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Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye
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Wikipedia article
'Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye' is a 2004 experimental film adaptation of the 1928 novel 'Story of the Eye' by the French writer Georges Bataille. The film, directed by Andrew Repasky McElhinney, takes place in a seemingly abandoned house where a group of people engage in wordless acts of passion. The film covers a period from evening to morning, and the sexual couplings among the members of the house become increasingly harrowing as daylight arrives.[http://www.mk-magazine.com/news/archives/000995.php Mk Magazine News: Film: 'Georges Bataille's Story Of The Eye']
'Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye' began as a video installation before being reconfigured into a feature-length film. 'Variety' said the movie affirmed McElhinney's "certifiable coolness."Harvey, Dennis. "Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye." Variety [Los Angeles], 15 June 2004. https://variety.com/2004/film/reviews/georges-bataille-s-story-of-the-eye-1200532764 Retrieved 10 January 2021 The movie had its New York theatrical premiere in September 2004, and its support was led by Dave Kehr of 'The New York Times', who wrote of the production; "This is transgression in a literal sense, an act of aggression that Bataille would no doubt have appreciated. This is not a movie for passive consumption, but a film that bites back."[https://movies.nytimes.com/2004/09/22/movies/22eye.html?_r=1&oref=slogin The New York Times > Movies > Movie Review | 'Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye': Exploring the Temptation to Look (and to Look Away)]
In the essay, "Realism, Real Sex, And The Experimental Film Mediating Eroticism In 'Georges Bataille's Story of The Eye,'" Beth Johnson examines the roles of dreams in McElhinney's cinema stating; "McElhinney's vision can equally be likened to earlier, non-erotic appropriations of the transgression of reality such as The Never Ending Story (Die unendliche Geschichte, Wolfgang Petersen, 1984), a film that shows the relay between reality and fantasy through the use of a joystick control, used to access other realms of/in space and time."Johnson, Beth. "Realism, Real Sex, And The Experimental Film Mediating Eroticism In 'Georges Bataille's Story Of The Eye.'" in Realism and the Audiovisual Media. Hampshire, UK: Palgrave, Macmillan, 2009. Page 139.
Cast
Upon the 2016 death of Melissa Elizabeth Forgione, the star of 'Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye', director Andrew Repasky McElhinney stated, "She was a brave performer who was always willing to take risks. She was also a gifted photographer and a camera operator...I cannot find the words to articulate the meaningfulness of our personal relationship."Lear, Len. "Charismatic G'town dancer/actress/designer dies at 39." The Chestnut Hill Local
[Philadelphia], 21 February 2016. https://www.chestnuthilllocal.com/stories/charismatic-
gtown-danceractressdesigner-dies-at-39,8051 Retrieved 12 January 2020.
Production
Locations
'Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye'(2003) was primarily shot at the (now demolished) Locust Club at 1616 Locust Street, center city Philadelphia,PA, NovemberDecember 2002."Culture of Philadelphia." Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 15
October 2020. Web. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Philadelphia. Retrieved 4 April
2021. Exteriors were shot on condemned blocks of Arlington Street, Camden, New Jersey May 2003.
Reception
'Film Threat' declared 'Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye' "a new landmark in underground cinema. The film is an artistic assault on both the senses and sensibility. Mixing equal parts of surrealism, eroticism, and silliness into a vibrant package rich with lush cinematography and a challenging soundtrack, it is a brilliant achievement that demands attention and challenges the audience in a way that few films today can dare to achieve."Hall, Phil. "Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye." Film Threat International [Los Angeles], 22
September 2004. https://filmthreat.com/uncategorized/georges-batailles-story-of-the-eye
Retrieved 10 January 2021
'The San Francisco Bay Guardian' wrote "'Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye' is a provocation that hypnotizes, a hallucinatory narcotic."Huston, Johnny Ray. "Philadelphia phenom: Andrew Repasky McElhinney takes aim at
Bataille's Eye." The San Francisco Bay Guardian [San Francisco], 915 June 2004. Page 43.
'Variety' called it "a punk-pornocopia equivalent to 'Last Year at Marienbad'" Harvey, Dennis. "Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye." Variety [Los Angeles], 15 June 2004.
