The Thinking Machine #88
Caught in the Dream of the Other
In their series The Thinking Machine, critics Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin create a new video essay for Filmkrant every month.
“Each of us is more or less a victim of other people’s dreams”. That was Gilles Deleuze’s summation of the central dynamic in Vincente Minnelli’s films. He was both right and wrong: the dreams inculcated by society are a deadly trap for Madame Bovary (in his 1949 film of Flaubert’s classic novel); but the dreams of an old woman in his final film, A Matter of Time (1976), allow a younger woman to truly become herself.
What is central, in both cases, is the role of the mirror: whether embodying fantasy or revealing harsh reality, it is truly a portal into other worlds – a reflection that is also a fulfillment.