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Showing posts from November, 2019

Coming to terms with Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema"

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"Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" by Laura Mulvey is, undoubtedly, a bit of a head screw. It's taken me three sittings to get through the whole thing (even though it's just 12 pages) and it was, certainly, the satisfaction of starting to understand it that has compelled me to even try maintain an Art History blog in the first place. A big portion of this difficult-ness can be attributed to Mulvey’s constant referral to psychoanalytic theory, which her analysis is hinged on. As someone not massively familiar with many ideas in psychology and philosophy, this has been really difficult (and enjoyable!) to try and get my head around. Coming to terms with such complex ideas is rewarding! It’s also a bit like 1970s, and I don’t wholly see where she’s coming from with some of the psychoanalysis. But this me trying to make sense of it rather than agree. I think her insights into the technicalities of filmmaking and the results of this are very exciting though and be

A Fledgling Idea

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It was today, on a very long and boring train journey, that I decided it would be a good idea to start a blog. Having spent a solid 2 hours trying to get my head around the joy that is Laura Mulvey's "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema", I felt rather proud of myself when it seemed to finally start clicking together. Having an excuse (ie. a blog) to record my ideas felt like a brilliant way to make sure I actually keep reading and keep stuff fresh on the brain! Art History is a discipline that is, in many respects, completely new to me. I hope to start studying it at university next September, so I thought a blog like this would be an excellent incentive to keep thinking critically - for myself as much as anyone! I am learning all the time and I hope the posts will be reflective of the progress I make and my thoughts along the way. I hope, therefore, that writing will be palatable and accessible to other beginners. I hope this will be a lot of fun to write, a