New Vocabularies in Film Semiotics

PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY 171
frame, or else is looked at by him. If we have gone one notch further,
this is because everything out-of-frame brings us closer to the
spectator, since it is the peculiarity of the latter to be out-of-frame
(the out-of-frame character thus has a point in common with him: he
is looking at the screen).
(ibid.: 57)
He goes on to say that this off-screen character’s look is reinforced by
various techniques that establish point-of-view, either through camera
position (as in the optical point-of-view shot) or through visual distortions
such as blurring or soft-focus (as in the semi-subjective shot). However, he
says, there are usually other elements, instead of camera placement, that
signal the character’s point-of-view, such as the logic of the narrative, an
element of dialogue, or a previous shot. But most important from Metz’
theoretical perspective is the fact that “the identification that founds the
signifier is twice relayed, doubly duplicated in a circuit that leads it to the
heart of the film along a line which…follows the inclination of the looks
and is therefore governed by the film itself” (ibid.) Before “dispersing all
over the screen in a variety of intersecting lines” made up of the looks of
characters on the screen (a “second duplication”), the spectator’s look
(“the basic identification”) must traverse (“‘go through’ as in crossing a
strait”) the look of the off-screen character (the “first duplication”), who is
himself a spectator. Metz considers this off-screen character the “first
delegate” of the spectator, and he describes this extremely complex
operation in the following way: “By offering himself as a crossing for the
spectator, he inflects the circuit followed by the sequence of identifications
and it is only in this sense that he is himself seen: as we see through him,
we see ourselves not seeing him” (ibid.).
Betrand Augst clarifies this by proposing an intricate, variable model
that associates identification with a whole range of cinematic looks:
“Identification plays a central role in the operations of the cinematographic
apparatus because it regulates, balances, modulates the subtle shift of
balance between the many regimes of belief which intervene continually in
the process of production of the fiction-effect” (Augst 1978:12). He thus
provides the framework for Metz’ demonstration of the impossible location
constructed by these looks, and of the circuits of desire engaged by
cinematic viewing. Identifications in the cinema are always partial, diffuse
and imaginary, momentarily catching and suspending the spectator in a net
of elusive glances, an invisible but powerful mirror which holds the viewer
in a state of fascination.
Another concept in psychoanalytic film theory which is developed
around the gaze is SUTURE. This is an extremely complicated idea, first
formulated in 1966 by Jacques-Alain Miller (a student of Lacan’s) to
designate the relation of the subject to the chain of its own discourse, a