Film and Culture

Welcome to this new section of the Journal of Analytical Psychology and thanks to Helena Bassil-Morozow for her opening article. We hope that this exciting venture will provide a creative and fresh addition to the Journal. The aim is that both clinicians and academics will contribute articles, and that there will be space for robust discussion and critical debate.

The section will aim to reflect the current interest-particularly in Jungian circles-in the power and usefulness of films, seeing them potentially as a form of Active Imagination representing the concerns and themes of our time. Speaking in the introduction of a book published early this century, Jung and Film, Hauke and Alister promote cinema as offering, ‘both a means and a space to witness the psyche-almost literally in projection’ (2001, p. 2). They go on to suggest that films can create an ‘imaginal space’ where psyche can come alive. Whilst this section will not have the luxury of space that is afforded in Jung and Film, the book, along with its sequel, provide a helpful model for the vision for this section. They include essays—both clinical and academic—and seek to form a bridge between Jungian studies and clinical practice. Some examples of the seminal films that are explored in the books include Blade Runner, Pulp Fiction, The Twilight Saga and The Piano-to name but a few. The breadth of films covered in these books and other publications, for example, John Beebe and Virginia Apperson's The Presence of the Feminine in Film and Terrie Waddel's Wild/Lives: Trickster, Place and Liminality on Screen , highlight the rich and fertile ground there is to be tilled.

Although this section will primarily focus on film and later expand to cover broader cultural events, it feels important to allow space and acknowledgement for some of the high quality groundbreaking satellite/cable TV drama series. For example, the multi-award winning Breaking Bad, created and produced by Vince Gilligan, takes a contemporary a