Abstract
This article considers how the concept of desire can be theorized in light of recent work on emotion and affect. In so doing, it questions what desire does and how desire can be theorized, particularly within cinema. Instead of arguing that we must move away from a psychoanalytic interpretation of desire, I ask how this approach can be revitalized and reconsidered through work on affect. This article also highlights the way in which Lacanian and Deleuzian models of desire are constantly set in opposition to each other; in so doing, it seeks to move beyond this impasse and gesture towards alternative ways of theorizing desire. One of the central issues foregrounded within psychoanalytic theory is the process of remembering and forgetting: the method through which the subject can ‘let go’ and move forward. This relationship is figured primarily in terms of the discourse between self and other. Marguerite Duras' work questions this process of ‘letting go’ and offers an alternative conceptualization of desire through her use of melancholia. Beyond an intrinsic interest in her work, because Duras has been admired by psychoanalytic, feminist and Deleuzian scholars, her films present an opportunity to rethink a theorization of desire in light of competing interpretations. In discussing melancholia in terms of Duras' work, this paper also considers the extent to which her use of Hiroshima as a backdrop to the affair presented in the film colonizes desire and its transformative potential.
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Notes
Thanks to Paul Blackledge, Sara Ahmed and the participants of the ‘Decolonising Affect Theory’ Symposium for their inspiration.
Lacan argues in Écrits: ‘That is why the Other's question [la question de l'Autre] – that comes back to the subject from the place from which he expects an oracular reply – which takes some such form as “Chè vuoi?,” “What do you want?,” is the question that best leads the subject to the path of his own desire, assuming that, thanks to the know-how of a partner known as a psychoanalyst, he takes up that question, even without knowing it, in the following form: “What does he want from me?”’ (2006: 690).
Jacques Lacan, ‘Hommage Fait à Marguerite Duras, Du Ravissement de Lol V. Stein’, Ca(s)hiers de la Compagnie Madeleine, Paris: Renard-Jean Louis, Vol. 52 (1965), pp. 7–15, (p. 9). ‘C'est précisément ce que je reconnais dans le ravissement de Lol V. Stein, où Marguerite Duras s'avère savoir sans moi ce que j'enseigne’. The translation is my own. See Jean-Michel Rabaté's interesting account of this in Jacques Lacan: Psychoanalysis and the Subject of Literature (2001).
In her reading of feminism and globality, Ahmed argues that ‘Cultural relativism assumes distance and difference in order precisely not to take responsibility for that distance and difference’ (2000: 167).
Thanks to Jackie Stacey for her help in formulating these ideas.
The notion of re-coordinating desire comes from Slavoj Žižek's work in The Pervert's Guide to Cinema (director: Sophie Fiennes, Film Four Cinema, 2006).
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films
The English Patient (1996) directed by Anthony Minghella, Miramax Films.
Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) written by Marguerite Duras, directed by Alain Resnais, Argos Films.
India Song (1975) written and directed by Marguerite Duras, Paramount Films.
Moderato Cantabile (1960) written by Marguerite Duras, directed by Peter Brook, Les Films Armorial.
The Pervert's Guide to Cinema (2006) written by Slavoj Žižek, directed by Sophie Fiennes, Film Four Cinema.
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Gorton, K. desire, Duras, and melancholia: theorizing desire after the ‘affective turn’. Fem Rev 89, 16–33 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1057/fr.2008.10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/fr.2008.10