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The Maternal
Imagination of Film
and Film Theory
Lauren Bliss
The Maternal Imagination of Film and Film Theory
Lauren Bliss
The Maternal
Imagination of Film
and Film Theory
Lauren Bliss
School of Culture and Communication
University of Melbourne
Melbourne, VIC, Australia
ISBN 978-3-030-45896-6 ISBN 978-3-030-45897-3 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45897-3
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2020
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Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
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The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
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The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
For Francis & Angie
Acknowledgements
Without the people who offered their time and support, and careful and
considered thoughts, this project would not have reached completion. As
an early career researcher, working in a time of increasingly insecure
employment, this book was not simply self-driven but enabled by a net-
work of collegial and social support. In particular, and in no order of
importance, I need to express my thanks to my colleagues in the Media and
Communication program at the University of Melbourne, especially to
Ingrid Volkmer for her encouragement and support. To my original PhD
supervisors, Angela Ndalianis, for her direct and encouraging feedback and
Timothy Laurie, for his considered and careful reading. To my friend
Helen Hughes, for reading the manuscript and offering helpful and insight-
ful criticisms. To Erin Stapleton, for facilitating a community-building
writing group and to everyone who attended for their inspiration and col-
legiality. And to my friend Tim Coster, for his professional and erudite
copy-editing. This project has been enabled by a publishing grant from the
School of Culture and Communication, the University of Melbourne.
This project would not be possible without the reference points offered
by many scholars of cinema, feminist theory, the unconscious, the mater-
nal imagination and the witch-hunt, some of whom I have had the plea-
sure of meeting and others known to me only through their words and
ideas. I especially thank Nicole Brenez, Justin Clemens, Marion Campbell,
Joe Hughes, Catherine Grant, Christophe Wall-Romana, Nicholas Chare
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
and Adrian Martin. Their works and direct feedback have structured the
ideas that have formed The Maternal Imagination of Film and Film Theory.
Finally, I must thank my partner and fellow academic, Francis Plagne,
whose keen editorial eye and passion for endless discussion about this
book ensured it could come to fruition.
Contents
1 The Maternal Imagination of Film and Film Theory 1

1.1 Introduction 1
1.2 Imagining the Imaginary of Film Theory 12
References 19
2 Guilty as Charged: Feminist Film Theory and the Early

Modern Imagination 25
2.1 The Proto-Cinematics of Witchcraft: “As Has Been Seen by
Many and Is a Matter of Common Report” 28
2.2 Flying Ointment: The Cinematics of the Self-Conceiving Mind 36
2.3 “Because I Fear My Creator I Shall Say Nothing More
About These Secrets at Present” 40
2.4 “How Did That Isolated Goblin Get into the Limelight?”
Pregnant Illusions of Cinema and Media 44
References 47
3 “When We Do Not See Something, We Imagine It to Be

Much Worse” 51
3.1 The Conception of the Ignorant Spectator 53
3.2 The Maternal Imagination of Film Theory 55
3.3 Incomparable Bodies 61
3.4 “I Had Never Seen Myself Before This Way and I Regarded
Myself with Horror” 65
References 72
ix
x CONTENTS
4 Sound and Vision: The Cinematic Figuration of the Virgin

Mary in Le livre de Marie and Je vous salue, Marie 77
4.1 The Image of Virginity 77
4.2 “All of Nature Has Become Corrupt” 79
4.3 “Our Thought May Grow from an Idea that Has Come
from Elsewhere, Without Our Knowing Who Has Given It
to Us” 85
4.4 “Godard Has Understood Nothing” 90
References 95
5 Natural and Experimental Births: Pregnancy and

Childbirth in Experimental Cinema 99
5.1 Water Sark and Experimental Music102
5.2 The Unconscious of Experimental Cinema: “You Want Me
to Put My Thing in Your Hole and That Will Be
‘Communication’”108
5.3 Agnès Varda Is Neither Agnès Varda Nor Marie Menken118
References120
6 Eat the Children!125

6.1 Have You Eaten Yet? 你吃了吗?127
6.2 Seeing and Reporting Cannibalism133
6.3 China as “the Less-Than Human”137
References139
7 What Are You Expecting to See? On Childbirth in Visual

Culture143
7.1 Childbirth Is No Longer a “Visual Taboo”144
7.2 Rethinking the Temporality of Pregnancy and Childbirth
in Visual Culture149
References152
Bibliography157
Index177
CHAPTER 1
The Maternal Imagination of Film and Film

Theory
1.1 Introduction
The historic power of the pregnant woman’s gaze to distort the imagina-
tion is likely as powerful as the male gaze of cinema and visual media, with
its perceived ability to objectify, or unconsciously distort, one’s body-
image. From Greek antiquity until the early twentieth century in Europe
and North America, a pregnant woman’s gaze was thought to hold the
power to corrupt the bodily appearance of the foetus within and distort
paternal perception, effects that were often believed to result from her
looking at works of art (Huet 1993; Shildrick 2000; Brownlee et al. 2001;
Ellis 2017). The pre-Socratic philosopher Empedocles thought that a
pregnant woman gazing upon statues could influence the appearance of
the foetus; father of modern surgery Ambroise Paré was convinced the
pregnant uterus had imaginary power, while subsequent Rationalist and
Enlightenment thinkers—including Descartes, Voltaire, Diderot and
Hegel—likewise accepted that the maternal gaze could form a literal
impression onto the foetus within as a result of gazing at a desired or
feared object (Huet 1993; Toor 2007; Terrall 2012). Belief in the reality
of the maternal imagination was not universal, however, and debate about
their potential was at its height in Europe in the first decades of the eigh-
teenth century, the final stages of the European and American witch-hunts
(Shildrick 2000; Toor 2007). The persecution of witches can be linked to
belief in the maternal imagination, as their alleged crime was a corruption
and manipulation of the victim’s body-image—with the ability to
© The Author(s) 2020 1

L. Bliss, The Maternal Imagination of Film and Film Theory,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45897-3_1
2 L. BLISS
manipulate and visually castrate a man’s self-image of his penis being one
of a witch’s more arresting powers (Sprenger and Kramer 1971; Rodnite
Lemay 1992). Concomitant with both the witch-hunts and heightened
debate about the theory of the maternal imagination is the rise of proto-
cinematic inventions including the trick mirror, magic lantern and camera
obscura and the hoped-for power of visualising technologies that, like cin-
ema today, could suspend the spectator’s disbelief in an illusion
(Stafford 1993).
This book will argue that the historic belief in the power of the preg-
nant woman’s imagination to manipulate and literally impress an appear-
ance onto the foetus, as it intersects with the witch-hunts as well as the rise
of proto-cinematic inventions, can be linked to the male gaze and the
manner in which film theory has developed psycho-sexual theories of the
unconscious to argue that cinematic representation can corrupt and dis-
tort the spectator’s body-image, especially in a gendered sense. The mater-
nal imagination and early modern witchcraft are haunted by a
literal-mindedness towards images (Stafford 1993). We can find an anal-
ogy with this literal-mindedness in the idea that misogynist film and media
representations can erase an original body-image perspective and ensure
the continuation of the patriarchal unconscious, as succinctly described by
feminist poet and political activist Robin Morgan: “We have no bod-
ies…because they are defined, posed, abused, veiled, air-brushed or meta-
phorised by men” (in Grey 2011). Another perspective onto the totalising
power of the patriarchal unconscious is given in the words of feminist film
scholar Mary Ann Doane: “The supreme achievement of patriarchal ideol-
ogy is that it has no outside” (1980: 50). While the psychoanalytic model
of feminist film theory has had enormous and important impact on our
understanding of cinema and other forms of visual media, both inside and
outside the academy, this book will argue against the literal-mindedness of
the common sense image of objectification by developing the early mod-
ern history of the maternal imagination and the witch-hunt to question
the terms on which the patriarchal unconscious has been constructed.
Common sense, for Gilles Deleuze, is a category of recognition tied to
the philosophical reliance on a sense of the implicit, the presuppositional
and the natural (1994). Deleuze thus distinguishes common sense from
the act of thinking, where the latter is not a natural given but something
that requires theorisation, argument and provocation. His provocation is
that we should not assume we are naturally or automatically thinking
when we are having thoughts: “It cannot be regarded as a fact that
1 THE MATERNAL IMAGINATION OF FILM AND FILM THEORY 3
thinking is the natural exercise of a faculty, and that this faculty is pos-
sessed of a good nature and a good will. ‘Everybody’ knows very well that
in fact men think rarely, and more often under the impulse of a shock than
in the excitement of a taste for thinking” (132). Deleuze argues that chal-
lenging common sense does not, in this respect, come naturally to the
mind and that it thus demands questioning on the basis of what is claimed
“in principle” and “not on the basis of empirical objections” (135).
The prism of the early modern history of the maternal imagination and
witchcraft allows us to rethink principled presuppositions about the patri-
archal power of cinema and media. Two intersecting common sense prin-
ciples are called into question here. The first principle, generally taken as a
given within film and media theory, is the belief in the ubiquity of visual
culture and its pedagogical impact (Jay 2002). In its broadest sense, cin-
ema and media is typically understood to shape perception of reality to the
extent that there is no objective reality outside of mediated visual culture
(Jay 2002). As described by cultural studies scholar Douglas Kellner, visual
culture is a “profound and often misperceived source of cultural peda-
gogy: [Media] contribute to educating us how to behave and what to
think, feel, believe, fear, and desire – and what not to…media are forms of
pedagogy that teach us how to be men and women” (2011: 7). In relation
to film theory specifically, this opens onto the question of how theories of
perception generate presuppositions about the relation between the body
of the spectator and the cinematic image (Elsaesser and Hagener 2015).
In particular, the principle of a patriarchal ideological power—which
can usurp the spectator’s internal perception of their sense of self—inter-
sects with the common sense image of the organising and determinative
role that cinema and broader visual culture is thought to play in shaping
our perception. Necessitating continued theorisation, debate and dis-
course to undermine the objectifying power of the male gaze over the
body, the study of body-image is a field of inquiry common to both the
humanities and the sciences.
In the sciences, the notion of objectification exists in psychology and
psychiatry as a theory that understands the internalisation of another’s
perspective as forming the primary basis for beliefs and views about the self
(Fredrickson and Roberts 1997). In the humanities, the theory of the
psyche’s image of the body usurped by cinema and media was originally
developed through theories of the subject and depends on psychoanalytic
theories of the unconscious, as well as the Marxist theory of commodifica-
tion (Mulvey 1975, 2013; Doane 2013). The limits and problems with
4 L. BLISS
the use of the psychoanalytic unconscious to surmount the theory of the

male gaze have been acknowledged, passionately interrogated and chal-
lenged through numerous critical responses, notably in reception theory,
which understands the spectator as an individual and as the product of
cultural, material and historical forces beyond capture by the psychoana-
lytic model (Stacey 2013; Staiger 2000); feminist phenomenology, which
aims to capture a spectator’s embodied response to a film (Sobchack
1992); and the queer gaze, which troubles the sexed dichotomy of the
original male gaze (Evans and Gamman 1995). However, the assumption
of an implicit patriarchal power that requires critique arguably remains
common sense and unchallenged by the historical perspective offered by
the early modern prism of the imagination that can question the terms on
which the patriarchal unconscious of cinema, and by proxy visual culture,
has been constructed.
To question the terms on which this unconscious has been constructed,
we can turn to the idea that the external look of the pregnant woman
could alter the internal appearance of the foetus, which remained fairly
common from antiquity until the advent of embryology in the nineteenth
century (Toor 2007; Shildrick 2000; Huet 1993). The belief in the mater-
nal imagination, or alternatively the theory of maternal impressions, is
historically significant in studies of art, science, philosophy and medicine
and is related to both pregnancy in a corporeal sense and the reproduction
of the body in an artistic and technological sense (Buckley 2017; Hanafi
2000). Pregnancy has long provided a literalising metaphor for the rela-
tionship between the artist and artwork (Huet 1993). One of the key
claims of this book is that the paradigm of the maternal imagination, the
history of pregnancy’s imaginary capacity and the imagining of what preg-
nancy means, both in its historical as well as its modern feminist form,
have potential to elucidate a critical theory and history of cinema and
visual culture.
However, scholarship on cinema and pregnancy more typically consid-
ers the lived and thus literal experience of pregnancy and motherhood and
how it is represented in specific films or film genres (Oliver 2012; Boswell
2014; Harrington 2017; Creed 2015), producing a slippage between the
literal body or lived experience and themes of imagination, figuration and
cinematic reproduction (Ellis 2017). To understand and question what
has been produced as common sense, this book models theories of the
spectator on figures of the maternal imagination, described below.
Although this book will borrow from feminist scholarship on the topic of
literal pregnancy and the maternal where relevant, including where it is

