Towards an Ethics of Seeing: Sally Potter's the Tango Lesson

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the question where to find the religious in films. In contrast to previous answers to this question, based on themes, styles and references, the religious is considered here in terms of ethics, with an emphasis on an ethical relation between what is in front and behind the camera. Of interest to the search for an ethics of vision are Emmanuel Levinas' concept of the I and the other and feminist film theory's critique of the objectifying gaze. Sally Potter's representation of the look as an act of birthing in her film The Tango Lesson provides inspiration to conceptualise vision as an ethical act close to Levinas' idea of acceptance of the other, an act that allows for the growing of human subjectivity. If words attracted each other, seeing and believing could be a pair. Not a harmonious couple but one of the type in which opposites attract each other. Seeing is often thought to be an act opposite to that of believing. 'I have seen it with my own eyes' is a statement dedicated to so-called facts; believing is perceiving the unseen, the potential. Blessed is not who sees but who believes without seeing. Cinema is a feast for the eyes and seeing is essential for understanding films. And believing? Can religion be part of a film? What is a religious film? For some decades now, scholars have explored connections between religion and cinema and have defined what religious films are. I need to understand, to begin with, where the religious has been seen so far in films. I will ground my search for an alternative definition of religious film on some shortcomings of previous definitions. Then, by examining The Tango Lesson, a film that focuses on the act of seeing, I hope to be able to suggest how cinema might be religious, how seeing itself could be an act of faith. In this paper, I will not attempt to present a fully developed, new definition of religious film. Rather, I want to offer some suggestions about how to find religion in cinema in new places and how to construct the act of seeing in a positive way. Literature & Theology Vol. 19 No. 1 © Oxford University Press 2005; all rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: joumals.permissions@oupjoumals.org This content downloaded from 207.46.13.105 on Wed, 25 May 2016 06:47:48 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms