This book grew out of a series of lectures that Slavoj 2iéek delivered at London's National Film Theatre in the summer of 1998. My invitation to give these lectures had a very precise purpose. I wanted Slavoj to address the weaknesses and insularity of film studies as they had developed in the university sector over the previous two decades. The lectures were intended to mark the end of a cycle of work in which at every level from primary school to graduate studies, the BFI had attempted to place the study of the moving image at the centre of a revived and revised traditional curriculum. This had been the then newly-appointed director of the BFI Wilf Stevenson's aim in setting up a research division in 1989 and inviting me to head it.*