The concepts of desire and identity are of course inherent to psychoanalysis and their development through childhood is quite central in psychoanalytic theories. Desire and identity are also rather central to cinema, as so often – both in commercial and experimental films – our interest and pleasure as viewers rely on who the character is and what (s)he wants. Childhood in films and cultural texts in general has been a difficult issue to broach, both by artists and cultural theory. As children do not partake in the creative process, their representations are created by adults who may project on to them cultural stereotypes, adult desires and fears.

Angelidi’s films represent childhood in complex ways and they focus on identity and desire, so psychoanalytic theories seem to be ideal for their analysis. Yet, it is important to think about what particular insights psychoanalytic theories could offer and which psychoanalytic theories would be best suited to analyse experimental films and Angelidi’s films in particular. We will examine the most prominent psychoanalytic theories for film as well as turn to Donald W. Winnicott’s psychoanalytic theories and argue why they are most pertinent to Angelidi’s film The Hours.

When selecting methodological tools, one has to set very clearly the aims of the analysis. I do not aim to psychoanalyse the screenwriter and director, Angelidi, nor to psychoanalyse the characters. Rather, I will use psychoanalytic theories to look into the cinematic representations of developmental stages, of the self and of desires that are present in The Hours.

When thinking about psychoanalysis and film, Christian Metz’s and Jean-Louis Baudry’s psychoanalytic film theories are the first to spring to mind, as they are seminal in film studies. They focus mainly on the primary and secondary identification. The viewer, for Metz, experiences a primary identification with the act of perception itself, with the camera as a point of view, placing them as a producer of the image and by extension the producer of meaning(s). The secondary identification is with the main character and more specifically with the character’s body. The identification with the body is pivotal in the formation of the ego.