Viewing a film
offers spectators a way in which to access their unconscious psyches, using a
form of introjection followed by projection. The spectator joins in with a
collective experience or ‘Dream’, a dream felt by all viewers. The artists that
create these medium’s in which we can access our deepest desires, are symbolic
for the spectator. These symbols can be brought into consciousness and the
spectator can connect archetypal images that are present in the collective
unconscious or as this essay investigates, the ‘cultural unconscious’. I will investigate how Cinema is, as
Freud said, dreams are ‘the royal road to the unconscious’, and expanding on
this as Jungian psychological analysis shows; Cinema is ‘the royal road to the
cultural unconscious’. Looking at various layers of the unconscious, it will
show how the cultural unconscious fits into the psychic layers. Archetypal
symbols and the use of dream analysis, is considered in employing this idea of
the cultural.
Using the methods of amplification and active imagination I will attempt to explain how these methods of dream analysis can be
applied to all films and show us the cultural unconscious. One will determine,
using
analytical and psychoanalytical
theories, that Cinema
is the ‘royal
road to the cultural unconscious’, and a dream-like medium such as Cinema, can
access our deepest and darkest fears and emotions. One explain the processes of
Amplification and Active Imagination and determine how these processes affect
the spectator. The film analysed is that of the director Vincent Ward’s 1998
film,
What Dreams May Come, based on
the novel of the same title by Richard Matheson (1978). Using this particular
film, myth and analytical psychology is applied to determine the truth of the
statement
‘Cinema is the ‘Royal Road to
the Cultural Unconscious’,’ referencing dreams and Myths, such as the myth of
Orpheus, his hero journey, process of individuation and finding of his ‘self’.
Also looked at are the religious aspects of the film such as the differing
beliefs of East and West cultures,
that
are incorporated into the film and are infused with each other in order to
create a new belief. The visual staging of the film is based on Western
Romantic Artwork; that portrays the afterlife. One will also show how cultures
are intertwined to create an ‘International’ dream.
Jung (1995)
describes the psyche as layers, consisting of, the conscious mind, the personal
unconscious and the collective unconscious - sometimes called the impersonal
unconscious or the objective psyche. Jung introduced another layer, between
personal unconscious and collective conscience; the cultural unconscious. Jung
described the personal unconscious as memories of past experience; these may
include repressed memories or forgotten memories. Izod states that Jung,
posited the
idea that, unlike complexes springing from the personal unconscious, the
contents of the collective unconscious did not have to rise from the
individual's personal experience. Indeed they might never have been in his or
her consciousness.
(Izod, 2001, page 34)
Izod continues that complexes
may not have come from the personal unconscious but from the collective
unconscious, the part of the unconscious which is universal – consisting of
archetypes. Izod states that Anthony Stevens (1991) explains, archetypes and
complexes are connected, "’ complexes are "personifications" of
archetypes’. They are the means through which archetypes manifest themselves in
the personal unconscious." (Izod, 2001, page 34). Jung believed an archetype
is an inherited idea/image in the psyche, present in every person.
Jung referred
to figures that have this kind of power as being pitched from ‘the
treasure-house of primordial images’ into the arena of consciousness. He called
them archetypal image because, as contents just surfacing from the unconscious,
they dress out the archetypes which he presumed furnished them with their
force, and make their hidden actuality knowable.
(Izod, 2001, page 35)
These primordial images are not
universal but cultural; therefore, the cultural unconscious was introduced. The
images and ideas change due to cultural and social pressures. These changes are
important as the image/ideas have to fit with the culture at the time in order
for us to interpret the meanings correctly. Izod introduces Demaris S. Wehr’s
argument that
Archetypal
images are subject to contingent societal influences, and that this can be
demonstrated. When a person is persistently exposed by culture and society to
coherent symbol-set to the extent that she or he internalises them, not only do
symbols have ‘political’ consequences in shaping behavioural patterns and value
systems, they also weave the fabric that dresses out pre-existing archetypes
and produce archetypal images.
