The Symbolic Realm, the Sublime, and Žižek's Theory of Cinema: Chapter Five: Pleasure in Cinema

Symbolic realm, sublime and Žižek's film theory:

Chapter Five: Pleasure in Cinema

Which subject of the film?

Films and popular culture are valuable for research because they represent all aspects and parts of people's daily lives, which helps to understand how people cope with the deadlocks of oppression and exploitation by power. Film theory is an excellent supplement to ideological theory, and Žižek's film analysis is not only a simple supplement, but also plays a role in ideological criticism. The field of overlap between film analysis and ideological critique is in the realm of hedonism. For Zizek, pleasure, or original pleasure, is a political problem linked to ideology. By analyzing and interpreting hedonism in film, Žižek expanded his understanding of hedonism in ideology. Žižek's film analysis, while paying limited attention to the particularities of the film medium, developed a more powerful analytical strategy to analyze ideological mediation. This chapter will introduce a Žižek-style film analysis that focuses on spectatorship and ideological hedonistic production

Now, I revisit Žižek's concept of subjectivity to rethink the category of ideological inquiry in film studies and critical theory. First of all, I think that the subject position of the audience precedes the act of watching the film itself, so the film does not call the individual inquiry as the subject. Contrary to what Althusser and the "screen theorists" say, I think ideology instead calls the subject as an individual: a Bourgeois "individual, to be precise, or what Colin MacCabe calls a "unified subject of experience." In other words, the subject is interrogated as X, i.e. some kind of symbolic identity or "mandate." This distinction is important because it shows the difference between the agency initiative of the subject and the latter's ideological oppression of the subject.

Ideology interrogates the subject by reproducing what Lacan calls "surplus-hedonism," which I think is more like desire and pleasure than simply "pleasure." I equate surplus-hedonism with desire because the object A is the "surplus" of hedonism that is lacking in the objectifying reality; it is the materialized deprivation and the raison d'être of desire. It is only by following the object of the pattern of desire, A, that pleasure is reduced to mere pleasure; and it is by virtue of this happy production that the subject is ideologically interrogated. This claim is important because it challenges the view that the audience always and must identify with the ideological content of the film—a statement that gives the inquiry the possibility of failure, in which there is no reproduction of desire or pleasure. It is also necessary to point out that there are differences between this view and the "stitching" theory's interpretation of the production of desire in movie-watching behavior. In the latter, the subject of desire as the audience is always the subject of scarcity. My view, however, is that the subject as the viewer is the remaining subject.

In order to achieve my goal, it is necessary to distinguish between pleasure and pleasure. Happiness comes from the order of the symbolic realm: it attaches to the residual hedonism to which the subject depends, i.e., the fragments of pleasure that seep out from the cracks in the symbolic realm. Through the reproduction of desire, the subject clings to its particular subject position, thus reproducing the objective conditions guaranteeing this subject position (this is an idea to answer Marx's question: why do the exploited people contradict the theory of exploitation?). ）。 Hedonism, on the other hand, is an impossible order of reality: as Žižek puts it in The Sublime Object of Ideology: "Original pleasure does not exist, it is impossible, but it produces a series of traumatic effects." [2] The paradox of hedonism is that its consistency comes from a ban on it; this prohibition evokes pleasure as "surplus-hedonism." In order to save the surplus from oversaturation – pleasure and desire – people crave prohibitions. This behavior makes pleasure "perverted" in a strictly psychoanalytic and masochistic context. Of course, the film's ability to produce happiness for the regeneration of the subject is not a novel claim. What I'm talking about here is that ideology regenerates happiness in the same way that movies regenerate the subject.

Dialectics of appearances and illusions

In The Sublime Object of Ideology, Žižek interprets Hegel's argument that "the supersensible is appearance qua appearance"[3]" as follows: "To call it a representation implies that there is something behind the appearance, that it appears through appearance, that it hides truth, and that it provides a premonition through the same gesture; it both hides and reveals the essence behind the scenes, But what is behind the appearance of phenomena? It conceals precisely the fact that it hides nothing, and it is the fact that it hides that the act of concealment itself hides nothing [4]. ”

The fact that the appearance contains far more truth than it should conceal is a decisive illustration of the connection between film theory and ideological critique. The essence that should be hidden behind the appearance is already contained in the logic of the appearance. It is in this sense that the film "reality" is more real than reality itself. But the appearance perceived as a veil is constructed through the illusion of giving it consistency. As long as the illusion that sustains it does not deteriorate, the appearance will not disintegrate. Two films mentioned in Žižek's book confirm this dialectic between appearance and fantasy: Vertigo (1958) and Mulholland (2000).

For Žižek, Ecstasy is "a film about the breathtaking power of sublime imagery". It is a film about "more truth in appearance than in the story behind it". As Žižek puts it, the film's shock "is not the discovery that the prototype is just a copy... Rather, it was the prototype [that we think] of the copy." Unlike some film critics who believe that Ecstasy is a Platonic problem (about appearance and reality), Žižek argues that the film is completely anti-Platonic: "When Scottie finally discovers Judy, his substitute for Madeleine, who is actually Madeleine, what provokes his murderous impulse is the anger of a deceived Platonist. [8] When he sensed that the prototype he wanted to reconstruct a perfect copy was already a copy in itself. ”

According to Žižek, three key scenes in Ecstasy show the relationship between Scotty and Judy. The first was their first nighttime date, when Scotty noticed a woman in the restaurant who looked a lot like Madeleine; she was wearing the same gray dress as Madeleine. For Žižek, the scene, especially when Judy is in the same frame as the woman, is the moment when "Abusolute" manifests itself as "shining" into the transcendental dimension of reality. The second is that after the date, they come to Judy's room in the Imperial Hotel. In this scene we see a close-up of Judy in the dark, her face half shrouded in shadows. This is a complement to previous close-ups of Judy dressed as Madeleine at Ernie's restaurant. According to Žižek, this is the scene in which Judy is subjectivized and reduced to "less-than-object, a formless, pre-ontological stain". The third scene, which takes place in a ballroom, says Zizek fully conveys "Scotty's disgust for Judy's body." Here, Judy desperately wants to get close to Scotty, and he seems to want to maintain a safe distance. Zizek believes that this scene should be interpreted as suggesting a distinction between the original pleasures of love and sex. The latter is necessarily masturbating in nature and at the same time points to the core of subjectivity. Instead of turning away from the core of sexual pleasure, love is a condition for sharing this core with one's sexual partner. By elaborating on this distinction, Perhaps Žižek wants to say that Scotty does not love Judy Madeleine, but rather wants to "masturbate with the help of her real body." 10 This assertion comes from Žižek's formula that "sex" is actually masturbating with a real partner.

To better imagine this dilemma, we can give another well-known example of how Žižek explains how fantasy underpins reality. A British beer commercial shows the following fairytale scene: the princess meets the frog, kisses it, and the frog becomes a handsome prince. The prince kisses the princess, and she turns into a bottle of beer. According to Žižek, the ad elaborates on Lacan's argument that "sexual relations do not exist." We can imagine that on the level of obscene fantasy, what underpins the romantic picture of the prince and princess is actually a frog hugging a bottle of beer... Or back to Ecstasy.

According to Žižek, the first three scenes constitute Hegelian syllogism: the first premise, "Scotty searches for his Madeleine in Judy"; the second premise, "Judy is reduced to a proto-entity, an incomplete, formless slime, i.e., a pure vessel for Makingleine's sublime ideas"; and concluding that "Judy's embodied existence can only be the object of Scotty's disgust". I think the correct way to read this syllogism is to conceive it in the context of our previous arguments about the connection between appearance and fantasy. The truth about Judy Madeleine is in the copy/appearance. Scotty's "disgust" is presented as a confrontation, the opponent is the truth behind the appearance, which comes with the illusion and reconstructs his understanding of reality. Another film that more clearly articulates this encounter with fantasy — which subsequently completely disrupts the effective "reality" — is Mulholland Road.

