[In this section, Bellour explains why he thinks hypnosis is superior as a model for explaining the effects of cinema, on the grounds that it involves a somatic displacement that comes from outside the spectator. At the same time, he explains his objections to cognitivist film theory. Finally, Bellour recounts how his interest in animals, which began in the 1970s, derived from his perception of the way in which animal figures were being used in American cinema in films like Howard Hawks's Bringing up Baby and Monkey Business and Hitchcock's The Birds, which in turn led him to consider the issue of animality itself.]

A number of these questions – on the affective power of the image, the hypnotic state and the reflexivity that it maintains, and the play of suspension that it introduces – had been formulated in other terms by the filmmakers and theoreticians of the 1920s, in particular Epstein and Eisenstein. You only allude briefly to the latter.

I have to admit that I rather neglected Eisenstein, largely because others had accomplished remarkable work on both his films and his theoretical writings – Jacques Aumont, for example. Generally, I tend to avoid repeating what others have already said, and said well. In Le Corps du cinéma, I was content to include a small note on Eisenstein's relation to Disney, which I find fascinating, on the issue of the effects that can be produced in conjunction, moreover, with animality, but I am very aware that this mention falls well short of all that could be said concerning Eisenstein's thoughts on these matters. On the other hand, Epstein is very much present in my book, since he is one of the very rare authors to emphasize the overlap between emotion and hypnosis, in a way that is often dizzying. I read Epstein very early on, always with enthusiasm, in the beautiful edition of his writings in two volumes edited by Pierre Lherminier in 1974. I was also interested in the fact that Michaux had read his writings on alcohol and had cited him in one of his early works in 1922. In the context of this body of ideas, one should also mention a third name, that of Artaud, who also contributed, on another level, the idea of a psychic energy pertaining to the experience of cinema – but Deleuze has dealt with that magnificently.