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Understanding Psychoanalysis in Woody Allen's 'Annie Hall', Lecture notes of Political Systems

This essay explores the application of psychoanalytic theories to Woody Allen's movie 'Annie Hall.' The author delves into the role of repressed instincts, dreams, and neurosis in the film, highlighting Allen's influence by Freud. The essay analyzes key scenes and characters, emphasizing the impact of childhood experiences and the significance of dreams in understanding hidden desires.

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Uploaded on 12/18/2021

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U75108 UNDERSTANDING CULTURE (2019-20)
Assignment 2: Essay
Name Lavinia Ricciardelli Student Number 19029259
Key Concepts Psychoanalysis: Oppressed instincts,
dreams, neurosis, the human psyche
From
Week 2
Cultural Artefact, Activity or Event “Annie Hall” directed by Woody Allen (1977)
Tutor’s Feedback +
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Download Understanding Psychoanalysis in Woody Allen's 'Annie Hall' and more Lecture notes Political Systems in PDF only on Docsity!

U75108 UNDERSTANDING CULTURE (2019-20)

Assignment 2: Essay

Name Lavinia Ricciardelli Student Number 19029259

Key Concepts Psychoanalysis: Oppressed instincts,

dreams, neurosis, the human psyche

From

Week

Cultural Artefact, Activity or Event “Annie Hall” directed by Woody Allen (1977)

Tutor’s Feedback

Marker: Date:

Assessment Criteria: Essay

Grade Research Writing Skills Comprehension Application

A+ (75-

At least 5 academic texts utilised Excellent writing style, grammar, spelling, punctuation and referencing Outstanding knowledge and understanding of ideas and concepts Original application of ideas and concepts to culture A (70- 74%) At least 5 academic texts utilised Excellent writing style, grammar, spelling, punctuation and referencing Excellent knowledge and understanding of ideas and concepts Excellent application of ideas and concepts to culture B+ (65- 69%) At least 4 academic texts utilised Very good writing style, grammar, spelling, punctuation and referencing Very good knowledge and understanding of ideas and concepts Very good application of ideas and concepts to culture B (60- 64%) At least 4 academic texts utilised Very good writing style, grammar, spelling, punctuation and referencing Very good knowledge and understanding of ideas and concepts Very good application of ideas and concepts to culture C+ (55- 59%) At least 3 academic texts utilised Good writing style, grammar, spelling, punctuation and referencing Good knowledge and understanding of ideas and concepts Good application of ideas and concepts to culture C (50- 54%) At least 3 academic texts utilised Good writing style, grammar, spelling, punctuation and referencing Good knowledge and understanding of ideas and concepts Good application of ideas and concepts to culture D+ (45- 49%) At least 2 academic texts utilised Fair writing style, grammar, spelling, punctuation and referencing Fair knowledge and understanding of ideas and concepts Fair application of ideas and concepts to culture D (40- 44%) At least 1 academic text utilised Fair writing style, grammar, Fair knowledge and understanding Fair application of ideas and

tries to understand the author’s latent meanings and the unconscious desires that he

tried to express in this movie. “ Annie Hall ” can be considered author-centred as

Woody Allen through it shared with us his deepest fears, desires and fantasies,

making it possible for us to consider this movie as strictly linked to Freud’s theories

and perspective of life. Through the scenes we will find mentions of sexual instincts

and desires, we will find the fear of death and the impossibility to fully express

ourselves in social contexts because we have to repress and hide everything that is

not considered socially accepted, and all these themes make Allen a Freud’s

follower.

Woody Allen is an actor, film director and comedian endowed with humour and

deeply influenced by psychoanalysis, he appeared in many of his films and they are

often inspired by his personal life. He is known for projecting his unconscious in his

films, for creating characters that have the same fears as he has, for recognizing his

weaknesses and being perfectly able to describe them in his films. He represents the

impact of psychoanalysis on American cinema, mainly because he has undergone

psychoanalytic treatment for 36 years (Cheniaux and Landeira-Fernandez

2013;101), he devoted his life to the study of Freud and his movies show his

psychoanalytic journey. When watching one of Allen’s movies, what actually makes

the audience laugh while being at the same time philosophically committed to some

ideas of psychoanalysis, is the fact that Allen makes his protagonists weak, he

reveals their fears and sorrows to us, making them humans, and making the

neurosis the root of comedy. In his book “ Jokes and their relation to the

unconscious ” (1905), Freud claimed that our humor is moved by the same

mechanism of expression of dreams: they both reveals something unknown, hidden,

allowing us to get to know parts of the individual such as sexuality, aggressiveness

and other instincts that are normally repressed. The liberation of this psychic energy

that was previously hidden is what makes us laugh (Freud 1905:116). This theory is

used by Allen in his movies, especially when considering Annie Hall (1977), when

the film director presents us the main character, Alvy Singer: a comedian in his

forties who lives in New York and got divorced several times, he is jewish, openly

neurotic and he has been seeing a psychoanalyst for fifteen years without result. At

the beginning of the film, Alvy expressed his pessimistic view on life, claiming that it

can only be horrible (Cheniaux and Landeira-Fernandez 2013;101). Over the years,

Allen elaborated this unique character of this insecure, fragile man, an intellectual

obsessed with death and diseases, frustrated with a thousand hidden complexes

and not able to keep a relationship with a woman, and all these characteristics make

Allen’s comedy unique.

The film starts with Alvy examining the reasons why the relationship with Annie has

failed; the protagonist talks directly to the audience, as if the viewers were his

psychoanalyst. As he wonders why they didn’t work out as a couple, he goes back to

his childhood, trying to understand the origin of his problems. Just like Freud, Woody

Allen recognizes the importance of childhood as a formation period that can

influence our whole life. Freud’s theories about infantile sexuality can be applied to

the opening scene of the movie, when Alvy remembers his childhood as unhappy, he

had a strict religious upbringing and a rigorous education from his cold, insensitive

mother and his teachers. Alvy was precocious enough to kiss a girl in his elementary

classroom, and everyone told him it was not normal to have sexual instincts at such

a young age. From a Freudian perspective, we could say that Alvy skipped the

phase of the latency period, during which the child’s precocious sexual instincts

should decrease in order to be able to regulate and control sexual instincts during

our adolescence (Badcock 1992;11).

1019 words

Bibliography:

 Annie Hall (1977) [film] directed by Woody Allen, dir. USA: Joffe

Productions and Sony Pictures Entertainment

 Badcock, Christopher. (1992). Essential Freud: An Introduction to

Classical Psychoanalysis (Second Ed.). 10.13140/RG.2.1.3874.3129.

 Cheniaux, E. and Landeira-Fernandez, J. (2013) “Understanding

Mental Disorders through Woody Allen's Films,” 35(1), pp. 101–

 Freud, S. (1990) The Interpretation of Dreams. Oxford University

Press (Oxford world's classics)

 Freud, S (1905) Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious. New

York: Norton - The Standard Edition

 Storey, J. (2018) Cultural theory and popular culture : an introduction.

Eighth edn. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.