Changes

[[Lacan]]'s first important innovation in the field of [[psychoanalysis ]] took [[place ]] in 1936, when he was 35 years of age, practising as a [[psychiatrist ]] and still in [[psychoanalytic ]] [[training]]. At the fourteenth congress of the International [[Psycho]]-Analytical [[Association]], held at [[Marienbad]], Lacan presented a paper entitled 'Le [[stade du miroir]]', later translated into [[English ]] as 'The [[Mirror ]] [[Stage]]'. 'The [[Mirror Stage]]' remains one of the most frequently anthologized and referenced of Lacan's [[texts]]. It was translated as early as [[1968 ]] in the [[Marxist ]] journal New [[Left ]] Review and, as we will see, played a crucial [[role ]] in the dissemination of [[Lacanian ]] [[ideas ]] in [[film ]] and [[cultural ]] studies. There is also something of a mythology that has grown around this paper that has been influential in constructing an [[image ]] of Lacan as an outcast - a heroic [[figure ]] battling for the [[truth ]] against a [[conservative ]] and reactionary establishment.

Ten minutes after starting his presentation on the [[mirror stage ]] Lacan was interrupted and prevented from continuing by the congress president, Ernest [[Jones]], [[Freud]]'s biographer and one of his most devoted disciples. Lacan left the congress the following morning and travelled to Berlin where he visited Goebbels' monumental fascist [[spectacle ]] of the eleventh Olympiad at the newly built Olympic Stadium. In the proceedings of the congress there was only the briefest mention of Lacan's presentation and his paper was not included in the subsequent conference publication. This initial [[encounter]], therefore, can be seen to set the tone for Lacan's [[relationship ]] with the psychoanalytic establishment for the rest of his career. He felt himself to have been snubbed and rejected by the very [[people ]] he wanted to impress and he responded in turn by rejecting [[them]]. There is certainly some truth in this, and the [[International Psycho-Analytical Association ]] remains to this day a deeply conservative or even, in the eyes of some, reactionary institution. But at the same [[time ]] we should note that at the congress every [[speaker ]] was scheduled to give a ten-minute presentation and by stopping Lacan at the end of his time [[limit ]] Jones was simply performing his function as chairperson. Furthermore, Lacan did not submit the paper for publication in the conference proceedings, so its [[absence ]] from the eventual volume cannot be seen as a deliberate [[exclusion ]] by the IPA. There is no known transcript of the 1936 paper and the version included in [[Écrits ]] dates from 1949, when Lacan once more presented it to the sixteenth international congress of the IPA in Zürich. This time Lacan was not stopped from [[speaking ]] and his presentation was published with the conference proceedings in the International Journal of Psycho-[[Analysis]]. Thirteen years had elapsed, therefore, between the first formulation of Lacan's [[idea ]] and the paper that we now read - 13 years in which Lacan had continued to develop and modify his ideas.

[[The mirror stage ]] has always been viewed by Lacan as a solid piece of theorizing, a paradigm retaining its [[value ]] to explain [[human ]] [[self]]-[[consciousness]], [[aggressivity]], [[rivalry]], [[narcissism]], [[jealousy ]] and [[fascination ]] with [[images ]] in general. In a [[sense]], this does not come as a surprise when it is appreciated that the 1949 Mirror Stage article was not something Lacan had concocted at a [[moment]]'s notice, but a pearl which he had carefully cultured for some thirteen odd years.

As with all of Lacan's papers, there is a [[multiplicity ]] of allusions and references in '[[The Mirror Stage]]', which can often confuse a reader who is unfamiliar with its context. The paper is concerned with the [[formation ]] of the ego through the [[identification ]] with an image of the self. According to Freud's second [[model ]] of the [[mind ]] - what is usually referred to as the '[[topographical]]' model (see Thurschwell 2000: ch. 5) - the ego represents the organized part of the [[psyche ]] in contrast to the unorganized elements of the [[unconscious ]] (the id). As Freud writes, the 'ego is that part of the id which has been modified by the direct influence of the [[external ]] world…. The ego represents what may be called [[reason ]] and common sense, in contrast to the id, which contains the passions' (Freud 1984a [1923]: 363-4). In this sense, the ego is often associated with consciousness, but this is a mistake. The ego is related to consciousness, but it is also in constant tension with the [[demands ]] of the unconscious and the imperatives of the [[superego]]. The function of the ego, therefore, is defensive insofar as it mediates between the unconscious (the id) and the demands of external [[reality ]] (the superego). Even at this early stage of his career Lacan was concerned to distinguish the ego from the [[subject ]] and to elaborate a conception of [[subjectivity ]] as [[divided ]] or '[[alienated]]'. Before explaining the detail of his argument, it is important to [[understand ]] that Lacan drew on a wide range of influences from [[philosophy ]] and experimental [[psychology ]] in [[order ]] to formulate his ideas in this paper. So, I will first briefly highlight four strands of [[thinking ]] in 'The Mirror Stage': the [[philosophical ]] [[tradition ]] of [[phenomenology]]; the [[work ]] of the [[psychologist ]] Henri Wallon (1879-1962) on mirroring; the work of the ethologist Roger [[Caillois ]] (1913-78) on [[mimicry]]; and the work of [[philosopher ]] Alexandre [[Kojève ]] (1902-68) on [[recognition ]] and [[desire]].

In what we can see as the first [[phase ]] of Lacan's career - from the completion of his doctoral [[thesis ]] in 1932 to 'The Rome [[Discourse]]' in 1953 (see Chapter 2) - he was philosophically speaking a phenomenologist. Phenomenology derives from the work of the [[German ]] philosopher Edmund [[Husserl ]] (1859-1938) and is concerned with the [[nature ]] of 'pure phenomena', that is to say, with the idea that [[objects ]] do not [[exist ]] independently as things in the [[world ]] [[separate ]] from our [[perception ]] of them but are intimately linked to human consciousness. According to phenomenologists, human consciousness is not the [[passive ]] recognition of [[material ]] phenomena that are simply there, 'given', but a [[process ]] of actively constituting or 'intending' those phenomena. Husserl argued that we cannot be certain of anything beyond our immediate [[experience ]] and therefore have to ignore, or 'put in brackets', everything [[outside ]] our perception or consciousness. He called this process '[[phenomenological ]] reduction' in the sense that we reduce the external world to consciousness alone. In short, the process of thinking [[about ]] an [[object ]] and the object itself are mutually dependent. As Terry Eagleton (1983) [[notes]], this is all very abstract and unreal, but the idea behind phenomenology was, paradoxically, to get away from abstract philosophical [[speculation ]] and get back to the analysis of things themselves in [[real ]] [[concrete ]] situations.

Husserl's ideas were further developed by his most famous pupil Martin [[Heidegger ]] (1889-1976). Heidegger argued that all [[understanding ]] is historically situated. As human beings we always perceive the world from a specific [[situation ]] and our most fundamental desire is to transcend or surpass that situation. This is what Heidegger called the '[[project]]': as a subject one is physically situated in time and [[space ]] but one then 'projects' oneself into the [[future]]. Human subjectivity or what we call [[existence ]] involves this constant process of projecting oneself out on to the world and into the future. For Heidegger, therefore, human consciousness is not an inner world of [[thoughts ]] and images but a constant process of projecting outside, or what he called '[[ex-sistence]]'. These ideas were carried over to [[France ]] by Jean-[[Paul ]] [[Sartre ]] (1905-80), after he attended Heidegger's lectures in 1932. In an early work entitled Transcendence of the Ego (1934) Sartre distinguished between [[self-consciousness ]] and the ego. As we saw above, Freud defined the ego as the reasoning faculty of the mind, mediating between unconscious passions and [[external reality]]. By extending Heidegger's [[notion ]] of the project Sartre suggested that self-consciousness was essentially '[[nothing]]', while the ego was an object in the world perceived by the subject. In the 1930s and 1940s Lacan was strongly influenced by these ideas. Sartre's [[distinction ]] between subject and ego paved the way for Lacan's own formulation of the relationship between subject and ego in the mirror stage, while the notions of 'ex-sistence' and 'nothingness' recur throughout his work. What is crucial for understanding Lacan, however, and especially where he adopts ideas from philosophy, [[anthropology ]] and [[linguistics]], is that he always transforms [[concepts ]] into a psychoanalytic [[register]]. Thus, he transferred phenomenological notions of ex-sistence and nothingness from the realm of consciousness to the unconscious. As Jacques-[[Alain ]] [[Miller ]] writes:

