I don't know how often the climax of a blowjob has been prefaced with the line "You're about to reap the fruits of your labor," but its unnecessary literary pretentiousness—nearly three times the syllables of the standard "I'm gonna cum"—makes it the perfect phrase for a writer protagonist exploring his dominant side for the first time. Originally published in 1956 as a sadomasochistic erotica novel by Jean de Berg (nom de plume of Alain Robbe-Grillet's wife and dominatrix, Catherine), Radley Metzger's adult film adaptation of The Image (1975) sees Jean, a writer in Paris, recount being drawn into a BDSM relationship between his photographer friend, Claire, and her young submissive play partner, Anne. Jean is baffled by the mysterious arrangement between the women, but he's nonetheless fascinated by their casual understanding that whatever Claire says, Anne must do, in an ouroboros power chase of dominating and submitting for both parties to achieve pleasure. As confused as Jean is by their relationship, his attraction to it wins out and he begins to collaborate with Claire in controlling Anne's role.
Celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, the X-rated film, also known as The Punishment of Anne or The Mistress and the Slave, may still shock many in its depictions of humiliation, urination, bondage, public edging, and, of course, punishment and pain, usually in the form of whipping. As the title suggests, the images of Anne's submissiveness replay repeatedly in Jean's mind in the ways expected of a crush, but submission isn't something Jean's accustomed to lusting after. “I probably needed to feel that at least some little thing was vulnerable in order to arouse a desire in me to win her,” he admits early on, thinking about why he's never been attracted to the calculated and confident Claire. But in Anne, Jean gets more vulnerability than he could ever imagine from a woman. He gets total domination and his need “to win her” over to prove his own desirability is replaced by a passive already-have-won-her assurance through Anne's complicity.
Ultimately, Jean's experimentations being Anne's dom are part of a personal quest to recreate the stirrings he felt when first seeing a portfolio of Claire's photographs featuring Anne: chained up, whipped, blindfolded, nude. Vaguely aware that he's been chasing after something he's already seen and felt, it all comes to a head for Jean when Claire takes him and Anne to “The Gothic Chamber,” the same room where the photographs were taken. Giving Jean the means to live out the very scenarios that had excited him so much in the beginning doesn't quell his desire, but instead amplifies it in unexpected ways. Desire is maintained through lacking that which is desired; in getting exactly what he thought he wanted, Jean learns what he had really been after all along.
Images are all representative, even in photographs. What’s captured is still only shown back to us as an illusion on a surface, a copy of the real thing that was witnessed by the lens. Throughout The Image, Jean is continuously faced with recreations of what he's already seen. "What I can name cannot really prick me. The incapacity to name is a good symptom of disturbance," wrote Roland Barthes in Camera Lucida. An image, no matter how tantalizing, does not show us the true thing that we desire. Instead, it provokes us into fantasizing about our desire in an attempt to satisfy our arousal. As with scratching any itch though, sometimes it hurts, sometimes it feels good, and sometimes it's both.
The Image screens tonight, August 7, at Nitehawk Williamsburg as part of the series "Skin Deep."
