Octavia Bright
I have just completed my doctoral thesis in the Spanish department at UCL: 'Cherchez la femme: Absence and Hysteria in Cet obscur objet du désir (Buñuel, 1977) La piel que habito (Almodóvar, 2011) and Caótica Ana (Medem, 2007)'.
This study provides close analysis of three films by Spain’s most notable auteur directors, all of which represent idealised femininity as an impossible desire, governed simultaneously by lack and excess. It explores the relationship between idealised femininity and male hysteria represented by narrative trajectories that are one way or another launched by a masculinity in crisis (on- or off-screen).
Building on theoretical analysis in the field by Rob Stone, Julián Gutierrez-Albilla, Paul Julian Smith, Linda Williams, and others, and using a psychoanalytical framework informed by thinkers including Lacan, Kristeva, Irigaray, and Deleuze and Guattari, it expands on prior interpretations of these films by exploring them alongside the work of artist Louise Bourgeois (referenced directly in Almodóvar’s mise-en-scène), whose oeuvre, like that of these three directors, explores the limits of desire and identity.
Simultaneously present and absent, individual and archetype, homage and replica, an excessive representation of unconsciously collective (or collectively unconscious) expectations of and fears of femininity (as goddess/virgin/mother/monstrous femme fatale) reverberate through these films in the recurring presence of traces of iconic classical, passive femininity, such as the Venus de Milo. The contrast between repetitive images of the mutilated feminine that flow through these films, and Bourgeois' challenging pieces, may shed new light on the difference between the excess illustrated by these films and that represented by Bourgeois' body of work. In these examples, woman is more than simply Irigaray's ‘obliging prop’ of masculine fantasy; she is symptomatic of something more extreme, inherently tied to a crisis of self, brought about by the experience of desire.
Supervisors: Dr Jo Evans and Professor Tim Matthews
This study provides close analysis of three films by Spain’s most notable auteur directors, all of which represent idealised femininity as an impossible desire, governed simultaneously by lack and excess. It explores the relationship between idealised femininity and male hysteria represented by narrative trajectories that are one way or another launched by a masculinity in crisis (on- or off-screen).
Building on theoretical analysis in the field by Rob Stone, Julián Gutierrez-Albilla, Paul Julian Smith, Linda Williams, and others, and using a psychoanalytical framework informed by thinkers including Lacan, Kristeva, Irigaray, and Deleuze and Guattari, it expands on prior interpretations of these films by exploring them alongside the work of artist Louise Bourgeois (referenced directly in Almodóvar’s mise-en-scène), whose oeuvre, like that of these three directors, explores the limits of desire and identity.
Simultaneously present and absent, individual and archetype, homage and replica, an excessive representation of unconsciously collective (or collectively unconscious) expectations of and fears of femininity (as goddess/virgin/mother/monstrous femme fatale) reverberate through these films in the recurring presence of traces of iconic classical, passive femininity, such as the Venus de Milo. The contrast between repetitive images of the mutilated feminine that flow through these films, and Bourgeois' challenging pieces, may shed new light on the difference between the excess illustrated by these films and that represented by Bourgeois' body of work. In these examples, woman is more than simply Irigaray's ‘obliging prop’ of masculine fantasy; she is symptomatic of something more extreme, inherently tied to a crisis of self, brought about by the experience of desire.
Supervisors: Dr Jo Evans and Professor Tim Matthews
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