both desired and not wanted (Young 1984; Lundquist 2008), the primary
point of departure is the early modern concept of the maternal imagina-
tion, which is developed as an analogy for themes of figuration and repro-
duction and as a provocation directed against the common sense
assumption of unconscious effects in film theory. Thus, the argument
knowingly sits uneasily within the feminist project and feminist discourses
about cinema and visual culture. The psychoanalytic unconscious largely
scaffolds the feminist aim to point to and expose “the difficulties of differ-
ence and desire…the contradictions of femininity, of motherhood and
gender, in the production and circulation of images of women” (Cowie
2019: 73). Here, this unconscious is put “on trial” through its resem-
blance to early modern ideas of the imagination. Rather than psychoana-
lytic or philosophical theories of the subject, this book will draw a set of
figurative analogies between the maternal imagination and film theory.
Importantly, these figurative analogies are not developed with a view
towards internal, philosophical conversations and the definitions of the
figural proposed by certain thinkers (Deleuze 1981; Lyotard 2011;
Dubois 2004; Aumont 2005); rather, my focus remains on the potential
of figurative analogies to provoke against common sense ideas within
film theory.
In Chap. 2, Guilty as Charged, the early modern theory of maternal
impressions and the legal and theological concept of the witch are read as
figurative analogies for common sense assumptions inherited from psy-
choanalytic feminist film theory of the male gaze. This chapter calls into
question the terms of the basic assumption of the male gaze, namely that
it is unconscious in its objectification and that a literal link between the
psyche of the spectator and the cinema screen can be demonstrated
through the theory.
To follow this line of questioning, the remaining chapters focus on four
other figures of the maternal imagination offering analogies for other
common sense assumptions in film theory that produce overly literal
understandings of spectatorship. In Chap. 3, “When We Do Not See
Something, We Imagine It to Be Much Worse”, the maternal dimension of
the alienated spectator (Buck-Morss 1992; Marder 2012) is developed to
call into question the supposed power of the image of the foetus. The
ultrasound is the modern standard for visualising pregnancy, and the two-
dimensional foetus is described by some scholars as an icon, or a com-
modified image, for the origins of human life (Oliver 2010; Taylor 2008;
6 L. BLISS
Kaplan 2016; Cook 2003; Petchesky 1987). Ultrasound images have been
rightly critiqued in relation to their problematic use by pro-life, anti-
abortion movements to humanise images of the foetus while dehumanis-
ing the individual autonomy of the pregnant woman for political purposes
(Lupton 2013); however, some scholars go further, claiming that preg-
nancy is also disembodied or alienated by the ultrasound’s images, as ste-
reotypes of the foetus are thought to subordinate a pregnant woman’s
subjectivity and self-perception (Kukla 2005; Duden 1993; Petchesky
1987). An argument against this model of the alienated spectator will be
proposed through an analysis of the pro-choice French documentary film
Histoires d’A (1974), which assumes a knowing spectator in relation to
images of abortion on screen. Importantly, this film contributed to the
successful legalisation of abortion in France in the mid-1970s and so offers
a renewed perspective onto the limits of conceiving of spectatorship as
unconscious or objectified (Lecler 2007).
In Chap. 4, Sound and Vision, the Virgin Mary, as she is figured within
the dual production Le livre de Marie and Je vous salue, Marie (1985) by
Anne-Marie Miéville and Jean-Luc Godard, is analysed in terms of the
common sense image of virginity as lacking internality or sexual self-
awareness. This image of virginity is questioned through the two films’
figuration of the myth of the Virgin Mary. Where the Virgin Mary offers a
paradigm for the patriarchal image of the virgin/whore dichotomy, my
analysis will suggest that these two films figure virginity such that it cannot
be lost, objectified or indeed “seen” through the prism of a theory of the
unconscious or in the Christian sense in which virginity is given in the
image of God.
In Chap. 5, Natural and Experimental Births, a comparison between
Joyce Wieland’s Water Sark (1964) and Stan Brakhage’s Window Water
Baby Moving (1959) aims to challenge the common sense assumption of
an emancipation of perception—or the idea that images of the female
body require a counter response to male domination of the female image.
Wieland is known for her provocative work and for refusals of the princi-
ples of the male gaze (Rabinovitz 2003). I argue that Water Sark resonates
with Michael Nyman’s theory of the body of the experimental musician
(1999) and can be read in the light of John Cage’s Water Walk (1959),
ensuring the film refuses the traditional assumption of the usurped image
of the female body in experimental cinema.
Finally, in Chap. 6, Eat the Children! the figure of the cannibalised foe-
tus is analysed in a study of Fruit Chan’s Hong Kong horror Dumplings
(2004). In Dumplings, a Hong Kong actress and Mainland Chinese

doctor-turned-chef cannibalise aborted foetuses. The horror of their can-
nibalism is taken as an address to the common sense principle of censor-
ship, namely that it prevents internal critique or self-knowledge. The
cannibalised foetuses are read as figures of censorship in Mainland China,
related through the reliance that censorship has on self-censorship and the
individual repression of internal knowledge (Bunn 2015). The cannibal
has played an important role in writing on cinema and literature, notably
in the work of the modernist Chinese writer Lu Xun (Bachner 2018).
Dumplings models its cannibalism on his story Diary of a Madman; but
where Lu called on the reader to “save the children” to prevent China
from cannibalising itself, Dumplings figures Lu’s call as a horrific, if
humorous, address to censorship.
Rather than directly seeking to rethink the unconscious through a
reworking of theories or models of the psyche, gender or sexuality, here
the history and philosophy of the maternal imagination and the witch-
hunt instead form a lens through which to restage an examination and
analysis of the theories and discourses of origins and originality in film
theory. The aim of this historical analogy and analysis is to elicit dialogue
and show the necessity of a different perspective where subjectivity is not
captured in a form regarded as alienated, melancholic, subordinated,
oppressed or pathologised, nor relegated to being unthinkable due to
some presupposition of an unconscious effect. In each chapter, the mater-
nal figures are developed to show how filmic figuration itself calls into
question common sense dichotomies or principles, as well as academically
produced—if politically minded—oppositions between sound and image,
truth and illusion, knowledge and ignorance, alienation and embodiment
and, in some cases, between patriarchy and feminism. Through filmic figu-
ration, we can further call into question how film theory and history has
generated its sense of patriarchal origins as well as its ends, directed
towards emancipation from those origins.
The figural can be taken as an antonym of the literal, where the figural
refers to the living and the imaginative sense as opposed to the objective,
the material and the measurable (Brenez 1998). Literal-mindedness
haunts the history of the maternal imagination and the legal and theologi-
cal concept of witchcraft during the witch-hunts as well as, I will argue,
certain common sense tendencies in film and media theory. Barbara
Stafford describes the eighteenth century mentality towards the maternal
imagination and the witch-hunts as reinforcing a view of “congenital
8 L. BLISS
sensory frailty” (1993: 2). In this period, images took on a paradoxical

status in that they were central to “the process of Enlightening” while also
being seen to be misleading “without the guidance of discourse”. The
imagination’s power to impress a literal expression upon the psyche of the
foetus is, from this perspective, also a prefiguration of Freudian psychol-
ogy. Without exploring this angle towards the theory of maternal impres-
sions in depth, Stafford nonetheless describes it as “[a] sort of pre-Freudian
fetal psychology [in which] the infant took on the literal shape of the
trauma, or the experience that had left a profound negative or positive
groove in the psyche” (312). While noting that the theory of maternal
impressions may have been somehow largely resolved with the develop-
ment of embryology and the cementation of a scientific view of human
reproduction in the nineteenth century, Margrit Shildrick also suggests
that the “motivating anxieties that fueled [belief in the maternal imagina-
tion] are with us still” (257) in the subordination of female sexuality and
the female body in public discourse. Marie-Hélène Huet studies the emer-
gence of this belief in literary and film aesthetics and likewise argues that
it is tied to an assumption of feminine excess and the patriarchal view of
“unruly” female desire (1993).
Feminine excess refers to the notion that women are “essentially irratio-
nal, rooted in a determinate bodilyness, unable to maintain a proper dis-
tance between subject and object, and not fully agents of their own will”
(Shildrick 2000: 257). While this excess is typically located in patriarchal
stereotypes of femininity, such as the femme fatale, as manipulator of men,
or the virgin, as the vulnerable woman in need of protection by men, the
excess located in this book begins with the provocative analogy between
the early modern belief in the maternal imagination and witchcraft and
presuppositions about the unconscious, objectifying effects of cinema.
To begin to consider this analogy, we can note how both the idea of the
maternal imagination and the theory of the male gaze assume that “woman
is constructed differently [from man] in relation to processes of looking”
(Doane 1982: 80). However, in developing the history of the maternal
imagination as a lens through which to question common sense assump-
tions of unconscious effects, my argument does not intend to model new
ways of thinking about gender, sexuality, the psyche or other literal, lived
categories of identity or subjectivity; nor is it explicitly addressed to insti-
tutional questions of cinematic production, distribution or exhibition.
Although the arguments within this book will show a preference for a
knowing spectator, as opposed to an unconsciously affected one, this book
is nonetheless primarily addressed to questions of cinematic reproduction;

that is, this book contends that it is necessary to call into question how
common sense assumptions are theorised, imagined and thus reproduced
in film and media theory, discourse and criticism.
Primarily, this position is developed through a provocation against the
idea of the totalising power of patriarchal cinema and visual culture, the
idea that there is no outside to the unconscious effects of cinema and
visual culture. However, it should also be made clear that the arguments
in this book do not address many of the important and wide-ranging theo-
rists of the body, gender, technology and perception, such as Donna
Haraway, who assumes that any distinction between technology, the body
and the world is immaterial (2006). Further, while I will question aspects
of the psychoanalytic unconscious, it is important to consider how psycho-
analysis has been an especially persuasive form of interpretation not only
for feminist film theory but also for the study of the sex-gender-sexuality
distinction more generally insofar as it enables us to conceptualise how
“human nature” is itself “the product of social relations in interaction with
biology” (Flax 1983: 128). Without psychoanalysis we do not have, for
example, the now common sense distinction between sex, gender and
sexuality, nor can we show that attendant idealisations and stereotypes of
gender, sexuality and pregnancy and the body are not natural or tied to
biology but are culturally produced and thus able to be questioned and
analysed (Flax 1983). For a study of body-image, feminist critique of
patriarchal images of gender in cinema and media has shown the norm
against which the distortion is measured is based on a patriarchal uncon-
scious and that patriarchal ideology has its roots in the cultural imaginary
rather than reality of the natural body (Doane 1982). In other words,
norms of sexist imagery and gendered images of the body have also been
shown to be culturally and psychologically produced and thus open to
analysis and critique.
However, the arguments in this book are also not explicitly addressed
to theories of the cultural imaginary, or libidinal, psycho-linguistic
approaches to gender and sexuality, including the work of Judith Butler.
Within Butler’s well-known reworking of the Freudian unconscious, gen-
der is effectively imitated, understood as a simulacrum or a melancholic
performance without any essential or materially embodied significance
(1995, 2002).1 This ensures that gender is essentially mutable, which for
Butler also means it is expressed as a form of grieving for other potential
identities one may never achieve (1995). Butler’s theory has been widely
10 L. BLISS
celebrated but also cautiously critiqued for its “unintentional convergen-

ces” (Phipps 2014, pg. 49) with neoliberal constructs of individuality as
well as for its “methodological individualism” (Boucher 2006). The para-
digm this model of scholarship belongs to is also referred to as the theory
of the subject and defined by the linguistic turn in philosophy (Fraser
1995). The linguistic turn is a broad concept that describes a major shift
in thinking reality, where reality is seen as the product of culture and lan-
guage, a belief “opposed to the pursuit of a discernible, retrievable, his-
torical ‘reality’” (Canning 1994: 369). In this respect, while the linguistic
turn refers to divergent fields including psychoanalysis, history, anthropol-
ogy and philosophy, it has been especially celebrated within feminist schol-
arship for enabling an approach to sexual inequality that shows it is not
biological difference but discourse, cultural practices and institutions that
shape perceptions of sexual difference and gender (Canning 1994).
Despite the importance of the value placed on culture and discourse as
sites of mediation for feminist analysis, we can here turn to Nancy Fraser’s
“critiques of critiques” of different feminist arguments and her argument
that there is no single approach that possesses “everything we need”
(Fraser 1995: 164). In her essay “Pragmatism, Feminism, and the
Linguistic Turn”, she addresses different arguments from within feminism
about the causes of sexual inequality but seeks to show the value of all
feminist approaches, however contradictory or at odds with each other.
While this approach was characterised by critics as “Polly-Anna-ish” (165),
I agree with Fraser that there is value to be found in eclecticism and the
necessity of admitting “impure” arguments (166).
Here, the witch and the maternal imagination offer curious figures
through which to call into question the theory of objectification in its
unconsciousness. Both eclectic and impure—especially as witch-hunting is
the epitome of the patriarchal dominance of women—the figures erected
in this book do not reflect a sense of inaccessible historical knowledge or
as reference to some primitive, innate idea of sexuality and gender
(Bovenschen et al. 1978), but serve as figures of a disorderly tongue.
The witch-hunts occurred a time of “intense preoccupation with the
power and danger of speech” (Kamensky 2013: 194) and interest in main-
taining hierarchies of power through “governing the tongue”. It was not
just an imagistic power that defined the witch, but also the scapegoating
of its discourse and the idea that, like the slippery mind of the pregnant
woman, a witch had a “slippery tongue” (Kamensky 1999) that produced
literal effects. Its curses could lead to the failure of crops, the death of
livestock and widespread sickness in the community. While “her tongue

was the weapon…she pronounced the destiny of others and, more unbe-
coming still, decided her own fate in the bargain” (1999: 162). The
witch’s power was nonetheless limited, not simply by way of persecution
and execution, but by the early modern preoccupation with promoting
“godly speech” as “submission to authority and awareness of hierarchy”
(1999: 70).
In the spirit of this disorderly tongue, the argument in this book does
not defer to the idea that cinema is essentially patriarchal in its power. It
often presents itself as eclectic and impure because it finds an analogy
between the feminist theory of the male gaze and the European and
American witch-hunts. Yet, it seeks to avoid reifying witchcraft, with the
maternal imaginary, as forms of innate female power and maintains that
the argument is not anti-feminist insofar as it does not question the exis-
tence of misogynist cinema and other forms of visual media or the poten-
tial for unconscious effects at the psycho-social level that demand feminist
analysis. The point of developing this imperfect, disorderly, and perhaps
obscene, analogy is more clearly to question the male gaze in its preserva-
tion of a literal link between figuration on the cinema screen and the
psyche of the spectator. In other words, the problem with the theory of
the male gaze is that there is no outside to objectification (Stacey 2013).
The disorder produced by this book’s argument is a provocation against
what is by now a common sense, but nonetheless academically produced,
set of dichotomies of power—between patriarchal and feminist, sound and
image, body and screen.
Thus, instead of subjectivity as a theorisation of the libidinal drives,
linguistic structures or concepts of identity, this book turns instead to the
themes of reproduction and the imagination to open up questions for the
figured link between spectator and screen. By introducing the history of
the theory of maternal impressions and the witch-hunts as a historical and
material origin for the supposition of the loss of bodily perspective induced
by cinema, there is potential to rethink anew the otherwise monolithic,
gendered dimension of cinema’s naturalised excess. That the discourse of
the male gaze naturalises patriarchy has been a common critique of femi-
nist film theory (Stacey 2013); however, the notion of the reality of patri-
archal power has not been subject to a critique that locates the origins of
this reality in the history of the maternal imagination and the witch.
12 L. BLISS
1.2 Imagining the Imaginary of Film Theory

