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Falling in Love (1980)

example · film: Falling in Love · retold in 3 talks

Žižek analyzes the film *Falling in Love*, where two married lovers meet in an empty apartment but stop before having sex. He argues this refusal makes it an 'event' because doing it would have been a 'cheap love affair.'

2009: 1 talk 2024: 2 talks 2025: 1 talk
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026

As told 4

“They go to an empty apartment... And then they start to embrace and they they stop. They don't do it. This makes it an event, I claim.”
“when you fall fortunately in love you never make the choice to fall in love all of a sudden you experience yourself as being in love”
“you never fall in love... all of a sudden you become aware that you already are in love”

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)

Its cast and sources

populated by
alongside works

Every retelling 4

Žižek analyzes the film Falling in Love, where two married lovers meet in an empty apartment but stop before having sex. He argues this refusal makes it an 'event' because doing it would have been a 'cheap love affair.', illustrating sexuality-gender,ideology
One never chooses to fall in love; it is experienced as an inner necessity/fate, yet one remains fully responsible for it, illustrating the highest form of freedom., illustrating freedom as inner necessity,radical responsibility
One does not consciously 'choose' to fall in love; rather, one suddenly realizes they are already in love, illustrating that key decisions are non-calculable and retroactive., illustrating consciousness is rooted in malfunctioning
Citing Neil Gaiman, Žižek argues that love is a catastrophe that ruins daily life, representing a sacrifice of ordinary existence for a higher cause (fidelity to desire)., illustrating ethics of desire,sacrifice