Spellbound: Dissociation in the Movies

ABSTRCT

In this paper we examine how aspects of dissociation permeate the film-going experience. Using examples from more than three dozen films spanning six decades, we introduce and discuss three observations regarding dissociation in film. Specifically: (1) that the act of watching a film may viewed as a voluntary engagement in a positive dissociative experience; (2) that film directors and cinematographers use cinematic devices to convey and dramatize the peri- and post-traumatic dissociative experiences of their characters, and the force of these techniques may issue from the film-viewer's personal knowledge of normative dissociation; and (3) that representations of dissociative conditions and symptoms in film allow filmmakers to examine universal existential experiences and themes along with contemporary psychosocio-cultural issues, while exploiting the plot-expanding possibilities that inhere in the topics of memory, identity, and multiplicity. Underlining the continuity of pathological and nonpathological dissociation, the weight of our observations leads us to assert that dissociation is not only integral to film, but that film-making and the film-watching experience rely on the audience's innate understanding of dissociative phenomena. We propose that this innate or intuitive understanding may reflect the pervasive nonpathological presence, integration, and use of dissociative processes in everyday life.

KEYWORDS:

• Dissociation
• trauma
• memory
• nonpathological
• film
• movies
• cinema