Psychoanalytic Theory & Film

Psychoanalysis : An overview Developed by Sigmund Freud and his followers in 1890’s .

Psychoanalysis is : A set of philosophical descriptions of human nature. A method of psychotherapy development that focus on

unconscious factors that motivate behavior and encourages the use of transference as a way for therapists to gain information and create connections between clients and themselves.

A theory of personality which is developed through different stages in life.

Psychoanalysis asserts that the impact of early childhood

sexuality and experiences, stored in the unconscious, can lead to the development of adult emotional problems.

Sigmund Freud ( 1856-1939) Born in Vienna, Austria to a family of

three boys. Enrolled in medical school in 1873,

earning a degree a medical degree at the age of twenty-four.

While doing his residency in a psychiatric hospital in Vienna, he became interested in the study of the behavior and the mind.

Freud furthered his studies at a neurological clinic in France. Here , Freud became interested in hysteria.

Together with Breuer he published Studies on Hysteria (1895). At the age of thirty-nine Freud first used the term "psychoanalysis," (a way to treat certain mental illnesses by exposing and discussing a patient's unconscious thoughts and feelings) and his major lifework was well under way.

Psychoanalysis: The nature of man Human nature is viewed as deterministic.Life is about gaining pleasure and

avoiding pain.Behavior is guided by irrational forces ,

unconscious motivations , and biological and instinctual drives .

These forces evolve through key psycho-sexual stages in the first 6 years of life.

Psychoanalysis: Consciousness and the Unconscious Unconsciousness Part of the mind that stores repressed

memories. Freud believed that the majority of what

we experience in our lives, the underlying emotions, beliefs, feelings, and impulses are not available to us at a conscious level.  He believed that most of what drives us is buried in our unconscious.

While buried there, however, they continue to impact us dramatically According to Freud.

According to Freud, unconscious impulses leak out in everyday life in forms of parapraxes: forgetting, slips of the tongue,  accidents. ,wit: a “leak” occurring in a controlled manner and dreams: “the royal road to the unconscious” containing latent content.

Freud's famous couch, in his London clinic (after he moved in 1938 to Maresfield Gardens to flee the Nazis).

Psychoanalysis: Consciousness and the Unconscious ( cont.)Consciousness Freud believed that everything

we are aware of is stored in our conscious. Our conscious makes up a very small part of who we are.

This is the aspect of our mental processing that we can think and talk about rationally. A part of this includes our memory, which is not always part of consciousness but can be retrieved easily at any time and brought into our awareness.

Lacan: The mirror stageFrench psychoanalyst Jacques

Lacan was a follower of Freud.According to Lacan, the mirror

stage occurs in infants between six and eighteen months of age, when they recognize themselves while looking in the mirror and this forms the basis for the development of the infant's ego.

Psychoanalytic film theorists took this analogy as their point of departure.

Psychoanalytical Film TheoryThe film screen serves as a mirror through which the spectator

can identify himself or herself as a coherent and omnipotent ego. The sense of power that spectatorship provides derives from the

spectator's primary identification with the camera itself. This identification with the camera provides the spectator with an illusion of unmitigated power over the screen images.

Within the filmic discourse, the camera knows no limit: it goes everywhere, sees everyone, exposes everything. The camera inaugurates a regime of visibility which allows spectators to believe themselves to be all-seeing (and thus all-powerful). Like God, the spectator sees all but remains constitutively unseen in the darkened auditorium.

How this can be useful for us? PleasureWe can use it to examine the pleasure we get from

watching films.MeaningThe bulk of the meaning within the film is encoded

and decoded by the mind of the viewer who watches the film unconsciously.

The complexities of the characterWhat motivates the character? (Their actions &

relationships with others?) (How they react and act with one another?)

The Key Question to Ask...How do we identify with the characters on

the screen and how much do we understand ourselves and sympathise with the characters?

Let’s watch a scene from Mid Cow.