Encountering the Impossible: The Fantastic in Hollywood Fantasy Cinema (SUNY series, Horizons of Cinema)

__The first academic explanation for how spectators use their imaginations as part of the experience and appreciation of popular fantasy filmmaking.__ Contents 6 List of Illustrations 8 Acknowledgments 12 A Note on Terminology 14 Introduction 16 What Is a Fantasy Film? Film Genre and the Problem of Classification 17 What Do Fantasy Films Do? The Fantastic and Spectatorship Theory 21 1 What is The Fantastic? 26 Phantasy: The Imagination, Hesitation, and Responding to the Impossible 34 The Fantastic in Fantasy Cinema: Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) 40 2 Continuity and Cathexis: Character, Space, and Time in the Classical Hollywood Fantasy Film, 1930–1945 48 The Fantastic and Character: Object Cathexis in Alice in Wonderland 53 The Fantastic and Space: Phantasy and Spatial Cathexis in The Wizard of Oz 64 The Fantastic and Time: Phantasy and Temporal Cathexis in It’s a Wonderful Life 80 Conclusion: Cathexis in Hollywood Fantasy Films 90 3 The Wonder Film: Postclassical Fantasy Cinema and Phantasies of Introjection, 1946–1975 94 The Fantastic and Wonder: Introjective Phantasy in Harvey 100 The Fantastic and Idealization: The Wonder of Mary Poppins 114 The Fantastic and Internalization: Metamorphosis in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad 128 Conclusion: Introjecting Wonder and the Wonder of Introjection 139 4 High Fantasy Blockbusters: Alternative Worlds and Phantasies of Projection, 1976–1991 144 The Fantastic and Alternative Worlds: Projecting Power in Conan the Barbarian 150 The Fantastic and Desire: Projecting the Unconscious in The NeverEnding Story 160 The Fantastic and Infantilization: Projecting Childhood in Hook 174 Conclusion: Projecting the High Fantasy Blockbuster 186 5 Interpreting the Fantastic: Contemporary Fantasy Cinema and Symbol Formation, 1992–2018 190 The Fantastic and Interpretation: Symbol Formation in The Lord of the Rings 195 The Fantastic and Poetry: Emotion and Symbol Formation in Where the Wild Things Are 207 The Fantastic and Allegory: Symbol Formation and Estrangement in Fantastic Beasts 218 Conclusion: Symbol Formation and the Contemporary Fantasy Film 230 Conclusion: The Fantastic Beyond Hollywood Fantasy Cinema? 234 Notes 240 Bibliography 252 Index 260 2022 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Shortlisted for the 2022 Best First Monograph Award presented by the British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies Hollywood fantasy cinema is responsible for some of the most lucrative franchises produced over the past two decades, yet it remains difficult to find popular or critical consensus on what the experience of watching fantasy cinema actually entails. What makes something a fantasy film, and what unique pleasures does the genre offer? In Encountering the Impossible , Alexander Sergeant solves the riddle of the fantasy film by theorizing the underlying experience of imagination alluded to in scholarly discussions of the genre. Drawing principally on the psychoanalysis of Melanie Klein and D.W. Winnicott, Sergeant considers the way in which fantasy cinema rejects Hollywood's typically naturalistic mode of address to generate an alternative experience that Sergeant refers to as the fantastic, a way of approaching cinema that embraces the illusory nature of the medium as part of the pleasure of the experience. Analyzing such canonical Hollywood fantasy films as The Wizard of Oz , It's a Wonderful Life , Mary Poppins , Conan the Barbarian , and The Lord of the Rings movies, Sergeant theorizes how fantasy cinema provides a unique film experience throughout its ubiquitous presence in the history of Hollywood film production.