The present book was written with a view to bringing
to public notice the nullity of cynical distance. Its subtitle is not to be
taken ironically: it simply refers to the two divisions of each chapter. As
it is indicated by their didactic titles ("Why ..." ), the aim of each of the
five chapters is to elucidate some fundamental Lacanian notion or theoretical
complex (letter, woman, repetition, phallus, father). In the first
division of each chapter, Lacan is "in Hollywood," i.e., the notion or
complex in question is explained by way of examples from Hollywood
or popular culture in general; in the second division, we are "out of
Hollywood," i.e., the same notion is elaborated as it is "in itself," in its
inherent content. Or, to put it in Hegelese: Hollywood is conceived as a
"phenomenology" of the Lacanian Spirit, its appearing for the common
consciousness, whereas the second division is closer to the "logic" qua
articulation of the notional content in and for itself.
Author(s): Slavoj Žižek
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 1992
Language: English
Pages: 199
Tags: Psychoanalysis, Film studies, Jacques Lacan, Popular culture
CONTENTS
Introduction IX
Why Does a Letter Always Arrive at Its Destination?
1.1 Death and Sublimation: The Final Scene of City Lights
The trauma of the voice-The tramp's interposition-The
separation
1.2 Imaginary, Symbolic, Real 9
Imaginary (mis)recognition-Symbolic circuit I: "There is
no metalanguage"-Symbolic circuit II: Fate and repetition-
The real encounter
2 Why Is Woman a Symptom of Man? 31
2.1 Why Is Suicide the Only Successful Act? 31
The act as an answer of the Real-Germany, Year Zero:
The word no longer obliges-Europa '51: Escape into
guilt-Stromboli: The act of freedom
2.2 The "Night of the World" 46
Psychoanalysis and German idealism-The fiction ofreality-
The fascination of the sacrifice
3 Why Is Every Act a Repetition? 69
3.1 Beyond "Distributive Justice" 69
Why was Chandler's Playback a failure?-"Distributive
justice" and its exception-Sacrifice, traditional and utilitarian-
Le pere ...- ... ou pire-Repetition: imaginary,
symbolic, real-Repetition and postmodernity-"Either/
or" redoubled
3.2 Identity and A uthority 83
The "exception reconciled in the universal" -The vicious
circle of dialectics and its remainder-Identity and fantasy-
Socrates versus Christ-The paradoxes of authority-
The "impossible" performative-Kierkegaard's "materialist
reversal of Hegel"-Lacan versus Habermas
4 Why Does the Phallus Appear? 113
4.1 Grimaces of the Real 113
The "phantom of the opera": A spectroscopy-The voice
qua object-From the modernist sinthome .. . -... to the
postmodernist Thing
4.2 Phallophany of the Anal Father 124
The anal father-Phallophany versus phallic signifier-
Class struggle in the opera-The subject of the Enlightenment
5 Why Are There Always Two Fathers? 149
5.1 At the Origins of Nair. The Humiliated Father 149
The paranoiac Other-"Woman as the symptom of man"
revisited-From Ned Beaumont to Philip Marlowe-From
Philip Marlowe to Dale Cooper
5.2 Die Versagung 165
The "sacrifice of the sacrifice"-Die Versagung, castration,
alienation-"Subjective destitution"-"Tarrying with the
Negative"
Index 195
