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HAREKETLİ GÖRÜNTÜDE KARMAŞIK ANLATIYA PSİKANALİTİK YAKLAŞIM: NOLAN’IN MEMENTO FİLMİ

Year 2024, Volume: 14 Issue: 1, 317 - 328, 28.12.2023
https://doi.org/10.7456/tojdac.1384716

Abstract

Bu makale, Christopher Nolan’ın Memento eserini psikanalitik bir yaklaşımla hareketli görüntülerdeki karmaşık anlatının bir örneği olarak incelemektedir. Psikanaliz yorumcuların, film eleştirmenlerinin ve kuramcıların sinemayı analiz edebilmeleri için bir temel sağlamıştır. Bu makale, Freud’un bilinçdışı zihinle ilgili Buzdağı Analojisi’ni kullanarak bilinçdışı karmaşık zihinsel durumların ortaya çıkışı, bunların hareketli görüntülerde duydu ve davranışlarla nasıl ifade edildiği ve zihinsel durumlarını nasıl yansıttıkları arasındaki paralelliği incelemektedir. Makale, Memento’ya odaklamamakta ve filmi karakter ve anlatı yapısı açısından analiz etmektedir. Memento, Christopher Nolan’ın insan zihninin karmaşıklığının ve bilinçsizliğinin korkutucu boyutlarını yakalamadaki başarısı nedeniyle seçilmiştir. Nolan, karmaşık anlatı yapıları aracılığıyla, izleyicilerin bilinçsizliği ile çaresizlik, amaçsızlık korkusu, yanlış yargılama veya haksız muamele gibi bununla ilişkili olumsuz baskı ve stres duyguları arasında ilişkiler kurmuştur. Bu makale, sahne yapılarını, anlatıların karmaşıklığı ve bu anlatıların Leonard Shelbyinın bilinçdışı zihniyle olan ilişkisini psikoanaliz ve yorumlayıcı yaklaşımlarla metin analizi ve psikoanalitik film teorisi kullanarak incelemektedir. Filmin kahramanı Leonard Shelby’nin kafa travması sonucu değil, bilinçdışı bunu bir kalkan olarak kullanmasından kaynaklanan bağımsız bir ön bilinç ile bilinçli ve bilinçsiz olduğu sonucuna varmaktadır. Bilinç düzeyleri arasındaki kopukluk, siyah beyaz, hareketli bir görüntü olarak tasvir edilmektedir. Bu, Leonard’ın tersten oynanan anlatı versiyonuna istikrar ve tutarlılık sağlamaktadır. Memento’nun psikanalitik bir yaklaşımla incelenmesi, Freud’un bilinçdışı zihinle ilgili Buzdağı Analojisi üzerinden insanın karmaşık bilinçdışı zihinsel durumları arasındaki paralelliği ve bunun hareketli görüntü üzerinde nasıl tasvir edildiğini anlatmaktadır.

Thanks

Bu çalışmanın fikir oluşum aşamasına koymuş olduğu katkılardan dolayı Sn. Ahmet Murat KÖKBAŞ'a teşekkürlerimi sunarım.

