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This thesis examines the importance of a psychological conception of modernity for the filmic project of Surrealism. It posits two motivations behind this theorisation, the first as the surrealists' interest in the developments of psychology and the seconds as contemporaneous emphasis on the film as inherently connected to the machinations of the mind. Additionally, it explores the surrealist use of tropes from early filmmaking to suggest they recognised the filmic form as open and fluid, unconstrained by the boundaries of medium specificity. Chapter One examines surrealist film through the analogous trope of automatism and concludes that for the surrealists, filmmaking was understood as a solution to the problems of this method of production. Chapter Two extrapolates from this argument to suggest that the film scenarios are implicated in the desagregation of the self that has been identified as an integral facet of automatism. Chapter Three proposes an aesthetics of attention and distraction, whereby the lack of a stable subjectivity is played out in the attentive strategies of the film. Chapter Four explores the representation of memory and temporality as filmic paradigm and demonstrates that Surrealism appropriated this dimension of visual representation into their attempts to disrupt filmic diegesis and produce an embodied spectator.

This thesis uses concepts of narrative identity to assess the functions and characteristics of storytelling in the articulation of personal and cultural identity in four French literary and filmic autobiographical texts from the 1980s and 1990s: Azouz Begag's novel Le Gone du Chaäba (1986), Claire Denis' film Chocolat (1988), Annie Ernaux's book Journal du dehors (1993) and Dominique Cabrera's film Demain et encore demain (1998). Synthesising various accounts of narrative identity expounded by a range of philosophers, sociologists, psychologists and historians (including Paul Ricceur, David Carr, Jerome Bruner and Adriana Cavarero), the thesis argues that they offer a fruitful approach to autobiographical discourse in terms of the temporal configuration of lived experiences, the blend of historiographical and fictional modes and above all the intersubjective basis of autobiographical identity. The enquiry focuses on evaluating the texts' critical interrogations of the storytelling mode alongside their own uses of narrative. Structured in two parts, the analyses in Part I focus on textual narrative approaches to the intersections and tensions of contested myths and histories in the constitution of hybrid postcolonial identities. Chapter One argues that using a narrative approach to lives and selves to analyse Le Gone du Chaäba yields insights into the formation and expression of identities by individuals located between conflicting traditions and discourses. Chapter Two, on Chocolat, broaches similar territory, but with a greater emphasis on memory processes and the visual dynamics of identity. The analysis probes the film's depiction of the narrative underpinnings of imperialism and its remembrance, as well as how the text develops alternative narrative practices which undermine the totalising knowledge of History in favour of a subjective positioning which foregrounds its own European perspective and limitations. Part II shifts attention to two diaristic works as a means of assessing the validity of the concept of narrative identity regarding texts which appear to eschew the narrative form as the best means of representing lives. Chapter Three, examining Journal du dehors, contends that a spontaneous narrative impulse is crucial to the text's responses to everyday experience and urban public life, and is ultimately expressive of the author's autobiographical identity. Chapter Four focuses on the twofold narrativity of Demain et encore demain: that of living (during the filming), and that of textual revision (during the editing), arguing that the interplay of these two levels and mediation of documentary and fictional registers are central to the therapeutic value of the project. The thesis concludes that while the four texts share a certain scepticism regarding the ideological uses of narrative, they also all express desires to understand and articulate the narrative fabric of lives.

