Psychoanalytic film theory: central = unconscious focus on object/trauma; acentric = multiple diffuse focal points without hierarchy. Explains surreal or fragmented perception in cinema.
The distinction between central and acentral imagination originates from psychoanalytic film theory and describes two fundamentally different modes by which the unconscious produces images. In central imagination, perception condenses around a single core—a trauma, an object of desire, an obsessive memory—and subordinates everything else to this focus. In acentral imagination, conversely, multiple, equally ranked focal points exist without hierarchy; images scatter, remaining fragmentary and contradictory. This terminology provides a model for explaining the surreal or dissociated visual language structurally employed in certain film movements, from Expressionism to modern horror.
Central Imagination: The Film as Symptom
A classic example is Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958): Scottie's obsessive imagination circles exclusively around Madeleine/Judy, with all other visual elements subordinate to this fixation. The camera becomes an instrument of a centralized gaze—the dolly zoom literally visualizes the protagonist's dizziness as a distortion of perception around a center. Lynch's Blue Velvet (1986) also operates with central imagination when Jeffrey finds the severed ear, and from that point on, all action steers toward the resolution of this single image-core. In screenwriting, central imagination corresponds to the classic character-driven plot: an internal conflict structures the external action.
Acentral Imagination: Dispersion as Form
David Lynch's Inland Empire (2006) is a masterclass in acentral imagination: no image-core to which others are subordinate—instead, a kaleidoscope of doppelgängers, temporal planes, and spatial paradoxes. Tarkovsky's The Mirror (1975) also organizes its images acentrally: memories, dreams, and documentary material stand side-by-side as equals, with no hierarchy guiding the viewer. In the editing room, acentral imagination means: no montage hierarchy, no establishing shot dominating subsequent shots—each image asserts its own urgency.
For Screenwriting and Directing
The conscious choice between central and acentral imagination is not an abstract theoretical decision but a concrete creative question. A screenplay that lingers too long in the central mode feels overdetermined—everything revolves around a conflict the viewer has long since deciphered. An acentral film without any focus, on the other hand, risks arbitrariness. Godard's later works consciously balance this tightrope, for instance, Notre musique (2004), which oscillates between three loosely connected narrative registers. The practical advice for writers: if a scene is blocked, check if it's unintentionally built acentrally where it needs a focus—or vice versa.