Norman Holland on John Huston's Freud
http://www.asharperfocus.com/Freud.htmlhttps://www.amazon.com/Freud-Secret-Passion-Vienna-Documentary/dp/B00B9VD9ZC/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Huston
Freud: the Secret Passion (1962)
He followed The Misfits with Freud: The Secret Passion, a film quite different from most of his others. Besides directing, he also narrates portions of the story. Film historian Stuart M. Kaminsky notes that Huston presents Sigmund Freud, played by Montgomery Clift, "as a kind of savior and messiah", with an "almost Biblical detachment." As the film begins, Huston describes Freud as a "kind of hero or God on a quest for mankind":[17]
Huston explains how he became interested in psychotherapy, the subject of the film:
Freud: The Secret Passion - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freud:_The_Secret_Passion
Freud: The Secret Passion, also known as Freud, is a 1962 American biographical film drama based on the life of the Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, directed by John Huston and starring Montgomery Clift as Freud. The original script was written by Jean-Paul Sartre, but Sartre withdrew his involvement in the film after disagreements with Huston, and his name was removed from the credits.[1] The film was entered into the 13th Berlin International Film Festival.[2]
Plot
This pseudo-biographical movie depicts Sigmund Freud's life from 1885 to 1890. At this time, most of his colleagues refused to treat hysteric patients, believing their symptoms to be ploys for attention. Freud, however, learns to use hypnosis to uncover the reasons for the patients' neuroses through his mentor and friend Josef Breuer. His main patient in the film is a young woman who refused to drink water and is plagued by a recurrent nightmare.
The story compresses the years it took Freud (Montgomery Clift) to develop his psychoanalytic theories into what seems like a few months. Nearly every neurotic symptom imaginable manifests itself in one patient, Cecily Koertner (Susannah York). She is sexually repressed, hysterical, and fixated on her father. Freud works extensively with her, developing one hypothesis after another. Also shown is Freud's home life with his wife Martha (Susan Kohner), with whom he alternately discusses his theories, and patronizes when she reads one of his papers.
Cast
- Montgomery Clift ... Sigmund Freud
- Susannah York ... Cecily Koertner
- Larry Parks ... Dr. Joseph Breuer
- Susan Kohner ... Martha Freud
- Eileen Herlie ... Frau Ida Koertner
- Fernand Ledoux ... Dr. Charcot
- David McCallum ... Carl von Schlossen
- Rosalie Crutchley ... Frau Freud
- David Kossoff ... Jacob Freud
- Joseph Furst ... Herr Jacob Koertner
- Alexander Mango ... Babinsky
- Leonard Sachs ... Brouhardier
- Eric Portman ... Dr. Theodore Meynert
- John Huston ... Narrator (voice)
- Victor Beaumont ... Dr. Guber
- Allan Cuthbertson ... Wilkie
- Maria Perschy... Magda
- Moira Redmond ... Nora Wimmer
Production history
Montgomery Clift and Susannah York in Freud
In 1958, John Huston decided to make a film about the life of the young Sigmund Freud, and asked Jean-Paul Sartre to write a summary of a projected scenario. Sartre submitted a synopsis of 95 pages, which was accepted, but later completed a finished script that, if filmed, would have amounted to a running time of five hours, and that Huston considered far too long. Huston suggested cuts, but Sartre submitted an even longer script of eight hours, justifying the even longer version by saying, "On peut faire un film de quatre heures s’il s’agit de Ben Hur, mais le public de Texas ne supporterait pas quatre heures de complexes" ("We can make a film of four hours in the case of Ben Hur, but the Texas public couldn't stand four hours of complexes.").[3] Huston and Sartre quarrelled, and Sartre withdrew his name from the film's credits.[1]
Background
The film heavily compresses events, cases and acquaintances early in Freud's career, spanning from his work at the Vienna General Hospital under Theodor Meynert during the mid-1880s, through his research into hysteria and his seduction theory along with Breuer, up until his development of infantile sexuality and the Oedipus complex around the turn of the century that became the basis for his fundamental Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, first published in 1905.