The concept of the imagination is a traditional one, in its modern form
derived primarily from Immanuel Kant’s account of the human faculties.
In Kant, the imagination is a necessary—as opposed to secondary or deriv-
ative—faculty that enables the sense-making creation of the world (1998).
In contrast to Lacan’s psychoanalytic imaginary, for example, which must
be sublimated or repressed in order for the subject to enter the social
world of the symbolic as a realm of meaning, Kant maintains the deep
importance of the imagination in its generation of an affective opening
towards the world (what makes the world meaningful), which is at once
perceived and created and thus not the effect of a traumatic real (Lennon
2015; Rundell 2016; Buckley 2017).
In this thesis, images—the basic unit of the imagination—are not sec-
ondary or mere copies created out of an absent sensorial original, but are
the drivers of meaning. Images within the imagination are, in this regard,
generative, and how we conceive of the original properties of the imagina-
tion, or the process which Kathleen Lennon (2015) calls the imaginary of
the imagination, is thus also the means by which the imagination is
shaped.2
Thomas Elsaesser has addressed the terms on which the oppositions
between origins and teleological ends have been imagined in film theory
(2004). Without directly critiquing the psychoanalytic paradigm in film
studies, Elsaesser argues that, because moving image technologies are con-
tinuously evolving, it seems as if film theory and history has “operated
with notions of origins and teleology that even on their own terms are
untenable” (77). In his essay “The New Film History as Media
Archaeology”, Elsaesser moves to understand the relationship between
early cinema and the digital as one of shifting forms of diegesis or narra-
tive. He argues that how we understand the spectator, whether they
“encounter or inhabit…adopting different roles or positions: as viewers,
users, visitors, witnesses, players” (112) is organised around the study of
“liberation” of narrative made possible through shifts and evolutions in
visual mediums. Cinema’s relationship to other forms of media, including
to the digital and new media, video art, television, as well as early cine-
matic forms like the Nickelodeon, is one of convergence: no moving
image medium has “yet wholly replaced its predecessors”. This claim
echoes similar points made by media scholars like Henry Jenkins, “new
techniques do not make older ones disappear” (2004: 112; Jenkins 2014).
The invention of new moving image technologies does not displace or

supersede their predecessors but reinvents them in a process that, for
Elsaesser, “emancipates” old forms to usher in new ways of experiencing
and constructing our experience.
Despite changes to spectatorship ushered in by digital media (Tyler and
Baraitser 2013; Jenkins 2014; Mulvey 2013), the common sense under-
standing of objectification arguably remains within Laura Mulvey’s inver-
sion of the psychoanalytic theory of the unconscious for classical cinema
and traditional spectatorship (1975). While originally conceived with ref-
erence to the narrative codes and identification patterns in classical
Hollywood cinema, Mulvey’s theory nonetheless regarded itself as tran-
scending those original codes. In fact, Mulvey herself stated in “Visual
Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” that the theory of the male gaze, as a
theory of perception, could also emancipate us from the power of the male
gaze. The theory could “free the look of the camera into its materiality of
time and space and the look of the audience into dialectics, passionate
detachment” (18). Though spawning a political and academic rhetorical
strategy and mode of resistance, the limitations of this account of an all-
encompassing patriarchal gaze have been also widely recognised and inter-
rogated. As noted by Teresa de Lauretis, there is both a “limitation and
liability” in feminist thought in the notion that the power of the male gaze
over women in film, art, media and culture has a ubiquitous effect on the
perception of body-image (1987: 22).
As de Lauretis succinctly describes, where we think of images of gender
as sites of difference maintained by a patriarchal male gaze, in the sense of
the dichotomy between man and woman, we can paradoxically remain
bound to a static, recursive logic. From a feminist perspective, one is first
and foremost the property of discourse or powerful ideologies that are
transcendent of, but can be illuminated by, the theory as well as cinema
itself. In other words, the theory of the male gaze is only ever a paradoxi-
cal, partial or ironic illumination because “nothing escapes from the dis-
course of power, nothing exceeds the totalising power of discourse” (35).
This view assumes that theorisation through discourse allows for increased
awareness and knowledge of patriarchal manipulation. For example, for
Kaja Silverman, the narrative logic of Hollywood cinema often maintains
coherence of the male psyche at the expense of the female (1998). In this
view, the female psyche is “deprivileged”, “denying the woman any pos-
sibility of arriving at self-knowledge except through [a man]” (65). While
Silverman is analysing the relationship between characters in specific films,
14 L. BLISS
like Hitchcock’s Marnie, the common sense implication of her position is

implicit in her critique: without the male gaze and the discourse it issues,
we might not be able to see the subordinated female psyche on screen. In
other words, as described by film scholar Lauren Rabinovitz, “there is no
escape from patriarchy” (2003: 30), and because of what are believed to
be its totalising unconscious effects, we are reliant on film theory and dis-
course in order to find (in Mulvey’s words) a “political weapon” through
which to diminish its power.
As many film scholars have noted, the ironic limitation of this view is
that it implicitly naturalises and literalises the patriarchal problem it aims
to undermine (McGowan 2003; Galt 2011; McGowan 2012; Stacey
2013). Rendering the patriarchal unconscious analogous to the history of
the maternal imagination and the status of the image in the witch-hunt
should give pause as to the significance of the irony. Its significance can be
questioned insofar as patriarchy itself, to return to Deleuze’s conception
of common sense, remains both an empirical reality as well as a principle
when we think of the idea of the unconsciousness of objectification as
common sense. In other words, the theory of unconscious effects appears
to ensure the status of patriarchy as a perpetual problem from which there
literally is no escape.
These concerns are also relevant to the study of racial objectification
and racism in cinema and visual culture. While I address the figure of the
colonised body in Chap. 6 through an analysis of the Hong Kong horror
film Dumplings, in general, the arguments about objectification in this
book are not developed as a wide-ranging study of the colonial uncon-
scious as theorised by Franz Fanon (1970), among others. However, I
note that a central critique of the male gaze and Freudian and Lacanian
psychoanalysis has been its monolithic focus on gender to the exclusion of
race and other categories of identity (McClintock 1995; hooks 2003).
While intersectionality has been an important response to this exclusion,
we can follow Homi K. Bhabha’s point that questioning and undermining
colonial or racist logic likely demands something more complex than sim-
ply replacing negative, historical racist images with “new symbols of iden-
tity, new ‘positive images’” because these can only work to “fuel an
unreflective identity politics” (Bhabha 1991: 207). As Kara Keeling fur-
ther points out in relation to racial objectification, discourses of the sub-
ject normally aim to realise “hidden knowledge” to achieve freedom for
those “whose perception had been habituated according to interests that
dictated the…group’s enslavement” (2007: 7).
Nonetheless, while such analytical discourses have remained powerful

for conceptualising how dominant forces and ideologies shape systems of
representation and perception, Keeling points out how they are also lim-
ited by the extent to which they paradoxically reproduce the hegemonic
ideology that is the object of their critique. As she suggests, there can be a
“blinding” effect in perceiving hegemonic power as totalising as inquiries
become limited “to the range of possibilities existing only within the reali-
ties that colonial and neocolonial discourses organise” (27). In other
words, hegemonic ideology can be ironically preserved by the same model
of discourse that tries to critique it (Galt 2011). Thus—while remaining
sensitive to the unconscious potential of visual culture—the historical
analogies drawn in this book mean that it does not necessarily approach
questions of subordination from the perspective of continued subordina-
tion or where repression translates into oppression (and vice versa). In that
sense, this argument gestures towards an outside to patriarchy, cinema and
visual culture. It seeks to provide a new entry point to critical debates
about the perceptual effects of cinema and visual culture that does not
necessarily seek a paradigmatic shift through a new theory or model of the
psyche, subject or spectator but instead aims to open up another perspec-
tive onto the original point of departure that spearheaded these debates.
The arguments made here are offered as critiques of what are also often
persuasive, fruitful and productive discourses about objectification, patri-
archy and colonisation. Thus it should be reiterated that I am not ques-
tioning the empirical reality of sexist, misogynist or other clearly
subordinating representations in film and other forms of visual media.
Nor, for that matter, am I necessarily even questioning their potential for
unconscious effects. However, I am questioning the principles by which
theorisation of cinema constructs, reproduces and thus materialises that
unconscious. In this sense, the arguments presented in this book are not
immediately politically advantageous. Because this book creates its argu-
ment by analogy and provocation, it knowingly produces more questions
than it answers.
We can turn to consider here the complex role played by witchcraft and
the witch-hunts in feminist discourse in the twentieth and twenty-first
centuries. For some, the witch is a rebel figure whose persecution epito-
mises the scapegoating of female sexuality, as well as the male, patriarchal
desire to control both the female body and the female capacity to become
pregnant (Guadagnino 2018). Here, some feminists have celebrated the
role of the witch and witchcraft in feminism (Goldenberg 2004). For
16 L. BLISS
others, feminism itself is a witch-hunt, characterised especially in the wake

of the #MeToo movement as persecutory, irrational or vengeful (Mumford
2018). The former perspective conforms to a view of femininity as innate,
and the latter is simplistic and reactionary. From a post-feminist perspec-
tive, however, the witch-hunts offer an opening onto arguments about the
role of feminist discourse in the public sphere (Tyler and Baraitser 2013).
Developing an analogy between psychoanalytic feminist film theory
and the witch-hunts shows the limits of attempts at capturing subjectivity,
whether through an academic lens or through public discourse. The
witch-hunt is deployed here as a knowing analogy to expose the limits of
over-determining the significance of the literal subject in its libidinal or
psycho-social sense. Thus, while the theory of objectification has often
been fruitful, there is also a need to identify limits to public visual culture’s
power to represent the self, address and remedy problems of objectifica-
tion and inequality and represent or realise the meaning of sexuality and
subjectivity more generally.
In their article on the problems of the #MeToo movement (2018), Gill
and Orgad have carefully and sensitively addressed a need to recognise the
limits of conflating visibility and subjectivity with power in visual culture.
In popular media, another example of the critique of the proliferation of
subjectivity in the public sphere can be found in the saturation of first-
person stories. This phenomenon has been critically termed the first-
person industrial complex in Slate and the New Yorker, which describe the
ubiquity of self-authored stories as exposing and encouraging voyeurism
as much as they seek redemption and healing (Bennett 2015). We also find
something similar in the increasing and outsized role of digital media in
shaping discourses of the self and one’s private life (Duffy and
Pruchniewska 2017).
More broadly, a generalised perspective on the limits of the usefulness
of the unconscious for feminist thinking is given in the work of sociologist
Eva Illouz and her notion of emotional capitalism (2007). For Illouz, the
proliferation of private or subjective confessions or discourses of the self in
the public sphere are a kind of emotional capitalism, in the sense that emo-
tions are commodified as profitable objects. Without further delving into
the idea of emotional capitalism, we can consider how a critique of the
psychoanalytic unconscious is crucial to her approach.
Psychoanalysis has played a crucial role in feminist film theory and cri-
tique because of the strong links it proposes between the limits of knowl-
edge and the limits of looking, as a critical theory of the intersection
between the desire to know and the desire to look in a voyeuristic sense.
Rosi Braidotti describes the psychoanalytic view of desire as fundamentally
“ungraspable” because “it is that which propels our thinking in the first
place. As such, it will evade us in the very act of constituting us as subjects
of knowledge” (2017: 290). However, Illouz (2007) views the Freudian
unconscious as synonymous with the feminist mantra that the personal is
political, which expresses the view that one’s private, subjective life is
unconsciously structured by patriarchy and sees the domestic, personal
sphere as inherently public (Fraser 1990). Illouz argues that complex feel-
ings, sexualities and experiences within the private sphere can also be sites
of possibility, liberation and potential, rather than something ungraspable
in their vulnerability to the effects of patriarchal objectification and ideol-
ogy. However, she describes how this view of the potential of the private
realm remains obscured by the dominant, feminist view that life is struc-
tured through unconscious forces. For Illouz, the view that one’s inner
life is inherently objectified can also ensure that the private, subjective
realm is drained of any personal meaning in favour of displaying and talk-
ing the self as an object: “the therapeutic techniques of communication
decree that ambiguity is the archenemy of intimacy and dictate that we
purge everyday language of unclear and ambivalent statements and of its
possible negative emotional inflections and that we reduce communica-
tion to its denoted meaning only” (2008: 134). Illouz argues that viewing
the individual’s life as structured by unconscious forces risks self-
objectification “because she is to herself an object and therefore takes her-
self and her inner life as objects of study” (2008: 122). Borrowing from
Foucault’s understanding of subjectivity, she describes how assuming that
one’s life is structured unconsciously limits the imagination and ensures
thinking remains ironic and circular, as well as punitive. The idea that
one’s private life can be reduced to the realm of the political and the pub-
lic, or that one’s unconscious thoughts are the object of patriarchal ideol-
ogy and that they thus should be made rational and conscious, also
presupposes the necessity of adopting a punitive attitude towards the self.
In other words, discourse that conforms to belief in unconscious objecti-
fication, that believes the personal is political, also risks presenting itself as
either purified or in need of purification, seeking normative transforma-
tions and corrections to improve the self. An example of this can be seen
in the form of feminist consciousness-raising groups, or other practices of
public confession that seek to purge or expel some unconsciously inter-
nalised problem (2016). In other words, for Illouz, the total enmeshment
18 L. BLISS
of political and psychological categories through techniques of self-

