Abstract

When considering possible theoretical perspectives for an ethical conceptualisation oferotic or sexually explicit display in cinema, such as recent controversial work by Frenchfemale directors Catherine Breillat and Claire Denis, the thought of Emmanuel Levinas isperhaps not the most likely or obvious candidate. Levinas has little to say directly aboutsexuality or pornography, even though the concepts of desire and Eros are central tomuch of his philosophy.1Equally, he is notoriously suspicious of figurality and the realmof the visual, a suspicion he voices especially forcefully in his essay on the work of art‘Reality and its Shadow’ . It is,paradoxically, and perhaps perversely, for this very reason that this article will considerhim as potentially the theorist par excellence for viewing sexual images in cinema