Scholarlink

<p>This essay reconsiders Freud’s theory of identification in <i>Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego</i> by proposing what I call identification as disidentification—a structure in which the subject becomes bound to the other not through resemblance or ego ideals, but through a shared exposure to something opaque that escapes them both. This intimacy through separation takes cinematic form in Lee Chang-dong’s <i>Poetry</i>. Rather than inviting viewers to “see themselves” in the image, <i>Poetry</i> implicates the spectator in an opacity that resists reciprocity. This structure becomes most legible in the film’s most disquieting scene—a scene depicting a sexual act. Lee stages female nudity and shame not as a moment of exposure but as a form of covering—an image that resists narrative and psychological legibility. Building on Joan Copjec’s account of shame and Giorgio Agamben’s meditation on nudity, I argue that this opacity produces a shame-like unease that turns the gaze back on the spectator. The image, in effect, exposes the spectator rather than the character, inducing an encounter with their own interiority.</p>

错误：搜索内容不能为空，请输入英文关键词
错误：关键词超出字数限制，请精简
高级检索

Image without an image: shame and spectatorship in Lee Chang-dong’s Poetry

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年3月11日

查看全文
  • Daae Jung

摘要

This essay reconsiders Freud’s theory of identification in Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego by proposing what I call identification as disidentification—a structure in which the subject becomes bound to the other not through resemblance or ego ideals, but through a shared exposure to something opaque that escapes them both. This intimacy through separation takes cinematic form in Lee Chang-dong’s Poetry. Rather than inviting viewers to “see themselves” in the image, Poetry implicates the spectator in an opacity that resists reciprocity. This structure becomes most legible in the film’s most disquieting scene—a scene depicting a sexual act. Lee stages female nudity and shame not as a moment of exposure but as a form of covering—an image that resists narrative and psychological legibility. Building on Joan Copjec’s account of shame and Giorgio Agamben’s meditation on nudity, I argue that this opacity produces a shame-like unease that turns the gaze back on the spectator. The image, in effect, exposes the spectator rather than the character, inducing an encounter with their own interiority.