It was essential to him that the unconscious not be taken as an interiority or container in which some [[drives ]] are found over on the one side and a few identifications over on the other…. He took the unconscious not as a container, but rather as something ex-sistent - outside itself - that is connected to a subject who is a [[lack ]] of [[being]]. (1996:11)

Between the first presentation of 'The Mirror Stage' at Marienbad and its publication in 1949, Lacan was preoccupied with the nature of consciousness and specifically self-consciousness. What was it, in [[other ]] [[words]], that enabled an [[individual ]] to become aware of him/herself as an [[autonomous ]] thinking, [[feeling ]] being in the first place and to maintain this level of self-consciousness? Traditionally psychology had argued that self-[[awareness ]] arises from the [[infant]]'s gradual and increasing awareness of its own [[physical ]] [[body]]. The psychologist Henri Wallon argued that this was a rather circular argument in the sense that it presupposed that the infant had a level of individual awareness in the first place in order for it then to become aware of its own body. Consequently, he suggested that the infant must not only gain awareness of its own body and [[bodily ]] functions but to simultaneously develop an awareness of its [[environment ]] and the external world in order to differentiate itself from that external environment. In other words, for a person to [[identify ]] themselves as an autonomous coherent self they must first distinguish themselves from [[others ]] and from their [[social ]] environment. A key process in this emergent sense of self, argued Wallon, was the ability of the infant to recognize and simultaneously distinguish itself from its own mirror [[reflection]]. The reflected image presents a dilemma for the infant because it is at once intimately connected to its own sense of self and at the same time external to it. Wallon suggested that between the ages of [[three ]] months and one year the infant gradually progresses from an initial indifference to the [[mirror image ]] to an acceptance and [[mastery ]] over this image as separate from itself. What Lacan took from experimental psychology therefore was the importance of the role of mirroring in the [[construction ]] of self and of self-consciousness. What psychology could not account for, however, was why the image held this [[particular ]] fascination and [[power ]] for the subject, and for this Lacan turned to a rather different [[discipline]], [[ethology]], the study of [[animal ]] [[behaviour]].

It is well known that many small animals and insects can [[change ]] their colour to match that of their immediate environment or have developed particular markings and characteristics to make them indistinguishable from their environment. The usual understanding of this is that it offers protection for the animals concerned, hiding them from potential predators. What research tended to show, however, was that insects that assume the [[appearance ]] of their environment were just as likely to be eaten as those that did not. So how could this phenomenon be explained? In his paper 'Mimicry and Legendary Psychasthenia' [[Roger Caillois ]] suggested that, contrary to the usual explanation, insects that assume the appearance of their environment are in fact assimilating themselves to that environment. In other words they are captivated by the very space that surrounds them and seek to lose themselves within that space, to break down the distinction between organism and environment. From Caillois' work then Lacan took the idea of the fascination and capturing properties of the image and above all how we shape ourselves according to that image. Lacan's innovation in 'The Mirror Stage' was to combine the phenomenological distinction between subject and ego with a [[psychological ]] understanding of the role of images and the constructed nature of the self through the philosophical [[category ]] of the [[dialectic]].