For Žižek, the key scene in this film takes place at the Silencio nightclub. Over here. Betty and Rita watched a singer perform a Spanish version of Roy Obison's Cry. However, in the middle of the performance, when the singer fell ill and fainted, the singing continued. Žižek argues that we find that after fantasy and reality fall apart, reality remains persistent—or rather, it "insists." The song comes in as the ghost object of the real world, the object of the beggar's drive, "irradiated", which Žižek believes implies that the real world still exists after the collapse of the "reality". The song marks the shift of desire to drive after the fantasy framework is disturbed. In a typical Lynch unfolding, it is at the time of the disintegration of the fantasy that we enter the nightmare world of the movie. After the dissolution of the illusion, we encounter the traumatic emptiness of subjectivity.

Faith on the silver screen

[13] By what Žižek called "interpassivity", we can also imagine how cinema underpins ideology. The best example of the former is the effect of "canned laughter" in sitcoms. At the end of a busy day at work, I went home and turned on the TV to relax. But I was so tired that I couldn't even laugh at the comedy scenes that existed for my pastime —thankfully, the TV had already laughed for me. Interactive passivity illustrates how belief works in contemporary times. With interactive passivity, I no longer have to actively identify with a particular belief, in contrast to which beliefs have been objectified in the objects of domination and culture.

As Žižek argues, today's ideological critique no longer revolves around demystification. Ideology has nothing to do with knowledge, but with beliefs that objectify in everyday activities. Ideological criticism is concerned with how to persuade subjects to be aware of their submission to the ruling order when they are already familiar with existing forms of power. Perhaps the subject does not believe this on a conscious level, but his actions prove it. Ideology is presented here as a perverse form of fetishism: "I am well aware, but..." The film is more clearly at work as an example of an interactive passive, objectified belief, which shows the process of the transfer of belief from the subject to the objective form of the medium. I am no longer asked to believe in peace, community, love, romance... The film interactively passively believes in my position.

An example of the latter, which is particularly clear for the progressive lefties, is in a documentary directed by Michael Moore. In his concluding remarks in his documentary Capitalism: A Love Story (2009), Moore shows his understanding of the film's interactive passivity. At the end, he said that without the participation of the audience, he could not continue filming. In other words, he expressed his frustration with the passive interaction of the audience, who watched the movie but did not want to stand on the street and did not want to leave the sofa to take political action. The problem he doesn't see is that precisely because he thinks ideology is to expose false knowledge — that audiences don't feel the need for political action — that they don't need to subjectivize their beliefs for political reasons — after all, Moore's documentary believes in their positions.

On-screen beliefs also operate by objectifying potential fantasies that construct our dependence on mainstream ideologies. Recent years of science fiction/disaster films have demonstrated this. Žižek often quotes James' argument in The Seeds of Time (1994): "It is far easier for us to imagine the demise of the earth and nature than to imagine the disintegration of the late capitalist system" [14]. By quoting Jen, Žižek points out that films like Mimi Lida's Deep Impact (1998), Michael Bay's Armageddon (1998), and Roland Emeridge's 2012 (2009) are becoming increasingly popular. Each of these films expresses an important underlying fantasy about late capitalism: it is much simpler to imagine a shift in the capitalist mode of production at the end of the world than imagined to be milder.

We should turn our attention to the latest movie in the Star Trek series, J. J. Abrams' Star Trek (2009). Instead of shooting in the chronological order of the series, it takes us back to a point earlier than the original TV series. It should not even be interpreted as a representation of the distant future, but rather as a representation of a world closer to the present. A feature of the film that is easily overlooked hints at this: The music played by young James Kirk as he drives on the highway is the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage"—a song that one did not expect to play in the narrative space of a future "real" situation. The Star Trek narrative abandons the future and goes back in time. This suggests that for us today– especially in a stage where the financial stage of capital forces us to spend more and more on the future in order to live in the present age – even just imagining the future is impossible.

The last example hints at this underlying fantasy of the utopia of the impossible: the vampire movie that was popular among teenagers, the most notable example being Twilight. Why are these movies (and books) so popular with teens? I give the bold assumption that when we can no longer imagine a world beyond the despair of late capitalism today, vampires offer the possibility of life beyond death and somehow alleviate the discomfort of contemporary teenagers. Vampires—especially the romantic aspects of vampire narratives—offer teens the illusion of a living world that jumps out of the cynical reality of late capitalism. Twilight and other similar films de-subjectivize our active participation in late capitalist politics through the illusion of life beyond death on the screen, thereby objectifying the remainder of our beliefs (and pleasures). This kind of film frees us from a need that drives us to identify with emptiness at the heart of subjectivity.

Psychoanalysis and self

To understand Žižek's view of subjectivity, we can start with the questions of "What is the self" and "Does freedom exist?" They are all questions related to determinism or decisions. [15] Cognitivist filmologists, such as Podwell, have tried to answer similar questions by observing human mental activity—such as identification, understanding, speculation, interpretation, judgment, memory, and imagination while watching movies, and have minimized the gap between scientific and philosophical discussions. For Žižek, bridging the gap is a pseudo-problem. The question, he argues, is not how to reduce the gap, but how we should rethink the gap [between science and philosophy] with each new scientific discovery. For him, the question should be, "How do our conceptions of 'reality' and consciousness change with the New?" Or how is the New placed in a deterministic context? ”。

Science, as knowledge of reality, seems to be moving closer to a formal determinism rather than freedom. If thinking is only a measurable brain activity, and action is nothing more than a sensory impulse, where does subject agency come from? How do I know that my thinking and actions are not directly stimulated by brain activity? Is "I" determined by these purely biological and chemical factors? Speaking of movies, how can I be sure that the pleasure I get from movies is not the product of some stimulus that acts directly on the brain and senses? These questions are also important to the producer and often surface in the content of the film. For example, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner: A Director's Cut (1993) raises the question of how "self" and consciousness are formed by manipulating dreams, memories, and self-awareness. Both Decker and Rachel believe in themselves as human, not because they are designed to believe they are human, but because they respond to the (electrical/mechanical) brain according to their conscious "Selves". The content itself (memory/fantasy) may be implanted in their brains; but what really matters is how their conscious "self" acknowledges and misidentifies it.

Here, consciousness, "self," and subjectivity are strictly distinguished from the material brain. Consciousness, or "self," is a gap between nature and culture; it is the result of a constitutive imbalance. It arises from a process of reflection in which the self attributes its misidentification to itself. Consciousness arises from this unbalanced acknowledgment ( register ) , a phenomenon that arises from the dead knot of impossibility. Consciousness is the presentation of possibilities and necessities (the fact of the existence of the subject) in the face of impossibility and probabilities; the latter is the element of thought assigned to the subconscious.

The concept of consciousness I am speaking of here needs to be distinguished from the traditional Cartesian conception of consciousness, a Bourgeois concept of a subject with definite and unified experience, and considered by early film theorists to be something that was interrogated in cinema. Unlike some structuralists/post-structuralists who have abandoned the Cartesian subject, one of Žižek's philosophical goals re-emphasizes the meaning of the Cartesian "I think." He also drew the distinction between the modern, bourgeois, and integrated empirical subject (the "apparent conscious subject") and the subconscious psychoanalytic subject.

