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All Topic Reviews A Basic Theory of NeuropsychoanalysisA Cursing Brain?A Dream of Undying FameA Map of the MindAfter LacanAgainst AdaptationAgainst FreudAn Anatomy of AddictionAnalytic FreudAndré Green at the Squiggle FoundationAnger, Madness, and the DaimonicAnna FreudAnna Freud: A BiographyApproaching PsychoanalysisAttachment and PsychoanalysisBadiouBecoming a SubjectBefore ForgivingBerlin PsychoanalyticBetween Emotion and CognitionBeyond GenderBeyond SexualityBeyond the Pleasure PrincipleBiology of FreedomBoundaries and Boundary Violations in PsychoanalysisBuilding on BionCare of the PsycheCarl JungCassandra's DaughterCherishmentConfusion of TonguesContemporary Psychoanalysis and the Legacy of the Third ReichCrucial Choices, Crucial ChangesCulture and Conflict in Child and Adolescent Mental HealthDarwin's WormsDesert Islands and Other Texts (1953-1974)Dispatches from the Freud WarsDoes the Woman Exist?Doing Psychoanalysis in TehranDreaming and Other Involuntary MentationDreaming by the BookEnergy Psychology InteractiveEqualsErrant SelvesEthics and the Discovery of the UnconsciousEthics Case Book of the American Psychoanalytic AssociationFairbairn's Object Relations Theory in the Clinical SettingFed with Tears -- Poisoned with MilkFeminism and Its DiscontentsForms of Intersubjectivity in Infant Reasearch and Adult TreatmentFour Lessons of PsychoanalysisFratricide in the Holy LandFreudFreudFreudFreudFreudFreudFreud and the Question of PseudoscienceFreud As PhilosopherFreud at 150Freud's AnswerFreud's WizardFreud, the Reluctant PhilosopherFrom Classical to Contemporary PsychoanalysisFundamentals of Psychoanalytic TechniqueGenes on the CouchGoing SaneHans BellmerHappiness, Death, and the Remainder of LifeHate and Love in Psychoanalytical InstitutionsHatred and ForgivenessHealing the Soul in the Age of the BrainHeinz KohutHeinz KohutHidden MindsHistory of ShitHope and Dread in PsychoanalysisImagination and Its PathologiesImagine There's No WomanIn Freud's TracksIn SessionIn the Floyd ArchivesIntimaciesIntimate RevoltIrrationalityIs Oedipus Online?Jacques LacanJacques Lacan and the Freudian Practice of PsychoanalysisJung and the Making of Modern PsychologyJung Stripped BareKilling FreudLacanLacanLacanLacan and Contemporary FilmLacan at the SceneLacan For BeginnersLacan in AmericaLacan TodayLacan's Seminar on AnxietyLawLearning from Our MistakesLove's ExecutionerMad Men and MedusasMale Female EmailMelanie KleinMemoirs of My Nervous IllnessMental SlaveryMind to MindMixing MindsMoral StealthMourning and ModernityMovies and the MindMurder in ByzantiumNew Studies of Old VillainsNocturnesNoir AnxietyOn Being Normal and Other DisordersOn BeliefOn IncestOn Not Being Able to SleepOn the Freud WatchOn the Way HomeOpen MindedOpera's Second DeathOvercoming Destructive Beliefs, Feelings, and BehaviorsPhenomology & Lacan on Schizophrenia, After the Decade of the BrainPhilosophical Counselling and the UnconsciousPractical Psychoanalysis for Therapists and PatientsPsychiatry, Psychoanalysis, And The New Biology Of MindPsychoanalysisPsychoanalysisPsychoanalysis and Narrative MedicinePsychoanalysis and NeurosciencePsychoanalysis and the Philosophy of SciencePsychoanalysis as Biological SciencePsychoanalysis at the MarginsPsychoanalysis at the MarginsPsychoanalysis in a New LightPsychoanalysis in FocusPsychology, Psychotherapy, Psychoanalysis, and the Politics of Human RelationshipsPsychotherapy As PraxisPutnam CampQuestions for FreudRe-Inventing the SymptomReading Seminar XXReinventing the SoulRelational Theory and the Practice of PsychotherapyRelationalityRepressed SpacesRevolt, She SaidSecrets of the SoulSerious ShoppingSex on the CouchSexuationSigmund FreudSoul Murder RevisitedSpectral EvidenceSpirit, Mind, and BrainStrangers to OurselvesSubjective Experience and the Logic of the OtherSubjectivity and OthernessSubstance Abuse As SymptomSurrealist Painters and PoetsTaboo SubjectsTalk is Not EnoughThe Arabic FreudThe Art of the SubjectThe Brain and the Inner WorldThe Brain, the Mind and the SelfThe Cambridge Companion to LacanThe Challenge for Psychoanalysis and PsychotherapyThe Clinical LacanThe Colonization Of Psychic SpaceThe Condition of MadnessThe Couch and the TreeThe Cruelty of DepressionThe Dissociative Mind in PsychoanalysisThe Dreams of InterpretationThe Examined LifeThe Fall Of An IconThe Freud EncyclopediaThe Freud FilesThe Freud WarsThe Fright of Real TearsThe Future of PsychoanalysisThe Gift of TherapyThe Heart & Soul of ChangeThe Knotted SubjectThe Last Good FreudianThe Late Sigmund FreudThe Letters of Sigmund Freud and Otto RankThe Mind According to ShakespeareThe Mystery of PersonalityThe Mythological UnconsciousThe Neuropsychology of the UnconsciousThe New PsychoanalysisThe Power of FeelingsThe Psychoanalytic MovementThe Psychoanalytic MysticThe Psychoanalytic Study of the ChildThe Psychoanalytic Study of the ChildThe Psychodynamics of Gender and Gender RoleThe Puppet and the DwarfThe Real World Guide to Psychotherapy PracticeThe Revolt of the PrimitiveThe Seminar of Moustafa SafouanThe Sense and Non-Sense of RevoltThe Shortest ShadowThe Social History of the UnconsciousThe Surface EffectThe Symmetry of GodThe Tragedy of the SelfThe Trainings of the PsychoanalystThe UnsayableThe World of PerversionTherapeutic ActionTherapy's DelusionsThis Incredible Need to BelieveThoughts Without A ThinkerTo Redeem One Person Is to Redeem the WorldTrauma and Human ExistenceTraumatizing TheoryUmbr(a)Unconscious knowing and other essays in psycho-philosophical analysisUnderstanding Dissidence and Controversy in the History of PsychoanalysisUnderstanding PsychoanalysisUnfree AssociationsWalking HeadsWay Beyond FreudWhat Does a Woman Want?What Freud Really MeantWhen the Body SpeaksWhere Do We Fall When We Fall in Love?Whose Freud?Why Psychoanalysis?Wilhelm ReichWinnicottWinnicott On the ChildWisdom Won from IllnessWittgenstein on Freud and FrazerWittgenstein Reads FreudWorld, Affectivity, TraumaZizek
