The Imaginary Signifier an. gy Psychoanalysis and the CinemaThis book is a publication of Indiana University Press 601 North Morton Street Bloomington, IN 47404-3797 USA http://www.indiana.edu/—1upress Telephone orders 800-842-6796 Fax orders 812-855-7931 Orders by e-mail iwporder@indiana.edu © 1977 by Union Générale d’Editions English translation, Part I © 1975 by Society for Education in Film and Television English translation, Part II © 1982 by Celia Britton and Annwyl Williams English translation, Part II © 1976 by Johns Hopkins University Press English translation, Part IV © 1982 by Celia Britton and Annwyl Williams All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher, The Association of ‘American University Presses’ Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition. ‘The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. Manufactured in the United States of Amenca Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Metz, Christian, ‘The imaginary signifier. Translation of: Le Signifiant imaginaire Includes index. 1, Moving-pictures—Psychological aspects. 1. Title. Il, Psychoanalysis and the cinema. PN 1995.M45313 1982 791.4301'9 8147551 ISBN 0-253-33105-6 AACR2 ISBN 0-253-20380-S (pbk) 7 8 9 10 11 05 04 03 02 O1 00Contents Acknowledgements ix PART I_THE IMAGINARY SIGNIFIER The Imaginary and the ‘Good Object’ in the Cinema and in the Theory of the Cinema 3 ‘Going to the cinema’ 6 ‘Talking about the cinema’ 9 ‘Loving the cinema’ 14 2 The Investigator’s Imaginary 17 Pochoanalysis, linguistics, history 17 isis and other psychoanalyses 21 Vanes of psychoanalytic study of the cinema 25 Psychoanalysis of the film script 27 Psychoanalysis of the textual system 32 Psychoanalysis of the cinema-signifier 33 The major regimes of the signifier 37 3 Identification, Mirror 42 Perception, imaginary 42 The all-perceiving subject 45 Identification with the camera 49 On the idealistic theory of the cinema 52 On some sub-codes of identification 54 ‘Seeing a film’ 56 4 The Passion for Perceiving 58 The scopic regime of the cinema 61 Theatre fiction, cinema fiction 66 5 Disavowal, Fetishism 69 Structures of belief 71 The cinema as technique 14 Fetish and frame 77