https://variety.com/2004/film/reviews/georges-bataille-s-story-of-the-eye-1200532764
Retrieved 10 January 2021
Dr. Beth Johnson of University of Leeds' School of Media and CommunicationDr. Beth Johnson at University of Leeds' School of Media and Communication
https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/media/staff/312/dr-beth-johnson wrote a monograph on McElhinney's movie titled "Realism, Real Sex, And The Experimental Film - Mediating Eroticism in 'Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye.'" The critical study is included in the Palgrave-Macmillan's volume 'Realism and the Audiovisual Media,' edited by Lucia Nagib and Cecilia Mello10 Johnson, Beth. "Realism, Real Sex, And The Experimental Film Mediating Eroticism In
'Georges Bataille's Story Of The Eye.'" in Realism and the Audiovisual Media. Hampshire, UK:
Palgrave, Macmillan, 2009. https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9780230577220 which seeks to "examines two recent phenomena: the return of realist tendencies and practices in world cinema and television, and the 'rehabilitation' of realism in film and media theory."Realism and the Audiovisual Media. Nagib and Mello, editors. Macmillan website. Accessed
17 January 2021. https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9780230577220
In "Realism, Real Sex, And The Experimental Film - Mediating Eroticism in 'Gerorges Bataille's Story of the Eye," Johnson writes that McElhinney's film is "an account not of the life, but of the myth of Georges Bataille"Johnson, Beth. "Realism, Real Sex, And The Experimental Film Mediating Eroticism In
'Georges Bataille's Story Of The Eye.'" in Realism and the Audiovisual Media. Hampshire, UK:
Palgrave, Macmillan, 2009. Page 135. and that the "extensive use of mirrors throughout the film points to the importance of self-reflexive spectatorship."Johnson, Beth. "Realism, Real Sex, And The Experimental Film Mediating Eroticism In
'Georges Bataille's Story Of The Eye.'" in Realism and the Audiovisual Media. Hampshire, UK:
Palgrave, Macmillan, 2009. Page 141. Johnson goes onto explore how McElhinney purposefully 'misuses' the 'uncanny' and that these "deliberate 'uncanny' misconceptions are a signal that Bataille haunt McElhinney's scene but is not part of it"Johnson, Beth. "Realism, Real Sex, And The Experimental Film Mediating Eroticism In
'Georges Bataille's Story Of The Eye.'" in Realism and the Audiovisual Media. Hampshire, UK:
Palgrave, Macmillan, 2009. Page 135. surmising that "McElhinney's appropriation of Batallie's novella indicates his own avant-garde status as a director who has chosen formally to revise serious sexual literature on screen in a non-titillating way."Johnson, Beth. "Realism, Real Sex, And The Experimental Film Mediating Eroticism In
'Georges Bataille's Story Of The Eye.'" in Realism and the Audiovisual Media. Hampshire, UK:
Palgrave, Macmillan, 2009. Page 136.
Describing 'Geroges Bataille's Story of the Eye,' Johnson pens that "McElhinney dispenses (almost entirely) with conventions that differentiate film from visual and video art. Speech is purposefully sparse, relationships between characters are neither explained nor set against any recognizable moral/familial scheme, and there is little narrative or plot. Interestingly, whereas McElhinney designates his work as film, conventionally the text appears to adhere to definitions of video art"Johnson, Beth. "Realism, Real Sex, And The Experimental Film Mediating Eroticism In
'Georges Bataille's Story Of The Eye.'" in Realism and the Audiovisual Media. Hampshire, UK:
Palgrave, Macmillan, 2009. Page 136. and that the "effect on the spectator can thus be perceived as a violent rocking motion, leaving the viewer with a feeling of disorientation, nausea, and fascination."Johnson, Beth. "Realism, Real Sex, And The Experimental Film Mediating Eroticism In
'Georges Bataille's Story Of The Eye.'" in Realism and the Audiovisual Media. Hampshire, UK:
Palgrave, Macmillan, 2009. Page 136.
Johnson remarks that "McElhinney's vision in 'Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye'is interesting in the way which it combines avant-garde filmmaking and underground, trash, queer, and explicit content. It also allusively sketches in the history of eroticism from the nineteenth century to the present including the boredom that Bataille finds in 'the pleasures of the flesh' that are served up for delectation of decent people."Johnson, Beth. "Realism, Real Sex, And The Experimental Film Mediating Eroticism In
'Georges Bataille's Story Of The Eye.'" in Realism and the Audiovisual Media. Hampshire, UK:
Palgrave, Macmillan, 2009. Pages 136-137.
In conclusion, Johnson connects her observations on McElhinney's Bataille movie back to Bataille himself. "The power of the spectator is further interrogated by the ambiguous reality of witnessing female characters/actors' trauma. After watching women endlessly climb the staircase, we see her finally reaching the top. The woman walks towards a window and witnesses (by the slicing of the original footage) the murder of the former American President John F. Kennedy. As previously mentioned, this scene posits a Bataillean reference in that it demonstrates the visual spectacle of death and links it, in proximity to the erotic image of woman by way of making visible the eroticism of Jackie Kennedy's proximity to (her lover's) death. As Bataille states in 'Inner Experience':Bataille, Georges. Inner Experience. Trans. by Leslie-Anne Boldt. New York: SUNY Press, 1988.
Pages 110-111. 'There is in understanding a blind spot: which is reminiscent of the structure of the eye. That nature of understanding demands that the blind spot within it be more meaningful than understanding itself'(110Bataille, Georges. Inner Experience. Trans. by Leslie-Anne Boldt. New York: SUNY Press, 1988.
Page 110.). Thus, as Bataille explicates, the blind spot 'absorbs one's attention: it is no longer the spot which loses itself in knowledge, but knowledge which loses itself in it'(111Bataille, Georges. Inner Experience. Trans. by Leslie-Anne Boldt. New York: SUNY Press, 1988.
Page 111.).Johnson, Beth. "Realism, Real Sex, And The Experimental Film Mediating Eroticism In
'Georges Bataille's Story Of The Eye.'" in Realism and the Audiovisual Media. Hampshire, UK:
Palgrave, Macmillan, 2009. Page 143.
References
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