The Gaze, a concept encompassing a "new" and an "old" way of interpretation, is discussed in length by Lacan, revolving around his reminiscence of an encounter he had with a sardine can. This encounter baffles Lacan, and in his attempt to define why it impacted him so much, he states that, "On the side of things, there is the gaze, that is to say, things look at me" (The four fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis, 109). But how can an inanimate object "look" at anyone? Although, according to Lacan, the can may have not seen him, it was looking at him all the same.

In Joel Schumacher’s The Lost Boys (1987), the character Sam Emerson experiences what Lacan so clearly defines as the Gaze. Sam is given a gift by his taxidermist grandfather right before he discovers that his older brother has been turned into a Santa Clara vampire. Sam’s gift is a small beaver, freshly killed and stuffed by his loving grandfather, and placed with care by his bedside. We see a shot of Sam lying on his bed and he looks nervous and unsettled. As he looks to his right, we see a shot of the beaver; wide-eyed, teeth bearing, and ready to pounce. The camera then cuts back to Sam, who tries to continue reading his comic book, and then cuts back to the same shot of the beaver. Sam suddenly gets up, warily grabs the beaver, and stuffs it in a closet full of other carefully preserved woodland creatures. Why would Sam feel so unsettled by this stuffed beaver? The beaver is unable to see and incapable of really "looking" at Sam, but all the same, Sam feels as if he is being watched.

This phenomenon is the Gaze. In The four fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis, Lacan states:

[The] gaze is not the gaze of anyone.  If it were the gaze of some other person, the issue would become one of relations between two separate subjects, which it is not.   Rather, the gaze is the subject of individual fantasy.  The gaze ... is not a seen gaze, but a gaze imagined by me in the field of the Other.

Sam is not in fact being watched by the beaver, but nonetheless, he feels as if it is looking at him. If the beaver was actually watching Sam—perhaps if it had been inhabited by evil vampire spirits and the spirits were watching Sam through the eyes of the beaver—then Sam would have experienced the look and not the Lacanian Gaze. This feeling of an imagined captivating presence people sometimes feel about themselves ultimately leads us to feel as if we are being watched by others. A teenager with their first zit may feel as if the entire world is staring at their face when, in fact, it is likely that no one else even noticed it. This almost egotistical condition that we live in allows us all to experience what Sam feels; though we all may not feel as if we are being watched by dead beavers, we most surely will encounter what Lacan calls the phenomena of the Gaze.

Cinema commonly contains great examples of "The Look," giving the characters and audience what they desire to know or perceive. Hollywood’s love of the seamless narrative leaves "The Gaze" hard to find due to it causing unrest and a sense of second-guessing; unexplained signifiers can create a sort of "bliss" effect. In Phil Alden Robinson’s Sneakers (1992), the Scrabble™ scene contains a viable representation of both the Gaze and the Look simultaneously through parallel editing. The scene opens with a smoothly weaving Steadicam shot back from a Scrabble™ game to a medium shot of the film’s McGuffin, a mysterious little black box. The wavering shot moving from one area to the other creates a feeling of a loose but important connection between the two places. In an earlier scene, Dick Gordon (Timothy Busfield) mentions a secret project titled "SETEC Astronomy." He immediately outlines it as a mysterious unknown by saying, "It may be nothing or it may be something," giving no clue as to what the title may or may not mean, but hinting that these letters are perplexingly important. As a group of characters attempt to unlock hidden secrets from a harmless looking black box, "SETEC Astronomy" jokingly gets added into the conversation. Over at the table, Martin Bishop/Brice (Robert Redford) suddenly gets a hunch that there may be more to the name than simply a joke. He gets the idea that this title is just as important and mysterious as the box, yet none of them have any real reason to think so, nor do they have any clues.

The majority of scenes in the 1946 film Shock take place in an asylum—the perfect stage for instances of the Gaze. This is because the ones that respond to the Gaze the strongest are the psychotics. While the average person goes around in his or her own imaginary constructed world, the psychotic sees the real. It is this real which the Gaze originates and emanates from.

During a scene that takes place midway into the film, the Gaze presents itself in the form of thunder and lightning. Mr. Edwards, a psychotic, sits on his bed in a darkened room. He looks out the rain-streaked window. It is obvious that he thinks there is something out there, however it is improbable that there is anything standing outside his window, as he is on an upper floor. A long shot helps to establish Mr. Edwards’ fear. He feels as if he is being watched. Many of us find ourselves in this state from time-to-time, but few of us live in it, as the psychotic does. When the inevitable lightning-crash comes, Mr. Edwards jumps from his bed and tries to hide in his closet, but it has been locked. This reaction seems childlike at best, but it cannot be downplayed as an invalid response to the Gaze. The Gaze originates from some unknown concealed point, which a person cannot logically attach to any ‘real’ threat. It usually invades life from various forms of structural orifice (a cracked door, a window, a vent, etc). Therefore the best way to stop the Gaze is to cleanse one’s immediate surroundings of all such openings. This is the same tactic a child uses when it covers its head with a blanket. Mr. Edwards seeks the closet but, finding it locked, must escape into the hall or be beaten down by the psychotic closeness of the Gaze.