examination and public confession ironically risks self-objectification
because it refuses ambiguity, contradiction and non-monolithic imagin-
ings of self.
While not addressing the location of the unconscious in the material
world or seeing it as a patriarchal construct, psychoanalyst and scholar
Christopher Bollas similarly shows how psychoanalysis’ paradigmatic view
of the unconscious can nonetheless also become blind to the limits of the
construction of the problems it seeks to address (1999). As Bollas argues
in his address to the limits of psychoanalysis, “psychoanalysis itself can
become…the symptom” (159) insofar as it describes a view of sexuality,
neurosis and desire as always displaced by some other real. Bollas laments
the poorly recognised limits of his practice and describes how it can create
a world view whereby the generation of problems “becomes an end in
itself” (158). He describes how the psychoanalytic view of the uncon-
sciousness of desire can, in other words, become a paradigm in which a
problem can take on a perpetual life of its own. Psychoanalysis can be seen
as limited, in this sense, by its tendency to produce a tautological imagi-
nary. It sustains itself on the view that the means and measure of ones
inner life are essentially unknowable except through the circular prism of
psychoanalysis.3
Any argument will be based on a set of presuppositions and will also
produce a set of derivative aims that result from these presuppositions. For
the male gaze, the presupposed unconscious produces the aim of libera-
tion or emancipation from the patriarchal real. While my argument is not
issuing a demand for liberation, by calling into question the basic premise
of objectification—that it is unconscious—I also acknowledge the validity
and importance of prior arguments about objectification, which opened
up debate and discussion about the socio-political, psycho-sexual and gen-
dered impact of moving image technologies: “To analyse the image as a
site of gendered contestation in its very structures is one of the crucial
legacies of Mulveyan theory” (Galt 2011: 256). Nonetheless, through
viewing the early modern gendered imagination as an analogy, my argu-
ment seeks a new point of departure through which to consider these
debates.
The provocation offered in this book aims to press “pause” on the per-
petual problem of patriarchy or to slow down the conversation. The point
in developing the witch-hunts and the maternal imagination as a historical
analogy for the male gaze is not simply to theorise strong connections
between the status of the image in early modernity and in feminist film
theory, but to show more clearly that viewing the principle of the patriar-
chal power of cinema and media as common sense also risks self-
objectification. Where we presuppose we are unconsciously subject, we
risk remaining blind to the terms on which that unconscious has been
constructed.
Notes
1. See also the dialogue between Butler and Adam Phillips in response to this
article, which begins with Phillips’ “Keeping it moving: commentary on
Judith Butler’s refused identification”.
2. Lennon considers the worth of Castoriadis’ revision of Kant’s thesis, which
also worked as a critique of Lacan’s egoistic model. For Castoriadis, the
imagination is bound to acts of invention as well as processes of realisation,
ensuring it can be approached as something not axiomatically structured by
an external reality to which one is passively subject. The imagination is, in
this view, a category that can be seen as something that is not in opposition
to “reality”; rather, the imagination is the condition upon which reality is
generated. Castoriadis’ point was not addressed to film theory but to the
limitations of the Marxist world view in the wake of the horrors of Stalinism.
His immanent model of the imagination is perhaps another relevant
approach here as it aimed to show that the imagination was not inherently
structured by power or other ideological forces.
3. See also Patrick Ffrench (2017).
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Marvelous in the Time of the Scientific Revolution. Durham: Duke
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———. 2013. Words, Witches and Woman Trouble: Witchcraft, Disorderly
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jmp/9.1.45.
CHAPTER 2
Guilty as Charged: Feminist Film Theory

and the Early Modern Imagination
Like the witch, cinema has been charged with a crime of the image. In this
case, however, it is the crime of the male gaze that turns “woman” into its
guilty object. The theory of the male gaze necessitates that “woman” is the
passive subject of the cinematic apparatus. “Woman” is absorbed by a
patriarchal topography, which envelops spectator and screen, a topogra-
phy that paradoxically feigns “woman” as threat in order to control and
contain. Mulvey describes the male gaze as crystallising the terms of the
patriarchal order. Embodying the problem of the persecution of witch-
craft, she argues that “woman” is always on the “wrong side of the Law”
because of the male, voyeuristic gaze that confines its image:
The power to subject another person to the will sadistically or to the gaze
voyeuristically is turned on to the woman as the object of both … True
perversion is barely concealed under a shallow mask of ideological correct-
ness – the man is on the right side of the law, the woman on the wrong.
(1975: 15)
Film scholarship has only made scattered connections between the his-
tory of the manipulative and manipulated maternal imagination, witch-
craft and the theory of the unconscious (Ellis 2017; Baxstrom and Meyers
2016). While a number of theories and frameworks have been surmounted,
discussed and critiqued to question assumptions of psychoanalytic feminist
film theory, the notion of unconscious subjection has not been rigorously
linked to the historical and material connection between the maternal
© The Author(s) 2020 25

L. Bliss, The Maternal Imagination of Film and Film Theory,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45897-3_2
26 L. BLISS
imaginary, the crime of witchcraft and the development of proto-cinema,

which in this study refers to early modern precursors of cinematic technol-
ogy (Mannoni 2000). However, rather than approach proto-cinema
through specific technologies, such as the camera obscura, the magic lan-
tern and the trick mirror, this study will conceptualise proto-cinema in
relation to the discourse of the imagination of the early modern period.
This enables an approach to cinema that is not bound by the study of
technology, but rather that is open to discourse and the way we imagine,
theorise and thus perceive the impact of cinema.
In the early modern period, witches and pregnant women were perse-
cuted, scapegoated and reified according to their psycho-sexual capacity to
corrupt body-image and the perception of reality. This chapter will show
a figurative link between this historical belief and the notion of uncon-
scious subjection in feminist film theory. However, we can begin by
emphasising that linking the witch-hunts and the manipulative maternal
imagination to the foundational idea of the unconscious patriarchal effects
of cinema is not necessarily a move to conform to the popular image of the
witch as a rebel, feminist figure. More soberingly, this analogy will be
developed to figure productively, rather than reactively, the witch’s status
as a scapegoat in terms of its relation to the double bind of the male gaze.
The double bind shows how the male gaze has enabled a feminist poli-
tics of the visual. This is evidenced by the legacy of the notion of the male
gaze, the anchor for feminist studies of how cinema and other forms of
media represent, distort and stereotype sexuality and gender. Mulvey’s
essay has not only been influential within film theory as it has been
extended to interpret the structural positioning of gender and desire
within a wide range of academic fields. The notion of the male gaze has
been applied to study a diverse range of fields and historical contexts from
the poetry of Dante to the socio-ideology of the changing room mirror in
department stores (Sturges 2010; Muller 2009). Indeed, “Visual Pleasure
and Narrative Cinema” has achieved inter-disciplinary reach across all
fields in the humanities in the quest to develop a weapon against the patri-
archal image of “woman”. Nonetheless, the other side to this double bind
is that the theory of unconscious subjection is itself bound by the terms of
patriarchy (Mulvey 2011).
The double bind also refers to a contradictory logic whereby the femi-
nist critique of cinema mirrors the patriarchal structure of cinematic rep-
resentation that is critiqued. In her seminal text Alice Doesn’t (1984),
Teresa de Lauretis calls this double bind the negative position, and it has
2 GUILTY AS CHARGED: FEMINIST FILM THEORY AND THE EARLY MODERN… 27
been noted by Jacqueline Rose (1984), Rosalind Galt (2011) and Mulvey
herself (2013), among many others. As de Lauretis defines it, in the nega-
tive position “woman” is at once “barred from and detained within” cin-
ema by the notion of objectification itself (9). Such a subordinating
structure ensures, as Galt has argued, that the cinematic image can only be
treated as a site of suspicion and a masquerade of reality that is “too visual
to be trusted” (238). This historical form of visual scepticism is also rooted
in a sexist denigration of the image, where image and “woman” are inter-
changeable. As Galt writes, a “feminist reading of the image that lies
(because ideology distorts gender)” is folded “into an iconophobic one
(in which the image lies by definition)” (249). In this regard, criticism of
objectification is limited to the terms on which “woman” is constructed,
namely as the body subordinated by a patriarchal image, which the theory
of unconscious subjection can point to, but not necessarily transcend.
Before moving on to discuss the history of the image of the witch and
the maternal imaginary in more detail, we can consider how, despite
attempts to problematise the totalising nature of the theory of the male
gaze, the idea of objectification—namely that the image of femininity is
the mere “signifier for the male other, … as bearer of meaning, not maker
of meaning” (Mulvey 1975: 8)—continues to be enormously influential,
finding application far beyond the boundaries of film studies. Focusing
specifically on its incarnation in psychoanalytic feminist film theory, we
might ask: what is at stake if cinema, the imitator of the unconscious, is the
cause of objectification? While it has been widely noted that the theory of
the male gaze mirrors the patriarchal structures it is trying to escape, this
double bind already suggests the historical analogy I will argue for. The
objectified woman, like the witch of the early modern era (Jackson 1995),
is unable to transcend its imposed image of guilt and subordination.
The relationship between the male gaze and the history of the decep-
tive imagination is thus, as outlined in the opening chapter, understood in
this argument as a figured one. Developing a figurative analogy between
the witch-hunt and feminist film theory can show how the notion of
objectification itself objectifies. I will argue that overcoming or undoing
film and media’s patriarchal effects means accepting the figured link
between spectator and screen, accepting, in other words, that there can be
no literal objectification, only an imagined or figured one. While Chap. 3
considers and defines the idea of a figured link between spectator and
screen in more detail through the work of film scholar Nicole Brenez, in
this chapter, the figured analogy between the male gaze and the early
28 L. BLISS
modern idea of the deceptive imagination takes the form of an admittedly

impure but provocative questioning of the terms on which the patriarchal
unconscious has been constructed.
In this spirit, my argument should not be taken as a move to dismiss
feminist film theory outright or to suggest that it is an irrational, persecu-
tory discourse. To pose witchcraft as an intervention into the male gaze is
not to castigate or persecute theorists who have adopted castration and
the psychoanalytic unconscious in order to develop a well-accepted and, in
some respects, productive thesis. Nonetheless, the totalising nature of the
illumination of patriarchy offered by the theory of the male gaze can be
seen as analogous to the witch-hunt and the trope of the deceptive mater-
nal imagination. Thus I make this argument heeding Mulvey’s call for
curiosity (2013): namely, I imagine a generous but critical reader, hope-
fully with a well-developed sense of humour, who is neither convinced
that sexist and misogynist film and media representations are so totalising
as to prevent a questioning and critical response of the kind offered here
nor who finds it necessary to circumscribe the unconscious motivations of
the writer (myself) as subject. Furthermore, and maintaining a healthy
critical view towards psychoanalytic theory, I am not convinced that any
potential contradiction or opposition my argument may generate, pose or
provoke risks unconscious collusion with patriarchy.
2.1 The Proto-Cinematics of Witchcraft: “As Has