(Izod, 2001, page 48).
The symbols connected with archetypal
images are culturally significant. Jung used the term symbol to mean the image
or idea that the unconscious mind cannot yet understand. Symbols in
What Dreams May Come (1998) show a
cultural unconscious including the idea that there is no afterlife. People are
losing faith in God and Heaven; the belief that there is no afterlife is
becoming increasingly common. This film gives the idea that you are God, you
create your own heaven. The beliefs symbolic of East Asian beliefs such as, Buddhism
and Hinduism, show a blend of cultures. The West is multicultural and various
beliefs on afterlife and reincarnation are intertwined. The film uses symbolism
through the use of Mise en scène, Chris’s Heaven portrays the style of Western
Romantic Artwork, yet the beliefs are that of the East, apart from the idea
that the bad soul goes to hell, as this is prominently a Catholic belief.
Unconscious
emotions and archetypes are affected when spectators go to the cinema. The
spectator lowers their level of consciousness sitting in a dark room filled
with symbolic images that manifest on-screen. Walker (2002) informs that according
to Jungian analytical psychology, emotion brought on by imagery open us up to a
deeper level of unconscious, than we are usually aware of. Our unconscious
seeps into the conscious mind, to access our deepest fears, desires and
aspirations. This is done through projection and introjection.
Projection
happens all the time; our perception of the external world is constantly
coloured by our intra-psychic world. But the archetypal projection that
produces myths is on a different scale of magnitude. As is the case that UFO’s [or
in this case the afterlife.] The projection is not only individual but
collective.
(Walker, 2002, page 97)
Both Jung and Freud find
mechanisms useful for transferring energy between the conscious and unconscious,
allowing us to derive meaning from the symbolic images.
Projection is the process in
which a spectator projects themselves into the story on screen and has emotional
and empathetic feelings towards the characters on screen, simulating their
emotions and taking part in a fantasy world that ‘feels real’. Konigsberg
informs that
What actually
transpires is a process of introjection followed by projection, a process by
which we... take in the images and then project ourselves into them as they
appear before us – a process of introjection and projective identification.
(Konigsberg, 1996, in Izod, 2006, page 16).
Introjection is the process in
which we internalise images and emotions, whereas projection is the process in
which we project out empathetic feelings and emotive responses. "Through
it the recipient takes into his or her psyche from an exterior source both an
image and the energy it stimulates." (Jung, 1921, in Izod, 2001, page 18.)
With this experience of cinematic projection, the energy is only intensified by
the narrative of the images which the viewer then introjects into his or her
psyche.
Amplification
is a method used in dream analysis to read Jungian symbols in terms of myths
and archetypes. Amplification has two parts; the personal, in which the
spectator connects images onscreen with personal experiences. Walker (2002)
explains that Freud believed that these images are dark desires that our unconscious
has repressed whereas Jung believed in complexes. The second part is the transpersonal,
this is a common interpretation, a cultural interpretation.
Myths can be
considered as narrative elaborations of archetypal images (the conscious
representations of the unconscious instincts) makes sense, once one accepts the
proposition that archetypes were originally “situations, “ that they are
imprinted patterns of behaviour left behind by untold ages of human evolution.
Seen from this perspective, myths are culturally elaborated “representations of
situations.” They enable us to re-experience consciously the unconscious
instinctual processes of the psyche.
(Walker, 2002, page 18)
The images on screen have a
parallel image taken from the unconscious archive in the spectators psyche,
this being archetypal ideas taken from religion, mythology or Art. It is a form
of textual analysis in which we connect the images with an archetype to
understand what we are experiencing.
The Jungian
textual analyst discovers that ancient myths, religious stories, folklore and
artefacts can often illuminate both thematic and psychological meanings that
may not otherwise be accessible through them.
