Cinema: The Art of Psychogeography

When we discuss the relationship between film and psychogeography, we must initially resolve a common misconception. From the perspective of psychohistory, this area of research is not devoted to an examination of the so-called “spirit of place.”  In-

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stead of investigating the effect of urban or rural surroundings on the human psyche and the representation of it in art, it deals with the opposite. To quote Howard F. Stein, “The scope of psychogeography is the unconscious construction of the social and physical world. Men and women fashion the world out of the substance of their psyches from the experience of their bodies, childhoods, and families.”  They then “project psychic contents outward onto the social and physical world, and act as though what is projected is in fact an attribute of the other or outer. What we attribute (verb) to the world we subsequently take to be an attribute (noun) of the world” (“The Influence of Psychogeography Upon the Conduct of International Relations: Clinical and Metapsychological Considerations,” Psychoanalytic Inquiry, Vol. 6, No. 2, 1986, 194).

This brief definition emphasizes projection as the core aspect of psychogeography. The way we view, describe, and build the outer world is an echo of inner dynamics, a literal revival of primal experiences connected to space. Space and its limitation are driving factors of our existence. “The outer constriction enforces birth,” as Rolf-Arno Wirtz put it, overcoming the inner one leads to death (in German, “Introduction,” Life Happens While We Are Making Different Plans, German Society for Socioanalytical Research, 2011, 1). Our procreation starts with the sperm cell traveling through vast darkness toward the ovum. In our very early childhood, we experience the world and its inhabitants as a mere extension of ourselves. Subsequently, in a shock of recognition, we comprehend reality as an indifferent void around us. The other factor is time: Our ontogenesis is a time-lapse reproduction of phylogenesis. Procreation reiterates the big bang. When we are born, we move from a watery surrounding to solid ground. Language then enables us to replace an inarticulate emotional release through mutual understanding, science, and poetry as the most subtle way of expression.

According to Friedhelm Bellingroth, the image is “the very own form of experience and expression” that the human soul knows (in German, Instinctual Effects of Film on Teenagers, 1958, 113). Given that we picture the world based on our earliest experiences, we must develop a form of perception that retranslates the projective imagery. A case in point is our fascination with space flights. If we want to understand it, we must return to the roots of our existence. Then the journey of spaceships through never-ending darkness and toward mysterious, unknown planets reminds us of the

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sperm cell on its dangerous but promising way to the ovum. We suddenly understand that our passion for discovery is based on a primal adventure. We project the microcosm and the big bang of our existence onto the macrocosm.

Reverting to the Womb

This perspective opens a deeper understanding of film as an art form. If “[h]umans live out their fantasies on the stage of reality” (Stein, “The Influence of Psychogeography,” 193-222), we can regard cinema as the art of psychogeography, an artistic reproduction of this elementary process. Films project our inner world by creating a condensed imitation of reality. They transform emotion into motion and thus evoke emotion again in the spectator. Space and projection are decisive factors when we “go to the movies.”  The spatial experience in darkness simultaneously seems to expand and contract our surroundings (Georg Simmel, in German, “Sociology of Space,” in Gustav Schmoller, ed., Yearbook for Legislation, Administration and Economics in the German Empire, Vol. 1, No. 27, 1903, 27-71). It induces a process of projection and introjection. That is, we transfer our inner conflicts and desires to the characters on the screen “and subsequently incorporate their mental structures” so that we can see ourselves in a different way (Holger Schumacher, “Cinema as an Art of Healing,” Clio’s Psyche, Vol. 27, No. 2, Winter 2021, 250). At the same time, the projection expands into the auditorium, and we mentally merge with the people around us, “with whom we laugh and cry together” (Schumacher, 250). Thereby, we regress to an earlier phase of our development, in which the distance between individual and collective as well as between imagination and perception dissolves.

In many ways, being at the movies resembles the intrauterine experience and the birth process: The dark evokes a floating state, an in-betweenness where we contentedly sip from soft drinks instead of amniotic liquor. (This parallels the function of oral addictions to alcohol or cigarettes as a surrogate of intrauterine security and satisfaction.)  When the curtain opens, unveiling the screen, we are ready to dive into the light, which leads us to a different world. To illuminate the film experience, we therefore must incorporate pre- and perinatal psychology like Ludwig Janus’ work on “culture as reenactment of the unconscious” (in German, Human History as Psychological Development Process, 2008, 19). This leads us to a further aspect: The psychohistorical interpretation of movies as collective self-narrations.

