Jungian Film Studies

The essential guide

Helena Bassil-Morozow, Luke Hockley

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317222392
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Jungian film studies is a fast-growing academic field, but Jungian and post-Jungian concepts are still new to many academics and film critics. Helena Bassil-Morozow and Luke Hockley present Jungian Film Studies: The Essential Guide, the first book to bring together all the different strands, issues and arguments in the discipline, and guide the reader through the various ways in which Jungian psychology can be applied to moving images.

Bassil-Morozow and Hockley cover a range of Jungian concepts including the collective unconscious, archetypes, the individuation process, alchemy, and signs and symbols, showing how they can be used to discuss the core cinematic issues such as narrative structure, gender, identity, genre, authorship, and phenomenology. The authors argue that, as a place where the unconscious and conscious meet, cinema offers the potential for imagery that is psychologically potent, meaningful, and that plays a role in our personal psychological development.

This much-needed book, which bridges the space between Jungian concepts and traditional film theory, will be essential reading for scholars and students of Analytical Psychology, psychoanalysis, Jungian film studies, media, film and cultural studies, psychosocial psychology and clinical psychology. It will also appeal to analytical psychologists, psychotherapists and readers with an interest in film analysis.

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Part I

Methods

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Chapter 1

The context of Jungian film studies

Helena Bassil-Morozow and Luke Hockley

Jungian film studies is a relatively young field, and many of its postulates have been borrowed from Jungian literary criticism (briefly discussed later in this chapter). It has primarily taken two main directions: narrative analysis (John Izod, John Beebe, Terrie Waddell, Helena Bassil-Morozow, Catriona Miller, Andrew McWhirter) and phenomenological criticism (Luke Hockley, Greg Singh). Christopher Hauke explores both how films are made and their effect on the audience, both their narrative and phenomenological aspects. Of course, there is considerable overlap between the two areas. With Hockley offering detailed textual readings and Izod seeking to understand the attributes of the cinematic experience, for example, it follows that the distinction offered here is one of degrees.

The group exploring the application of Jungian ideas to screen media has primarily focused on the narrative structure, individuation, archetypes, symbols and signs while the phenomenological circle has explored the issue of meaning in moving narratives and the therapeutic properties of images. Yet, as alluded to above, both the angles are complementary and draw inspiration from Jung’s concepts of individuation, archetypes and the ‘dual unconscious’ consisting of the personal and collective parts. In other ways, both the groups examine the impossibility of completely separating conscious and unconscious experiences, and telling the definite difference between the personal and the collective in the individual’s life. Cinema, which acts as a mass mirror, offers fantastic opportunities for reflecting on the fluid border between the individual and the collective, the personal and the social. Its structures, as well as their meanings, reflect the difficulty of drawing a clear line between individuals and their unconscious, between individuals and their society. A highly visual medium, cinema questions the very idea of an independent individual.

Don Fredericksen was one of the first academics to explore the applicability of Jungian theory to screen media. In his article ‘Jung/Sign/Symbol/Film’ (2001), Fredericksen compares the Freudian and Jungian takes on signs and symbols. He argues that Freud’s analysis of works of art is essentially semiotic (and, as such, reductive), while Jung’s treatment of creativity and its products is symbolic (i.e. allowing interpretive freedom). A sign has only one possible meaning while a symbol can have a whole hierarchy of interpretations. Fredericksen demonstrates ‘our need and our capacity to be open to meaning – filmic and otherwise – of a kind and in places where semiotic attitudes have not previously found it’ (2001: 17). He also points out that, by attaching ourselves to particular critical opinions, ‘we are denying ourselves a sense of meaning – and a wisdom – at once very old and very alive in the contemporary world, including the world of film’ (2001: 17).

