Psychology at the Movies

By Skip Dine Young

Psychology at the Movies explores the insights to be gained by applying various psychological lenses to popular films including cinematic depictions of human behavior, the psychology of filmmakers, and the impact of viewing movies.

• Uses the widest range of psychological approaches to explore movies, the people who make them, and the people who watch them
• Written in an accessible style with vivid examples from a diverse group of popular films, such as The Silence of the Lambs, The Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, Taxi Driver, Good Will Hunting, and A Beautiful Mind
• Brings together psychology, film studies, mass communication, and cultural studies to provide an interdisciplinary perspective
• Features an extensive bibliography for further exploration of various research fields

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wiley
• Release date: Mar 14, 2012
• ISBN: 9781119941392

Book preview

Table of Contents

Cover

Title

Copyright

Dedication

List of Illustrations and Figures

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: Introduction—The Many Sides of Psychology and the Many Faces of the Movies

Goals of Psychology at the Movies

Story, Entertainment and Art in the Movies

A Liberal Use of Psychology

A Symbolic Framework for the Psychology of Film

Organization of Psychology at the Movies

Further Reading

Chapter 2: The Search for Meaning—Psychological Interpretations in the Movies

Human Behavior in the Movies

Unconscious Conflict in the Movies

Archetypes in the Movies

Ideology in the Movies

Spectators in the Movies

Closing Shots: The Boons and Banes of Interpretation

Further Reading

Chapter 3: Psychopathology, Psychotherapy and Psycho—Psychologists and Their Patients in the Movies

Representations of Psychological Disorders

Representations of Psychologists and Psychological Treatment

Closing Shots: The Impact of Representations of Psychology

Further Reading

Chapter 4: Crazy Genius—The Psychology of Filmmakers

Psychobiography and Filmmakers

Auteurs: Profiles of Directors

Star-Gazing: Profiles of Actors

Psychology for Filmmakers: The Case of Woody Allen

Closing Shots: Evaluating Psychobiography

Further Reading

Chapter 5: Picturing the Audience—Psychological Profiles of Moviegoers

Movie Audiences through the Years

The Movies People Watch

The Movies People Like

Closing Shots: The Viewers behind the Numbers

Further Reading

Chapter 6: The Cinematic Moment—Emotions and the Comprehension of Movies

Cognitive Psychology and the Movies

The Perception of Movies

The Narrative Comprehension of Movies

The Emotional Comprehension of Movies

Brain Functioning and the Movies

Closing Shots: An Unlikely Partnership

Further Reading

Chapter 7: Reflecting on the Screen—The Reception of Movies

Viewer Enjoyment of Movies

Viewer Interpretations of Movies

Closing Shots: The Challenges of Audience Response

Further Reading

Chapter 8: The Movies Made Me Do It—The Effects of Film

Effects on Behavior

Effects on Thoughts and Emotions

Propaganda and Effects on Culture

Closing Shots: The Great Debate over Media Effects

Further Reading

Chapter 9: Movies as Equipment for Living—The Functions of Film

Professional Functions of Movies

General Functions of Movies in Everyday Life

Personal Functions of Movies in Everyday Life

Closing Shots: Seeing Movies from a Different Angle

Further Reading

Chapter 10: Conclusion—Putting the Pieces Together

An Appeal for Interdisciplinarity

Movies as Art

Appendix A: Mental Health Professionals in Top Box Office Grossing Movies, 1990–1999

Appendix B: Three Top 50 Lists of Acclaimed Movies

Appendix C: Emotionally Arousing Movie Scenes

Appendix D: Therapeutic Movies

Endnotes

Bibliography

Filmography

Index

End User License Agreement

List of Illustrations

Chapter 1: Introduction—The Many Sides of Psychology and the Many Faces of the Movies

Figure 1.1 Symbolic activity in film.

Figure 1.2 The many faces of Psychology at the Movies.

Illustration 1.2 Director Martin Scorsese holds a gun on the set of Taxi Driver © Steve Schapiro/Corbis.

Illustration 1.3 John Hinckley Jr, who attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan in 1981, poses in front of the White House. © Bettmann/Corbis.

Chapter 3: Psychopathology, Psychotherapy and Psycho—Psychologists and Their Patients in the Movies

Illustration 3.2 Robin Williams & Matt Damon as Sean & Will in Good Will Hunting (1997) © Moviestore Collection Ltd/Alamy.

Chapter 4: Crazy Genius—The Psychology of Filmmakers

Illustration 4.2 Mia Farrow & Woody Allen as Judy & Gabe in Husbands and Wives (1992) © AF archive/Alamy.

Chapter 6: The Cinematic Moment—Emotions and the Comprehension of Movies

Figure 6.1 Symbolic activity in film viewing: Comprehension, emotion and perception.

Chapter 7: Reflecting on the Screen—The Reception of Movies

Figure 7.1 Symbolic activity in film viewing: Interpretation and evaluation.

Chapter 8: The Movies Made Me Do It—The Effects of Film

Figure 8.1 Symbolic activity in film viewing: Function and effect.

Illustration 8.2 A still from a security video shows Dylan Klebold & Eric Harris on the day they killed twelve students and one teacher at Columbine High School, Colorado. April 20, 1999. © Reuters/Corbis.

Chapter 10: Conclusion—Putting the Pieces Together

Figure 10.1 Symbolic activity in film (expanded).

Illustration 10.2 Alec Guinness & George Lucas on the set of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) © AF Archive/Alamy.

Illustration 10.3 Skip Young, Star Wars fan, age 10.

Psychology at the Movies

Skip Dine Young

Professor of Psychology, Hanover College, Indiana, USA

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This edition first published 2012

© 2012 Skip Dine Young

Wiley-Blackwell is an imprint of John Wiley & Sons, formed by the merger of Wiley's global Scientific, Technical and Medical business with Blackwell Publishing.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Young, Skip Dine.

Psychology at the movies / Skip Dine Young.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-470-97177-2 (pbk.)

1. Motion pictures–Psychological aspects. 2. Psychoanalysis and motion pictures.

3. Motion picture audiences–Psychology. 4. Psychiatry in motion pictures.

5. Psychoanalysis in motion pictures. 6. Mental health personnel in motion pictures.

I. Title.

PN1995.Y63 2012

791.43′6561–dc23

2011042656

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.

To My Family

List of Illustrations and Figures

Illustrations

1.1 Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver (1976) © AF archive/Alamy

1.2 Director Martin Scorsese holds a gun on the set of Taxi Driver © Steve Schapiro/Corbis

1.3 John Hinckley Jr, who attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan in 1981, poses in front of the White House. © Bettmann/Corbis

2.1 Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Judy Garland & Bert Lahr in The Wizard of Oz (1939) © Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy

3.1 Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates in Psycho (1960) © AF archive/Alamy

3.2 Robin Williams & Matt Damon as Sean & Will in Good Will Hunting (1997) © Moviestore Collection Ltd/Alamy

4.1 Woody Allen and Mia Farrow in New York City. March 1986. © Trinity Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy

4.2 Mia Farrow & Woody Allen as Judy & Gabe in Husbands and Wives (1992) © AF archive/Alamy

5.1 Natalie Portman as Nina Sayers in Black Swan (2010) © Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy

6.1 Jim Carrey & Kate Winslet as Joel Barish & Clementine Kruczynski in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) © AF archive/Alamy

7.1 Linda Blair & Max von Sydow as Regan & Father Merrin in The Exorcist (1973) © Moviestore Collection Ltd/Alamy

8.1 Juliette Lewis & Woody Harrelson as Mallory & Mickey in Natural Born Killers (1994) © AF archive/Alamy

8.2 A still from a security video shows Dylan Klebold & Eric Harris on the day they killed twelve students and one teacher at Columbine High School, Colorado. April 20, 1999. © Reuters/Corbis

9.1 Al Pacino as Sonny in Dog Day Afternoon (1975) © Photos 12/Alamy

10.1 Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher & Harrison Ford as Luke, Leia & Han in Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) © Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy

10.2 Alec Guinness & George Lucas on the set of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) © AF Archive/Alamy

10.3 Skip Young, Star Wars fan, age 10

Figures

1.1 Symbolic activity in film

1.2 The many faces of Psychology at the Movies

6.1 Symbolic activity in film viewing: Comprehension, emotion and perception

7.1 Symbolic activity in film viewing: Interpretation and evaluation

8.1 Symbolic activity in film viewing: Function and effect

10.1 Symbolic activity in film (expanded)

Acknowledgments

I would especially like to thank Lindsay Marsh and Mary Ryan. Without their help I would never have been able to finish this book (at least not in the current decade). As my research assistant, Lindsay’s patience and attention to detail allowed me to focus and work around my own limitations. Mary’s invaluable editing and commentary made the manuscript infinitely more readable and helped me (begin) to unlearn decades of bad writing habits.

