Critical Approaches to Film

Critical Approaches to Film

Psychoanalysis & brief intro to feminist film theory

A therapeutic method, originated by Sigmund Freud, for treating mental disorders by investigating the interaction of conscious and unconscious elements in the patient’s mind and bringing repressed fears and conflicts into the conscious mind, using techniques such as dream interpretation and free association.

What is psychoanalysis?

Idea of Repression in The Sixth Sense

The UncannyUncanny occurs when everyday seemingly normal objects are made unfamiliar Provokes mental anxiety in viewerArousing feeling or sensation that is frightening strange and yet secretly familiar

1. Deja Vu2. The Double

3. Automaton

Who invented it?

What happened before it was invented?

Main purpose of psychoanalytical research = to gain an understanding of the unconscious Freud proposed a person’s awareness existed in layers within psyche and that some thoughts lay just below the surface.

Main purpose of Psychoanalysis?

The Interpretation of Dreams 1899

Gaining access to unconscious through dreamsDream is the (disguised fulfilment of a (repressed) wish Freud thought dreams could reveal symptoms of illness and could be used to help treat peoplePatients talk freelyUsed ‘free association’

ID in film is associated with villains who

follow their desires irrespective of the hurt, suffer or guilt they may cause. Lawless and amoral.

Superego in

film usually represented by a mentor, father-figure or role model.

Ego in film is typically

represented by the hero. Most heroes work to overcome challenges in order to defeat a nemesis. have to adapt to and learn from situations they find themselves in. ego must suppress and control the id. similarly hero battles and defeats villain.

The ID/ SUPEREGO/ EGO are interlinked. According to Freud...mind can be seen to be in a permanent state of struggle due to the conflicting nature of the three layers of the psyche.

Repression

• Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex by Sophocles • Oedipus unwittingly killed his father and

married his mother• Freud used this model to explain child’s

needs for its parents and the change in the child’s desires

• He observed: as child gets older (3-6 years) it recognises that it isn’t the sole focus of the mother’s attention which is also bestowed on father.

• Because father allowed sexual contact with mother, child supposedly hates father for this.

• Part of this (oedipal) rivalry between boys and their fathers; boys fantasize (worry) that they will be castrated as punishment.

• Through this anxiety boy comes to identify with father as ideal and love for mother as object (no longer sexual)

Oedipus Complex

• Freud suggests girl is similarly attracted to mother

• Girl doesn’t suffer castration anxiety: instead - when she realises she lacks a penis she gets antagonistic and resentful towards mother.

• She hypothetically believes mother has castrated her.

• Results in what Freud calls: Penis Envy (this is controversial)

• Girl transfers her desires for the mother to the father...give way later in life for the desire for a man like her father.

Female Oedipus

Not full progression through the

Oedipus phase

Jacques Lacan The Mirror Stage as Formative Function of the I 1949

(Lacan) The ImaginaryFirst stage of imaginary child has no distinction between oneself and others.

2nd Stage of Imaginary then ages 6-18 months before it can work it may see its image in mirror. young child enters ‘mirror stage’

This action = formation of ego. First recognition of children's own world.

Illusion of wholeness

Misrecognition

Child is in state of helplessness, dependent on its mother, needs support, despite believing that what it sees is a complete independent image

• a double - rival and object of attack

• ideal - something to be defended or attacked as unattainable

• an opponent - to be attacked

Image becomes…

(Lacan) Symbolic Phase6-18 months child begins to learn to speak and socialise. Child has to abide by rules. child enters Oedipal phase. Obeying word of father the authoritative voice of the family. Child represses desire child realises that it has misrecognized its mother as object of desire and looks for female ‘other’ to fulfil oedipal path.

Father focus of attention here

(Lacan) The Real

State of existence that occurs during first few months of life neonatal. Stage when there’s no conception of language or outside world. infant has overriding sensations of need. Real is nothing but need. No words so sense of anxiety and trauma - levels of understanding fail to work Used in horror genre linked to sense of uncanny - sensation of fear.

Feminist Film Theory

Background

1792

1890sFeminism term is coined

Feminism: 3 waves• 1. 1900sRights to vote, equal rights to education, careers, suffragettes

• 2. 1960s-80sWomen’s lib, awareness of oppression of women, campaigned against male dominated society, ‘herstory’ to be recognised/ end of discrimination/ equality in workplace (Influence on film)

3. 1990s-2000sFocus shift from white upper middle class woman, rights of abortion & contraception, furthering plights of 2nd wave

Link to new film