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Fredericksen criticises the existing – and predominant – semiotic approaches in film studies (influenced and shaped by linguistics, literary criticism, psychoanalysis and Marxism), including works by Peter Wollen (Signs and Meaning in the Cinema), Christian Metz (Film Language: A Semiotics of the Cinema) and Jurij Lotman’s Semiotics of Cinema. He also rejects Metz for using a range of pseudo-scientific concepts such as ‘code’, ‘message’, ‘system’, etc. (Fredericksen, 2001: 24). Jung, Fredericksen argues, did not emphasise the systemic in interpretation. This goes against the normal instincts of a Western thinker which are to make a rational construction allowing one to explain things in an ordered and clear way. For Jung, such an approach seemed reductive. He did not shy away from the inexplicable, the irrational and the mysterious, which, on the one hand, negatively influenced his reputation, and, on the other, allowed him to create a fluid description of human development. Like many other Jungian theorists, Fredericksen traces the roots of this ‘loose’, democratic attitude towards imagery and narrative to the concept of the collective unconscious as an unfathomable, pre-human entity which needs to be respected. No human mind should aspire to uncover the mystery of its symbols. As symbolism is a more powerful tool in film than it is in a printed text, it is important to ‘amplify’ rather than interpret film images (Fredericksen, 2001: 34). This is a point that will be explored further in Chapter 3, ‘Jungian psychology: signs and symbols’.

In this book we will argue that the semiotic approach, even though only partially compatible with the Jungian critical angle, is nevertheless a useful tool that can be used in conjunction with the Jungian approach. Moreover, together with psychoanalysis, it can be employed to fill the gaps in Jungian film theory – the gaps that are detrimental and that make it difficult for it to receive a wider dissemination. In the academic world Jung has the reputation of a ‘mystic’ and a ‘shaman’, for which the notion of the collective unconscious with its irrational unfathomability is mostly often the cause. One of the main ideas of this book is to show that Jungian thinking is not only compatible with the ‘normal’ Western ‘semiotic approach’, but that it can also have a fruitful and mutually enriching dialogue with it. Even though ‘the semiotic vs. the symbolic’, generally speaking, was the main reason for the split between Jung and Freud back in 1913, the two approaches do not necessarily exclude each other.

Fredericksen also warns Jungian film studies against becoming a reductive approach only interested in decoding archetypal structures and individuation patterns instead of regarding moving images from a variety of perspectives. He is worried by the tendency of Jungian film scholars to write about popular and schematic narratives, thinking that it might lead to ‘archetypal literalism’: ‘Jungian criticism can feed off a kind of archetypal literalism when it abstracts any archetypal register from the concrete peculiarities of a film’ (Fredericksen, 2011: 102). The way out of this would be close textual analysis of cinematic narratives while curbing the instinct to generalise and to look for ‘archetypes’ in every single film or television series.

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Instead, Fredericksen suggests, Jungian film analysis should focus on therapeutic goals: to combat ‘the corruption of consciousness’ and to ‘nurture psychological life’ (2011: 102–105). The first task entails challenging the audience rather than pleasing it; and the second enlightening the viewers, helping them understand themselves. Ultimately, Fredericksen argues, ‘we are at the service of something deeper than the popular, something deeper than the semiotic register of living, something beyond the literal’ (2011: 107). In other words, Jungian film studies should concentrate on the conscious elaboration of symbols, thus promoting their deeper understanding and enhancing their educational and therapeutic value.

John Beebe is a Jungian analyst who has had a long-standing interest in films, and in how to approach them with integrity and depth. Perhaps he is best known for the ways in which he has used Jungian typology (Jung’s theory of personality type) to analyse characters in films. His article ‘The Wizard of Oz: A Vision of Development in the American Political Psyche’ (2011) set out to do just that but also succeeded in placing that analysis in a broader political landscape. Beebe is also particularly interested in Jung’s concept of the anima, which, in broad terms, is the culturally ascribed ‘feminine’ aspects of largely unconscious behaviour that occur in men. (The equivalent trait for women is termed the animus.) His most extensive work on the subject is The Presence of the Feminine in Film which is co-written with Virginia Apperson (2008). Ranging over films as diverse as Notorious (1946) and The Lives of Others (2006), the book charts what the ‘feminine’ means as it is experienced in the cinematic context. As such, the authors assert that film gives body to Jung’s conception of the feminine.