References

  • Allen, R. (2004). Psychoanalytic Film Theory. In T. Miller & R. Stram (Eds.), Companion to Film Theory, (pp.123-146). Blackwell Publishing.
  • Baxendale, S. (2004). Memories Aren't Made of This: Amnesia at The Movies. British Medical Journal, 329(7480), 1480-1483. doi: 10.1136/bmj.329.7480.1480.
  • Beresford, J. (2021, 16 March). Memento And the Significance of Sammy Jankis, https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/memento-sammy-jankis-stephen-tobolowsky/.
  • Bernard, H. R. & Ryan, G. (1998). Text Analysis. In H. R. Bernard & G. Ryan (Eds.), Handbook of methods in cultural anthropology. 595-645.
  • Botez, C. (2015). Skin-Deep Memos as Prosthetic Memory in Christopher Nolan’s Memento (2000). Probing the skin: Cultural Representations of Our Contact Zone, 312-334.
  • Chambers, T. (2004). Sick Detectives. Medicine, Crime and Punishment, 364, 6-57.
  • Chen, A. (2023). Through The Existentialist Lens: A Middle Ground Between Sartre and Camus Of Leonard Shelby In Memento. Available at SSRN 4631778. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4631778.
  • Claydon, E. A. (2010). Representing The Mind: The Psyche on Film (Memento and Donnie Darko). The International Journal of the Arts in Society, 5, 71-80. DOI: 10.18848/1833/CGP/V05104/35866.
  • Davies, J. (2022). Reading The Apocalypse with Christopher Nolan: Story and Narrative, Time and Space. Journal for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies. DOI: 10.17613/15gs-xh07.
  • Elsaesser, T. & Hagener, M. (2015). Film Theory: An Introduction Through the Senses. 2nd edition. Routledge.
  • Flick, U. (2014). The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Data Analysis. Sage Publications Ltd.
  • Hopkins, R. (2016). Remember Leonard Shelby: Memento And the Double Life of Memory. In J. Dodd (Ed.), Art, Mind, and Narrative: Themes from the work of Peter Goldie. (pp. 89-99). Oxford University Press.
  • Hurd, R. (2003). Christopher Nolan’s Memento – Analysis of The Narrative Structure of A Noirish Revenge Film. Paper presented at Decadence and Modernism in Late 20th Century American Cinema, 23 February 2003, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University.
  • IMDB. (2000). Memento, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0209144/.
  • IMDB. (2014). Greatest directors of the 21st Century, https://www.imdb.com/list/ls006541285/.
  • Klein, A. (2001, 28 June). Everything you wanted to know about Memento, https://www.salon.com/2001/06/28/memento_analysis/.
  • Labrouillère, I. (2023). We All Need Mirrors to Remind Ourselves Who We Are. In C. Parkinson & I. Labrouillère (Ed.), A Critical Companion to Christopher Nolan. (pp.31-46). Lexington Books.
  • Little, W. G. (2005). Surviving “Memento”. Narrative. 13(1), 67-83. https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/20107363.pdf.
  • McGowan, T. (2023). Psychoanalytic Film Theory. Oxford Bibliographies. DOI: 10/1093/OBO/9780199791286-0052.
  • McLeod, S. (2023, 24 October). Freud’s Theory of The Unconscious Mind, https://www.simplypsychology.org/unconscious-mind.html#Iceberg-Theory.
  • Memento Official Website. (2000). https://mementohiphop.com/.
  • Mikos, L. (2014). Analysis Of Film. In U. Flick (Ed.), The Sage handbook of qualitative data analysis. (pp.409- 423) Sage Publications.
  • Niaz, A., Stanikzai, S. M. & Sahibzada, J. (2019). Review Of Freud’s Psychoanalysis Approach To Literary Studies. American International Journal of Social Science Resarch, 4(2), 35-44.
  • Nolan, C. (2013, 15 February). Sci-Tech Awards: Christopher Nolan, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTuPudlCc7M.
  • Noriega, J. L. S. (2008). Psychoanalytical Culture in The American Film Noir. Journal of Medicine and Movies, 27-34.
  • Oschman, J. L. & Pressman, M. D. (2014). An Anatomical, Biochemical, Biophysical and Quantum Basis for The Unconscious Mind. International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 33(1), 77-96.
  • Raul, D. (2023, 17 March). The best directors of the 21st Century (So Far), https://movieweb.com/best-directors-of-the-21st-century/#christopher-nolan.
  • Rohan. M. & Hemmige, B. D. (2023). Inside The Mind of Christopher Nolan: A Comprehensive Deconstruction of His Filmography. International Journal of Multidiciplinary educational Research, 12(7), 77-83.
  • Schredl, M. (2021). Book Review: Malinowski, J. (2021). The Psychology of Dreaming. International Journal of Dream Research, 14(1), 190-194.
  • Smith, N. (2023, 23 May). Hear me out: Christopher Nolan is the greatest filmmaker of the 21st century, https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/christopher-nolan-greatest-filmmaker-21st-century/.
  • Szyszka, E. (2006). Life’s A Noir. https://noirfilms.livejournal.com/70041.html?page.
  • Teays, W. (2012). Seeing The Light: Exploring Ethics Through Movies. Wiley-Blackwell.
  • Turcotte, B. (2022). The Phenomenology of Time In Memento. Philosophy Now, 152, (October-November), pp.39-40.
  • Vučkovič, M. (2023). Christopher Nolan’s Postmodernism. Master’s Thesis. University of Zadar/Sveučilište u Zadru. https://urn.nsk.hr/urn:nbn:hr:162:240988.