"I think" and forced choice of existence

Žižek argues that understanding "I think" is important for understanding the subconscious mind in Lacanian psychoanalysis. Lacan first refined Freud's method, which began by postulating a definite position of subject—that is, the position of a fully conscious, self-centered modern Bourgeois subject—or the Cartesian reduction of "I think" to "res cogitans": reducing existence to consciousness—I think, therefore I am. Lacan put it this way: "Freud's method is Cartesian— because he starts from a definite subject. With this in mind, the first thing to do is to overcome anything that is related to the content of the subconscious mind—especially when the problem is to extract content from dreams—to overcome the things that drift around, that mark, maintain, and point out any dream communication text—I'm not sure, I suspect so.[16] ”

Unlike the Cartesian context of "I think," psychoanalysis follows a Kantian "transcendental turn," pointing to the disconnection of the subject in the totality of the universe. On the level of the absence of a certain deterministic position, the (subconscious) subject in psychoanalysis is similar to the Kantian subject. This absence constitutes the main body. The point of psychoanalysis is that the subject is extremely decentralized. Consciousness arises from a misidentification of its own place in the symbolic realm, its "verbal position." Following Kant, psychoanalysis reaffirms the most fundamental aspect of self-doubt. This is the argument lacan wants to illustrate with the help of the Cartesian "I think".

Lacan argues that "I think" comes from a forced choice of being. He insisted that the subject is forced to choose between thinking and being.[existence]. In order to exist (in the limitations of the symbolic world), the subject is forced to make existential choices, and thinking is assigned to the unconscious. Man becomes the subject through this forced choice of existence. As Žižek puts it, the subconscious mind is the "thing that thinks" and therefore cannot be grasped by the subject. Lacan rephrased Descartes' famous quote as "I think about it the way it is". Žižek explains that Descartes' mistake was that he assumed that the choice of thought helped the subject preserve its point of existence, thereby gaining certainty of the "I" as the "thing of thought."

On what Lacan calls the forced choice of existence, Žižek's view is that the subject's chosen existence is underpinned by unconscious fantasies. It is not the conscious subject who is thinking (i.e., not "I think, therefore I am"),but the unconscious fantasy that is "thinking" ("I am thinking', it is't thinking"). It is through existential choices that the subject's ideal self is formed in the imaginary realm; it is part of the subject's "basic fantasy"—through which I see myself as "this". This is my image —my identification with my ideals—and it's a pathology of the imaginary world that underpins my daily practical engagement in symbolic reality. Blade Runner: Director's Cut is a great place to help us think about the support that fantasy gives to existence and "reality." Deckard's fantasies about unicorns illustrate how the concept of existence in our daily practice is underpinned by fantasies. References to this image in the film illustrate Deckard's (post)human state. The unicorn fantasy is revealed as the only content of Decker's attachment to human nature, and illustrates how the fantasy underpins his attachment to "reality.". In a sense, the unicorn fantasy is the antithesis of Decker's "humanity" (Decker = unicorn).

The fantasy-framework, through which I can see myself seeing myself, is the original, constitutive symptom of subjectivization, what Lacan calls the sinthome rather than a mere "symptom." The "symptoms" represent a symbolic product formed as a result of repression— as a pathological return to the real realm within the symbolic realm, while the holy form, in Žižek's eyes, is "the only substance that constitutes us, the only positive support of our existence, the only point that gives the subject unity." The Holy Letter answers the question: "How do we explain to patients who have abandoned their fantasies and are far from the fantasy-framework of the reality in which they live, but are still trapped by symptoms [18]?" The Holy Letter raises the fact that the subject "enjoys" her symptoms: it is "the simplest formula for subject consistency". The Holy Form arises from the subject's ontological attachment to the pleasures of the impossible, and is the last and only remnant. In a sense, the holy form is the original constitutive symptom of the subject—a symptom that is formed as a "basic fantasy" and gives subject coherence as an alternative to (self)doubt. It is fantasy that fills the gap between the pre-ontological realities (the emptiness of nothingness). This points to psychoanalytic theory, as Žižek put it: "What we are not exposed to is not the reality of the thing itself, but our basic illusion itself," when the subject gets too close to this illusory core, he loses the consistency of his existence" [22]. The concept of the Holy Form is at the heart of Christopher Nolan's Inception.

In this film, the plan to implement the "Inception: Beginning, Beginning"—that is, implanting an idea into the subconscious—requires changing the subject's holy form—that is, the image it depicts of itself (imago) or the ideal self. Influencing the Holy Order enables the subject to perceive the inspiration to make a conscious decision, and this inspiration seems to spontaneously appear to the subject. The subject's misidentification of his thoughts is actually an implanted fact, because its source is perceived as belonging to the subject's own inner sense of self. [23] Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his gang implanted ideas by allowing Fischer (Killian Murphy) to perceive a shift on a subconscious level, transforming the way he looked at himself when he stood in his father's ideal position. That is, the task is to get the subject to identify with its holy form.

The ontological argument of psychoanalysis is that in order to come into contact with symbolic reality, something must be hidden from him: the false, irrational, unconventional fantasy-object, the object of small a, the object of desire-cause, the remainder of the reality realm; the object that has no place in the symbolic realm is the subject, the part that itself cannot recognize. It is this part that has been misidentified in ideology. The truth of the subject is neither its symbolic identity nor its position, i.e., the gap or emptiness in the symbolic realm. It is subconscious thinking, it is the object of small a, and this is the subject. What the subject is not prepared to accept is the truth that is "in the subject." Doing so would challenge its own symbolic existence. The recognition of this truth triggers the contradiction between the subject's practical, rational (i.e., figurative) consciousness and irrational unconscious fantasies, and the misappropriation of this creates an illusionary image of the closure of the former.

Fantasy and sanctification are "two sides of the same coin". Fantasy as the constitutive "matter" of the subject is fundamental. And the encounter with this irrational fantasy is truly traumatic for the subject. The fantasy/holy form is filthy because it says something about the subject that the first person himself is not ready to accept. In other words, the subject is not prepared to assume the responsibility of its own pathological supplementary fantasy, and it is precisely this fantasy that constructs its subjectivization within the coordinates of the symbolic boundary. Fantasy and sacred form are condensed into a Lacan-style object, i.e. object small a.

My reference to the object xiao a is related to the pathological fantasy-object of the imaginary world that the subject cannot grasp. Object Small A is the core of the subject's existence—the transfer to unconscious thinking. It is the framework of experience or its "pure form" that we continue to mislead. It is in this context that Žižek claims that fantasy constructs reality—that fantasy here is not the symbolic material of reality or some kind of daydreaming naïve consciousness that we use to experience the world, but a support for the symbolic realm that lurks beneath the surface.

Desire, then, arises from the participation of the subject who is forced to choose existence in the symbolic order (through "symbolic castration"). Desire is retroactively displayed as the (unconscious) presupposition of the existence of the subject (within the symbolic realm). Symbolism forbids fullness of original pleasure or pleasure, but it also regulates the subject through the continuous desire (re)production of small hedonistic "fragments"—or rather, surplus-hedonism (surplus-originality)—. Zizek argues that there is a joke that explains desire well, a joke about someone trying to evade forced military service by proving his madness: "His 'symptom' is compulsively examining all the documents at hand and shouting: 'Not this!'" He did the same thing when he was examined by the army psychiatrist, so the physician finally gave him a document proving that he could leave the army. He picked up the document, examined it and shouted: 'That's it!' [24] "The point here is naturally to look for the object that itself generates itself. This is exactly how desire works, and the film complements this reproduction by staging a symbolic fictional work, in which the subject/viewer produces his own surplus, hedonism, in the process of finding pleasure. It is this continuous reproduction of desire that sustains the subject's existence within the symbolic realm. It makes possible the conditions of existence.

