Analysis of Cléo from 5 to 7 Regarding the Gaze Theory
Abstract
Before the 1960s, cinema was predominately focused on previous works of literature or the history before WW2 in France. A group of French directors in the late 1950s and 1960s, or the “nouvelle vague” (new wave), which can be directly translated to the new wave - contradicted this notion because they felt like this did not depict the realistic lives of people and produced films that countered the dominant cinema. Agnès Varda’s 1962 Cléo from 5 to 7, follows Cléo (Corinee Marchand) in real-time on her journey through Paris, awaiting for the diagnosis relating to her cancer. This article argues that through the objectification of Cléo under the male gaze, the audience is sutured into Cléo’s perspective, allowing them to empathize with her emotions and understand the struggles that women face in a contemporary setting. This essay argues the point above by the detailed analysis of two particular scenes focusing on camera shots and the iconography of certain props and actions. By doing so, the analysis mirrors the social and political problems regarding gender of the film’s particular time of 1962.
References
- Drinkwater, J.F., Elkins, T.H., Shennan, J.H., Wright, G., Weber, E., Bachrach, B.S., Blondel, J.F.P., Bisson, T.N., Higonnet, P.L.-R., Popkin, J.D., Woloch, I., Bernard, F., Fournier, G., Flower, J.E., & Tuppen, J.N. (2023). France. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/place/France
- Petruso, M. (2020). Propaganda, nationalism, and feminism: Algerian women in the French-Algerian War. Undergraduate Thesis, University of Pittsburgh. (Unpublished).
- Ostrowska, D. (2008). Reading the French New Wave: Critics, writers and art cinema in France. Wallflower Press.
- Varda, A., Marchand, C., Bourseiller, A., & Davray, D. (1962). Cléo de 5 à 7 (p. 9). Paris: Gallimard.
- DeRoo, R. J. (2018). Agnès Varda between film, photography, and art. Univ of California Press.
- Stefanovic, P., & Parać, A. G. (2021). Male Gaze and Visual Pleasure in Laura Mulvey. The Palgrave Handbook of Image Studies, 343-362.
- Ellerman, J. (2022). What is the Male Gaze. Sep 07, 2022.
- Sassatelli, R. (2011). Interview with Laura Mulvey: Gender, gaze and technology in film culture. Theory, Culture & Society, 28(5), 123-143.
- Mulvey, L. (2013). Visual pleasure and narrative cinema. In Feminism and film theory (pp. 57-68). Routledge.
- Sarris, A. (2008). Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962. Auteurs and Authorship: A Film Reader, 35-45.
- Thornham, S. (2004). Second wave feminism. In The Routledge companion to feminism and postfeminism (pp. 25-35). Routledge.