What has psychoanalysis got to do with the movies?

From its origins, psychoanalysis has found rich inspiration in literature as well as in more conventional study of case histories. As products of the unconscious ordered for communication to others, literature can provide particularly clear examples of the principles of psychoanalysis, and the psyche, in operation. Shakespeare, Goethe, Zola and Rider Haggard are just a few of those whose work provided material for Freud; in fact his interpretation of Hamlet has overwhelmed productions of the play for much of the last century. Jung was drawn, among many other texts, to the scriptures and myth of numerous cultures including the Upanishads, the Mahabharata and the Vedas as well as the Bible.

The further resonance of psychoanalytic ideas with film has been a relationship of long standing. As many have previously noted, there is continuity between the images of dreams and those of cinema, the image being the language of the unconscious. Film offers us, therefore, a perspective on the psyche; like a dream, we can ‘read’ a film as an articulation of the characters, sub personalities, archetypes of the psyche and their interaction, representing to our conscious minds our own psychic conflicts and dynamics.