Television (Jacques Lacan, 1973)

The psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan answers to questions submitted by his son-in-law Jacques-Alain Miller. The ORTF (french public TV) broadcast this programme called «psychanalyse». Then, this intervention was re-written and published in 1974 under the name Télévision. This programme and the text which stemmed from it became famous because this is the only real televisual practise by Lacan. The way he (hardly) tries to adapt himself to TV’s prosody provides us a video-object just as strange as singular.

Tackled themes here are far from being completely new for a regular Séminaire’s listener (no crucial question is missing for the ones who have attended the Séminaire for 10 years), but the TV spectator can’t make head or tail of Lacan’s style (such a different style than he has during his Séminaire) and of the too-quickly-declaimed Lacanian’s aphorisms. Though this TV show appears obscure, we can’t deny its extreme preciseness, even if it causes some uneasiness on both sides of the screen. Nevertheless, this archive has a rare intensity.