Romantic love is a concept that emerged in Western culture during the Middle Ages. Some key aspects of romantic love include: - An idealization of love and lovers. Romantic love is seen as passionate, intense, and transformative. - A focus on emotion, feelings, and subjective experience rather than practical concerns. Romantic love prioritizes passion, attraction, and emotion over practical matters like wealth, social status, religion, etc. - An emphasis on attraction to another's inner qualities and uniqueness rather than outer attributes. Romantic love sees beauty within rather than superficial/physical beauty alone. - An idea of a soulmate or one true love. The belief that there is one special person who perfectly completes

2. Learning Objectives
Introduce ‘The Male Gaze’ theory
Apply the Male
Gaze theory to key
scenes from
Vertigo
Evaluate the use of the male gaze
theory as a ‘critical debate’

3. Vertigo Exam Questions
In your exam you will be presented with a choice of
THREE questions to answer for Vertigo
Two questions with be generic and can be applied to all
of the films available for study
You will also be given ONE question that relates
SPECIFICALLY TO VERTIGO
Section C Exam question – Summer 2010
“Explore some of the ways in which you have
gained fresh insights into your chosen film as a
result of applying one or more specific critical
approaches”

4. Laura Mulvey
Laura Mulvey is a British Feminist Film Theorist
from Britain
She is best known for her essay “Visual
Pleasure and the Narrative Cinema”
Her essay is credited with the shift of film
analysis from aesthetic and cultural to a
psychological framework
She was heavily influenced by the psycho-
analytical works of psychologists Sigmund
Freud and Jacques Lacan

5. Laura Mulvey
In her essay Mulvey coined the phrase
‘Male Gaze’
Mulvey...
“Sees the representation of women in film and
literature (and therefore society in general) as
being dominated by a male point of view. Her
belief is that the world is a patriarchy and that men
have the ‘active’ roles and women ‘passive’”
She believes that all audiences must view
each film from the perspective of a
heterosexual male

6. Laura Mulvey
Mulvey states that the role of a female
characters in a narrative has two functions:
1. As an erotic object for the characters within
the story
2. As an erotic object for the spectators within
the auditorium
• Do you think this is true of Vertigo?
• How are the views of both characters and
spectators joined throughout the film?
• Why do you think Hitchcock does this? And is
he successful?

7. The Male Gaze
Mulvey states that our world is ordered by sexual imbalance
and pleasure in looking has been split in to the following:
The characters that ‘Look at’ (Gaze) at others
are seen as the ‘active’ role – Male characters
The characters that are ‘To be looked at’
(gazed) are seen as the ’passive’ role – female
characters – and therefore under control of
the male ‘gazer’
As a result the male gazer projects his fantasy on to the female
form which is styled according to his tastes.
Women are simultaneously looked at, and displayed as
a sexual object – they connote ‘to-be-looked-at-ness’

9. The Male Gaze
Analyse the following scene and answer
the following questions:
• In what ways can we apply the male
gaze theory to this scene?
• How are the male characters Active and
the female Passive
• How is Madeleine’s to-be-looked-at-ness
constructed by Hitchcock?
• How does Scotty fulfil the role of the
‘gazer’?

10. The ‘Male Gaze’
Traditionally in film history male characters
play an active role and drive the narrative
forwards – they make things happen
Women generally play passive roles and are
seen as erotic objects which slow the
narrative down – they inspire men to make Give examples
from the Bell
things happen
Tower Scene in
which both Scottie
Mulvey states that films intend to reflect the & Elster are seen
psychical obsessions of the society that as active
produced it – a patriarchal society and in which
Madeleine is seen
as passive

11. The Male Gaze
In film male characters control narrative
development – they are representative of power –
they control the world
They male protagonist is also the bearer of the
gaze, and as a result the spectator identify with him
more and more as the narrative progresses – we
see this world through their eyes!
How does the
The good looks and powerful position of the male
character of
protagonist is attractive to the spectator – he
Madeleine slow
represents the a more powerful, ideal ego - and we
down the
position ourselves alongside or within those
narrative speed of
characters as he gazes at the world and the people
Vertigo?
around him

