Lacan's theory of the four discourses and the sixth sense

Abstract

This paper explores the usefulness of Jacques Lacan's Theory of the Four Discourses to the analysis of film and to an understanding of gendered authorship. The first part of the paper explains Lacan's theory, illustrating it with reference to the film The Sixth Sense (M. Night Shyalaman 1999) and demonstrating how each discourse is represented in the film. The paper shows how the interaction of the characters creates a commutation from one discourse to another and thus how particular speech acts change the discourse being transmitted. Using the example of film adaptations analyzed by the author, the article argues that hysteria, emerging as a discourse produced through gendered authorship, intervenes in the relay of filmic and other fictional texts, emerging as a production of the relationship of writer and adapter, and writer/director and spectator. Since the Discourse of the Hysteric is performed differently in men and women, it is possible to see how Lacan's Discourse Theory adds to an understanding of gendered authorship. Furthermore, it may be possible to characterize genre, form and institution through the play of the Four Discourses and show the thriller as a form of the Discourse of the Hysteric and the happy ending as a particular play of the Discourse of the Hysteric, the Discourse of the Analyst and the Discourse of the Master. By considering the author‐as‐discourse as part of this analysis, I argue that it is possible to consider the gendered body of the author as not completely separate or independent from the text.