Abstract
Based on the novel of the same name by author Stephen King and directed by Andy Muschietti, IT: Chapter One (2017) and IT: Chapter Two (2019) tell the story of seven children who are relentlessly pursued by an evil clown. According to Freud's psychoanalytic theory, an individual's fears in adulthood have a relationship with developmental situations that coincide with childhood. These fears contribute to the survival of the individual and also make it possible for the individual to adapt to social and/or environmental stimuli. Freud explained the development of personality and the stages in this development with the concepts of id, ego and superego, and stated that the state of fear, which finds meaning as the ego's way of escaping from danger, can develop differently due to id or superego. The aim of this study is to analyze the fear behaviors of the main characters in the both films within the framework of id, ego and superego through psychoanalytic film criticism.
Analyzing Ideology and Narratology in Film Series, Sequels, and Trilogies
TopIntroduction
Horror movies have been one of the most popular movie genres ever since they first appeared. Even though the subjects have changed over time as well as the society, the aim has remained the same: What people are afraid of? Using many sociological and psychological images of fear as a source, these films often appeal to the unconscious fears of individuals and cause a high level of stimulation on the body like a real experience. The increase and diversification of social traumas and fears continues to provide an ever-growing rich source for horror films.
Traumas, events and fears individuals experienced in their childhood, adolescence and adulthood are another source of the horror cinema. Some films (Halloween, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Friday the 13th), for example, prefer to convey their stories by centering their characters’ childhood or adolescence in the plot, focusing on their traumas, fears or harrowing experiences. Through such a choice, the director (or the screenwriter) emphasizes the root of character’s fear along with her/his methods of struggling with it compared to her/his present state. Schneider argues that an individual’s attitudes are based on the Freudian concept of repressed mental content, since anxieties, fears, even fantasies and desires were suppressed in the unconscious during childhood, either because they are too unpleasant or because they contradict with a more acceptable/appropriate mental content (2004, p. 2). In this sense, considering the subliminal images used in horror films and the psychological effects created through the characters, it would not be wrong to say that horror cinema is a film genre open to psychoanalytic reading.
IT (2017) and IT: Chapter Two (2019), which were adapted as two successive films by director Andy Muschietti from Stephen King's 1986 novel IT, focus on trauma and fears of their main characters, in their childhood and adulthood. In this context, both films contain important data for analysis with a Freudian approach and psychoanalytic method through their main characters. As Dumas emphasizes, Freud's model of human consciousness can be related to the horror cinema through the vision of abnormality which presents the origin and effects of the monstrous, the disgusting, the hidden, the murderous and the perverse. This is the reason many horror films present traumas of the past and its effects carried over to adulthood (2014, p. 129). Therefore, in this study, the fears of the main characters in childhood and adulthood will be discussed within the framework of the concepts of Id-Ego and Superego, and a psychoanalytic analysis will be attempted by making use of the context of individual and group psychology.
The study will first briefly discuss the history of the horror cinema. Afterwards, the concepts of fear, Id-Ego and Superego will be explained through the stories and characters of the films, and then these concepts will be related to individual and group psychology through the traumas and fears experienced by the characters. Finally, the childhood and adulthood fears of the eight main characters in both films will be analyzed in line with the concepts and theoretical framework mentioned above.
TopA Brief History Of Horror Cinema
The feeling of fear, which is one of the basic emotions such as joy, sadness, anger, and disgust, is biological on one hand, emotional and intellectual on the other (Mannoni, 1992, p. 8). The origin of fear usually emerges from threats to existence, through destructive, painful, and harmful dangers. The identification and perception of dangers emphasize the direct relationship between fear and uncertainty, as the environment must be kept under control for survival.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Andy Muschietti: Argentine director, screenwriter, and producer with Hollywood movies such as IT , IT: Chapter Two and Mama.
Sigmund Freud: He is an Austrian-born Jewish neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, one of the most important branches of psychology.
IT: Chapter Two: It is a movie adapted from Stephen King’s novel and directed by Andy Muschietti in 2019.
IT: It is a movie adapted from Stephen King’s novel and directed by Andy Muschietti in 2017.
Fear: It is an intensely unpleasant emotion in response to perceiving or recognizing a danger or threat.
IT: It is a novel written by Stephen King in 1986.
Horror Film: It is a type of movie that is designed to evoke fear, terror, terror or disgust in the audience. The subject of horror films is demonic forces, events or characters that infiltrate everyday life and sometimes manifest in supernatural ways.