The Implication of Gazes: Analyzing Louise Brooks' and Valentino's Performances in Pandora's Box & Blood and Sand

A gaze can be a simple look, someone fixing their focus on another person or object which catches their attention. The reasons behind the gaze can vary from the inane all the way to some deeply-rooted desire of the "gazer," who could be captivated by the subject of his/her gaze so much to the point of fantastic passionate dreaming about this subject, stopping the gazer dead in his or her tracks. Certainly this usage of gazing has become a staple of film over the years, a cinematographic / narrative element originating in early silent films which is still prevalent in movies today. When wielded correctly audiences can become overwhelmingly enamored with stars and intrigued by the subtle contextual layering of characterization and plot the scene hints at. Two stars who were greatly celebrated, eroticised and remembered for their gazes are Louise Brooks, primarily for her role of Lulu in G. W. Pabst's Pandora's Box, and Rudolph Valentino, his gaze being a staple of his films though this analysis will primarily focus on his portrayal of the matador Juan Gallardo in Blood and Sand. While on the surface the gazes cast by / upon Lulu and Juan seem to merely imply infatuation or erotic intrigue, their impact they have on the story and world presented in each film along with their use in constructing narratives turns these gazes into something much more powerful and cinematic, their outcome uniquely affecting the world of the films in very different ways (Juan's gaze at first bringing more positive benefits while Lulu's bring about her collapse and demise).
In her essay "The Erotic Barter: Pandora's Box (1929)," Mary Ann Doane highlights just how important of a role gazes have in the film, not only in developing Lulu as a character but also for constructing and delivering to the audience pivotal scenes in the film. She argues that "Pandora's Box is structured by an optics of eroticism based on a network of gazes which signal the momentous events of the scenario and an acting mode which relies heavily on the expressivity of the eyes as a readable text" (Doane, 66). Characters either lock eyes with Lulu or they gaze upon her; occasionally Lulu returns the look with her own playful gaze suggesting either a mutual attraction or curiosity. Doane also lists climatic scenes where characters gaze upon each other, such as Schon's death and Schon seeing Lulu behind the scenes at the theater (Pandora's Box). While no words are shared during these gazes, the implications of the gazes speak volumes for the situations at hand, letting audiences discover themselves how they should react to the scene instead of the film heavily implying how to feel through dialogue. In these scenes the "horror as well as the eroticism of seeing are inscribed within the mise en scene" (Doane, 66), meaning what is on the screen can speak for itself '" the audience can interpret for themselves how to react.
Miriam Hansen offers a similar analysis of gazes in Valentino films in her essay "Valentino and Female Spectatorship." She describes how Valentino's popularity soared during his short career '" in only fourteen films he went from a small time actor to an iconic sex symbol. His elevation to sex symbol can be partially attributed to the way he gazed upon women in his films, as well as the way in which women hailed him as the height of romanticism, saying "never again was spectatorship so explicitly linked to the discourse on female desire" (Hansen, 634). Hansen further argues a trend among all of Valentino's films, one in which Blood and Sand is no exception: "Whenever Valentino lays eyes on a woman first, we can be sure that she will turn out to be the woman of his dreams, the legitimate partner in the romantic relationship; whenever a woman initiates the look, she is invariably marked as a vamp, to be condemned and defeated..." (Hansen, 637). This is seen in Blood and Sand through Carmen, Juan's old childhood sweetheart and Dona Sol, the corruptive daughter and widow of the President of the National Association of the Sport. Juan clearly first notices Carmen during his parade through town and gazes upon her a little after, both gazes returned by Carmen. Following Hansen's argument, the two get married and live happily for the time being, until Dona Sol first casts her gaze upon Juan before the bull fight, sealing her fate as the "vamp" who will try to seduce (successfully in this film) Juan into erotic temptation and infidelity.
The result of gazing in Pandora's Box surely differs from what happens in Blood and Sand and in Valentino films as a whole, with Pandora's Box utilizing gazing in a much more negative way than Valentino films. Lulu flirtatiously gazes upon many of the characters in Pandora's Box: "everyone... is the potential recipient of a look which acknowledges no boundaries of class or position... she gives her look freely" (Doane, 66). Lulu's innocent and harmless gazing becomes exploited throughout the film, resulting in her being sold to a brothel, resorting to prostitution and eventually her demise through trusting Jack the Ripper. Her death (we do not directly see a knife go into Lulu but her stabbing is heavily implied) can seen as a punishment for her overt sexuality and romanticism, starkly contrasting Juan's gazing in Blood and Sand. Upon first gazing at his old childhood sweetheart Carmen, we could tell that Juan instantly fell in love and as a result they soon marry. Their first gaze together is a much more innocent look of love when compared to any of the gazes present in Pandora's Box. Both Juan and Carmen both look to be genuinely doe-eyed and attracted to each other, and due to this they end up marrying each other (again a common element of Valentino films, Hansen describes how each of his films "reiterates a familiar pattern in staging the exchange of looks between Valentino and the female characters" [Hansen, 637). Contrast this to Lulu who does give genuine gazes of attraction several times during the film, but those who gaze back are either framed in a more exploitative way (as seen with Jack the Ripper toward the end of the film) or suggest feelings other than mutual innocent attraction toward Lulu (Doane describes Schon's "castrating look of the Father" [Doane, 66). While Juan's gaze rewards him at the time with happy matrimony, Lulu's gaze ends up guaranteeing "her position as the very figure of catastrophe" (Doane, 66).
The importance of gazing in both of these films goes beyond conveying plot points or fostering characterization in scenes, however, and despite the different results gazing brings to each story its employment as a cinematic convention garners similarities between the two. Specifically a reference to Pandora's Box, although the argument can also be applied to Blood and Sand, Doane says that through the use of gazes, "narrative self-consciously strings together scenes which are staged for an internal audience" (Doane, 66). Both films utilize gazes in a way which seems to stop time around them; during a gaze by or upon Lulu and Juan the film forces the audience into thinking about this gaze by ignoring or stopping everything else around it. Since the films are aware they are halting (the directors of these films certainly put in these scenes intentionally), gazing can serve as a method of conveyance from the narrative to the audience '" the films selectively place emphasis on what the audience should be paying attention to, effectively controlling how an audience should react to a scene.
Gazing certainly serves as an important cinematic convention and method of narration and characterization in Pandora's Box and Blood and Sand. These two films accurately portray how this technique can be used while still taking the narrative in a very different direction. Much can be implied through the looks between characters upon or at each other, making gazing a wonderful technique to subtly allow the audience to interpret a scene for themselves.

Works Cited:

Blood and Sand. Dir. Fred Niblo. Perf. Rudolph Valentino. Paramount Pictures, 1922.

Doane, Mary Ann. "The Erotic Barter: Pandora's Box (1929)." The Films of G.W. Pabst. Eric Rentschler. New Brunswick: Rutger's University Press, 1990.

Hansen, Miriam. "Pleasure, Ambivalence, Identification - Valentino and Female Spectatorship." Film Theory and Criticism. Sixth Ed. Leo Braudy, Marshall Cohen. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Pandora's Box. Dir. G. W. Pabst. Perf. Louise Brooks. Süd-Film, 1929.