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Freud’s Drive: Psychoanalysis, Literature and FilmIntroduction: Death @ Work

Freud’s Drive: Psychoanalysis, Literature and Film: Introduction: Death @ Work [‘La mort au travail.’ This phrase of Jean Cocteau has been with me since I first encountered it, its unnerving figure working its way in my thoughts and meandering through the scattered reflections offered here by way of introduction. In 1970, speaking of cinema, Jean-Marie Straub glossed it to mean that cinema is the only art capable of capturing time in flight, catching death at work. Straub was arguing against the notion of ‘historical film’ understood as a film that more or less faithfully re-presents a historical subject, period or event. One can reflect on the past, he stated bluntly, but there is no such thing as a historical film; it cannot be made (‘un film historique n’existe pas, ne peut pas se faire: on peut faire une réflexion sur le passé …’). All that a film can do is to document the historical moment of its production (‘l’époque où il a été tourné’), the history of its own time, the history of its present.1] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

Freud’s Drive: Psychoanalysis, Literature and FilmIntroduction: Death @ Work

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References (4)

Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan UK
Copyright
© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 2008
ISBN
978-1-349-35720-8
Pages
1 –19
DOI
10.1057/9780230583047_1
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[‘La mort au travail.’ This phrase of Jean Cocteau has been with me since I first encountered it, its unnerving figure working its way in my thoughts and meandering through the scattered reflections offered here by way of introduction. In 1970, speaking of cinema, Jean-Marie Straub glossed it to mean that cinema is the only art capable of capturing time in flight, catching death at work. Straub was arguing against the notion of ‘historical film’ understood as a film that more or less faithfully re-presents a historical subject, period or event. One can reflect on the past, he stated bluntly, but there is no such thing as a historical film; it cannot be made (‘un film historique n’existe pas, ne peut pas se faire: on peut faire une réflexion sur le passé …’). All that a film can do is to document the historical moment of its production (‘l’époque où il a été tourné’), the history of its own time, the history of its present.1]

Published: Sep 14, 2015

Keywords: Film Theory; Conceptual Figure; Pleasure Principle; Death Drive; Psychic Process

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