(Izod, 2001, page 22)
According to Izod objectivity
and the conscious mind are dominant in amplification, as the symbolic images connect
with common ideas. What Dreams May Come
is some form of visionary narrative which is evident in the film with the scenic
imagery; an artist's impression of the afterlife. Using amplification we
interpret narratives into something we understand. This objective method does
not respond to the transcendent function, in which the conscious and
unconscious contents are brought together. Izod and Walker explain how Jungians
have argued with Freudians that symbols show meanings in a direct way so they
can communicate what they are representing.
In order to
allow the conscious mind access to the unconscious mind, Jung’s process of
active imagination is introduced. Jung’s technique of active imagination
enables spectators to lower their conscious level so the unconscious memories
and archetypes can be brought to consciousness producing spectators with the
true meaning of the narratives. This method involves the spectator being in a
state between sleep and awake; allowing your mind to access the unconscious in
order to understand the images seen. Beebe (1992) in Izod, explains each spectator
receives the images in a way that is personal to them, according to their own
experiences. Beebe mentions that images are still in the mind of the spectator
after the film has finished. The spectator processes the images and symbols
according to their personal experiences, so the meaning becomes subjective; What Dreams May Come shows that the
afterlife is an individual subjective heaven.
Active
Imagination has the potential, mutatis
mutandis, to be fashioned into a key function of critical methodology which
deliberately incorporates emotional and intuitive responses together with
rational analysis and the more formal procedures of amplification.
(Izod, 2001,
page 27)
Amplification is uncovered, as
the method of active imagination comes into play. When active imagination lowers
the conscious mind, the spectator sift’s out archetypes that do not fit the narrative
plot, characters or imagery. In What
Dreams May Come, the afterlife has
nothing to do with God, so the common Western idea that God created heaven is
discarded in the processing of this film. The Eastern belief of a godless
heaven is what the film shows, rooting from Buddhism. Jung wrote that
If we assume
that life continues "there", we cannot conceive of any other form of
existence except a psychic one; for the life of the psyche requires no space
and no time. Psychic existence, and above all the inner images with which we
are here concerned supply the material for all mythic speculations about a life
in the hereafter, and I imagine that life as a continuance in the world of
images. Thus the psyche might be that existence in which the hereafter or the
land of the dead is located.
(Jung, 1995, page 351)
This statement can be applied to
What Dreams May Come , as at the end
of the film Chris suggests he and Annie are reincarnated, but Annie is wary and
Chris explains that a human life goes by in the blink of an eye in heaven and
also the fact that heaven is created through the unconscious of the human
psyche. Therefore this supports Jung’s claim that the psyche does not require
any time or space, it is infinite. Beebe introduced the idea that ‘going to the
movies’ is a form of religious ritual.
Film-making,
at least in the hands of its acknowledged masters, is a form of active
imagination drawing its imagery from the anxieties generated by concerns, and
film watching has become a contemporary ritual that is only apparently a
leisure. Going to movies has achieved, in this country, almost the status of a
religious activity.
(Beebe in a Hauke and Alistair, 2001, page 212)
Beebe’s statement suggests that
film is more powerful in representing myths and archetypal history, than
religious groups are. For example a sermon from a church pastor. Before we look
at the religious aspects of the film, we shall investigate the idea of the
dream and the myth of Orpheus in particular.
Freud
and Jung’s belief in the unconscious contents of dreams differed. Freud
founded, images that spring from the unconscious in dreams are repressed
memories and desires; whereas Jung argued that dreams are a way of
communicating, primordial images, archetypes and myths that are Universal
and/or cultural. Hockley states that,
The view that
dreams are merely the imaginary fulfilments of repressed wishes is hopelessly
out of date... The dream is specifically the utterance of the unconscious.
Freud memorably remarked that dreams were’ the royal road to the unconscious’.
[…] This makes us look at films in a very different light.