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Toward a Metapsychology

Stein calls psychogeography a “metapsychology of culture,” which analyzes and evaluates “projected symbols of shared intrapsychic conflicts,” targeted toward one’s own group and others who are therefore perceived as enemies (Stein, “The Influence of Psychogeography,” 198, 200). Here, another parallel between science and art becomes apparent. In the movie theater, human desires, existential needs, and obsessions merge between scriptwriters, directors, actors, and their audience, by which a groups’ collective unconscious becomes tangible. The screen heroes we love and the antagonists we fear or detest are two sides of the same coin; agents of our interior conflict being transferred onto different characters. Thus, movies externalize and reenact the inner process of splitting and projection so that the viewer is reconciled with his or her contradictions after the “projection.”  For this reason, we can call cinema a healing art (Schumacher, “Cinema as an Art of Healing,” 250).

Popular movies unfold a panorama of the unconscious, granting us deep insight into the past, present, and future development of a group or society. Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity (2013), for example, deals with a group of astronauts threatened by the debris of a satellite, which destroys their space shuttle and catapults Dr. Ryan Stone into open space. Rotating uncontrollably around herself, she is rescued by her colleague Kowalski. He manages to stabilize Stone by tethering her to him. They decide to reach the International Space Station (ISS) with the rest of the oxygen and fuel in Kowalski’s Manned Maneuvering Unit. In a temporary moment of security, Stone tells Kowalski about the loss of her daughter, with which she still is unable to cope. But events escalate again. Trying to grab hold of the ISS, the astronauts hang by a thread. The only method that prevents their drifting away into death is Stone’s leg being entangled in a parachute cord. Kowalski saves Stone again, this time by cutting the bond between them.

With her last reserve of oxygen, Stone enters the space station, which leads to a breather in the plot. Cuarón stages her rescue as a rebirth. In a short moment of silence, he shows Stone floating weightlessly in the position of an embryo. Overcoming her resignation, she finally manages to travel again; she maneuvers a space capsule back to earth where she lands in a lake. In a second birth scene, we see her exiting the capsule and swimming to the beach. With solid ground under her feet, it is difficult for Stone to walk

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upright.

It becomes apparent that Gravity is subdivided into two broad parts. The first one deals with the problem of binding and bonding, the opposition between holding on and letting go. The second part is about the dilemma between stagnancy and activity, isolation, and sociableness. Obviously, Cuarón tells us a story about depression. The main protagonist is a woman who must learn to lay her late daughter to rest. Kowalski’s sacrifice enables Stone to relive her trauma and find a new coping strategy. What could have been a conventional drama about loss and its digestion is projected into outer space, by which the conflicts gain a “universal” dimension. The darkness and vastness of outer space reproduce the spatial experience of the movie theater. In combination with the 3D effect, the director thus intensifies the viewer’s identification.

“Planetarium of Culture”

What is the collective fantasy conveyed and displayed in this film, thus generating its broad impact? The mystery unravels if we link its subject to our current way of dealing with sexuality and partnership. We observe a lack of emotional commitment in favor of interchangeability and instability. In the age of online dating with applications like Tinder, we are used to dismissing contacts easily. The present zeitgeist values freedom much more than engagement. Thereby we unlearn to develop and design our relationships properly, to become substantially involved with someone. This is accompanied and fueled by corresponding developments. Viagra has become the male revenge for the pill, whereby men turn the female indeterminacy against their partners. Conceptions like gender studies proclaim an indifference between the sexes, leading to a drift-inversion where the lust for creation withers into dullness and despair. Yet, the “reverse angle” of these paradigms is a longing for stability and deep relationships.

Gravity highlights these collective conflicts in a concrete narration, expressing that we have reached the peak of development. The big wave, which started as a liberation movement in the ’60s, now washes back because ultimate freedom has turned into loneliness and disorientation. The example of Cuarón’s movie illustrates how psychogeography can pave the way for a deeper comprehension of cinema as an art form. In our psychohistorical studies, we can use it as a “planetarium of culture” (Dirk Blothner, in German, “Film as Cultural Medium,” in H. Fitzek and A. Schulte,

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eds., Reality as an Event,Vol. 1, 1993, 169). Like the starlight, the “projections” in the movie theater let us observe hidden developments, which originate inside of us.

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