Brief Encounter, the busybody as the big Other

As told 3

“we need for our stability a figure of big other for whom we maintain appearances.”
1:37:59 The Pervert's Guide to Ideology (2012) - Slavoj Žižek2012 · 2:07:58

“We need for our stability a figure of big other for whom we maintain appearances.”
1:39:43 The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology (2012)2012 · 2:10:30

“I made two or even three alternate scenarios of the film and I hope you will agree that I think this is a productive strategy”
1:54 Slavoj Žižek Masterclass: Jacques Lacan: A Lateral Introduction. Part 5pub. 2018-11-28 · 2:04:45

What it carries

one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)

contents · one story, 3 jobsuses

the big Other ×2 symbolic order ×2 the example is always richer than what it illustrates ×1

Its cast and sources

populated by

Lindsay Anderson2 Nikos Kazantzakis2 Miloš Forman2 Bob Fosse2 John Frankenheimer2 Michelangelo Antonioni2 Edmund Burke3 Abimael Guzmán2

alongside works

Brief Encounter3 Zabriskie Point2 M*A*S*H2 If...2 A Clockwork Orange2 Capital, Volume 12 West Side Story2 Taxi Driver2

Told together with

50% Abandoned planes in the Mojave Desert 2 shared talks 50% The Last Temptation of Christ 2 shared talks 50% Full Metal Jacket, the drill sergeant and Private Pyle 2 shared talks 40% Prague Spring saved by Soviet intervention 2 shared talks 40% Abu Ghraib as obscene underside of military culture 2 shared talks 40% Bosnian rape survivors and the absent big Other 2 shared talks 40% The Fall of Berlin, Stalin as divine matchmaker 2 shared talks 29% Rammstein and neo-Nazis 2 shared talks 22% Kinder Surprise Egg 2 shared talks 20% Jaws shark as ideological condensation 2 shared talks 6% Starbucks ethical consumerism 2 shared talks

Every retelling 3

1:37:59 The Pervert's Guide to Ideology (2012) - Slavoj Žižek2012 · 2:07:58

In David Lean's Brief Encounter, an annoying busybody interrupts the lovers' farewell, forcing them to maintain appearances as mere acquaintances. The busybody functions as the big Other, the agency for whom appearances must be kept, and the film explores the tragedy of having no adequate confessor., illustrating the big Other,symbolic order and appearance

1:39:43 The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology (2012)2012 · 2:10:30

In David Lean's film the annoying acquaintance who interrupts the lovers' final meeting embodies the big Other as agency of appearances: for her sake the couple must maintain the fiction that nothing is happening between them., illustrating the big Other,appearance vs reality,symbolic order

1:54 Slavoj Žižek Masterclass: Jacques Lacan: A Lateral Introduction. Part 5pub. 2018-11-28 · 2:04:45

Žižek proposes three alternate versions to reveal the necessity of the film's structure: (1) the friend stops talking, the heroine would beg her to continue; (2) Trevor Howard is revealed to be unmarried, his tragic flavor a fabrication; (3) a Bridges of Madison County twist, the husband knew all along but pretended not to out of love., illustrating the example is always richer than what it illustrates,structure of confessional address