Abstract
The authors argue that the unattainability of the object on the screen that characterises the ontology of cinema, alongside narrative film’s unique techniques, makes it possible for spectators to let the camera inscribe them into a fantasmatic space compatible with an unconscious inscription in the primal scene fantasy, which they conflate with getting access to the Other’s desire. This transgression is enabled only within a careful economy of desire/fantasy, in which the character, as incorporated by an actor, constitutes a ‘filling’ of objet a, meant to cover over its physical absence (the screen’s lack). The analysis of Rebecca (a ‘bodiless-character film’) – an exception that proves the rule – shows how within this economy the role of fantasy in narrative film is the support of desire.
This chapter is part of a research project in process, supported by the Israel Science Foundation.
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Notes
- 1.
On the objects in Hitchcock’s films, see, for example: Žižek ; Dolar .
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Kohen Raz, O., Meiri, S. (2018). Replacement, objet a and the dynamic of desire/fantasy in Rebecca. In: Owen, J., Segal, N. (eds) On Replacement. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76011-7_23
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