(No) Possible conditions

From Lacan's point of view, existence is based on the conditions of the possibility of Hara.com. Ideology (or hegemonism) relies on the subject's masochistic submission to symbolic authority. According to this logic, the subject succumbs to the prohibition of authority in order to escape the impossibility of consummation of pleasure. If I blame the ban on my inability to obtain HaraRaku, then Hararaku has an ontological possibility. What is truly traumatic in the subject's contact with reality is the recognition that full hedonism is ontologically impossible, and that the way to escape this impossibility is to assume that the inability to grasp the original pleasure is not because of its Impossible-Real, but because of the prohibition. I think that's why power/authority is very productive and why subjects are called upon by ideology.

Žižek argues that today's politics is increasingly the politics of original music. It focuses on discovering the different ways in which we can solicit, regulate, and control our pleasures. Today, in our free, post-political, liberal democracy at the "end of history," we should not only be free to enjoy; we are almost instructed to do so. According to Žižek, postmodern society is a society of the superego. If modern society is characterized by the hardships of production and the authority of the father, postmodern society is characterized by consumption, pleasure, and matriarchal superego commands: "Go and enjoy!" "The ideology that is constituted.

In psychoanalytic doctrine, Žižek notes that the law is "the agent of prohibition, which regulates the distribution of pleasure on the basis of a universally shared renunciation ('symbolic castration'), while the superego marks the line of the permissible freedom to hedonism, or hedonism, inverted into the obligation to hedonistic pleasure". The law regulates our happiness and thus "delivers" us from the hedonistic obligations imposed on us by the superego. This is the psychoanalytic assumption of the master: in order to save our desires from saturation, we "externalize this obstacle, the inherent stalemate of desire, and transform it into a 'repressive' force that opposes it from the outside". The perversion, then, stems from the recognition of the necessity of the Dhamma in the production of desires, while the perverts continue to "enjoy their symptoms."

By regulating pleasure and desire, the law produces surplus-hedonism, domesticating the drive of the naked reality and maintaining its own ruling order by avoiding the former. The dominant symbolic order is self-reproduced, and it can even generate surplus-hedonism in the subject. The only problem with the current ruling order, Žižek argues, is that it seems to ignore the agent of the master's signifier—the agent of law and power. That's why the only remaining agent of ideological inquiry is the superego's command to "Enjoy!" ”[28]。 However, since pleasure is the impossible reality, this superego commands traumatic contact with anxiety or impossibility. It is in this sense, I argue, that postmodernity has truly become an "age of anxiety".

Symbolic appointments

Contrary to the concept of interpellation in Althusserianism, ideology does not internalize the concept of external contingent notions in the ideological state apparatuses (ISAs). According to Žižek, "The internalization of ideology and external contingency is the exact opposite: it is the externalization of the results of internal necessity. —including the internal necessity of the subject's existence, the core of the internal necessity of maintaining surplus (pleasure, desire, and symbolic existence) – "Then the task of critique of ideology is to discern the necessity hidden under mere contingency." For Žižek, Althusser's biggest problem was that he and his successors could not accurately articulate the relationship between the ideological state apparatus (ISAs) and the ideological interpellation: "How about the ideological state apparatus ... 'internalize' itself?" How does it produce ideological beliefs about a cause? And how does it relate to subjectivization, to the perception of the individual's ideological position? "First of all, I think that the interpellation should be silenced as the internalization of ideology in the unconscious.

Interpellation is not about how a person actualizes as a subject. We should actually think of it this way: inquiry is the purpose of the subject, and it is the subject whose identity is recognized by the Symbolic big Other; and this is why desire is always the desire of the greater Other. It is not the subject who responds to the call of the great other; it is the subject who strives to make itself recognized by the great other under the pretext of some symbolic commission, "Yes, (this) is me." Identity, or concepts like this, are fake and, in that sense, "phallic." In psychoanalysis, "phallus" does not mean masculine power; it is closer to some kind of fake of masculinity. The so-called masculine position in psychoanalysis is a kind of performance (in the Butlerian sense); we perform such a performance in order to make ourselves recognized at the level of the Great-Other. This is a misidentification at the center of the ideological meaning of the "self." A Lacan logic game helps to better explain this process.

Žižek often refers to the "logical time" in Lacan's paper, a problem that Lacan asked: a warden summoned three prisoners and told them that, for some reason, one of them was now to be released. He told them that a test was now to be done to decide who would be released. The warden had five plates in his hands: three white and two black. A plate was placed on the top of each prisoner's head, either white or black. Now prisoners are put in the same room, but they are not allowed to communicate with each other. The first person to correctly say the color of the plate above his head will be released. The answer must be a logical reasoning, and must be told to the warden after walking out of the door; the act of walking out of the door is equivalent to telling other prisoners, "I already know the color of the disk above my head."

There are three possible scenarios for this problem:

1. If a prisoner sees that the discs on the top of the other two prisoners' heads are black, he immediately knows that the discs on the top of his head are white, because there are only two black discs.

2. If a prisoner sees a black and white disc on the top of two other prisoners' heads, he can assume that if the top of my head is black, then the prisoner holding the white disc will immediately walk out of the room. Because he did not go out of the room, the prisoner could deduce that the plate on his head was white. The prisoner's inference of the color of the plate on the top of his head was based on the premise that neither of the other two prisoners would move.

3. If a prisoner sees that the discs on the top of the other two prisoners' heads are white, he can still infer that the discs on the top of his head are white based on their reactions: if it is black - according to the reasoning in the previous 2 - at least one of the other two prisoners must have gone out. Since none of them moved, the reasoning was logical: the disks above everyone's heads were white.

Here, Lacan refers to logic in order to establish the concept of "self reflection." The subject becomes aware of the self through a delay in time—in case 3, even double the delay—because the subject must first assume that the other two are inactive (condition 2) and then reason about the outcome of situation 3. In ideology, however, it is clear that the subject is not so assumed as a symbolic mandate—or even the opposite. In ideology, the existence, but absence of symbolic mandates, provokes anxiety that prompts the subject to assume a nonreflexive mandate: "I am this." As Žižek puts it, "In the case of symbolic mandates, it's hard to simply figure out what we are; we rely more on some kind of precipitous subjective gesture to decide 'what we've become.'" This gesture of hasty assumption of symbolic commission implies a shift from object to signifier—in logic games, from plate-object to signifier (black or white); the disk is the object "I am"—that is, the object a/objet petit a—"its invisibility leads me to the fact that I can never really know 'what I am as an object'. When the subject misidentifies the "self as an object," we discover the relationship between the subject and the object (object a) in the psychoanalytic sense. What I can never get close to is this object: it sustains me as a symbol of the self—phenomenological existence—and this object is the object of complementary fantasy. This is necessary to understand the psychoanalytic concept of desire. Desire is excess-pleasure, which maintains my own sense of existence and self in the symbolic realm. I think ideology interrogates the subject through the (re)production of desires. It is the unconscious dimension of this desire that attaches the subject to its own exploitation in ideology. Žižek's concept of "parallax gap" helps explain the subject's misidentification of his desires, which attaches the subject to authority.

Parallax view

When Žižek refers to the "parallax view" or the "parallax gap," it can be understood as a link between two or more perspectives that lack any possible neutral common ground. There are several ways to understand the concept of parallax. On the one hand, we can consider it in conjunction with Žižek's parallax Real. Standard Lacanian Real refers to something that always returns as the same thing—das Ding—while parallax reality means many different representations based on the same reality. Parallax reality, in other words, means that many different symbolic appearances capture the gap/void of reality from their respective perspectives. Parallax gaps, on the other hand, can also be understood as "minimal differences", or "pure differences", between different representations. It is this minimal difference that divides the same object from different perspectives. The objet petit a is the representation of this minimal difference, which Žižek calls a "pure parallax object." This object is the so-called (Althussa, following Spinoza, as it is called) symbolic "absent cause". Again, symbolic appropriations for objects are internally split and stem from different attempts to approach the object itself.

