Lacan Frames Scorsese’s Paintings in The Age of Innocence
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12948341 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Paula Anca Farca (Colorado School of Mines, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 23 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 40-59 |
| Publication date | 2014-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American, British and Canadian Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1841-1487 • E-ISSN: 1841-964X |
| Publisher | De Gruyter Open (PUBLISHER • PL) |
| DOI | 10.1515/abcsj-2014-0026 |
| OpenAlex | W2302718350 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 3 |
This article, which brings together film, psychoanalysis, literature, and art, focuses on the role of paintings in Martin Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence (1993). Scorsese conveys the imprisonment of New York aristocrats within the framework of social conventions and their evasions of social restrictions through his employment of paintings. Because the protagonists’ emotions are not revealed often, the director communicates their dramas and actions with the help of the paintings they own or appear next to. The paintings operate as Jacques Lacan’s Other, an entity that watches over the characters to make sure they conform to its selfperpetuating rules. Scorsese’s use of paintings shows that the characters perform for the Other and seek to maintain the status quo. While most characters perform within a Lacanian symbolic order, their different responses to a variety of paintings underscore the flexibility of the symbolic order
Aesthetics · Art · Art history · Flexibility (engineering · Innocence · Literature · Order (exchange · Painting · Political science · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Status quo · The Symbolic · Variety (cybernetics · Cinema and Media Studies · Computer Science · Law · Law in Society and Culture · Psychology · Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |