ABSTRACT
Filmmakers and film theorists alike have a variety of psychoanalytic angles from which to choose their approach to film, that is, if they choose psychoanalysis at all. While viewing films outside the cinema is particularly vulnerable to such disruption, the sacred space of the movie theatre too is slowly being subjected to impingements that rudely and frustratingly pull cinemagoers out of their attention and reverie. Resonant with the cinema, the therapist’s consultation room, for many, represents a sacred space or a safe zone where one is encouraged to allow their unconscious to present itself: a place where therapist and client alike can enter into reverie together. Both the consultation room and the cinema can be seen as sacred spaces that are directly vulnerable to banalisation. Ultimately, psychoanalysis not only became a method for analysing film but also a great trove of source material for narratives that would express themselves through it.
