MPSI presents a film series, Through the Gaze, Darkly: Eight Cinematic Symptoms

MPSI presents a film series, Through the Gaze, Darkly: Eight Cinematic Symptoms 

WHEN: Fourth Sundays from 1-4pm beginning September 28 (See dates below)

WHERE: MPSI Psychotherapy Center at Semple Mansion Carriage House

104 W Franklin Avenue S, Minneapolis, MN 55404

Free to attend, donations appreciated

Light refreshments provided

No registration required

MPSI invites you to enter the world of Alfred Hitchcock, the “Master of Suspense,” through the lens of psychoanalytic thought. Each screening will be paired with a discussion that draws on the work of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan, exploring how Hitchcock’s films stage desire, anxiety, the uncanny, and the return of the repressed. From the eerie stillness of Psycho’s Bates Motel to the spiraling obsessions of Vertigo, we will trace the ways cinematic form itself mirrors psychic structures.

This series will not merely interpret Hitchcock’s characters as “case studies,” but will also examine how his use of camera angles, editing, and narrative withholding enact the very mechanisms Freud and Lacan describe—repression, displacement, condensation, the gaze, and the symbolic order. The films become, in effect, dream-texts: visual arrangements of unconscious logic, full of gaps, slips, and strange repetitions that invite interpretation. Participants will be encouraged to connect theory to the formal language of cinema, seeing how Hitchcock’s craft anticipates and sometimes challenges psychoanalytic concepts.

By moving between film, theory, reverie, and discussion, we will cultivate a dialogue between two disciplines that have long been fascinated with each other: psychoanalysis and cinema. Each week will focus on a specific film alongside key readings, with discussion facilitated by MPSI member Genjo Sam Conway. Whether you come to deepen your understanding of Freud and Lacan, to reconsider Hitchcock’s artistry, or just watch a good movie and connect with our community, this series offers a rare opportunity to inhabit the suspense between screen and psyche.

Session 1 – Psycho (1960)

September 28, 2025 at 1:00 - 4:00 pm
Theme: The uncanny, maternal imago, the split subject

• Freud: “The Uncanny” (1919)

• Lacan: Seminar XX, excerpt on the Other and the maternal figure

• Žižek: Everything you Ever Wanted to Know about Lacan…But Were Afraid to Ask Hitchcock, Part II, Chap 10
  
  

Session 2 – Notorious (1946)

October 26, 2025 at 1:00 - 4:00 pm
Theme: Desire, trust, and symbolic exchange

• Freud: “Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality” (1905)

• Lacan: Seminar VII, excerpt on the ethics of desire 

• Žižek: Everything you Ever Wanted to Know about Lacan…But Were Afraid to Ask Hitchcock, Part II, Chap 5

Session 3 – North by Northwest (1959)

November 23, 2025 at 1:00 - 4:00 pm
Theme: Mistaken identity, the name-of-the-father, symbolic order

• Freud: “A Short Account of Psychoanalysis” (1924)

• Lacan: Seminar III, excerpt on the Name-of-the-Father and symbolic law

• Žižek: Everything you Ever Wanted to Know about Lacan…But Were Afraid to Ask Hitchcock, Part I, Chap 3

Session 4 – Rear Window (1954)

January 25, 2026 at 1:00 - 4:00 pm
Theme: Voyeurism, scopophilia, the ethics of looking

• Freud: “Instincts and Their Vicissitudes” (1915) – especially on scopophilia

• Lacan: Seminar XI, Chapter VII (“Anamorphosis”)

• Žižek: Everything you Ever Wanted to Know about Lacan…But Were Afraid to Ask Hitchcock, Part II, Chap 7 

Session 5 – Spellbound (1945)

February 22, 2026 at 1:00 - 4:00 pm
Theme: Repression, trauma, and the recovery of memory

• Freud: “A Note upon the ‘Mystic Writing-Pad’” (1925) – memory, traces, and unconscious inscription

• Lacan: Seminar II, excerpt on memory and repetition (1954–55)

• Žižek: Everything you Ever Wanted to Know about Lacan…But Were Afraid to Ask Hitchcock, Part II, Chap 1

Session 6 – The Birds (1963)

March 22, 2026 at 1:00 - 4:00 pm
Theme: Anxiety without cause, intrusion of the Real

• Freud: “On Transience” (1916)  – uncanny disturbance and disbelief

• Lacan: Seminar X, excerpts on anxiety as the signal of the Real

Session 7 – Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

April 26, 2026 at 1:00 - 4:00 pm
Theme: The double, family romance, the sinister in the familiar

• Freud: “The ‘Uncanny’” (revisit), with focus on the double

• Lacan: Seminar I, excerpts on the mirror stage and the double

• Žižek: Everything you Ever Wanted to Know about Lacan…But Were Afraid to Ask Hitchcock, Part I, Chap 2
  
  

Session 8 – Vertigo (1958)

May 24, 2026 at 1:00 - 4:00 pm

** Location TBD **
Theme: Desire, fantasy, repetition

• Freud: “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” (1920), Sections II–IV – repetition compulsion and the death drive

• Lacan: Seminar XI, Chapter VI (“The Split Between the Eye and the Gaze”)

• Žižek: Everything you Ever Wanted to Know about Lacan…But Were Afraid to Ask Hitchcock, Part III