Background of the study

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the study

In this modern era, film has been growing to be an interesting industry for the people who want to express their creative thought and skill. Most of cineaste consider film as a media to share their ideas and opinions about some phenomena in the real life; and sees it as a promising business as well since most people like to spend their spare time by watching film. It is not a shocking fact if most people in this world love to watch film, because it is a unique thing like what Josseph M. Boggs and Dennis W. Petrie say on their book the Art of Watching Films. According to them, film is a unique art production and has a strong influence toward its viewer because it combines paint, technology, music, literature and drama become interesting to be watched. 1 On the other hand, film also reflects political and social pressures and issue indirectly in many complex and contradictory ways. 2 So these are two out of many reasons why people like film and it makes the cineastes compete to make and produce film. Both producer and viewer of the film pay their high attention to it. When the cineastes make film and present it to the viewer, literature and film critics, who act as advance viewer, give their attention to analyze and to criticize the film that has been launched to the viewer. And there are so many aspects that can be 1 Boggs Josseph M. and Petrie Dennis W. The Art of Watching Films. 1999. p.2 2 Lausen, John Howard. Film the creative process. 1964. P.108 analyzed in film, such as cinematography, the creative process, and the moral messages that the cineastes give in their film. One criticism that many advanced viewers use to analyze film is Psychoanalysis. It has been long understood that both film and cinematography cannot be separated and had a special relationship since the first time the theory and industry were found. 3 According to Apsanti Djokosujanto in her essay, in Psikoanalisis dan sastra page 59, there are two approaches in analyzing film by psychoanalysis, they are biopsychanalyses and lectures psychoanalytiques. Biopsichoanalysis is an approach in assuming film as a work of a film maker who suffers neurosis or has psychical problem—the object are the film makers such as script writer, director, or producer. Another approach is lectures psychanalytiques that deals with the characters in film that is suspected has psychological problem or pathology. 4 Based on the passage above, then the writer is interested to use the second category which discusses a character in a film that is suspected has a psychological problem. In this thesis, therefore, the writer would like to point the main character of the Number 23 as the object of the research. The main character of the Number 23 suffers neurotic because of his memory that was repressed in the past tries to come out of his unconscious mind and this is the main problem that causes his personality disturbance his personality becomes unstable. The main character is a man who has a good personality in the beginning of the film. However, his personality gradually changes and becomes unstable after he receives a novel from his wife as a present in his 36 th anniversary. The novel is the 3 Anggadewi Moesono, Psikoanalisis dan Sastra. 2003. P.59 4 Ibid. presentation of his past that he had been repressed, and there are some significant changes happen in him since he reads that novel—he has phobia in number 23 by assuming that it is related to all unfortunate event in this world; and this numeric phobia is connected to his past that had been repressed. The psychological problem that has buried under unconsciousness of the main character and his strong domination in the whole story interpreting number 23 in this film makes the writer interested to discuss it and make it as the object of the research in this thesis. By using the theory of Sigmund Freud’s Psychoanalysis, it can be revealed how the main character deals with his neurotic problems.

B. Focus of the Study