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One could say of this film that it “narrates” a sexual act, and that as such it has
a beginning, middle, and end, and even a coda. At the start, the face we see is fairly
impassive, the head rather still. Soon enough, though, things begin to happen. The man
tilts his head up and down and sometimes thrusts it back against the wall behind him,
such that we can see only his taut chin and straining neck with its protruding Adam’s
apple. His head sometimes jerks to one side or the other (the motion is quick even at
silent speed) as his brow furrows and his lips purse or curl. At least once, he licks his lips.
Now and then, one or the other of his hands comes into the frame—to scratch his nose,
wipe his lips, press against his cheek, or run his fingers through his hair. After seven
reels of these minimal occurrences that attune us intimately to this face as it expresses
sexual excitation and intermittent lulls, the penultimate reel shows us the face’s blissful
contortion at the moment of orgasm. Just before we see the decisive spasm, the man’s
hands spring up behind his head in complete surrender. After coming, he settles back
into stasis and impassivity, he scratches his nose, and the reel ends. As the next begins,
a few bobs of the head and scrunches of the face suggest the man is zipping up his
pants and buckling his belt. He puts a cigarette in his mouth, strikes a match, lights
the cigarette, leaves it in place as he inhales, then exhales smoke that momentarily
obscures the face. With obvious post-orgasmic satisfaction, he smokes, serenely looks
about, wipes his nose and mouth with the back of his hand. He cradles his head in his
left arm, then brings his hand to his face and pinches his cheeks together. His mouth
forms a few words of silent speech, he leans forward, and the film runs out.
All the while that we have watched this face for what it would communicate of
sexual excitement, we will surely have noticed something significant about how we
see the face, and how well. The film’s lighting illuminates the face not from the position
from which we look, but from above. Thus, when the man looks directly at the camera,
his eyes are deep in shadow. His face is fully illuminated only when he holds his head
back and looks up into the light. If there is any sense of frustration in Blow Job, it derives,
I think, not from not seeing the sexual act—we really don’t expect to—but from not
being truly able to see the man’s face. No, that’s not precisely it. We do see his face, but
we see it only when he does not look at us, when, sometimes in rapture, sometimes
in tedium, he tilts his head back—and therefore looks away from us. Often he looks
directly our way, but we cannot see him looking at us. Warhol’s camera captures this
face and the sensation it registers, but simultaneously withholds it from us; and he does
this through a simple positioning of the light as if by chance, a bare lightbulb hung from
the ceiling just above and slightly to the left of the scene. We cannot make eye contact.
We cannot look into this man’s eyes and detect the vulnerability that his submission to
being pleasured surely entails. We cannot take sexual possession of him. We can see his
face, but we cannot, as it were, have it. This face is not for us.
Face Value
7