The Difficulty of Difference: Psychoanalysis, Sexual Difference and Film Theory

by D.N. Rodowick

"The Difficulty of Difference" offers a critical examination of how contemporary film theory has used Freud. It offers an intervention in the debate concerning sexual difference in spectators, and argues that readings that polarize the male and female response are too limited. The author raises the question of "difference" to acknowledge the complex sexual identities of each individual. He also puts forward an alternative reading of Freud, looking to Freud's theory of phantasy for a different textual theory. This book should be of interest to advanced students of film studies and feminist theory.

200 pages, Paperback

First published March 11, 1991

About the author

David Norman Rodowick is the Glen A. Lloyd Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. He is the author of many books, including The Virtual Life of Film and Gilles Deleuze’s Time Machine.