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The Dream World of Film A Jungian Perspe PDF
The Dream World of Film A Jungian Perspe PDF
Uespite discussions that point to the crisis in the film industry, the in-
creased box office receipts and actual number of ticket sales in the late 197O's
and 198O's indicate that cinema remains a major mass communication
medium.' Semiotician Christian Metz has reminded us that film can bridge
the gap between art and the general public, commanding, he feels, greater
interest than the arts of poetry, literature, sculpture, or theater. "One is almost
never totally bored by a movie," he remarks.^ Nevertheless, as Farrell
Corcoran has pointed out,' efforts to identify the nature of film expression
have often been side-tracked by uncritical analogies between visual and verbal
languages, and by prescriptions for the filmmaker's use of the medium's
aesthetic elements. Less common are the more descriptive/analytical
approaches that investigate the manner in which a succession of film images
may involve the viewer and impact perceptual, affective, and cognitive
responses.
In a recent analysis of Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter, Rushing and
Frentz spoke to the question of film communication by proposing a "Psycho-
logical/Ritual Model," based largely on the concepts of Carl Jung.'' Although
their discussion centered primarily oti the story and theme and on
psychological changes of the characters, the authors closed by suggesting that
as a primarily visual medium, film may be ideally suited to the communication
of the unconscious archetypes that are basic to Jung's discussions of the
psyche. While we agree that a Jungian model can be a valuable tool for
assessing film expression, we are also mindful of Northrop Frye's caution that
"the axioms and postulates of criticism . . . have to grow out of the art it
deals with."* Since Frye's point seems well-taken regarding the use of
•Mr, Davies is Assistant Professor of Speech Communication and Theatre at Trenton State
College, Trenton, NJ 08625. Mr. Farrell and Mr. Matthews are Instructors of Speech
Communication at the tJniversity of Maine, Orono 04469. The authors wish to thank Kristin
Langellier and Eric Peterson for assistance and feedback on earlier drafts of this essay.
'David Thomson, "The Real Crisis in KmtneanVWras," American Film, June 1981, pp. 41-45.
Although Thomson notes a decline from the 194O's, ticket sales averaged twenty million pef
week in the 197O's, and box office receipts increased sharply from the previous decade.
^Christian Metz, "On the impression of Reality in the Cinema," in Film Language: A Semiolics
of the Cinema (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1974), pp. 3-15.
'Farrell Corcoran, "Toward a Semiotic of Screen Media: Problems in the Use of Linguistic
Models," The Western Journal of Speech Communication, 45 (1981), 182-193.
"Janice Hocker Rushing and Thomas S. Frentz," 'The Deer Hunter': Rhetoric ofthe Warrior,"
The Quarterly Journal of Speech, 66 (1980), 392-406.
'Northrup Frye, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1957),
p. 6; see also, Thomas B. Farrell, "Critical Models in the Analysis of Discourse," The Western
Journal of Speech Communication, 44 (1980), 300-314.
Fall 1982 327
Centra! to our analysis are the Jungian interpretations of the human psyche
and its characteristic representations. We begin therefore by reviewing Jung's
ideas on archetypes and the unconscious and their general relationship to
aesthetics.
According to Jung the human psyche is an evolving totality that achieves
its energy and wholeness from the union, within the ego, of the juxtaposed
opposites of consciousness and unconsciousness.* The "Self is seen as the
"psychic center," wherein both components may be assimilated into
ego-awareness.
While the conscious dimension is individual and composed of the ideas
and feelings of which one is aware, the unconscious realm consists of two
layers. In addition to repressed, forgotten, or subliminal persowa/contents,
^ung inferred the presence of a collective unconscious, an impersonal and
universal level that constitutes "the psychic expression of the identity of brain
'Christian Metz, The Cinema; Language or Language System?" in Film Language, pp. 31-91;
Pier Paolo Pasolini, "The Cinema of Poetry," Cashiers du Cinema in English, 6 (1966), 35-43.
'Clifton Snider, "C. G. Jung's Analytical Psychology and Literary Criticism (1)," Psychocuiturat
Review, tl (1977), 96-108.