Between 1933 and 1939 the philosopher [[Alexandre Kojève ]] conducted a weekly [[seminar ]] on the philosophy of G.W.F. [[Hegel ]] (1770-1831). Kojève's influential seminar was attended by almost all the major [[figures ]] of France's immediate post-war [[intellectual ]] [[life ]] - [[Jean-Paul Sartre]], Maurice [[Merleau-Ponty ]] and Georges [[Bataille ]] to [[name ]] just a few - including Lacan himself. Kojève's [[interpretation ]] of Hegel was to have a profound influence on this [[whole ]] generation of thinkers and dominated [[French ]] philosophy until the mid-1960s, when [[Hegelianism ]] was finally [[displaced ]] by [[Structuralism ]] and [[Post-structuralism]]. Hegel elaborated a [[complex ]] philosophical [[system ]] based on a [[form ]] of thinking known as dialectics.

Dialectics are a mode of philosophical [[thought ]] that stresses the interconnectedness of phenomena and the [[unity ]] of opposites. This is often represented schematically as 'thesis - anti-thesis - [[synthesis]]', where each idea generates its opposite and the unity of two produces a new level of understanding or analysis. For example, the idea of the individual subject - the 'self' (thesis) - only makes sense in relation to [[another ]] subject - an 'other' (anti-thesis). Once we begin to understand that the self is intricately connected to the other and cannot exist without the other we have a new [[concept]], a collective 'we' subject (synthesis). This moment of synthesis then becomes a new thesis generating its own anti-thesis and so on. [[Dialectical ]] thought, therefore, foregrounds the contradictory nature of all things, as all phenomena can be said to contain their opposite; their own [[negation]]. Out of this relationship or unity of opposites something new will emerge in an endless process of transformation.

Kojève was particularly interested in Hegel's account of the emergence of self-consciousness as an account of the transition from nature to [[culture]], or to put it another way, as the transition from animal existence to human existence. According to Hegel, self-hood emerges through a process of developing self-consciousness through the [[activity ]] of self-reflection. For the human subject to emerge it must not simply be [[conscious ]] of its own distinctiveness but must be recognized as a human subject by another. Hegel sketched out this process as the dialectic of 'Lordship and Bondage', more commonly known as the '[[Master]]/Slave' dialectic. In this account two [[subjects ]] - a 'Master' and a '[[Slave]]' - are apparently locked in a reciprocal relationship of recognition. In order for the Master to be a subject he must be recognized by the Slave as such; in turn, the Slave [[knows ]] he is a Slave because he is recognized by the Master as one. The Master is thus free to pursue his life in the firm [[knowledge ]] that his [[identity ]] is affirmed by the recognition of the Slave. The [[paradox ]] of the dialectic, however, is that a positive always turns into a [[negative]]. Because the Master is dependent upon the Slave for the recognition of his identity he can never be truly 'free', whereas the Slave is not dependent on the Master in the same way because he has another source of self-[[affirmation]], his work. If the Slave's identity is affirmed through his work as a Slave, it is not the Master who is free but the Slave.

Kojève read this dialectic as essentially a [[struggle ]] of desire and recognition. The Master and the Slave are locked in a mutual struggle for recognition: neither can exist without the recognition of the other, but at the same time the other also requires his/her own recognition. It is then for Kojève a struggle to the [[death]], but the death of one will also be the death of the other. The Master and the Slave are locked within a struggle whereby one cannot do without the other but at the same time each is the other's worst [[enemy]]. It is this dialectic, according to Lacan, that permeates the [[imaginary]]. Moreover, this dialectic introduces into the psychological account of mirroring outlined above the element of aggressivity, that is to say, it posits the relationship between self and other as fundamentally conflictual. It was Hegel's great insight, contends Lacan, to reveal how 'each human being is in the being of the other' (Lacan 1988b [1978]: 72). We are caught in a reciprocal and irreducible dialectic of [[alienation]]. There are, however, two moments of alienation for Lacan, first, through the [[mirror phase ]] and the formation of the ego, and, second, through [[language ]] and the [[constitution ]] of the subject. We will look at the first moment of alienation below and [[return ]] to the second in the following chapter.

