The document discusses psychoanalytic film theory and its application to the films of Stanley Kubrick. It provides context on the emergence of psychoanalysis in film studies and its focus on uncovering unconscious influences. Specifically, it examines how Kubrick explored themes of psychopathy, dehumanization, and the dark side of human nature in films like A Clockwork Orange and Full Metal Jacket by manipulating characters and audiences at unconscious levels. Examples are given of how characters like Alex and soldiers reflect societal and personal psychopathology. In concluding, the document argues Kubrick masterfully demonstrated how war and society can transform people into "worthless pieces of meat" and "fearless psychotic murderers."

1. Mateusz Krzewski
PSYCHOANALYSIS FILM THEORY
In this essay I’ll try to explain everything about psychoanalysis in movies,
mainly in Kubrick’s movies, as I believe he mastered it like no one else. In this
essay you’ll find all the information’s about the beginning of the
psychoanalysis in the movie world, where it came from and what it focuses
on. In the later stage of the essay I’ll give two examples from two of the most
famous Kubrick’s movies ever create, Orange Clockwork and Full Metal
Jacket. I hope these examples will explain briefly on how Kubrick uses
psychopaths in his movies making them complete cold-blooded animals and
killing machines.
Psychoanalytic film theory, despite its relatively late development, has
become one of the most widely practiced theoretical approaches to cinema
studies today. This is largely owing to the fact that psychoanalysis and film
technology were born in the same era, and essentially grew up together.
Thus, as cinema quickly came to focus on ways of rendering subjective
experiences the innermost psychological depths of the characters it portrayed
it naturally drew upon the newest conception of subjectivity offered in the field
of psychology, namely the psychoanalytic conception of it.
Psychoanalysis is an approach that focuses on unmasking the ways in which
the phenomenon of cinema in general, and the elements of specific films in
particular, are both shaped by the unconscious. The unconscious studied by
psychoanalytic film theory has been attributed to four different agencies: the
filmmaker, the characters of a film, the film's audience, and the discourse of a
given film.
- The Filmmaker's Unconscious. Its one of the earliest stages,
psychoanalytic film theory compared films to such manifestations of the
unconscious as dreams, imaginations, slips of the tongue, and neurotic
symptoms. Just as these are considered to be manifestations of a
patient's unconscious, films were considered to be manifestations of a
filmmaker's unconscious. However nowadays this psychoanalysis
theory is rarely in use and its old fashioned.
- The Character's Unconscious. Another application of psychoanalysis to
cinema studies one still occasionally seen today focuses on the
characters of a given film and analyzes their behavior and dialogue in
an attempt to interpret traces of their unconscious. This approach,
when it first appeared, was immediately attacked by skeptical film
critics who pointed out that fictional characters, insofar as they are not
real people, have neither a conscious nor an unconscious mind to
speak of. However, the psychoanalysis of film characters quickly found
new credibility with the next stage in the development of psychoanalytic
film theory the analysis of the audience's unconscious as it is prompted
and shaped during a film viewing.

2. Mateusz Krzewski
- The Audience's Unconscious. The audience-focused approach will
often focus on the way in which the behavior and dialogue of certain
characters can be interpreted as manifestations of our unconscious,
insofar as we come to identify ourselves with them when we visit the
cinema. Thus, as we sit quietly in the dark and forge our psychic bonds
with this or that character, we unconsciously project our own fantasies,
phobias, and fixations onto these shimmering alter egos. Whenever
they inevitably say or do something that even tangentially touches
upon one of these fantasies, phobias, or fixations, we derive
unconscious satisfaction or dissatisfaction accordingly.
- The Unconscious of Cinematic Discourse. The most recent version of
psychoanalytic film theory more or less abandons the character-
centered approach altogether, focusing instead on how the form of
films replicates or mimics the formal model of the
conscious/unconscious mind posited by psychoanalysis. Thus, for
example, the psychoanalytic film theorist might focus on the way in
which the formal procedure of editing will sometimes function similarly
to the mechanism of repression by cutting out a crucial, emotionally
charged moment, which, though unseen, will continue to resonate
throughout the film.
Stanley Kubrick is considered to be one of the finest
filmmakers in the history of cinema, an artist of great intellect,
who challenged his audience as if they were opponents in his
game of chess, exposing many generations to new ways of
thinking and different perceptions of cinema, and the world, as
we know it. Whether he was dissecting the topics of good, evil,
war, time, space, lust, sanity or insanity, his movies always
were special and unique in different ways, mainly because they
were psychotic and uncomfortable to watch for some of his
viewers making them different and ‘special’.
Stanley Kubrick's films seem to provoke the kind of mindless praise and attack that is called
'controversy' these days. In the case of A Clockwork Orange, the responses have ranged from
'brilliant' to 'boring', with special attention to the film's depictions of violence. If the viewer
responds to nothing else, he is sure to notice the sensational subject matter. Of course, violence
is a difficult subject for visual treatment. Kubrick has been careful to offer such a container. But
if the viewer refuses it, he is left holding the inevitable - violence, sex, death - at least as far as
chatter and film criticism are concerned.