'Carl G. Jung, "The Self," in Aion, trans. R. F. C. Hull, 2nd ed. (Princeton: Princeton Univ.
Press, 1968), pp. 23-35.
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structure irrespective of all racial differences."' Its contents, known as
archetypes, are "present always and everywhere" and are considered to be
innate, inherited images of the instincts themselves," (or) patterns of
instinctual behavior."^" Archetypes are thus the original, collective bases of
the psyche, from which egoconsciousness evolves through the process of
"individuation.""
As unconscious contents, the archetypes themselves are not knowable but
are reflected in recurrent configurations of symbols and motifs in the major
dreams, myths, folktales, and artistic works across diverse epochs, cultures,
and individuals. To Jung, such recurrent symbolic patterns suggested "inborn
possibilities of ideas that . . . keep our fantasy activity within certain
categories,"'^ and their frequent and apparently spontaneous appearances
were evidence that the psyche is "personal only in part, and the rest is collective
and objective."" Symbols of the collective unconscious are therefore traceable
in form to the most primitive societies and to the dream images of the child.
While many such representations reflect an archaic, mythological flavor, the
specific archetypal symbols are drawn from the conscious experience of the
person or culture. As Jung noted, "representations can vary a great deal in
detail without losing their basic pattern.""* Consequently, the ancient "sun-
wheels" and Apollo's chariot were thought to have their contemporary
counterparts in visions of round, glowing UFO's.'*
Although the archetypes are numerous, Jung found that dream recollec-
tions most frequently contained symbols of the shadow (the darker aspects
of the personality); the animal; the wise old man; the anima (feminine ele-
ments in the male unconscious); the animus (male elements in the female
unconscious); the mother; and the child." In addition, his discussions of
the major archetypes suggest their classification into the four categories of
Mother or Origin (Female figures; animals; dark, lower, and/or primeval
places); Spirit (sources or places of renewal, energy, or guidance);
'Carl G. Jung, "Commentary," in The Secret of the Golden Flower, trans. Richard Wilhelm
(New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1962), p, 87.
'"Car! G. Jung, "The Concept of the Collective Unconscious," in The Archetypes and lite
Collective Unconscious, trans. R. F. C. Hull, 2nd ed. (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1968),
pp. 42, 44.
"M, L. von Franz, "The Process of Individuation," in Man and His Symbols, eds., Carl
G. Jung and M. L. von Franz (New York: Doubleday, 1964) pp. 158-229.
' 'Carl G. Jung, "On the Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry," in The Spirit in Man.
Art, and Literature, trans. R. F. C. Hull (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1966), p. 81.
"Carl G, Jung, "On the Nature of Dreams," in Dreams, trans. R. F. C. Hull (Princeton:
Princeton Univ. Press, 1974), p. 77. Jung stressed that many dreams only reflect normal daily
fluctuation of psychic material between consciousness and unconsciousness, and hence are of
a personal nature. It is the "big" dreams, or "significant" dreams, concerning more pervasive
and fundamental uncotiscious contents, that are said to reflect the archetypes.
'*Carl G. Jung, "Approaching the Unconscious," in Man and His Symbols, p. 67.
' 'Carl G. Jung, Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies, trans. R. F. C,
Hull (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1978).
"Carl G. Jung, "On the Psychology of the Unconscious," in Two Essays on Analytic'
Psychology, trans. R. F. C. Hull, 2nd ed. (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1966), p. H"
Fall 1982 329
Transcendence (the hero; rebirth; initiation rituals; images of fiight); and
Wholeness (the. mandaia, or circle; stones; golden treasure).'^ Jung's studies
of dreams and creative works suggested that when viewed synthetically, or
in relationship to each other and to the lives of those to whom they appear,
such themes (and the exemplary symbols we have indicated) depict
fundamental inner states that are otherwise unexpressable.'*
"Our classificatioti, and the particular symbols indicated, are drawn from the essays in The
'Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious: and Man and His Symbols. Unless otherwise indi-
cated, all further references to specific archetypal symbols are taken from these sources.
"Jung, "On the Psychology of the Unconscious," pp. 80-89.
"Jung, "Commentary," p. 127.
