In the shadow of his language: Language and feminine subjectivity in the cinema

This dissertation examines feminine subjectivity in the cinema and the link between femininity and silence. The central assertion is that femininity as a category in film is defined by a problematic relationship to language. Each chapter examines a particular cinematic “trouble spot” for gender and the way in which it raises questions about the relationship of gender to language. The first chapter examines two silent films, D. W. Griffith's Way Down East and Abram Room's Bed and Sofa, to illustrate how femininity's link with silence was established even before the coming of sound dialogue. Chapter two examines the figure of the mute in Kenneth Branagh's Dead Again, Jane Campion's The Piano and Ingmar Bergman's Persona. Chapter three takes on the hysteric in Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie and Jane Weinstock, et al.'s Sigmund Freud's Dora: A Case of Mistaken Identity. Chapter four discusses the figure of the mother in Jean Negulesco's Johnny Belinda, and Helma Sanders-Brahms' Germany, Pale Mother, as well as the work of Rea Tajiri and Su Friedrich. Chapter five takes on the cultural exile in Jeanine Meerapfel's Malou and Alan J. Pakula's Sophie's Choice. The final chapter examines feminized male characters in Barbra Streisand's The Prince of Tides, Chen Kaige's Farewell, My Concubine, and Terence Davies' The Long Day Closes. The author argues that subjectivity, which has been theorized as the entry into language, is conceived of as a stable position and that gender has been defined as a binary set of categories, with no movement or “in-between.” Each film is examined for the ways in which it challenges or reasserts this traditional conception of gender through its treatment of inconsistencies in language. The author argues that a more complicated framework for gender and subjectivity, in which theorists confront the nature of binarity itself, is necessary.