Screening sadness: depression as mood, atmosphere, and affect in contemporary cinema

This thesis provides an in-depth account of depression in contemporary cinema, particularly where it intersects with cinema as a live, embodied experience. Although there is not yet an in-depth scholarly account of depression in cinema, existing studies on the topic have tended to take a representational approach, which treats depression as a feature of narrative and character development. Such studies tend to focus on characters who are pathologised as mentally ill, reducing depression to a set of DSM-related symptoms and motifs. This thesis calls for an understanding of depression not as an individual problem experienced by pathologised characters, but as a shared experience that is translated and transmitted through cinema. It analyses a range of contemporary American, British, and Japanese films as case studies, discussing these films within the framework of affect theory and phenomenological film theory, drawing on theorists such as Ann Cvetkovich (2012), Robert Sinnerbrink (2012, 2014, 2015), and Christine Ross (2006).

While my project does engage with films where depression is located within the experience of the characters who arguably do suffer from symptoms of what could be described as clinal depression, including The Hours (2002) and Melancholia (2011), I approach these from a unique perspective that highlights the affective dimensions of depression alongside narrative ones. For instance, in films such as Revolutionary Road (2008) and A Single Man (2009) I show how aspects of mood, atmosphere, and affect are implicated in the film’s depictions of depression, where it is both located within the characters and reverberates across the film to the spectators. An important argument I present is that depression should not be treated as one individual’s problem, but is rather a shared experience - one which, as I argue, cinema has the unique ability to craft. My research shows that neoliberalism plays an important role in both the presence of depression within society and in how depression is portrayed through film, including its role in the pathologisation of depression as a medical disorder and nothing more. This can be seen in the films The Big Short (2015), and Up in the Air (2009). Further to this discussion of neoliberalism, I also analyse children’s films, including Inside Out (2015), arguing that rather than being quick to categorise, pathologise, and explain depression away, cinema can sit with depression and allow it to flow freely, as is seen in When Marnie Was There (2014). Ultimately, the key finding from my research is that in order to convey an experience of depression that is nuanced and representative of real life, cinema relies on the creation of moods and affects in order to foster a shared experience between the film and viewers. By exploring depression in this way, cinema promotes empathy and understanding, while also confronting and challenging societal ideas of depression as a pathologised problem belonging only to the individual.