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Description
I first saw this work in the form of a full and detailed draft. I was impressed by the boldness of the ideas, the attempt to integrate and work with different theoretical positions and the quite extraordinary reading of the films of István Szabó. There was clearly a powerful and creative and original intelligence at work. A further draft accomplished one important thing that had been missing from the first one – the direct analysis of the visual material and its contribution to the overall narrative and theoretical framework.
The work employs a psychoanalytic framework with some key concepts such as ‘the phantom’ drawn from the work of Torok and Abraham. This theory is fairly well known but it has not, to my knowledge, been used in any extensive way in the analysis of film texts before. Zoltan also makes reference to Freud and uses some Lacanian ideas in his analysis at the level of the visual. These multiple theoretical references are not inconsistent; they are finely judged and are most productive. Theory is never used as a grid to be imposed on the material. There is a fine balance between theory and textual analysis that is hard to achieve, but it is successful here.
I think that the position that Zoltan Dragon has forged for himself and from which he writes, is a highly original and interesting one. He has been most successful in developing his framework in relation to Szabó’s oeuvre which he knows in the greatest detail. His readings of that oeuvre are rich and powerful and will provoke considerable debate in the world of film studies and also of psychoanalytical studies.
Parveen Adams, Core Teaching Faculty, London Consortium
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