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Since the early 1950s the concept of the individual cinematic genius has been widely accepted as a legitimate status of the successful auteur, and its most renowned advocates have been Cahiers du Cinema of that period - 'the age of the auteur'. Despite being historically questioned and refuted by the other arts of the last century the concept of the genius auteur has survived the 'linguistic turn' of the 1960s and 1970s, and has since been maintained most prominently in the figure of Alfred Hitchcock. The thesis discusses the ways in which historical constructions of genius have been justified by outlining how the concept itself has evolved from notions of divinity prior to the invention of cinema as an art form, to the politicized terms of its contemporary use. Of particular import to this study is Cahiers du Cinema's early justification of cinematic genius that the thesis proves reducible to their understanding of G. W. F. Hegel's philosophy. However, developing an understanding of Hegel' s philosophical texts only serves to further undermine the concept of individual genius revealing a paradox, in that Hegel himself refuted the idea of the singular divinely gifted individual in his Phenomenology of Spirit 1807. The thesis' in-depth analysis of the relationship between genius, cinema and philosophy, through the new lens of Film-Philosophy, shows the concept of the genius auteur to be in many ways inconsistent with the source of its original philosophical justification in Hegel; and incompatible with the very collective nature of a true science of knowledge. In response to this the thesis illustrates the suitability of the critical tenets of Film- Philosophy in confirming the hypothesis that film can philosophise, and can do so autonomously in the sense that it already holds the philosophical ideas within its final product. In investigating the 'myth of total cinematic genius' from this Hegelian perspective against a variety of ancient and historical cultures and beliefs, the thesis' initial study develops the sense in which the signifier genius has evolved from its etymological roots and focuses on its subsequent politicisations. The second study is a more complex development of the ways in which Hegel's concepts of logic and teleology have been historically appropriated into a language of genius associated with the auteur forming the necessary grounds to conduct a critique of Cahiers du Cinema of the 1950s. Studying these early historical expressions of the journal in this larger context develops a more objective understanding of their subjective ideas of the auteur, their practice, their product, as theoretically restrictive on these terms, and their critical appraisals understood in the wider objective context of Absolute Spirit, the thesis returns to 'historical' film discourse on these more interrogative terms of political justification and philosophical misrecognition. On the basis of this revised understanding of Hegel' s oeuvre and its central concepts of Absolute Knowledge and Absolute Spirit, the third study drawing on Hitchcock as the model auteur fully illustrates the autonomy of the philosophical idea in the moving image and thereby relegates the work of the auteur genius to historical forces in a final confirmation of a philosophizing film. The final case study in illustration of this idea of an unconscious transference of the philosophical idea in the moving image in many ways explains how genius has been displaced onto the flesh and blood film-maker by focusing on one individual shot from Hitchcock's 'signature film' Rear Window 1954. Returning to this film and the critical and philosophical climate in which it couched with the hindsight of Film-Philosophy proves a successful means of reducing the genius, film and Hitchcock's film to products of a systematising culture of film and philosophical study that has traditionally discussed the film in the immediacy of their understanding of Hegelianism and cinema. As such, the thesis purports the subsequent necessity to return, not only to the film, shot or sequence in question, but also taking into account the practices and methods of analysis pertaining to how these historical objects have been understood and embalmed in this language of genius. This outline serves to obviate the necessity for a more detailed and measured focus on how these cultural objects have been reduced entirely to the individual under the auspices of the auteur, as well as the ways in which Hegelian philosophy had become a formal and misappropriated endorsement of the auteur genius. Referencing this particular period of the journal and the philosophical climate in which it is couched, the evidence formulated in this thesis will be used to illustrate a final Hegelian understanding of film and cinema that will expand our understanding of authorship and the experimental, as well as developing the ways in which this approach can cause us to rethink film history with a particular emphasis on its inherited notions of cinematic genius.

A wealth of research has highlighted the importance of understanding individual differences in the uses and effects of the mass media. However, significantly less attention has been paid to the role of individual differences in the area of film use and preferences. This thesis sought to provide more insight into the area of movie consumption, whilst investigating the links between individual differences, movie- watching motives and film preferences. The thesis also sought to amalgamate some of the more common methods of analysing individual differences with a new measure, namely the Uses of Film Inventory, a self-report questionnaire which was designed to assess individual’s choices for specific genres of films. The investigation aimed to make a contribution to research in two areas. The first was within the field of individual differences research, by providing a more methodical understanding of how film preferences can be accounted for as a function of important psychological needs. The second is within the applied field of media psychology, by providing researchers with an understanding of both the uses and effects of the mass media, as well as interpretative methods in understanding consumer behaviour in film. The theoretical chapter comprised of a thorough literature review of the theoretical and methodological foundations to the scientific understanding of the psychological determinants of individual differences in film preferences. The experimental chapters explored several possibilities in which established personality traits and movie- watching motives may be linked to preferences for a variety of film genres. Overall, it was concluded that when all of the psychological measures were considered, a number of variables could account for the role in predicting movie preferences. Thus, taken as a whole, this thesis demonstrates that a number of personality variables and movie-watching motives can, to some degree, predict film preferences. However, it must also be acknowledged that although these variables are an important factor in predicting consumer choice in film, other factors must be essential. Thus, further research is essential to answer the outstanding questions generated by this relatively new field of research.

This thesis discusses the scope for philosophy in and about film. It applies philosophical analysis to both the form and the content of Antonioni's films, and is thus both a philosophical approach to Antonioni's cinema as well as an exploration of his philosophical thought. The first part of the thesis reviews worthwhile discussions that are relevant to the complex relationship between film and philosophy. It also assesses the way in which the trend of philosophical thought known as existentialism fits into this relationship. General notions about existentialism are thus reviewed, as well as those that bear more particularly on art and cinema, and especially on the world as it is represented by Antonioni. Parallel to this, the thesis explores the role of time and space in film, and the philosophical implications of the way they are used by Antonioni. The second part of the thesis is devoted to the analysis of specific themes in Antonioni's films that relate them to an existentialist interpretation of reality. Chapter six is devoted to the early Antonioni, from his documentary shorts up to I1 grido, a period in which the phenomenological quality of his exploration of reality is already clearly noticeable. Chapter seven deals with Antonioni's peculiar narrative style and the way in which this style reflects his philosophical stances. The final chapters of the thesis are devoted to Antonioni's second important core of films and discuss the shift in Antonioni's central concerns. In films such as Deserto rosso, Blow Up, The Passenger, or Zabriskie Point, the connection with existentialism is related both to specific themes, such as anxiety and alienation, as well as to the more abstract philosophical stances that are implied by an existentialist worldview. In these films Antonioni questions reality itself, and discusses the limits of both our perception and representation of it.

