Adaptaciones

Christian Metz

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“A film is difficult to explain because it is easy to understand . . .”

Christian Metz: the Imaginary Signifier
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The function of the signifier in ordering humansubjectivity:
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"In its deepest foundations . . . signification is no longer just a consequence of social development; it becomes . . . a party to the constitution of sociality itself, which in its turndefines the human race. . . . There is always a moment after the obvious observation that it is man who makes the symbol when it is also clear that the symbol makes man: this is one of the greatlessons of psychoanalysis, anthropology, and linguistics" (246).

Jacques Lacan: Symbolic and Imaginary
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The Symbolic includes all expressive behaviors: language and art as well as socialstructures such as kinship relations (Claude Levi-Strauss). The Symbolic and the Oedipus complex:
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Oedipus complex and language acquisition The Law of the Father as the moral and legalprohibitions that constitute and limit subjectivity A scenario defining sexual difference

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The Symbolic includes not only language and expression, but all the positions of identification andsubjectivity that individuals must take up in order to have a "place" in society.

Jacques Lacan: Symbolic and Imaginary
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The Imaginary is the order of the unconscious and desire.
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Identificationand the “mirror phase”
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Maturation of vision ahead of motor and linguistic skills. Joy in identification with a unified image; anxiety in separation from mother’s body and unconsciousacknowledge of falling short of ideal ego. An image constituted in the look of an (M)other.

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Misrecognition: desire can never find the expression it seeks in the Symbolic; the Symbolic neversuccessfully contains or channels the Imaginary.
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For Lacan, the subject is barred from full consciousness of meaning and the satisfaction of desire.

Christian Metz: the Imaginary Signifier
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