I appreciate the feedback I received on drafts of the manuscript from my colleagues Bill Altermatt, John Krantz, Ellen Altermatt, Mark Fearnow, Bill Bettler, Jared Bates and Ron Smith. Their comments helped me make adjustments and gave me perspective when I needed it. I am lucky to be a part of a vital faculty that is a tribute to the liberal arts.

Hanover College has been a great support to this project. The grant I received from the Faculty Development Committee and the sabbatical leave from the Board of Trustees provided me with the funding and time I needed. In addition the staff at Duggan Library (especially Patricia Lawrence, Mary Royalty, Ken Gibson and Lela Bradshaw) were extremely accommodating in my attempts to acquire the materials I needed for my own little psychology and film library. I would also like to thank whoever made the decision for the College to mow the lawns on campus housing. That was one distraction I didn’t have to worry about that might otherwise have pushed me over the edge.

I am grateful to the many students I have worked with, particularly those who have taken The Psychology of Film over the past 15 years. I have found that having students is the only way professors can figure out what is really important.

I thank the faculty at Clark University, particularly my mentors Bernie Kaplan and Lenny Cirillo. Most of the ideas in this book first came to me in graduate school, and I am eternally grateful for the unique intellectual environment at Clark that nurtured so many different thoughts and convinced me that psychoanalytic interpretations of movies and psychological experiments belong in the same universe.

The publication team at Wiley-Blackwell (Andy Peart, Karen Shield and Tori Halliday) gently guided me through a process that was new to me. I appreciate the opportunity.

Special thanks to Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, George Lucas, and the many other filmmakers who inspired my passion for film in the first place.

Finally, I’d like to express my gratitude to my family for accommodating my distraction and diminished energy. I hope to spend more time with them now, playing and maybe watching a few movies (instead of just writing about them).

Chapter 1

Introduction—The Many Sides of Psychology and the Many Faces of the Movies

Like all art, movies are saturated with the human mind—they are created by humans, they depict human action, and they are viewed by a human audience. Movies are a particularly vivid art form, making use of striking moving images and vibrant sounds to connect filmmakers to the audience through celluloid and the senses.

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Illustration 1.2 Director Martin Scorsese holds a gun on the set of Taxi Driver © Steve Schapiro/Corbis.

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Illustration 1.3 John Hinckley Jr, who attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan in 1981, poses in front of the White House. © Bettmann/Corbis.

Consider the following story¹: Martin Scorsese was born in Flushing, New York in 1942 and grew up in the tough Little Italy section of lower Manhattan. Because of an asthmatic condition he could not play like the other children and spent much his time indoors watching movies, where he was partially protected from the mean streets of New York City, yet felt lonely and isolated. He was deeply immersed in Catholicism and briefly attended a seminary before enrolling in NYU's film school.

By the mid-70s, Scorsese was one of the young, ambitious directors (along with Arthur Penn, Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg and others) who were revolutionizing Hollywood. In 1976, he made Taxi Driver about an emotionally unstable cabbie, Travis Bickle, who is trapped by the haunted streets of New York City. Actor Robert De Niro starred in the film and invested Travis's intrapsychic struggles with a terrifying realism.

Taxi Driver was a tour-de-force of raw language, disturbing imagery, and innovative cinematic techniques. In one famous sequence, an elaborate, slow-motion overhead tracking shot surveys the carnage that has resulted from Travis's convoluted attempt to rescue a child prostitute (Jodie Foster). That scene in particular was considered so violent that the Motion Picture Association of America insisted that Scorsese alter the hue of the blood in order to avoid an X rating.

Despite its less than commercial subject matter, Taxi Driver was highly successful and audiences lined up. Reactions among audience members were polarized. Some viewers proclaimed it to be not only technically brilliant but also a cathartic descent into the scarred psyche of an individual character and of America itself. Other viewers found the film to be exploitative and morally misguided. A scene in which Travis, shirtless but outfitted with multiple guns and holsters, looks into the mirror and asks threateningly, You talkin' to me? became a part of the common lexicon.