(Hockley, 2001, page
5)
Freud's statement does indeed
make us analyse films differently. Films are said to be like dreams. So cinema
can also be’ the royal road to the unconscious’ the trance-like feeling of
sitting quietly in a room watching a film and lowering your level of consciousness,
that state between being asleep and awake - the dream state. Going to see a
film is like experiencing a collective dream. Pagel et al quotes Metz (1982),
"film is a dreamlike medium. Intriguing similarities exist between dream
and the created imagery of film. Attending the cinema at its best can parody
the experience of a collective dream." (Metz, 1982, in Pagel et al, 1999,
page 248). Pagel also states that:
There are
differences - dreamers do not generally know they are dreaming, while
spectators know that they are at the cinema. Cinematic images are less personal
and individual, and more Social and ideological.
(Pagel et al, 1999, page
248)
One agrees with this statement
in the sense that our dreams are our personal desires and needs, yet the films
that represent the culturally collective dreams show the anxieties and social
worries at the time. For example, apocalyptic views in the West and the
obsession of death; whether the end of the world is brought about by God or
nature, it will happen one day in the future. So contemporary belief that there
is no afterlife is evident. The portrayal of the East Asian beliefs of
reincarnation can be seen in What Dreams
May Come, indicating the merging beliefs in America at the time. What Dreams May Come shows us an afterlife
scenario in which there is no God, your heaven is your imagination, you are God
- the archetype of the universally collective psyche, as well as a belief.
Hockley states that Jung wrote
The idea of
God is an absolutely necessary psychological function of an irrational nature,
which has nothing whatever to do with the question of God's existence. The
human intellect can never answer this question, still less give any proof of
God. Moreover such proof is superfluous, for the idea of an all-powerful divine
Being is present everywhere, unconsciously if not consciously, because it is an
archetype.
(Jung in Hockley, 2001, page 33)
So this statement can be applied
to the film What Dreams May Come, as
in this film the only mention of God is when Chris asks his guide "where
is God in all this?", In which the guide (Doc or later in the film we find
out he is Ian, Chris‘s son) replies "he's up there, somewhere, shouting
down that he loves us, wondering why we can't hear him, you think?" This
shows God does not control heaven, as Susan Schwartz states "rather, it
appears that death has its own system that works independently of divine
intervention, just as doe’s life." (Schwartz, 2000, page 11)
Chris
embarks on a hero journey, after his wife is sent to hell for commiting suicide.
Chris’s heaven is his memory of his wife's painting, a painting of the place
they met and where they would retire. When she extended the canvas, in which
Chris explained had been blank before he died, he saw what she had painted, a Purple
Jacaranda tree appeared in his heaven, in which his guide informed him they
were soul-mates, twin-souls that were intertwined and psychically connected
even in death. So Chris went on a mission to bring her back to their heaven.
The painting and visual imagery of the film is based on 19th-century western
romantic artwork, which depicted the afterlife, painted in a time when people
prominently believed in God and the afterlife and this idea was not so
controversial. These images, showed the ‘hells’ that the hero, Chris,
encountered to reach Annie on her ‘deck’ of subjective hell. As Chris sets out on
his hero journey he takes the same path as Orpheus. This Orphic film is based
upon the myth of Orpheus who descends to the underworld to rescue his wife and
bring her back to the living world. According to antiquity Orpheus's wife, Eurydice
is killed and she is taken to the underworld. Orpheus, a musician, hypnotises
Cerebos, the three headed guard dog of the entrance to the underworld, and has
to persuade the Queen of the underworld Persephone, to allow his wife to return.
The one condition of this was that Orpheus
could not ‘look back’ at Eurydice and,
Eurydice had
been instructed not to speak until she reached the rim of Hades […] At this point;
there are several major differences in the ending of the myth. Some claim that
Orpheus becomes the victim of Thracian women known as the Maenads who tear him
apart in a Bacchic frenzy, […] Others say that Zeus tossed Orpheus’s lyre in
the heavens (where Orpheus and Eurydice were reunited) as a constellation. .