The character of Cecily Körtner is based upon a number of early patients of Freud's, most notably Anna O. but also Dora and others. Similarly, the character of Josef Breuer and his role as mentor and friend in Freud's life as portrayed by Larry Parks is in fact a combination of the real Breuer with Wilhelm Fliess.
Reception
Critical reception
Accolades
Freud was nominated for two Academy Awards at the 35th Academy Awards: Best Original Screenplay (lost to Divorce, Italian Style), and Best Original Score (lost to Lawrence of Arabia). Among other awards, the film was also nominated for 4 Golden Globes: Best Motion Picture - Drama, Best Motion Picture Actress - Drama (Susannah York), Best Motion Picture Director (John Huston), and Best Supporting Actress (Susan Kohner).
Reception in France
Élisabeth Roudinesco comments that Freud: The Secret Passion, "did not have any success. And yet the black and white photography of Douglas Slocombe recaptures superbly the baroque universe of fin de siècle Vienna. As for Montgomery Clift, he portrays an anguished, somber and fragile Freud, closer to the James Dean of Rebel without a Causethan to the mummified figure imposed by the official historians of psychoanalysis: a character, in any event, more Sartrean than Jonesian. The work was distributed to the movie houses of Paris at the beginning of June 1964, two weeks before Lacan's foundation of the Ėcole freudienne de Paris. It went completely unnoticed by the psychoanalysts of Paris, who failed to find in it the hero of their imagination."[1] Sartre did not see the film.[8]
Soundtrack
The mostly dissonant, atonal score to Freud was one of the earliest works by composer Jerry Goldsmith. It garnered Goldsmith his first Oscar nomination, which he lost to the score Lawrence Of Arabia that was done by fellow rookie composer Maurice Jarre, who, like Goldsmith, would go on to become one of the film industry's most successful and respected composers. The "Main Title" from Freud, as well as the tracks Charcot's Show and Desperate Case[9] were later purchased and reused without consent of Goldsmith by director Ridley Scott for the acid blood scene and others in the film Alien (1979), also scored by Goldsmith.[10]
Home media
Having previously been unavailable in any home media format for half a century, Freud: The Secret Passion was eventually released in the UK by Transition Digital Media in a 1.78:1 letter-boxed, non-anamorphic 4:3 format, on a Region 2 DVD edition on April 23, 2012.
See also
References
- ^ a b c Roudinesco, Elisabeth. Jacques Lacan & Co: A History of Psychoanalysis in France, 1925-1985. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990, p. 166
- ^ "IMDB.com: Awards for Freud: The Secret Passion". imdb.com. Retrieved February 13, 2010.
- ^ Sartre, Le Scénario, 10; Scenario. viii.
- ^ Isaac, Tim (2012). Freud (DVD), Big Gay Picture Show, April 23, 2012
- ^ Alien landscapes - A UK region 2 DVD review of FREUD, Cineoutsider.com, May 28, 2012
- ^ Schwartz, Dennis (2006). FREUD (aka: Freud: The Secret Passion), Dennis Schwartz's Movie Reviews, March 9, 2006
- ^ Freud, passions secrètes (1962) de John Huston, Le Monde, June 13, 2012 (translated from French)
- ^ Cohen-Solal, Annie. Sartre: A Life. London: William Heinemann Ltd, 1987, p. 385
- ^ Kirgo, Julie (2009). Booklet to the 2009 Deluxe Edition of the OST to Freud, published by Varèse Sarabande Records and USI B Music Publishing (BMI)
- ^ Alien soundtrack review at Filmtracks.com. Retrieved February 22, 2011.
Further reading
- Holland, Norman N. (1994). John Huston, Freud, 1962 (adapted essay from an earlier version published in How to See Huston's Freud: Perspectives on John Huston, Ed. Stephen Cooper. Perspectives on Film Series. New York: G. K. Hall, 1994. 164-83.)
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