Book Review: Moving Images: Psychoanalytic Reflections On Film

Moving Images: Psychoanalytic Reflections On Film

Andrea Sabbadini. (2014). Hove, East Sussex: Routledge.

With his edited books The Couch and The Silver Screen (2003) and Projected Shadows (2007), both, like this latest offering, published by Routledge, and, just as impressive, his directorship since 2001 of the European Psychoanalytic Film Festival, Sabbadini may justifiably be regarded as a major authority on psychoanalysis and the 'movies'. My choice of the popular, originally North American, term for film is intentional, since it is clear to me on reading this latest offering that Sabbadini's aim is not to essay, as he describes it, 'a systematic, scholarly approach to film criticism, nor' to propose via a new general theoretical model for film interpretation 'a better understanding of psychoanalytic models of the mind.' Instead, he sets out to achieve something which I think is rather more difficult, and that is to venture beyond the confined circle of psychoanalytic film analysis to engage a wider audience – those who are interested in both film and therapy, albeit primarily psychoanalytic therapy. The main title 'Moving Images' seems to me to be significant too, since it points up both the technical nature of film and also its impact upon the viewer.

As someone who studied for a Diploma in Film at the BFI back in the 1990s, and who, over the three years I was taken up with this found myself regularly kicking against what frequently felt then like the straightjacket of psychoanalytic film analysis – often it seemed to me more arid and convoluted than it was illuminating – I immediately appreciated the vernacular, demystificatory, style of this book. Sabbadini is clear about what he wishes to do, sets out to do it (and for me at least largely achieves his goals), and then reminds us what he has done. This is a refreshing approach, and one which I suspect is natural for him since, having a fund of knowledge on his topic and a passion to communicate this to the reader, he has no interest in becoming derailed by displays of theoretical fireworks or technical culs-de-sac.

So what, exactly, does Sabbadini set out to do? He says relatively little directly regarding the potential of film in the consulting room, and I would have been interested to read about his position on this as I am aware of a number of texts which advocate – perhaps in rather simplistic and directive ways – something akin to the prescription of particular films for particular 'presenting problems'. These texts, I suspect, dilute the possible therapeutic function of film rather as bibliotherapy based on 'bookscriptions' from short lists of approved self-help texts may be said to disregard a broader and deeper engagement with what is therapeutic in the activity of reading. Certainly the successful North American series of books which includes Rent Two Films And Let's Talk in the Morning, The Motion Picture Prescription: Watch This Movie And Call Me In The Morning, and Reel Therapy: How Movies Inspire You To Overcome Life's Problems, advocate a pragmatic position on the relationship between cinema and therapy. Of course these reflect only a limited perspective, and are examples of popular psychology. Sabbadini takes a rather more satisfying, exploratory, direction, discussing twenty-five important feature films using a psychoanalytic interpretative approach to consider them as 'the artistic vehicles of new, unsuspected meanings.' The link to existentialism comes with Sabbadini's recognition that practitioners in the separate cultural phenomenon of film and therapy share a common goal of engaging with profound truths about the human condition, and creating a language with which to do so. It seems to me that a respectful but rigorously pursued curiosity about the nature of Being, and about how Being unfolds in individual lives is the sine qua non of existential therapy; as Sabbadini writes 'It is indeed curiosity which motivates people to make films, and others to watch them. It is curiosity that motivates some individuals to become psychoanalysts, and others to lie on their couches. And again because of their curiosity that some are drawn to write down their reflections on the complex and fascinating relationship between psychoanalysis and cinema, and others may be drawn to read them.' (p 117).

I found this psychoanalytically informed exploration of cinema rewarded my curiosity to a great extent; I came away from the book, thanks to the accessibility and clarity of Sabbadini's writing, with a greater appreciation of the contribution of psychoanalytic insight to the analysis of the twenty-five films discussed. (An equally rewarding text focusing more explicitly on existential insight would make fascinating reading.) It also piqued my curiosity since I finished the book with a hunger to read further, and in particular to read more about the way in which Sabbadini's very evident knowledge and appreciation of film informs his own therapeutic practice. I suspect the connection between the two phenomena – film and therapy – is a subtle one, certainly more subtle than the explicit connections exhorted by much 'movie therapy'. The (probably quite unoriginal) thought which comes to me, on reaching the end of the book, is that film can offer the viewer an opportunity to be, as indicated in the title of the book, 'moved' – reconnected in often a quite visceral manner with some aspect of what it means to be human, and it is this connection which enriches us as both individuals and individual viewers and therapists. And in the meantime, I am moved to read Sabbadini's two previous books on film and therapy…

References

Hesley, J. W. & Hesley, J. G. (2001). Rent Two Films and Let's Talk in the Morning. New York: J. Wiley & Sons.

Sabbadini, A. (2003). The Couch and the Silver Screen. London: Routledge.

Sabbadini, A. (2007). Projected Shadows. London: Routledge.

Soloman, G. (2001). Reel Therapy. How Movies Inspire You To Overcome Life's Problems. New York: Lebhar-Friedman.

Soloman, G. (1995). The Motion Picture Prescription. Watch This Movie And Call Me In The Morning. Santa Rosa, CA: Asian Publishing.

Simon du Plock

Simon du Plock