Patrick Mahony - Psychoanalytic Theory & Film

1. Psychoanalytic Theory & Film

2. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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).

7. 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.

8. Lacan: The mirror stage
French 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.

9. Psychoanalytical Film Theory
The 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.

10. How this can be useful for us?
Pleasure
We can use it to examine the pleasure we get from
watching films.
Meaning
The 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 character
What motivates the character? (Their actions &
relationships with others?) (How they react and act
with one another?)

11. 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.