Psychoanalytical film theory
As psychoanalytic film theory refers to a flow of film studies and film theory, which applies the method of psychoanalysis on the phenomenon of film and cinema.
Introduction
The mid-1970s developed, starting from France, a theoretical analysis of the medium of cinema, a mix of psychoanalysis, semiotics, structuralism, Marxism and formed the basis. The focus of this film- theoretical debate was the audience the subject and its relationship to cinema. Base were the considerations of the French theorist Jean Louis Baudry and film theory writings by Christian Metz, whose Le signifiant imaginaire. Psychoanalysis et cinéma (1977, dt. The Imaginary Signifier Psychoanalysis and Cinema ) opened the discussion in earnest. Metz makes the attempt, psychoanalytic terms - in particular the theory of Jacques Lacan - on the field of cinematography transfer.
Psychoanalytic film theory attempts to identify primarily as the unconscious supports the reception of film events, and how film and cinema trigger unconscious, irrational processes and the viewer can watch a film so be a pleasurable experience. If the movie can be as alleged has always been, is now within easy reach of the dream, so it must be possible to get at him with means of psychoanalysis (similar to a dream interpretation ).
Christian Metz describes the question of psychoanalytic film theory as follows: " What contribution can Freudian psychoanalysis to the knowledge about the cinematic signifier " The fact that this is an area of research that auszukommt even without the analysis of individual films or genres, it quickly becomes clear. The aim of the discussion is to make statements about the overall apparatus cinema and its assembly, the audience always subject is the focus of employment. Accordingly, it was never work out the task of psychoanalytic film theory, how the unconscious can be made visible on film (such as dream sequences, representation of visions, flashbacks, etc.). Nor is the examination of films that have the appearance of psychoanalytic problems or psychoanalysis itself on the subject.
The role of the spectator should therefore be decisive, not the role of individual actors or authors. Such a new psychoanalytic method, which began to develop starting from the mid- 1970s from France, could no longer be considered in isolation the film, but had to involve the entire environment cinema. The new theorists came mainly on two existing tendencies of earlier film theory confrontation which they supplemented by the question of the cinematic unconscious: On the one hand, the realism debate about André Bazin, which assumes that the screen acts as a window to the world that the objects and the space outside the canvas implies, lost none of its relevance. On the other hand, there is the formalist position of Eisenstein and Rudolf Arnheim, see the canvas limited by their framing, this limitation shaped and positioned the visible image on the screen.
Jean Mitry leads both metaphors together again by zubilligt the cinema both the state of the window and the framing. By consulting another metaphor finally the new theory developed: The canvas is now regarded as a mirror. The terms reality (windows) and art (framing ) are linked to the question of the audience, introduced the discourse of psychoanalysis and the concept of the unconscious in the discussion. It is about more than just film - two systems are related to each other: the cinema and the psyche.
Train
The classical psychoanalytic film theory began in 1916 with the release of Hugo Münsterberg's study The play of light. It uses mainly the concepts of Sigmund Freud, as the most important concept is the the unconscious processing of oedipal or narcissistic structures mentioned here.
In addition, there since the 1970s, building on the theories of French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan approaches that have been taken up by film scholars such as Laura Mulvey and Christian Metz. Important aspects are the identification and symbolism, as well as on the concept of Lacan's mirror stage -based conception of the imaginary.
A striking feature of the study of psychoanalytic film theory, the almost exclusive preoccupation with films of the classic narrative narrative cinema is ( very popular here are the films of Alfred Hitchcock ), while considerations remain about the avant-garde and experimental film usually completely disregarded.