The mirror phase occurs roughly between the ages of six and 18 months and corresponds to Freud's stage of primary narcissism. That is the stage of human [[development ]] when the subject is in [[love ]] with the image of themselves and their own bodies and which precedes the love of others (see Thurschwell 2000: ch. 5). Between the ages of six and 18 months the infant begins to recognize his/her image in the mirror (this does not mean a literal mirror but rather any reflective surface, for example the [[mother]]'s face) and this is usually accompanied by [[pleasure]]. The [[child ]] is fascinated with its image and tries to [[control ]] and play with it. Although the child initially confuses its image with reality, he/she soon recognizes that the image has its own properties, finally accepting that the image is their own image - a reflection of themselves.

During the mirror stage, then, the child for the [[first time ]] becomes aware, through [[seeing ]] its image in the mirror, that his/her body has a [[total ]] form. The infant can also govern the movements of this image through the movements of its own body and thus experiences pleasure. This sense of [[completeness ]] and mastery, however, is in contrast to the child's experience of its own body, over which it does not yet have [[full ]] motor control. While the infant still feels his/her body to be in parts, as fragmented and not yet [[unified]], it is the image that provides him/her with a sense of unification and [[wholeness]]. The mirror image, therefore, anticipates the mastery of the infant's own body and stands in contrast to the [[feelings ]] of [[fragmentation ]] the infant experiences. What is important at this point is that the infant [[identifies ]] with this mirror image. The image is him/herself. This identification is crucial, as without it - and without the [[anticipation ]] of mastery that it establishes - the infant would never get to the stage of perceiving him/herself as a [[complete ]] or whole being. At the same time, however, the image is [[alienating ]] in the sense that it becomes confused with the self. The image actually comes to take the place of the self. Therefore, the sense of a unified self is acquired at the price of this self being an-other, that is, our mirror image. Lacan describes it like this:

The mirror stage is a drama whose [[internal ]] thrust is precipitated from insufficiency to anticipation - and which manufactures for all the subject, caught up in the [[lure ]] of spatial identification, the succession of phantasies that extends from a [[fragmented body]]-image to a form of its [[totality ]] that I shall call orthopaedic - and, lastly, to the assumption of the armour of an alienating identity, which will mark with its rigid [[structure ]] the infants entire [[mental ]] development. (1977a [1949]: 4)

For Lacan, the ego emerges at this moment of alienation and fascination with one's own image. The ego is both formed by and takes its form from the organizing and constituting properties of the image. The ego is the effect of images; it is, in short, an imaginary function. Lacan is arguing here against [[Ego psychology ]] and its tendency to prioritize the ego over unconscious [[processes ]] as well as to equate the ego with the self. Lacan insists that the ego is based on an [[illusory ]] image of wholeness and mastery and it is the function of the ego to maintain this [[illusion ]] of [[coherence ]] and mastery. The function of the ego is, in other words, one of mis-recognition; of refusing to accept the truth of fragmentation and alienation.

According to Lacan, from the moment the image of unity is posited in opposition to the experience of fragmentation, the subject is established as a rival to itself. A [[conflict ]] is produced between the infant's fragmented sense of self and [[the imaginary ]] [[autonomy ]] out of which the ego is [[born]]. The same rivalry established between the subject and him/herself is also established in future relations between the subject and others. As Benvenuto and Kennedy put it, 'the primary conflict between identification with, and primordial rivalry with, the other's image, begins a [[dialectical process ]] that [[links ]] the ego to more complex social situations' (1986:58). To exist one has to be recognized by an-other. But this means that our image, which is equal to ourselves, is mediated by the [[gaze ]] of the other. The other, then, becomes the [[guarantor ]] of ourselves. We are at once dependent on the other as the guarantor of our own existence and a bitter rival to that same other.

