Click Here to Read: Tell Me About Your Childhood, Mr. Mahler: The Composer’s Visit With Freud Opens the New York Jewish Film Festival by Jordana horn in the Jewish Daily Forward January 10, 2011.

Published originally in the PANY Bulletin, Fall, 2010

Several years ago, I wrote about the film, A Beautiful Mind, based upon the life of John Nash, a Nobel Prize winner who suffered from a lifelong psychotic illness. My focus was on the conflict between narcissism and object love. In the end, object love won the day, but both narcissism and object love were gratified as Nash devoted his Nobel acceptance speech to his love for his wife.
Continue reading Narcissistic Perfection vs. Object Love “Up in the Air”

Click Here to Read: ‘German Gems Film Festival’ lives up to its name by Rick Marianetti on the Examiner.com website. 

David Sieveking and David Lynch

Click Here to View:  Trailer for Forgiveness the Movie on YouTube.

Click Here to Read: Change Your Heart; Look Around You …An Interview with Udi Aloni on Forgiveness.

Click Here to Read: Royal Mess: ‘The King’s Speech’ is an ugly distortion of history by Isaac Chotiner in the New Republic on January 6, 2011.

Click Here to Read: The Prince and the Uncommon Commoner, review of the King’s Speech on this website.

Click Here to Read: Dr. Pomerantz and Mr. Dayan: Israel’s most controversial filmmaker is working on his first movie in six years – and it’s a black comedy  by Nirit Anderman on the Haaretz website on December 14, 2010.

Dayan and actress Rivka Michaeli during the filming of “Dr. Pomerantz.”

Click Here to Read:  The Prince and the Uncommon Commoner, review of The King’s Speech, revewed  by Stephen Holden in the New York Times on December 30, 2010.

“The King’s Speech” stars Colin Firth (left) as Prince Albert, the future George VI of Britain, and Geoffrey Rush as Lionel Logue, who treated the prince’s acute stammer

Happy Holidays
For the past few winters, my teaching schedule has me reading Anna Freud’s monograph, The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense at around the same time that I come across the Christmas classic, Miracle on 34th Street. One wouldn’t think that they have much in common, but each year I am re-reminded of passages in the book that come to life in the film.

Miracle on 34th Street is a light, beautifully constructed story about a bearded, white haired portly gentleman (Edmund Gwenn) . Continue reading Miracle (of fantasy) On 34th Street

I have been posting this essay in one form or another for three or four years around the holiday season. This year it is the finale of a trilogy of essays comparing three films with different approaches, and results, to the same problem. It Can Happen To You gives ephemeral pleasure. Remains of the Day provides a tragic solution to he conflict between gratification and conscience. It’s a Wonderful Life provides us with an enduring fantasy. This version of the essay is taken directly from the book, Double Feature. Continue reading It’s a Wonderful Life: An Enduring Fantasy