Žižek's philosophical-psychoanalytic, ontological assertion is that the subject itself is internally divided like a parallax gap. This is the parallax between "lack" and "surplus", between "empty place" in the structure and "errant object without a place" in the structure. Žižek asserts that in the "parallax view", it is not two elements that are seen, but two different perspectives of the same element. They are the same entity, but observed from different subjective perspectives. According to Žižek, the objet petit a is in fact a "paradoxical object of the 'is' subject". In order for the subject to transcend certain pathological constraints in its everyday existence, it must first begin with the object of the first-person assume—in order to be responsible for the pathology itself—that is, to put at risk its own phenomenal existence, the objective, noumenal kernel, that the subject must" Traverse the fantasy" and then into a state of "subjective destitution."

Žižek argues that when we analyze ideology, it is not enough to debunk the appearance as some naïve or false consciousness. More importantly, it is important to understand that there is an internal necessity in the subject that strongly associates the subject with appearances, transcending all attempts to demystify. Illusion, as a shameful and contradictory element, directly subjectivizes the order of appearances. What I am talking about here may be considered "objectively subjective": an illusory object that "subjectifies the subject into a symbolic order." In other words, there is no subjectivization or identity (identity) in the symbolic realm that is not accompanied by the sublime object of illusion, through which the subject is subjectified. "Objective subjectivity" actually refers to the way things are objectively presented to the subject, even if the subject is not ready to assume the appearance in the first person.

Finally, I think, this is how we "watch spectatorship" movies. When it comes to "subject-positions," it's best to get rid of what screen theorists define as "viewing" and the images of barrenness proposed by film scholars (e.g., David Podwell, Noel Cavill, Stephen Prince). What we need to remember is that it is the parallax gap between the "audience as the subject" and "the sublime side of the illusion that subjectifizes the subject" that produces its own subjective encounter with the text of the film symbol world. Contrary to psychoanalytic film theory of the '70s and '80s, we don't need to assume that audiences have the same "gaze" (e.g., male gaze), as filmmakers expected. In fact, there are actually different subject positions in the parallax reality, and they are all specially subjectified by the object of illusion, that is, objective subjectivity.

Symbolic fiction

If pleasure can be obtained by direct stimulation now — such as drugs, or direct electrochemical stimulation of the brain center — then why do we need culture or art in capital letters? In other words, why do we need culture and art to satisfy aesthetic pleasure more than simple and direct stimulation? Why do we still need symbolic fiction to serve our pleasure? That's the question Žižek asked when he referred to The Matrix (Wachowski, 1999). Regarding the "matrix", the virtual world of this symbolic reality in the Matrix, Žižek's question is not "Why do matrices need human energy (using human physical energy ratio as energy to power machines)", but the complete opposite "Why does energy need a matrix?" ”

The Matrix has self-referentiality, which seems to provide a valuable frame of reference for Žižek's film and subjectivity analysis. The film tells the story of a process in which the audience will also participate. The Matrix even prompts us to ask: How do we know that the symbolic reality that we take effect every day is not simulated by a computer? I think the topic of sexuality helps us think about this.

In a way, the difference between humans and animals is that humans don't just make love for the sake of procreation. What we call "sexuality" is actually a symbolic universe in which sex itself is constantly being replaced. Here I am referring to Lacan's theory that "ils n'y a pas de rapport sexuel". On this topic, Žižek cites some cognitive psychologists' explanations of the evolution of human intelligence. Geoffrey Miller argues that the impetus for intellectual evolution is not survival, but the power to "sexually choose." According to Miller's theory, humans promote the evolution of intelligence in order to make potential partners choose themselves. This developed into the "fitness indicators" theory, which is used to describe the advantages a person has in sexual competition. Miller believes that mental abilities are a concrete example of caller indicators. However, Žižek argues that Miller misses the fact that only in humans are these indicators elevated to ends. In other words, the ultimate goal of human "sex" is not to have sex. It's actually about "the act of arousal." If people's ultimate goal is only a certain behavior per se, we are likely to see the end to seduction.

Žižek's point in this example is that we have "sexuality"—the symbolic universe of eroticism and seduction—precisely because of its inherent failure. Because of the inherent impossibility of sex, it spills over into everything else—the inherent impossibility of this "purpose" of fulfilling the object of desire. Sex is never enough. Don't we want to get more after the end of sex? The uniqueness of human nature, Žižek argues, is that we seem to enjoy the "caller indicator" more, seducing the process itself, the symbolic world of sex, than the sexual act itself. Here, he reverses the formula: procreation is not the cause of sex; rather, we reproduce (or have sex) in order to enjoy temptation. In other words, sex is a symbolic fictional "game" to replace the traumatic energy that drives. Therefore, we immerse ourselves in the symbolic realm to release libidinal energy. It is in the symbolic reality of sex that people escape the abyss of real trauma, or the abyss of blind drive. It is symbols that give meaning to these blind drivers. The process from reality to symbol is the process from meaninglessness to meaning. Meaninglessness is the utter trauma.

The film is interesting precisely because it is a symbolic fiction that arouses desire. In this sense, the film perfectly reproduces the elementary matrix of identity in the Symbolic coordinates of ideology, as opposed to subjectivity. I think it is by creating an unconscious illusion that sustains the pleasure obtained, so that the viewer is fully integrated into the act of viewing. So I called the film "sexualize." It is achieved by arousing desire. It is a precise example of the "symbolic level of ideology" and the "sublime level," the obscene underside of the "passionate attachments" of ideology. The film reveals the complete relationship between culture and ideology.

Here, following Žižek's theory, I propose to define "culture" as activities in which "I" engage but do not fully believe—activities with which I distance myself. However, in the process of participation, there is still a lofty belief in illusions, and this object of illusion maintains attachment to symbols. In the film, "I" is not a lack of emphasis on symbolic fiction. What I really don't pay attention to is actually active and subjective participation in the form of a movie. What I despise is the illusion of denial—the object that sustains my enjoyment—not just the suspension of disbelief, but the belief in disbelief that I think exists. What I stopped was not doubt, but the thought that preceded the thought, the complementary illusion that underpinned my doubt. The viewer is not ready to accept that he or she has not yet fully assumed this: there is more reality in the symbolic fiction of the film. Not in content, but in form. It is this form of cinema that coincides with the symbolic form of everyday functional reality.

Both cinema and everyday reality are sustained through fetishism. I was allowed to doubt only when I put my belief into some element of contingency (the master signifier in lacan's context) and traced it back when necessary. I think the purpose of ideological analysis is to locate this element of contingency that has been elevated to the level of necessity—it is the basis on which I am allowed not to believe, because my belief in the inevitability of this contingent element fills the void as a symbol of escapism from trauma.

So what beliefs sustain my skepticism about the symbolic efficiency of movies? How do I approach the symbolic fiction of a film through "distanciation" while taking the symbolic fiction of reality seriously? This may be because the reality of the film is achieved through technological reproduction, so we can easily create a sense of distance from the film. But isn't "reality" now being replicated more in the medium of technology? Isn't that Jean Baudrillard's "hyperreality" theory, or Guy Debord's concept of "spectacle"? Why are the realities produced by these technological mediums considered "more real" than films?