Critics of Lacan's mirror stage argue that he in fact has things completely the wrong way round. In order for the subject to identify with an image in the mirror and then to mis-recognize themselves, they must first have a sense of themselves as a self. If the Lacanian subject is an alienated subject then this presupposes a 'non-alienated' subject in the first [[instance]], otherwise there is nothing that one can meaningfully be said to be alienated from. Hence, the idea of a primary lack or absence is based upon the presupposition of a primary [[presence ]] or unity. Lack in this sense is secondary and not primary. Anthony Elliott argues that the very [[terms ]] of Lacan's mirror stage are all wrong: mirror reflection, lack and absence are not pre-existing phenomena but the work of the subject and the imaginary (see Elliott 1998: ch. 4). Lacan's use of the term alienation is rather different from that of his critics though. Through the mirror stage the infant imagines that it achieves mastery over its own body but in a place outside of itself. Alienation, in Lacan, is precisely this 'lack of being' through which the infant's realization (in both senses of the term: forming a distinct concept in the mind and becoming real) lies in an-other place. In this sense, the subject is not alienated from something or from itself but rather alienation is constitutive of the subject - the subject is alienated in its very being.

According to Baudry, the cinematic [[apparatus ]] constructs our [[position ]] as film spectators through the position of the camera and the process of [[projection]]. The camera occupies both the position from which the images we see on the [[screen ]] are shot and the position from which we subsequently see those images. The camera therefore situates both the objects of perception (the images on the screen) and the perceiving subject (the film [[spectator]]). In this [[double ]] sense the apparatus of [[cinema ]] locates us as film spectators and directs our gaze in a very specific way. What makes film different, however, from other forms of images that we see on a daily basis, such as advertisements, paintings or photographic images, is that film presents us not with an isolated image but with a succession of images. The function of the projector and the screen is to restore to that sequence of images the sense of continuity of movement necessary for us to [[construct ]] [[meaning ]] out of it. According to Baudry, it is the subject, the film spectator, who makes the necessary links and connections between the series of images displayed before him/her in order for these discrete images to become meaningful as a whole sequence. Therefore, continuity is an attribute of the subject and the subject's relationship to the images on the screen rather than of the film plot.

In this sense, the cinematic subject is formed through the function of the camera, the projector and the screen. It is in relation to the complex process of identification that [[exists ]] between the spectator and image on the screen that apparatus [[theory ]] draws most heavily on psychoanalytic ideas. Baudry describes film spectators in Lacanian terms as being placed in a darkened and enclosed space in which, whether they [[know ]] it or not (and they usually do not), they are 'chained, [[captured ]] or captivated' (1974-5: 45). What interests Baudry is the way in which Lacan's mirror or reflective surface is framed, limited and circumscribed. You will [[recall ]] that the primary site of identification in the imaginary is the body itself, that this process takes place in front of a reflective surface before which the infant has only limited mobility, and that there is also an element of confusion for the infant between the reality of their own experience and the image before them. As with the imaginary, the cinematic mirror-screen reflects back images but not reality, although a reflection must always be a reflection of something. Identification, Baudry argues, takes place on two distinct levels in the cinematic process. First, the spectator identifies with what is represented on the screen - the events, characters etc. Second, the spectator identifies with the camera itself and it is the latter of these that is most important. For Baudry, the [[content ]] of specific [[films ]] is not really significant; it is the process that matters. Film and the cinematic apparatus, therefore, enacts the Lacanian dialectic of absence and presence. The preconditions for cinematic identification to take place are also the two preconditions for the imaginary and the mirror stage to take place, that is to say, the suspension of mobility and the primacy of the [[visual ]] function. Baudry thus concluded his essay with the [[suggestion ]] that the cinematic spectator is formed precisely in the same way as Lacan's divided and alienated subject. As we will now see there are a [[number ]] of problems with Baudry's work. These problems were drawn out by one of the most important psychoanalytic film theorists of the 1970s and 1980s, [[Christian ]] [[Metz]], as well as by [[feminist ]] film theorists, such as Laura Mulvey.

