Clayton George Wickham - final thesis

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killer, but is needed to be seen by another character in order to drive the plot
forward. Eyes of Laura Mars even breaks from Peeping Tom, a film about a
cameraman who is a serial killer, which I will discuss in more detail later, by not
involving a literal camera and compounding the character eye. Fischer and Landy
explore the theme of seeing, eyes and vision that runs throughout the film, but
contributes to the sociocultural analysis of the eye/camera. As Fischer and Landy
note, “Again, what is provocative about this narrative/stylistic device is the way it
can be read to literalize an issue in the ideology of vision.” (66) They go on to
discuss the power of the male gaze, dominating the female gaze and how the film
reinforces this. Although the argument that Fischer and Landy make proves an
important contribution to the discourse on sociopolitics and the gaze within cinema
in addition to bringing serious critical attention to Eyes of Laura Mars, they ignore
fascinating elements of the eye/camera as used in the film, and how it is exploited to
inventive aesthetic ends. The eye/camera limits itself even more by blurring the
edges of the composition to create an almost indecipherable frame. The clear image
is almost contained within an iris that all but eradicates the periphery. While this
asserts a distinct perspective, it proves the eye/camera to be extremely limiting and
frustrating, which reflects the experience of Laura Mars, not knowing whose eyes
she is seeing through as her own vision is usurped and becomes subject to this more
restrictive and mysterious viewpoint. The eye/camera manages to bring with it the
same sense of proximity fear as we watch victims we are increasingly more familiar
with become the object of stalking and killing. But this proximity fear takes a
unique turn when Laura Mars, overcome with the sight of the attacker, sees that the
stalker is coming up the stairs to her studio where she is at that very moment. Laura
is aware of the proximity of the threat to her, and with this knowledge is able to