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Oneiric Metaphor in Film Theory Oneiric Metaphor in Film Theory By Laura Rascaroli Fall 2002 Issue of KINEMA LIKE A DREAM. A CRITICAL HISTORY OF THE ONEIRIC METAPHOR IN FILM THE- ORY I know it’s a cliché to say that films are like dreams -- like a collective unconscious,’ Terry began, ’butI was thinking that nobody’s ever really followed the idea through. There are different sorts of dreams, aren’t there? And so obviously there are horror movies, which are like nightmares, and then there are dirty movies like Deep Throat and Emmanuelle, which are like wet dreams... Then there are remakes, and stories which keep getting told again and again, and those are like recurring dreams. And there are consoling, visionary dreams, like Lost Horizon or The Wizard of Oz. But when a film gets lost, and it’s never been shown, and the print goes missing and nobody’s ever seen it, that’s the most beautiful kind of dream of all. Because that’s the kind of dream that might just have been the best one you’ve ever had in your life, only it slips from your mind just as you’re waking up, and a few seconds later you can’t remember a thing about it. (Jonathan Coe, The House of Sleep) The couple Cinema & Psychoanalysis was endorsed in the Seventies chiefly on the basis of the analogies that were said to exist between film and dream. The celebrated Issue 23of Communications (1975) sealed the union in the name of semiology: linguistics and psychoanalysis, in fact -- according to Christian Metz -- not only were both concerned with the symbolic, but were also the only two sciences whose immediate and only object of study was the act of signification itself; for this reason they seemed able to lead to ’a relatively autonomous science of cinema’ -- a semiology of cinema.(1) The outcome of this adventure is not completely clear. The introduction of semiotics has indisputably been one of the most meaningful turning points in film theory, as it revolutionised our conception of text and tex- tual analysis; at the same time, the wishful goal of reaching ’a relatively autonomous science of cinema’ does not excite anybody anymore. What should be said, then, of the convergence of cinema and psychoanalysis? In his Theories of Cinema, Francesco Casetti identified two main strands of the psychoanalytical approach to the study of cinema: first, the analyses which tend to uncover the latent content of a film, read assymptom or dream, and used as a basis to analyse the filmmaker’s unconscious mind; second, the psychoanalytical investigation of certain aspects of film and the cinematic apparatus, for instance the psychological mecha- nisms which are at play in the viewing process.(2) The goal of this type of investigation is a metapsychology of the spectator, such as that outlined by Metz in Le signifiant imaginaire. The first of these two main strands was destined to attract all the obvious objections traditionally raised against the ’biographic’ psychoanalytical critique -- an approach inaugurated by Freud himself, and taken up in particular by Marie Bonaparte in her work on Edgar Allan Poe.(3) In particular, many critics stressed that the absence of the typical conditions of analysis results in the impossibility of transfer, free associations and the return of repressed contents.(4) It is much more complex to evaluate the outcome of the second strand of the psychoanalytical approach, with its important ramifications, such as those linked to feminist film theory and spectatorship theory. What interests me here, though, is to investigate and assess the development and outcome of the earliest idea from which the whole adventure of the couple Cinema & Psychoanalysis derives: the supposed analogies existing between film and dream. The dream is one of the most persistent metaphors in both classical and modern film theory, and is hence worthy of organic assessment. History of a metaphor The dream metaphor has a long history in film theory. It begins as early as the birth of cinema, withthe famous dispute on the contrast between cinema as a (perfect) system of reproduction of reality on the one hand, and as magic and dream on the other. In Esthetique du cinéma (1957), Henri Agel listed the early theorists who recognised the oneiric nature of cinema, beginning with Ricciotto Canudo (1879-1923), who urged filmmakers to transform reality in conformity to their inner dream; and ending with JeanEpstein (1897-1953), who found in film a perfect affinity with dreams.