In 1981, one viewer, John Hinckley, Jr, watched the movie 15 times in a retro theater. He was inspired to assassinate President Reagan in order to gain the attention of Jodie Foster with whom Hinckley was romantically obsessed. The assassination failed, but Reagan was shot and several people were seriously wounded, including Reagan's Press Secretary, James Brady, who was paralyzed for life. Hinckley was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and found not guilty by reason of insanity. The incident became part of the cultural debate on the insanity defense, gun control, and the role of media in society.

Over 30 years later, Taxi Driver is still used frequently by pundits and college professors to make points about all manner of things—the cultural zeitgeist of the 1970s; the distortion in media representations; the nature of paranoid thinking; and so on.

Where is the psychology in this story? Obviously, it is everywhere. Scorsese's personal background in a difficult social environment becomes melded with his individual talents and obsessions. These themes of sin, hardship, aggression and redemption appear in films like Taxi Driver, not only in the stories but in the choice of camera angles and color schemes. Aware that art has a relationship to the world outside of the theater, some viewers laud the film for its insightful portrayal of insanity and cultural rot while others find the film disturbing and worry about the message it sends. One psychotic viewer takes the movie as a usable model for assassinating the president. One can easily imagine an entire book on The Psychology of Taxi Driver.

Perhaps a more revealing question is: What is not psychological about this story? There are elements that could be divorced from the realm of psychology—perhaps the technical use of tracking shots or the historical aspects of America in the 1970s. But these distinctions break down if you think about them too much. After all, a camera shot forms the basis for the audience's perceptual experience. And the history of the 1970s is embodied in characters like Travis, artists like Scorsese, and audience members like Hinckley. Once you start looking for it, you can't escape psychology in the movies. There may be ways of talking about movies without highlighting psychological elements, but as a psychologist, I am not sure why anybody would want to.

Goals of Psychology at the Movies

The basic premise of this book is that all movies are psychologically alive, exploding with human drama. This drama has been looked at from many different angles. It is significant that both laboratory psychology and clinical psychoanalysis emerged at almost the same historical point as motion pictures—the end of the nineteenth century.² The cultural impact of both psychology and film over that next century-plus has obviously been enormous. All along this historical path, there have been many occasions when psychologists have looked at movies as well as many times when movies have looked at psychologists. This book creates a snapshot of the fascinating interweaving between psychology and the movies.

There is no way to even summarize all of the work that has been done on the psychology of movies in one book. The body of available studies, analyses, and commentaries is truly vast—worthy not of a single book but of a library. One prominent early psychologist (and still the psychologist with the best name), Hugo Munsterberg, wrote a book, The Photoplay: A Psychological Study in 1916, and the scholarship has been expanding for a century. The present book can be thought of as a kind of directory for the mythical International Library of Psychology and Film, identifying different sections of the library and calling attention to some of the most interesting works.

The scope of fields I cover is far-reaching. As far as I am aware, no other book has attempted to bring so many diverse approaches together under one cover. It considers everything from Freudian psychoanalysis of Hitchcock films to the uncanny popularity of certain movies to children's film-inspired aggression toward a Bobo doll. As the research on film has become more abundant, it has also become more fractured; most recent books addressing issues related to psychology and film are likely to cover only one or two of the chapters contained here. Throughout this book, I hope to distinguish different approaches, concisely describe fundamental issues, and provide evocative cinematic examples. In every case, my overviews are not meant to be definitive; instead they are meant to provide clues for further exploration.

The primary intended readers for this book are students and non-professionals who have a love of movies and/or psychology. Therefore it is relatively jargon-free, and when I do use technical terms, I pause to explain them. All of the research traditions discussed in this book are grounded in essential film-related human phenomena about which many people are curious; my task is to reveal those kernels of widespread fascination to a broad audience. In addition, the book may be useful to individuals already familiar with certain areas of the psychology of film. By drawing connections between diverse areas of study, alternative avenues of exploration are suggested that may be instructive even for experts. Ultimately, my goal is to help as many people as possible more fully appreciate the movies in our midst.

My personal and professional background has prepared me well for this undertaking. Most importantly, I am a movie fan. Ever since biweekly trips to the grimy movie theater on the American Army post in Germany on which I grew up, I have loved the movies. When I returned to the US in my ‘tweens, I discovered the wonders of an ever-expanding cable revolution that made many movies easily available. In my teens, trips to the movie theater and VHS rentals were a critical part of both my social life and my alone time. I learned to like all kinds of movies—American and foreign, popular and arty, old and new—but I developed a particular fondness for Hitchcock, suspense movies in general, and dark, satirical comedies.

