Screen Memories: Hollywood Cinema on the Psychoanalytic Couch

By Harvey Greenberg

Book Overview

Screen Memories delves into the psychological features of mainstream movies from Casablanca to Working Girl. While most psychoanalytic film criticism is highly theoretical, Dr. Greenberg, a practicing clinician, writes in an entertaining, informative style that will appeal to fans and scholars alike. Greenberg begins with an overview of the history and methods of psychoanalytic film criticism. He then focuses upon character, motivation, and conflict in famous examples of detective, war, science-fiction, horror, and cult cinema. He also addresses the enduring emotional appeal of these genres to spectators from one generation to the next. Greenberg then fuses psychoanalysis and cultural criticism. He probes a type of big, bad picture which emerged in Hollywood in the 1970s and 1980s, embracing nearly every genre, with a particular focus on the hero's pathological narcissism in such films as Rambo and Top Gun.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0231072864
• ISBN13: 9780231072861
• Release Date: April 1993
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Length: 277 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.2" x 9.2"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

psychoanalysis and film

I have read Dr. Greenberg's books (this one and "The Movies On Your Mind") many times over many years. They are unparalleled. Despite (but really because of) the intense analysis you enjoy the films even more when you see them again.

My dad wrote this book

jesus christ. i cant believe something my dad wrote is on the internet. THIS BOOK SUCKS ha ha ha dad GETTING YOU BACK FOR ALL YOUR YEARS OF PERFECTLY FINE PARENTING!!!!!!!! five stars.