The line of succession is perhaps closer between Fredericksen and John Izod, than Beebe. Izod is another of the founding fathers of Jungian film studies. His more recent publications include Myth, Mind and the Screen: Understanding the Heroes of Our Time (2001), Screen, Culture, Psyche: А Post-Jungian Approach to Working with the Audience (2006) and Cinema as Therapy (2015; co-authored with Joanna Dovalis). Izod has offered a range of in-depth interpretations of films, tracing individuation, archetypes and the hero myth in moving image narratives. For instance, in Screen, Culture, Psyche he explores the protagonists’ quest for self-understating throughout Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Bernardo Bertolucci’s Stealing Beauty (1996), The Dreamers (2003) and Besieged (1998), and Andrew Niccol’s S1MONE (2002). He also examines old myths and the use of archetypes in Westerns as a genre and discusses the therapeutic value of screen media.

Izod draws on Jung’s idea that the psyche of the individual is inseparable from the psyche of his or her society, and that the process of individuation and spiritual progress are only as successful as society allows them to be. In other words, we are back to the central problem of Jungian psychology: the psychological state of the individual directly depends on the state of society. Films directly reflect this interdependence and render the struggle of the contemporary urban dweller to individuate. Cinema is nothing more than just another cultural form, and for the purpose of psychosocial dynamics it is as good as any other. It links the collective unconscious, with its symbolic language, to the outward world – to society and culture. Izod writes:

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In common with all cultural forms, films are vehicles for symbolic energy charged not only with collective consciousness but also with shared, irrational material that has its source in the unconscious. . . . symbols found in screen texts (like other cultural forms) must indeed, to conform to Jung’s meaning of the word, have a dimension that received energy from the unconscious.

(Izod, 2006: 18)

He also notes that the concept of individuation is particularly applicable to Western cinema because it is based ‘on the exaltation of the individual’ and is aimed at solving the problems of personal development. The individual is the focus and the centre of Western culture (Izod, 2006: 11).

Moreover, individuation suits the type of narrative adopted by mainstream cinema: linear, realistic, plausible, with a clear personal history and a traceable psychological development of the protagonist. Characters

should have not only an outer life of words and deeds, but also an inner one to which audience members give their assent. That assent is commonly won by an interplay between outer and inner life governed by narrative cause and effect. Typically, something that happens in the story world affects a protagonist. The character’s inner response to that occurrence changes his or her mental state and causes a reaction that motivates the way he or she reacts.

(Izod, 2006: 11)

This is the type of narrative to which most audience members can relate – the story of challenge, struggle and victory – the story of personal development, the story which gives hope for the ordinary person living in a complex and unpredictable modern world. This focus on the individual and his or her path in life is exactly what Christopher Vogler capitalised on in his book The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers (1998), which will be discussed in detail in the chapters that follow.

Terrie Waddell too is interested in the role of the individual and society and is a prominent representative of the ‘narrative’ school. She has published numerous monographs and edited collections in which she explored archetypes and gender in screen media. Her most notable works include Mis/takes: Archetype, Myth and Identity in Screen Fiction (2006) and Wild/Lives: Trickster, Place and Liminality on Screen (2009). For instance, in Mis/takes Waddell examines the connection between Analytical Psychology and myth. She is primarily interested in the trickster archetype, and the state of liminality in which it exists. She traces liminality to a number of moving image narratives, including The X-Files (1993–2002; 2016–), The Sopranos (1999–2007) and the BBC sitcom Absolutely Fabulous (1992–2012). She claims that ‘to examine the way that identity is disrupted and developed in contemporary film and television involves drawing on the core archetypal patterns central to [Jung’s] understanding of the psyche and mythology’ (Waddell, 2006: 1).

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Waddell argues that Analytical Psychology offers a good set of tools for the analysis of visual images:

The three major concepts integral to Jung’s ‘analytical psychology’ provide an obvious framework for analysing the visual media: first, images common in dreams, myth and creative art are often projections of unconscious archetypal patterns; second, there is a ‘collective unconscious’ where these patterns are constellated; and third, the gradual conscious unravelling of these structures promotes the development of a more aware sense of self.

(Waddell, 2006: 1)

In her books she examines the way archetypes (primarily the trickster and the child) are manifested in films and television programmes. For instance, in Mis/takes she discusses the psychopomp incarnation of the trickster in Alejandro Amenabar’s The Others (2001) and the female trickster spirit in the BBC sitcom Absolutely Fabulous (1992–2012).