Been Seen by Many and Is a Matter of Common
Report”1
Early modern witchcraft can be considered to form an interpretative posi-
tion in relation to the fetishistic structure of persecution. The figurative
analogy is in how the persecuted witch and the woman (as a representa-
tional category) subject to the male gaze cannot transcend the patriarchal
logic that persecutes them; both are trapped within it. To develop this
analogy, the relationship between early modern witchcraft, the maternal
imagination and the fetishistic structure of persecution is further devel-
oped here as proto-cinematic. Proto-cinema, sometimes called primitive
cinema, is a diverse and decidedly broad field of study and refers to mod-
ern cinema’s technological and artistic antecedents. Filmmaker Werner
Herzog, for example, comments in his documentary Cave of Forgotten
Dreams (2010) that the prehistoric painting of a bison with eight legs in
the Lascaux caves in France, approximately 17,000 years old, can be seen
as proto-cinematic because it aims to capture and animate a sense of visual
movement. In The Great Art of Light and Shadow, Laurent Mannoni dis-
cusses and describes in exhaustive detail the history of moving image tech-
nologies from the twelfth century onwards, with particular focus on the
flourishing of innovative forms of visual media in the seventeenth century
(2000). Proto-cinema is thus especially located in the inventions and
thoughts of early modern scientists, who were obsessed with optical inven-
tions and new ways of envisioning the body. Giambattista della Porta
(1540–1615), Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) and Athanasius Kircher
(1602–1680) are exemplary in their experimentation with devices like the
trick mirror, magic lantern and camera obscura. Mannoni broadly attri-
butes the driving motivation that served these early scientists to a desire to
project a moving image and exactly reproduce the process of the eye itself:
“Our crystalline lens takes the place of the aperture, while the retina which
lines the back wall of the eyeball is comparable to the screen mounted on
the wall opposite the aperture” (4). Martin Kemp likewise emphasises that
the desire for a technological device that could exactly reproduce an image
of the natural world is a feature of both Renaissance and early modern sci-
ence and occupies a place in the “striving for intellectual and material
progress” (1992: 167). However, as Zakiya Hanafi has shown, these
inventors of early modern technologies often believed in the idea of mater-
nal impressions. Porta was especially motivated by the desire to harness
the natural powers of the maternal imagination and considered his inven-
tions to be opposed to the diabolical power of the witch (2000).
The early modern witch is a figure of ocular deception. A witch acts to
“deceive the interior and exterior senses” of the unwitting victim and
witchcraft would blind the victim, were the law not able to expose the
injustice of this imagistic manipulation (Kramer and Sprenger 1971:
118–120). This absorption of the senses by the illusory practice of the
witch was granted reality in both civil and divine law at the height of the
witch-hunts from the late fifteenth century until their conclusion in the
middle of the eighteenth century (Kieckhefer 1976). Over this period up
to 100,000 people—both men and women—were burned and many more
had their lives destroyed, forever tainted after being publicly branded
witches (Roper 1994, 2004; Jackson 1995; Warner 1981; Rowlands
2009). Because of the lawful reality of the witch-hunt, the witch’s crimes
by imitation entailed that their guilt was a foregone conclusion. Except
through confession, or through the sentiments of onlookers in response to
30 L. BLISS
the witch’s torture, there was no possibility for someone branded a witch
to transcend the logic by which they were persecuted and made victim.2
The Malleus Maleficarum (the Hammer of Witches), of 1486, argues
that a witch intervenes into the natural body through imitating it.3 This
text, written by two German inquisitors, Heinrich Kramer and James
Sprenger, is an extreme theological treatise on witchcraft. While it was
never accepted into the Catholic Church as doctrine as the authors had
hoped and its use in actual witch trials is subject to much questioning
(Stephens 1998), it remains an important, if flawed, primary source that
highlights the power of witchcraft to imitate the natural body in a way that
can be linked to cinema. The authors of this text list the fantastic capacities
of the witch to affect the body. At its own fancy, the witch can create
demonic children, extinguish the life of the unborn and take possession of
the penis. “For a certain man tells that, when he had lost his member, he
approached a known witch to ask her to restore it to him” (1971: 122).
This ability, perhaps the most astonishing, evokes the utilisation of Freud’s
psychoanalytic theory of castration as a means to theorise the viewing
position of the spectator and the idea of objectification. In what follows, I
will develop an interpretation of the witches’ power as proto-cinematic
and that prefigures the claim of patriarchal manipulation via cinema.
As the Malleus Maleficarum tells us, it was believed that the witch could
possess a man’s penis for purposes of causing impotence or inciting exces-
sive pleasure. In addition, the witch could also take the penis to extract
semen in order to create demon offspring. The authors contend that a
witch could remove and transfer a man’s penis, even collecting penises in
large batches of twenty or thirty and holding them in a bird’s nest. Here,
the penises took on a life of their own and would feast on oats and corn,
“as has been seen by many and is a matter of common report” (121).
However, as the authors of this text are at pains to explain and theorise,
these acts do not constitute biological or corporeal interventions on the
body, as a witch could not commit an act of God. Rather, the witch merely
acts on the imagination or changes “the mental images in the inner per-
ceptions”.4 In other words, it was always accepted that a witch did not
actually remove the penis but rather possessed it through diabolical imita-
tion. The witch’s crime was never as an injurious assault on the natural
body but was what witchcraft scholar Richard Kieckhefer called a “mutila-
tion” of one’s body-image (5).
As a mutilator of body-image, the figure of the witch has been under-
stood not simply as a scapegoat, but also as a tragic figure of political
necessity. Cameron (2012) has studied the relation between the fool and
the witch in medieval and early modern societies to determine the nuanced
difference between their respective representational formations in the
public domain. The fool, epitomised by the court jester and the clown,
would publicly perform “sexually ambiguous” tricks that inverted, dis-
rupted and misrepresented social norms. For Cameron, for the most part
the performances of the fool are hardly different to the supposed deviant
activities of the witch. The fool, however, was integral to society as a rep-
resentation necessary to the instatement of law: the fool served to “remind
society” of the law in fooling and the court fool’s comic deviancy para-
doxically upheld the law when performed in the court. Where the fool
played at being an idiot, paradoxically speaking a “divine (or devilish)
truth” (107), the witch, on the other hand, was a scapegoat for the evils
of society and absorbed all matters of deviance through shifting figura-
tions. The witch’s supposed compacts with the devil, a contract granting
evil gifts in exchange for “vile deeds”, means it was both “willing perpetra-
tor and duped victim” and thus “the ‘logical’ extension of unchecked
femininity” (105).
Importantly, however, the fool and the witch are not totally defined by
their sex. Indeed, many fools were women, just as nearly twenty to twenty-
five percent of witches in Europe were men (Rowlands 2009). The authors
of the Malleus Maleficarum remark that while most witches are women,
men of “weaker character” could just as well be witches. The witch exceeds
its status as representation; the witch becomes the representation desig-
nated to it. This designation means the witch becomes a scapegoat and
society is blind to that status. Cameron summarises this point as follows:
“The fool was demonic but … stood as a reminder of divinely ordained
hierarchies and structures”, whereas the witch was taken as an “articula-
tion of pure evil” (2012: 107). Despite the witch’s illusions, it was under-
stood that the witch was “not a threat”, in a physical or real sense as
witchcraft was cautiously theorised as unable to transcend the Christian
model of the relation between the material and immaterial world, but was
“taken to constitute [a threat] anyway” for reasons that remain hotly
debated by scholars (107).
The figures of the witch and maternal imagination form an ideal para-
digm through which to restage an examination and analysis of the theories
of origins and processes of originality in film theory, enabling a different
perspective where the psyche and libidinal desire are not captured in a lit-
eral sense and sexual difference is not understood through a simplistic
32 L. BLISS
dichotomy of opposition (male as powerful, female as subordinated), nor

relegated to being “unconscious”. The theory of cinematic objectification
is largely founded on the idea of the imagining of castration as at the ori-
gins of the psyche and the Freudian model of sexual difference.5 For
Freud, the realisation of sexual difference structures the unconscious,
according to either penis envy or castration anxiety, which apparently
begins when young children first encounter genital difference. In Freud’s
words: “She has seen it and knows that she is without it and wants to have
it” (in Doane 2003: 77). Presuppositions about the powerful role of cas-
tration anxiety in structuring gendered spectatorship have thus led to a
proliferation of questions about different identifying positions spectators
may take, as well as calls for new models of desire that do not succumb to
Freud’s phallocentric, patriarchal model of desire, which, in a sense, also
forms a psycho-social image of spectatorship motivated by the envy or fear
of the image of a removed penis (Kelly 1998).
From the inception of cinema in the late nineteenth century, when
Freud’s ideas were also beginning to be published and distributed, the
problem of cinematic likeness has been normatively framed as one of
unconscious, rather than conscious, likeness. The notion that cinema
induces unconscious effects traditionally posits that the likeness of film to
the real-world effects an illusion of mastery within the mind of the specta-
tor. This is colloquially referred to as the suspension of disbelief, and in
film theory its effect is often understood to efface the spectator’s internal
sense of their own body (Metz 1982; Baudry 1986).
The idea that film’s effect is unconscious, and that this effect seems to
precede and transcend the technology itself, ensures that cinematic mean-
ing is produced in what André Bazin referred to as an anterior sense
(1967). Bazin’s paradigmatic, mid-twentieth century study of the ontol-
ogy of the photographic and cinematic image drew together the aesthetic,
psychological and metaphysical to understand the unconscious likeness of
watching film to the experience of dreaming (Jefferson Kline 2013).
Bazin, in this sense, perceived that the distinction between spectator’s
imagination and screen was immaterial. However, despite the apparent
applicability of the category of the unconscious to cinema, the tradition of
applying psychoanalysis to theorise film is nonetheless asymmetrical. As
Stephen Heath (1999) discusses, beginning with Freud himself, the
majority of psychoanalysts seldom refer to cinema and are typically dismis-
sive of the notion that cinema is an apparatus that mirrors the unconscious
or is anything like dreaming. Despite the widespread application of
psychoanalysis to cinema from the moment of its inception, the traditional

rejection of cinema as a viable field for psychoanalytic research on the
unconscious is premised upon the representational difference between
how cinema makes visible what it represents as opposed to how psycho-
analysis seeks to make visible the process of the mind. Compared to Freud,
for whom psychoanalysis aimed at an exposure of mental life, cinema has
been thought by scholars including Christian Metz, Jean-Louis Baudry
and Laura Mulvey to conceal an internal awareness of spectatorship, as the
assumption of a suspension of disbelief suggests. In this respect, and in
relation to the popular uptake of Freudian (and later, Lacanian) thinking
as a means to study cinema, Heath contends that psychoanalysis troubles
psychoanalytic film theory. Film theory, as it seeks to understand percep-
tual effects, should itself also be understood as a technique of vision:
“[w]here is cinema being seen from and what is the desire that is assured
in seeing it from there and what stands out against that seeing, pushing to
the real of such a vision, the vision that seeks to maintain that seeing?” (49).
Reminiscent of Heath’s point is the colloquial expression “it was only a
movie”, which is synonymous with the phrase “it was only a dream” in the
sense that both are suggestive of a symptomatic relation that the dreamer
has to the dream as the spectator has to the film on screen. As noted by the
early film theorist Jean Epstein, who commented in the early twentieth
century on cinema’s potential to alter and reshape the social and individual
imagination, whatever difficulties one may have in facing such images,
dream-like or cinematic, they are much more than only movies or only
dreams to be reassuringly negated or “willed away” by the “only” of the
statement (Epstein 2012; Koch 2013). Despite the importance of Freud’s
theories for film studies and beyond, the historical ideas of the maternal
imagination and witchcraft serve as a kind of model of imagining (rather
than a technique of vision), as a means to question discourses of reproduc-
tion in film and film theory. The obviously irrational and false idea of
witchcraft and the maternal imagination is developed as an analogy to
show that there is a dimension of the spectator’s mind and imagination
not touched or superseded by the cinema screen. There is no unconscious
or libidinal reproduction between screen and spectator that can be cap-
tured or seen through a generalised theory. In place of the theory of
unconscious influence is the history of the witch and the maternal imagi-
nation. As we will see, it is through the power of her uncontrolled and
indiscriminate imagination that the pregnant woman imitates the external
world to alter the appearance of the unborn within (Huet 1993). The
34 L. BLISS
witch, on the other hand, transcends the corporeal body. By the legal and
theological doctrines of the time, the witch’s manipulation and distortion
of reality also ushered in the political necessity of distinguishing between,
what can best be called, good and bad images.
In this context, Freud expressed an interest in witchcraft, writing to
Fliess that he closely read the Malleus Maleficarum. In these letters, Freud
remarks that this theory and theology of witchcraft maps onto his idea of
a split consciousness, or the unconscious as a foreign body within the self.
He writes in a canny and revealing letter that the broomstick was the
“great Lord Penis” that the witch rode on for power (2001b: 242). Early
modern witchcraft is like the psychoanalytic unconscious in that it is not
an empirically observable phenomenon but remains a force thought to be
at once transcendent of and immanent to the corporeal body.6 Despite the
fact that witchcraft is not empirically observable, meaning it is not falsifi-
able (except through torture, confession or the whim of a judge), it does
not induce incoherence but provides us with a position from which to
approach an image that, historically speaking, possesses its own internal
logic. Nonetheless, the question as to what witchcraft is, or what causes
belief in it is—like the idea of a patriarchal unconscious—left unanswered
in this book. In Godly Zeal and Furious Rage (1987), G. R. Quaife sug-
gests that the witch-hunts occurred as a result of the breakdown of society
across multiple spectrums both local and continent-wide. These break-
downs relate to a confluence of social and individual problems, the refor-
mation and splitting of the Christian religion, social upheavals occurring
across Europe and the terrible effects of the black plague. “In essence the
witch rose to prominence, or in many cases was created, by the furious
rage of a neighbour anxious to explain his own misfortunes and by the
godly zeal of the political establishment fearful for the safety of their
regime and of the Christian society they were determined to protect and
purify” (4). Quaife’s argument moves to dismiss or problematise a num-
ber of other theories including that the witch-hunts were the effect of
natural hallucinogens taken by large proportions of the population, the
result of widespread and endemic mental illness, the continuation of the
inquisition, a consequence of the sexual frustration of the clergy, the rise
of real fertility cults in the working classes or misogyny gone wild (11–18).
Despite the usefulness of the rationalised prism offered by Quaife as to the
psycho-social catalysts of witchcraft, I suggest that this view ignores the
ability of the witch to manipulate body-image in its relationship to the
maternal imagination.
Attending to the contemporary currency of witchcraft in his essay “The