(Ehrlich
in Plate, 2003, page 68)
There are many variations of the
Orpheus myth in some accounts Eurydice is successfully brought back to the
living world, like Chris and Annie are reunited in their heaven. In What Dreams May Come, Chris's descends
to the underworld by paying a ‘toll for the ferryman’, so he has no three
headed dog to fight, just a price to pay. In today's commodity-consumer society
almost everything has a price and this is shown here. Chris only has to
persuade Annie to find her ‘self’ again and remember her ‘self’, taking his
wife through a process of individuation. Individuation is a Jungian concept
that involves the self and the relationship to the ego. Lennihan quotes Jung
(1978) in saying that "the ego's eagerness to identify with the decline
(and thus become inflated) is the urge to identify with the cell"
(Lennihan in Hauke and Alistair, 2001, page 59). In the film our ego does
identify with the divine as the spectator is God, we make our own afterlife,
just as make our own way through life. Annie has lost this sense of the divine,
this sense of self. In identifying these images of the self with the divine,
"the God within us" (Izod, 2001, page 144) and mythological archetypes,
the film shows us a different sort of afterlife through individuation. Izod
writes
This is a
narrative of individuation, where accidental events throw predictability and
assumptions about what Bourgeois, Suburban life is meant to be completely to
the wind, leaving the "ordinary man" to find a way to survive or
perish in the attempt.
(Izod, 2001, page 156)
What Dreams May Come throws the "Bourgeois Suburban" idea
of a heaven created by God out the window. A new image of the afterlife is
envisioned as a magnificent work of art of the imagination, but in order for
Chris to be at peace he must descend into the underworld on a journey of individuation
to find his ‘self’ and to also help Annie find her ‘self’. They are soul-mates
so together they are there whole ‘Self’.
It is a process of individuation for both Chris and Annie. Chris offers
to stay with Annie in hell, he will never leave her. Walker states that
projection is a process that helps the spectator gain a greater sense of self,
Given the
importance of dreams for the knowledge of the collective unconscious, and given
the importance of mythology for the Jungian interpretation of dreams, it is
clear that Jungians value the study of mythology primarily as a means of
furthering Individuation.
(Walker,
2002, page 33)
Walker then goes on to explain,
In
individuation the individual integrates, at least to some degree, the inner
world of the split-based on unconscious identifications, withdraws projections,
and realizes to some extent the archetype of the Self, the foundation and
secure sense of self-identity.
(Walker, 2002, page 33)
In
What Dreams May Come, you could say that the idea of Chris and
Annie as soul-mates is similar to the idea of the "split-off
personalities" which as Walker says based on unconscious identifications
and the unconscious identification with each other in the artwork that Chris is
living in. His introjections of Annie's artwork are projected in his heaven and
Annie's hell is based on her projection of guilt, over the death of her
children, she has judged herself, convicted herself to a life of misery and
suffering as after the death of both her children and husband, she cannot
vision any other future. Chris has to remind her of who she is, so in talking
to Annie about their past, to provoke her to remember "their place",
Chris was looking back. Unlike in the Orpheus myth, in which looking back
caused Orpheus to lose Eurydice. Looking back for Chris enabled him to help
Annie find her ‘self’. Annie, unlike Eurydice, had to speak to Chris after he
had finally lost his sense of self; he had given up on Annie but wanted to stay
in hell with her as he could not help her when she was in psychiatric care,
after the death of their children. Annie and Chris finally returned to their
romantically painted subjective heaven and made the choice to be reincarnated
so they could find each other and fall in love again. They are reincarnated in
New Jersey and Schwartz states
And of course
they are reborn as very white Americans. But there is a large presence of the
South Asian diaspora in New Jersey, and its influence on the cultural life of
that state has become considerable.
(Schwartz, 2000, page 13)
Schwartz states that they are
reborn exactly how they want. In Buddhist belief Annie would have been
reincarnated as an animal as she would have accumulated bad karma from her
suicide. So this new idea of the afterlife had elements from both Western and
Eastern influences.
