (1959):248-72;

"Problems Sch?fer, of Women," Journal Psychology ,2Roy

of Masochism," PsychoanalyticQuarterly 16 (1947):459-71. ican Psychoanalytic Association 22 (1974):

tionof Some Blind Spots in theExploration of

deal with. She fails todefine masochism except

Psycho-Analysis 57 (1976): 275-86; Annaliese

Child Worse," The Psychoanalytic Study of the 33 (1978):381-405.

FILM OF AND XXXVII VIDEO JOURNAL (Spring 1985)

(See my previously "An Examination

cited article, of Freud's

SE 7:220. In 1938,he still Theory ofSexuality,"

ofhis theory 1974),p. 345. Freud's introduction

of Bisexuality," in Jean Strouse, ed., and Analysis (New York: Grossman,

attributeto the female is regardedsolely as a

the Female "Theorising trans-sex identification they

little doubt that

of the female 31 Lawrence