3. Mateusz Krzewski
Clockwork Orange is one of the most famous Kubrick’s
movies mainly due to the fact of its psychotic themes and
conventions. Kubrick's work following Clockwork Orange
has continued to display the pessimism and even
misanthropy of that film. A Clockwork Orange is told
retrospectively by a character who is both a victim and a
great exponent of violence. Alex inhabits a world that is
almost thoroughly dispirited, broken down by a daily grind
of meaningless work, stultifying mass culture, and
officially sanctioned “milk bars” that serve a variety of drug
tonics to send one off on incoherent fantasies. This gray
world may well be Anthony Burgess’ vision of a not-too-
distant future England suffering under the failure of
socialism and liberalism, and Alex’s protest, as shocking
and violent as it is, is curiously sympathetic.
The psychological mechanism behind Alex's unifying vision is that of 'projection'. All Alex' s
victims are outside society: the tramp, the gang, and the radical and when he punishes them, he
unknowingly punishes himself. The mirror defense of projection works to throw outward, to spit
out, the consciously disowned aspects of the personality by ascribing them to others. The
mechanism is itself unconscious. When Alex commits evil, he enjoys the pleasure of the act
itself, the knowledge that it is considered wrong by society, and the unconscious justification of
the act through projection. Thus, Alex rapes, ensures there is a witness to the rape, and
punishes the 'complacency' of the victim. “Evil is honored, sharpened and justified” as he often
mentions in his head. Alex levels the social ranks of his victims. The drunk's rhetorical
complaints are Alex's own: he hears just what he wants to hear. Throughout the film, figures of
authority are all versions of the gang leader. As the equation is perfect but in one respect, Alex
is conscious of his evil, except in his need for self-justification. How reviewers could have
missed the comedy of childish egotism is a kind of perfection in itself. The infantile fantasies
show Alex's blindness to his own psychology and ideology through a masochistic dream in
which he always triumphs despite indignity, torture and suicide. “Men court him, newspapers
celebrate him, Hitler apes him. The lovely bird motif throughout the film the Beethoven frissons
in Bar and lair; the malchick screams at the Medical Institute's sinny; the gull over the Thames;
and the growing boy eating from the Minister's hands” - not only indicates the variety and
integration Kubrick achieves through motivic relationships, but Alex's pathetic desire for freedom
in the midst of blind dependence.
Kubrick has appropriated theme, character, narrative and dialogue from Anthony Burgess'
novel, but the film is more than a literal translation of a construct of language into dramatic
visual form. Kubrick's film refashions the materials of the novel, and the rigor of the reworking
gives the film a poetic compression and resonance that the novel lacks, despite its disturbing
narrator, intricate structure and brilliant language. 'Nadsat' figures primarily in only the first third
of the movie, but Kubrick has included much of Burgess' narrative invention, and as a result the
Alexander’s of film and novel conquer similar empires. The unifying parallels between citizen
and State and the mechanism of projection are taken from the novel, although Kubrick finds
new ways of communicating them visually.

