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It is only in 1964, with the [[development]] of the concept of ''[[objet petit a]]'' as the [[cause]] of [[desire]], that [[Lacan]] devlops develops his own [[theory]] of the [[gaze]], a theory which is quite distinct from [[Sartre]]'s.<ref>{{S11}}</ref> Whereas [[Sartre]] had conflated the [[gaze]] with the [[gaze|act of looking]], [[Lacan]] now separates the two; the [[gaze]] becomes the [[object]] of the [[gaze|act of looking]], or, to be more precise, the [[object]] of the [[drive|scopic drive]]. The [[gaze]] is therefore, in [[Lacan]]'s account, no longer on the side of the [[subject]]; it is the [[gaze]] of the [[Other]].

And whereas [[Sartre]] had conceived of an essential reciprocity between seeing the [[Other]] and being-seen-by-him, [[Lacan]] now conceives of an antinomic relation between the [[gaze]] and the [[gaze|eye]]: the [[gaze|eye]] which looks is that of the [[subject]], while the [[gaze]] is on the side of the [[object]], and there is no coincidence between the two, since "You never look at me from the [[place]] at which I see you."<ref>{{S11}} p. 103</ref> When the [[subject]] looks at an [[object]], the [[object]] is always already gazing back at the [[subject]], but from a point at which the [[subject]] cannot see it. This [[split]] between the [[gaze|eye]] and the [[gaze]] is [[nothing]] other than the [[split|subjective division]] itself, expressed in the field of [[vision]].

The concept of the [[gaze]] was waken taken up by [[psychoanalytic]] [[art|film criticism]] in the 1970s, especially by [[feminist]] [[art|film critics]]. However, many of these critics have conflated [[Lacan]]'s concept of the [[gaze]] with the [[Sartre]]an concept of the [[gaze]] and other [[ideas]] on vision such as [[Foucault]]'s account of [[Foucault|panopticism]]. Much of so-called "[[Lacan]]ian [[art|film theory]]" is thus the site of great [[conceptual]] confusion.

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