On the Experience of a Melancholic Gaze

TY - JOUR

T1 - On the Experience of a Melancholic Gaze

AU - Bainbridge, Caroline

N1 - Caroline Bainbridge is Professor of Culture and Psychoanalysis at Roehampton University in London. She is a recent graduate of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Clinic programme, Consultation and the Organisation: Psychoanalytic Approaches, and undertook her postdoctoral work at the Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies at the University of Sheffield. Caroline edits the film section of The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, and is a Fellow of the College established by that journal. She also directs the Media and the Inner World research network which was funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council between 2009-13. Caroline’s editorial commitments also include series editorship for the ‘Psychoanalysis and Popular Culture’ list published by Routledge, and she is a founding member of the BPC Scholar Steering Group, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Her research interests focus on psychoanalytic approaches to cinema, television, gender, and popular culture.

PY - 2019/1/29

Y1 - 2019/1/29

N2 - This article focuses on Lars von Trier’s 2011 film, Melancholia, described as ‘a beautiful film about the end of the world’ and interlocking personal and global tragedy. Drawing directly on her personal emotional response to the film, and referring to her profound incapacity to talk about it for many years after an initial encounter with it, the author turns to a range of object relations psychoanalytic thinkers to consider what such experience has to say about lived emotional relationships to cinema, and its role in shaping and articulating psychological, and affective states. The article touches on debates about the cinematic gaze, and the role of film as a psychological object, and considers whether film might be seen as offering a form of therapeutic encounter for viewers.© 2019, BPF and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. The attached document (embargoed until 29/01/2020) is an author produced version of a paper published in BRITISH JOURNAL OF PSYCHOTHERAPY uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self- archiving policy. The final published version (version of record) is available online at the link below. Some minor differences between this version and the final published version may remain. We suggest you refer to the final published version should you wish to cite from it.

AB - This article focuses on Lars von Trier’s 2011 film, Melancholia, described as ‘a beautiful film about the end of the world’ and interlocking personal and global tragedy. Drawing directly on her personal emotional response to the film, and referring to her profound incapacity to talk about it for many years after an initial encounter with it, the author turns to a range of object relations psychoanalytic thinkers to consider what such experience has to say about lived emotional relationships to cinema, and its role in shaping and articulating psychological, and affective states. The article touches on debates about the cinematic gaze, and the role of film as a psychological object, and considers whether film might be seen as offering a form of therapeutic encounter for viewers.© 2019, BPF and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. The attached document (embargoed until 29/01/2020) is an author produced version of a paper published in BRITISH JOURNAL OF PSYCHOTHERAPY uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self- archiving policy. The final published version (version of record) is available online at the link below. Some minor differences between this version and the final published version may remain. We suggest you refer to the final published version should you wish to cite from it.

KW - Melancholia

KW - Lars von Trier

KW - cinema

KW - affect

KW - film

KW - object relations

U2 - 10.1111/bjp.12426

DO - 10.1111/bjp.12426

M3 - Article

SN - 1752-0118

VL - 35

SP - 142

EP - 155

JO - British Journal of Psychotherapy

JF - British Journal of Psychotherapy

IS - 1

ER -