It was this passion for movies that led to several educational choices when I got to college. As an undergraduate at Miami University (Ohio), I majored in psychology and minored in film studies. I wrote movie reviews for the school newspaper. I did my senior honors thesis on college men's experiences of watching violence in film using the then-current Blue Velvet as my primary stimulus.

I subsequently chose to do my graduate work at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. Clark holds a unique place in the history of American psychology: It was co-founded by the prominent early American psychologist, G. Stanley Hall, and it has the honor of being the only place in America where Freud ever spoke.³ Clark's intellectual flavor was strongly influenced when developmental psychologist Heinz Werner settled there after fleeing Nazi Germany. Werner considered development to be a guiding concept that considers what it means for humans to progress toward some imagined end point (e.g., maturity, transcendence, enlightenment, happiness, etc.). His approach was more open to interdisciplinary thinking than much of mainstream American psychology, and Werner's work naturally integrated child development, anthropology, clinical psychology, and philosophy.⁴ This unrestricted spirit thrived at Clark in the 1990s when I was in graduate school. I was trained as a clinical psychologist, but I was also immersed in other dimensions of psychology (including developmental psychology, cultural psychology, narrative psychology, and neuropsychology) and was exposed to cross-disciplinary influences such as interpretive philosophy and literary studies.⁵ I ended up receiving an almost classical liberal graduate education. In this rich environment, I continued to pursue my interests in the psychology of film.

When it came time to pursue my career, I naturally gravitated toward liberal arts colleges. These kinds of (usually small) colleges take a holistic, interdisciplinary approach to education and strive to teach students fundamental intellectual skills such as writing, critical thinking, and the ability to engage in rational dialogue. I am currently a professor in the Psychology Department at Hanover College in Indiana where I have taught for 15 years. I teach clinically oriented classes like Behavior Disorders and Counseling and Psychotherapy, as well as pet courses like The Psychology of Film. I am also a licensed clinical psychologist.

Teaching at a liberal arts college has helped prepare me for writing this text. I have spent thousands of hours in close proximity to students, giving lectures to small groups, discussing ideas in seminars, and sitting with students working on independent projects. I have frequently used movies, music, and other symbolic media as teaching tools. My students are typically bright, curious individuals, but they do not often share the same language as their professors. This can be a good thing; if one spends too much time around other experts, it is easy to get lost in jargon and technicalities and to forget the fundamental assumptions of a field. Undergraduate students, on the other hand, tend to ask the basic questions, and far from being naïve, these often get to the heart of the matter. I want Psychology at the Movies to focus on the heart of the matter as well.

The type of scholarship that is expected at a liberal arts college is also an advantage in writing this book. Liberal arts colleges are sometimes referred to as teaching colleges, indicating the high value these institutions place on teaching and student learning. Professors at most liberal arts colleges do not function with the publish or perish mentality that characterizes much of modern higher education. I have published in the area of psychology and the movies, but I have also had the freedom to do research on student retention and even on the music of Bob Dylan.⁶

In contrast, much of modern academics has become so specialized that researchers often work in sub-subfields that allow for minimal contact with individuals outside of their specialty, even when they are in the same discipline. The liberal arts philosophy applied to scholarship requires an integrative, interdisciplinary approach. Psychology at the Movies casts a wide net designed to fall across many current intellectual divides and, because of this, it will hopefully be stimulating to readers who have an open-minded interest in all things psychological and all things cinematic.

Story, Entertainment and Art in the Movies

This book is about movies, a term everybody understands intuitively. However, there is some fuzziness around the margins that may occasionally be confusing. So in order to limit the scope of the book, I will focus on narrative, theatrical films created for entertainment/artistic purposes. A few of these terms are worth exploring:

Narrative: Most of the films that are discussed tell stories that have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Some of the stories are simple, some of them are complex. Some of the stories are told in a very straightforward manner while others make use of flashbacks (e.g., Titanic),

Reviews for Psychology at the Movies

[lukespapa · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Psychology at the Movies takes a broad look at the confluence of cinema and psychology. If you have interest in movies (and really who doesn’t) or dabble in pop psychology you are certain to find this short book appealing. The author takes a look at all matters of psychology/psychiatry in movies, from the psychology of filmmakers and moviegoers, to providing a framework for using movies as equipment for living. Written from the perspective of the liberal arts, this concise overview leaves the reader wanting more.