Joaquim da Silva Fontes, Significação e Estabilidade do Género no ...

eyewitness, but at the same time, an inherent part (like an accomplice) of the pursuit and
attacks perpetrated on afflicted girls that follow in the film. The filmic expression here is
composed of just one shot, enough to express that the human eye “surpasses” the cameraeye.
We do not get to see the object (the girl) actively, but rather passively through the
killer’s retina, an incredible close-up which shows Helen’s mouth being blotted out (this
from the murderer’s point of view). Or, in other words, we only receive the indications of
what is happening to the object through the eye of the killer, so the camera becomes
passive and registers the event that takes place in front of it.
In fact, there are several sublevels within these scenes. As Metz points out, the
“mirror-like nature of cinema” becomes a metaphor in the correlation between the
spectator and the signifier. The spectator realises that what he or she is watching is only a
recording, yet s/he chooses to understand it as reality within the realms of cinema (in this
particular case, s/he understands that the eye is approaching the victim with the intent of
killing her – it is reality in this sense – and yet the viewer does not move to protect her - it
is within the realms of cinema). Then, as the camera transits to the room downstairs, the
viewer becomes aware of the mirror-like process of the apparatus he/she is part of. Then,
shifting back to the eye of the murderer, the camera helps the spectator to confirm the
missing and imaginary nature of the signifier. Finally, this sequence of the eye in the film
is to me the most complex and detailed example of the film’s obsession with the aggressive
nature of the process of looking and being looked at.
The only sound that is heard in the hotel room is the music coming from the piano
that a lady plays while the film is being projected. 91 The accompanying text or music in
this scene is mostly relevant for the mise-en-scène, as it fuses with the optical substance of
the picture. At a given point, the camera focuses on the lady at the piano, who suddenly
strikes a higher note as if pronouncing a judgement about the events upstairs. In fact, all
this apparent silence is suddenly broken when a crash sound is heard in the room upstairs,
and when the projectionist runs up the stairs to inspect, he finds out the body of the lame
girl strangled to death. In this context too, the perceptive eye of the camera (moving from
one room to another) is further enhanced, so to speak, by the selective hearing of the
camera’s ear (again, the sound played downstairs by the lady differs from the sound heard
in the room where the killer is). Without entering into the hierarchy of filmic codes, at the
91 The film being shown in the small hotel room is actually The Sands of Dee (1912) by D.W. Griffith,
starring Mae Marsh and Robert Harron, though the post sign at the entrance refers to it as “The Kiss”.
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