This research area looks at the relationship between cinema and hypnotism. On one hand, it explores how hypnosis has served as a central metaphor— and sometimes mechanism — for understanding film experience, particularly from the 1910s through the 1980s. On the other hand, it treats hypnotism as an archaeological trace that helps us make sense of today’s immersive and absorbing media experiences.
Whenever possible (and within copyright limits), I share film clips related to my analyses on my YouTube channel, where many of the sequences discussed in my papers are collected and contextualized.
Imaginary Screens: The Hypnotic Gesture and Early Film
Ruggero Eugeni, “Imaginary Screens: The Hypnotic Gesture and Early Film”, in Craig Buckley, Rüdiger Campe, Francesco Casetti (eds.), Screen Genealogies. From Optical Device to Environmental Medium, Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2019, pp. 269-291. DOI: 10.5117/9789463729000_CH10.
Hypnose et cinéma
Présentation général du sujet, à paraitre en version réduite dans le « Vocabulaire de l’identification dans les arts du spectacle » du Projet Idem (Identification, empathie, projection dans les arts du spectacle), dir. Mildred Galland Szymkowiak en 2019
L’écran hypnotique. Nouvelles économies de la lumière dans le cinéma des années 1910
Ruggero Eugeni, “L’écran hypnotique. Nouvelles économies de la lumière dans le cinéma des années 1910”, dans Mauro Carbone, Jacopo Bodini, Anna Caterina Dalmasso (dirs.), Des pouvoirs des écrans, 2018, pp. 83-99
Lost memories. Regressions of Time and Style in Filmic Representations of Hypnotic Apparatus
Paper presented at the 2012 NECS (European Network for Cinema and Media Studies) Conference Time Networks: Screen Media and Memories, Lisbon, June 21- 23
Tags: hypnosis; film theory; dispositive; apparatus
The Phantom of the Relationship, the Poverty of Cinema and the Excesses of Hypnosis
Ruggero Eugeni, “The Phantom of the Relationship, the Poverty of Cinema and the Excesses of Hypnosis”, in Leonardo Quaresima (ed.), Dead Ends/Impasses, Cinema & Cie, International Film Studies Journal, n. 2, spring 2003, pp. 47-53
La relazione d’incanto. Studi su cinema e ipnosi
20 years ago, my first book on cinema and hypnotism (in Italian)
Ruggero Eugeni, La relazione d’incanto. Studi su cinema e ipnosi, Milano, Vita e Pensiero, 2002.
Media | Experience | Semiotics 