I think the "reality" of a film —or the symbolic reality that actually operates—refers to the level of emotion it can evoke. But emotions lie – feelings also mask the real world. From a psychoanalytic point of view, the only emotion that does not lie is anxiety. All other emotions have objects (object small a). According to Lacan, anxiety is the only emotion that has no object, and thus touches on real. Through anxiety, we get closer to the phallic form of the symbol because it is a feeling that arises when the protection of the illusion is lost. Anxiety is an emotion that movies can't produce, and it exists in "reality." I dare say that cinema is better at producing happiness than the day-to-day "reality". That's why movies aren't taken seriously. In this sense, it is more "real" than symbolic "reality".

Although the difference between film and "reality" is that it avoids anxiety, it remains one of the focuses of ideological research because it activates a misidentification that is implicit in the day-to-day workings of ideology. Cinema, like ideology, organizes jouissance or enjoyment.

Prohibition and desire in the movie

In Žižek's critique of film, there are two examples that illustrate the general problematic of cinematic pleasure and ideology. In the first example, Zizek cites Richard Matby's post-theoretical research paper, "The Brief Romantic Episode: 3 and 1/2 Seconds of Dick and Jane's Entry into Classic Hollywood Cinema", pointing out the importance of the level of appearances of cinema. The order of cinematic appearances allows us to conceptualize the role of fetishism in ideology. In the paper, Mattby highlights the relevance of a transition shot of a Night Airport Tower in Casablanca (Michael Kodiz, 1942), where Rick and Eliza are still hugging for the last second, inserting the transition shot, and then becoming the perspective of shooting Rick's room outside the window, "Rick stood there, looking out the window while smoking. Then he turned back into the room and asked' and 'And then?' [Eliza] continued to tell her story. Matby thinks the audience has at least two contradictory interpretations of the scene: either to imply that Rick and Eliza had slept once during the camera transition in the airport tower; or to imply that they hadn't slept, which was nothing more than a simple transition to brush up on Eliza's previous story. Matby emphasized the scene as "an example of Hollywood cinema presupposing multiple different perspectives for consumers at the script level" and pointed out some of the characteristics of Hollywood that "refuse to give a definitive interpretation, but at the same time provide a certain plot as a clue, these two contradictory qualities." [According to Matby] The film neither affirms nor rejects both interpretations. For Žižek, however, the question is more than just 'did' or didn't they?" "It's not just a question of interpretation and plot analysis. On the contrary, the more important question for him is what must be added in order to deny the potential, lascivious supplementary interpretation (they are asleep) ?

In Lacan's terminology, the real question Žižek asks is what content is allowed into the "public sphere of symbolic law, or the big other." In other words, what content was added to deny what was (supposedly supposedly) prohibited? According to Žižek, the shot shows the essential feature of appearances—that is, the appearances are added to activate and deny the obscene surplus—pleasure. These additions illustrate the form of the representation itself.

In these 3-and-1/2-second shots of Casablanca, Rick and Eliza don't "sleep"; they don't sleep for the Symbolic big Other or the "apparent order", as Žižek puts it, "sleeping" in our dirty fantasies. This fantasy, lascivious complement has what Žižek calls an "inherent transgression, and, according to him, Hollywood needs both levels—a clear apparent order and a lascivious supplementary fantasy—to function.

Here we encounter the relationship between prohibition and desire, and those extra shots provide room for denying the residual pleasure of lasciviousness.

For Žižek, the relationship between prohibition and desire is really how we understand the function of ideology. It is neither a naïve false-consciousness nor a simple idea that seems to dominate; rather, it is related to some kind of "fetishistic attachment to an accepted complement ( the master signifier) " and "a denial of this fetishistic attachment" and is maintained through an individual attachment to the dark side of this complementarity (phantom object, object small a). The critique of ideology needs to ask: What is added to the apparent order in order to produce an element of subjective desire? This element of desire complements the subject's dependence on the reality of the apparent order.

This dark side, the object of illusion, hides the fact that the symbolic order is built around something that cannot be symbolized by the traumatic impossible, that is, around the reality of pleasure. The illusion "domesticates" this impossibility and transforms it into surplus-enjoyment. In film and ideology, illusions are clearly not part of the apparent order, or part of what appears on the screen. Rather, it is a way of allowing the subject to derive residual pleasure from the apparent order (or screen). Illusion is an imaginary "invisible frame" that coordinates our perception of the visible, symbolic framework.

Another example that Žižek cites is David Lynch's famous scene in My Heart Is Wild, "Fuck me!" ”。 This is a particularly unpleasant scene in the film, incorporating elements of irony and violence into the description (if not physical rape). Isek called it "fantasy rape." Izek described the scene this way:

In a lonely room, William Dafoe put rough pressure on Laura Dunn: he touched her, squeezed her, invaded her intimate space and continued to threaten by saying "Fuck me!" That is, to force her to express consent to the sexual act. The ugly, unpleasant scene continued, and finally, as the exhausted Laura Dunn uttered an almost inaudible "fuck me," Dafoe suddenly stepped back, smiled a friendly smile, and happily retorted, "No, thanks, I don't have time today, but I'll be happy if I get the chance." ”

In this scene, Zizek argues that the super-clown Bobby Peru, played by William Dafoe, has actually achieved his true purpose. Not the sex itself, but Dunn's consent – her "symbolic humiliation". In other words, Žižek argues, Bobby Peru wants Dunn to "register" that she agrees to some lascivious complementary fantasies that are symbolically order-oriented, large-other, and completely public. Zizek argues that Dafoe's final shocking rejection is the point: that unexpected rejection is his ultimate victory, and in a way, the humiliation of Dunn has surpassed the actual rape. He got what he really wanted: not the act itself, but her consent, her symbolic humiliation. Here in fact the fantasy rape rejects its realization in reality, thus further humiliating the victim – the fantasy is forcibly aroused, then abandoned, and falls completely on the victim.

Žižek adds that there is evidence that Dunn deliberately succumbed to Dafoe: "It is clear that Laura Dunn is not only disgusted by Dafoe's brutal intrusion into intimate relationships: just before she says "fuck me", the camera focuses on her right hand, and she slowly extends her right hand – a tacit endorsement that proves that he stirred up her fantasies. ”

Here, Žižek suggests interpreting the scene as an inversion of a "standard seduction scene," in which the gentle manner is accompanied by cruel sexuality, in which the woman (the ultimate goal of the seductress) says yes! Later: Bobby Peru kindly denies the "yes" that Dunn was forced to say, a denial that exposes the contradictory structures that make up the empty gesture of the symbolic order, thus creating trauma: after brutally depriving her of consent to sexuality, Peru treats the "yes" as an empty gesture, politely rejecting it, and cruelly confronting her subconscious imagination. ”

In other words, Bobby Peru sees Dunn's "yes" as an empty gesture, politely rejecting it, and achieving humiliating purposes by exposing her own supplementary, lascivious fantasies to the Greater Order.

I think this scene in "My Heart Is Wild" is actually a direct and negative contrast to the 3 and 1/2 second scene in Casablanca. The scene in Casablanca is a fetish designed to complement the real world of desire—an illusion that underpins the ideological framework of cinema. The scene in the wildness of my heart is manifested as a "return of reality", which makes the lascivious illusion surface. That's what makes the audience feel unhappy; it forces people to face the ugliness of reality. It is this ugliness—like Bobby Peru's ugliness—that needs to be domesticated and brought back into the realm of symbolic order. In a way, the prominent fantasy-object has no place in the symbolic order. Here, I also argue that we may define the distinction between modern and postmodern cinema in such a way that in modern cinema the master signifier, as a fetish, can still be added as a public supplement to the order of the great other, expressing the form of prohibition; in postmodern cinema, it is a specific exclusion (foreclosure) of the master signifier. Everything can be expressed, and we can see "it" in its entirety—lasciviousness, violence, and so on. However, it is excluded that the master can refer to the agency in its own form.

