Table Of ContentThe Couch and the Silver Screen
The Couch and the Silver Screen is a collection of original contributions which
explore European cinema from psychoanalytic perspectives.Both classic and
contemporary films are presented and analysed by a variety of authors,including
leading cinema historians and theorists,psychoanalysts with a specific expertise
in the interpretation of films,as well as the filmmakers themselves.This com-
posite approach offers a fascinating insight into the world of cinema.
The Couch and the Silver Screenis illustrated with stills throughout and Andrea
Sabbadini’s introduction provides a theoretical and historical context for the
current state of psychoanalytic studies of films.The book is organized into four
clear sections – Set and Stage,Working Through Trauma,Horror Perspectives
and Documenting Internal Worlds – which form the basis for engaging chapters
including:
• Easily readable and jargon-free film reviews.
• Essays on specific subjects such as perspectives on the horror film genre and
adolescent development.
• Transcripts of live debates among film directors,actors,critics and psycho-
analysts.
The cultural richness of the material presented,combined with the originality
of multidisciplinary dialogues on European cinema,makes this book appealing
not only to film buffs,but also to professionals,academics and students interested
in the application of psychoanalytic ideas to the arts.
Andrea Sabbadini is a psychoanalyst in private practice in London and a
lecturer at UCL.He is founding editor of Psychoanalysis and History and book
review editor of The International Journal of Psychoanalysis.He chairs the European
Psychoanalytic Film Festival and a series of film events at the ICA.
THE NEW LIBRARY OF PSYCHOANALYSIS
General Editor Dana Birksted-Breen
Advisory Board Catalina Bronstein,Sara Flanders,John Keene
and Mary Target
The New Library of Psychoanalysis was launched in 1987 in association with
the Institute of Psycho-Analysis,London.It took over from the International
Psychoanalytical Library,which published many of the early translations of the
works of Freud and the writings of most of the leading British and Continental
psychoanalysts.
The purpose of the New Library of Psychoanalysis is to facilitate a greater
and more widespread appreciation of psychoanalysis and to provide a forum for
increasing mutual understanding between psychoanalysts and those working in
other disciplines such as history,linguistics,literature,medicine,philosophy and
the social sciences.It aims to represent different trends both in British psycho-
analysis and in psychoanalysis generally.The New Library of Psychoanalysis is
well placed to make available to the English-speaking world psychoanalytic
writings from other European countries and to increase the interchange of ideas
between British and American psychoanalysts.
The Institute,together with the British Psycho-Analytical Society,runs a
low-fee psychoanalytic clinic,organizes lectures and scientific events concerned
with psychoanalysis and publishes The International Journal of Psychoanalysis.
It also runs the only UK training course in psychoanalysis which leads to
membership of the International Psychoanalytical Association – the body which
preserves internationally agreed standards of training,of professional entry,and
of professional ethics and practice for psychoanalysis as initiated and developed
by Sigmund Freud. Distinguished members of the Institute have included
Michael Balint,Wilfred Bion, Ronald Fairbairn,Anna Freud, Ernest Jones,
Melanie Klein,John Rickman and Donald Winnicott.
Previous General Editors include David Tuckett,Elizabeth Spillius and Susan
Budd.Previous Associate Editors include Ronald Britton,Christopher Bollas,
Juliet Mitchell,Eglé Laufer,Donald Campbell,Michael Parsons,Rosine Jozef
Perelberg,David Taylor and Stephen Grosz.
