The contents of this book represent a series of experiments in dramatizing Bion’s Memoir of the Future, the primary one being an unfinished film begun in India in the 1980s and directed by Kumar Shahani, 'epic' artfilm maker, most of whose films have been produced in Hindi. The film was inspired and initiated by Bombay psychoanalyst Udayan Patel, and sponsored by the Roland Harris Educational Trust. The cast of actors included Jalal Agha, Tom Alter, Robert Burbage, Nicholas Clay, Neil Cunningham, Carol Drinkwater, Peter Firth, Nigel Hawthorne, Shona Morris, Jonathan Page (as a child), Angela Pleasence, Juliet Reynolds, and Alaknanda Samarth.
The filmscript and a commentary are here included, together with a narrative poem written for Alaknanda Samarth who played the Ayah of Bion’s childhood, and a playscript written for Tom Alter who played the Father. The play is due to be first performed in Bombay and Delhi in February 2016.
An appendix reprints a psychoanalytic study of the Memoir by Donald Meltzer, who was closely involved in the production of the original film.
The book is illustrated by screenshots from the film and the ebook contains video extracts.
Women and men in cinema are imaginary constructs created by filmmakers and their audiences. The film-psychoanalytic approach reveals how movies subliminally influence unconscious reception. On the other hand, the movie is embedded in a cultural tradition: Jean Cocteau‘s film La Belle et la Bête (1946) takes up the classic motif of the animal groom from the story of Cupid and Psyche in Apuleius’ The Golden Ass (originally a tale about the stunning momentum of genuine female desire), liberates it from its baroque educational moral (a girl's virtue and prudence will help her to overcome her sexual fears), and turns it into a boyhood story: inside the ugly rascal there is a good, but relatively boring prince – at least in comparison to the monsters of film history.
In the seventy years since it was made, La Belle et la Bête has inspired numerous interpretations and has been employed by theorists of all genres and interests. In this book, Andreas Hamburger and other contributors consider its background, content, and reception, and explore the impact Cocteau has on our perceptions of beauties and beasts.
Introducing the monster as a suffering person, Cocteau’s film reacts to the disturbing experience of World War II and the Holocaust. It questions hegemonial masculinity, designing a poetic, hallucinatory attempt at healing for a traumatized generation. Moreover, it addresses female and male adolescent development. Its deliberately incredible finale ironically portrays traditional constructs of femininity and masculinity, thus going beyond the scope of a compensatory fairy tale.
While film and video has long been used within psychological practice, researchers and practitioners have only just begun to explore the benefits of film and video production as therapy. This volume describes a burgeoning area of psychotherapy which employs the art of filmmaking and digital storytelling as a means of healing victims of trauma and abuse. It explores the ethical considerations behind this process, as well as its cultural and developmental implications within clinical psychology. Grounded in clinical theory and methodology, this multidisciplinary volume draws on perspectives from anthropology, psychiatry, psychology, and art therapy which support the use and integration of film/video-based therapy in practice.
