Schizoanalysis, a concept that emerges as a radical departure from Freudian psychoanalysis, posits desire as a productive force, fundamentally opposed to the notion of lack or deficiency. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s seminal works, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1972) and A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1980) introduce us to a world where deterritorialisation and lines of flight enable a departure from repressive structures, allowing for the emergence of new, nomadic forms of existence. This perspective views identity not as a fixed, singular entity but as a fluid assemblage of multiplicities, continuously in flux and defined by its capacity for becoming and transformation.

The Foundations of Schizoanalysis

Schizoanalysis, as conceptualised by Deleuze and Guattari, diverges from traditional psychoanalytic interpretations of desire and subjectivity, proposing instead a model that views desire as a productive, positive force capable of disrupting repressive structures and enabling a multitude of becomings.

Key Concepts:

1. Deterritorialisation and Reterritorialisation: Deterritorialisation refers to the movement by which something escapes or moves away from a given territory, structure, or constraint. This concept is pivotal in understanding how identities, desires, and social formations can break free from rigid classifications and hierarchies. Reterritorialisation is the process that counters this movement, attempting to capture and anchor flows back into organised or codified systems.

2. Lines of Flight: A line of flight denotes a pathway of escape or becoming that enables entities (individuals, ideas, or societies) to evade restrictive structures. It embodies potential transformations and the emergence of new possibilities beyond conventional limits.

3. Multiplicity: Deleuze and Guattari reject the notion of singular or fixed identities, advocating instead for an understanding of entities (whether they be subjects, objects, or concepts) as multiplicities. These are complex, non-hierarchical, and have no inherent essence but are defined by their relations and connections.

4. Becoming: Becoming refers to the process of transformation that does not aim at an identity or end point but is a continuous movement of change and flux. It is characterised by encounters that propel individuals or groups into new ways of being.

Cinema and Schizoanalysis

Patricia MacCormack’s Cinesexuality (2008) extends these discussions into the realm of visual culture, suggesting that cinema, with its unique affective and sensory capacities, offers a fertile ground for the exploration of desire and the non-human. Ian Buchanan’s work, notably in Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus: A Reader’s Guide (2008), further elucidates the relevance of schizoanalytic concepts to contemporary cultural analysis, highlighting how films can engage with themes of deterritorialisation and multiplicity. Dorothea Olkowski’s (1999) examination of Deleuze’s philosophy concerning art and cinema, and David Martin-Jones’s (2006) analysis of narrative time in national contexts through a Deleuzian lens, both contribute to a broader understanding of how cinematic expressions can embody schizoanalytic principles.

A Schizoanalytic Watchlist

The films in this watchlist are carefully chosen to reflect these themes, showcasing how cinema can act as a site for the schizoanalytic deconstruction of reality, identity, and narrative. Each film, through its unique visual style, narrative structure, and thematic focus, offers a distinct exploration of the schizoanalytic terrain. From the deterritorialising journeys of characters who traverse physical, psychological, and existential landscapes to the visual and narrative lines of flight that disrupt conventional storytelling, these films invite viewers into spaces where the very fabric of reality is questioned and reimagined.

Furthermore, the inclusion of works from a diverse array of cultural contexts and cinematic traditions enriches this exploration, underscoring the universality and multiplicity of the schizoanalytic perspective. Whether through the animated dreamscapes of Paprika (2006), the surreal explorations of identity in Holy Motors (2012), or the critical examinations of social and political structures in The Act of Killing (2012), this watchlist traverses global cinemas to uncover the myriad ways in which film can engage with and embody the principles of schizoanalysis.

Without further ado, let’s dive into the schizoanalytic rabbit hole with the carefully curated watchlist!

Performance (1970)

• Directors: Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg
• Characters & Actors: Chas (James Fox), Turner (Mick Jagger)
• Summary: Performance merges the lives of a gangster hiding from his former associates and a reclusive rock star. Through their interaction, the film explores identity, sexuality, and violence, blurring the lines between reality and fantasy.
• Analysis: The visual style—characterized by disorienting edits, mirror images, and juxtapositions of the gritty London underworld with psychedelic experiences—mirrors schizoanalytic themes such as the breakdown of identity and the multiplicity of selves. The film embodies deterritorialisation by challenging the viewer’s perceptions of character and narrative continuity.

