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Seditious Suspicion: Toward a Hermeneutics of Resistance
In his book Freud and the Philosophers, the hermeneuticist Paul Ricoeur coined the phrase “the school of suspicion” to describe the method shared by Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud. Their common intention, he claims, was the decision “to look upon the whole of consciousness primarily as ‘false’ consciousness… [taking] up again, each in a different manner, the problem of Cartesian doubt, to carry it to the very heart of the Cartesian stronghold,” (Ricoeur, 33) that is, applying doubt’s caustic and destructive epistemological impulse to the internal world. Their achievement lies in the introduction of a profoundly new process of interpretation. Contrary to “any hermeneutics understood as the recollection of meaning,” (Ricoeur, 35) that is, any idea of interpretation as a ‘proper listening,’ the “masters of suspicion” saw the act of exegesis as one of deciphering, demystification. A message must be more than simply heard; reception is not equivalent to comprehension. Signification, by this logic, is a coded affair, and without the cipher it will be received but not understood. Ricoeur makes a point to draw a sharp line between suspicion and skepticism here; there is no question that symbols have a message to convey. Suspicion is “a tearing off of masks, an interpretation that reduces disguises.” (Ricoeur, 30) Where the skeptic allows the suspicious impulse to run unchecked, suspicion works to “clear the horizon…for a new reign of Truth.” The radical skeptic’s childish destructiveness is untempered by a creative, inventive act: “the invention of an art of interpreting” (Ricoeur, 33).
How, then, could this hermeneutics be applied to film? It seems a strange realm for the school of suspicion to find converts. The ‘suspension of disbelief’ would seem to be wholly at odds with the sharp and merciless blade of doubt. And yet, since The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, certain films, generally from the genre of science-fiction, have been whittling away at our naïve faith in the real and the reality of our neighbors. If these films were to be gathered together as a genre (and a recent spate of such movies indicates that Hollywood has begun to recognize the appeal of such a grouping), we might call it the cinema of suspicion. For the most part these movies, like Seconds or Total Recall, rarely lead us to question the very existence of reality. They almost never advocate quiescence in the face of the deceit of our senses.
In the piece “Cinema/Ideology/Criticism,” Jean Luc-Comolli and Jean Narboni define the critic's job as the discernment of “which films, books and magazines allow the ideology a free, unhampered passage, transmit it with crystal clarity, serve as its chosen language” and which films “attempt to make it turn back and reflect itself, intercept it, make it visible by revealing its mechanisms, by blocking them” (753). Through their examination, seven film categories are outlined. Clue falls into the “E” category, which is defined as “films which seem at first sight to belong firmly within the ideology and to be completely under its sway, but which turn out to be so only in an ambiguous manner” (75...
Neill, Alex. “Empathy and (Film) Fiction.” Philosophy of film and motion pictures : an anthology. Ed. Noel Carrol and Jinhee Choi. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2006. 247-259. Print.
In this passage, Williams’ emphasises the nature of Blanche’s demise through the contrapuntal mode of the scene juxtaposing Blanche’s bathing with Stanley and Stella’s conversation. Williams wrote in a letter to Elia Kazan, who was to direct the film production of the play, that ‘It is a thing (misunderstanding) not a person (Stanley) that destroys (Blanche) in the ends’. This passage is significant as it shows the extent of Stanley’s misunderstanding of Blanche and his stubbornness to ascertain his condemnations to Stella. Furthermore, the use of colloquial lexis shows the true feebleness of Stanley’s claim because his judicial façade is diminished and shows the dangerous influence of claims as he sways Mitch away from Blanche. Stella’s character
The loss of her beloved husband kept Blanche’s mental state in the past, back when she was 16, when she only cared about her appearance. That is why at the age of 30 she avoids bright lights that reveal her wrinkles. Blanche does not want to remember the troubles of her past and therefore she attempts to remain at a time when life was simpler. This is reinforced by the light metaphor which illustrates how her life has darkened since Allan’s suicide and how the light of love will never shine as brightly for Blanche ever again. Although, throughout the play Blanche sparks an interest in Mitch, a friend of Stanley’s, who reveals in Scene three that he also lost a lover once, although his lover was taken by an illness, not suicide, and therefore he still searches for the possibility of love, when Blanche aims to find stability and security.
