Monstrosity Monstrosity without a Facewithout a Face

The Cinematic-Discursive Construction of Serial Murder as Monstrous Ab-humanness in the Film The Silence of the Lambs

The Postmodern Monster:

“The postmodern monster is no longer the

other storming the gates of the human

citadel , he has already disrupted the careful

geography of self and other ,and he makes

the peripheral and marginal part of the

center.

:

Monsters within postmodernism are already

inside the house, the body ,the head ,

the skin, the nation – and they work their

way out. Accordingly, it is the human , the

facade of the normal ,which tends to

become the place of terror within

Postmodern Gothic “

(Halberstam,1995)

Queries which have triggered the present research

How does cinema function as a signifying practice?

How do cultures conceptualize and metaphorize monstrous alterity ?

How do the iconic and linguistic signifiers interact in order to create meaning within an audio-visual-verbal text such as a film ?

Queries which have triggered the present research What is the importance of the intradiegetic

gaze within a cinematic text? How are fictional epistemic worlds

constructed? What is the connection between alterity and

fictional monstrosity ? What kind of links may be established

between human cognition processes and cinematic film practice?

Structure of the present paper

A-Theoretical Framework : Multidisciplinay approach in order to deal with a multicodal text .Several perspectives should be taken into account .

B- Analysis : Corpus .The Silence of the Lambs .The Epistemic World of the film and the construction of fictional subjectivitiy The serial killer as Gothic monster

A-The Process of Cinematic-Discursive construction of the monstrous serial murderer 1-The Cinematic Perspective

2-The Construct of Monstrosity : possible views

3-The Literary Perspective

4-The Linguistic Perspective

1-Historical Reception Studies(Staiger,1993)

No immanent textual meaning No free readers Interpretation strategies determined by socio-

cultural conditions No unified reading Best means of interpretation is multidisciplinary.

(Staiger,1993)

The Movie Thriller as Metagenre (Rubin,2002)

A genre might be defined as a series of syntactic and semantic conventions which interact with spectatorial interpretive strategies and expectations.

Labyrinthine nature of the thriller Ambiguity of narrative structure These two characteristics are part of the

epistemic world of the film.

Safe vs. Paranoid Horror (Tudor,1989):Safe Horror (1920-1950)

Narrative closure Monsters seen as external threats Efficient human agency Faith in institutitons Clear boundary order/ chaos Monster expelled,(ab)jected

Paranoid Horror(1950-the present)

No narrative closure Monstrous threat within psyche or society Institutions are the site of danger Fuzzy boundaries between order/chaos Ineffectual human agency The Silence of the Lambs is located within

this patadigm .

2- The Construct of Monstrosity: Views I

1-Analytic philosophy (Carroll,1990) 2-Psychoanalytical tools: Abjection (Kristeva and

Creed,2002) 3-Gothic (ab)humanness (Hurley,1998) 4-Cognitive-psychoanalytic view (Schneider,1999) 5-The Lacanian perspective (Hook-Soon Ng,2004) 6-Cultural Studies (Cohen,1998) 7-The Freudian Marxist View (Robin Wood ,2003)

The construct of Monstrosity:Views II 1-The monster as an impure, hybrid entity 2- Abjection: that which respects no

(b)orders and pushes against the Symbolic order

3-The Gothic fin-de –siecle (ab)human subject

4-The monster as the cognitive-metaphorical embodiment of repressed childhood fears

The Construct of Monstrosity:Views III 5--The monster as the link between

the Symbolic and the Lacanian Real

6-The monster as a culturally and historically contingent discursive construct. Difference made flesh

7-The monster as the oppressed Other

The Serial Killer (SK) as Contemporary Monster(Jenkins,1994) Compulsive Obssessive and Repetitive Rootless Irrational Lustful Violent Predatory The Cannibal Other Wound Culture (Seltzer,1998)

3-The Literary-Generic Perspective (Gomel ,2003 -Simpson 2000) Generic Origins of SK Narratives

The Gothic Genre: (Ab)human Subjectivity is not fully human .Deployment fo the construct of monstrosity in Gothic narratives .

19th Century Detective Fiction: Cartesian Subjectivity.The embodied subject . Skin as signifier of embodied humanity.

Discourse :Formalist and Functionalist approaches .The suittabiity of the Functionalist paradigm.

Interactions in Institutitonal Settings

4-The Linguistic Perspective

Interactions in Institutitonal Settings (Drew and Leena-Sorjensesn , 1997) Focus of this approach : interaction

between participants in order to achieve institutitonal goals .

Linguistic and paralinguistic resources are equally crucial .Crucial importance of the gaze foregrounded by CA .

Both text and (con)text are taken into consideration . Erving Goffman’s concept of Framing .

B-Analysis

How does film articulate the visual and linguistic signifiers in narrative terms ?

