A Dangerous Method -- David Cronenberg/Viggo Mortensen's latest

i mean he could have been the limo driver or something

i know i want these dudes to make movies together until theyre both really old

cronenberg is already pushing into oldness, but he looks good for his age (68 i think).

and yes re. art direction. the contrast b/t jung's office (and home) and freud's home was effective, i think. it rhymed with the way freud accuses of jung of being a hypocrite for proclaiming his normalcy so loudly while being as fucked up as anyone else.

i think the last third of the movie could have actually used an extra 10–15 minutes just to clarify the evolving dynamics b/t the three main characters.

oh wow i didn't realize he was that old

he's been doin' it for 35-40 years after all

more than 40. first quasi-feature was in 1969.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereo_(film)

yeah I saw Stereo, didn't recall the year

i don't think 'dry' is the word, because it was very glossy, but i found this so stifling. & i thought keira was really good, but that how expressive or affecting she could be was limited because it was so leaden. i just didn't understand why the veneer of formality was totally necessary, like the scene on the ferry. someone says something charged & a bassoon blows & a piano tinkles for a moment. i felt like i was reading the novelisation of a film, it was so piecemeal, so ornate. i enjoyed the freudian psych 101 but that was the only register in which it connected for me, as a kinda didactic learning appendix rather than as an engaging or cinematic portrait.

did I mention already on this thread how much I enjoyed freud's office - amazing art direction

― the jazz zinger (s1ocki), Thursday, February 16, 2012 11:12 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark

yea totes

what did people think about the digitally composited boat scenes?

― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Thursday, February 16, 2012 11:08 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark

you mean jung's boat?

no when they take the boat to america

"jung's boat" sounds like an indie band from 1988

freud's pipe

otto's ladder

i liked this it was pretty good. i feel i'll have to rewatch because on reflection my judgement of keira knightley's performance was probably unfairly tinted by the ott-ness of the first few scenes where her jaw was doing all the acting. it felt a bit slight and maybe wasn't quite fleshed out enough to work as a character study, but as biopics go i'd rather have scenes of p unfiltered psychoanalytic chat for some reason than scene after scene of expository ~major events~.

so Viggo's next role is as William Burroughs/Old Bull Lee in On the Road...?

i think the exaggerated quality of knightley's performance in the first reel was calculated -- it demonstrates how far she's progressed thanks (in part) to her sessions w/ jung. and it allows her to play her later scenes a bit "wiggy" without seeming too mannered -- since she then seems positively normal compared to those first scenes.

Was going to see this in Memphis today, but we're going to stick close to home while the ugly weather passes through the area, and go tomorrow instead.

YOUR CHILDREN ARE GLORIOUS

this was good but i never got a handle on what was keeping the spark alive between jung and spielrein, which is a shame because it's the pivot of the whole movie

i also didn't really buy her as a gifted thinker, which it seems the real spielrein was

****SPOILERS AND SHIT****

i agree with your first point. i cringed a bit when jung delivered the money line, "you're the only one i've ever truly loved." i don't mind that it's, as they say in these parts, on the nose. but it does seem to reduce a fairly complex and ambiguous story into something a bit too neat. there's no way to know whether we're to take that pronouncement as definitive, but seeing as it's stuck in the ultimate scene it's hard to know what else to do w/ it.

btw i don't know if that quote is verbatim but it's not far off.

felt like this movie needed a narrower focus to avoid feeling shallow in its approach to everything - is it a movie about psychoanalysis, or a romance between jung & spielrein, or an account of jung & freud's friendship, or a jung biopic...? i dont think it really does justice to any of these elements

the freud/jung stuff was most interesting to me

me too, cuz freud was by far the most fascinating character in the movie

i did kind of enjoy the sort of... confused and sour note it ended on with jung sitting there. which made a genuinely interesting contrast with the "whatever happened to..." titles before the credits.

do you think that's just b/c of viggo's general charisma and awesomeness or do you think it was a more interestingly written character?

xpost

YES

That Freud is the more interesting writer and thinker, in my judgment, comes through in Viggo's perf.

