Clayton George Wickham - final thesis

3
of Eyes Wide Shut, it does not address the possibility of a film to portray multiple
points of view, which fluidly change between characters, as frequently occurs in
slasher films like Friday the 13 th and its sequels. However, this should not detract
from Chion’s argument – it is a useful starting point for exploring the complexity of
point of view within cinema. Though this example successfully reveals how
perspective has a tremendous effect on the relationship between content and
presentation within a film, it is important to explicate the reasons why the aesthetic
development of a certain point of view is an important area to research. More
precisely, it is important to understand how this creation of perspective directly
interacts with the experience of being a film spectator, to which Chion alludes in the
previous quote.
Chion addresses the viewer’s relationship to an established point of view.
Speaking specifically of Eyes Wide Shut, he states:
The cinema audience is in an ambiguous position: they know both more
and less than each of the characters in isolation, but this knowledge is all
logical speculation, which they know the film can overturn like a set of
skittles from one moment to the next. Through cross-cutting they know
that Alice does not have a lover she sees while her husband is at work;
but the ellipses in this cross-cutting enable then to imagine that there are
things they have not been shown, and will not discover until the end. The
question is not what we know, but the form in which we learn it. (53)