The Holy Mountain (1973)

• Director: Alejandro Jodorowsky
• Characters & Actors: The Thief (Horacio Salinas), The Alchemist (Alejandro Jodorowsky)
• Summary: Jodorowsky’s surreal epic takes the viewer on a spiritual quest, blending esoteric symbolism with political and religious satire. The journey towards enlightenment undertaken by the characters serves as an allegory for personal and collective transformation.
• Analysis: Its visual style, filled with vivid, often shocking imagery, serves as a direct challenge to conventional norms and perceptions. The film’s approach to narrative structure and visual storytelling exemplifies the schizoanalytic theme of deterritorialisation, inviting the viewer into a space where meaning is multiple and fluid.

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

• Director: Stanley Kubrick
• Characters & Actors: Alex DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell)
• Summary: This dystopian film follows the violent exploits and subsequent reformation of Alex, a delinquent youth. The state’s attempt to rehabilitate Alex raises questions about free will, control, and the nature of evil.
• Analysis: Kubrick’s use of disturbing imagery, unconventional narrative techniques, and a distinctive visual style that blends futuristic and classical elements reflects schizoanalytic themes of control, desire, and the construction of subjectivity. The film critiques societal attempts to normativise and repress individual desires, highlighting the multiplicity of human nature.

Brazil (1985)

• Director: Terry Gilliam
• Characters & Actors: Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce), Jill Layton (Kim Greist)
• Summary: In a dystopian future where bureaucracy and absurdity reign supreme, Sam Lowry escapes the monotony of his life through vivid daydreams. His pursuit of a woman he sees in his dreams leads him into conflict with the totalitarian state.
• Analysis: Gilliam’s film employs a visually rich and chaotic style, marked by its blending of fantasy and reality, to critique the dehumanising effects of technology and bureaucracy. The film’s approach to narrative and visual style encapsulates the schizoanalytic themes of escape from repressive structures and the quest for authentic desire amidst a world of simulacra.

Mulholland Drive (2001)

• Director: David Lynch
• Characters & Actors: Betty Elms/Diane Selwyn (Naomi Watts), Rita (Laura Harring)
• Summary: Lynch’s enigmatic narrative weaves the dreams and realities of two women in Los Angeles. The film blurs the lines between identity, memory, and desire, creating a labyrinthine exploration of Hollywood’s dark underbelly.
• Analysis: The film’s disjointed narrative structure and surreal visual style make it a quintessential exploration of schizoanalytic themes. Mulholland Drive challenges linear perceptions of time and identity, engaging with the concept of becoming-other and the multiplicity of the self. Its visual and narrative complexity serves as a conduit for exploring the unconscious processes that underpin desire and subjectivity.

Paprika (2006)

• Director: Satoshi Kon
• Characters & Actors: Dr. Atsuko Chiba/Paprika (voiced by Megumi Hayashibara)
• Summary: This Japanese animated film explores the blending of reality and dreams through the invention of a device that allows therapists to enter their patients’ dreams. Paprika, the alter ego of Dr. Chiba, navigates both realms to prevent the device’s misuse.
• Analysis: Paprika employs a vibrant and fluid animation style to visually manifest the schizoanalytic themes of deterritorialisation and the multiplicity of selves. The film’s seamless transitions between dream and reality challenge the boundaries of individual identity and explore the collective unconscious, embodying the concept of becoming-other.

Daughters of the Dust (1991)

• Director: Julie Dash
• Characters & Actors: Eula Peazant (Alva Rogers), Nana Peazant (Cora Lee Day)
• Summary: Set in 1902, this film tells the story of three generations of Gullah women living on the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia, as they prepare to migrate to the mainland, exploring themes of heritage, tradition, and change.
• Analysis: The film’s visual style, with its emphasis on landscape, ritual, and the ancestral, alongside its nonlinear narrative, reflects schizoanalytic themes by exploring the multiplicity of identity and the flows of desire across generations. It challenges monolithic narratives of Black identity and history, presenting a complex tapestry of cultural memory and becoming.

The Hour of the Furnaces (1968)

• Director: Octavio Getino and Fernando Solanas
• Summary: This Argentine documentary utilizes a compilation of found footage, interviews, and agitprop messages to critique neocolonialism and capitalism in Latin America. It’s a call to arms for political action and resistance.
• Analysis: The film’s fragmented narrative and experimental visual style embody schizoanalytic principles by breaking down traditional forms of cinematic representation and engaging directly with the flows of political desire and social deterritorialisation. It challenges viewers to reconsider their own positions within global systems of power and exploitation.

