Max Ophüls Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Catherine Johnson

Critical Essay by Catherine Johnson

SOURCE: "Narrative, Spectacle, and the Sexes in Ophuls' Le Plaisir," in Film Criticism, Vol. IV, No. 3, Spring, 1980, pp. 17-24.

In the following essay, Johnson examines Ophuls's Le Plaisir from a feminist perspective.

The notion of voyeurism, long fruitful for film scholars, has in recent years been taken up by feminist film critics as well. The feminist contribution to the issue has been the insight that a given film's relation to voyeurism is linked not only to its genre (the musical vs. the adventure story) or to its plot (Psycho's voyeur as killer) but importantly to its use of the sexes as well. However, most of the work that has appeared to date has dealt with what can be roughly designated as "male" films. Hitchcock's films, for example, have been particularly subject to such analysis.¹ The voyeuristic predilections of his heroes—and of his audience—have received considerable attention. The purpose...
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