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 Review - Noir Anxietyby Kelly Oliver and Benigno Trigo University of Minnesota Press, 2003 Review by Irene E. Harvey, Ph.D. Mar 8th 2005 (Volume 9, Issue 10) Using the grid of Freudian
psychoanalysis, Oliver and Trigo examine a wide array of films within the genre
of 'film noir.' In particular, the notions of condensation and displacement are
used throughout the text in order to suggest that the logic of identity
formation in virtually all of 'noir' is based on a process of exclusion,
repression and the return of the repressed oftentimes in the form of violence,
suicide or murder of the other. The work of Kristeva is brought into the mix
through the notion of the 'abject' which is both prior to subject formation as
the process of creating an identity (by exclusion) as a particular race, sex,
gender, ethnicity and also as the never totally repressed otherness which
always returns in one form or another.
The text is rich in detail as it offers up each film
to the psychoanalytic sacrifice when it is dissected according to the grids and
tools as named above and in turn demystified insofar as all mysteries, ambiguities
and ambivalences and particularly anxieties are explained, so it is claimed.
The traditional techniques of film
noir such as voice-over narration, flashbacks in time and out of narrative
sequence, the props of the femme fatale and the wily detective, and the
plethora of murders all fall into the condensation and displacement traps of
analysis. This procedure is applied to such varied themes as east vs. west,
north vs. south, the topography of space applied to that of the psyche such as
rooms, cities, and transportation vehicles and modes, accents of the stranger
or foreigner, bad jokes or jokes that fail in their structural mode pf
presentation. In addition, the mother as missing and indeed as the missing
piece which sets the violence of most of these films in motion is also analyzed
along these same psychoanalytic lines.
What is not clear in these analyses
however is just whose psyche is being analyzed or which level of production of
these images is truly their origin. At times it is the protagonists that are
trapped in these Freudian maneuvers, at other times it is the director or
producer of the film and in yet others the writer. In all cases, however, it is
claimed that the issues of race, sex, gender and ethnicity are played out as
representations of these same societal issues. Exactly how the psyche and the
social are linked is not thematized here and would add richly to the text if it
had been. Instead this connection is simply assumed and yet this would make the
unconscious a non-individualized phenomenon and this too is not addressed here.
One of the few references to social context is made in the introduction where
it is mentioned in passing that film noir was developed near the end of WW II
and hence focused on certain issues such as 'the Negro problem' which were
concerns of the day in the United States principally. Again it would seem that
a social and political theory of the unconscious is required in order to have
the individual and collective psyches meet or at least intersect.
Further, the grid of psychoanalysis
itself is never questioned or challenged in this analysis. Instead we have a
series of applications of structures to films that then are found to fall
within these structures. However elucidating some of this depiction and unraveling
of film noir is here nonetheless there is no film discussed which does not
depict the theory. Thus are we to conclude that film noir is simply using
psychoanalytic motifs as its modus operendi or that other films which do not
fit this mold were not included. One could use the same identity formation
logic of exclusion here on the subject formation of this text, perhaps.
Secondly, there is nothing
discussed concerning the films which might be called an overdetermination of
the theory presented. There seems to be no excess here where the film would
extend in complexity or finesse beyond the structures of displacement,
condensation, return of the repressed and the abject. This seems suspicious at
best and an unnecessary censoring of aspects of the film noir productions such
that other perhaps even competing structures or explanations are not presented.
The most troubling issue might be
the assumption of the social context of social problems which is assumed within
the psyche of the protagonist, film maker and writer all at once. This
certainly seems a condensation of a number of contexts into one and perhaps a
displacement of the abject -- those issues that are truly borderline and do not
fit snugly within the categories used in this study.
These objections or concerns
notwithstanding the portrayal of film noir through the psychoanalytic lens here
is incredibly illuminating and suggestive and certainly does offer explanatory
structures for what are often seen as uncanny or simply grotesque or sublime
elements which are left nameless and intellectually homeless. Trigo and Oliver
have certainly found homes for them but the fit may be a bit snug.
© 2005 Irene E. Harvey
Irene E. Harvey,
Ph.D., Associate Professor of Philosophy at Penn State University
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