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This book is part of the very well-known and highly regarded series, “Beyond the Couch,” a subset of The New Library of Psychoanalysis. It was written by an esteemed member of the British Psychoanalytical Society, whose private practice in London and whose credentials as an expert in film are beyond reproach. Professor Andrea Sabbadini is a Fellow of the British Psychoanalytical Society and Director of Publications, as well as Director of the European Film Festival and editor of the film section of the IJP. He has edited three books, Even Paranoids Have Enemies (Routledge, ), The Couch and the Silver Screen (Routledge, ), and Projected Shadows (Routledge ).
The pretext of this volume is that both film makers and psychoanalysts have similar roles and missions in our culture, in that, they both endeavor to reveal the hidden truths about the human condition and to offer a language to explain these phenomena. As a cultural product as worthy of serious study as literature and art, The International Journal of Psychoanalysis added a section of film reviews in 1997. On this occasion, Gabbard succinctly noted, “To a large extent, films speak the language of the unconscious” (Gabbard, 1997, p. 429). And, going beyond the classical formula of trying to psychoanalyze the film maker him/herself through the creative end product of the film itself, Sabbadini prefers a newer, more productive approach—an interdisciplinary dialogue.
Through the analysis of 25 significant films, the author delves into the deeper meanings of these works of contemporary art. The book is organized into six chapters, in which he takes the reader on a fascinating guided tour. The first chapter cleverly orients the reader to the author himself and his method, by focusing on films about psychoanalysis. As was seen to have been a very popular topic in their earlier study, Gabbard and Gabbard (1987) devote about half of their book to the various depictions of therapists in film. In Sabbadini's book, he has a di