MPSI presents a film series, Through the Gaze, Darkly: Eight Cinematic Symptoms
Session 6 – The Birds (1963)
March 22, 2026 at 1:00 - 4:00 pm
Theme: Anxiety without cause, intrusion of the Real
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Freud: “On Transience” (1916) – uncanny disturbance and disbelief
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Lacan: Seminar X, excerpts on anxiety as the signal of the Real
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.
Join us for all the sessions:
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
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Freud: “The ‘Uncanny’” (revisit), with focus on the double
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Lacan: Seminar I, excerpts on the mirror stage and the double
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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
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Freud: “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” (1920), Sections II–IV – repetition compulsion and the death drive
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Lacan: Seminar XI, Chapter VI (“The Split Between the Eye and the Gaze”)
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Žižek: Everything you Ever Wanted to Know about Lacan…But Were Afraid to Ask Hitchcock, Part III
MPSI