Laura Mulvey/Peter Wollen
«Riddles of the Sphinx»

Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen's film (1977) addresses the position of women in patriarchy through the prism of psychoanalysis. Riddles of the Sphinx (1977) draws on the critical writings and investigations by both filmmakers into the codes of narrative cinema, and offers an alternative formal structure through which to consider the images and meanings of female representation in film.

The film is constructed in three sections and 13 chapters, combining Mulvey's own to-camera readings around the myth of Oedipus's encounter with the Sphinx with a series of very slow 360 degree panning shots encompassing different environments, from the domestic to the professional. Louise, the narrative's female protagonist, is represented through a fragmented use of imagery and dialogue, in an attempt to break down the conventional narrative structures of framing and filming used to objectify and fetishise women in mainstream cinema.

(Source: Screenonline - http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/567526/)