Regarding You: Lacanian Gaze and Ethics in Kiarostami’s <i>Close-up</i>
Farhang Erfani
Document Type
Article
Abstract
For Lacan, the gaze is not on the side of the subject; it comes from the object, staring back at us, disrupting our comfort zone within the symbolic. I argue that Abbas Kiarostami’s extraordinary film Close-up is the model of the gaze (as opposed to vision) that is socially disruptive. I bring Seminar XI on the gaze with the Seminar VII on ethics and show that most of the film is the disruption of the symbolic by the gaze but that Kiarostami allows the...