ALSO IN THIS SERIES
1 Impasse and InterpretationHerbert Rosenfeld
2 Psychoanalysis and DiscoursePatrick Mahony
3 The Suppressed Madness of Sane MenMarion Milner
4 The Riddle of FreudEstelle Roith
5 Thinking,Feeling,and BeingIgnacio Matte-Blanco
6 The Theatre of the DreamSalomon Resnik
7 Melanie Klein Today:Volume 1,Mainly TheoryEdited by Elizabeth Bott Spillius
8 Melanie Klein Today:Volume 2,Mainly PracticeEdited by Elizabeth Bott Spillius
9 Psychic Equilibrium and Psychic Change:Selected Papers of Betty Joseph Edited
by Michael Feldman and Elizabeth Bott Spillius
10 About Children and Children-No-Longer: Collected Papers 1942–80 Paula
Heimann.Edited by Margret Tonnesmann
11 The Freud–Klein Controversies 1941–45Edited by Pearl King and Riccardo
Steiner
12 Dream,Phantasy and ArtHanna Segal
13 Psychic Experience and Problems of TechniqueHarold Stewart
14 Clinical Lectures on Klein & BionEdited by Robin Anderson
15 From Fetus to ChildAlessandra Piontelli
16 A Psychoanalytic Theory of Infantile Experience:Conceptual and Clinical Reflections
E.Gaddini.Edited by Adam Limentani
17 The Dream Discourse TodayEdited and introduced by Sara Flanders
18 The Gender Conundrum:Contemporary Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Femininity
and MasculinityEdited and introduced by Dana Breen
19 Psychic RetreatsJohn Steiner
20 The Taming of Solitude: Separation Anxiety in Psychoanalysis Jean-Michel
Quinodoz
21 Unconscious Logic:An Introduction to Matte-Blanco’s Bi-logic and its Uses Eric
Rayner
22 Understanding Mental ObjectsMeir Perlow
23 Life,Sex and Death:Selected Writings of William GillespieEdited and introduced
by Michael Sinason
24 What Do Psychoanalysts Want? The Problem of Aims in Psychoanalytic Therapy
Joseph Sandler and Anna Ursula Dreher
25 Michael Balint:Object Relations,Pure and AppliedHarold Stewart
26 Hope:A Shield in the Economy of Borderline StatesAnna Potamianou
27 Psychoanalysis,Literature & War:Papers 1972–1995Hanna Segal
28 Emotional Vertigo:Between Anxiety and PleasureDanielle Quinodoz
29 Early Freud and Late FreudIlse Grubrich-Simitis
30 A History of Child PsychoanalysisClaudine and Pierre Geissmann
31 Belief and Imagination:Explorations in PsychoanalysisRonald Britton
32 A Mind of One’s Own:A Kleinian View of Self and ObjectRobert A.Caper
33 Psychoanalytic Understanding of Violence and Suicide Edited by Rosine Jozef
Perelberg
34 On Bearing Unbearable States of MindRuth Riesenberg-Malcolm
35 Psychoanalysis on the Move:The Work of Joseph SandlerEdited by Peter Fonagy,
Arnold M.Cooper and Robert S.Wallerstein
36 The Dead Mother:The Work of André GreenEdited by Gregorio Kohon
37 The Fabric of Affect in the Psychoanalytic DiscourseAndré Green
38 TheBi-Personal Field:Experiences of Child AnalysisAntonino Ferro
39 The Dove that Returns, the Dove that Vanishes: Paradox and Creativity in
PsychoanalysisMichael Parsons
40 Ordinary People, Extra-ordinary Protections.A Post Kleinian Approach to the
Treatment of Primitive Mental StatesJudith Mitrani
41 The Violence of Interpretation:From Pictogram to Statement Piera Aulagnier.
Translated by Alan Sheridan
42 The Importance of Fathers:A Psychoanalytic Re-Evaluation Judith Trowell and
Alicia Etchegoyen
43 Dreams that Turn Over a Page:Paradoxical Dreams in PsychoanalysisJean-Michel
Quinodoz
44 The Couch and the Silver Screen: Psychoanalytic Reflections on European Cinema
Edited and introduced by Andrea Sabbadini
THE NEW LIBRARY OF PSYCHOANALYSIS
44
General Editor:Dana Birksted-Breen
The Couch and the
Silver Screen
Psychoanalytic Reflections on European Cinema
Edited by Andrea Sabbadini
First published 2003
by Brunner-Routledge
27 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex BN3 2FA
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Brunner-Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004.