"Carl G. Jung, "Psychology and Literature," in Man, Art, and Literature, p. 104.
^'Carl G. Jung, "Picasso," in Man, Art, and Literature, pp. 139-141.
"Carl G. Jung, "On the Nature of the Psyche," in On the Nature ofthe Psyche, trans. R. F. C.
Hull (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1960), p. 113.
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confronting and defeating the monster in the dark forest, cave, or abyss.
The account metaphorically suggests that individuation and the reward of
psychic wholeness are obtainable only through coming to terms with the forces
of the unconscious.
Appearances of archetypal symbols carry a "numinous or fascinating
effect,"^' but their primary value derives from their assimilation, or
"understanding and digesting,"^'' by the conscious mind. Essential is a
consciousness that permits recognition of both itself and its boundaries. Jung
believed that a form of religion must continue to provide for us, as with primi-
tives, "apt expression to the peculiar way in which we experience . . . these
autonomous (unconscious) contents,"^* and artistic sensibilities, or a general
open-ended imagination, should similarly facilitate the union of psychic
opposites. Persistence in either a one-sided consciousness, or in further iden-
tification with the unconscious, results in the disruption of the former domain
by mood swings, or neurotic fears, and may lead to attributions of prophe-
tic vision to the self, and subsequent alienation from others. In severe cases,
the unconscious eventually, in Jung's words, "rides roughshod over the
conscious mind,"^' bringing on states of psychosis or schizophrenia.
even smaller, fixed number of minimal units, or phonemes.^' The single image
(e.g., a close-up of a revolver), the smallest possible film unit, conveys, at
minimum, an assertive 5?fffemenf—"here is a revolver." Without grounding
in the second articulation (minimal phonemic units), image selection,
characterization, and combination proceed with considerably greater gram-
matical flexibility than that afforded the units of verbal communication."
To Pasolini, this "pre-grammatical" nature of cinema creates a sytlistic
freedom, permitting its sequences to assume the forms of memories, reflec-
tions, or dreams, where images may combine, fade, or dissolve, contrary
to physical restrictions of time, space, object constancy, and causality. "The
linguist instrument on which cinema is founded is thus of an irrational type,"
he contends, "and this explains the profoundly oneiric nature of cinema."""
The bipolar objective/subjective quality of film, grounded in the nature
of its smallest unit, has been enhanced since the medium's inception through
its "Realist" and "Formative" traditions.'" Attention to mise-en-scene dttsil,
location shooting, deep focus compositions, and long takes are among the
devices said to resemble encounters with everyday reality; while stylized sets,
dissolves, expressive, graphic editing, accelerated editing, zooms, and angie
variations represent cinema's subjective, or formative elements. These latter
techniques reconstruct reality in accord with the imagination, and are thus
grounded more in mental processes than in replications of the external world,
in meshing these basic dimensions film is able to create a stylized reality,
a juxtaposition of the "real" and the "fantastic" that can reflect the conscious-
unconscious interplay described by Jung.
Film as Dreamscape
Cinema structure and imagery reveal their closest relationships to Jungian
ideas when visionary themes emerge from a blending of realist and formative
styles, simulating the archetypal dream patterns documented by Jung (see
footnote #21). In so relating itself to the dream, film replicates what Jung
thought to be the purest and most spontaneous source of expression for the
collective unconscious."^
A memorable example of the medium's oneiric potential is the now-
infamous shower murder in the Hitchcock classic. Psycho. As Donald Spoto
points out, the film itself suggests a potentially healing entry into the
''Metz, "Cinema Language," pp. 31-91. See, also, Andre Martinet, Elements of General Lin-
guistics, trans. Elisabeth Palmer (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1964).
"Metz, "Cinema Language," pp. 31-91.
*°Pasolini, p. 36. In various ways film form and the viewing experience have been compared
fo a dream state since the 192O's. For a review of these earlier discussions, see Siegfried Kraucauer,
"The Spectator," in Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality (London: Oxford Univ.
Press, 1960), pp. 157-172.
" J . Dudley Andrew, The Major Film Theories (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1976). See,
also, Andre Bazin, "The Evolution of the Language of Cinema," in What is Cinema?, trans.