My written thesis modifies George Romero’s zombie in an effort to exhume the critical potential of melancholia. The notion of melancholia as a dissenting condition has been rendered obsolete within contemporary culture. I equate the shift from melancholia to depression with the emergence of the postmodern climate that collapses radical opposition from the outside by assimilating dissent within its own operations. The subversive qualities of melancholia are superseded by the classification of depression as a dysfunctional inability to assimilate the logic of capitalist production. I initially formulate my own psychoanalytical term – undead melancholia – to describe the figure of the zombie. I then use the notion of sublimation to rewrite undead melancholia as a utopian phantasy of transgressive subjectivity in which life willingly acquiesces to an emancipatory marriage with death. This fiction of a radical new strain of zombie is understood as a melancholic phantasy of an oppositional critical strategy that has now been lost within contemporary homogeneity. I then discuss the zombie as an abject walking corpse that collapses Symbolic meaning altogether. This reading of the zombie undoes my own formulation of undead melancholia as a transgressive subject position, and re-articulates it as a haptic materiality beyond subjectivity instead. I finally propose a performance practice that might ape the materiality of undead melancholia by interrupting the formal and normalised protocols of contemporary culture. This performative melancholia, as a haptic antagonism, would refuse to consent absolutely to the status quo, asserting that the homogenous procedures determining contemporary cultural production are contingent negotiations rather than essential conditions. My recent performance practice involves staging unexpected musical interventions at various conferences, symposia, art events and exhibitions to which I have been invited as a guest speaker. This work confounds the professional protocols and the normalised codes of behaviour associated with these events.

This thesis introduces the concept of the multisensory film experience through a cognitive model of experiential film aesthetics in which we argue in favour of the idea that spectators can have perceptual experiences of film in the realm of thermoception, nociception and the vestibular sense-all of which are senses outside of the classic senses of sight and hearing examined in the context of film studies. We examine each of these senses in relation to the work of three contemporary film directors who have taken stylistic and experiential advantage of these senses to build their own authorial voices, namely, Gus Van Sant, Ki- duk Kim and Knut Erik Jensen. We employ a combination of arguments from the field of multisensory studies (neuroscience) and cognitive film theory and from our own analysis of the stylistic elements of film. We call this a model of 'experiential film aesthetics' because of the intersection between stylistic elements and spectators' own perceptual mechanisms. Experiential film aesthetics are, therefore, a film experience that involves not the conventional idea of watching film in a perceptually detached manner but rather the idea of perceptually participating with senses that have no direct stimulation but rather indirect stimulation through visual and aural information. In this sense, we explore our proposed viewpoint, which is characterised by the apparent paradox that the film medium in its conventional audio-visual form is a sensory gateway to a multisensory experience. These experiential film aesthetics can serve as a useful introduction to further investigations of the experiential nature of film and across sensory modalities that have not yet been examined in film studies.

This dissertation proposes a new film theory that embraces a philosophy of technology. It argues that, while digital culture efficiently combines functions (i.e. of phone and camera), this novelty has been given undue attention - for example in theories that celebrate remediation and convergence. Research shows that mobile phone and internet use gives rise to changes in how we think about our relation to space and time. I argue that these, along with notions of status and identity, are affected when technology mediates interaction. Extending McLuhan's prediction about instability in these phenomena, I propose that changes in perceptions of space, time and identity are key conceptual markers, which operate in a framework of 'affect'. Defined as an intense 'immersion' in automated functions, the space of affect has a media history in which the moving image is central. I explore a willingness to interact with the moving image apparatus by users in production or consumption frameworks. In contrast to a sadistic model of consumer immersion in film narrative that draws on psychoanalysis, I argue that a masochistic motive operates in the space of affect. Applying Gilles Deleuze's notion of an "abstract assemblage of desire" and drawing on concepts proposed by Actor Network Theory, discussion of examples of affective interaction are shown to prefigure the immersion seen in users of games and the internet. Submission to hybrid agency in the moving picture apparatus ranged from the pre-studio picture personality through the classical Hollywood period to the games avatar. By mobilising the raw material of identity and masochistic desire in the pre-studio picture personality, users of the apparatus employed the arrangements afforded by technology to form a prosthetic bond. The result was the star system, an assemblage of desire that metamorphosed the birth of moving images into an 'affective' hybrid agency extending outside the cinema. This dissertation argues that mechanisms of the birth and metamorphosis of moving images may be adapted to an understanding of digital culture in a continuum of conceptual change.