The Gaze from the Crack: The Three Faces of the Lacanian Gaze in Tsai Ming-liang’s Vive L’Amour
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54097/t95vkb48Keywords:
Lacan, Gaze, The Real, Vive L’Amour, Object Relations TheoryAbstract
Vive L’Amour is filled with visual scenes of peeping through door cracks, fixed long takes, and a final crying sequence. These are not merely Tsai Ming-liang’s aesthetic signatures but three variations of the Lacanian gaze. Drawing on Lacan’s theory of the gaze and supplemented by object relations theory, this paper reveals a complete psychoanalytic trajectory of the gaze in the film: from excitation (the door crack as the embodiment of object petit a), to persistence (the long take as an intrusion of the Real), and finally to withdrawal (the final cry as traversing the fantasy). This progressive structure not only exposes the void inherent in the structure of desire but also presents the modern subject’s desperate plea for existence, connection, and meaning after the failure to internalize a “good object.” The film’s title, Vive L’Amour, is not ironic but a mournful cry for the impossible, uttered from the depths of emptiness.
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