9.1 Foundations of psychoanalytic film theory

Psychoanalytic film theory digs into our hidden thoughts and desires, showing how movies tap into our subconscious. It looks at how we connect with characters, find meaning in symbols, and get pleasure from watching films.

This approach borrows ideas from Freud, like the unconscious mind and the Oedipus complex. It sees movies as society's shared dreams, with characters representing different parts of our psyche. Film techniques are thought to influence our minds in sneaky ways.

Foundations of Psychoanalytic Film Theory

Key concepts of Freudian psychoanalysis

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• Unconscious mind stores repressed thoughts, desires, and memories influencing conscious behavior and decisions (dreams, slips of the tongue)
• Id, ego, and superego form the structure of personality
  • Id drives primitive desires and instincts (hunger, sex)
  • Ego mediates between id and reality, employing defense mechanisms (rationalization, projection)
  • Superego represents moral conscience and societal norms, developing through parental influence
• Oedipus complex describes child's unconscious desire for opposite-sex parent and rivalry with same-sex parent, shaping adult relationships
• Dream analysis reveals hidden meanings through manifest content (surface narrative) and latent content (symbolism)
• Application to film theory views films as collective dreams of society, characters as psychological states, narratives mirroring mental processes (Inception, Mulholland Drive)

Unconscious mind in cinematic experience

• Suspension of disbelief allows viewers to temporarily accept film's reality, suppressing critical faculties (fantasy genres, science fiction)
• Identification with characters involves projecting unconscious desires onto screen figures, fostering emotional investment (empathy, catharsis)
• Symbolism in visual imagery represents unconscious thoughts through objects and recurring motifs (red in The Sixth Sense, water in The Shape of Water)
• Cinematic techniques influence unconscious perception
  • Editing creates dream-like associations (montage sequences)
  • Camera angles shape viewer's psychological state (low angles for power, high angles for vulnerability)
• Catharsis through film viewing releases repressed emotions and safely explores taboo subjects (horror films, psychological thrillers)

Desire and pleasure in film spectatorship

• Scopophilia describes pleasure derived from looking, with cinema catering to voyeuristic tendencies (Rear Window, Peeping Tom)
• Identification and narcissism involve viewer's pleasure in recognizing aspects of self in characters, projecting idealized self-image
• Fetishism in cinema objectifies body parts or objects, displacing desires onto inanimate elements (shoe focus in Cinderella)
• Male gaze constructs patriarchal perspective in films, often presenting female characters as objects of male desire (Bond films)
• Pleasure in narrative resolution satisfies ego's desire for order and control through closure and conflict resolution (classic Hollywood endings)

Contributions of psychoanalytic film theorists

• Christian Metz developed concept of imaginary signifier, viewed cinema as language system, explored spectator's identification with camera
• Laura Mulvey wrote Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema essay, critiqued Hollywood's patriarchal structure, introduced male gaze concept
• Jacques Lacan's mirror stage theory applied to film spectatorship, explored symbolic order in cinematic representation
• Jean-Louis Baudry proposed apparatus theory, examined ideological effects of basic cinematographic apparatus
• Slavoj Žižek synthesized Lacanian psychoanalysis and film analysis, explored concept of the Real in cinema (The Pervert's Guide to Cinema)