May 26, 2008
Spellbound by the box:
A quote from the sardonic Alfred Hitcock where he notes the curious interaction between mind doctors and the moving image:
"Television has done much for psychiatry by spreading information about it, as well as contributing to the need for it."
I suspect he was commenting on concerns about negative effects of television, although I wonder whether he still might say the same, in light of the enduring influence of pharmaceutical adverts and claims of disease mongering.
Hitchcock himself was famously fascinated by the psychiatry of the day, and his films are well known for containing Freudian themes.
The most obvious was Spellbound, which featured psychiatrists, a psychoanalytic plot, and a symbolic dream sequence designed by Salvador Dalí.
