Cinema, Suffering and Psychoanalysis explores psychological disorder as common to the human condition using a unique three-angled approach: psychoanalysis recognises the inherent suffering encountered by each subject due to developmental phases; psychology applies specific categorisation to how this suffering manifests; cinema depicts suffering through a combination of video and aural elements. Functioning as a culturally reflexive medium, the six feature films analysed, including Black Swan (2010) and The Machinist (2004), represent some of the most common psychological disorders and lived experiences of the contemporary era. This book enters unchartered terrain in cinema scholarship by combining clinical psychology's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Five (DSM-V) to organise and diagnose each character, and psychoanalysis to track the origin, mechanism and affect of the psychological disorder within the narrative trajectory of each film. Lacan's theories on the infantile mirror phase, the Imaginary, and the Symbolic, Žižek's theories on the Real, the big Other and the Event, and Kristeva's theories on abjection and melancholia work in combination with the DSM's classification of symptoms to interpret six contemporary pieces of cinema. By taking into consideration that origin, mechanism, affect and symptomatology are part of an interconnected group, this book explores psychological disorder as part of the human condition, something which contributes to and informs personal identity. More specifically, this research refutes the notion that psychological disorder and psychological health exist as a binary, instead recognising that what has traditionally been pathologised, may instead be viewed as variations on human identity.

"An investigation of psychological disorders through several key cinematic texts, pulling together dialectically opposed methodologies of psychoanalysis and modern psychology"--

This thesis is an analytical film studies project which aims to examine the human experience of psychological disorder and psychological suffering. Using key cinematic texts, the research investigates a group of Western feature films which each contain a central character experiencing psychological disorder. Functioning as a culturally reflexive medium, these films are representative of some of the more common psychological disorders in contemporary times. Clinical psychology's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Five is first used to organize and diagnose each character, but the textual analysis of these films is largely psychoanalytically informed. This project combines modern clinical psychologically and psychoanalysis so that a more comprehensive picture of the experience of psychological disorder and suffering may emerge. By taking into consideration that origin, mechanism, affect and symptomatology are part of an interconnected group, this project explores psychological disorder as a human phenomenon. More specifically, this research refutes the notion that psychological disorder and psychological health exist in a binary, instead recognizing that psychological status is a spectrum with many possible variations. Philosophical theory by Jacques Lacan, Slavoj Žižek and Julia Kristeva is used to explore these film characters and their respective disorders from a psychoanalytic viewpoint. Lacan's theories on the infantile mirror phase, the Imaginary, and the Symbolic, Žižek's theories on the Real, the big Other and the Event, and Kristeva's theories on abjection and melancholia are integral to the interpretation of these six films - tracking the origin, mechanism and manifestation of the psychological disorder through the narrative trajectory of each film analysed. The research confirms links between psychosis and a reliance on the image of the self; between unresolved guilt and psychological deterioration; between trauma and changes to identity; between emotional detachment and moral transgression; between physical space and subjectivity; between meaninglessness and language. As a group of films, the analysis also revealed that psychological suffering is intricately connected to the body, a sense of time and a sense of death.

Projected Shadows presents a new collection of essays exploring films from a psychoanalytic perspective, focusing specifically on the representation of loss in European cinema. This theme is discussed in its many aspects, including: loss of hope and innocence, of youth, of consciousness, of freedom and loss through death. Many other themes familiar to psychoanalytic discourse are explored in the process, such as: Establishment and resolution of Oedipal conflicts Representation of pathological characters on the screen Use of unconscious defence mechanisms The interplay of dreams, reality and fantasy Projected Shadows aims to deepen the ongoing constructive dialogue between psychoanalysis and film. Andrea Sabbadini has assembled a remarkable number of internationally renowned contributors, both academic film scholars and psychoanalysts from a variety of cultural backgrounds, who use an array of contemporary methodologies to apply psychoanalytic thinking to film. This original collection will appeal to anyone passionate about film, as well as professionals, academics and students interested in the relationship between psychoanalysis and the arts.