Meanings of Magic” (2006), Michael Bailey argues that the study of
European witchcraft should seek to consider its relevance for contempo-
rary Western modern culture “not as the imposed construct of maniacal
religious elites but as a sensible and even useful social structure” (21). He
particularly places this within the context of disenchantment, arguing that
witchcraft continues to be significant for modern, secular societies:
[T]he underlying notion that witchcraft and witch-hunting represent a ter-

rible but essentially completed chapter in human history – itself a Eurocentric
concept derived from Enlightenment authorities’ confidence in their ability
to promote disenchantment – must be challenged not just in Africanist or
Asianist scholarship, reassessed not merely by postcolonial studies or by sub-
altern studies, but rather must be a focus of genuinely ecumenical scholar-
ship on this topic. (22)
Such a view challenges Quaife’s idea that the witch-hunts were solely a
response to radical political and theological social changes of the time,
concomitant with the tragedy of the black plague. This view can be con-
vincing in the face of the sensational dimension of the accusations but
nonetheless remains limited. However, rather than take an ecumenical
focus towards the Christian dimensions of the witch-hunts, my approach
remains focused on feminist scholarship and film studies.
Like the idea of cinema inducing unconscious effects, the links between
witchcraft and cinema are practically as old as cinema itself. The silent
Swedish film Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages (1922), directed by
Benjamin Christensen, is an attempt to cinematically materialise the
Malleus Maleficarum (Baxstrom and Meyers 2016). Elsewhere, in Cinema
of the Devil, the early film theorist Jean Epstein channelled cinema’s life-
like imitation of the body into a metaphor of demonic possession (319).
Cinema was a machine that turned to take hold over and “reshape” the
mentality of the spectator. For Epstein the cinematic machine knowingly
plays into its feigned reality through its interaction with the spectator. This
is secured by his theory of an immaterial distinction between spectator and
screen: one cannot exorcise one’s gaze from the cinematic image because
its mechanical perspective is analogous to the human eye. In the brief but
dramatically descriptive essays of Cinema of the Devil, the term diabolical
is employed to figure this immaterial distinction; in other words, the dia-
bolical refers to how cinema may turn the seer into the seen. Epstein writes
36 L. BLISS
that cinema possesses a rebellious spirit, and that it creates a “second real-
ity where rational logic may well not suffice”, which he links to a demonic
force, or a veritable evil, but one that “should be considered a benefactor
to humankind” (318). Epstein laces his essays with metaphors of the
witch-hunts. Cinema is “immoral”, a “genuine trial”, “a heresy” and a
“monster of novelty”, and he openly declares that “the cinematograph
pleads guilty” to the charge that its art is diabolical (327).
Before Epstein, Antonin Artaud also linked witchcraft to cinema in his
concise essay “Witchcraft and the Cinema” (1972). Artaud suggested that
the art of cinema brings us “directly into contact” with the occult. “But”—
he cautioned the reader—“we must know how to divine this occult life”
(66). Like Epstein, Artaud conjured the inversion of the seer into the seen
to raise the question of what one can see of cinema and what cinema can
see through its mechanical eye.
2.2 Flying Ointment: The Cinematics

of the Self-Conceiving Mind
Within the domain of proto-cinema scholarship, the writings of early mod-

ern scientist Giambattista della Porta are thought to offer the first image
of the cinema screen (Monteiro 2017). As Porta suggested, the frame that
distinguishes the medium from one’s imagination should disappear from
the spectator’s awareness and the medium will be more meaningful when
that spectator becomes less conscious of the screen. Crucially, Porta main-
tained that this disappearance should be natural rather than artificial or
imitative (Monteiro 2017). We can understand this distinction through
Kemp’s delineation of the natural from the artificial in the early modern
era (1992). Referring specifically to optical devices of the early modern
era, such as the magic lantern, he notes that while the desire to exactly
reproduce an image of nature was the “aim and achievement” of these
devices, the intent was also to simultaneously “transcend” their mechani-
cal base (166). In this sense, the artificial refers to the technical process by
which the optical device achieved its illusion. The natural, on the other
hand, was in this time closely related to belief in the maternal imagination.
For example, Porta was also not immune from the paranoid culture of the
period he lived and was called before the Inquisition on the potential
charge of witchcraft for his witch’s salve, or “flying ointment”, said to
induce hallucinations in the mind of the user (Hanafi 2000). He was not
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THE 42nd (EAST LANCASHIRE)
DIVISION
CHAPTER I
LANCASHIRE AND EGYPT
(August 1914—May 1915)
For a week or two there had been talk of war and of the likelihood
of England being involved. The prospects and possibilities formed an
interesting topic of conversation and speculation. We leant over the
sheer side of the precipice and caught glimpses of the black chasm
below, but few really doubted the soundness of the fence over which
we peered.
Warnings of disaster had been frequent—but disaster had always
been averted, and fair words had prevailed. For years we had been
living on the verge of national ruin through strikes of railway-men,
transport-workers, miners, or the spinners and weavers of
Lancashire, but at the last moment conciliation always won; there
was always room for compromise. Though civil war in Ireland
seemed imminent, it was comforting to reflect how much common
sense there was in the world. Besides, had it not been proved to
every one’s satisfaction that under modern conditions war between
great nations could not possibly last for more than a month or two,
as in that short period victor and vanquished would alike be reduced
to bankruptcy and impotence? Knowing this no Great Power would
be likely to commit suicide. We were living in the twentieth century,
and a great European war was an abstract conception, not
something that could actually occur.
In the closing days of July 1914 this complacency was giving way
to a very real dread. War might mean suicide even for the victor,
might be “unthinkable,” but it was in sight—plain, stark, menacing.
War such as other nations had known; not a war in which those who
had a taste for soldiering might take part while the rest of us could
read about it in the papers, feel proud of a success and depressed
by a disaster, and wonder whether sixpence would be added to the
income tax. The fantastic image that had thrilled us not altogether
unpleasantly—as children experience ecstatic shudders when
listening to tales of ogres and hobgoblins—was taking on an
appearance of grim reality. Could it after all be a grisly spectre and
not a mere bogey of turnip and white sheet? England began to regret
that the warnings of her greatest soldier had passed unheeded.
A day or two later Germany flung down her challenge to
Christianity and Civilization, stripped herself of the cloak of decency
and stood revealed in stark brutishness; and on Tuesday, August 4,
1914, England took up the challenge and declared war. The decision
was apparently not expected by the German Staff. To them it was
rather a matter for exasperation than for apprehension. England had
her hands full at home, and her vast possessions would prove a
source of weakness. She had a small regular army, a force with high
traditions, well trained and well equipped for service on the frontiers
of India and other outposts of the Empire, containing a larger
proportion of officers and men with experience of actual fighting than
any other army of the Great Powers, yet so small in numbers and so
scattered over the face of the globe, that one can almost sympathize
with the German belief that the few thousand men who could be
spared from the duty of policing India, Egypt, South Africa, and other
possessions, might safely be regarded as negligible. She had, too, a
small, indifferently trained and equipped, unprofessional, home-
defence force, but even the British themselves did not take the
Territorials seriously.
As to the rest of the potential fighting material of the British Isles,
had it not been proved to the satisfaction of the Germans (who had
made a special study of such matters with the typical Teutonic
thoroughness which works so efficiently when applied to material
facts, and fails so lamentably when the human factor enters) that the
young manhood of the nation was mainly decadent, of poor
physique, weak-chested, half-educated, lacking in patriotic purpose,
with no thought of the morrow and no ideals? With the exception of
the few hundred thousands who had received some training in
physical drill and discipline in the Boys’ Brigade and its daughter-
organizations which teach discipline, self-respect, and esprit de
corps, or in the School Cadet Corps, all were utterly untrained, and
they hated discipline. England had clearly shown that she was too
selfish to submit to any form of compulsory service; too wrapped up
in the love of comfort, ease and luxury to do more than bribe fools to
die for her. It was a nation that had lost its soul. The military aid she
could give to France could be contemptuously brushed aside. When
France had been paralysed and the Channel ports secured, the
British mercantile marine could be sunk or scared off the seas, and
the British Empire brought to its knees.
Teutonic reasoning was wrong. The British character is too simple
or too complex for the Hun. It may be that no other nation brings so
much froth to the top as ours; that none extends such tolerance to
cranks, nor gives so much rope to little cliques of shrieking egoists,
nor shows such stolid indifference when the few, claiming to speak
on behalf of the nation, so egregiously misrepresent her. On August
5, 1914, it was seen that practically every man, woman and child
approved what the Government had done, and felt instinctively that
their country would have been shamed had there been a day’s
hesitation. England had found her soul, not lost it. A nation supposed
to consist largely of pleasure seekers, of lovers of compromise,
conciliation and tolerance, of comfort and luxury, had decided that all
it held most dear would be as dust and ashes if it stood aside, a
passive spectator of the agony of France and Belgium. Practically
without a dissentient voice the nation prepared to sacrifice its all.
Unhappily, the politicians, unaccustomed to realities, were not ready
to make the most of this spirit of sacrifice. Unable to leave their
grooves of finesse, intrigue, and opportunism, they knew not how to
appeal simply to the noblest instincts; so they talked of “business as
usual,” and attempted to cajole the nation into giving a part when the
whole was ready to be offered.
This is the story of the part played in the most Composition of
appalling of human tragedies by the East the Division
Lancashire Territorial Division, which, on leaving
England, was composed of the following units—
Cavalry: “A” Squadron, Duke of Lancaster’s Own Yeomanry—6
officers, 132 men.
R.F.A.: The 1st (Blackburn) and the 3rd (Bolton) East
Lancashire Brigades—55 officers, 1289 men.
R.E.: 1st and 2nd Field Companies and Signal Company—19
officers, 568 men.
Infantry: The 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th Battalions, the Lancashire
Fusiliers—120 officers, 3962 men.
The 4th and 5th Battalions, the East Lancashire Regiment
—60 officers, 1990 men.
The 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th Battalions, the
Manchester Regiment—180 officers, 5966 men.
A.S.C.: Three Companies and the Transport and Supply Column
—16 officers, 276 men.
R.A.M.C.: Three Field Ambulances—30 officers, 665 men.
Total (including Divisional and Brigade Headquarters): 511
officers, 14,966 men.
The twelve battalions of infantry were brigaded as follows—

The Lancashire Fusiliers Brigade—the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th
Battalions, Lancashire Fusiliers.
The East Lancashire Brigade—the 4th and 5th Battalions, East
Lancs Regiment, and the 9th and 10th Battalions, Manchester
Regiment.
The Manchester Brigade—the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th Battalions,
Manchester Regiment.
The 5th L.F. was mainly composed of men from the Bury district,
the 6th from Rochdale, the 7th and 8th from Salford, the 4th E.
Lancs from Blackburn, the 5th from Burnley, the 5th Manchesters
from Wigan, the 6th and 7th from Manchester and its suburbs
(including a good proportion from the Cheshire suburbs), the 8th
from Ardwick and East Manchester, the 9th from Ashton-under-Lyne,
the 10th from Oldham.
The 1st R.F.A. Brigade (Blackburn) was composed of the following
batteries: the 4th (Blackburn), the 5th (Church), the 6th (Burnley).
The 3rd R.F.A. Brigade (Bolton) of the following: the 18th, 19th and
20th, all from Bolton and district.
Many of these units date back to 1859, when the Volunteer
movement came into being. For forty-one years the Volunteers were
an untried force, but in the year 1900 their offers of service in the
South African War were accepted, the infantry battalions providing
detachments which served with credit in that campaign. It was not
until 1907 that serious thought was given to the equipment and
organization of this fine body of patriotic men. Lord Haldane’s
Territorial Scheme, based on the model of the Regular Army, did
more than change the name from Volunteers to Territorials. Major-
General Douglas Haig, Director of Military Training at the War Office,
had charge of the scheme, and in bringing about this great change,
he gave evidence of the foresight and grasp of essentials which in
1918 enabled him to lead the armed strength of the Empire to
victory. The various batteries, battalions and corps, no longer
scattered and independent units, were organized and trained as
divisions, and the force was actually treated as a valuable and even
essential element in the system of national defence, with the result
that the Territorial Force soon reached a higher state of efficiency
than the Volunteers had ever been permitted to approach. The East
Lancashire Division had the reputation of being one of the smartest
and most efficient of the whole force.
On August 3 units in camp for their annual peace Mobilization
training were recalled, and the order to mobilize the
Division was received at 5.30 p.m. on the following day. Probably
few members of the Territorial Force had realized that their “calling-
up” notices had been ready from the day they joined; that month by
month the addresses on the envelopes were checked and altered
when necessary; that enough ball ammunition was stored at the
various headquarters to enable every man to march out with the full
complement of a fighting soldier, and that field dressings were
available for issue. It must be remembered that never before had the
Force been embodied, and that officers and men were civilians, few
of whom had ever regarded mobilization as other than a remote
possibility quite outside the range of practical politics. Yet the
absence of confusion was remarkable, as all ranks threw themselves
into their new parts with zest, making the best of unusual conditions
and treating discomfort as a jest. The men were quartered in drill-
halls or schools within easy reach of their Headquarters. Major-
General Douglas, commanding the Division, with his General Staff
Officer, Lieut.-Colonel A. W. Tufnell, was daily at the Divisional
Headquarters in Manchester, or at the Headquarters of units,
supervising the mobilization and arrangements. These have been
described as “hectic days.” Improved though the organization was as
compared with that of the Volunteers, it was anything but complete.
Animals and vehicles for transport, harness, and an infinite variety of
requisites had to be procured by free purchase or by
commandeering in great haste. This was the weakest part of the
scheme, and though much ingenuity was displayed by officers
unaccustomed to this sort of thing, the waste was great. To such
shifts were they reduced that street watering-carts were bought from
Urban District Councils, and actually taken to Egypt. Among the
weird varieties of carts thus acquired one of the best remembered is
the “Black and Green” van which did duty as a Medical Officer’s
vehicle, and was last seen bleached by the sun, but with the original
lettering still traceable under the service grey, at Gabari Docks,
Alexandria in February 1917. Nothing could better illustrate the
inability of a large and patriotic section of the public to grasp the
significance of events than the expectation freely expressed by
vendors that their horses or carts would be returned to them in the
course of a few weeks. In some cases the drivers of requisitioned
animals joined the Territorial unit in order to remain with their horses.
On August 10 Lord Kitchener invited the Territorial Force to
volunteer for foreign service. By August 12 the three Infantry
Brigades had accepted the invitation, and within a few days ninety
per cent. of the East Lancashires eagerly seized the opportunity.
England saw with pride the keenness of the Territorials to meet the
enemy, and knew that her sons were true to the breed. For more
than fifty years she had treated her citizen-army as something that
must not be taken too seriously, but that is England’s way. The
response was magnificent, but it was expected, for the nation never
doubted that they would answer the call. It was no small gift they
offered. The most powerful army the world had ever seen was
moving forward victoriously towards Paris, remorseless and
apparently irresistible; and the Territorials offered their bodies for
death and mutilation, and gave up parents, wives, children, homes,
prospects, and all they held most dear. At a later period such
sacrifice was demanded as the nation’s right, but in August 1914 a
lead had to be given, an example set. Old volunteers were not
content to look on while the younger generation fought and suffered.
Daily a stream of old members, N.C.O.s and men, many in the
autumn of their lives, besieged the Headquarters of their old corps
and clamoured to be allowed to join up, lying cheerfully and brazenly
in respect of their age. Many gained their object; more were almost
broken-hearted by their rejection. The example set in those dark
days was a stimulus and incentive to recruiting all over the country,
and especially so in the great towns of Lancashire, where the “Pals”
battalions were soon to be raised. It was the vindication of the
Volunteer. “Defence, not Defiance,” had been their motto, but who
among the prescient founders and bulwarks of the movement could
ever have conceived the idea of the glorious rôle to be filled by the
corps they had helped to raise—of the old Volunteer units from every
county and city, at full strength, fighting and laying down their lives in
Belgium, France, Egypt, Gallipoli, Palestine and Greece, and taking
an inspiring part in the greatest of all crusades against the Turk?
Until August 20 officers and men remained within easy reach of
their Headquarters. The Division was then moved into camps in the
neighbourhoods of Bolton, Bury and Rochdale, and anxiously it
awaited the summons. Another fortnight passed, and the rumour that
Egypt was to be the destination began to gain ground. Rumour was,
however, at this time a discredited jade, fit subject for scorn, for was
she not responsible for the passage through England and Scotland
of myriads of Russian soldiers, the ice and snow of Archangel still
clinging to their boots and beards, who had been seen by thousands
of British optimists at every railway junction in the land? But in the
training camps of East Lancashire she was restored to public favour
when a telegram, dated September 5, was received by the Divisional
Commander from Lord Kitchener—
“Inform the Division from me that I hope that they will push
on hard with their training in Egypt, as, before they are ready,
there will be plenty of troops from India to garrison Egypt, and
I hope they will be one of the first of the Territorial Forces to
join our Army on the Continent. All will depend on their fitness
for service against the enemy in the Field.—Kitchener.”
General Douglas spoke for every man in the Division when he

