Psychoanalytic film theory: a contemporary introduction

Psychoanalysis is fundamental to how we think about cinema. From the Surrealists and Maya Deren to David Lynch and Christopher Nolan, dream and screen have been inextricably linked, while psychoanalytic theory played a vital role in establishing Film Studies as an academic discipline.
Psychoanalytic Film Theory will allow the reader to grasp the complex intellectual history of this mutual fascination, become familiar with its principal figures and understand its central concepts, while appreciating its entanglements with contemporary Marxist, feminist, queer, postcolonial and critical race theory. With groundbreaking theorists such as Joan Copjec, Todd McGowan, Laura Mulvey, Jacqueline Rose, and Slavoj Žižek, this book explores five key themes – dream, identification, difference, object, and ideology – that represent the major insights and accomplishments of psychoanalytic film theory. The discussion is developed through the work of filmmakers such as Andrea Arnold, Joanna Hogg, Boots Riley, Celine Sciamma, and Wong Kar Wai to present an introduction to psychoanalytic film theory in contemporary context.
This introduction offers a resource for anyone with a psychoanalytic orientation who wants to consider the moving image in detail, and a view of the intellectual life of psychoanalysis outside the clinic where Film Studies has been responsible for a broader dissemination of Freudian and Lacanian ideas. It will also provide media scholars with a fresh perspective on psychoanalytic thinking, countering prevailing attitudes that its moment has passed to demonstrate that the time for psychoanalytic film theory is only just beginning.