Touki Bouki (1973)

• Director: Djibril Diop Mambéty
• Characters & Actors: Mory (Magaye Niang), Anta (Mareme Niang)
• Summary: This Senegalese film follows two young lovers who dream of escaping to Paris from their life in Dakar. It combines surreal imagery with a critique of post-colonial Senegal.
• Analysis: Touki Bouki uses disruptive narrative techniques and vivid visual symbolism to explore themes of identity, desire, and disillusionment, aligning with schizoanalytic notions of deterritorialisation and becoming. The film critiques the legacy of colonialism and the seduction of Western modernity, presenting a complex vision of African identity.

Persepolis (2007)

• Directors: Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud
• Characters & Actors: Marjane (voiced by Chiara Mastroianni)
• Summary: Based on Satrapi’s autobiographical graphic novel, this animated film follows a young girl coming of age during the Islamic Revolution in Iran. It explores themes of identity, rebellion, and the impact of politics on personal life.
• Analysis: Persepolis employs stark black-and-white animation to reflect the protagonist’s internal and external struggles, engaging with schizoanalytic themes of identity formation in the face of oppressive regimes and the quest for personal autonomy and desire amidst political upheaval.

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (1968)

• Director: William Greaves
• Summary: This experimental documentary blurs the line between fiction and reality as it captures a filmmaking team (led by Greaves himself) attempting to shoot a movie in Central Park. The film becomes a meta-commentary on the nature of documentary filmmaking and the creative process.
• Analysis: Through its layered narrative structure and its interrogation of the filmmaking process, Symbiopsychotaxiplasm embodies schizoanalytic themes by deconstructing the roles of director, actor, and spectator, challenging traditional notions of cinematic authority and the construction of reality.

Holy Motors (2012)

• Director: Leos Carax
• Characters & Actors: Monsieur Oscar (Denis Lavant)
• Summary: Over the course of a day, Monsieur Oscar travels around Paris in a limousine, assuming multiple identities ranging from a businessman to a beggar, a monster, and a father.
• Analysis: Holy Motors explores the fluidity of identity and the performative aspects of daily life through its episodic structure and surreal imagery, reflecting schizoanalytic themes of multiplicity and the continuous becoming of the self in a postmodern world.

The Act of Killing (2012)

• Director: Joshua Oppenheimer
• Summary: This documentary confronts former Indonesian death squad leaders, who reenact their mass-killings in various cinematic genres. The film examines the construction of history, memory, and identity.
• Analysis: By blending reenactment with testimony, The Act of Killing engages with schizoanalytic themes through its examination of the performativity of violence and the fluid boundaries between reality and representation, challenging viewers to confront the fabrication of history and the multiplicity of truth.

Fallen Angels (1995)

• Director: Wong Kar-wai
• Characters & Actors: Wong Chi-Ming (Leon Lai), Blondie (Karen Mok), He Zhiwu (Takeshi Kaneshiro)
• Summary: Set in the neon-lit streets of Hong Kong at night, this film explores the lives of a disillusioned hitman, a mute ex-convict, and a restless woman, as they search for connection and meaning.
• Analysis: Wong Kar-wai’s use of vibrant colours, unconventional framing, and fragmented narrative reflects schizoanalytic themes by exploring the intersections of desire, alienation, and the quest for identity in the urban landscape, highlighting the fluidity and fragmentation of contemporary life.

Get Out (2017)

• Director: Jordan Peele
• Characters & Actors: Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya), Rose Armitage (Allison Williams)
• Summary: This horror film follows a young Black man visiting his white girlfriend’s family estate, uncovering a disturbing conspiracy. It explores themes of racism, exploitation, and the commodification of Black bodies.
• Analysis: Get Out employs a suspenseful narrative and symbolic imagery to critique racial dynamics and the horrors of appropriation and assimilation, aligning with schizoanalytic themes by interrogating the constructs of race, identity, and the desire for autonomy against systemic oppression.

Bibliography:

Buchanan, I. (Ed.). (2008). Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus: A Reader’s Guide. London: Continuum.

Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1972). Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1980). A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

MacCormack, P. (2008). Cinesexuality. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Martin-Jones, D. (2006). Deleuze, Cinema and National Identity: Narrative Time in National Contexts. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Olkowski, D. (1999). Gilles Deleuze and the Ruin of Representation. Berkeley: University of California Press.