The importance of mise-en-scene and editing as contextualizing cues

Relation between language and image in narrative film. Barthes: anchorage,relay

The roles played by the intradiegetic gaze

Relationship Gaze –Utterance in film texts (Poggi-Pelechaud ,2000)

The comunicative meanings of the gaze as a paralinguistic feature

Poggi and Pelechaud’s taxonomy :

Information conveyed about the world

Information on the Sender’s Mind

Information about the World

Deitic eyes

Adjectival eyes

Information on the Sender’s Mind :

Certainty eyes Metacognitive eyes Performative eyes Topic-comment eyes Meta –discursive eyes Meta- conversational eyes Affective eyes

Analysis I :The Interview at the FBI Headquarters The linguistic component is analysed . The visual narrative is addressed taking

editng and mise-en-scene into consideration.

The interaction gaze -utterance is explored since this is the genesis of fictional subjectivity .The interaction between linguistic and paralinguistic features is addressed in the analysis of the selected scene .

Analysis II

The chart illustartes the interrelation between camera shots , gaze and utterance .

Cinematic fictional subjectivity is partly the result of this interactive process.

The deitic /Symbolic gaze is focussed on the abject work of the monstrous Other,thus acknowledging the prescence of monstrous abhumanness within the habitat of the human liberal subject.

Cognitive Linguistics:Conceptual Metaphors :The Experientialist Model (Lakoff and Johnson in Rash,2005) Target Domain (abstract notions )

Source Domain (concrete experiences )

Conceptual Mappings : They underlie the epistemic world of the film and thus contribute to the creation of fictional selfhood.

The Epistemic World ofthe Film (Stockwell, 2002)

1-Mappings which structure the cinematic-discursive construction of Cartesian subjectivity (Kilgour,1998).

2-Mappings which are the conceptual basis for the construction of the monstrous Other .

3-Mappings which destabilize the binarism upon which the text is built .

The Epistemic World of the Film :Conceptual Mappings I

EVIL IS DOWN GOOD IS UP CRIME FIGHTING IS WAR THE MIND IS UNDER SIEGE ABJECTION IS A MURDERED BODY THE BODY IS A BATTLEGROUND KNOWING IS SEEING.

Conceptual Mappings II :

MURDERED BODIES ARE BLOOD PALIMPSESTS MURDERED BODIES ARE SPECTACLES GORE IS DEATH THE SKIN IS A (B)ORDER THE SELF IS A BOUNDED SPACE THE USE OF THE FORENSIC GAZE ON A

MURDERED BODY IS READING

Conceptual Mappings III :

BODILY WOUNDS ARE SIGNS THE DETECTIVE OR CRIMINAL PROFILER IS

A SEMIOTICIAN SERIAL KILLERS ARE WRITERS MURDER IS AN ACT OF COMMUNICATION THE BODY IS A TERRITORY

Conceptual Mappings IV:

THE HEAD IS A ROOM INSTITUTIONS ARE FAMILIES SERIAL KILLERS ARE PREDATORS SERIAL KILLING IS HUNTING LAW ABIDING BEHAVIOUR IS MOVEMENT IN A

STRAIGHT LINE SERIAL KILLERS ARE MONSTERS

Conceptual Mappings V:

THE CORPSE OF THE FLAYED VICTIM IS MONSTROUS ABHUMANNESS

CANNIBALISM IS CROSSING (B)ORDERS VICTIMS ARE PREY VICTIMS ARE FOOD PAIN IS FOOD THE MINDS OF SERIAL KILLERS ARE DARK

CELLS

Conceptual Mappings VI:

DEVIANT OFFENDERS ARE OBJECTS OF STUDY AND CATEGORIZATION

TOTAL OR SEMI-TOTAL INSTITUTIONS ARE LABYRINTHS

SERIAL KILLERS ARE REVERSE COLONIZERS OF BODIES AND MINDS

STATE SURVELLIANCE IS SYMBOLIC CANNIBALISM

Conceptual Mappings VII:

STATE SURVELLIANCE IS COLONIZATION

CANNIBALISM IS FREEDOM FROM EMBODIMENT

Constraints and weaknesses of the present paper

No auditory metaphors were analysed Choice of limited but representative corpus No exploration of cognitive audio-spectatorial

processes No systematic analysis of gender roles and

the gendered Gaze was implemented Functionalist multidisciplinary perspective

was followed

Cinematic narratives play a crucial role in the construction of cultural stereotypes.

Fictional selfhood is the result of both generic narrativization and cognitive cinematic –discursive elaboration processes.

An interdisciplinary approach is best suited to the interpretive analysis of film texts .

Conclusions IHave the initial queries been addressed?

Conclusions II

The intradiegetic gaze is a crucial componenet of fictional cinematic subjectivity .

The importance of mise-en-scene and editing as a contextualization cues cannot be underestimated .

Cognitive Linguistics offers the invaluble opportunity to delve into the way in which fictional minds are constructed .

ConclusionsIII

Metaphorization is ideologically loaded and as such it may serve diverse political agendas.

Monstrosity functions as an epistemic-organizational device which both endorses and undermines the subjectivity of the liberal Cartesian subject .

Canibalisation is a powerful deconstructive force which effectively blurrs boundaries between Self and Other .