Category: Movies

“It Could Happen to You”: A Daydream that Cheats Conscience
By Categories: Movies

With December two months away, I’ll count down month by month with a comparison of three diverse films, ending in December with, of course, It’s a Wonderful Life.

For most people, the fantasy of It’s a Wonderful Life endures.  By identifying with its characters, we can believe that there is meaning to our own lives and purpose to our sacrifices.  I want to contrast it with another, more recent film with the same outward theme, but which gives only ephemeral pleasure. Continue reading “It Could Happen to You”: A Daydream that Cheats Conscience

Memory, Repression and Transference in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”
By Categories: Movies

A man comes to analysis complaining of strange behavior and large gaps in his memory. “I ditched work today, took a train out to Montauk. I don’t know why. I’m not an impulsive person.” He discovers that there are two years of entries torn out of his diary, entries he does not remember making.

He has other complaints as well. He describes himself as shy—“If only I could meet someone now. I think my chances of that happening are somewhat diminished seeing that I can’t make eye contact with a woman that I don’t know.”—and needy—“Why do I fall in love with every woman I see who shows me the least bit of attention?” Nevertheless, he has spent a night walking and lying on the iced over Charles River in Boston with a woman he just met on that trip to Montauk, and was about to take her home to his apartment.

The man’s name is Joel Barish, and he has not actually entered an analytic consulting room (nor the Twilight Zone), but into a film written by Charlie Kaufman, which is close to the same thing. Continue reading Memory, Repression and Transference in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”

Primal Scene, Intergenerational Conflict and Recovering Traumatic Memories in Almodovar’s “Broken Embraces”
By Categories: Movies

There is a natural wedding between film making and the primal scene. The primal scene, as first described by Freud (1918) in his “Wolfman” case, is a witnessing of parental intercourse. In such a scenario, the child is a helpless witness to the exciting lovemaking. Arlow (1980) has stressed the evocation of envy and a desire for revenge from the primal scene experience. His patients attempted to exact revenge by reversing the scenario, so that a parental figure was forced in some way to witness the patient’s love making, real or metaphorical. They also exacted revenge by interrupting the primal scene.

Film is a natural vehicle for evoking reactions to the primal scene. The moviegoer sits passively (cell phone off) in a dark room, watching a larger than life bright exciting image. The filmmaker is also caught in the act of watching, although she has the advantage of being able to manipulate the images. I have found that it is relatively common for filmmakers to use the evoked envy and frustration of the primal scene to capture the emotions of the viewer. This is presented more intensely in some films, including Blowup, which Arlow wrote about in the same paper on envy in the primal scene, The Conformist, L.A. Confidential, The Crying Game, The Lives of Others and Rashomon. A more recent example is Pedro Almodovar’s 2009 film, Broken Embraces. Continue reading Primal Scene, Intergenerational Conflict and Recovering Traumatic Memories in Almodovar’s “Broken Embraces”