For my essay question I want to deal with the ideologies I learnt about in the psychoanalytical gaze lecture. I hope to deal more specifically with film posters created purposely for feminist or all female cast movies. I hope to compare examples of these with compositions that were created to promote male orientated films and perhaps even those aimed at a misogynistic mind set. My intentions are to highlight the differences and the reason why the differences are so vital for subconsciously drawing in the right audience. Key areas I will discuss are: scopophilia, suture, intra and extra digetic gazes and more obviously feminist psychoanalysis.
I hope to concentrate largely on the films of Pedro Almodovar, a Spanish director who is well known for creating feature films with strong female leads and ensemble casts. The poster to the left is a prime example of what I want to discuss and compare to posters such as
this and
this. The stark difference in design is instantly obvious and therefore each film has an intended audience before the film has even begun. Thats why promotional posters are so important, they have to draw in the right people and if they don't communicate the right message then a large number of the audience would walk out in the middle of the film.
Initial bibliography:
'If there is any structural principle governing the organisation of feminist documentary film, it is that provided by autobiographical discourse: 'film after film shows a woman, telling her story to the camera'. '
Womens Pictures; Feminism and Cinema, 1982, A. Kuhn, pg. 148
'It has somehow escaped theoretical attention that sexual difference is the effect of dominant cinema's sound regime as well as its visual regime, and that the female voice is as relentlessly held to normative representations and functions as is the female body.'
The Acoustic Mirror; The Female Voice in Psychoanalysis and Cinema, 1988, K. Silverman, preface
'Advertising in this society builds precisely on the creation of an anxiety to the effect that, unless we measure up, we will not be loved. Every minute region of the body is now exposed to this kind of scrutiny of the ideal.'
The Look, Rosalind Crawford in Reading Images, J. Thomas, 2000, pg. 38
