This Saturday BanterFlix’s Jim McClean will be chatting with Dr Eve Watson at the Strand Arts Centre ahead of a screening of Steven Soderbergh’s 2002 feature Solaris as part of a special event organized by The Northern Ireland Institute of Human Relations Psychoanalytic Film Club.
With that in mind, Jim caught with Dr Watson to discuss some of the topics that will be discussed this Saturday.
Hi Eve before we talk specifically about this year’s event could you tell me a little about some of the previous presentations you’ve given as a guest of the Northern Ireland Institute of Human Relations?
This will be my fourth year, I’ve done a number of presentations over the last few years with the NIIHR at the Strand Arts Centre, using films like Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” and Nicolas Roeg’s “The Man Who Fell to Earth’ as launch pads for psychoanalytic discussions. Last year I used Jennifer Kent’s Aussie horror movie “The Babadook” to discuss themes of loss, helplessness, childhood creativity, and the parent-child dynamic amongst other topics.
This year you’ve chosen to use Steven Soderbergh’s 2002 feature Solaris as the launch-pad for your presentation, why did you pick this film and what are the main concepts/ themes you’ll be exploring within this year’s presentation?
I picked this film because at the moment I’m very interested in the process of mourning, in what its pathological effects are on individuals and on society more generally. I think this is something we might worry about. I’m also a sci-fi geek and like the idea that the “fiction” of science-fiction allows great scope for an expansive showcasing of a breath of human experience not easily permitted in supposedly realist films.
The film Solaris takes the universal theme of love, without which mourning would not be possible, and presents us with a moving story of its lonely progress along ghostly paths which have the potential to end up at the place of madness.
[imdb]https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0307479/[/imdb]
What drew you to Soderbergh’s s remake of Solaris opposed to Andrei Tarkovsky’s version? Clocking in at nearly an hour shorter than Tarkovsky’s original, Soderbergh’s version has much faster pacing and a greater sense of clarity, but was your decision to screen this version down to more than just ‘Gorgeous George’ and its run-time?
I wanted to think about this film in relation to contemporary culture and it seemed an easier fit than the earlier Tarkovsky version. I want to critique how and what we “pathologize” today in terms of mental health, how we humanise and de-humanise and I want to critique how much we are permitted to accommodate the uniquely human experiences of love and loss. Are we being turned into cyborgs?
One thing that particularly draws me to Soderbergh’s version of the film is its portrayal of a man going through the grieving process, there’s a moment in this version of the film where Clooney’s Chris Kelvin wonders whether he’s ‘remembered his late wife wrong’, I just wondered from a psychological point of view how true does this performance ring true to the grieving process?
Analysis is always attuned to any shifts and changes in a person’s perspective so yes you are absolutely right, this is a very big moment in the film. One theme I will be exploring in my post-film talk is the psychological significance as well as the problematics of remembering.
Freud composed an important trilogy in this respect – “remembering, repeating and working-through” as key to the psychoanalytic method of dealing with symptoms and trauma. The film does interesting things with the idea of remembering.
Broadly speaking much has been made in recent years about men struggling to open up and deal with mental health issues such as depression. In your opinion why do you think this is the case and how far has the debate come in normalising discussions on masculinity and mental health?
The fact that the film’s main protagonist is a man who is clearly struggling with issues of mental health is significant and helps to illustrate the problem that continues in highlighting mental ill-health in men.
While there has been some de-stigmatisation mainly through some very successful public campaigns, it has not gone far enough and the problem persists in, for example, associating weakness in men who struggle with their mental health. So having a character played by George Clooney works to functionally call this into question the mythical figuration of a man totally free of mental trouble and strife which could only, of course, be equated with the non-human or the dead.
From a professional point of view how useful a tool is the medium of cinema in creating a better understanding of the topics you deal with and making them much more accessible to someone (like me) who might feel daunted by some of the highbrow concepts within Psychology?
Film is an excellent medium to explore all topics important to human nature. A film, as an art form, can function rather like a case study and can illustrate the depth and consequences of human experiences and relations. Psychoanalysis has long been used to explore film as well as all literary and art form as it is a useful tool with which to assess the significant psychological elements in films.
Thank you, Eve, I look forward to chatting with you again this Saturday!
Everything kicks off from 11 am on Saturday 10th November, Tickets cost £20 (£15 concession) and can be purchased from The Strand’s website or by calling their box-office on 028 9065 5830.