4. Mateusz Krzewski
In some ways, Full Metal Jacket can be
seen as complementary and inverse to A
Clockwork Orange. In Clockwork, Alex
wreaks havoc because of his love of
violence and sex and his lack of empathy for
his victims and enemies. Society tries to
change him by aversive conditioning against
the sex and violence. In Full Metal Jacket,
the system takes young men and puts them
through a conditioning program to attempt to
extirpate any feelings of empathy that they
might naturally have, leaving them in the
end, psychopaths, suitable for cold blooded
warfare. It does so first by stripping them of
the characteristics they use to identify them
and order their lives. They are shaved bald,
removing any individual hairstyles. Their
names are taken away from them and
denigrating nicknames applied. Their home
regions and towns are ridiculed.
Their physical characteristics like obesity and shortness are used to mock
them make fun of them and tease them to some extend. Their manhood is
denied. Any morality that they learned is deliberately inverted and aggression,
sexual prowess, and profanity become the valued qualities. Any empathy the
soldiers might have for one weaker or less fortunate is mercilessly driven out
of them. The fat Pvt. Leonard "Gomer Pyle" Lawrence is continually harassed
and ridiculed by the DI. Some of the more sympathetic men, such as Joker,
attempt to help him get through basic training by showing him how to do
things and keeping him out of trouble. The real purpose of making Pyle the
dummy and a clown, however, becomes clear when the DI begins to punish
the men for Leonard's mistakes. Then they begin to hate him. In the incident
when they pummel him with bars of soap slung in their towels, even Joker
takes part, showing that the breaking down of sympathy and empathy has
succeeded, and the men are ready to be killers. Thus, Kubrick demonstrates
that, as in Clockwork, the society gives lip service to law and order, but when
it gets down to the harsh reality, it is psychopathic and will use whatever
system of values that it needs to in order to accomplish its purposes.

5. Mateusz Krzewski
Once in Vietnam, the men put into practice the psychopathy they learned in
their training. They murder in cold blood, curse, kill, and screw, and do little
else. On the helicopter trip to the front, Joker and Rafter Man observe the
psychopathic door gunner as he machine guns peasants at work in their rice
fields while laughing and joking, asking them to write a news story on him.
The Vietnamese are also corrupt, or have become corrupted by the contact.
Cowboy, although he is technically in command, cannot enforce his orders,
and the men do pretty much as they please.
The protagonist in this film is Joker. The psychopathic conditioning is not fully
successful on Joker's personality. He retains some empathy, although
becoming hard and ironic. Although he participates in bashing Pyle when
egged on by his peers, he cringes to hear Pyle's cries and weeping afterward.
He tries to prevent Pyle's suicide. In Vietnam, he wears a peace button to
symbolize his ambiguous feelings about the endeavor he is engaged in. His
opposite number is Animal Mother, in whom the conditioning has produced a
perfect specimen. Animal Mother carries a huge automatic rifle and joyously
screams war cries as he kills, making him seem as a complete animal with no
feelings whatsoever. His reaction on viewing the bodies of dead comrades is
"better you than me”, as we often hear in the movie. Finally, Joker's empathy
forces him to put the wounded female Viet Cong sniper out of her misery,
when Animal Mother and the others oppose it and want to see her suffer.
Certainly Full Metal Jacket can be seen as an anti-war film. Since war is the
human institution, which most highlights the brutality of man's animalistic
nature, it is natural that a pessimist such as Kubrick would return to it again
and again, like a never-ending circle.
In conclusion, I believe I covered all the themes and conventions about
psychoanalysis in Kubrick’s movies as well as made a clear explanation on
the roots and the beginning of the psychoanalysis in the world of cinema. I
hope I somewhat explained on how war can change a single humans life,
from making a everyday and regular man into worthless piece of meat and
then making him a fearless psychotic murderers just because society tells us
to, just like it happened in FMJ.

6. Mateusz Krzewski
References
http://www.mindswork.co.uk/wpblog/the-shining-a-family-can-be-scary-
enough/
http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0004.html
http://www.ice.udl.es/udv/demoassig/asignaturas/Humanmonster/modul3/m
3pop2.htm
http://www.cassiopaea.com/cassiopaea/psychopath3.htm
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000040/
http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/
http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/polls-
surveys/stanley-kubrick-cinephile
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/psychologist-the-
movies/201205/classical-conditioning-in-clockwork-orange
http://www.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=13822
http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0104.html
http://www.philfilms.utm.edu/1/fullmetal.htm
http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/full-metal-jacket-1987-themes-and-
analysis.287124/