The Address of the Eye A PHENOMENOLOGY OF FILM EXPERIENCE Vivian Sobchack P R I N C E T ON U N I V E R S I TY P R E SS P R I N C E T O N, N EW J E R S EY Copyright © 1992 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Oxford All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publieation Data Sobchack, Vivian Carol. The address of the eye : a phenomenology of film experience / Vivian Sobchack. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-691-03195-9 : $35.00 1. Motion pictures—Philosophy. I. Title. PN 1995. S54 1992 791.43'01—dc20 91-21402 CIP This book has been composed in Linotron Palatino Princeton University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources Printed in the United States of America by Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 89 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 89 10 (Pbk.) TO RICHARD L. LANIGAN FOR TEACHING ME WHAT I ALWAYS ALREADY KNEW As soon as we see other seers . . . henceforth, through other eyes we are for ourselves fully visi­ ble. . . . For the first time, the seeing that I am is for me really visible; for the first time I appear to myself completely turned inside out under my own eyes. MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY The Visible and the Invisible A being which is not the object of another being . . . presupposes that no objective being exists. ... To be sensuous, i.e., to be real, is to be an object of sense, a sensuous object, and thus to have sensuous objects outside oneself, objects of one's sense perceptions. KARL MARX Early Writings Contents List of Figures xi Preface xiii Acknowledgments xxi CHAPTER ONE Phenomenology and the Film Experience 3 The Embodied and Enworlded Eye: Perception and Expression 8 Film Theory and the Objectification of Embodied Vision 14 Phenomenology and Film Theory 26 CHAPTER TWO The Act of Being with One's Own Eyes 51 Intentionality, Embodiment, and Movement 57 The Viewing Subject 97 Film and/as Viewing Subject 128 Whose Body? A Brief Meditation on Sexual Difference and Other Bodily Discriminations 143 CHAPTER THREE Film's Body 164 Technology and Instrumentality 169 The Film Embodied 203 Film's Body: A Brief Intentional History 248 CHAPTER FOUR The Address of the Eye 260 Thesis and Antithesis: The Paranoia of Split Vision 262 Synthesis: The Dialectics of Double Vision 270 The Eye's Address 285 Toward the "Incorporation" of Subjective Experience in Film Theory 290 Becoming and Concluding: The End Is In-Sight 300 Selected Bibliography 311 Index 323 IX