Enjoyment of the Real:?i?ek's Application of Lacanian Psychoanalytic Theory to Criticism of Film
SUN Bai
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School of Liberal Arts, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872
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Published
2011-11-16
Issue Date
2011-11-16
Abstract
Slavoj ?i?ek takes the opposition of reality and the Real as the kernel of the Lacanian psychoanalysis.The excessive enjoyment produced by the resistance of the Real to the symbolization always smears over the illusory picture of reality which is sustained by the ideological surports.Film,one of the most popular cultural products and the visual arts,embodies to a great extent this radical feature of the enjoyment of the Real.So it is not difficult to understand that ?i?ek's massive theoretical explicitation takes a way of interactive reading of the psychoanalitical theories and the film texts.With explanations on several classical narrative films,namely,Casablanca,City Light and The Man Who Knew Too Much,?i?ek has explore how these radical enjoyments are mobilized in the films as well as in the psychological procedure of the cinema-goers.The point is that what makes a certain film the art work is just the enjoyment of the Real."The ontology of the unfinished reality"that ?i?ek once addressed in his film criticism might offer us a start point to renew the interaction of Lacanian psychoanalysis and film theory.
SUN Bai.
Enjoyment of the Real:?i?ek's Application of Lacanian Psychoanalytic Theory to Criticism of Film[J]. Journal of Renmin University of China, 2011(6): 52-59