replied: “All ranks much gratified to receive your message. They are
animated with keen desire to fit themselves to join our forces on the
Continent.”
On the 9th September the Division entrained for Southampton,
about forty trains being required to convey men, horses, guns, and
all the material of war; and on the 10th 15,500 Lancashire men, with
about a thousand officers and men of the Hertfordshire and City of
Westminster Yeomanry, embarked upon the great adventure, the first
Territorial Division to volunteer for foreign service, and the first to
leave England’s shores. It was a record of which the Lancashire men
were justly proud, and which secured to them from the start the
prestige and esprit de corps that are usually the outcome of long and
honourable tradition. The details that were not going out with the
Division became the nucleus of the Second Line, which sent drafts to
the First Line until about the end of August 1915, when the Second
Line East Lancashire (66th) Division was formed. After that date the
drafts came from the Third Line units. The Duke of Lancaster’s Own
Yeomanry had been accepted for voluntary service overseas, and it
had been hoped that the whole regiment would accompany the
Division, but finally only “A” Squadron, was ordered to embark.
It was midnight when the troopships steamed out Departure for
of the harbour, a dark night, all lights doused, no Egypt
coastwise lights to guide, the blackness stabbed by
scores of searchlights. The troops on board one of the ships began
to sing and the whole convoy took up the strains. In the morning the
first arrivals lay-to off the Eddystone, until, by late afternoon, a great
fleet had assembled. At sundown the convoy sailed in three lines
ahead, escorted by the battleship Ocean and the cruiser Minerva. It
is said that this was the first actual convoy that had left England
since the Napoleonic wars.
The rough weather of the first three days and much unavoidable
discomfort aboard ship were borne with cheerfulness. The men had
the impression that they were sadly overcrowded, but subsequent
experience of life in “cubby-holes” and “dug-outs” modified their
ideas of what lack of space really means. It was noticed that even
the worst sufferers from seasickness never lost hope, as, although
whole messes did not eat a meal during those three days, the daily
indent for one bottle of beer per man was always drawn, to be saved
for happier days. Rumours of the presence of enemy craft off
Portugal gave rise to a pleasing sense of excitement and risk, but
nothing happened. Early on September 17 the mighty rock of
Gibraltar loomed suddenly out of the mist, and soon the mystical,
sun-scorched, tawny hills of Northern Africa were sighted.
From Gibraltar the convoy was escorted by the Minerva only. As
the weather improved it was found that, in spite of the crowded life
aboard the troopships, quite a lot of theoretical training, and even a
certain amount of physical, could be given, and there was little time
for leisure in the Mediterranean. One brilliant day, after Malta had
been passed, the sight of a great fleet sailing towards the West
caused much excitement. Soon the news spread that this was the
Lahore Division bound for Marseilles—war-hardened Sikhs,
Gurkhas, Dogras, Punjabis, Pathans, and Rajputs, all eagerly
looking forward to the day when they should cross steel with the
famous soldiers of Germany, and confident of the result of such
meeting. After exchange of greetings and of escorts, the Weymouth
taking the Minerva’s place, flags were dipped and adieux waved. It
was a wondrous sight, this great gathering of mighty ships, carrying
tens of thousands of men and all their material of war from East to
West and from West to East—an object lesson of the strength and
resources of the Empire.
On the 25th September, a misty, languorous morning, the low,
sandy coast of Egypt, fringed with surf, with here and there a clump
of palm trees, was sighted. It was the Egypt of anticipation, curiously
familiar even to men whose travels had rarely taken them beyond
the confines of Lancashire. As the troopships slowly entered
Alexandria Harbour they passed a battle-cruiser of the U.S. Navy.
Though a strict neutrality had to be maintained in respect of action,
there was no attempt to observe it in sentiment. To the delight of the
Lancashire men the Americans manned ship; their band played “God
save the King,” and generally “they did us proud.” The Division was
keen to show its appreciation. The band of the 8th Manchesters,
uncertain whether “Yankee Doodle,” “The Star-spangled Banner,” or
“My Country, ’tis of Thee,” is considered the national anthem of the
United States, and doubting their ability to render either of the first
two airs pleasingly—the third tune being that of our own national
anthem, and therefore open to misconstruction—struck up “Marching
through Georgia.” All too late came the reflection that possibly the
cruiser’s complement had been drawn from States which might not
appreciate this air. However, every one seemed delighted by the
display of cousinly emotion, and felt the better for the incident.
The disembarkation, which began the same day, Arrival in Egypt
was watched critically by regular officers who were
waiting to embark for France, and who expressed their delight at the
fine appearance and soldierly bearing of the Territorials. The first
troops to land went on by train to Cairo, where the Yeomanry, the
Lancashire Fusiliers Brigade, the Signal Company, and the Transport
and Supply Column took over Abbasia Barracks. The East
Lancashire Brigade were partly in the Citadel and Kasr-el-Nil
Barracks in Cairo and partly in camp on the Heliopolis Racecourse.
The Artillery also encamped on the racecourse, and the Engineers
occupied the Kasr-el-Nil Barracks. The 5th, 6th and 8th Battalions of
the Manchester Brigade and one company of the 7th Manchesters
remained in Alexandria as garrison, the greater part being quartered
in the Mustapha Barracks and Camp, while detachments were
accommodated in the forts of Ras-el-Tin and Kom-el-Dik. Later, half
of this company of the 7th was sent to Cyprus. The other three
companies of the battalion had been sent to Khartoum via Port
Sudan. Detachments of the R.A.M.C. accompanied the 7th
Manchesters to Cyprus and Khartoum, but the Field Ambulances as
units remained with their affiliated Brigades, the 1st at Alexandria,
the 2nd at Heliopolis, and the 3rd at Abbasia. Detachments of the T.
and S. Column took over A.S.C. duties from the Regulars at
Alexandria, Khartoum and Cyprus. Abbasia was chosen for
Divisional Headquarters.
“Khaki” helmets were quickly issued, but as the Embarkation Staff
had put the tropical clothing in bulk in one ship, some time elapsed
before the heavy serge could be discarded in favour of light drill, and
it was astonishing how well the younger lads endured the excessive
heat. They showed their grit from the start. The usual conditions of
issue were experienced. When only the smaller sizes in headgear,
boots, and clothing are available, how is it that so large a proportion
of big-footed, big-headed, big-framed men turns up? The sun-
helmets were approved. “Bill, will they let us tak’ these whoam wi’
us?” one man was heard to ask. Bill was not one of the many
optimists who took for granted that they would be home for
Christmas. “Tha’ll be lucky if tha tak’s thi yed whoam, never mind thi
⸺ ’emlet!” he replied.
Many of the horses had died on the voyage, for not only were the
ships ill-fitted for horse transport, but orders had been received from
the War Office, in spite of the Divisional Commander’s
expostulations, not to exceed one man to every six horses. It was
not possible for so small a proportion of men, most of whom were
inexperienced, to cope with so many animals. On one boat alone,
the Norseman (an Australian emigrant boat), there were more than
700 horses in charge of ninety-five men, and forty-six animals died
during the voyage. The horses at first suffered greatly from climatic
conditions, and especially from sand-colic. One apparently decided
to lay a protest before the highest quarter, so, evading the picket, it
made its way through a narrow gate into the garden of the C.R.A.
and lay down to die almost on the General’s doorstep. The
veterinary officers had a busy time, and a story concerning one of
these was told with much enjoyment by General Maxwell himself.
The “vet” was working at the highest pressure, when a gentleman in
civil garb came along and, proceeding to ask him sundry questions,
was curtly requested to seek the nether regions and mind his own
business there. His horror on discovering later that his abuse had
been levelled at the head of the Commander-in-Chief may be
imagined.
Lord Kitchener had asked the Territorials to push on with their
training, and General Douglas had assured him that all ranks were
animated by a keen desire to fit themselves for whatever service
might be required of them. Training had now begun in earnest, and
before long a new stimulus, a fresh incentive, to efficiency appeared,
and the prospect of the Division’s participation in actual warfare
became less remote. During October the suspicion that Turkey might
take the plunge and declare herself on the side of the enemy had
become a probability. An attempt to incite Egypt to revolt, and,
indeed, to persuade Mohammedans throughout the world that the
day had dawned when a swift blow should destroy British supremacy
for ever, might confidently be looked for; and an attack upon the
Suez Canal would surely follow. To Mohammedans—with the
exception of the comparatively feeble Shiah sect—the Sultan of
Turkey was the Defender of the Faith, the representative of the
Prophet. Who could say what religious fanaticism might not
accomplish if he should proclaim Jehad against the infidels? The
situation was grave; it might become critical, for the Khedive’s good
faith was distrusted, and with reason.
The Regular Army of Occupation had left Egypt for France and
Flanders, and Lancashire civilians—clerks, warehousemen, artisans,
mill-hands, merchants, professional men—were responsible for law
and order in the ancient land of the Pharaohs, for its defence and for
the safe-guarding of the Suez Canal and the communications
between West and East. They kept their charge inviolate, and during
eight months, amid strange surroundings and under trying conditions
of climate, the East Lancashire Division gained the confidence of the
Administration and the respect and esteem of British colony and
native population alike, by their efficiency, their grit, and their
exemplary conduct. As soldiers under fire they had yet to be tested;
as men they were proved and approved. Lancashire, and, indeed,
the whole Territorial Force, have reason to be proud of the first
civilian army that was placed in a position of grave responsibility.
On the 22nd of October intelligence was received of considerable
Turkish activity in the Sinai Peninsula. We were still at peace with
Turkey, but it was highly probable that a surprise attack upon the
Suez Canal might precede a formal declaration of war. The Canal
had been patrolled by a battalion of Highland Light Infantry until early
in October, when its duties had been taken over by Indian troops. To
strengthen the Canal defences the 1st and 2nd Field Companies,
R.E., were sent to Ismailia on October 26 and 27, and a few days
later a detachment of the Signal Company and the machine-gun
sections of the 5th Battalion, East Lancashires, and 10th Battalion,
Manchesters, also left Cairo for the Canal zone. The Sappers
bridged the Canal in three places, manned the searchlights, supplied
crews for steam-tugs—it was in consequence of an explosion on one
of these boats that the first casualties of the Division occurred,
Lieutenant Woods and six non-commissioned officers and men
being killed—supervised the water supply, destroyed the native
village of Kantara, and built fortifications. The Signal Company laid a
cable between Kantara, Ismailia, and Suez, and the motor-cycle
despatch riders of this company were the first ever employed on
active service outside Europe. The work of the Engineers received
much-valued commendation from the Commander-in-Chief.
A section each of the 2nd and 3rd Field Ambulances had been
sent to Ismailia and Kantara respectively to be attached to the Canal
defences, and these gave what assistance was needed to Indian
troops as well as to the men of their own Division.[1] Another section
of the 2nd Field Ambulance took charge of the Australian hospital at
Mena, at which place, and also at Meadi and Zeitoun, the East
Lancashire Transport and Supply Column had formed depots and
undertaken transport duties for the Anzacs until their own A.S.C.
units arrived.
On October 31 a force of nearly 9000 Yeomanry and Territorials
marched through the streets of Cairo. Such a display of troops had
never before been seen by the natives, and they were much
impressed at a critical time. The Commander-in-Chief, Sir John
Maxwell, expressed his appreciation of the splendid appearance of
the men and of the salutary effect of the parade on the Egyptians.
Native agitators and German and Turkish agents had for some time
been active in Egypt and the Sudan, seeking to discredit the allies,
and one of these did his best to convince spectators that what they
took to be a powerful force was in reality but a stage army—the
same unit marching in a circle. On November 1 Martial Law was
proclaimed throughout Egypt and the Sudan. On the 5th of
November war was declared against Turkey. The island of Cyprus
was formally annexed on the 7th. Two companies of the 8th
Manchesters had relieved the half-company of the 7th Manchesters
as garrison on October 20, and detachments were sent to the
various towns of the island to prevent disturbances between Greeks
and Turks when the proclamation was made. On December 20
Prince Hussein was declared Sultan of Egypt under British
Protectorate, and the 5th Lancashire Fusiliers provided a guard of
honour on the occasion of the formal entry of the new Sultan into his
capital. In Alexandria and Khartoum the Manchesters had
ceremonial marches through the towns.
For some months the Division was occupied in Work and Play
strenuous training. The men suffered from the heat,
the glare of the sun, the dust, sandstorms, flies, and other plagues of
Egypt, the remarkable drop in temperature at night, the long,
shadeless, desert marches; but they took it all cheerfully as part of
the day’s work, and by the end of the year 1914 they were fairly well
acclimatized and thoroughly fit. There was play as well as work;
cricket, rugger, soccer, lacrosse, and hockey teams were soon hard
at it; concert parties and pierrot troupes discovered unsuspected
talent. There were also boxing contests, and the race meetings on
Gezireh Island provided many dinners at the Continental and
Shepheard’s for the winners. Full advantage was taken of the
opportunities given at week-ends to visit the marvels of Egypt. The
hospitality of the British colonies at Cairo, Alexandria, and elsewhere
was warmly appreciated, and many friendships were formed
between the residents and the men from Lancashire.
The good feeling and comradeship that prevailed throughout the
Division may be illustrated by an incident, slight but typical. On the
occasion of some special parade the 5th Manchesters had to cross
the very sandy parade ground before reaching the asphalt road that
led out of barracks. Noticing the dusty state of their boots the men of
D Company of the 6th Manchesters darted into their quarters, which
were close at hand, and, producing brushes and rags, they quickly
polished the boots of the Wigan men. It was a trifling incident, but
still a perfect expression of the spirit of good comradeship, and it had
a wonderful and lasting effect. The two battalions were knit more
closely together, and later, in Gallipoli, there was a sense of absolute
security in either battalion in the knowledge that the other was in
support.
The first Christmas on active service was celebrated in traditional
style, plum-puddings and other Christmas fare being sent out by
friends at home. The old hymns and carols at the Morning Service
stirred the emotions deeply, and thoughts of home and memories of
bygone Christmas gatherings became poignant. Dining huts and
messes, rooms and verandahs, were garlanded with palm branches,
flowers, lanterns, and chains of coloured paper. Nothing was omitted
to make the day a memorable and happy one, and one to look back
upon. Still, there were some decidedly novel features, chief of which,
perhaps, was the after-dinner swim in the sea, indulged in by a
number of Manchester men in Alexandria. On Boxing Day a great
sports meeting was held at the Gezireh Sporting Club, Cairo, and
many Lancashire men were successful competitors. They were,
however, outshone by the men of the Ceylon Planters Rifle Corps,
whose prowess was hailed with enthusiasm by their Territorial and
Yeomanry rivals.
Casual mention only has been made of the 7th Manchesters. As
the greater part of this battalion occupied a position of splendid
isolation its very interesting experiences must be referred to
separately and all too briefly. B Company had been dropped at
Alexandria to take over the duties of a company of the Suffolk
Regiment in that town and in Cyprus, and the other three companies
remained on board the troopship. Port Sudan was reached on
September 30 after a five days’ voyage, and the warm reception
given them by the Suffolks and the British officials was very welcome
after four weeks at sea. Half of C Company was left to garrison Port
Sudan and, later, among other duties, to patrol the Red Sea in
H.M.S. Enterprise, and to run an armoured train. The rest of the
battalion entrained for Khartoum, a journey of 600 kilometres, where,
on October 2, they were welcomed by the Sirdar, Sir F. R. Wingate,
and his Staff.
Khartoum and the Sudan furnished a succession of novel
experiences to the men from Burlington Street, but no surprise quite
equalled that conveyed to them by the intimation that they were at
once, without preliminary coaching, to supply a half-company to form
the British Camel Corps. The two platoons of C Company were
detailed for this duty. The departing O.C. Camel Corps had little time
in which to impart information to his successor, and there were many
documents to sign, some of these being in Arabic. He seemed
grieved that Manchester men should be ignorant of Arabic and of the
customs, habits, and requirements of camels, but volunteered as
much information as could be crammed into five minutes. Captain C.
Norbury and his subalterns gazed upon their new pets, seventy in
number, without affection, and sat down the better to enjoy the
humour of their predicament before sampling its difficulties. In
despair and not in hope, expecting rather to provoke merriment than
to elicit information, the new O.C. Camels asked his half-company if
any man among them had had experience of camels. Forth stepped
the former camel-keeper of Bostock’s menagerie. The Hour had
brought forth the Man. The 7th Manchesters now felt that they were
equal to any emergency, and soon they provided piano-tuners for the
Sirdar’s palace, trained gardeners for the barracks gardens, and
skilled artisans for every variety of job for which an expert was
demanded.
The Camel Corps was soon proficient enough to be sent by the
Sirdar on a two-weeks’ trek through villages where white men had
rarely been seen, and their presence gave the lie to reports
circulated by Turco-German emissaries that all white troops had
been recalled from Egypt and the Sudan to defend their home
country from the enemy at its gates. Incidentally they had the
opportunity of seeing the wonderful results of Manchester enterprise
in the great cotton-growing areas through which they passed. Not
only had Khartoum been transformed from a collection of mud huts
into a town of imposing buildings, shops, and public works, but the
savage Sudan of a few years ago was in process of transformation
into a land of peace and prosperity.
Training proceeded under the same trying conditions of climate
experienced by their comrades in Egypt; the same games and sports
were enjoyed with similar zest; and fitness and efficiency prevailed.
The conduct of the men received and merited high praise from the
Sirdar—who paid the battalion the distinction of becoming its
honorary Colonel—and from all with whom they came in contact.
Relations with the natives were excellent, and a firm friendship was
formed with the Egyptian regiment in Khartoum. The first of all active
service periodicals, The Manchester Sentry, was published in
Khartoum, the Sirdar and Lady Wingate contributing. The three
companies rejoined their comrades of the Manchester Brigade in
Cairo on April 23, 1915.
On January 19, 1915, the Manchester Brigade Defence of the
was transferred from Alexandria and Cyprus to Suez Canal
Cairo, and the 5th and 8th Lancashire Fusiliers
were sent to Alexandria. Reports of renewed activity on the part of
the Turks pointed to an attempt to seize the Suez Canal and invade
Egypt. On January 20 the 1st and 3rd Brigades, R.F.A., were
despatched to the Canal zone, to be followed a few days later by the
1st Field Company, R.E., which had recently been brought back to
Cairo in order to take part in divisional training. The artillery was
posted on the west bank of the Canal at El Kubri, Serapeum West,
Ferry Post (Ismailia), El Ferdan, and Kantara, most of the guns being
concealed among the pines that grow within a hundred yards of the
bank. The Field Companies assisted the garrisons of Indian troops in
the strong points of the east bank to improve their defences.
The expectations of hostile attack were realized in the early hours
of February 3, when a force of 12,000 Turks and Germans attacked,
and made an attempt to cross the Canal midway between the east
bank strong points of Serapeum and Toussoum. Heavy rifle and
machine-gun fire developed between those places about 3 a.m. The
guns of the Egyptian Mountain Battery had, by happy chance or
remarkable intuition, been mounted on the west bank within 400
yards of the main crossing-place selected by the Turks. The chanty
of the enemy, as, unaware of the battery’s proximity, he attempted to
launch the heavy steel pontoons, was much appreciated by the
gunners, who opened fire in the dark at point-blank range. When
daylight came the Battery Commander was able to congratulate
himself on some accurate “spotting,” several holed pontoons and
many dead Turks being found at the water’s edge. One of these
pontoons is now in possession of the Manchester Corporation.
Two sections of the 1st Field Company had been detailed to hold
the west bank at this point, and in the course of the fighting on
February 3 they lost one man killed and two wounded. The 19th
Battery, under Major B. P. Dobson (which had already been in action
on the previous day against the Turkish Camel Corps), played a
conspicuous part in the enemy’s defeat. They had hauled one 15-
pounder through a wood to the bank of the Canal and had fired point
blank into the Turks as they vainly attempted to launch their iron
boats. Another gun was man-hauled to a hill behind the wood, and
this found good targets as the enemy approached the Canal.
Captain P. K. Clapham did some good spotting for the battery from a
precarious and exposed position in a tall fir tree. The 18th Battery, at
Ismailia, fired on the enemy positions with good effect from 2000 to
3000 yards, and every battery of the two brigades shared in the
victory. The 20th Battery, at El Ferdan, had the distinction of being
the first Battery of the Division—and probably the first of any
Territorial unit—to open fire upon an enemy. The total casualties of
the East Lancashire Artillery were five men wounded, four of these
belonging to the 19th Battery. The men of the Signal Company, who
had done good work in this sector, also received their baptism of fire.
The attempt to invade Egypt had failed. The Punjabis (upon whom
fell the brunt of the fighting), the Rajputs and Gurkhas on the east
bank were fully prepared both to meet the attack and to assume the
offensive, inflicting a serious defeat and making important captures.
The Divisional Yeomanry arrived at Ismailia on the 4th of February in
time to co-operate with Indians, Anzacs, and the 5th Battery in
following up the enemy’s retirement. More than 1600 prisoners were
taken. On the 10th General Douglas visited the posts on the Canal,
held by units of his Division, to congratulate his men on their good
work. The 2nd Field Company reached Ismailia on the 6th, and for
the greater part of the month the sappers were kept busy
strengthening the Canal defences, making entanglements, trenches
and bomb-proof shelters, and laying mines. Another attack upon the
Canal was made on the 22nd of March, when the 5th Battery was
again in action, and the next day the Battery accompanied a column
which attacked the Turks in the Sinai Desert about nine miles N.E. of
El Kubri. While the East Lancashire Batteries remained in the Canal
zone Brigadier-General A. D’A. King, Divisional C.R.A., assumed
command of the artillery of the Canal defences.
From the beginning of the year 1915 the training Training and
had become more and more strenuous. There Fitness
were long marches in the desert—occasionally
very long ones—in full marching order, through native villages in
which the many odours were only excelled in numbers, variety, and
offensiveness by the yelping curs that were stirred into noisy activity
by the tramp of the battalions. The Khamsin wind was sickly in its
heat, the atmosphere heavy and laden with sand, the glare of the
sun pitiless, the only shade available while resting being the very
inadequate shelter provided by a blanket stretched on rifles. But the
men were physically fit—they had to be, for only fit men were
needed. The amateurs had become soldiers. The days were past
when the colour-sergeant’s whispered order to the right-flank man of
a company in extended order for “two scouts” would reach the left-
flank man in the form of “the colour-bloke wants a couple of stouts.”
In spite, however, of good physical condition and a fine spirit, it could
not truthfully be stated that the Suez road, with its five-mile towers,
and the Virgin’s Breast had endeared themselves to Lancastrians.
Familiarity had bred not contempt but a whole-hearted loathing for
that accursed highway and that distant mound. The Third Tower was
the usual goal, the advance ceasing just beyond it. How the troops
hated the sight of this detestable pile which, in the dust and glare,