That's perhaps why Žižek sees Lynch's films as "absurdly sublime art." By "showing everything," Lynch's film brings to the surface the lascivious complement to the dark side of the illusion—the sublime object. What we should ask, however, is whether these emerging examples of sublime appearances should be taken seriously. It is in the "absurd" presentation of the "noble object" in Lynch's film that we find the agency of the master signifier. What is not worth taking seriously is the form itself, not the form content. In this way, Lynch's films approach pornography.

Pornography is probably an example of uncensored work. In pornography, we can "see everything." Yet Žižek argues that there is still an element of cultural censorship in pornography, even though it shows authentic sex, "and the narrative provides the framework for multiple sexual encounters that are unrealistic, rigid, and silly." ”

Thus, Žižek argues that "this strange compulsion that makes the narrative ridiculous is a negative gesture of respect: [in pornography] Yes, we do show everything, but because we want to show it clearly, everything is a joke." The same goes for Lynch's films. As Žižek puts it, "The Lynch universe is actually the universe of the 'absurdly sublime': the most ridiculous and pathetic scene... should be taken seriously" – that is, as an example worthy of serious interpretation; however, this form is not worth taking seriously. But this is precisely the point of Žižek's ideological critique. In order to truly critique the power of ideology, it is necessary to examine its denied form—at the content level, there is no censorship; however, the trick is to locate a particular element in the content that is capable of "fishing" out the form (i.e., instructing the content to be connected to the formal "hook").

Fetishism in movies

Three-and-a-half-second lighthouse shots in Casablanca perfectly illustrate the role fetishism plays in the film. Here's an example of a particular content being added to another series — a shot added to another series — with the function of negating, negating any dirty fantasies in order to keep the audience entertained. When an illusion is negated by some of the contents of the Symbolic order, he or she is free to fantasize—it is added to maintain gaps in the symbolic order, i.e., the position of the subject's "objective subjectivity." Lacan's objet petit a, the "object cause" of desire or fantasy objects, is the element within the subject that allows it to first replace the void of subjectivity—maintaining it as an X in the symbolic order—and then assuming a particular content to negate the sublime dark side of initiative. By connecting the subject to something that is fully permissible through the fetish technique, this fantasy wound should be denied.

However, "Say fuck me!" in My Heart Is Wild This scene seems to achieve the exact opposite effect of the idol (fetish object of fetish). What is denied appears to be placed on the surface of the symbolic order. On a symbolic level, the obscene dark side of subjectivity in this scene is fully assumed. This is similar to the process of psychoanalysis, in which the subject must fully assume the subjective aspect of the illusion that is denied. But whether this works just as well in the movie is what I want to ask. Does the Symbolic construction of this obscene example allow the dark side of fantasy to be assumed entirely by the subject-viewer, thus maintaining a subjective connection with the idol?

The answer to this question shows what really matters about cinema on an ideological level. Movies are an idol in themselves. The point of cinema is that it can show us the texture of everyday life, but in a form that allows us to deny it. In terms of the permission of performance, there is a certain extent that the film is more realistic than reality; we can fully assume the level of performance in the reality of the film, but it is more difficult to do this on the realistic level. We recognize that film represents the true side of our daily lives, but at the same time we deny the constructive aspect of this performance to the everyday. In this sense, cinema has become an icon of practice, symbols and facts on an everyday level. We confirm the authenticity of everyday life in the film.

While that scene in My Heart Is Wild shows us the obscene dark side of Symbolic reality, it is its symbolic form that gives us reason to deny it. Maybe that's because the film's way of acting doesn't make us take it seriously. The implicit distrust of the film provides a degree of "distanciation" between the viewer/subject and the implied meaning. While the content itself may be taken seriously, the form of expression does not. This is similar to the technique of pornography, which is essentially for the sake of irony. And this technique itself is censorship of itself.

I want to emphasize the need for fetishistic critique of ideology. Fetish criticism needs to be positioned as an icon who maintains the relationship between the subject and the ideological text. I think it is the idols that lead to the denial of fantasy objects or desires, which, as Žižek puts it, is "subjectivizations"—that is, interpellates—the subject in ideology.

Through the subject interface of desire and the subject of inquiry

Interface and the Interpellation of the Subject through Desire

Now, after investigating the theoretical elements of subjectivity and ideology and how they manifest themselves in film, I would like to discuss the relationship between Žižek's concept of "interface" and film theory. The "interface" differs from the "suture" in screen theory because of the addition of the object objet petit a in the connection with the master-Signifier. Theorists like Laura Mulvey and Christian Metz are somewhat right about the audience; however, they are too convinced and simply give the film too much power in terms of interrogating the subject/audience. On the one hand, Murvie borrows the hands of stars and male protagonists in the film, giving too much meaning to the construction of self-ideals. For her, the audience resembles a "mirror stage" — they identify with the male protagonist, who produces a "male gaze" when objectifying female characters on screen. On the other hand, Maez points out more thoroughly that the subject has developed himself in the imagination through the "mirror stage" when he enters the film, so the film itself will not achieve a similar effect. But according to him, he failed to understand enough the audience who identified with the film by investing self-conscious fantasies in the film, and thus realized the recognition of the film. It is the "interface" that corrects these subjective and ornamental misunderstandings.

I think the interface is the relationship between the objet petit a and the master-Signifier through the subject. That is, the interface positions the subject between the symbolic level of the text and the sublime level of fantasy. In the interface, the three Lacan levels of imagination (fantasy), symbol (master signifier) and reality (subject) are connected together to form the necessary connection of subjectivization. Film theorists focused only on the connection between imagination and reality (following Althusser) or between imagination and symbol, but never considered the connection between the three. Interface It envisions subjectivization of the subject/viewer through the connection between the obscene complementary dark side of the fantasy object and the symbolic representation of cinema as a signifier (rather than what Mytz calls "imaginary signifier").

According to Žižek, the standard "suture" effect works in the following ways:

First, the viewer is confronted with a shot, finds pleasure in it in an instant, imaginative way, and is drawn to it... This complete immersion is then undermined by the realization of the existence of the framework: what I see is only a part, and I cannot grasp what I see. I'm on the back because the film is dominated behind the scenes by an absentee who manipulates the picture (or rather, the big other) behind the scenes... A follow-up shot presents where the absentee is looking and assigns the place to the fictional owner of this great other's position, one of the protagonists. In short, we thus transition from imagination to symbolism, to symbolism: the second shot does not simply follow the first shot, but rather the signified of the latter.

According to Žižek, in order to avoid gaps in the second stage of the "stitching" effect, the previous shot must be re-recorded into the film's texture as a viewpoint shot of a character in the plot space. That is, all subjective shots must pass through an objective shot that transmits the viewpoint to a character in order to be assigned to a particular character.

Žižek argues that when we lack the standard reversal of subjective and objective shots, it is the interface that fulfills the function of the film. Returning to Maz's question, the interface allows the film to work without some subjective perspective, which makes it possible for the film to depart from the subjective lens of the protagonist and perform completely in an objectified form. The interface takes effect when the standard suture effect does not work. As Žižek puts it, when the real divide is no longer filled by an additional (master') signifier (such as Casablanca's night lighthouse shot), it will be filled by the ghostly elements of the fantasy object (like "Say fuck me!" in My Heart Wild!" Scene). Here, we must re-emphasize the relevance of the "sublime object" of ideology in Žižek's concept.