The book covers a wide range of cinematic femininities: It starts with Marilyn Monroe’s cool phrase "We are all of us stars, and we deserve to twinkle", which self-confidently marked her profession - with a wink, because she did not say "to sparkle". The (self-) staging of women also ironically plays its being tailored to the male gaze. In this section we discuss movies like Some like it hot, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Cet obscur objet du désir and Le Mépris - with a notable chapter by Laura Mulvey. Moreover, some fifty films later, the book ends with a section on Self-Empowerment and Identity, featuring films like Thelma & Louise, The Hours, Blue Valentine and Carol. Are women in film really just those who are seen and displayed? Where are the ones who see and who point to something themselves? Where are the women in the audience, behind the camera? If, as feminist psychoanalytical film criticism rightly observes, the stars and starlets, especially in Hollywood mainstream cinema, are supposed to serve the male gaze as eye candy and self-assurance, what is the role of the women who do not fit into this scheme, the anti-heroes, the women who feel and act, those through whose eyes the world experiences a completely different way of being seen? Not only in arthouse cinema, but also in the mainstream, there is far more to the thousand facets of staged femininity than the simple formula of the male gaze. The book shows the most diverse stagings of femininity in great (and terrible) films, and explores (according to the approach of film psychoanalysis) how these staging affect the unconscious, or also the not-yet-conscious of viewers. Each of the eight sections deals with a thematic aspect of the staging of suffering or sovereign femininity in feature films. They follow a chronological structure to illustrate how the genre has evolved. Each section is held together by an editorial introduction.

Through the development of psychoanalytically informed film interpretation, Andreas Hamburger provides new insights into the experience of watching films and their influence upon our internal lives. Building upon a relational understanding of psychoanalysis, this volume develops a methodical procedure for psychoanalytical film interpretation, discusses individual aspects of the medium – such as editing, spatial and temporal design – and puts approaches to film psychoanalysis and cinema theory into a systematic perspective. Hamburger exemplifies his arguments in a detailed analysis of numerous film examples and demonstrates how an in-depth encounter with the medium can provoke new and surprising understandings. Providing an interdisciplinary perspective that crosses the study of popular culture with psychoanalytic theory, this book will be required reading not only for students and scholars of film, but also for psychoanalysts in practice and training.

Considering representations of torture in such television series as 24, Alias, and Homeland; the documentaries Taxi to the Dark Side (2007), Ghosts of Abu Ghraib (2007), and Standard Operating Procedure (2008); and "torture porn" feature films from the Saw and Hostel series, Hilary Neroni unites aesthetic and theoretical analysis to provide a unique portal into theorizing biopower and its relation to the desiring subject. Her work ultimately showcases film and television studies' singular ability to expose and potentially disable the fantasies that sustain torture and the regimes that deploy it.

"Psychoanalytic Film Theory and The Rules of the Game offers a concise introduction to psychoanalytic film theory in jargon-free language and shows how this theory can be deployed to interpret Jean Renoir's classic film"--

Psychoanalytic theory has been the subject of attacks from philosophers, cultural critics and scientists who have questioned the cogency of its reasoning as well as the soundness of its premises. Nevertheless, when used to shed light on horror cinema, psychoanalysis in its various forms has proven to be a fruitful and provocative interpretative tool. This volume seeks to find the proper place of psychoanalytic thought in critical discussion of cinema in a series of essays that debate its legitimacy, utility and validity as applied to the horror genre. It distinguishes itself from previous work in this area through the self-consciousness with which psychoanalytic concepts are employed and the theorization that coexists with interpretations of particular horror films and subgenres.

This volume contains a collection of outstanding examples of psychoanalytic film criticism, applying different theoretical orientations, drawn from the first four years of the film review section in the International Journal of Psychoanalysis during author's tenure as film review editor.