PSYCHO-ANALYTIC THEORY

Dead of Night - Alberto Cavalcanti

(Film)

Synopsis:

Architect Walter Craig (Mervyn Johns) arrives at a country house party where he reveals to the assembled guests that he has seen them all in a dream. He appears to have no prior personal knowledge of them but he is able to predict spontaneous events in the house before they unfold. The other guests attempt to test Craig's foresight, while entertaining each other with various tales of uncanny or supernatural events that they experienced or were told about. These include a racing car driver's premonition of a fatal bus crash; a light hearted tale of two obsessed golfers, one of whom becomes haunted by the other's ghost; a ghostly encounter during a children's Christmas party (a scene cut from the initial American release); a haunted antique mirror; and the story of an unbalanced ventriloquist (Michael Redgrave) who believes his amoral dummy is truly alive. The framing story is then capped by a twist ending.

Analysis:

Psycho-Analytic Theory means, a criticism which, in method, concept and form, is influenced by the tradition of Psychoanalysis. It seeks evidence of an unresolved emotions. In the movie Dead of Night, it shows how some people easily judge those people with psychological disorders. They do not really focus on what the person is saying and just continue to form their conclusions and comments with that person. Walter, on the other hand, had done everything to explain his side and to explicate all the information that he had gathered in his dreams. 

If you would dig the deeper meaning of the movie you could see the sadness and melancholy of the story and the narrator. There's a message the story wants to convey to the readers. It is really an advantage for the producer to create such movie because he is said to have a broad imagination and is said to had experienced some difficulties during his childhood days. You could say that there is somehow a connection between the producer and his masterpiece. And that's what the Psycho-Analytic Theory is all about.