The "sublime object of ideology" explains the subject's "passionate attachment" to the symbolic level of ideological representation, which can be said to be "postideological". That said, Žižek's question is, how do we interpret the function of ideology when it no longer relies on mystification or false/naïve consciousness to operate? His argument is that there is an objective element within the subject—"objectively subjective"—that associates the subject with symbolic order. It is the subject's tight connection with the symbol that replaces or allows it to negate some unknown object of complementary fantasy. This dark side, the "sublime object", is formed in the imagination as a basic fantasy of the subject, which is itself an integral part of the subject. Basic fantasies are subjective, the originating symptoms of sinthome.

As I have noticed, the object of small a, the "sublime object", i.e. the fantasy object, is the object of the subject that is directly the subject itself, which is directly the subject of the subject itself. As the unrecognizable/identifiable part of the subject, it is subject to primitive repression. This is the mistake Madz made in the concept of the audience. In order for subjectivization to take effect, the subject must not be consistent with the illusory identity that maintains its existence. In the same way, this is where Althusser makes a mistake, because ideology does not represent the imaginary relationship between the subject and its real presuppositions (the connection between imagination and reality); rather, ideology constitutes the symbolic relationship between the subject and the real world, supported by the complementary dark side of fantasy. The interface concept describes the connection of the subject to the symbol, and this connection is supported by some negated complementary dark side. Subjectivization takes effect only when this relationship does not manifest. Cinema does not produce this effect in the subject, so we should not assume that the film somehow subjectivizes the audience. However, I think that the film does function in line with the concept of subjectivity and thus brings a certain degree of enjoyment to the audience.

Film works based on the constant postponement of the satisfaction of pleasure desires (in the psychoanalytic sense). Cinema activates desire; it produces a certain degree of residual pleasure by denying the actual pleasure. In this respect, it is no different from the symbolic order itself. However, the difference between the two is only that one is taken seriously as a "reality" and the other is not. The difference between audience identity and subjectivity is that we create a certain distance between ourselves and the film text. However, in the process of constantly trying to obtain complete pleasure, desire arises. This is the source of the residual pleasure, and the film interrogates the subject in this way: by activating desire, rather than forming the subject's position.

exegesis

1. Colin MacCabe, “Realism and Cinema,” in Tracking the Signifier— Theoretical

Essays: Film, Linguistics, Literature (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota

Press, 1985), 52.

2. Slavoj Žižek, The Sublime Object of Ideology (London: Verso, 1989), 164.

3. G.W.F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A.V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 1977), 89.

4. Žižek, Sublime Object of Ideology 193.

5. Žižek, Organs without Bodies: Deleuze and Consequences (New York: Rout-

ledge, 2004), 150.

6. Ibid., 167.

7. Ibid., 157.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid., 160.

10. Ibid., 161.

11. Žižek, The Plague of Fantasies (London: Verso, 1997), 74.

12. Žižek, Organs without Bodies, 161.

13. Žižek, Plague of Fantasies, 111– 13.

14. Fredric Jameson, The Seeds of Time (New York: Columbia University Press,

1994), xii.

15. See David Bordwell, “A Case for Cognitivism,” Iris 9 (1989): 11– 40, 13.

16. Jacques Lacan, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis (1963– 64),

trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: W. W. Norton, 1981), 34.

17. See Žižek, For They Know Not What They Do: Enjoyment as a Political Fac-

tor, 2nd ed. (London: Verso, 2002), pp. 146– 149; and Žižek, Tarrying with the

Negative: Kant, Hegel, and the Critique of Ideology (Durham: Duke University

Press, 1993), p. 59.

18. Žižek, Sublime Object of Ideology, 74– 75.

19. Žižek, The Parallax View (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006), 89.

20. Ibid., 75.

21. Žižek, The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology (London:

Verso, 1999), 57.

22. Ibid., 60.

23. This is also a perfect example of how some of the best stories in Hollywood

maintain a connection to the psychoanalytic narrative.

24. Žižek, Ticklish Subject, 213.

25. Ibid., 309.

26. Žižek, For They Know Not, 237.

27. Ibid., 264.

28. Žižek, Defense of Lost Causes (London: Verso, 2008), 30.

29. On this point, see Renata Salecl, On Anxiety (New York: Routledge, 2004), and

The Tyranny of Choice (London: Profile, 2011).

30. Slavoj Žižek, “The Spectre of Ideology,” in Mapping Ideology, ed. Slavoj Žižek

(London: Verso, 1994), 4.

31. Žižek, Sublime Object of Ideology, 43.

32. See Jacques Lacan, “Logical Time and the Assertion of Anticipated Certainty,”

in Écrits: The First Complete Edition in English, trans. Bruce Fink (New York:

W. W. Norton, 2006).

33. Žižek, Tarrying with the Negative, 76.

34. Ibid.

35. Žižek, Parallax View, 26.

36. Ibid., 18.

37. Ibid., 122.

38. Ibid., 213.

39. Ibid., 170– 71.

40. This is a question that Žižek poses at the beginning of part two of The Pervert’s

Guide to Cinema (Dir. Sophie Fiennes, 2006).

41. See Žižek, Parallax View, 246– 50; see also, Geoffrey Miller, The Mating Mind:

How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature (London: Vintage,

2001).

42. Jacques Lacan, Seminar II: The Ego in Freud’s Theory and in the Technique of

Psychoanalysis (1954– 1955), trans. Sylvana Tomaselli (New York: W. W. Nor-

ton, 1988), 164.

43. Richard Maltby, “ ‘A Brief Romantic Interlude’: Dick and Jane Go to 3 ½ Sec-

onds of the Classical Hollywood Cinema,” in Post- Theory: Reconstructing Film

Studies. eds. David Bordwell and Noël Carroll (Madison: University of Wis-

consin Press, 1996), 434.

44. Ibid., 436.

45. Ibid., 438.

46. Žižek. The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime: On David Lynch’s Lost Highway (Seat-

tle: University of Washington Press, 2000), 6.

47. Ibid., 5.

48. See Žižek, Plague of Fantasies, 18– 27.

49. See Žižek, Sublime Object of Ideology, 123.

50. Žižek, The Metastases of Enjoyment: On Women and Causality (London: Verso,

1994), 101.

51. Žižek, Plague of Fantasies, 185.

52. Žižek, The Fright of Real Tears: Krzysztof Kieslowski between Theory and Post-

Theory (London: BFI, 2001), 76.

53. Ibid.

54. Žižek, Ridiculous Sublime, 22.

55. See, for example, Miller, “Suture (Elements of the Logic of the Signifier),”

Screen 18, no. 4 (1977– 78): 23– 34; Jean- Pierre Oudart, “Cinema and

Suture,” Screen 18, no. 4(1977– 78): 24– 47; and Stephen Heath, “Notes on

Suture,” Screen 18, no. 4 (1977– 78): 35– 76.

56. See Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” in Film and

Theory: An Anthology, eds. Toby Miller and Robert Stam (Oxford: Blackwell,

2000); and Christian Metz, The Imaginary Signifier: Psychoanalysis and the

Cinema, trans. Ben Brewster et al. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,

1982).

57. Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure,” 486– 87.

58. Metz, Imaginary Signifier, 42–44.

59. Žižek, Fright of Real Tears, 32; this follows very closely to how “suture” is out-

lined by Oudart (see note 55).

60. As Metz puts it in Imaginary Signifier, 47, the cinema “often presents us with

long sequences that can (literally) be called ‘inhuman’ . . . sequences in which

only inanimate objects, landscapes, etc. appear and which for minutes at a

time offer no human form for spectator identification.”

61. Žižek, Fright of Real Tears, 52.

Formerly

：The Symbolic, The Sublime, and Slavoj Žižek’s Theory of Film

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