Sightlines · a concept

fetish

the torn-off partial object the drive seizes.

On screen: a part-object (food, body-part, relic) charged with compulsive force

Belle de Jour (1967) — The Japanese client's lacquered box — opened, shown, never revealed to us — is a part-object charged with compulsive force that the deadpan camera watches register only on the other women's faces.
Häxan (1922) — Part-objects of the Sabbath — infants, corpses, relics of inversion — charged with compulsive ritual force
Nosferatu (1922) — The occult contract Hutter signs, with Grau's cryptic occult lettering — a part-object charged with compulsive force
Greed (1924) — The hand-colored gold — tooth-sign, gilded canary, hoarded coins — as the part-object onto which compulsion collapses
Un Chien Andalou (1929) — Ants pouring from a hole in the palm; the severed hand poked with a stick in the street — part-objects charged with compulsive force rather than decodable symbols
L'Âge d'or (1930) — The marble statue's toe sucked in displaced eroticism; the toilet bowl gushing in the heroine's reverie — part-objects charged with compulsive force
The Blue Angel (1930) — Lola's feathered-skirt postcard — the photo the students ogle, that Rath confiscates then blows on, and finally peddles door to door — a part-object charged with compulsive force
Freaks (1932) — The loving cup passed hand to hand in the 'Gooble gobble, one of us' initiation — a part-object charged with compulsive ritual force.
Scarface (1932) — George Raft's incessantly flipped coin — a part-object the hand works compulsively while the face stays blank.
The Blood of a Poet (1932) — The mouth as a migrating part-object — drawn, alive in the palm, pressed onto the statue — carrying more charge than any whole character
L'Atalante (1934) — Père Jules's cabin of bric-a-brac, mementos, and the severed hands preserved in a jar — part-objects charged with compulsive force
Bringing Up Baby (1938) — The intercostal clavicle — the bone David needs to complete his brontosaurus — is a part-object carrying his ambition and dignity; the dog George buries it, and the comedy orbits it.
Obsession (1943) — food and body as part-objects charged with compulsive force — Bragana's loud eating, the sensual physicality of the bodies in heat
Double Indemnity (1944) — The anklet, tracked foot-to-face on Neff's first look and returned to as a recurring visual rhyme marking his subjection; the drive fastens on a part-object
Laura (1944) — The portrait functions as an erotic relic charged with compulsive force; McPherson wants the painting itself, the image becoming a part-object he cannot govern
Dead of Night (1945) — Hugo staged almost always in frame and in the foreground, nearer the camera than the man who operates him
Scarlet Street (1945) — The paintings, executed for the production by John Decker, 'function as characters, expressing what Chris cannot say' and 'migrate from private compulsion to public commodity' — a part-object…
The Lost Weekend (1945) — The bottle concealed in the ceiling light fixture and hung on a string outside the window; the pawned typewriter; the borrowed money; the ring of moisture a glass leaves behind, which Wilder returns…
Pursued (1947) — The pair of flashing spurs glimpsed by the child from under the floorboards: a part-object carrying the whole compulsive force of the murder and the vendetta.
Brighton Rock (1948) — The razor in Pinkie's pocket, a charged part-object whose work the film never shows: the slashings are handled almost entirely by implication.
Drunken Angel (1948) — The white silk suit borrowed from Scarface (1932), which is Matsunaga's entire claim to power, worn specifically so Kurosawa can have him cough blood onto it
The Red Shoes (1948) — The red shoes as a part-object charged with compulsive force, recurring as Cardiff's visual leitmotif
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) — The gold dust as part-object charged with compulsive force — weighed, divided, buried, guarded, the dividing settling nothing because the object was never the point.
Criss Cross (1949) — Anna reintroduced through the Esy Morales rumba — a diegetic band number carrying the erotic charge the Code forbade, with crowded frames and moving camera ensuring Steve is never alone with her.
The Queen of Spades (1949) — The secret sequence of three winning cards — a part-object carrying the entire charge of Herman's drive; he pursues the sequence, not the money.
White Heat (1949) — Ma and the recurring image of the grown murderer on his mother's lap — the part-object that concentrates the drive
Gun Crazy (1950) — Guns as part-objects charged with desire: the carnival shooting contest stages marksmanship as sublimated courtship, firearms standing in for everything the dialogue can't say
The Asphalt Jungle (1950) — Part-objects charged with compulsive force: the girl dancing at the jukebox, Dix's Kentucky horses, Emmerich's mistress and comforts
The Young and the Damned (1950) — Recurring charged part-objects — raw meat, eggs, the chicken, the dog, mud — planted with ritual insistence
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) — the paper lantern Blanche fits over the bare bulb — a part-object charged with the compulsive force of everything she hides; Stanley tears it off to expose her
The Prowler (1951) — The swimming pool recurs as a visual motif of leisure the cop covets, filmed through the trap-like doorways and staircases of a house treated as a covetable object; the Las Vegas motor court…
