Led by Lucy Scholes and Richard Martin

Saturdays 5 June – 10 July 2010

10.30-16.00 on 5 June only
10.30-13.00 all the other sessions

Combining film, literary and psychoanalytic theory, this six-week course explores the fascinating theoretical connections within the work of Sigmund Freud, Arthur Schnitzler and Stanley Kubrick. Honing in on Kubrick's controversial last film, Eyes Wide Shut (1999) – adapted from Schnitzler's novella Dream Story (1926), which in turn can be traced back to Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) – we will consider how successfully cinema has depicted the dynamics of desire, dreams and fantasy.

Classes will begin with a short introductory lecture on the main themes of the week, with class discussion – in small break-out groups and as a whole – forming the majority of each session. Eyes Wide Shut will be screened as part of an extended first session, and the course will also include a session led by the film's executive producer, Jan Harlan, as well as visits to Tate Modern's Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera exhibition and to the Stanley Kubrick Archive at the University of the Arts London. No prior knowledge is needed.

In order to make the most of this innovative, multi-disciplinary exploration of some of the twentieth century's most fascinating ideas, participants will be expected to read Schnitzler's Dream Story and sections of Freudian theory. Additional material and suggested reading will be handed out in class in advance of each session. The class will also be encouraged to consider the course's written and visual material alongside the artworks in Tate Modern's collection.

Tutors

Richard Martin is an AHRC-funded PhD student at the London Consortium and a Birkbeck Teaching Fellow. He recently curated Tate Modern’s landmark symposium on David Lynch and has previously worked on projects with the Fabian Society, the ICA and Index on Censorship.

Lucy Scholes is a part-time PhD student at Birkbeck, University of London, writing her thesis on sibling relationships in twentieth-century literature and psychoanalytic theory. Lucy is an Associate Lecturer at the University of Chichester and a Teaching Fellow at Birkbeck. She also writes for the Observer and the Times Literary Supplement.

Tate Modern  Starr Auditorium
£110 (£90 concessions), booking recommended

    

Course outline:

Week 1 (5 June): Kubrick

After a screening of Eyes Wide Shut, this session will gauge the group's initial reaction to the film, alongside consideration of the (largely negative) critical reception it has received. The success – or otherwise – of Kubrick's presentation of sexual desire and jealously will be examined, with attention also given to how our reading of the film is affected by the presence of a famous, real-life married couple on-screen. We'll look at how Eyes Wide Shut fits into the rest of Kubrick's oeuvre, and whether the complexity of the film supports Edward Said's notion – adapted from Adorno – of an artistic "late style" that offers "intransigence, difficulty, and unresolved contradiction."

• Class screening: Stanley Kubrick (dir.), Eyes Wide Shut.
• Handout to include extracts from: Michel Chion, Eyes Wide Shut; Tim Kreider, 'Introducing Sociology: A Review of Eyes Wide Shut'; Frederick Raphael, Eyes Wide Open: A Memoir of Stanley Kubrick and Eyes Wide Shut; David Thomson, Nicole Kidman; Edward Said, On Late Style; Theodor Adorno, 'Late Style in Beethoven'.

Week 2 (12 June): Schnitzler

Eyes Wide Shut is adapted from Arthur Schnitzler's novella Dream Story, and this class will discuss Schnitzler's story, its roots in a decadent Viennese fin de siècle culture, and its subsequent cinematic rendering. Particular attention will be given to the shift in the narrative from Vienna to New York, as well as the attitudes towards class, gender, sexuality and identity displayed by the two texts.

• Core text: Arthur Schnitzler, Dream Story.
• Class screening of clips from: Max Ophuls (dir.), La Ronde, and images from Viennese fin de siècle art and architecture (including Klimt, Schiele, Kokoschka, Loos and Wagner).
• Handout to include extracts from: Peter Loewenberg, 'Freud, Schnitzler, and Eyes Wide Shut'; Frederick J. Beharriell, 'Schnitzler's Anticipation of Freud's Dream Theory'; Sigmund Freud, Letters to Arthur Schnitzler.

Week 3 (19 June): Fantasy (with Jan Harlan)

Jan Harlan, Executive Producer of Barry Lyndon, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, Eyes Wide Shut and A.I. Artificial Intelligence, and the Producer and Director of Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures, will lead this session. Jan will discuss his relationship with Kubrick and the production history of Eyes Wide Shut, as well as offering an investigation into cinema's enduring relationship with fantasy.

• Class screening: Clips from American, European, Israeli and Russian cinema.

Week 4 (26 June): Freud

Freud famously considered Arthur Schnitzler to be "my own double." This seminar will introduce the class to some of the key themes in Freud's work that are incorporated in and illustrated by Schnitzler's novella and Kubrick's film. Individual sections of The Interpretation of Dreams will be subjected to close readings with particular emphasis on the relationship between desire, dreams and fantasy. The visual representation of Freud’s ideas will also be assessed, with clips from Hollywood cinema and an examination of the 'Poetry and Dream' displays in Tate Modern.

• Core text: Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams.
• Class screening of clips from: Fritz Lang (dir.), Secret Beyond the Door; Alfred Hitchcock (dir.), Spellbound; and Sophie Fiennes (dir.), The Pervert's Guide to Cinema.
• Handout to include extracts from: Jean Laplance and J. B. Pontalis, 'Fantasy and the Origins of Sexuality' in Formations of Fantasy, ed. by Victor Burgin, James Donald and Cora Kaplan; and the 'Phantasy' entry in The Language of Psychoanalysis.

Week 5 (3 July): Cinema and Spectatorship

This class will explore the wider issues concerning cinematic spectatorship that Eyes Wide Shut provokes, and will examine whether film is a medium more suited to the staging of desire, dreams and fantasy than literature. Kubrick's films will be discussed alongside the work of other directors such as Bergman, Buñuel, Fellini, Hitchcock and Lynch. Laura Mulvey's seminal essay on cinema's masculine gaze will be used to facilitate a discussion around some of the gender issues raised throughout the course. The class will also have the opportunity to visit the Tate Modern exhibition Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera, which offers further visual depictions of spectatorship.

• Core Text: Laura Mulvey, 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema'.
• Class screening of clips from: Federico Fellini (dir.), 8½ and Ingmar Bergman (dir.), Wild Strawberries.
• Handout to include extracts from: Vicky Lebeau, Psychoanalysis and Cinema: The Play of Shadows; A Screen Reader in Sexuality, edited by John Caughie, Annette Kuhr and Mandy Merck.

Week 6 (10 July): Kubrick Archive Visit (with Sarah Mahurter and Richard Daniels)

This session will take place at the Stanley Kubrick Archive – located at the University of the Arts London in Elephant and Castle and comprising over 1000 boxes of scripts, props, costumes, photography, correspondence, equipment and research. The session will be led by Sarah Mahurter, Manager of the University Archives and Special Collections Centre, and Richard Daniels, the Kubrick Archivist. The class will be shown carefully chosen material from the Archive, including set design plans, early drafts of the script and a variety of props with the aim of enhancing discussion from earlier classes.

• Class screening: The Last Movie: Stanley Kubrick and Eyes Wide Shut.