In Search of the Self: A Biographical Dyptych by the Łozińskis in the Context of the Lacanian Mirror Stage
Mirosław Przylipiak
mprzylipiak@gmail.comUniversity of Gdansk (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7552-8112
Abstract
The subject of this paper is one shot included in two films: Ojciec i syn (Father and Son) (2013) by Paweł Łoziński and Ojciec i syn w podróży (Father and Son on a Journey) (2013) by Marcel Łoziński. This shot from the Łozińskis' family archive displays the father (Marcel Łoziński) standing in front of a mirror with a film camera in one hand and his little son Paweł on the other arm. It seems to be a perfect illustration of Jacques Lacan’s concept of the mirror stage, according to which the moment in which a baby recognizes itself in the mirror is a turning point, creating an awareness of individual identity, alongside with an awareness of its separateness from its principal caretaker. In this paper, the author analyses analyzing this shot through the prism of Lacanian theory, while also taking into account the differences in the editing of each film.
Keywords:
father and son, Paweł Łoziński, Marcel Łoziński, the mirror stage, psychoanalysisReferences
Borkowska, A., Witkowska, M. (2000). Sharenting i wizerunek dziecka w sieci. Poradnik dla rodziców. Warszawa: NASK Państwowy Instytut Badawczy.
Google Scholar
Deleuze, G. (2008). Kino. Gdańsk: słowo/obraz terytoria.
Google Scholar
Grosz, E. (1990). Jacques Lacan: A Feminist Introduction. London – New York: Routledge.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203330029
Google Scholar
Demby, Ł. (2001). Kino w zwierciadle psychoanalityka. Lacanowska faza „lustra” jako fundament wrażenia realności w kinie. Estetyka i Krytyka, nr (1), ss. 47-59.
Google Scholar
Holland, N. N. (1991). The Trouble(s) With Lacan. W: Literature and Psychology: Pro-ceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Literature and Psychology, Urbino, July 6-9, 1990, (ss. 3-10). Lisbon: Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada. http://users.atw.hu/lacanist/Lacanrol/Norman%20N_%20Holland,%20The%20Trouble(s)%20with%20Lacan.htm
Google Scholar
Hybiak, M. (2019). W matni symbolicznego. Filmowa twórczość Romana Polańskiego w świetle współczesnej psychoanalizy. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Avalon.
Google Scholar
Karpiuk, D. (2013). Syn swojego ojca. Newsweek, (24), s. 93-95.
Google Scholar
Knap, Ł. (2013). Przecinanie pępowiny. Przekrój, (32-33), s. 54-57.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/abitech-2012-0007
Google Scholar
Lacan, J. (1987). Stadium zwierciadła jako czynnik kształtujący funkcję Ja, w świetle doświadczenia psychoanalitycznego. Psychoterapia, 63 (4), ss. 5-9.
Google Scholar
Lacan, J. (2006). Le Seminaire, livre XVI: D’un a l’autre, 1968-1969. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.
Google Scholar
Lacan, J. (2006). The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire. W: J. Lacan, Écrits: The First Complete Edition in English (tłum. B. Fink, ss. 671-702). New York – London: W. W. Norton and Company.
Google Scholar
Lewis, M., Brooks-Gunn, J., Jaskir, J. (1985). Individual Differences in Visual Self-recognition as a Function of Mother-infant Attachment Relationship. Developmen-tal Psychobiology, 21 (6), ss. 1181-1187.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.21.6.1181
Google Scholar
McGowan, T. (2008). Realne spojrzenie. Teoria filmu po Lacanie. Warszawa: Wydawnic-two Krytyki Politycznej.
Google Scholar
Morawski, J. (2021). Europejska filozofia kina po Deleuzie. Rozprawa doktorska napi-sana pod kierunkiem prof. dr hab. Małgorzaty Radkiewicz. Kraków: Uniwersytet Jagielloński.
Google Scholar
Piotrowska, A. (2014). Psychoanalysis and Ethics in Documentary Film. London – New York: Routledge.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315887357
Google Scholar
Rojewska, E. (2018). Rodzina o personalistycznej orientacji wychowawczej jako istot-ne środowisko dla rozwoju integracji seksualnej młodzieży. W: B. Kiereś, M. Gro-mek, K. Hryszan (red.), Rodzina, historia i współczesność (ss. 167-181). Lublin: Katedra Pedagogiki Rodziny Instytutu Pedagogiki Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego Jana Pawła II.