PSYCHOANALYTICAL APPROACH TO COMPLEX NARRATIVE IN MOVING IMAGE: NOLAN’S MEMENTO

Year 2024, Volume: 14 Issue: 1, 317 - 328, 28.12.2023
https://doi.org/10.7456/tojdac.1384716

Abstract

This article explores Christopher Nolan’s Memento as an exemplar of complex narrative in moving images with a psychoanalytical approach. Psychoanalysis has provided a foundation for commentators, film critics and theorists to analyse cinema. By using Freud’s Iceberg Analogy of the unconscious mind, this article examines the parallelism between the emergence of unconscious complex mental states, how they are expressed through emotions and behaviour in moving images and how spectators reflect their unconscious emotions and mental states. The article focuses on Memento and analyses the movie's character and narrative structure. Memento was chosen as Christopher Nolan captured the scary extent of the human mind's complexity and its unconsciousness. Through complex narrative structures, he created associations between audiences’ unconsciousness and negative emotions of repression and stress associated with it, such as helplessness, fear of having no purpose, misjudgement or unfair treatment. This article examines the scene structures in relation to the complexity of narratives and narratives’ relation to Leonard Shelby’s unconscious mind, through the framework of psychoanalysis and interpretivist approaches by utilising psychoanalytic film theory and text analysis. It concludes that the protagonist, Leonard Shelby, has a detached preconscious and conscious and unconscious resulting from not his head injury but unconsciously using it as a psychological shield. The detachment between levels of consciousness is depicted as a moving image in black and white. This provides stability and consistency to Leonard’s version of narratives, which plays the reverse. The analysis of Memento with a psychoanalytical approach evidences the parallelism between Freud’s Iceberg Analogy of the unconscious mind and humans' complex unconscious mental states and how this is depicted in moving image.