[[Christian Metz ]] accepts Baudry's thesis that the [[primary identification ]] of the spectator revolves around the camera rather than the images represented on the screen, but he questions whether or not this can be equated with Lacan's mirror stage. There is a sense, he suggests, in which we can see the process of cinematic identification as analogous to the mirror stage, but this is not a very precise sense. Metz points out that what the child sees in the mirror and identifies with is an image of its own body, and that it identifies itself as an object. In the traditional cinema, on the other hand, what the spectator sees on the screen is not an image of her or himself. Indeed, for Metz, the precondition for the spectator to recognise their absence from the screen or

the intelligible unfolding of the film despite that absence - is the fact the spectator has already known the experience of the mirror (the [[true ]] mirror), and is thus able to constitute a world of objects without having first to recognise himself within it. (1982:46)

In this sense the cinema should be located not in Lacan's [[imaginary order ]] but in the [[symbolic ]] order (see Chapter 2).

Metz defines identification with either characters or actors as [[secondary identification]]. The primary identification of the cinema is not with something that is seen (as in the mirror stage) but with something seeing, as Metz puts it, 'a pure, all-seeing and invisible subject' (1982:97). What is seen in this situation - the object on the screen - does not know it is being seen and it is this lack of awareness in the object that it is seen that facilitates the voyeuristic quality of the cinema. Film spectators are essentially voyeurs without being aware that they are voyeurs. Metz insists on the [[need ]] to maintain a [[separation ]] [[cinema and psychoanalysis]]. What psychoanalysis provides film studies with are the concepts through which we can understand how cinema works, especially notions of [[scopophilia ]] (the overwhelming desire to look) and [[fetishism]]. We will see how these concepts work in our [[discussion ]] of feminist film criticism in 'After Lacan'. First, we must consider one more groundbreaking article.

For both Baudry and Metz the cinematic spectator was conceived of as essentially a [[male ]] voyeur. In an incredibly influential essay, 'Visual Pleasure and [[Narrative ]] Cinema', Laura Mulvey took up these debates and argued that the cinema produces a fundamentally male gaze or look and that the [[woman ]] is always the object of this gaze. Mulvey suggested that there were three levels upon which the gaze operated in the cinema. First, there is the gaze of the camera as it is filming and this, following Metz, is always a voyeuristic gaze. Second, there are the looks intrinsic to the film narrative and these are usually the looks of male protagonists, as they position [[women ]] characters within the narrative itself. Finally, there is the gaze of the spectator, and, as this gaze is facilitated by the previous two positions - of the camera and of the protagonists within the film - it is an inherently male position to adopt. Mulvey's formulation of the 'male gaze' provided the starting point for many debates around the possibility of elaborating [[feminine]], black and gay spectator positions. Would women always remain the object of the spectacle or does [[Lacanian psychoanalysis ]] offer alternative ways out? We will see how Lacanians addressed this issue in subsequent chapters.

In 'The Mirror Stage' Lacan draws on an extraordinary range of sources from philosophy, psychology and ethology, to reformulate the psychoanalytic conception of the ego and the imaginary. The imaginary is the realm of the ego, a pre-[[linguistic ]] realm of sense perception, identification and an illusory sense of unity. The primary relation in the imaginary is a relation with one's own body, that is to say, the [[specular ]] image of the body itself. These imaginary processes form the ego and are repeated and reinforced by the subject in his/her relationship with the external world. The imaginary, therefore, is not a [[developmental ]] phase - it is not something that one goes through and grows out of - but remains at the core of our experience. As the sense of original unity and coherence in the mirror phase is an illusion, there is a fundamental disharmony regarding the ego. The ego is essentially a terrain of conflict and discord; a site of continual struggle. What Lacan refers to as a 'lack of being' is this [[ontological ]] gap or primary [[loss ]] at the very heart of our subjectivity. Lacan goes further, however, than just suggesting that we have lost an original sense of unity; he argues that this loss is constitutive of subjectivity itself. In short, the imaginary is a realm of identification and mirror-reflection; a realm of [[distortion ]] and illusion. It is a realm in which a futile struggle takes place on the part of the ego to once more attain an imaginary unity and coherence.