Editing Psychoanalytic film theory (section)

==Precursors==
At the end of the nineteenth century, psychoanalysis was created, and film happened to follow shortly afterward.{{sfn|Creed|1998|pp=1}} [[André Breton]], the founder of the [[Surrealist]] movement, saw film as a means of engaging the unconscious. Since films had the ability to tell a story using techniques such as superimposition, and slow motion, the Surrealists saw this as mimicking dreams.{{sfn|Creed|1998|pp=2}}

Early applications of psychoanalysis to cinema concentrated on unmasking latent meanings behind screen images, before moving on to a consideration of film as a representation of [[Fantasy (psychology)|fantasy]].{{sfn|Lapsley|Westlake|1988|pp=67 and 91}} From there, a wider consideration of the [[Subject (philosophy)|subject position]] of the viewer led to wider engagements with critical theory - to psychoanalytic film theory proper.{{sfn|Lapsley|Westlake|1988|pp=92-95}}

From 1969, as a reaction to the unrest in Paris in [[May 68]], a theoretical examination of the medium of cinema developed, starting in France, more precisely on the part of French film criticism, the basis of which was a mixture of psychoanalysis, semiotics, structuralism and Marxism . The formation of psychoanalytic film theories reached its peak in 1975: the articles "Le Dispositif: approches métapsychologiques de l'impression de réalité" by Jean Louis Baudry and "Le film de fiction et son spectateur (Étude métapsychologique)" by Christian Metz advanced to the most influential and effective texts.<ref>Kügle, p. 206–222</ref>

The focus of this theoretical film debate was the viewer subject and its relationship to cinema. The starting point was formed by the considerations of the French theorist Jean Louis Baudry and the writings on film theory by Christian Metz, whose Le signifiant imaginaire. Psychoanalyse et cinéma (1977, dt.: The imaginary signifier. Psychoanalyse and cinema) really opened the discussion. Metz makes an attempt to transfer psychoanalytic terms - in particular the theory of Jacques Lacan - to the field of cinematography.

Psychoanalytic film theory primarily tries to work out how the unconscious supports the reception of film events, or how film and cinema trigger unconscious, irrational processes in the viewer and thus turn film watching into a pleasurable experience. If film, as has always been claimed, can be brought close to the dream, then it must be possible to approach it with the means of psychoanalysis (analogous to the interpretation of a dream).

Freud's concepts of the Oedipus complex, narcissism, castration, the unconscious, the return, and hysteria are all utilized in film theory.{{sfn|Creed|1998|pp=2}}
The 'unconscious' of a film are examined; this is known as [[subtext]].{{sfn|Creed|1998|pp=2-3}}