Response Paper #1: The Unknown (All because of a girl)

        I decided to examine The Unknown for this response. The film fit very well with the Tom Gunning essay as well as the chapter in the Worland book. The discussion that we had in class really intrigued me to think about the film in a different way. I was the most interested in the castration theory aspect of the film, partly because we also discussed it in my feminist film class. This also had me looking at gender within the film and the aspect of voyeurism.
          I began learning about castration theory in my feminist film class this semester and I think it is very interesting. This Freudian theory orginates from the son devloping a romantic love for his mother and being afriad that his father would find out and castrate him. The whole theory is about the fear men have of being castrated (mainly by women in the case of cinema). This creates a love hate relationship with men’s feelings towards women in film. On one hand they lust after them, gaze at their beauty and have complete control over them. On the other hand, they are anxious and in fear that they will loose their manhood at the hands of the same women they lust after. There was definitely a threat of castration in The Unknown for Alonzo and it actually happens (Nanon does not literally cut of his thing, but she might as well have). Because of Nanon’s fear of hands, which I assume is from an abusive father, Alonzo (who is a armless man in the circus, but actually has arms) decides to have his arms cut off so that he could be with Nanon. As Worland states in his book, this is can be compared to the act of castration. Also, his right hand man, Cojo, who is symbolic of his balls, disappears after Alonzo gets his arms cut off, also showing the castration.

  This leads me to the next point about gender in this film. Usually in early film, the woman is the one to change her appearance or personality to find/get love, but it is Alonzo in this film. It is also the man that pushes the story along but I feel in The Unknown, it is actually Nanon who is pushing the story. Everything in this film is about Nanon or for Nanon. This kind of gives her all of the power, which is also unheard of for a woman in early cinema. It is all about who loves Nanon and what Nanon will do if this or that happens, Nanon's fear of hands, Nanon's daddy issues and who will Nanon choose in the end. Nanon also has a façade of innocence. In some of the scenes, I couldn’t help but think that she knows these two men love her and yet she keeps playing hard to get or teasing them. This is especially apparent in the scene where she is with Alonzo before he cut his arms off. She gets very close to his face, like she is going to kiss him. Her body is seductively posed and she is lingering very close to his lips, just to kiss him on the cheek. She definitely knew what she was doing. I think Alonzo never had a shot with Nanon because she thought he was disabled. She liked him because she didn’t fear him like she did other men. This also questioned his masculinity. I think that this says something about our culture as well and how disabled people had a very hard time in the past being accepted and not looked at. It made people look at them as if they were not human because of their disability.

         The aspect of voyeurism is interesting in this film as well. While usually the spectator is use to fulfilling their voyeuristic pleasure by looking at women, in this film there are only a few instances of that. I think that the spectator for this film is suppose to look at Alonzo more than Nanon. This is apparent while Cojo is untying Alonzo’s arm binding corset. The audience is encouraged to look for a long time at that image. The audience is also encouraged to look at Alonzo while he is using his feet as hands. I think that this was to further show that not only was Alonzo disabled but also not a man because of his lack of arms.
Even though the narrative wasn’t focused on in film at this time, the Unknown has a remarkably good narrative. This, along with other reasons, I think that the Unknown is a groundbreaking film for horror/macabre cinema but the entire industry as well.