Concept
Psychoanalytic film theory is a school of academic thought that evokes the concepts of psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan. The theory is closely tied to Critical theory, Marxist film theory, and Apparatus theory. The theory is separated into two waves. The first wave occurred in the 1960s and 70s. The second wave became popular in the 1980s and 90s. At the end of the nineteenth century, psychoanalysis was created, and film happened to follow shortly afterward. André Breton, the founder of the Surrealist movement, saw film as a means of engaging the unconscious. Since films had the ability to tell a story using techniques such as superimposition, and slow motion, the Surrealists saw this as mimicking dreams. Early applications of psychoanalysis to cinema concentrated on unmasking latent meanings behind screen images, before moving on to a consideration of film as a representation of fantasy. From there, a wider consideration of the subject position of the viewer led to wider engagements with critical theory - to psychoanalytic film theory proper. From 1969, as a reaction to the unrest in Paris in May 68, a theoretical examination of the medium of cinema developed, starting in France, more precisely on the part of French film criticism, the basis of which was a mixture of psychoanalysis, semiotics, structuralism and Marxism . The formation of psychoanalytic film theories reached its peak in 1975: the articles "Le Dispositif: approches métapsychologiques de l'impression de réalité" by Jean Louis Baudry and "Le film de fiction et son spectateur (Étude métapsychologique)" by Christian Metz advanced to the most influential and effective texts. The focus of this theoretical film debate was the viewer subject and its relationship to cinema. The starting point was formed by the considerations of the French theorist Jean Louis Baudry and the writings on film theory by Christian Metz, whose Le signifiant imaginaire. Psychoanalyse et cinéma (1977, dt.: The imaginary signifier. Psychoanalyse and cinema) really opened the discussion.