Tennessee Williams tells a story of a battle with fantasy and reality through his characters in A Streetcar Named Desire. When the reader is first introduced to the character of Blanche DuBois, she portrays herself as sincere and fragile. Blanche shows up at the house of her sister Stella and her husband Stanley’s home with the intent of staying at their home for a lengthy amount of time. Blanche tells Stella that she has lost Belle Reve, an ancestral home, after the death of many of their relatives and also mentions she has been given a leave of absence from her job as a school teacher because of her bad nerves, “I was so exhausted by all I’d been through my --- nerves broke. I was on the verge of --- lunacy, almost! So Mr. Graves – Mr. Graves
Among New American Ghost Cinema, one can witness the re-emergence of an interesting sub-genre: the Found Footage Cinema. We can observe this new fascination in many modern horror films such as 2008’s Cloverfield, 2009's Paranormal Activity, and 2011's Apollo 18. Digging below the surface of a literal reading of some of these movies, one finds a genre that can be far more intelligent than what meets the public eye. For example, within Cloverfield, the screams and images of smoke heaving through the city of Manhattan hint at post-September 11th. To understand the growing popularity of Found Footage Cinema and why we discover these political undertones, this paper will examine The Blair Witch Project (1999, Myrick and Sanchez) in the context of theorists Robin Wood and Jürgen Habermas’ discussion on humankind’s senses of truth and what our society represses or oppresses. Both Habermas’ essay “The Public Sphere” and Wood’s “Introduction to the American Horror Film” touch on the inner workings of the public’s mind. With these essays and an analysis of these films, I will be able to propose theories working towards a mode of critical engagement with the success of The Blair Witch Project. It is then that we will connect it to the wider social and political jungle surrounding America as it stood on the edge of the Twenty First Century.
The controversies surrounding British crime film releases between 1947 and 1949 are not due to the films themselves, but rather the ways in which the filmmakers were imitating Hollywood cinema’. Making reference to one British crime film in this period alongside primary and secondary source materials, explain to what extent this statement is true?
A Streetcar Named Desire, written by Tennessee Williams in 1947, has been called the best play ever written by an American. The geological setting of the play, New Orleans, creates a remarkably blended mood of decadence, nostalgia, and sensuality. The plot of the play comes about through the conflict between a man and his sister-in-law who comes to live at his house with he and his wife. Stanley Kowalski immediately captures the attention of the audience through Williams' excellent portrayal of the intensely strong willed character.
Much like Freud’s attitude to the understanding of consciousness, Stuart Sutherland seems accepting of the fact that regardless of psychologists perceptions and interpretations of what consciousness is, it is somewhat worthless trying to depict the true definition of the theory, as there is no...
Montag begins to cry when he thinks about Mildred dying because he realizes that their relationship has been very dull and without love. She doesn't know if he'd be sad or miss her if she died.
One of the earliest known witch hunts that occurred took place in B.C.E. The Hebrew scriptures addressed witchcraft, including Exodus 22:18 and various verses in Leviticus and Deuteronomy.The first term for a witch hunt was searching out for persecution of persons accused of witchcraft. The modern day definition is a situation where accusations are made freely, especially against someone or something who was not popular with the majority. Both definitions of the term are very similar because the accusations are based on little to no evidence. Anyone could be accused no matter your position in power or your record of good deeds. The only thing that has changed is that people are not as gullible as they once were. Witch hunts still happen today
Friedrich Nietzsche’s On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense represents a deconstruction of the modern epistemological project. Instead of seeking for truth, he suggests that the ultimate truth is that we have to live without such truth, and without a sense of longing for that truth. This revolutionary work of his is divided into two main sections. The first part deals with the question on what is truth? Here he discusses the implication of language to our acquisition of knowledge. The second part deals with the dual nature of man, i.e. the rational and the intuitive. He establishes that neither rational nor intuitive man is ever successful in their pursuit of knowledge due to our illusion of truth. Therefore, Nietzsche concludes that all we can claim to know are interpretations of truth and not truth itself.
In the hundred or so years of cinema, there have been many significant figures behind the camera of the films audiences have enjoyed, though there has been a select few that are considered “auteurs.” One of the most famous of auteurs in film history is the great Alfred Hitchcock, who is most identified with the use of suspense in his films, while also being notorious for the themes of voyeurism, the banality of evil, and obsession. In both the films we watched in class, Psycho and Rear Window, these three themes were somehow a part of the deeper meaning Hitchcock wanted to convey to the audience.
A Streetcar Named Desire is a brillant play which expresses America as a corrupted and desolate world. Through the eyes of Blanche DuBois, an incongruous figure in the play, she constantly lies to escape the harsh reality of her past and present. However, Stanley Kowalski, an animal breathing brute, tears down her vision and destroys her every last bit of hope of her dreams. Tennessee Williams intends to reveal the ruthless state that America has now become. He wants to illustrate that the people’s desires are violent, shallow, and submissive. Many people, such as Blanche, still hang on to the past and have a hard time distinguishing between fantasy and reality. Williams uses different strategies to enhance these ideas in his play. He commonly
In Tennessee Williams’ 1947 play ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, Williams highlights the inequality of the patriarchal society through the character of Stanley Kowalski. Through the comparison of Blanche and Stanley respectively representing the ‘old south’ and ‘new south’, Williams draws out Stanley’s character as a Polish immigrant’s son, employed as a factory worker who is unwaveringly contributing to the diminishing of the aristocratic lifestyle which Blanche embodies. Williams presents the brutality of Stanley’s character through unconventional dramatic techniques, specific animalistic language and stage directions.