Affective Neurosis and Trauma in Film

 

Affective Neurosis and Trauma in Film: Memory, Emotion, and Repetition

Introduction

Affective Neurosis and Trauma Theory examines how cinema represents psychological trauma through emotion, fragmentation, and repetition. Drawing on Freud, Cathy Caruth, and trauma studies, it explores how film visualizes the unspoken and the repressed.

Core Concepts

• Trauma cannot be fully narrated — it returns through image and affect.

• Films communicate trauma through silence, flashback, and distortion.

• Viewers experience empathy by confronting emotional rupture and memory gaps.

Key Points

• Temporal Disruption: Traumatic films fracture time and chronology.

• Embodied Affect: The viewer feels disorientation, mirroring the trauma subject.

• Repetition Compulsion: Recurring images simulate obsessive memory.

Examples

• Memento (2000) — portrays amnesia and fragmented identity through reverse chronology.

• Son of Saul (2015) — immerses viewers in Holocaust trauma via first-person realism.

• The Pianist (2002) — combines survival and silence to evoke historical pain.