The Big Heat (1953) — The pot of coffee — an instrument of hospitality charged with compulsive force as Stone weaponizes it
Él (1953) — The foot glimpsed at the Maundy Thursday foot-washing, and the hairpin, the rope, the needle and thread, the revolver — domestic objects that migrate into the delusion.
The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz (1955) — Desire attaches to part-objects: the governess's exposed thigh at the moment of death, a stockinged leg isolated by the framing, the music box, the mannequin's face — Buñuel frames each so the…
The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) — The needle and the deck of cards as charged part-objects — things Frankie's 'golden arm' handles better than he governs himself, the milieu reaching into the body.
Written on the Wind (1956) — The model oil derrick Marylee strokes in the final shot, the decanters marking Kyle's dependency, the toy car on her desk — part-objects charged with compulsive force
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) — The bridge becomes a part-object charged with compulsive force out of proportion to its use — the thing Nicholson must complete and then must save.
The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957) — Household part-objects torn from use and recharged by the survival drive: a sewing pin becomes a sword, the mousetrap an engine, the giant scissors a landmark
Cairo Station (1958) — The shack papered wall-to-wall with cut-out photographs of women — 'a diagram of substitution in which desire has been replaced by an archive of paper' — plus the lurid crime press he sells as…
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) — The bottle as a part-object charged with compulsive force, the thing Brick reaches for in place of Maggie.
Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) — the mouth and devouring — the Venus flytrap fed flies, cannibalism — as the part-object where compulsion concentrates
Peeping Tom (1960) — The camera with its concealed tripod-spike and convex mirror is the part-object that carries all of Mark's compulsion; he cannot photograph without wounding.
Psycho (1960) — The mounted birds with fixed glassy eyes in the parlor, and Mother's preserved corpse in the fruit cellar — dead part-objects charged with compulsive force.
Rocco and His Brothers (1960) — Nadia rendered as a part-object the brothers' rivalry fastens onto, charged with compulsive force
The Little Shop of Horrors (1960) — The blood-craving plant is a part-object charged with compulsive force that the whole shop orbits; Seymour even names it 'Audrey' after the girl he loves.
The Skeleton of Mrs. Morales (1960) — The taxidermist's part-objects — glass eyes, wire, pelts, mounted birds — and finally the skeleton the title names, a fragment torn from the originary world and overcharged.
The Young One (1960) — Objects and small domestic details — food, the girl's clothing, a bed, weapons — carry weight, in Buñuel's typically materialist manner, without being underlined as symbols (dossier, mise-en-scène).
Knife in the Water (1962) — The switchblade staged as a recurring part-object of fascination and threat, passed between hands and games, charged with the men's pride far beyond its size.
Le Doulos (1962) — Guns, telephones, hats, cigarettes dressed with fetishistic attention as the props of a private underworld mythology — the hat (doulos) above all.
Viridiana (1962) — the close-framed bare feet, the corset, the skipping rope, and the crucifix that folds open into a switchblade — part-objects charged with compulsive force
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) — the covered serving tray concealing a dead rat and then Blanche's parakeet; the Baby Jane dolls — part-objects charged with compulsive force
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) — The buried $350,000 — unseen for nearly the whole film — as the part-object whose charge dissolves marriage, friendship, professional obligation and the law
Lord of the Flies (1963) — 'There are no sets... a few charged objects doing the work of scenography': the pig's head on its stake as altar, Piggy's spectacles as fire, reason and vulnerability at once.
Diary of a Chambermaid (1964) — Célestine's buttoned boots, polished and paraded for old M. Rabour, who dies still clutching one — a part-object charged with compulsive force the camera refuses to explain.
Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964) — The severed hand and the disembodied head, 'staged for maximum grotesque effect,' function as charged fragments rather than symbols.
Onibaba (1964) — Part-objects charged with compulsive force — stripped swords and armor, the millet, the single peach as temptation, and above all the demon mask
The Train (1964) — Von Waldheim, a connoisseur who believes appreciation confers ownership, spends a scarce locomotive and the final hours of a collapsing front on the crates.
Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965) — The doll hospital full of maimed and dismembered toys; the retired schoolmistress's hobby archive of tape-recorded children's nightmares; the landlord's rooms cluttered with masks and riding crops.
Django (1966) — The coffin as a part-object hauled everywhere and charged with compulsive force, concealing the Maxim machine gun that delivers the massacre of the Red Shirts
Branded to Kill (1967) — the pot of boiling rice whose steam Hanada fetishistically inhales, eyes closed; also the pinned butterfly — part-objects charged with compulsive force