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The Camera's Gaze in the Age Of COMING SOON FROM A SCREEN NEAR YOU: THE CAMERA’S GAZE IN THE AGE OF SURVEILLANCE by Fayez Kloub A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of The Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton, FL August 2016 Copyright 2016 by Fayez Kloub ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author wishes to thank his thesis’ committee members for their support and advice in the process of writing this thesis, and special thanks to his advisor for his encouragement and assistance in the process of writing this manuscript. The author is grateful for the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters and the School of Communication and Media Studies for providing the resources needed to conduct research for this study. Last but not least, the author wishes to thank his colleagues and fellow teaching assistants for all of their support. iv ABSTRACT Author: Fayez Kloub Title: Coming Soon From a Screen Near You: The Camera’s Gaze in the Age of Surveillance Institution: Florida Atlantic University Thesis Advisor: Dr. Stephen Charbonneau Degree: Master of Arts Year: 2016 Within the past thirty years, privacy concerns among American citizens are rising with counter-terrorist surveillance going beyond targeting people of interest. These concerns are reflected in American cinema where many contemporary films have explored surveillance in society. The textual analyses presented in the thesis will focus on three such films, Strange Days (1995), Southland Tales (2005), and Nightcrawler (2014). Throughout this thesis, I examine how each of these films offers a unique, reflexive take on surveillance, adhering to generative mechanisms that evoke differing attitudes about surveillance through their form. My analysis draws on Laura Mulvey and Patricia Pisters’ theories on the gaze to understand the politics of looking in contemporary surveillance cinema and highlight how cinematic scopophilia evolved into a networked perspective. My analysis suggests that the politics of surveillance cinema is reflected in these films as their differences mirror the changing perception of surveillance and the gaze over time. v DEDICATION This manuscript is dedicated to the author’s family and friends who have been supportive along the way as they wrote this thesis, and their girlfriend, who the author thanks for being their inspiration to continue moving ahead and being there for them in their best and worst times. TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................... 1 SEEING AND BEING SEEN ........................................................................................ 3 FEAR OF OBJECTIFICATION..................................................................................... 5 METHODOLOGY ......................................................................................................... 7 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: ................................................................................. 9 PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY ................................................................................. 10 IDENTIFICATION AND SPECTATORSHIP ............................................................ 11 THE GAZE ................................................................................................................... 14 IDEOLOGY .................................................................................................................. 18 LITERARY REVIEW: SIGNIFICANCE OF THESIS ................................................ 20 SUMMARY .................................................................................................................. 21 CHAPTER OVERVIEW .............................................................................................. 24 II. RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW: THE GAZE OF STRANGE DAYS ............................. 26 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 26 FILMING THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE.................................................................... 30 MECHANICAL AUGMENTATION OF SIGHT AND THOUGHT.......................... 33 DESIRE OF LOOKING THROUGH THE MALE GAZE .......................................... 34 DISGUST AND FEAR IN THE GAZE ....................................................................... 37 THE POWER OF VISION ........................................................................................... 40 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................. 43 III. PIMPING THE MEMORY GOSPEL: UBIQUITY IN SOUTHLAND TALES ......... 46 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 46 USIDENT AND NEO-MARXISTS ............................................................................. 51 BEING WATCHED ..................................................................................................... 55 MASS EXPOSURE: MEDIA AND STARDOM......................................................... 61 APATHY AND INEVITABLILITY ............................................................................ 69 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................. 70 IV. TRAVIS BICKLE WITH A CAMERA: THE INVASIVE NIGHTCRAWLER ........ 73 vii INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 73 CAMERA AND EYEWITNESS SURVEILLANCE .................................................. 78 LOU AS THE VOYEUR .............................................................................................. 86 MASS MEDIA AS THE VOYEUR ............................................................................. 91 MASS MEDIA AND PARANOIA .............................................................................. 93 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................. 97 V. CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................... 100 WHAT TO APPLY FROM THIS .............................................................................. 107 WHAT TO ENHANCE .............................................................................................. 108 FINAL NOTE ............................................................................................................. 109 VI. BIBLIOGRAPHY: ................................................................................................... 111 viii I. INTRODUCTION Film has the capacity to grant viewers an opportunity to look out of a cinematic window into another life. It is within the borders of the screen that the viewer is able to relate their line of vision with what the camera captures, creating an illusion of bearing an omnipotent view over the subjects in the frame. Much of the research made on spectatorship has focused on the act of looking and how the camera’s gaze at the subjects reflect on the spectator’s gaze at the subjects that render them into objects of gratification. Other studies, however, have shown that there is also a returned gaze of the film object, and the mirror effect that allows film to act as a reflection of the viewer’s desires can also give viewers the feeling of being watched and rendered as an object by the film image. This creates an unsettling dynamic between the viewer and the camera as the viewer can gain satisfaction from sharing the same voyeuristic gaze as the camera, but can also be, in turn, confronted on the artifice of this connection with the screen, rendering the viewer as an object intended to expose the audience’s obsession with spectacle. This desire to watch and anxiety of being watched is not exclusive to motion pictures as public and private spheres in high-tech societies have dealt with surveillance outreach issues that have compromised the privacy of civilians in an age where social media further propels average people into the public sphere. As surveillance concerns have become prevalent in our current cultural landscape, the film industry would 1 naturally be compelled to explore this subject and negotiate with the implication of having surveillance as part of our daily routine. Prominent films throughout the 20th century have explored surveillance, but with the advent of the Patriot Act and the NSA leaks, these as well as more contemporary films take on a new light as films that confront the act of surveillance as well as foretell an era where privacy is not a guarantee. With a psychoanalytical approach to cinematography and spectatorship in mind, the approach that films take in immersing the viewer into the diegetic space take on a form similar to a voyeur’s camera spying on the characters, capturing them at their most intimate and vulnerable moments as they move throughout a narrative. While many films intend on using such a format to construct a narrative that can keep the attention of a wide audience, films that have a focus on surveillance can bring to light these similarities as the narrative and film form can mirror the desires or anxieties of spying or being exposed. The films explored in this study approach the subject of surveillance from multiple directions that can either revel or shudder in the potential that new surveillance technology grants us in today’s
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