Abstract
Uncanny in Christopher Nolan’s Tenet This essay examines the expression of Sigmund Freud’s notion of the uncanny. Tenet The central question it confronts is that the film exploits Freudian theory to allow people to feel a strange “ transcendence of time and reality. The essay takes the individual narrative and stylistic juxtapositions of Tenet-for example, time inversion or nonlinearity within its storytelling–and attempts to explain how those devices work together to distort typical concepts like time until they become disquieting almost beyond recognition. This method allows us to peel off the psychological strata of the film story and exposes another significance that Freud’s theories have for modern cinematic criticism. Besides providing an outline of Freud’s uncanny cognition, this essay delves into the meaning and analysis of Tenet. It then closes with thoughts on how critical a theory like the following is for comprehending modern cinema’s dense narrative structure. In doing so, it seeks to explain how Tenet is a contemporary manifestation of Freudian ideas and the psychological effects of viewing stories like this.
Key Words: Uncanny, theories, film, and movie
Introduction
Sigmund Freud deeply explores the term the uncanny, and Tenet is a film that explores this feeling in particular. Later in the movie, time and space are played with even more skillfully to blur reality. The whole movie works well along these Freudian lines of thought. Freud himself wrote about the uncanny, which arises from turning something familiar into a dangerously strange object. Tenet manages this through its multi-layered plot and time inversion techniques. The movie breaks with standard concepts of time and causality, showing a world where the progression of time is broken. This type of interference promotes an uncanny (Freudian’s) psychological sense of cognitive dissonance. Through the eyes of Freud, by using his theories to analyze Tenet, it is clear how that film’s plot machinery works; perhaps even more importantly, it is essential to understand its psychological effects on audiences.
Background: The Uncanny According to Freud
This uncanny is brought out effectively in Tenet’s use of time travel. Time is portrayed as a subjective and uncertain variable throughout the movie rather than a fixed constant. As a result, unlikely characters and events meet up in ways that violate the usual sense of time flow, with an effect both ridiculous and curious. In particular, scenes in which the protagonist meets his past or future selves conform to Freud’s idea of the uncanny by making a familiar fact that things change through time into something weird and disturbing. In addition, Freud’s theory that the uncanny stems from repressed fears or desires coming to light is worth further exploration (FanClubRT, Marvel. “Tenet 2020 Movie || John David, Robert Pattinson || Christopher Nolan’s Tenet 2020 Movie Full Review). Time control In Tenet, the distortion of time reflects a human desire for transcendence-perhaps an ought that is beautiful but weird. These subterranean anxieties and curiosities form the basis for the real-life events on which the film is based.
If we use Freud’s idea of the uncanny to analyze Tenet, it is easy to discover that these narrative strategies allow psychological space for film. The story’s uncanny ‘power is not only in what happens but how it comes about. This is why Nolan’s non-linear storytelling, his paradoxical situations, and how he weaves together are both realist dimensions of cinematic experience. Tenet is a case study of how Freud described this psychological response to what was ‘unfamiliar’ (Windsor, p.42). The film effectively taps into the viewer’s subconscious, unsettling them by distorting their perception of a fundamental aspect of their reality: time.
An Overview of “Tenet”
Christopher Nolan’s film Tenet defies the limitations of time travel stories in several ways. It offers a fascinating, multi-layered inquiry into time and space that tests the limits of reality as we know it. The protagonist is on a mission. His story unfolds in a world where time can be inverted. This new technology allows people and objects to move backward in time, forming a more complex plot structure.
The central motifs of the movie are related to time-what is it? Can we change our past or future and set things right again? And what ethical issues does such power involve? Tenet adopts a non-linear narrative structure, only allowing the viewer to gradually reconstruct the plot from backward and forward moving multiple storylines (FanClubRT, Marvel. “Tenet 2020 Movie || John David, Robert Pattinson || Christopher Nolan’s Tenet 2020 Movie Full Review.”). Not only does this approach test the audience, but it also requires their active participation to force them into reinterpreting time and causality.
The structure is an integral part of the film’s thematic content, a system by which it uses time to go past superficialities and reflect on these deeper levels. These are determinism, free will, and the nature of things. Tenet also deals with such subjects as loyalty, sacrifice, and the nature of human relationships in extreme conditions. Tenet is a film that’s worth pondering over. It marries complicated narration with creative photography to express some lofty ideas. Its striking conformity to Freud’s definition of the uncanny comes into view as it compels and distorts everyday human perceptions about time, giving rise to feelings of psychological estrangement.
The Uncanny in “Tenet”
The themes of bits and pieces, time loops, and reverse entropy found in Tenet are manifestations of Freud’s ideas about the uncanny. But these elements are more than narrative devices; they also have a profound psychological impact. This produces a disorientating reverse-entropic feel, fitting Freud’s definition of the uncanny as something familiar made strange. In “ Tenet,” time cycles that loop over themselves increase this feeling. The film has scenes in which characters experience things backward, putting him and the audience to the test of their traditional notions of cause and effect. This subverts the viewer’s sense of time, reinforcing Freudian theory that through an inversion of perspective, things helpful to us become eerie and unreal.
This juxtaposition of past, present, and future works to emphasize the romantic weirdness of the film’s narrative structure. While attempting to follow the plot, viewers have their understanding of time and expectations constantly subverted. This intentional blurring of time is related to Freud’s notion that the uncanny comes from repressed material trying to come back into consciousness, such as humanity’s desire for control over temporal space.
Work Cited
FanClubRT, Marvel. “Tenet 2020 Movie || John David, Robert Pattinson || Christopher Nolan’s Tenet 2020 Movie Full Review.” YouTube, 20 Oct. 2022, www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOUVLEVNmW0. Accessed 21 Dec. 2023.
Khiari, Yasmine, and Mordjana Haddad. “Space and the uncanny in anne radcliffe’s the mysteries of udolpho 1794.” (2022). http://bib.univ-oeb.dz:8080/jspui/handle/123456789/13590
Windsor, Mark. “Freud on the uncanny: A tale of two theories.” Philosophy and Literature 44.1 (2020): 35-51. https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/754507/summary
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