In Wild/Lives: Trickster, Place and Liminality on Screen Waddell further explores the various incarnations the trickster takes on screen, using as examples (amongst others) the television series Deadwood (2004–2006) and Lost (2004–2010), Steven Soderbergh’s Solaris (2002), Werner Herzog’s documentary Grizzly Man (2005) and a US reality show The Biggest Loser (2004–). She astutely concentrates on television series and reality shows rather than traditional film because, although fleeting and perishable, TV programmes and media items reflect the collective unconscious more fully as they are often made in direct response to consumer preferences.

Like Waddell, Helena Bassil-Morozow concentrates on the role individuation and archetypes play in moving image narratives. Her publications include the monographs Tim Burton: The Monster and the Crowd (2010), The Trickster in Contemporary Film (2012) and The Trickster and the System: Identity and Agency in Contemporary Society (2014). The overarching theme of her research is the relationship between the individual and society, and particularly the ways in which individual identity is formed. She uses screen media narratives as metaphors to explore and examine this relationship.

Bassil-Morozow’s first book, Tim Burton: The Monster and the Crowd organises the films of Tim Burton around the concept of the child archetype, and traces its various incarnations in his films. She argues that his male (and some of his female) characters are variants of the puer aeternus. The child in Burton’s films never stays the same and takes a range of forms: the monster, the superhero, the maniac and the genius. These guises overlap and amalgamate as the cultural manifestations of the archetype are never solid but always fluid. Burton’s protagonists often combine a range of roles: Edward Scissorhands (Edward Scissorhands, 1993) and Willy Wonka (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, 2005) are childish geniuses and Bruce Wayne (Batman, 1989; Batman Returns, 1992) is a superhero who feels like a monster. In fact, his ‘monster’ side, the Joker – the shadow of the modern individual – is split off and keeps haunting him in the streets of Gotham City.

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Bassil-Morozow’s second book, The Trickster in Contemporary Film, also focuses on a single archetype – this time the trickster. In her monograph she regards the trickster as a psycho-anthropological figure, a metaphor of change, and groups the qualities demonstrated by tricksters in myths and fairy tales – shape-shifting, licentiousness, control issues, scatology and association with the animal world. She then shows how these motifs manifest themselves in contemporary comedy film – and particularly movies featuring Jim Carrey, including Dumb and Dumber (Peter and Bobby Farrelly, 1994), Chuck Russell’s The Mask (1994) and Peyton Reed’s Yes Man (2008). Interestingly enough, both Waddell and Bassil-Morozow concentrate in their works on the trickster figure as it reflects the spirit of the post-industrial times and shows the changes in the collective psyche more faithfully than any other image. The trickster is pure change, pure movement, which makes him a suitable metaphor for the description of the fast-paced environments and lifestyles of Western societies.

More recently, Bassil-Morozow has been extending the trickster metaphor to the analysis of the relationship between the individual and society. In The Trickster and the System: Identity and Agency in Contemporary Society she focuses on the dynamics between the individual and civilising structures, and on the ways in which human identity is formed and managed. The book traces the trickster’s machinations to a number of political and social phenomena, including the capitalist economy, mass media and the creative impulse. The trickster and the social forces controlling and shaping the individual’s behaviour exist in a kind of symbiosis which allows the system to renew itself by using the trickster’s energy and inventiveness. Thus, every successful social structure should have an in-built trickster whose vitality and thirst for change keep it alive, and ensure progress and improvement. By contrast, the stifling and silencing of the trickster (any dissenting voices) means solidification of structural elements of society. This inevitably leads to oppression, stagnation and eventual dissolution of the system.

Christopher Hauke, too, is interested in the question of structure and system but primarily in relation to the production and reception of films. Hauke’s professions inform his vision of moving image narratives: he is an academic author and lecturer, a game developer, an enthusiastic filmmaker and a Jungian analyst. The two collections he co-edited with his colleagues, Ian Alister and Luke Hockley, are, respectively, Jung and Film: Post-Jungian Takes on the Moving Image (2001) and Jung and Film II: The Return (2011). Hauke’s general view on cinema and its interpretation are quite in line with the rest of the Jungian film coterie...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Jungian Film Studies
• Jung: The Essential Guides
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part I Methods
• Part II Applications
• Bibliography
• List of Names
• Index