What hides behind the “coolness” of the character played by actor Samuel Jackson in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction? What trauma underlies Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River? Is there a deep, secret motive for actor Jodie Foster’s character in Jonathan Demme’s Silence of the Lambs?

Written by Dr. Boaz Hagin, this book is based on a series of lectures on trauma, memory and fantasy, both on the individual and the collective level, given by Professor Thomas Elsaesser at Tel Aviv University and The Open University.