The origins of film, psychology and the neurosciences

Abstract

The invention of film technologies in France at the end of the 19th century inspired neurologists and associated professionals to engage with this new medium to demonstrate their theories of the brain, the nervous system, and the mind. Beginning with the origins of cinema in Paris, this article explores how film technologies were used at La Salpêtrière, and beyond, to visualise internal mental processes, and to support the burgeoning sciences of the mind. This film-making became increasingly sophisticated by the late 1910s and early 1920s, creating innovative ways to present psychological experiences on film. This article focuses on films produced by Albert Londe, Vincenzo Neri, Gheorghe Marinescu, and Jean Comandon. It argues that these polymaths created new filming techniques that built complexity into the visual articulation of psychological concepts. Their films were essential to shaping early debates in neurology, psychology, and the observational sciences during this critical period in the establishment of the modern sciences of the self.