Screening Plague Images/Plaguing Screen Images: von Trier’s Epidemic and Hypnosis

Abstract

In the 1980s the world was gradually being alerted to the spreading AIDS virus; infection was high on the list of concerns. In 1988 Lars von Trier, the Danish film-maker who would become famous for his Dogme 95 movie-makers manifesto and for films such as Breaking the Waves (1996), Dancer in the Dark (2000) and Dogville (2003), made an experimental and self-referential film about plague called Epidemic. AIDS is not mentioned in any way, but growing international anxiety about this new infectious disease is the context for the film, as the writers admit in the voice-over to the DVD version. Despite this, Epidemic is primarily notable for a very different reason: its portrayal of the interaction between plague and screen images brings into startling coalescence the question of affect upon cinema spectators, especially spectators confronted with plague, and the role of hypnosis and suggestion within that experience. Even though the gaze is important to film theorists, hypnosis and related phenomena such as suggestion and fascination have been largely forgotten and left to languish among the initial, supposedly naîve responses to film as a new art form. Identification is a key concept for film theory; Sigmund Freud’s work makes a link between identification and hypnosis; but, again, this is not remarked upon much in recent writing. Von Trier’s film explicitly returns to hypnosis, its strange possibilities and its relationship with film, and his work has prompted several critics to re-examine the role of hypnosis in the cinematic experience.