Thursday, January 29, 2009

Psychology in Film - Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound

psychology in film: http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-19951101-000018.html
IMDB Spellbound: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038109/
Dali Moma Exhibit Site - On his work for Spellbound: http://moma.org/exhibitions/2008/dali/dali.html#/spellbound

I recently watched Hitchcock's film Spellbound for maybe the tenth time, a film in which psychology is the driving plot point. It made me wonder how accurate the information presented in the film was, and got me thinking about how often psychology is used in both film and television as crucial plot points, and whether or not the information is accurate or just nonsense created by the writers. I feel that many people watch this kind television and film, and feel that they are learning something about mental health, psychology, psychiatry, and overall how our minds work, and I think that misrepresentation of science and medicine in pop culture i.e. television, film, novels, comic books, are responsible for some of the ignorance about these subjects in American society. I would like to do more research into this film in particular, because I find Hitchcock's films to be both plausible and well researched, for their time period, and if I had to make an assumption I would say that most of the information would be at least somewhat accurate and in accordance to psychological teachings and research in that time. The link included is a list of films in which psychology is a major story aspect, recommended by Psychology Today as films that best use the subject as a plot point.
Also, this film uses dream sequences designed by Dali, the surrealist artist, which makes it an interesting film for both fine artists and designers to watch. Featured in the recent Dali exhibit at the MoMA were backdrops created for the film, and extensive sketches as well as film clips.

1 comment:

RWinkel said...

Lily, If this really interests you, there's the possibility of developing it into your class project. Keep looking for links and even books on psychology and film. There's a ton out there. rw