From the Editors

Psychoanalysis and film share a passion for the close examination of lived experience, human motivations, and hidden elements of the mind. We are pleased to offer a selection of reviews that explore cinema through the lens of psychoanalytic thought. In his review of William Fried's Critical Flicker Fusion: Psychoanalysis at the Movies, Richard Waugaman addresses a number of questions raised in the book: Are films best treated by psychoanalysis as a special kind of dream material to be interpreted, or is it useful to also ponder the relationships among film, filmmaker, writer, and producer? What is it about films that makes them “particularly unique among the arts”? Waugaman agrees with Fried that we are drawn to the drama, the secrets, the literary, musical, and theatrical elements of film, and points out that we all take pleasure in the suspension of disbelief that films invite. Waugaman appreciates how Fried's astute interpretations of films produce surprise and delight, and deepen our understanding of each film discussed in the book. He agrees with Fried's view that films can be approached as dream material, adding that “our various self states are active in our dreams, and they are also activated by watching films, as we identify with their various characters.”

In Cinematic Reflections on the Legacy of The Holocaust: Psychoanalytic Perspectives, Nancy Goodman writes, the editors of the volume, Diana Diamond and Bruce Sklarew, “have gathered together psychoanalysts who know film and are fearless in their ability to witness trauma.” Further, Goodman reflects that “each chapter provides psychoanalytic understanding of the severe psychic wounds left in our minds after confronting the Holocaust.” In her review, Goodman considers the overwhelming terrors of the Holocaust, which can leave the mind frozen, unable to process unthinkable trauma. Films of the Holocaust offer the viewer a manageable distance from which to reflect, and, as Goodman point