i think the jung character comes across by far as the least self-possessed, or maybe we could say having the least self-knowledge of the three. at the same time he's not nearly as enigmatic as freud, who seems to see through everything.

everyone looked v nice in the movie, excellent interior decore, good clothes, vv strage performance by keira knightley

think everyone likes the Freud/Jung stuff the best. Might not have been quite as interesting if it was the whole movie though. It's a perfect role for Viggo really, he can just pop up occasionally smirking and waving his cigar around and put the other actors in the shade

the end shot w/jung sitting there immediately brought to mind the final shot of eastern promises

i think i mentioned this already but a woman behind me yelped out 'WHAT??' when it went to black on that shot

'NO!!!!'

POOP!

yeah it felt early, like there was something else to come. nothing was resolved!

it moved along very quickly for a 100-minute movie, didn't it?

nothing was resolved!

just like psychotherapy amirite? and a full 100-minute session.

I would love to see more movies that happen in an early 20c medical environment. That whole era of leather straps and brass plates is horrifying and amazing.

Thought this was quite good. As I've mentioned on this and other threads, I haven't liked a Cronenberg film since Dead Ringers. I remember reading an interview with him sometime in the '90s, and it was like he'd developed a chip on his shoulder in terms of the industry and the general public not properly appreciating his films--not a good position from which an artist to do his work, if you ask me. Maybe some of the accolades for A History of Violence (didn't like it) and Eastern Promises (didn't see it) helped him move past that, I don't know, but it felt like he was really in control here. My knowledge of the principals and the subject matter is very basic, and that probably helped--someone who knows more might find inaccuracies and simplifications. Cronenberg's an exceptionally smart guy, though, and I trust him to be careful about that. Keira Knightley should have been up for all the awards--there's a ferociousness to her performance that's very unsettling, especially in the early scenes (more muted but still present towards the end). Viggo Mortensen wasn't quite how I imagine Freud--more wry than severe--but he and Fassbender are good. The (brief) flagellation scenes were the only part of the film that struck me as obvious, but I suppose they have to be there. My favourite Cronenberg film is The Dead Zone; I'm probably the rare person who think he gets better when he reins it in a bit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uEBuqkkQRk

I'm probably the rare person who think he gets better when he reins it in a bit.

If I'm interpreting "reins it in" correctly, I'm with you. Reined-in Cronenberg: all the eighties films after Videodrome, Naked Lunch and the two most recent ones. M. Butterfly is where reined-in just looked like repression, however.

I should clarify that...He had a habit of sticking in really gross stuff past the point where I didn't think he needed it anymore: the ending of Videodrome (mostly excellent), the ending of The Fly (ditto), parts of Naked Lunch (not a fan). He reminded me of Husker Du trying to force hardcore onto Zen Arcade at a point where I didn't think they needed that anymore either. Again, most Husker Du fans disagree.

My favorite Mould project is Sugar so...

Those Husker Du folks had their moments.

http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2193-notes-from-a-videodrome-test-screening

LOOOOOOL

"more plot"

Coming to this as someone who hasn't really seen what the fuss is about w/Cronenberg since Crash (and Videodrome as a film he won't better) things seem to be on the up again: liked Eastern Promises a lot and this was quite good. Never thought I'd say he'd be good at costume dramas but there you go.

Don't get the 'nothing ws resolved', and not sure it was the pont. Because like psychoanalysis at that point in time it left all the main actors in a state of flux, right? The discipline took off, but was it going to shake off its scpetics? It was developing its sidelines: child psychology on one end, its links to mysticism at the other; and attracting all sorts of 'characters', which was terrifically done by Cassel's Otto. The film sorta ended just in time, ws getting a tad bored with all the letters and it was clear that all relatinships weren't going anywhere except a link to the talking cure that they helped establish.

This is Keira's first great role. The early scenes were fine as someone desperate to tear her body apart than breathe a second longer, and she sorta maintained that edge in the tightly controlled scenes later on, as if she wasn't entirely cured. Terrific.

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