Current Forum: Session 8: Love and Hollywood's Master Narratives	Read 11 times 	
Date: 03-Mar-2001 23:45:11	
Author: WARNER, JENNIE E. <jew3484@garnet.acns.fsu.edu>	
Subject: The Look of Love 	
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       Vivian (Julia Roberts), clad in black thigh-boots and mini-skirt, embodies Mulvian “to-be-looked-at-ness” in Pretty Woman (134). Interestingly, in the hotel lobby scenes, for example, 
Vivian holds, not only the male characters’ gaze, but the gaze of other female characters as well. A specific instance of this would be the first night she enters the hotel with Edward (Richard Gere). During this scene, while Vivian and Edward are waiting to get into the elevator, an older couple gawks at Vivian. The wife seems especially interested in Vivian’s glossy thigh-boots, so Vivian props her leg up in a rather unlady-like position and complains about an imaginary run in her non-existent hosiery. This display prompts the husband’s jaw to drop open, to which the wife replies, “close your mouth, dear.”
       In one of the first few scenes of the film, we learn that Julia’s character is “to-be-looked-at.” In the first sequence of shots of Vivian we are shown only pieces of her at a time. As a matter of fact, the first part of her we see is her butt in black, lacey underwear while she rolls over in bed. We get a high-angle shot of her breasts as she puts on her shirt before we finally see half her face as she applies mascara to her lashes. 
       There are many medium shots and close-ups of Barnie, as Vivian likes to call him, the hotel manager, and Edward as they look at Vivian. We see the wistful look of affection and approval from Barnie as he watches Vivian walk through the hotel lobby looking like a Chanel advertisement when she returns from her successful shopping spree on Rodeo Drive. The camera focuses on Edward giving this look to Vivian as he watches her enjoy an “I Love Lucy” episode in the hotel room, and he gives her this look again at the opera. One of the most dramatic examples of this is the first time Edward sees Vivian once she is all dressed up to go to dinner. Vivian, waiting for Edward at the bar in the hotel lounge, turns around to look toward him. He recognizes her, and the camera zooms in on his face as he glows with admiration for her newfound high-class beauty. She approaches him and states, “you’re late.” “You’re stunning,” he replies. “You’re forgiven,” she says.
       Mark Garrett Cooper, in his article “Love, Danger, and the Professional Ideology of Hollywood Cinema” makes the observation that “the heroine’s face…this gleaming image acquires its authority only in relationship to a film’s other images: in particular, those of the men who look at her” (170). In other words, the look she receives from men empowers her. The 
approving gazes of Barnie and Edward send messages to the audience that Vivian is becoming worthy of a respectful gaze instead of a lustful leer.
       Cooper also says that in “Hollywood cinema, it is the union of two eyelines that defines love…The lovers’ reciprocal gaze bonds them” (170). Keeping Cooper’s statements in mind, I propose that the scene in which Vivian and Edward are laying in bed, gazing into each other’s eyes, while sharing a heart-to-heart conversation is the point at which the two fall in love. Vivian 
tells Edward of her first love and how she became a hooker. Edward tells Vivian that she is very “bright” and that she “could be so much more” than a prostitute. During this scene, they are both naked, their eyes are on an equal plane, level with each other, and it is as if their physical nakedness is symbolic of the emotional honesty with which they present one another in this intimate conversation. They gaze steadily into each other’s eyes, which seems to be a manifestation of their growing, mutual, unwavering affection. It is interesting to note that Vivian appears to be the recipient of “star-lighting” in this scene; she appears more brightly lit than Edward. This is yet another way for the film to represent Vivian’s “to-be-looked-at-ness.”