12. The Male Gaze
Mulvey argues that throughout a film the spectator is constantly
switching between the role of spectator and the role of the gazer
Watch the following scenes and note down the
ways Hitchcock switches between these two
positions
Consider:
• Shot types
• Editing
• Music

13. The Male Gaze
In order for us to fully identify with the male
protagonist we must be able to accept the
cinematic world as a substitute for reality
The function of a film is to therefore reproduce as
accurately as it can, the so-called natural
conditions of human perception
Camera movement, shot types and invisible
editing tend to blur the limits of screen space
We see the world as ‘real’ were this perfect male
or bearer of the gaze is free to look and create
the action

14. Socophilia
Socophilia
Literally means ‘Love of Watching’
Movie-making and movie-viewing have long been analysed as
socophilic practices.
We sit in a darkened movie theatre and observe the activities of
people on the screen who are unaware that they are being watched
(The term Socophilia derives from Freud’s study of the psyche)
Socophilia and the gaze are key themes of
Hitchcock’s work – especially in Vertigo. The
main characters are a detective (who watches
others without their knowledge) and an actress
of sorts (Judy/ Madeleine) whose role is to be
watched by Scotty

15. Objectification
Objectification is related to the ‘gaze’
The persons ‘gazed’ at are objectified – treated as an
object whose sole value is to be enjoyed or possessed
by the voyeur
Objectified characters are devalued and their
humanity is removed
How is ‘Judy’ objectified throughout the following scene?
Why does Scottie objectify her in this way?
How can we relate this to the ‘castration complex’ & the
male gaze?

16. Fetishism
Fetishism
The focusing of erotic desire on some inanimate
object with sexual connotations, such as
clothes, hair or particular body parts
“the colour of
Alternatively Fetishism involves over-valuing an your hair...”
object that has little or no inherent value
Can you think of any examples of ‘Fetishism’ from
Vertigo?
Using your handouts from the previous lesson note “Whatever the
down the ways in which Judy is ‘fetishised’ by gentleman
Scottie in the following scenes wants...”

17. Fetishism
Laura Mulvey argued that
“Scotty typifies the active gaze of the male
spectator for whom the film industry
manufactures movies. The male spectator
fetishises female beauty as a way of defending
against the anxiety brought about by the
spectacle of women representing ‘lack’ of
castration”
As a result we can argue that the abyss Scottie looks in to at the
beginning of the film, in Muvley’s view, symbolises the lack, and
he must fetishistically try to re-create the ideal women throughout
the narrative of the film.
His Vertigo can be seen as the symbolisation of this confrontation
with the abyss of the feminine

18. Fetishism
Where else in the film does Hitchcock represent
the ‘abyss’?
• Numerous ‘Vertigo’ shots
• Scottie falling in to an open grave

19. Fetishism in Hitchcock
Look at the female characters on your handout
How are they similar?
Why do you think this is?
Hitchcock was known as a controlling director, particularly when it
came to women. His female characters reflected the same qualities
over and over again. They were:
• Blond
• Icy and remote
• They were imprisoned in costumes that subtly combined fashion with
fetishism
• They mesmerised their men, who often has psychological problems
• Sooner or later, they were humiliated / killed

20. Summary
Mulvey argued that we live in a patriarchal society in which men
set the majority of rules and construct the an ideal visions of
women
As a result our culture and by extension, our media products
(literature, film, TV, music etc...) reinforce the ideal construction of
women
She states:
We are bound by a symbolic order in which man can
live out his ‘phantasies’ and obsessions through
linguistic command (cinematic codes:
lighting, camera, editing etc) by imposing them on the
silent image of woman still tied to her place as bearer
of meaning, not maker of meaning

21. Task
Write a short essay style answer to the following
question:
“Explore some of the ways in which you have gained fresh
insights into your chosen film as a result of applying one
or more specific critical approaches”
Consider everything you have learnt today
Also include an analysis of at least ONE scene from Vertigo to
support your points
You think mark each others work using the marking scheme and give
feedback and a grade

22. Romantic Love
What is ‘Romantic Love’?