Hugh Gray (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1971), pp. 23-40.
"Carl G. Jung, "The Concept of the Collective Unconscious," in The Archetypes and the
Collective Unconscious, p. 48.
334 WJSC
unconscious, and the subjective camera, and frequent forward tracking shots
place the viewer in the role of central character.^' That "character's" expec-
tations for the plot (based on film cues) are totally disrupted by the murder
of Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), and, in the aftermath, an extreme close-up
of the dark bathtub drain, with water and blood spiraiing downward, dis-
solves to an extreme close-up of Marion's eye."" The resulting momentary
image of the eye in the center of the circle strongly resembles forms recalled
or drawn by Jung's patients during dream analyses."' To Jung, the eye (the
all-seeing Spirit) inside the circle is a form of mandaia symbol, suggesting
psychic wholeness or completeness. In Psycho it becomes one of the more
compelling examples of cinema's ability to reveal archetypal images in the
forms that they may assume in dreams. At the film's most disorienting
moment the viewer/character is given the suggestion that through the union
of the psychic opposites, order is derivable from chaos.
Such dreamscape depictions suggest that film can be a powerful vehicle
for communication of archetypal material. In fact, Jung believed that an
archetypal idea appearing in consciousness (possible in verbal political or
academic discourse) may lack its "feeling-toned" quality, or "affective
emphasis." It must, if its impact is to be felt, be "transposed back into its
archetypal context. . . back to its original dramatic state.""' The iconic and
"pre-grammatical" signs of cinema seem well-suited for this function; one
that permits the formative elements in the visionary work to retain their strong
attraction for the viewer. As it turns inward, toward deeper psychic levels,
film paradoxically turns back toward objectivity, by assuming image patterns
that are collective, or "transpersonal." As Jung put it, "Whoever speaks in
primordial images speaks with a thousand voices; he enthralls and over-
powers.""^
The ideas developed in the preceding sections synthesize Jung's ideas on
archetypal images with fundamental elements of cinema aesthetics, drawing
largely on Metz and Pasolini. Their kinship is rooted in the affinity of each
for the look and the logic of the dream. In the remainder of this essay we
will further demonstrate the utility of the model by turning first to a sample
analysis of a film whole, Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, and its relationships
to Jungian concepts. The final section relates our perspective to a discussion
of such contemporary American cinema's relevance to its age.
"Donald Spoto, The Art of Alfred Hitchcock (New York: Doubleday, 1976). p. 357.
''Frame blow-ups of the shots described here can be found in Richard J. Anobile, ed.. Psycho
(New York: Darien House, 1974), pp. 109-111.
"Carl G. Jung, "Concerning Mandaia Symbolism," in Mandaia Symbolism, trans. R. F. C,
Hull (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press. 1969). pp. 71-100.
"Jung, "The Self," p. 29.
"Jung, "Relation of Psychology to Poetry," p. 82.
Fall 1982 335
film is a representative of the presently dominant occult-horror genre, one
we have considered readily-aclaptable to archetypal motifs. In addition,
perhaps because it is the work of a well-known director, Stanley Kubrick
(e.g., 2001; A Clockwork Orange), critics have assumed it to have or aspire
to a significance beyond the mere gratuitous manipulation of audience fears."*
For example, Newsweek's Jack Kroll calls it "the first epic horror film," and
adds: "This is that rare horror film in which we sense its intelligence even
as it scares us.'"" Furthermore, Kubrick has himself offered a comment that
is especially interesting in view of our model: "There's something inherently
wrong with the human personality . . . There's an evil side to it . . . One
of the things that horror stories can do is to show us the archetypes of the
unconscious."'"
