Psychoanalysis and the rules of the game PDF
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Psychoanalytic Film Theory and The Rules of the Game Film Theory in PracTice Series Editor: Todd McGowan editorial Board Slavoj Žižek, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia Joan Copjec, Brown University, USA Hilary Neroni, University of Vermont, USA Jennifer Friedlander, Pomona College, USA Fabio Vighi, Cardiff University, UK Hugh Manon, Clark University, USA Paul Eisenstein, Otterbein University, USA Hyon Joo Yoo, University of Vermont, USA Louis-Paul Willis, University of Québec, Canada Psychoanalytic Film Theory and The Rules of the Game Todd mcGowan Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Inc NEW YORK • LONDON • NEW DELHI • SYDNEY Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Inc 1385 Broadway 50 Bedford Square New York London NY 10018 WC1B 3DP USA UK www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2015 © Todd McGowan, 2015 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress ISBN: HB: 978-1-6289-2084-0 PB: 978-1-6289-2082-6 ePub: 978-1-6289-2086-4 ePDF: 978-1-6289-2085-7 Series: Film Theory in Practice Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India For Quentin Martin who taught me the rules of the game while breaking them vi conTenTs Acknowledgments viii Introduction 1 1 Psychoanalytic film theory 17 2 Psychoanalysis and The Rules of the Game 91 Conclusion: Psychoanalytic film theory today 163 Further Reading 171 Index 173 acknowledGmenTs Thanks to Katie Gallof at Bloomsbury for pursuing this series of books and for trusting me with the weight of directing it. She has been a constant source of support and an enthusiastic partner. My colleagues in film and television at the University of Vermont have been vitally important for my thinking about the cinema. Thanks to Deb Ellis, Dave Jenemann, Hilary Neroni, Sarah Nilsen, and Hyon Joo Yoo. I am indebted theoretically to many fellow travelers, including Slavoj Žižek, Sheila Kunkle, Jennifer Friedlander, Henry Krips, Fabio Vighi, Rick Boothby, Frances Restuccia, Anna Kornbluh, Quentin Martin, Jean Wyatt, Ryan Engley, Jonathan Mulrooney, Louis-Paul Willis, Adam Cottrel, Hugh Manon, Danny Cho, Robyn Warhol, and Ken Reinhard. Thanks especially to Walter Davis, Paul Eisenstein, and Hilary Neroni, who simply establish the rules for me. Introduction The intrinsic conjunction It is surprising that psychoanalysis took as long as it did to gain a foothold in film theory. The connection between psychoanalytic thought and the cinema is readily apparent. It is not purely coincidental that both originated in the same year. In 1895, Freud and Joseph Breuer published Studies on Hysteria, and Louis and Auguste Lumière screened their first films in the Grand Café in Paris. Film theorists have often noted this historical connection, but it is not just the year of their origin that psychoanalysis and cinema have in common. Psychoanalysis makes its most important discoveries through the analysis of dreams, and to this day, the cinema remains a dream factory, a form of public dreaming. Even though Studies on Hysteria marked the discovery of psychoanalysis as a talking cure for neurosis, the most important book in the development of psychoanalysis as a theory rather than just a therapeutic practice was The Interpretation of Dreams, which Freud alone published in 1900.1 When he wrote a preface to the third English edition of the book, Freud reflected on his career to that point and claimed that this was his masterpiece. He said, “It contains, even according to my present-day judgment, the most valuable of all the discoveries it has been my good fortune to make. Insight such as this falls to one’s lot but once in a lifetime.”2 Freud places such high regard on The Interpretation of Dreams because the book lays out the psychoanalytic theory of the structure of the psyche, and it does so through the analysis of dreams.
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