Abstract
In his new book on film and psychoanalysis, Andreas Hamburger offers nothing less than a methodical and theoretical compendium for a psychoanalytic approach toward film. The author extensively discusses existing theoretical approaches and refers to specific films throughout the book. He offers a thorough evaluation of existing methodology; film examples serve not only to make a theoretical or interpretive point, but also to develop his original methodological approach to the study of film. At first glance, one might be puzzled that in the history of linking psychoanalysis and film—documented in numerous volumes on films, directors, and other cinematic topics—Hamburger’s book is the first to feature Filmpsychoanalysis as its title and thus present itself as a systematic methodological work. The author makes clear, however, why his book deserves this title; with his method of collecting and evaluating data, he presents filmpsychoanalysis as a field of scientific research. He transcends monographic contributions on specific aspects of film to arrive at the very foundations of the field. Though he subscribes to no particular psychoanalytic school, it becomes clear that object-relational notions stand in the foreground of his approach.
The book starts with an introduction and a chapter on the lines of development joining psychoanalysis and film. In a veritable prep-course on filmpsychoanalysis, Hamburger discusses various psychoanalytic approaches to film identified by Glen Gabbard (2001): exploration of myths underlying film plots and important to psychoanalysis; film as reflecting the director’s subjectivity; film as illustrator of developmental crises; dreamwork in film; aesthetic response to film; psychoanalytic concepts and film; psychoanalytic understanding of filmic characters. The next few chapters are the book’s core. Chapter 3 deals with methodological issues. Chapter 4 takes up the practice of filmpsychoanalysis by showing which aspects of a film must be considered (genre, narrative, and aesthetics). Chapter 5 discusses theories on film (along the lines of body, dream, and gender).
Thankfully, Hamburger doesn’t forgo the main didactic strength a volume on film and psychoanalysis has to offer. He uses examples from films to support his arguments and to demonstrate his methodological recommendations and theoretical points, presenting psychoanalytic thoughts on movies like Das weisse Band (The White Ribbon) (Haneke 2009) and Truffaut’s Jules et Jim (1962). Not only is this valuable in terms of illustration; it also shows Hamburger’s core methodological point: the psychoanalytic interpreter of a film must introspectively examine his or her individual response to the work. Hamburger conveys this point by sharing his own thoughts with the reader, and also by leaving room for the reader’s impressions of well-known films spanning the spectrum of filmic styles from Garry Marshall’s Pretty Woman (1990) to Buñuel’s Un chien andalou (1929).
Filmpsychoanalysis aims to transfer and adapt methods from clinical work to film: adopting a stance of evenly suspended attention and revealing the film’s effect through relational phenomena in the viewer. This approach relies on process and takes the viewer’s aesthetic response as a starting point. Hamburger proclaims a “reflective, relational filmpsychoanalysis” (p. 65; translations mine throughout). When an interpretive approach relies on unconscious elements or links aesthetic responses to bodily or intersubjective experience—and when it integrates filmic elements (i.e., elements specific to the artistic medium) and film theory—it deserves to be called filmpsychoanalysis. As soon as it takes into account this above-mentioned transfer of method, relying on unconscious elements, the body, or linking aesthetic responses to early experiences of intersubjective resonance, it deserves to be called filmpsychoanalysis. Hamburger understands psychoanalysis as marked by two concepts: interpersonal interaction and mental representations of bodily sensations (p. 256). Links and relations are pivotal: those between film theory and psychoanalysis, between viewer and work of art, and also between different interpretations of a particular film—all resulting in a “body of knowledge” of a film in terms of film theory and psychoanalysis. Thus, Hamburger skillfully shows how filmpsychoanalysis relies on both film theory and psychoanalysis, and on both the viewer’s aesthetic response and existing interpretations.
Hamburger touches on an important matter: the role of information available to the filmpsychoanalyst about the film that is to be interpreted. How does his or her expertise in psychoanalysis, film in general, or the particular film in question (including the filmpsychoanalyst’s knowledge of the director, published reviews, and other interpretations) come into play? On one hand, there is a methodological need for evenly suspended attention (as in clinical practice); on the other hand, it would be absurd and unrealistic to ignore available knowledge about the context of a work of art. In my view, the contextual knowledge the critic brings to the work participates in the filmpsychoanalyst’s associations. A particular scene might be a filmic “quotation” of another film (by the same director or by someone else), though actually not among the film’s characteristics but rather something that comes up in associations to it, the world of films as a whole, and the particular viewer/critic. From a methodological perspective, it is fruitful to see that at least some of the viewer’s associations stand within a cultural frame of reference. To include them in an interpretation is appropriate if they are understood as belonging to the relationship between viewer and film, rather than as part of the filmic structure itself, cut off from the viewing experience.
This is a key element of Hamburger’s methodological approach. He focuses on the viewer’s experience/reaction and understands “analysis” as “empirical, just as the analytic processes are empirical” (p. 56). Hamburger speaks of “psychoanalysis as a dramaturgy of [aesthetic] response” (p. 252). For him, the dramaturgical approach is relational, as he understands clinical psychoanalysis as a practice of reflection on relatedness. This view of psychoanalysis allows the transfer of the method to films. Reflection/introspection means dwelling on one’s own reaction in the face of the other; for a film this means “that we as psychoanalysts expose ourselves to the work of art in an open kind of encounter; in doing so, we rely on our capacity (acquired during clinical work) to observe ourselves while interacting with others and draw conclusions from this kind of introspection” (p. 60).
Even though each psychoanalytic treatment takes place within the interconnections between an individual and society, there is still a difference between clinical practice and filmpsychoanalysis, inasmuch as the latter deals with subject matter that transcends the individual. Thus, it is convincing that Hamburger highlights the benefits of the group interpretation used by Lorenzer (1986), 1 combining sociology, critical theory, and psychoanalysis): latent (unconscious) structures of a work of art or other cultural product show themselves within a group’s “culture” of discussing and interacting.
What is left open for further research and conceptual work? First, it would be interesting to discuss what sort of expertise is necessary for filmpsychoanalysis. What is called for in terms of film theory or psychoanalysis? Is there a method or technique one can learn and teach? Is it a matter of intuition? Second—though in the end it is a single critic presenting a filmpsychoanalytic interpretation—there may be much more to say about how individual interpretation and group interpretation interact.
Hamburger deals with the whole of filmpsychoanalysis: methodological groundwork; relevant theoretical fields; filmpsychoanalytic practice; the joy of dealing with films as both a viewer and a researcher. Hamburger shows a rare combination of skills: both the ability to pin down his own filmpsychoanalytic position and the creativity of a gifted author; thus, he provides both sound interpretations and a humorous and light-footed style of writing. Readers looking for scientific rigor (methodology, specificity of film as a medium of art, interdisciplinary focus) and those seeking distraction or contemplation in new views of more or less famous films will find in Filmpsychoanalyse a book that meets these different aims.