Google Scholar
Rutkowska, T. (2018). Marnotrawne ojcostwo, marnotrawne synostwo i granat w piw-nicy uczuć. Kwartalnik Filmowy, (103), ss. 113-124.
Google Scholar
Sokolik, Z. (1999). Szkoła psychoanalizy francuska – Lacana, Świat psychoanalizy, 9 (1), ss. 98-106.
Google Scholar
Studlar, G. (1985). Masochism and Perverse Pleasures of the Cinema. W: B. Nichols (red.), Movies and Methods (t. 2, ss. 602-624). Berkeley: University of California Press.
Google Scholar
Tallis, R. (1988). Not Saussure: A Critique of Post-Saussurean Literary Theory. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18993-9
Google Scholar
Turczyn, A. (2013). Prawdziwy podmiot w doświadczeniu psychoanalitycznym według Jacques’a Lacana. Edukacja Etyczna, (6), ss. 37-50.
Google Scholar
[tw] (2012, 31 sierpnia). „Pomyśl zanim wrzucisz” – kampania do rodziców nt. zdjęć dzieci w internecie. WirtualneMedia.pl. https://www.wirtualnemedia.pl/artykul/po-mysl-zanim-wrzucisz-kampania-do-rodzicow-nt-zdjec-dzieci-w-internecie
Google Scholar
Authors
Mirosław Przylipiakmprzylipiak@gmail.com
University of Gdansk Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7552-8112
Professor of film and media studies at the University of Gdansk, film critic, translator, documentary filmmaker. His main publications include the books Kino stylu zerowego [Zero Style Cinema] (1994, 2nd edition 2016), Kino najnowsze [New Cinema] (1998), Poetyka kina dokumentalnego [Aesthetics of Documentary Cinema] (2000, 2nd edition 2004), three books on American direct cinema, over 150 academic papers on various aspects of film and media, and numerous film reviews. He translated nearly 30 books, mostly from the fields of psychology and film, and some poetry. He also made several documentary films and educational television series. He was the founder and first managing director of Academic Educational Television at the University of Gdansk. He has been awarded many grants and fellowships, from the Fulbright Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation and the Polish Ministry of Higher Education, among others. His main areas of interest are theory and aesthetics of cinema, documentary film, American direct cinema, and Polish cinema.
Statistics
Abstract views: 412PDF downloads: 334
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Mirosław Przylipiak

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The author grants the publisher a royalty-free non-exclusive licence (CC BY 4.0) to use the article in Kwartalnik Filmowy, retains full copyright, and agrees to identify the work as first having been published in Kwartalnik Filmowy should it be published or used again (download licence agreement). The journal is published under the CC BY 4.0 licence. By submitting an article, the author agrees to make it available under this licence.
In issues from 105-106 (2019) to 119 (2022) all articles were published under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence. During this period the authors granted a royalty-free non-exclusive licence (CC BY-ND 4.0) to use their article in „Kwartalnik Filmowy”, retained full copyright, and agreed to identify the work as first having been published in our journal should it be published or used again.
Most read articles by the same author(s)
- Mirosław Przylipiak, The Category of System in David Bordwell’s Concept of Film Aesthetics , Kwartalnik Filmowy: No. 115 (2021): Form Film, Content Film
- Mirosław Przylipiak, Pleasure on the Verge of Discomfort , Kwartalnik Filmowy: No. 110 (2020): Beyond Human Being
- Mirosław Przylipiak, The Bergsonian Concept of Memory and Filmic Representations of Prosthetic Memory , Kwartalnik Filmowy: No. 125 (2024): Cinema as a Memory Machine
- Mirosław Przylipiak, Cinematic Faces of Contestation , Kwartalnik Filmowy: No. 65 (2009): Film Image, Image in Film (part II)
- Mirosław Przylipiak, Camera as a Superego: Ed Pincus’ “Diaries. 1971-1976” – The Beginnings of Personal Documentaries , Kwartalnik Filmowy: No. 73 (2011): Cinema is Me: Cinematic Autobiographies
- Mirosław Przylipiak, Wajda’s Film Adaptations of Classics in the Eyes of Ewelina Nurczyńska-Fidelska , Kwartalnik Filmowy: No. 75-76 (2011): Faces of Reality