The paper undertakes to analyze the specificity of Gilles Deleuze’s concept of crystal-image in two films: The Structure of Crystal/ Struktura krysztalu (Krzysztof Zanussi, 1969) and Heart of Glass/ Herz aus Glas (Werner Herzog, 1976). The crystal-image offers an insight into the amorphous abyss of consciousness, but it also represents the natural culmination of image in the history of modern cinema. Whereas in Zanussi the crystal of time depicts the figure of the visionary that sees the self-castration of time, the (...) non-actor of Herzog, with a hypnotic gaze and a heart of glass, is the only one capable of seeing the inner being of a landscape. (shrink)

Jelinek and Haneke. The Eviscerated Woman as the Object of Gaze. This paper aims to explore a psychoanalytical comparison between Erika from the novel The Piano Teacher (Die Klavierspielerin, 1983), and the same character from the Michael Haneke’s film, La Pianiste (2001), adapted after Elfriede Jelinek’s writing. Whereas the woman in the book can only exist as a mask in order to exist as a phallus (the version of the father, Fr. la Père-version) – according to Jelinek’s obsession with the (...) monstrous couple eye-gaze, expressed in an unnatural sexuality –, the woman on the screen is caught between the instances of embedding (the woman as uterus – the mother, the woman as a living tomb – the daughter) and the demystification of sexuality which culminates in rape. (shrink)