Kaja Silverman writes in “Suture [Excerpt]” that the construction of the cinematic film as an object creates a kind of anxiety in the viewer. Because the image is limited on all sides by the periphery of the camera, the viewer's point of view is limited, reduced, and fixed (219-29). And because the images are assembled on the film to form a series of images, a form of suture is at work in the construction of the story. The filmmakers make the viewer connect to the story by suturing them into the film. We, the audience, find ourselves “in the story”; we become emotionally involved and identify with the character on screen. In this article, I will connect suture theory to The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), through the exploration of camera composition. The field/inverted field was identified as the core of the suture. Suture theorists Jean-Pierre Oudart and Daniel Dayan “find that the field/reverse field formation is practically synonymous with the suture operation” (220). The use of the shot/reverse shot aligns the viewer's point of view with the character and makes the viewer want to see the next shot. For example, in the scene where the trio decides to kill Cody, we see a shot of bandits going up the mountain. Then in reverse shot, we see the reaction of the trio and of Cody, whose point of view would have determined the previous shot. Plane 1 was thus transformed into a signifier for plan 2, connecting the field of “the Absent” to the gaze of a fictional character (220). Through this operation, the spectators are sewn, sutured into the subject positions that the film has constructed. The spectator is invited to identify with the gaze of the fictional character and to deny that he (the spectator) oc...... middle of paper ...... spectator, without ever suturing ourselves in a position of identification with any character, although this is probably the most common way in which we are sutured into a film. However, we are not referring to a character in the film, but rather to a position such as that of an apparent observer or other participant in the action of the story. Works CitedPsycho. DVD. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. 1960; Universal City, CA: Universal Studios, 1999. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. DVD. Directed by John Huston. 1948; Burbank, California; Turner Entertainment Co.: Warner Home Video, 2010. Silverman, Kaja. “Suture [Excerpts].” In Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology: A Film Theory Reader, edited by Philip Rosen, 219-235. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986. Heath, Stephen. “Narrative space”. In Screen, edited by Philip Rosen, 379-420. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986.