Cinematic Voyeurism: The Fabulous Destiny

Cinematic Voyeurism: The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain

Laura Mulvey's concept of cinematic voyeurism suggests that the pleasure of gazing, specifically the pleasure of gazing as a man, is inherent to the way in which women are framed in cinema. Mulvey's analysis seems particularly apt for Alfred Hitchcock's cinematic style and genres such as film noir, which focus on a woman in peril being 'watched' by a male. The male is often predatory and concealed from the women's view. "The conventions of mainstream film focus on the human form," often the female form as a passive subject of the male director's or the male protagonist's designs (Mulvey 7). Yet the French romantic comedy Amelie depicts the female title character as a kind of benign voyeur. Amelie has led an unhappy life, until one day, while gazing at a televised depiction of unhappiness (the death of Princess Diana), Amelie accidentally drops a bottle cap. Picking it up leads her to find a long-lost treasure box in her room. After secretly returning the box to its owner, Amelie decides to become a kind of elf or sprite -- she will watch people and make them happy, rather than sad, based upon what she observes.

Amelie's ability to give others pleasure stems from her ability to see. For example, she gives the gift of sight to a blind man, describing the world to him in a way that he can never see with his own eyes. Amelie allies herself with the vantage point of the viewer, just as male protagonists are aligned with the eye of the viewer in suspense thrillers. But rather than reduce or belittle the subjects she views, Amelie uses her gaze in service of them. This allows her to have the male pleasure of gazing, while still functioning in a more conventionally feminine loving, giving and self-sacrificing fashion. Psychologically, being able to show affection at a distance also gives her a sense of control over her observed subjects: she can act as a director as well as an actor in her own life. She can show love to others, yet possess autonomy and control over the subjects of her affection in a way she was not permitted when she was a child.

The pleasures of scopophilia within the film also extend to Amelie's love-object, a man named Nino who works in a porn shop. Nino, like Amelie, is a kind of professional voyeur. During the day, he sells sexual pictures of people, and during the evening he creates photographic collages of stranger's faces in the name of his art. Nino's creation of art is only through snips of life, rather than through actually experiencing life. Like the title character, Nino gazes at others and manipulates their lives from his hidden position.

Amelie cannot allow herself to openly express her affection for Nino, as this would take her into the position of a 'subject,' rather than a voyeur. She hides in a puddle of water whenever Nino sees her, becoming a reflective mirror rather than an observable human being. In the water, Nino can only see himself, although some might observe that the conventional relationship of the 'male gaze' and the subject female. Voyeuristic cinema renders the woman into a kind of projection of male fears and anxieties, rather than really shows the woman as an autonomous being.