A MALE VIEW - TEXTS ON FEMINIST FILM THEO RY

The author traces the course taken by psychoanalytically oriented femi nist film theory from its beginning in the late seventies. She situate s its origins in the Anglo-American debate about the exclusion of fema le subjectivity from the cinema and the new awareness of the problem o f the cinematic mise-en-scene of the gaze, of ''visual pleasure''. Fir st, massive criticism was levelled at the exclusively male/patriarchal gaze of the viewer, then emphasis centred around the specifically fem ale gaze as a category in aesthetic theory. Ultimately, psychoanalytic feminist film theory has turned its attention to films for women, mel odrams and early movies in an attempt to capture the respective histor ical forms of female subjectivity that they reflect.