Cinéma analytique et transfert : l'expérience spectatorielle dans Persona et L'Heure du loup de Bergman et Antichrist, Melancholia et Nymphomaniac de Von Trier
The simultaneous development of cinema and psychoanalysis led to many studies confronting and associating these two fields. This thesis examines more specifically transference as a phenomenon arising in the encounter between spectator and film, and is based on Jungian psychoanalytic theories. Considering an analytic cinema, which associates reflexivity and psychological themes, I hypothesised the existence of “psyche-films”, enabling the study of the psychoanalytic transference within spectator’s experience. Through their spatial and temporal constructions and their figural composition, these “psyche-films” are akin to psyches projected on screen and visually accessible. According to Jung, transference is a transpersonal phenomenon with psychological and physical consequences, involving two individuals whose unconscious communicate together. Bringing out the characteristics of such a phenomenon, this thesis explores the possibility of considering the film’s own unconscious, in particular with the help of film aesthetics theories, and questions the consequences, inside body and psyche, that might be caused by the transferential encounter between spectator and film. In order to study the possibility of such a transference in the spectator’s experience, five films regarded as “psyche-films” are analysed using a Jungian perspective: Persona and Hour of the Wolf, directed by Ingmar Bergman and Antichrist, Melancholia and Nymphomaniac, directed by Lars von Trier. To this end, this research is performed using psychoanalytic (Jung, Ferenczi, Freud, Abraham and Török), aesthetic (Brenez, Lefebvre, Vancheri) and philosophical (Damasio, Derrida) perspectives, and considering an ideal spectator.
Emotions Ingmar Bergman Lars von Trier Jungian psychoanalysis Transference Spectator’s experience Personal unconscious and collective unconscious Aesthetic Emotion Figural analysis Archetypal and symbolic images