References

  • Allen, R. (2004). Psychoanalytic Film Theory. In T. Miller & R. Stram (Eds.), Companion to Film Theory, (pp.123-146). Blackwell Publishing.
  • Baxendale, S. (2004). Memories Aren't Made of This: Amnesia at The Movies. British Medical Journal, 329(7480), 1480-1483. doi: 10.1136/bmj.329.7480.1480.
  • Beresford, J. (2021, 16 March). Memento And the Significance of Sammy Jankis, https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/memento-sammy-jankis-stephen-tobolowsky/.
  • Bernard, H. R. & Ryan, G. (1998). Text Analysis. In H. R. Bernard & G. Ryan (Eds.), Handbook of methods in cultural anthropology. 595-645.
  • Botez, C. (2015). Skin-Deep Memos as Prosthetic Memory in Christopher Nolan’s Memento (2000). Probing the skin: Cultural Representations of Our Contact Zone, 312-334.
  • Chambers, T. (2004). Sick Detectives. Medicine, Crime and Punishment, 364, 6-57.
  • Chen, A. (2023). Through The Existentialist Lens: A Middle Ground Between Sartre and Camus Of Leonard Shelby In Memento. Available at SSRN 4631778. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4631778.
  • Claydon, E. A. (2010). Representing The Mind: The Psyche on Film (Memento and Donnie Darko). The International Journal of the Arts in Society, 5, 71-80. DOI: 10.18848/1833/CGP/V05104/35866.
  • Davies, J. (2022). Reading The Apocalypse with Christopher Nolan: Story and Narrative, Time and Space. Journal for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies. DOI: 10.17613/15gs-xh07.
  • Elsaesser, T. & Hagener, M. (2015). Film Theory: An Introduction Through the Senses. 2nd edition. Routledge.
  • Flick, U. (2014). The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Data Analysis. Sage Publications Ltd.
  • Hopkins, R. (2016). Remember Leonard Shelby: Memento And the Double Life of Memory. In J. Dodd (Ed.), Art, Mind, and Narrative: Themes from the work of Peter Goldie. (pp. 89-99). Oxford University Press.
  • Hurd, R. (2003). Christopher Nolan’s Memento – Analysis of The Narrative Structure of A Noirish Revenge Film. Paper presented at Decadence and Modernism in Late 20th Century American Cinema, 23 February 2003, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University.
  • IMDB. (2000). Memento, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0209144/.
  • IMDB. (2014). Greatest directors of the 21st Century, https://www.imdb.com/list/ls006541285/.
  • Klein, A. (2001, 28 June). Everything you wanted to know about Memento, https://www.salon.com/2001/06/28/memento_analysis/.
  • Labrouillère, I. (2023). We All Need Mirrors to Remind Ourselves Who We Are. In C. Parkinson & I. Labrouillère (Ed.), A Critical Companion to Christopher Nolan. (pp.31-46). Lexington Books.
  • Little, W. G. (2005). Surviving “Memento”. Narrative. 13(1), 67-83. https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/20107363.pdf.
  • McGowan, T. (2023). Psychoanalytic Film Theory. Oxford Bibliographies. DOI: 10/1093/OBO/9780199791286-0052.
  • McLeod, S. (2023, 24 October). Freud’s Theory of The Unconscious Mind, https://www.simplypsychology.org/unconscious-mind.html#Iceberg-Theory.
  • Memento Official Website. (2000). https://mementohiphop.com/.
  • Mikos, L. (2014). Analysis Of Film. In U. Flick (Ed.), The Sage handbook of qualitative data analysis. (pp.409- 423) Sage Publications.
  • Niaz, A., Stanikzai, S. M. & Sahibzada, J. (2019). Review Of Freud’s Psychoanalysis Approach To Literary Studies. American International Journal of Social Science Resarch, 4(2), 35-44.
  • Nolan, C. (2013, 15 February). Sci-Tech Awards: Christopher Nolan, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTuPudlCc7M.
  • Noriega, J. L. S. (2008). Psychoanalytical Culture in The American Film Noir. Journal of Medicine and Movies, 27-34.
  • Oschman, J. L. & Pressman, M. D. (2014). An Anatomical, Biochemical, Biophysical and Quantum Basis for The Unconscious Mind. International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 33(1), 77-96.
  • Raul, D. (2023, 17 March). The best directors of the 21st Century (So Far), https://movieweb.com/best-directors-of-the-21st-century/#christopher-nolan.
  • Rohan. M. & Hemmige, B. D. (2023). Inside The Mind of Christopher Nolan: A Comprehensive Deconstruction of His Filmography. International Journal of Multidiciplinary educational Research, 12(7), 77-83.
  • Schredl, M. (2021). Book Review: Malinowski, J. (2021). The Psychology of Dreaming. International Journal of Dream Research, 14(1), 190-194.
  • Smith, N. (2023, 23 May). Hear me out: Christopher Nolan is the greatest filmmaker of the 21st century, https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/christopher-nolan-greatest-filmmaker-21st-century/.
  • Szyszka, E. (2006). Life’s A Noir. https://noirfilms.livejournal.com/70041.html?page.
  • Teays, W. (2012). Seeing The Light: Exploring Ethics Through Movies. Wiley-Blackwell.
  • Turcotte, B. (2022). The Phenomenology of Time In Memento. Philosophy Now, 152, (October-November), pp.39-40.
  • Vučkovič, M. (2023). Christopher Nolan’s Postmodernism. Master’s Thesis. University of Zadar/Sveučilište u Zadru. https://urn.nsk.hr/urn:nbn:hr:162:240988.
There are 34 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Subjects Cinema Studies (Other)
Journal Section REVIEW ARTICLES
Authors

Gizem Öksüzoğlu 0000-0002-3964-8977

Early Pub Date December 15, 2023
Publication Date December 28, 2023
Submission Date November 1, 2023
Acceptance Date December 8, 2023
Published in Issue Year 2024 Volume: 14 Issue: 1

Cite

APA Öksüzoğlu, G. (2023). PSYCHOANALYTICAL APPROACH TO COMPLEX NARRATIVE IN MOVING IMAGE: NOLAN’S MEMENTO. Turkish Online Journal of Design Art and Communication, 14(1), 317-328. https://doi.org/10.7456/tojdac.1384716


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