What Dreams May
Come, deals with religious issues in the West at the time the film was made.
The idea that maybe there is no God? And the social worry that there is nothing
after life? And "the essence of the immortal soul", will just
disappear as though it never existed. This film presents us with the East Asian
beliefs of the divine illusion. Buddhism and Hinduism are two religions that
believe in an illusory afterlife, in which you reflect over your previous life
and then you are reincarnated. If you had accumulated bad karma you would be
reincarnated as an animal. (Ma’Sumian, 1995, page 48). But in What Dreams May Come, both Chris and
Annie are reincarnated as white Americans. In the novel in which the film is
based, by Richard Matheson, Annie and Chris are not allowed to return to heaven
together so they choose to be reincarnated. Annie chooses India and Chris also
chose to be reincarnated there. This shows the East Asian influence in the West
at the time. This also shows the variation of the myth Orpheus in which is one
version he succeeds and another he fails. Before Chris can be happy and feel
complete in his afterlife, he needs to save Annie and show her the right path
as she strayed from it in life, by committing suicide.
Ma’Sumian informs that
Buddhists believe that there is no collective heaven. Buddhism also has the
"doctrines of transmigration and karma." (Ma’Sumian, 1995, page 44)
Transmigration - the idea that the soul will transfer into a different species
if you have bad karma has "been lost overtime" (Ma’Sumian, 1995, page
112) reincarnation now means that she will not transmigrate across species
during reincarnation. Karma in reference to the film relates to Annie's hell
and "pointing the finger of blame at external forces such as deity,
demons, or fate is not acceptable"(Ma’Sumian, 1995, page 44). There is no
God or Devil, just her mental prison. The idea of reincarnation is evident in
Buddhism as a must, unlike in the film, it is a choice. The mind, the
imagination, just like in the film, goes to its own illusory heaven. The
archetype of Orpheus is a figure from ancient Greek mythology and religion. The
myth implies that the mind or soul is trapped inside a human body. Western
religions such as Christianity - primarily Catholic - do not believe in
reincarnation (Prophet and Prophet, 1997, page 15) they believe in one chance
at life and you either live in an”earthly heaven” (Ma’Sumian, 1995, page 58)
with God or you suffer at the hands of the devil in a “hell and a lake of fire
and brimstone” (Ma’Sumian, 1995, page 62).
Pat Berry argues that:
Film is
modern consciousness. Further, as film developed and changed, at various
periods throughout the twentieth century, it corresponded with changes in the
collective psyche. The reverse was also true, of course: As the psyche changed
during the century, these changes were reflected in film.
(Berry in Hauke and
Alistair, 2001, page 71)
Film changes due to the changes
in societal influences and these changes are explicitly evident in film.
Spectators thrive on experiencing the varied struggles and ordeals of life,
enabling spectators to experience an external reality. Izod once declared that
the cultural unconscious creates symbolic images that are influenced by the
societal pressures, present when the film was made. Hauke quotes Martin and
Oswalt (1995) in saying “popular movies are cultural standard-bearers; they
carry with them the values, beliefs, dreams, desires, longings, and needs of a
society and, thus, can function mythologically. “ (Hauke and Alister, 2001,
page 151) Jung argues that this experience of cinema enables us to witness and
feel involved with un-common occurrences in life. Even the religious and
spiritual values of society, which are lacking in Western culture, are shown in
film, and the use of symbols allows the spectator to derive meaning from the images
on-screen. Izod maintains that “Audiences are invited to bear witness that full
human development demands exposure to many aspects of culture – light and dark,
joyous and potentially murderous.” In
saying this he means that spectators include themselves into the particular
social group that is evident in the film. In the case of What Dreams May Come,
the film summons spectators who have lost faith in the archetype of God and an
eternal afterlife, into believing that you create your own heaven , it is
individual, subjective, but not isolated. You are able to enter other people’s
heaven and experience theirs; just as in the medium of film, in which the
spectator experiences other realities that are not their own.
