Waldo's Beautiful Things: Possession and Possessing in Otto Preminger's Laura

Abstract

Despite its highly subjectivised title, Laura – Otto Preminger's dazzling 1944 noir classic – is, according to this article, a film not so much about persons as things. And what spectacularly beautiful things Laura proffers: exquisite objets d'art, chic fashion, striking design. All of which points to a certain psychic condition that underpins Laura: namely, fetishism. Of course, the fetish nonpareil in the film is Laura herself; she is the not so ‘obscure object of desire’ for all and sundry, possessing everyone in the film, and, in turn, being treated by those possessed, as a possession herself. Though the nature of these sorts of possessory regimes differs dramatically, being contingent upon the psychic profile of the possessor: love interest Shelby Carpenter, police detective Mark McPherson and wealthy mentor, Waldo Lydecker. This article will explore Laura's competing possessory regimes, utilising psychoanalytic concepts such as hysteria, repetition compulsion and the death drive, as well as fetishism and sado-masochism to unpack this vivid filmic representation of the ‘Law of Desire’ as a desire for what is, here, law's objet petit a – feminine sexuality itself.