Lacan’s Mirror Phase and The Life Aquatic

With all the new buzz surrounding Wes Anderson's upcoming 'The Fantastic Mr. Fox,' I thought I'd post an old Film Theory paper I did on Anderson's 'The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.' The paper is about how Jacque Lacan's developmentary theory, the Mirror Phase, is deeply seeded within Anderson's work.

Lacan’s Mirror Phase and 'The Life Aquatic'

In Film Theory: An Introduction, Robert Lapsley and Michael Westlake discuss one of Jacques Lacan’s determining moments in childhood development, the mirror phase. In short, the mirror phase is “the acquisition of the sense of self” (Lapsley and Westlake 68). This initially occurs “between the ages of six and eighteen months” (Lapsley and Westlake 68) when a child first views themselves in a mirror, as Lacan suggests, with the mother. This phase leads the subject to “an awareness of the body as localized and separate from the environment” (Lapsley and Westlake 68) and the ability “to develop a sense of its own separate identity” (Lapsley and Westlake 68). However this newfound identification of the self leads to “misrecognition, alienation, and division” (Lapsley and Westlake 68) as the idea of the self cannot match up to the actuality of the self. According to Lapsley and Westlake, “because the self-image represents…a degree of completeness and perfection never to be attained, the image is a narcissistic self-idealization or, as Lacan puts it, ‘a mirage’, designed to parry the lack in being and ‘to preserve the subject’s precarious pleasure from an impossible and non-compliant real’” (Lapsley and Westlake 68). This means that the subject creates a self-idealization of themselves that they can never achieve in reality.
This inflated sense of self and schism between self-idealization and reality extends beyond infancy and can be perpetuated throughout life and adulthood. This is made evident through Wes Anderson’s film, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. The character of Steve Zissou (Bill Murray) embodies the concept of Lacan’s mirror phase through the incongruence between his self-idealization and his actual self. This is made evident through his thoughts and behavior throughout the film.
At the start of the film, Zissou is in the depths of cultural irrelevancy. His newest film is a financial and academic failure; it is not taken seriously, people walk out of the premiere, and his remaining fans patronize him with over the top praise, stating others “didn’t get it.” It is soon revealed that Zissou has not made a hit documentary in almost a decade, he is having investment problems with his newest film, and his colleagues no longer respect him. Zissou cannot accept this reality. His self-idealization is that he is still the same daring adventurer that he was before he fell out of cultural and academic fame. The new documentary he is working on is to search for, fight, and kill a seemingly mythical Jaguar Shark that ate his partner. This concept is a way for Zissou to try to recapture his lost success by returning to the daring adventurer he was; however most people consider him to be a crazy old man past his prime.
Zissou’s idealized and realistic disconnect is furthered by the introduction of Ned Plimpton, Zissou’s potential biological son. Ned serves as a reminder to Zissou of his younger years, because of Ned’s age and the memories he evokes in Zissou of meeting his mother 30 years ago as a younger man. Zissou also constantly denies his self reality by distancing himself from Ned at times through the film; for example, through not letting Ned refer to him as “Dad.”
Zissou’s disconnect between idealization and reality extends even beyond himself to the world around him. This is shown, in particular, when he talks about his ship, The Belafonte. He describes the ship in a whimsical and delightful way, saying it is full of state of the art equipment and great resources. In reality, the ship is rusted, full of salvaged parts and is in drastic need of repairs. The power often goes out, and the oceanographic and documentary equipment is quite obsolete and in various states of disrepair. The same can also be said of his island home and laboratory which is described in the same illustrious language, but is full of peeling paint and crumbling concrete.
The people in Zissou’s life are aware of his downfall, yet Zissou does his best to ignore them. He surrounds himself in symbols of his more successful past. Filling the ship with pictures and books, dressing his crew in the same old uniforms, even keeping crates of old custom Adidas from a sponsorship that went bust years ago. When his crew or others try to bring Zissou back to reality, he is often despondent or angry: When Jane Winslett-Richardson (Cate Blanchett), an embedded reporter writing a cover story on him, she states that public opinion of him has “drastically changed in the past five years;” when his crew watch old Zissou documentaries they comment “That’s what he used to be like.” Zissou tries to rally against these reminders of the difference between the reality and idealization of himself through his behavior. He starts off with small eccentricities; randomly going up in a hot air balloon for a conversation, breaking into a colleague’s ocean laboratory, and exploring a mysterious crashed aircraft underwater. But these are stunts done for the documentary or for Jane’s cover story. More interestingly is when Zissou continues these stunts for his own accord, not the documentary or article. These stunts are much more dangerous behavior than the mere eccentricities, such as single handedly fighting off invading pirates. This new desperation shows that Zissou’s actions are far more than just an attempt to rejuvenate his career, but an attempt to rejuvenate himself and match reality to his self-idealization.
However, about three quarters through the film, it seems Zissou starts to come to terms with reality. While trying to save his kidnapped crew member and colleague, Zissou falls down the stairs at the end of the seemingly failed mission. He says “We’ll give them reality this time. A washed up old man with no friends, no distribution deal, a wife on the rocks, people laughing at him, feeling sorry for himself.” Zissou has accepted reality and denied his self-idealization. Feeling discouraged, Zissou is set to give up the search on not only the kidnapped people, but the Jaguar Shark. Nevertheless, when Zissou soon discovers the lost crew member, colleague, and the pirates, he reverts back to his self-idealization. He engages the pirates in another gun fight and blows up the building they are in, in an effort to rescue his crew member and colleague. It is ultimately an event that happens soon afterward that cements Zissou back in reality; the death of his potential son, Ned. Ned and Zissou fly in a broken down helicopter in a search for Zissou’s mythical shark, resulting in a crash that kills Ned. Ned’s death comes as a direct result of Zissou’s over inflated self-idealization. If Zissou were more in touch with reality he would have be able to accept that the helicopter is in poor condition, and would not have gone on such a risky flight for his documentary to try to find his Jaguar Shark. Zissou’s change is seemingly permanent at this point; he has lowered his self-idealization and has come more to terms with reality. When he eventually finds the Jaguar Shark, he does not stick to his initial plan of fighting and killing the creature; he simply watches it. At the end if the film, at the premiere of his newest film, Zissou does not watch the film. He sits alone outside, with an award he’s won for the film. Instead of becoming wrapped up in the new success of his film and reverting back to his self-idealization, Zissou remains rooted in reality. He says, “This is an adventure.” claiming that life is an adventure to him, no longer needing his aggrandized idea of himself.
In conclusion, the concept of Lacan’s mirror phase is shown throughout Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Zissou’s disconnect between his self-idealization and reality is readily apparent throughout the film in his thoughts and behavior. He tries to match reality to his idealized self through dangerous stunts and behavior. However, Zissou makes a return to reality, accepting its precedence over his idealized self.
Works Cited:
Lapsley, Robert, and Michael Westlake. Film Theory: An Introduction. 2nd ed. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2006. Print.

Production

Short dialogue-driven comedy about a disagreement between a writer and director. Produced by the Future Filmmakers Club at Salisbury University. Written and Directed by Travis Carr.

Anti-Feminism in Twilight

Laura Mulvey’s article “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” states that mainstream cinema uses style in a way that subconsciously reinforces the male dominant gender hierarchy of society. In Mulvey’s words, it has “coded the erotic into the language of the dominant patriarchal order.” This is often achieved through objectification of females in films, the presentation and endorsement of a passive/female and active/male dichotomy, and through the strong presence of a male figure that seems to “control the film fantasy” and serves as the “bearer of the look of the spectator.” This reinforcement of gender hierarchy is also present in actions or themes within a film. A film’s subconscious support of patriarchal society can be potentially damaging, instilling the same thoughts or expectations within the viewer.
A recent film that engages in these stylistic tactics is 2008’s adolescent vampire romance “Twilight.” Interestingly, the film was directed by a female director, Catherine Hardwicke; adapted by a female screenwriter, Melissa Rosenberg; based on a book by a female author, Stephenie Meyer; and aggressively marketed to young women. Despite all of the female control within the production of the film, it still holds true to the same principals of style outlined by Mulvey that help subconsciously reinforce a patriarchal society. The fact that the film is marketed to young women is potentially alarming in that the ideas of patriarchal society that the film seems to endorse may be internalized by its viewers.
The primary way the film supports this position is through the pairing of its male and female romance in Bella and Edward. The two represent a clear passive/active dichotomy, with Bella following and doing nearly anything she is told, and Edward being the one in control. In their first meeting in a classroom, they are not introduced until Edward finally does so, Bella simply sits. The passive/active dichotomy even plays out throughout the rest of the scene as they work together on an assignment, with Edward double checking all of Bella’s work and Bella simply accepting Edward’s as correct. The camerawork of the scene even plays up the passive/active difference of the two, with Bella being looked down on in a high angle, and Edward looked up at in a low angle. Neither angle even makes sense as they are both on the same level in the scene sitting at a table, but the implication of the angles takes power away from Bella and gives power to Edward. Their relationship remains the same throughout the film, with Bella essentially following Edward’s command.
Bella also falls into the classic sexual role Muley refers to as an “erotic object for the characters within the screen story, and an erotic object for the spectator within the auditorium.” Even though she is the protagonist in the film, Bella is still very much a sexual object within the film; with the minor male characters in the film competing for her affection. She is even a sexual object to the audience with the film camerawork and editing at times deconstructing her into pieces of her body. Even though Edward may be a sexual object to the females at his school, he is not made into one for the film, as Mulvey says, “the male figure cannot bear the burden of sexual objectification.” Instead, he is “the bearer of the look of the spectator,” being given point-of-view shots within the film, many of which are slow pans looking Bella up and down. Bella is given no point-of-view shots throughout the entire film; never made “bearer of the look.” Throughout the film, Edward is described as being “perfect” in his appearance and actions. However, Edward’s perfect characteristics do not make him a sexual object, “but those of the more perfect, more complete, more powerful ideal ego” that Mulvey describes in the mirror phase as that who the audience aspires to be in watching a film. The power of Edward’s gaze within the film also works as a reading of “fetishistic scopohilia” which “builds up the physical beauty of the object,” being Bella, “transforming it into something satisfying in itself.” It can also be seen as voyeurism, which Mulvey states has “associations to sadism” as it relies on “asserting control” over the individual. The act of scopophilia or voyeurism is even enacted within the film, with Edward sneaking into Bella’s room and watching her sleep. This act starts long before the two have even been introduced, and when Bella learns about it, she is not the least bit alarmed by it. Her nonchalant response can even be seen as a veiled endorsement of the act and of male control over females in general.
“Twilight” uses style, themes, and actions endorse an oppressive form of politics to its viewers. Through the film’s uneven passive/active dichotomist relationship between Bella and Edward, the use of style to mark Bella as a sexual object and as an inferior person, and through the film’s endorsement of sadistic control through voyeurism, “Twilight” reinforces the beliefs of a patriarchal anti-feminist society.