Despite interest in The Shining, the reviewers are somewhat mixed, and
none appear to give it unqualified praise. Writers seem to have had difficulty
in interrelating the different elements of the characters, the occult occurrences,
and the film's stylistic devices; and in discerning an overall theme. Kroll, for
instance, writes that the "supernatural stuff doesn't entirely mesh with the
logic of the story,"" and Leibowilz and Jeffress contend that the film has
several "mismatches" between its literal and symbolic levels." We believe
our Jungian approach can yield a more lucid discussion of The Shining's mes-
sage and structure by illuminating the visual elements in the mise-en-scene,
cinematography (especially camera movement), and editing, that reinforce
each other, and which relate the narrative to archetypal themes. Kubrick seem-
ingly wants us to feel first the tension, then the clash, between the familiar,
conscious perceptions, and the unfamiliar, unconscious realm. We believe
he succeeds. In meshing elements of both the realist and formative traditions
of cinema. The Shining not onJy comments on the conflict between the psychic
opposites, it represents the juxtaposition. The film moves our perceptions
from the relatively coherent to the chaotic, depicting the modern spiritual
crises that were central concerns of Jung.
The Story
The story of The Shining is rather simple, and in view of other entries in
the horror genre, rather tame. Former teacher. Jack Torrance, his wife
Wendy, and their young son Danny, arrive at a prestigious summer resort
hotel, the Overlook, where Jack will work as caretaker during the winter
months. Both young Danny, and the hotel chef, Dick Halloran, possess "the
shining," a clairvoyance that permits the reading of others' thoughts, as well
•"Pat Anderson and Jeffrey Wells, "The Shining: Two Views," Films in Review, 31 (1980),
438-39; Richard T, Jameson, "Kubrick's Shining," Film Comment, 6 (1980), 28-32; Jack Kroll,
"Stanley Kubrick's Horror Show," Newsweek, 26 May 1980, pp, 96-99; Flo Leibowitz and Lynn
Jeffress, "The Shining," Film Quarterly, 34 (1981), 45-51; Paul Mayersberg, "The Overlook
Hotel," Sight and Sound, 50 (1980/81), 54-57,
"Kroli, pp, 96 and 97,
"Quoted in Kroll, p, 99,
"Kroll, p. 97,
"Leibowitz and Jeffress, p. 47,
336 WJSC
as visions of both past and future events. Even before their arrival, Danny's
shining (of a torrent of blood flowing from the elevator doors; and of two
murdered young girls) warns him that the Torrances will encounter horrors
beneath the hotel's elegant surface. As weeks pass. Jack, frustrated by diffi-
culties with his efforts at a writing project, becomes increasingly neurotic
and openly hostile toward Wendy, blaming her for his real or imagined
difficulties. Driven on by the Overlook's apparitions, he lapses into complete
psychosis, murdering Halloran and stalking Wendy and Danny with an axe,
before collapsing and dying, frozen in the snow-filled Overlook Maze. In
the film's final shot we see him in a photograph taken at the hotel ball on
July 4, 1921.
The Characters
During the course of The Shining we are taken from a pleasant vacation
retreat to a nightmare dreamscape, all within the confines of the Overlook
Hotel. These outbursts of the "supernatural" seem to parallel Jack's psychic
imbalance, or dissociation, a condition that Jung thought characteristic of
contemporary society. His tragedy is an obsession with what he feels he ought
to be. Focusing on intellectual pursuits (his writing) and on socially-
constructed realities or expectations (his persona, or projected image), his
restricted vision cannot assimilate the totality of the Self. Consequently, the
growing strength and malevolence of the hotel's images, and Jack's destruc-
tion, become psychic inevitabilities.
The man we see initially is sufficiently versed in the amenities to project
the image of a dependable employee and aspiring writer. Soon, however,
we witness his propensity for repression, denial, rationalization, and projec-
tion as buffers against self-awareness, and when he later calls out, "Wendy,
I'm home!", after chopping through their hotel room door, the irony of Jack's
early image is apparent. Like his "manuscript," with numerous pages that
only repeat the proverb, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," he
seems to be at best, all form and no substance. Wei! before his murderous
rampage, evidence of his difficulty in managing his inner self is apparent.
We learn that though "on the wagon" for five months, he has repressed a
craving for alcohol ("I'd give my Goddam soul for just a giass of beer"),
blaming the abstinence for bringing him "irreparable harm." Similarly, he
appears almost too certain as he telis Ullman that the winter solitude and
knowledge of previous Overlook violence will pose no problems for him.