So to conclude,
after viewing the film What Dreams May Come and reading ideas of various
authors Cinema is ‘the royal road to the cultural unconscious’. Spectators use
film in order to experience every aspect of culture, religion, art, and the
dark side of the psyche that Freud believes we forget by repressing this shadow
content. The trance-like feeling that is present when we ‘go to the movies’
shows the dream-like state; the lowering of consciousness, in which the
spectator can access the unconscious. So the truth in the statement in which I
have shown, confirms that cinema, like dreams are ‘the royal road to the
unconscious’. One can say that this film plays with every emotion and repressed
desire, not to mention the feelings of mourning and guilt that is introjected
and projected by the spectator. The visual representation of the ‘imagined’
afterlife draws you in to a beautiful utopia that is one’s own design, one’s
own creation, one is the Divine God. This film is an emotional gateway to
people’s fear of no afterlife. The film gives those who are not religious hope
in the belief of the afterlife and eternal happiness after death.
Bibliography
Hauke, C., and Alistair, I.,
(2001) Jung and Film: Post-Jungian Takes
on the Moving Image. Great Britain: Brunner-Routledge.
Hockley, L., (2001) Cinematic Projections: The Analytical
Psychology of C.G. Jung and Film Theory. United Kingdom: University of
Luton Press.
Izod, J., (2001) Myth, Mind and the Screen: Understanding the
Heroes of Our Time. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
Izod, J., (2006) Screen, Culture, Psyche: A Post-Jungian
Approach to Working with the Audience. London: Routledge.
Jung, C. G., (1995) Memories, Dreams, Reflections. London:
Fontana Press
Ma’Sumian, F., (1995) Life After Death: A Study of the Afterlife
in World Religions. England: Oneworld Publications.
Matheson, R., (1978) What Dreams May Come. United States: G.
P. Putnam's Sons.
Pagel, J. F., Kwiatkowski, C.,
and Broyles, K. E, (1999) ‘Dream Use in Film Making’. Dreaming. Vol. 9 No. 4. Page 247-256.
Plate, S. B., (2003) Representing Religion in World Cinema:
Filmmaking, Mythmaking, Culture Making. United States: Palgrave Macmillan.
Prophet, E. C., Prophet, E. L.,
(1997) Reincarnation: The Missing Link in
Christianity. USA: Summit University Press.
Schwartz, S., (2000) ‘I Dream,
Therefore I Am: What Dreams May Come’ Journal
of Religion and Film. Vol 4, No.1.
Walker, Steven, F., (2002) Jung and the Jungians on Myth: An
Introduction. London: Routledge
Filmography
What Dreams May Come (1998) Vincent Ward. USA: Polygram Filmed
Entertainment.
By Lea Weller BA
A beautiful
girl wakes up one day to find her body is rotting - literally falling to
pieces. Being in an unhealthy relationship with both physical and mental abuse
she seems to be dying on the outside as well as the inside; her detached state
of mental health starts to manifest quite brutally through bodily bruising and
a rash that spreads continuing with on-going decay of, in a sense, her ‘old life’. The films examination of the
id and the ego encompass frightening portrayals of love, sex and death and it
pulls you into the story both emotionally and physically (with the squirming
and tensing when watching beloved horror). Thanatomorphose is a full on assault
on the audience with decomposing flesh and unsightly scenes; a splatter-gore
hound’s ecstasy. In a review from The Conduit Speaks they state that
Thanatomorphose is
The
protagonist wanders around like a corpse showing no life or interest in
anything in her life. It isn’t until she starts to rot away that she starts to
resemble a human being; living and breathing – with a pulse. Showing an ironic
way of living life and feeling alive inside, Falardeau shows how she gets
fulfilment from the old self rotting away and this is intentional and
methodical. Not just a gore-hounds wet dream.
