Interview with Laura Mulvey : gender, gaze and technology in film culture

This conversation between Laura Mulvey and Roberta Sassatelli offers a historical reconstruction of Mulvey’s work, from her seminal essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” to her more recent reflections on the male gaze, film technology, and visual culture. The conversation begins by considering the socio-cultural context in which “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” was produced, outlining possible theoretical affinities with the work of scholars including Foucault, Barthes, and Goffman. Drawing on Mulvey’s later book, Death 24x a Second, as well as a range of contemporary examples, the discussion then turns to the shift in her work from questions of gender towards questions of time and visual technology. Finally, the conversation examines the concept of the “gendered scopic regime” and considers the possible re-articulation of the male gaze through the technological redirection and control of vision.