Thus, according to Freud, individuals' relations enhance the narrative that shifts in the importance of these event relations. Freud says, “in dreams we go through many experiences” which leads to the fact that “our experiences take the form of visual images” (Freud, 1922:78). As Foucault's statement argues, “relations” consist of “relations between statements and groups of statements, and events of quite different kinds” the film borrows from these definitions to enhance its plot and fabula (Foucault, 1972:29). These relations are more evaluated experiences on sequences when the police investigation goes on for the murderer of Dr Edwards, and when Constance decides to cure Ballantine and go through with it until the end. Freudian theory works clearly at this point.
Perhaps most firmly in the references to "Constance as a mother-figure", first by Dr Fleurot, a psychiatrist who is interested in starting a relationship with Dr Peterson, and claims to "detect the outcroppings of a mother instinct toward Dr Edwards," and later by Brulov, who warns her, "You are not his mama" (Boyd, 2000: Sensesofcinema
).
The Mirror Stage
Mirror and Castration; Second World War as pretext
Jacques Lacan's "mirror stage" can also be read in Ballantine's world in the screen. Ballantine does not believe in himself and he does not know who is. For Mulvey "forgetting the world as the ego" can be related to "the extraneous similarities between screen and mirror" (Mulvey, 1975:10). For example when he shaves himself at Dr Brulov's house in front of the mirror, he is enthralled. When he talks with Constance and looks on window it is either scarred or impotent; "represents an aspect of feminine subjectivity in the film" (Samuels, 1998:41).
Thus Ballantine's unconscious is related with many facts linked with its lack of activity in the film were Constance is shown to be active. For Samuels "this lack of activity" is connected "to some wound that the subject received in a war" (1998:41). Because the film was made after the Second World War when Ballantine was a soldier and escaped from a plane crash, for Samuels it is a problem of "a man who has been castrated by the war" (1998:41). According to Samuels four scenes of castration and loss in this film; "linguistic castration", "the real loss of the subject"s brother', the loss caused by "the death of the doctor and the absence that is represented by writing and femininity" are beyond Freudian's fantasy (Samuels, 1998:35).
It can be read as Hitchcock's fantasy "a visual representation of the memory system of writing" (1998:36). Freud, of course, discussed this situation in function to male fears of castration. But, Freud does not adequately explain why the castration in its masculine construct should be subject to frustration and unconscious, so Ballantine's behavior looks unacceptable. When Constance is trying to help him, show Freud's idea that “when one speaks hopefully to them … their condition invariably becomes worse” (Freud, 1984:390). For Mulvey, Constance is related to this mission because "she can exist only in relation to castration" (1975:7).
Oedipal Desire: Imaginary Signifier
Metz's crucial work to film theory states that film could be analyzed with reference to unconscious and "the screen image as a resuscitation of the earlier experience of the mirror" (Metz cited in Aaron, 2007:12). For instance Ballantine's appearance on screen with "designated lure of the ego" produces an "imaginary signifier" of all happenings as a result of the "other mirror, the cinema screen" (Metz, 1975:15). Freud's theory of "creative fantasy", in fact, helps to clarify this "imaginary signifier" (Freud, 1922:145).
The dream sequence, which is used by Dr Constance to unlock the mystery, is a perfect example of this. It starts with a gambling house, which has no walls, but is surrounded by curtains with a lot of eyes. A man was walking around cutting all the drapers of hair. The eye symbol and the man's presence with scissors in his hand cutting eyelashes is a complete analogy of the dream theory that is related to the fear of going blind and is perfectly created to fulfill the meaning that surrounds Ballantine's behavior in the sequence.
In Creed's argument within Freud's theory of "linking the eye" is "a sign of Oedipal desire for the mother ... the phallic mother" (Creed, 1990:132). The image of the eye slashed by the man and other disembodied eyes watch the chaotic action from their position on top of plant stalks, as a “visual superego” creates depictions of the subconscious in the sequence (1922:147). In the political context ghostly eyes are launching the fact that the state is not able to highlight the crime.
Symbols and Semiotic: Symbolic Order
