ABSTRACT
This conversation begins with an exploration of Laura Mulvey’s approach to writing about film. The essay format as a mode of writing is discussed, and its capacity to open a space for women to express their ideas from within patriarchal culture is deliberated. Mulvey’s work as a film-maker, including collaborations with Peter Wollen and, later, Mark Lewis, is then surveyed. The remixes of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Imitation of Life, which emerged from Mulvey’s experiments with new forms of spectatorship, are also examined. Finally, Mulvey reflects on Barbara Creed’s The Monstrous-Feminine and Phallic Panic, describing how Creed’s ideas have influenced dimensions of her own feminist, political, cultural critique. The idea of ‘phantasmatic topography’ as it related to the abject is investigated.
