Psychocinema w/ Helen Rollins

An episode of the Žižek And So On podcast, hosted by …and so on., titled "Psychocinema w/ Helen Rollins" was published on March 25, 2025 and runs 69 minutes.

March 25, 2025 ·69m · Žižek And So On

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Summary

Alright, while Tim's busy making two minute noodles we're speaking with Helen Rollins! Check out her website here!Helen is a filmmaker, academic, and writer from Northern Ireland who writes and lectures on film and psychoanalysis. Her latest book, Psychocinema, was published in 2024 in the Theory Redux series.We’re talking the le non-duped err and messy bedrooms, the Gaze, the Master’s Discourse, the form of cinema, the politics of film as an industry today, and why film itself is a psychoanalytic experience. And here’s an endorsement from Slavoj Žižek for Helen’s new book…“Helen Rollins’ Psychocinema does something that is very rare: it aims at changing the very frame of how cinema and psychoanalysis are related. Rollins shows that viewing a film is in itself a psychoanalytic experience, the effect of film on the viewer is that of psychoanalysis on the analysand. Watching a film confronts us with the truth of our desire in all its inconsistencies, with the lack that sustains this desire. This ground-breaking thesis is demonstrated by dozens of illustrious examples, and they make the book not only insanely readable but also an important contribution to today’s politics of emancipation.I didn’t dare even to imagine that a book like Psychocinema could exist. But miracles happen, and Rollins’s book is one of them.”Thanks Helen!See you in Paris, Ž&...

Episode Description

Alright, while Tim's busy making two minute noodles we're speaking with Helen Rollins!

Check out her website here!

Helen is a filmmaker, academic, and writer from Northern Ireland who writes and lectures on film and psychoanalysis. Her latest book, Psychocinema, was published in 2024 in the Theory Redux series.

We’re talking the le non-duped err and messy bedrooms, the Gaze, the Master’s Discourse, the form of cinema, the politics of film as an industry today, and why film itself is a psychoanalytic experience.

And here’s an endorsement from Slavoj Žižek for Helen’s new book…

“Helen Rollins’ Psychocinema does something that is very rare: it aims at changing the very frame of how cinema and psychoanalysis are related. Rollins shows that viewing a film is in itself a psychoanalytic experience, the effect of film on the viewer is that of psychoanalysis on the analysand.

Watching a film confronts us with the truth of our desire in all its inconsistencies, with the lack that sustains this desire. This ground-breaking thesis is demonstrated by dozens of illustrious examples, and they make the book not only insanely readable but also an important contribution to today’s politics of emancipation.

I didn’t dare even to imagine that a book like Psychocinema could exist. But miracles happen, and Rollins’s book is one of them.”

Thanks Helen!

See you in Paris,

Ž&...