In fact, his initial affinity for the hotel marks the beginning of his
identification with the unconscious. He tells Wendy he has "never been this
happy or comfortable anywhere," and that he felt a strong sense otdefa vu
upon his arrival.
In these early sequences Jack is vacillating between persistence in a restricted
consciousness ("regression restoration of the persona"), and identification
with the collective psyche. Jung stressed that "regressive restoration" only
further weakens the persona (through additional repressions) leaving it even
Fall 1982 339
more susceptible to absorption by a subsequently strengthened unconscious.'*
The film depicts such processes through Jack's encounters with Lloyd, the
Gold Room bartender, the woman in Room 237; and Delbert Grady, the
former caretaker. Their manifestations are both the result and further cause
of his imbalance, with several contextual cues suggesting their inner origin.
A dreamlike illogic characterizes their appearances, beginning after Jack's
nightmare in which he "kills" Wendy and Danny, and each one is seen either
in front of a mirror or reflected in one, suggesting a reflection of Jack's own
character. Similarly, the encounters parallel the film's inward camera
movement, taking him further into the hotel's interior, from trappings suited
to his persona (the Gold Room) to suggestions of the deepest instincts —
the garish red bathroom behind the Gold Room, where he meets Grady.
Jung found that the initial confrontation with the unconscious, and one
pivotal to the acceptance of the SelPs totality, involves the "shadow," the
emotionally-charged "darker" elements in the personal unconscious often
manifested in dreams or visions as a same-sex figure." At this stage potential
self-awareness through the "realization of the shadow," or acceptance of its
contents, is often impeded by defense mechanisms, particularly projection
of the shadow treuts onto others. Though related to personal contents,
projections are activated by the anima (repressed feminine elements), the col-
lective archetype that forms the antithesis of the strong male persona.
Persistent defenses only intensify the anima, perpetuating themselves in a
vicious cycle—feelings of alienation must be, in turn, attributed to an
environment perceived as insensitive and hostile.
For Jack Torrance, the shadow and anima are manifested, respectively,
through Lloyd, and the woman in Room 237. When he talks with Lloyd,
his compulsion to drink, his frustrations over his writing, and the memory
of having injured Danny, all surface and initiate rationalizations and pro-
jections. To Jack, his injury to Danny "could have happened to anyone,"
and resulted from "a momentary loss of muscular coordination." Further-
more, he holds Wendy responsible for any lingering feeling of guilt, by not
letting him forget something that happened "three Goddamn years ago!"
Later, a vicious attack on her reflects both the growing power of his projec-
tions, and the persona obsessions that initiated their unconscious emergence:
Have you ever thought for a single solitary moment about my responsibilities
to my employers? Does it nfiatter to you at all . . . that 1 have signed a letter
of agreement—a contract—in which I accepted that responsibility!? Do you have
the slightest idea what a moral and ethical principle is? Do You!? Has it ever
occurred to you what would happen to my future if I were to fail to live up
to my responsibilities.'?
Within our Jungian paradigm, tracing the derivation of the images and
themes in a film or genre to the collective unconsciousness suggests two addi-
tional, related areas of analysis. The archetypes and their manifestations
reveal an interface between the filmmaker's inspiration and audience viewing
experience. For this reason, as Jung believed true of visionary art in general,
such films should elicit strong affective responses (positive or negative),
supporting Metz's contention that viewers seldom react with total boredom.
As links between film and viewer at the deepest psychic levels, the archetypes
suggest the bases for the hold on the public imagination enjoyed by the science
fiction, fantasy myth, and occult/horror genres in the late 197O's and early
198O's.** The phenomena of such films furthermore permit their submission
to what Farrell calls "symptom criticism"" — the treatment of films and/or
genres as cultural/rhetorical artifacts, reflecting and/or influencing the
psychological conditions of the age.