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The Maternal Imagination of Film and

Film Theory 1st ed. Edition Lauren Bliss

Cognitive Theory and Documentary Film 1st ed. Edition

The Oxford Handbook of Film Theory Kyle Stevens

Philosophy of Film Without Theory Craig Fox

Rethinking Film Festivals in the Pandemic Era and After

Quentin Tarantino and Film Theory: Aesthetics and

Identifying and Interpreting Incongruent Film Music 1st

Feminism and the Western in Film and Television 1st ed.

The Film Experience Fifth Edition

ISBN 978-3-030-45896-6 ISBN 978-3-030-45897-3 (eBook)

Cover illustration: ‘The works of Ambroise Pare’, 1633 via archive.org

1 The Maternal Imagination of Film and Film Theory 1

2 Guilty as Charged: Feminist Film Theory and the Early

3 “When We Do Not See Something, We Imagine It to Be

4 Sound and Vision: The Cinematic Figuration of the Virgin

5 Natural and Experimental Births: Pregnancy and

6 Eat the Children!125

7 What Are You Expecting to See? On Childbirth in Visual

The Maternal Imagination of Film and Film

© The Author(s) 2020 1

the use of the psychoanalytic unconscious to surmount the theory of the

literal pregnancy and the maternal where relevant, including where it is

(2004). In Dumplings, a Hong Kong actress and Mainland Chinese

sensory frailty” (1993: 2). In this period, images took on a paradoxical

is nonetheless primarily addressed to questions of cinematic reproduction;

celebrated but also cautiously critiqued for its “unintentional convergen-

livestock and widespread sickness in the community. While “her tongue

1.2 Imagining the Imaginary of Film Theory

The invention of new moving image technologies does not displace or

like Hitchcock’s Marnie, the common sense implication of her position is

Nonetheless, while such analytical discourses have remained powerful

others, feminism itself is a witch-hunt, characterised especially in the wake

of political and psychological categories through techniques of self-­

Bovenschen, Silvia, Jeannine Blackwell, Johanna Moore, and Beth Weckmueller.

Guilty as Charged: Feminist Film Theory

© The Author(s) 2020 25

imaginary, the crime of witchcraft and the development of proto-cinema,

modern idea of the deceptive imagination takes the form of an admittedly

2.1 The Proto-Cinematics of Witchcraft: “As Has

dichotomy of opposition (male as powerful, female as subordinated), nor

psychoanalysis to cinema from the moment of its inception, the traditional

Attending to the contemporary currency of witchcraft in his essay “The

[T]he underlying notion that witchcraft and witch-hunting represent a ter-

2.2 Flying Ointment: The Cinematics

Within the domain of proto-cinema scholarship, the writings of early mod-

The twelve battalions of infantry were brigaded as follows—

General Douglas spoke for every man in the Division when he

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1 The Maternal Imagination of Film and Film Theory 1

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3 “When We Do Not See Something, We Imagine It to Be

4 Sound and Vision: The Cinematic Figuration of the Virgin

5 Natural and Experimental Births: Pregnancy and

6 Eat the Children!125

7 What Are You Expecting to See? On Childbirth in Visual

of political and psychological categories through techniques of self-