The Flexibility of Narrative Time in Science Fiction Film

Summary:

This article examines narratives of some recent Science Fiction cinematic texts, focusing on the less-than-usual movement into the past, rather than the future, and its connections to psychoanalytic theory. The return to the past, with its obvious echoes of psychoanalytical praxis and theorization, proves to be redolent with usage of Freudian concepts: in fact, references abound to Freud’s ‘family romance’ article, as well as to Oedipal fantasies of the ‘Primal Scene’. In examining these connections, the article also probes the nature of cinema as a ‘time machine’, a mental procedure which allows us the visualization of a fantastic journey into the past, giving it physical features and historical contours. To this end, references are cited to the work of Arlow and Fraser, among others, on the nature of the perception of time.