Objectification

I found the film The Unknown very intriguing and captivating—it seemed to have a suspended sense of reality to it. Each scene played a part in the crescendo of suspense and odd humor. I found that the film did a great job in portraying the difference between the carnival scenes and settings versus that of the “real world,” not that the two could not exist at the same place and time. A huge part of this film and Gunning’s piece was the recurring idea of voyeurism. The changes between the carnival audience and actors show how people are constantly objectifying others and are also objectified themselves.

          I feel like the ways in which the camera captured how people looking at one another or the lack of people present represent the obsession we have with watching others and giving ourselves over to our senses. In the beginning and end of the film, the camera showed the audience looking at the carnival workers. The act of watching is something that many people do because they feel distant—this is a form of objectifying others. The idea of objectification here is not too focused on degrading others, but rather to not relate to them. In this case, the audience members were giving the Lacan and Freudian ‘”gaze” to the carnival actors. This is the same look that we give to our screens when watching porn.  

There were many shots throughout the film where it just focused on one character looking at the other and these shots would linger for a moment longer than we would be comfortable with. One example of this was when Alonza and Cojo were laughing and the camera just lingers on Cojo’s face for a long second. This is also represented in the long looks that Alonzo gives Nanon throughout the film, especially in the scene where he and Nanon are reunited at a carnival stage after his returns from his amputation. He looks at her with a cloudy gaze and is so preoccupied with soaking in the sight of her that he thought she was talking about her and him getting married. He was too thralled in his head and in his fantasy to realize that she was not in love with him.

One of the points that we talked about in class was the physiological effect that horror movies have on the senses. I actually had a class in the past that I had conducted my final project on measuring physiological reactions to horror films. The results were as predicted and we concluded that many people can expect and prepare themselves for such events, but will react nonetheless. When we watch movies, films, and plays, we expect to be transported to another reality where the decisions don't always make sense and not everything has a reasonable explanation. We live vicariously through different medias because there is only so much that we feel comfortable with doing ourselves.