The discourse of psychoanalytic film theory

Abstract

This study reads contemporary psychoanalytic film theory as a discourse which implies specific stylistic practices in its investigation of three areas: the cinema (as apparatus), the film (as text) and film theory itself (as discourse). The study proceeds by examining the respective staging of three basic psychoanalytic concepts, or figures, in the work of psychoanalytic film theory: identification, repetition, and transference. The shift in film theory from a semiological project conceived as a science to an active figuration of the theorist's desire demonstrates not only a conceptual readjustment in film studies but more fundamentally an attempt to dramatize that shift through the practice of writing.