In the Realm of Pleasure - (Morningside Book) by Gaylyn Studlar (Paperback)

About the Book

In a major revision of feminist-psychoanalytic theories of film pleasure and sexual difference, Studlar's close textual analysis of the six Paramount films directed by Josef von Sternberg and starring Marlene Dietrich probes the source of their visual and psychological complexity.

Borrowing from Gilles Deleuze's psychoanalytic-literary approach, Studlar shows how masochism extends beyond the clinical realm, into the arena of artistic form, language, and production of pleasure. The author's examination of the von Sternberg/Dietrich collaborations shows how these films, with the mother figure embodied in the alluring yet androgynous Dietrich, offer a key for understanding film's "masochistic aesthetic."

Studlar argues that masochism's broader significance to film study lies in the similarities between the structures of perversion and those of the cinematic apparatus, as a dream screen reviving archaic visual pleasures for both male and female spectators.

Book Synopsis

This textual analysis of the six Paramount films directed by Josef von Sternberg which starred Marlene Dietrich, probes the source of their visual and psychological complexity. It illustrates how masochism extends into the area of artistic form, language and the production of pleasure.

From the Back Cover

In the Realm of Pleasure: Von Sternberg, Dietrich, and the Masochistic Aesthetic offers a radical countertheory to Freudian and Lacanian approaches to film and the issue of sexual difference.

About the Author

Gaylyn Studlar is an associate professor in the film studies program at Emory University.