(5) 1 Many contributions drawing on psychology, aesthetics and sociology have been relevant to the establishment of the dream metaphor. The first major one is Edgar Morin’s Le cinéma ou l’homme imaginaire (1956). Morin stressed that dreams and films are perceived objectively by dreamers and spectators respectively, but that, at the same time, a strong dose of subjectivity intervenes in both cases. In the filmic image, as in dreams, we do not perceive a real presence, but the double of a presence. Nevertheless, Morin recognised two characteristics that distinguish the film from dreams: its materiality, and the necessary presence ofan original physical object. This difference, though, is reduced for Morin by the oneiric quality of the lighting and music in cinema. Also Jean Mitry, a few years later, in the first volume of his Esthétique et psychologie du cinéma (1963), recognised the importance of the materiality of film strip and screen, but also considered that thefilm offers itself to the spectator as an image detached from its physical supports and independent of them.For the author, this fact associates film to the mental image, which is characterised by similar features; and simultaneously differentiates it from the perceptive image that, on the contrary, is not separated fromthe objects, and even identifies with them. Even so, the filmic image for Mitry is different from the mentalimage inasmuch as it is concrete, objective and situated ’somewhere’. Between mental image and oneiric image, thus, there is a difference in grade or intensity, not in nature. Whereas mental images oppose ournormal perception of the world, oneiric images replace it, becoming a pseudo-reality in which we believe completely. The filmic image, therefore, is related to the mental image by its rapport with its material supports, butis more similar to the oneiric image because, like the latter, it replaces the real. Spectators, though, according to Mitry have a possibility that is denied to dreamers: to refuse the complete participation and involvement in what they see. Morin and Mitry’s comparisons of the psychological and perceptive qualities of oneiric image and filmic image formed one of the solid bases on which the metaphor was constructed. The comparison between spectator and dreamer became the most widely quoted and important similarity between film and dream. This comparison was grounded in the descriptions of the often-bizarre experiments of cinema going to be found in the Surrealists’ writings. In particular, Breton wrote that each spectator, before becoming subjugated by the filmic fiction, goes through a critical stage that can be compared to the one between beingawakeand falling asleep.(6) According to René Clair, then, during the projection the spectators, overwhelmed by the music and shadows on the screen, are almost in a dreamlike state.(7) Morin and Mitry also described the spectatorial condition as a para-oneiric state. For the former, this condition is produced by several factors: the darkness of the auditorium; the comfort of the chair, which induces the spectator to relax and fantasise; the passivity and absence of movement, inviting a psychic and emotive participation. In such a regressive state, according to Morin, the spectator increases the normal psychic mechanisms of projection and identification, and somehow fulfils her or his most intimate desires. For Mitry, the spectatorial state lies somewhere between dream and daydream. In fact, it is similar to dreams in that the imaginary replaces the real; and it resembles daydreaming because the spectator always preserves a certain consciousness. Many of these arguments also recur in the literature that is more closely linked to the couple Cinema & Psychoanalysis, and which here particularly interests me. I refer to the scholars -- both psychoanalysts and film theorists -- who directly used psychoanalytical tools to discuss the relationship between film anddreams. As mentioned above, the couple was sanctioned in 1975, but contributions started much earlier, in the mid 1940s. Before I begin to consider them, it should be said that the references to dreamlike cinema are infinite. Many interesting ones can be found, not surprisingly, in the literature on the avant-garde movements, such as Ado Kyrou’s Le surréalisme au cinéma (1963) and Jean Mitry’s Le cinéma experimental. Historie et perspectives (1974).(8) Kyrou has recognised traces of oneirism not only in experimental cinema, but also in the musical, thriller, horror, and in much comic cinema (for instance, the Marx Brothers, Helzapoppin, and Jerry Lewis).(9) For his part, Morin has described James Bond as a hyper-oneiric hero, a true dreamlike creature;(10) and Odile Bächler has asserted that the traditional link between sleep, dream and trip projects an oneiric quality on those Westerns based on a stagecoach trip.(11) The dream is like a film The idea of a connection between film and dreams seems to be grounded in Freud’s theories. The father 2 of psychoanalysis stated that dreams dramatise ideas. The so-called dream-work must produce a visual representation of the dream-thoughts -- and dramatisation for Freud is the transformation of a thought into a visual situation.(12) The relationship with the visual language of film is as present here as it is vague. After all, Freud never mentioned cinema in his many writings on art, and he refused categorically to take part in the making of Pabst’s Geheimnisse einer Seele (1926), the first film on psychoanalysis.
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