Psychoanalytic Transformation of the Hoffmann’s “Sandman’s Complex” in M. Powell's film “Peeping Tom”

The article studies Michael Powell's interpretation of E.T.A. Hoffman's poetic style in his film “Peeping Tom” (1960). Based on the concept of the “Hoffmann’s complex”, the specifics of German Romanticism in the film are highlighted, forming a stable ideological and thematic “Sandman’s complex”. The study argues that the Hoffmann tradition is treated in “Peeping Tom” in terms of Freudian psychoanalysis, which became a universal symbolic language in the 20th century art. The research gives evidence to Hoffmann's intertext and its transformation in Powell's film.