Speaking Pictures , livre ebook

SPEAKING PICTURES
SPEAKING PICTURES
NEUROPSYCHOANALYSIS AND AUTHORSHIP IN FILM AND LITERATURE

ALISTAIR FOX
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press Office of Scholarly Publishing Herman B Wells Library 350 1320 East 10th Street Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
2016 by Alistair Fox
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Fox, Alistair.
Title: Speaking pictures : neuropsycho-analysis and authorship in film and literature / Alistair Fox.
Description: Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015046899 | ISBN 9780253020871 (cl : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780253020918 (pb : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Fiction-Psychological aspects. | Authorship-Psychological aspects. | Psychology and literature. | Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.) | Motion pictures-Psychological aspects.
Classification: LCC PN3352.P7 F79 2016 | DDC 808.301/9-dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015046899
1 2 3 4 5 21 20 19 18 17 16
For my students
Poesy therefore is an art of imitation, for so Aristotle termeth it in his word mim sis , that is to say, a representing, counterfeiting, or figuring forth-to speak metaphorically, a speaking picture-with this end, to teach and delight.
-Sir Philip Sidney, An Apology for Poetry (1581-1583)
When I think consciously I can think only one thought in any given moment. Yet an image . . . simultaneously contains many thoughts. The image, worth a thousand words, is an unconscious organization.
-Christopher Bollas, The Infinite Question (2009)
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Changing Configurations in Theories of Fictive Representation
Embodied Fictions, or Fictions as Sign? Classical Perspectives
The Effects of Christian Conversion: A Medieval Bifurcation
The Renaissance Humanist Synthesis and Its Aftermath
Neoclassicism versus Romanticism: A New Disjunction
Displacing the Locations of Authority: Modernism and Postmodernism
Renewed Allegoricizations: Psychoanalytic Theories of Interpretation
Alternative Psychoanalytic Formulations: Object-Relations Theory
Renewed Formalisms: Cognitive and Evolutionary Theories
Neuropsychoanalysis and the Need for a New Synthesis
2. Why Does Fictive Representation Exist?
Emotional Systems and the Human Brain
Metaphorical Conceptualization
Implicit and Explicit Memory
Implications for Poststructuralist Critical Theory
The Functions of Fictive Representation
The Creation of Complex Models of Reality
3. The Wellsprings of Fictive Creativity
Motivations Arising from the Basic Affects
Psychological Motivations and Outcomes
Emotional Perturbation as a Source of Creativity
The Functions of Storytelling for the Collectivity
The Preoccupations of Storytelling
4. The Materials of Fictive Invention
The Building Blocks of Fictive Creativity
The Montage Principle
Visualization and Symbolization in the Encompassing of Complexity
Discursive and Presentational Symbols in Shakespeare s Romeo and Juliet
Visual and Verbal Interplay in Alexander Payne s 14 e Arrondissement
Metaphor and Vitality Affects
Vitality Affects in Cinematic Representations
Evocative Objects, Networks of Association, and the Unconscious
5. The Informing Role of Fantasy
The Nature of Fantasy
The Mechanisms of Fantasy
Fantasies and the Affective Systems
The Functions of Fantasies
Mechanisms of Displacement
Fantasy and Visual Polysemia
6. The Shaping of Fictive Scenarios by the Author: Motivations, Strategies, and Outcomes
Determinants of Form
Conversion of Metaphor into Plot: Preston s Perfect Strangers; Spenser s Faerie Queene
Symbolic Mapping: The Films of Jane Campion
Dichotomization: The Films of Bruno Dumont
Symbolic Spatialization: Truffaut s The Last Metro; Panarello s One Hundred Strokes
7. The Exploitation of Generic Templates and Intertexts as Vehicles for Affect Regulation
The Nature and Function of Genres and Intertexts
Triumph through Tragedy: John Milton s Samson Agonistes
Containing Anxiety and Evacuating Fear: Contemporary American Blockbusters
Enacting a Fantasy of Restitution: Fran ois Ozon s The New Girlfriend
General Inferences
8. Theories of Reception in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