Brunner-Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor and Francis Group
© 2003 selection and editorial matter, Andrea Sabbadini;
individual chapters, the contributors
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or
other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
This publication has been produced with paper manufactured to strict environmental standards
and with pulp derived from sustainable forests.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
The couch and the silver screen : psychoanalytic reflections on European
cinema / edited by Andrea Sabbadini.–1st ed.
p. cm. – (The new library of psychoanalysis)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Motion pictures–Europe–Psychological aspects. 2. Psychoanaylsis
and motion pictures. I. Sabbadini, Andrea. II. Series.
PN1993.5.E8C68 2003
791.43′75′019–dc21
2003004236
ISBN 0-203-35720-5 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-38745-7 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 1–58391–951–1 (hbk)
ISBN 1–58391–952–X (pbk)
Contents
Contributors x
Foreword xv
LAURA MULVEY
Acknowledgements xix
Introduction 1
ANDREA SABBADINI
Set and stage 17
1 The inner and outer worlds of the filmmaker’s temporary
social structure 19
BERNARDO BERTOLUCCI, FIONA SHAW
AND CHRIS MAWSON
2 One in the Eye from Sam:Samuel Beckett’s Film(1964)
and his contribution to our vision in theatre,cinema
and psychoanalysis 35
IAN CHRISTIE, JULIET STEVENSON AND
HELEN TAYLOR ROBINSON
Working through trauma 53
3 Sons and fathers:a room of their own – Nanni Moretti’s
The Son’s Room(2001) 55
NANNI MORETTI, PAOLA GOLINELLI,
STEFANO BOLOGNINI AND ANDREA SABBADINI
vii
Contents
4 Witness and persecution in two short films:Miguel Sapochnik’s
The Dreamer(2001) and Lindy Heymann’s Kissing Buba(2001) 73
JED SEKOFF
5 A post-postmodern Walkyrie:psychoanalytic considerations
on Tom Tykwer’s Run,Lola,Run(1998) 82
ANNEGRET MAHLER-BUNGERS
6 Thomas Vinterberg’s Festen(1998):an attempt to avoid
madness through denunciation 94
LILIANA PEDRÓN DE MARTÍN
7 István Szabó’s Sunshine(1999):the cinematic representation
of historical and familial trauma 100
DIANA DIAMOND
Horror perspectives 117
8 Notes on the relevance of psychoanalytic theory to Euro-horror
cinema 119
STEVEN JAY SCHNEIDER
9 Dario Argento’s Phenomena(1985):a psychoanalytic perspective
on the ‘horror film’genre and adolescent development 128
DONALD CAMPBELL
10 Freedom through re-introjection:a Kleinian perspective on
Dominik Moll’s Harry:He’s Here to Help(2000) 139
CANDY AUBRY
11 Cinema,horror and the abominations of hell:Carl-Theodor
Dreyer’s Vampyr(1931) and Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond(1981) 145
MICHAEL GRANT
Documenting internal worlds 157
12 Narratives and documentaries:an encounter with
Michael Apted and his films 159
MICHAEL APTED AND HELEN TAYLOR ROBINSON
13 The cinematic dream-work of Ingmar Bergman’s
Wild Strawberries(1957) 181
ELIZABETH COWIE
viii
Contents
14 Film as an abreaction of totalitarianism:Vinko Breˇsan’s
Marshal Tito’s Spirit(1999) 204
LJILJANA FILIPOVIC´
15 Documentary directors and their protagonists:a transferential /
countertransferential relationship? Timna Rosenheimer’s
Fortuna(2000) and Michal Aviad’s Ever Shot Anyone?(1995) 213
EMANUEL BERMAN, TIMNA ROSENHEIMER
AND MICHAL AVIAD
16 Filming psychoanalysis:feature or documentary?
Two contributions 232
HUGH BRODY AND MICHAEL BREARLEY
Films index 246
General index 249
ix