Much of American cinema in the past decade is particularly well-suited
to such analysis. Many of the major "blockbuster" films and dominant genres
have yielded a plethora of archetypal images, and their possible relationships
to social and political conditions and national moods have not gone
unnoticed. The Marxist view, from Herbert Marcuse and others, calls them
prototype capitalist-inspired distractions from the very real problems of
"The resurgence of the horror film's popularity in the late 197O's is discussed in Ron
Rosenbaum, "Gooseflesh," Harper's, Sept. 1979, pp. 86-92; and Stephen King, Danse Macabre
(New York: Everest House, 1981). Similarly, according to Variety, 13 May 1981, Star Wars;
Jaws; The Empire Strikes Back; Close Encounters of the Third Kind {inc. "Special Edition");
and Superman are Nos. !, 2, 3, 7 and 8 respectively among the all-time film rental leaders.
At the end of August, 1981, Raiders of the Lost Ark haid a box office gross of more than $110
million. (Desmond Ryan, "Films: Looking Back and Ahead," The Boston Globe, 7 Sept. 1981,
p. 44.)
"Farretl, p. 303.
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Vietnam, Watergate, infiation, slackened U.S. prestige, and a persistent
energy shortage; while others have generally seen them as mindless escapes
from the troubles presented by the everyday world.'* A Jungian perspec-
tive, on the other hand, suggests functions less devious than opiates, and
more significant than temporary escape.
Important here is Jung's belief that the modern world errs, and induces
the psychological consequences of neuroses and compulsions, through the
rational assumption that consciousness is the totality of the psyche. Missing
in such an age are the numinous symbols of gods and demons that aided
the primitive in assimilating the instinctual, unconscious responses. As
historian Ernest Kurtz has observed, such precluding of the Absolute by the
Enlightenment ideal of autonomous rationalism has the logical outgrowth
of relativism, and a subsequent crisis concerning human identity. Rather than
an enduring essential identity, the self becomes the symbolic interactionist
conception of variable relational roles and processes, wherein, says Kurtz,
"A person is as he or she is treated; to be human is to shape one's being
according to the expectations and responses of others."" The crises of which
he speaks suggest that with such an excessive emphasis on appropriateness
(or persona), the self-anxieties and projections of a Jack Torrance are not
unique. It is furthermore such an imbalance that the archetypes are said to
address.
In Jung's theory, concern over the disruptive economic and social
difficulties and the emergence of the unconscious imagery of film, are
evidence on a societal level of the self-alienation discovered in individuals
through dream analyses. From this view, the images of the occult/horror
genre are for us, as they were for Jack, the unleashing of archetypal contents
that have been too long repressed. Similarly, Jung found that manifestations
of the Hero Eind Spirit appear in the imagination when consciousness, strained
to its limit, is in need of assistance in coping with unusual or threatening
circumstances. Accordingly, the heroes and gods, or god-like beings, of the
mythic fantasies (e.g.. Star Wars; Close Encounters) may well be efforts to
fill a psychic void created by the rational emphases of modernity.
Symptom criticism based on Jung's psychic model thus suggests that the
motifs and images of visionary art speak only indirectly to particular times
and difficulties, addressing instead the suitability of our coping mechanisms.
Jungian criticism allows us to ask how films talk about us, rather than issues,
and in this way suggests their role in "educating the spirit of the age," or,
as Thomson puts it, in "(leading) escapees back to a heightened sense of
being."*" Here, however, the implications of the relationship between the
form and experience of film and dreams need to be considered. Seldom is
the full significance of a dream immediately apparent, no matter how vivid
"These viewpoints on the pc^uiar 1970's genres are summarized in Les Keyset, Hollywood
in the Seventies (San Diego: A. S. Barnes, 1981), pp. 183-1S4.
"Ernes« Kurtz, Not-God (City Center, MN: Hazelden Education Services, 1979), p. 16'-
"Thomson, p. 41.
Fall 1982 343
and engaging, and the same may be true of the images on the screen. The
phrase, "It's only a movie," may, in this respect, be just as common as the
assurance, "It was only a dream." While the potential for expanded awareness
is presented, such benefits seem to require the effort of subsequent reflection
on both our life circumstances and the fantasy images encountered. This,
in turn, means that we must at least suspend the response of Danny's doctor
in The Shining. Examining him after he blacks out during a "shining" epi-
sode, she remarks with complete unconcern, "If it occurs again, which I
doubt, we can always think about having some tests run."