Yield to the figural—communicating the unconscious in montage

Abstract

Psychoanalytic approaches to dreams and the method of their interpretation are considered as foundational for the sorts of theories of montage editing and cinematic movement presented in the written works of Sergei Eisenstein, and collected in the Pool Group’s journal Close-Up.  The film Borderline (1930) is taken as a case study of this relationship, and analysis focuses on instances of correlation between the models for dream interpretation presented by Sigmund Freud and the new medium of film.