In his quest for safety, Mr. Edwards jumps into another’s room. This action is caused by another threat. When Mr. Edwards was walking down the hall, he heard advancing voices. These voices belonged to two asylum workers, who would surely lock Mr. Edwards back up if they saw him. This tangible threat is not the Gaze but rather the threat of the Look. In fact the Gaze cannot be a threat at all. The Gaze is either fully there or fully gone. This is because while the Look, being tied down to bodily entities, can "advance" (i.e. the workers advancing toward Mr. Edwards), the Gaze cannot. The Gaze is not "tied down" to any set of eyes. This is perhaps the sharpest contrast between the often-confused Gaze and Look.

The Gaze is constituted by “the absence of a signified.”
                                                  (Copjec 450)

In Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003, Robert Rodriguez), CIA agent Sans (Johnny Depp) is captured by an adversary and blinded by him for seeing too much. This blinding causes Sans to experience a moment in the Gaze. This is represented in a scene when Sans emerges from his captors' holding into an unknown street. A close-up of the bottom of the door shows his feet in the darkness. When his feet and image are exposed in the sunlight they stop. He stops because of the Gaze. He feels the sunlight and so too the Gaze. He does not know undoubtedly that someone is or isn’t watching; he is deprived of that. Once the feet stop, the camera pans up to a mid shot of Sans as he "looks" side to side. He knows he has lost his eyes yet he still directs his eyes around trying to "look"; he has the desire to look and know that his conception of "I" is complete. He is searching for signifiers. He resorts to his ears and there are shots of what he hears: cars, people and a montage of outside noises. In this montage there is not a signified. This causes Sans to state to himself, "My name is Sheldon Jeffery Sans. I work for the Central Intelligence Agency." He goes on in this way talking to his self, trying to provide a sense of identity.

There is no signified until, along with a close-up on his ear, a sound familiar to Sans and to the audience mixes into the montage. It is the bike bell of the little Chiclets boy who is shown earlier in the film interacting with Sans. Sans knows this sound and to whom it is attached. He knows what to do with his self when he hears this sound.

Once he has the boy with him, he is able to “see” the man who was all along watching him. The boy notifies Sans that someone is following him and then Sans experiences the Look. The boy tells Sans the general direction of the man. Sans shoots and misses. This miss, however, produces a set of signifiers for his ears to pick up. The camera shows Sans' "sight" again with shots that correspond to what he hears. These shots are cut together in a rapid rhythm, creating a general impression of the man moving around Sans. Soon the man provides so much auditory information Sans pinpoints his precise location and shoots him in the head. These impressions, and ultimately the gunshot, serve to demonstrate the Look because Sans specifically locates a looker.

In Star Wars (1977, George Lucas), the Gaze is portrayed as the Millennium Falcon approaches the Death Star for the first time. Han, Luke, and Obi-Wan expect to find Alderan; Alderan would provide a comforting Look. When they discover that there is nothing left of Alderan, they encounter what Žižek calls the "threatening gaze." The tattered asteroidean remains of Alderan create the field upon which this threatening gaze is "cast." The crew approaches what they believe to be a moon. "That’s no moon, that’s a space station." With this ominous line, Solo and crew encounter what Žižek calls "the stain upon which reality revolves." The reality that Alderan is not where it is supposed to be is somehow stained by the apparition-like distant grey orb.

The Death Star’s ability to create a gaze effect is dependent on the structures its physical and symbolic presence creates. The fact alone that the Death Star is where Alderan should be creates the immediate sense that something is awry, indeed. The physical composition of the Death Star also serves to amplify the gaze effect. From a distance, the sheer size of the Death Star allows it to be mistaken for a moon. This size, coupled with the fact that it actually looks like an eye ball missing a retina, thoroughly enhances the Gaze sense within the domain of this large unknown space object.

Once tractor-beamed inside the Empire’s ultimate weapon, the mystery about it (from the point of view of the passengers) quickly washes away. It is clear now that they are now experiencing an unwrapped unknown. It is made apparent to the audience that the crew knows where they are and the Empire "sees" them in an ontologically positive way. The connection is made between the formerly unknown lookers inside the Death Star and those in the Millennium Falcon.

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Last update: 2/22/2005