Lacan is often deemed an obscure theorist with little clinical application. However, in film studies his psychoanalytic theory has been highly influential. This paper is part of a series of articles published in this journal accompanying a psychiatry registrar teaching programme on film and psychodynamic concepts. It introduces the Lacanian ideas of the Symbolic, Imaginary and Real as they appear in Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog, and discusses their societal and clinical significance.
Conclusions
A Lacanian reading of Power of the Dog offers insights into ‘toxic masculinity’. Furthermore, it demonstrates how clinical symptoms can represent an escape from socially mediated toxicities.
CampionJ. The Power of the Dog. New Zealand Film Commission, BBC Films, See-Saw Films, Brightstar Films, Max Films, 2021, p. 126minutes.
2.
SavageT. The Power of the Dog. 1st ed.Boston: Little; 1967. 276.
3.
KisnerJ. Inside Jane Campion's cinema of tenderness and brutality. New York: The New York Times Magazine, 2021.
4.
ÉcritsLJ. The first complete edition in English. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2007. Translated by Bruce Fink.
5.
StoneM. On superheroes and their mafia: Using The Lego Batman Movie to explain relational aspects of narcissism. Australasian Psychiatry2022; 30(4): 444–446.
6.
PalmF. Lacanian psychoanalysis, addiction and enjoyment. Body and Society2023; 29(I): 56–78.
