Abstract

In the article I am introducing the concept of the gaze derived from Lacanian psychoanalysis by relating it to the cinematic experience. The key standpoint that sets the argument is that the relation between the spectator, cinematic images and the process of experiencing films should be redefined in order to grasp the productive and political potential of cinema. To give a better insight of my theoretical approach I am giving an understanding of how spectators are constructed by the Other – the gaze, desire, the Symbolic and the Real orders, that does not belong to them but at the same time enables to form their identity and position themselves between the gaze, the image and the object of desire. Although I am only focusing on cinema, it serves as an example of a broader theoretical approach to psychoanalytical studies of how subjectivity is constructed in relation to the impossible, invisible or non-existent.