Reader-Response Theory versus the New Criticism
Versions of Reader-Response Theory
Psychoanalytic Accounts of Reception
Cultural and Historical Materialist Perspectives
Cognitivist Theories of Reception
Embodied Simulation and the Experiential Turn
Hypnosis, Animality, and the Body of Cinema
Shortcomings in Contemporary Theories to Date
9. A Neuropsychoanalytic Theory of Reception
The Nature of the Subject and Self-Formation
Mirror Neurons
Embodied Simulation, Agency, and Intentional Attunement
The Intersubjective Transaction between the Author and Respondent
The Role of Interfantasy
The Metabolizing of Fictive Fantasies by the Respondent
Motivations for the Respondent s Engagement with a Fictive Representation
Evidence Derived from Self-Reports
10. Intersubjective Attunement, Filiation, and the Re-creative Process: Jules and Jim -from Henri-Pierre Roch to Fran ois Truffaut
Unconscious Attraction and Networks of Filiation
Truffaut s Encounter with Roch s Novel
Clara Roch : A Jocasta Mother
Janine Truffaut: The Queen of Indifference
Multiple Identifications, Memories, and Emotions in Truffaut s Jules and Jim
The Fantasmatic Scenario of Truffaut s Jules and Jim
11. The Conversion of Autobiographical Emotion into Symbolic Figuration: William Shakespeare s Hamlet
The Vehicle for Fantasmatic Conversion: Belleforest s Account of Amleth
Shakespeare s Alterations to the Source
The Structural Shaping of the Representation
Networks of Associative Metaphors
Revelation of the Play s Affective Logic
The Informing Fantasy
The Link to Shakespeare s Biography
The Centrality of Hamlet in Shakespeare s Personal Myth
12. Tracking a Personal Myth through an Oeuvre: The Films of Fran ois Ozon
Charles Mauron and Psychocriticism: The Theory of Personal Myth
A Bulimic Filmmaker: Fran ois Ozon
Recurring Images and Metaphors
Pairings and Doublings in Symbolic Configurations
Cinegrams and Repetitions in the Action
Fantasmatic Constructions
Strategies of Displacement
The Purposes of Ozon s Cinematic Fantasies
Conclusion
Notes
Select Bibliography
Filmography
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I AM PARTICULARLY indebted to a number of people for the writing of this book. Chief among them is Raymond Bellour, whose work on the emotions and the effects of a cinematic representation on the spectator stimulated me to begin the line of enquiry that has eventuated in this study. My thanks go to him also for his hospitality and the many hours of conversation during which he freely imparted his insights. Equally important to my research has been the work of Anne Gillain, whose remarkable insights into the creative motivations and strategies of Fran ois Truffaut have been invaluable in helping me shape my own theory of authorship and of what takes place in the creative process. At one crucial point in this project, Norman Holland provided welcome support, and, like all scholars pursuing research on the psychological aspects of literature, I am indebted to his work on literature and the brain, and on reception.
At the University of Otago, several colleagues have acted as indispensable interlocutors: Dave Ciccoricco, whose expertise in cognitive literary studies meant that he was able to refer me to certain studies that have relevance to the topic, and Fr d ric Dichtel, whose sharp interpretative insights allowed him to serve as a critical friend with respect to films we liked and my developing argument. I benefited, too, from the doctoral research of Sharon Matthews in her study of the plays of James K. Baxter, which, among other things, heightened my awareness of the continuing relevance of the psychocritical theory of Charles Mauron.
I would also like to thank Raina Polivka, my editor at Indiana University Press, whose input-in what is my third collaboration with her-ensured that this book will be a better one than it otherwise might have been.
Finally, my greatest debt, as always, is to my partner Hilary Radner for her encouragement and input into the evolution of my thinking. Not only does she possess an exceptional critical mind; her ability to see the potential implications of a line of thought is unrivaled. Without her, this book would never have been written.
SPEAKING PICTURES
Introduction
Throughout history, men