PSYCHOANALYTIC and IDEOLOGICAL FILM MODELS

PREPARED BY:

Prof. Donnie T. Sacueza

M.A. in Communication

It takes a great man to be a good listener.

--Calvin Coolidge--

Books and movies, they are not simple entertainment.

They sustain me and help me cope with my real life.

--Arlaina Tibensky--

PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY

PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY

It emphasizes the enormous potential of cinema to provoke emotional responses in its viewers that may be unconscious, primitive, non-rational and even contrary to the behaviors of polite society demands.

PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY

PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY is drawn to explain the highly charged poetic and emotional power of certain images and why they seem to exert such a hold to viewers.

PSYCHOANALYTIC CRITICS examine the way that cinema organizes and manipulates a viewers pleasures and attractions to the screen spectacle.

PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY
The cinema activates the SCOPIC DRIVE.

This is the primary pleasure obtained from looking at things.

Scopic Drive acts in viewers as a kind of voyeurism.

Voyeurism- It is a basic pleasure offered by cinema derived from looking at the characters and situations on screen.

PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY
Voyeuristic or scopic pleasure can be aroused in two ways by the cinema:
1. CINEMA TECHNIQUES (close-ups,)

- Fetishizing (Obsession) the body (Female and Male stars)

Elements of style that concentrate the viewers attention for extended periods upon erotic imagery or material.

PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY
2. TABOO IMAGES (Taboo or forbidden images)

For psychoanalytic critics, the cinemas ability to excite viewers with spectacles of sex and violence illustrates its powerful appeal to an audiences primitive, non-rational and unconscious desires.

PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY
STRENGHTS OF THE PSYCHOANALYTIC MODEL 1. It reaches the deep inside viewers minds to influence the ways viewers understand the world, themselves and their own feelings.

2. The cinema provoke and intensify the reactions of the audience. .

PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY
WEAKNESSES OF THE PSYCHOANALYTIC MODEL
1. PM is based on indefinite clinical data.
The scientific status of psychoanalytical theory is weak because the information on which the theory is based either inaccessible or unavailable for re-examination.

2. Psychoanalytic critics tend to see the cinema as a medium that plays on mainly illogical desires and perceptions.

PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY

THANK YOU!

Affirmations are our mental vitamins providing the supplementary positive thoughts we need to balance the chain of negative events and thoughts we experience daily.

--Tia Walker--

IDEOLOGICAL THEORY

IDEOLOGICAL THEORY

Cinema as a medium, has a social impact and its images and stories construct politically and socially charged views of the world.

IDEOLOGICAL THEORY

Critics use ideological film theory to examine the relationship between movies and society and specifically how film represents social and political realities. IDEOLOGY is a set of beliefs about society and the nature of the world that involves assumptions and judgments about the nature of right and wrong, good and evil, justice and injustice, law and social order and human nature and behavior.

IDEOLOGICAL THEORY

All societies are subject to ideological tensions and conflicts.

IDEOLOGICAL THEORY

LEVELS OF IDEOLOGY

1. First Order-Way

2. Second Order-Way

IDEOLOGICAL THEORY

LEVELS OF IDEOLOGY
1. First Order-Way Direct way of imposing ideology/propaganda to a film.

Ex. RAMBO
(A direct political propaganda of U.S. Military about their power.)

IDEOLOGICAL THEORY

LEVELS OF IDEOLOGY
2. Second Order-Way Presenting a social messages and portraits of society is indirect and slight.
Ex. Back to the Future (1985)

Their immediate appeal is entertainment and they are ideological view is implicit and indirect.

IDEOLOGICAL THEORY

IDEOLOGICAL POINT VIEW:

Ideological Support
Ideological Critique Ideological Incoherence

IDEOLOGICAL THEORY

Ideological Support It supports for established social values. Ex. TOP GUN It shows the basic role of military as protector of the society.

IDEOLOGICAL THEORY

Ideological Critique

It shows critical views of established social values. Ideological Critique is trying to challenge the established values.
Ex. PHILADELPHIA
This film was controversial because it shows affectionate and supportive portrayal of gay life clashed with social values of groups convinced that gay sexuality is wrong and blamed the gay community for spreading the AIDS.

IDEOLOGICAL THEORY

Ideological Critique

Many millions of dollars are at stake to a film production, and Hollywood is not eager to risk losing big chunks of its market with hard-edged social criticism.
It easier and potentially more profitable to reinforce ideologies than to challenge them in fundamental ways.

IDEOLOGICAL THEORY

Ideological Incoherence

Ideological Incoherence serves as strategic economic function in the current film industry.

The intention of the filmmakers is to attract a diverse audience composed of both liberal and conservative members.

IDEOLOGICAL THEORY

Ideological Incoherence

Major film studios are designed for consumption by large, heterogeneous audiences composed of diverse groups, communities and subcultures.
Hollywood films put only a few of ideologies in order to attract as many members of the target audiences while offending only few as possible.

IDEOLOGICAL THEORY

STRENGHTS OF THE IDEOLOGICAL MODEL

It clarifies the multi-dimensional aspect of film content, especially the way a given movie may reflect and embody diverse currents of social opinion and belief.

Good ideological criticism prevents viewers from becoming too complacent; too nave about the way film can display and distort important social and political realities.

THANK YOU!