Cinematic Voyeurism: The Fabulous Destiny Essay

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.

However, while the title character is an accomplished voyeur, ultimately Amelie celebrates a fulfilling life, lived outside of the confines of enclosed spaces.Another of Amelie's 'good deeds' is to help an agoraphobic man leave his apartment, and also to help her father see the importance of travel by taking pictures of his garden's gnome statue all over the world. By seeing the gnome in various exciting places, Amelie's father begins to realize the dangers of the type of overly sheltered life he has lived and to which he subjected his daughter. Voyeuristic photographs function as a teaching device for Amelie's father, rather than a confirmation of the conventional prejudices of male-female relationships as it is in traditional cinematic voyeurism. But despite this benign view of the voyeuristic gaze, to remain as only a gazer, whether a do-gooder, a photographer, an artist, or shut-in, is not enough, suggests the film. Ultimately, Amelie upholds the value of living a full life and that means abandoning the practice of uninvolved voyeurism.

Works Cited

Amelie. Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. 2001.

Mulvey, Laura. "Visual pleasure and narrative cinema," Screen. 16.3 (Spring 1975): 6-18.

May 17, 2010. http://www.scribd.com/doc/7758866/laura-mulvey-visual-pleasure-and-narrative-cinema.....