[Images of the unconscious. On the history of psychoanalytic film theory]

In contrast to the customary practice of classifying everything that proceeds on theoretical lines vaguely connected with psychoanalysis as representing a contribution to "psychoanalytic film theory", the author reserves this term exclusively for work proceeding from Freud's version of psychoanalysis and done by actual psychoanalysts. Zeul traces the history of psychoanalytic film theory from its beginnings to the present, and shows that the majority of authors addressing the subject of psychoanalysis and cinema interpret films largely in terms of their content or "storyline", drawing upon categories of wish-fulfilment and narcissism to do so. In contrast to this, the author insists that the symbolic richness of a film can only be truly appreciated if its formal and aesthetic structure is taken seriously and the moving images are acknowledged as functioning in their own right. This contrast between content-oriented and formal film interpretation is to some extent reminiscent of the so-called "realism debate" in the thirties and forties, its protagonists being Georg Lukács and Bertolt Brecht.