Reading Response: Michel De Certeau AND Nezar AlSayyad

In this tutorial, we first discuss the unusual view of voyeurism and the panopticon from the book of AlSayyad. Then in the second book of Certeau, we mention the problem that simple panopticon or bird view brings That is, if we only look at the city from above, we cannot truly feel the city, know the real life of the city.

 

All these bring my view about the two readings: usually, the use of unusual views like voyeur and panopticon can only be used to complement the usual view instead of the main role of the film. These unusual views may let the audience see the part that we may ignore in our daily life in the city. For example, we can use voyeurism to see the hidden life of the city or use panopticon to see the city from the sky, which is hardly be seen from our daily. Then the second reading suggests that seeing simply from above might make us ignore the true life of the city-people in the city mainly live below.

 

So as far as I am concerned, unless the main content of the film is to show some special cases, like THE SILVER, voyeurism and panopticon might be mainly used to be complementation, instead of the main theme in the film.

 

UID:3035941954 Fang Jingping

1 thought on “Reading Response: Michel De Certeau AND Nezar AlSayyad

  1. Jen Lam says:

    You have summarized the readings pretty well. To clarify a bit, the idea of panopticon is not about observing from a high level. It is originally a design for a prison to allow an all-round observation of the cells. The prisoners do not know whether somebody is observing them due to lighting designs. This assumes an automatic regulation of prisoners’ behaviour. An obvious power hierarchy is attached to this setup, and the concept is used to discuss voyeurism.

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