The Pervert's Guide to Cinema

Part Three (1x3)

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Part 3 plays with appearances. Appearances are not deceiving, but extremely efficient. When Dorothy & Co discover The Wizard of Oz is actually an old man behind a curtain, they nonetheless expect him to work his magic. And so he does: the illusion persists. Says Zizek, 'There is something more real in the illusion than in the reality behind it.' With iconoclastic gusto, Zizek evokes the Gnostic theory of our world as an 'unfinished reality' where 'God bungled his job of creation'. If film itself is structured through cuts, edits and missing scenes, then so too is our own subjective experience. This is perhaps why we can believe in cinema - as well as other systems of faith, paternal, religious and ideological. Zizek shows us that the key to cinema is beyond the narrative, beyond the 'story' that we witness. What provides the density of cinematic enjoyment is material form beyond interpretation.