Lacan Theory

Lacan's Psychoanalysis Theory Analysis

Jaques Lacan is a french psychoanalyst who created a couple of theories one Mirror theory and another named Lack. Lacan's mirror theory is that during our infant stage we recognise our own reflected image as our ideal self. When applied to film this is becomes the screen where our minds view these images as the ideal and reflect that on to our selves. The camera becomes king when this occurs and what it captures will influence its audience. This can become problematic of course when it becomes obsessive or oppressive where by people follow too much what they have seen on the screen. Lighter versions would be fashion choices used such as a modern film with the lead female character wearing pink boots, there is likely to be a rise in pink boot sales especially is the character is likeable and the camera records a close up of the item. Also moral and personal traits are carried over through the mirror stage theory in where heroic characteristics of the modern wave of comic book heroes make young people want to take on the world, again there is a negative that the mirror stage can be seen to be applied to young adult movies which perpetuate the "standard" high school and college experience where the aggressive inconsiderate qualities of those in power are what is expected and so is desired as the perfect form. These qualities can be applied to films previously mentioned and out of genre specific films as any film that incorporates slowed desirable camera movements overtly explored in Kenneth Anger's experimental films of the 1950's can have the mirror stage applied to it. It doesn't fit for all as you could say that horror films or documentary films of poverty do not show things that are desirable and are things to be avoided or fearful of. So for it to happen there needs to be desire and Lacan says:

Desire is neither the appetite for satisfaction, nor the demand for love, but the differ- ence that results from the subtraction of the first from the second. 

The mirror stage runs a lot on the fact that what is shown in the mirror or the screen when applied to film is desirable. Where does this desire come from? well one way it can arise from the human mind's Lack. Lacan's lack theory is that our minds are constantly lacking in something like a puzzle missing the final few pieces ore a hole filled cheese. The mind is driven forward by the need to fill this lack but whilst like a child tries to put everything in its mouth not everything will fit the holes in our mind and if something does it won't always, so the human is always forced to keep on searching. This can become problematic if something which momentarily filled a persons lack has to be furthered leading to addiction or the other way in which an idea of something fills this lack and instead leads to obsession. This can be seen in two of the films that I studied earlier in Vertigo directed by Hitchcock the character Scottie is trying to fill apart of him that can only be filled by this constructed ideal woman who doesn't exist so he has to keep reconstructing her. In Grizzly man in a documentary style film by Werner Herzog we have a real life example explored in Timothy Treadwell searching for an existence with Grizzly Bears which leads to obsession with the bears. The lack can be explored within any film that has a searching driven plot from the coming of age type film where by completing some form of enlightenment or task fills them mentally allowing them to be a complete adult to a film exploring revenge of a loved ones death. Whether trying to fulfil the lack from loosing a piece of them selves or acquiring it for completion the element of Lack for that drive is still there. The films where this can not be so readily applied are experimental or surreal films where there may have been explicit focus on different theories or in plot driven films where the story is not sufficiently deep enough to analyse  sufficiently.

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