Freud (1962)

Director:

John Huston

Writers:

Charles Kaufman (screenplay)
Charles Kaufman (story)

Release Date:

12 December 1962 (USA)

Genre:

Biography | Drama

Plot:

This pseudo-biographical movie depicts 5 years from 1885 on in the life of the Viennan psychologist Freud (1856-1939)...

Plot Keywords:

Psychoanalysis | Character Name In Title

Awards:

Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 7 nominations

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 Fürst	...	Herr Jacob Koertner
Alexander Mango	...	Babinsky
Leonard Sachs	...	Brouhardier
Eric Portman	...	Dr. Theodore Meynert
John Huston	...	Narrator (voice)
Victor Beaumont	...	Dr. Guber

Also Known As:

Freud: The Secret Passion

Runtime:

120 min (theatrical version) | 140 min (original version)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

West Germany:18 (nf) | Finland:K-16

Filming Locations:

Nymphenburg Palace, Munich, Bavaria, Germany

Company:

Universal International Pictures (UI)

Trivia:

Jean-Paul Sartre wrote the original script at the request of director John Huston, but it was unused as it was too long. It was later published in book form as "The Freud Scenario."

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Don de la duda, El (2006)

Supernatural Phenomena Camouflaged as Psychiatry

The original script was written by the existential philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. It has been significantly changed by other writers before the movie was shot. But we can be sure that it was hardly altered in those respects upon which I shall focus. It is usually assumed that philosophers have undergone a specific training in logical and clear thinking. Hence, Sartre's participation should guarantee that the movie was free from elementary and flagrant errors, whether of a logical or empirical nature. Unfortunately, when their private and favourite ideas are concerned, many philosophers are prepared to throw all logic and clarity overboard. Numerous thoroughly analysed examples can be found, inter alia, in my own academic writings. It is an incidental fact that I have not yet discussed Sartre in print. He is no exception. For some reason he was emotionally attracted by psychoanalysis. Therefore, he opened his mind for all conventional propaganda, and came to perceive Freud in the same mendacious way, in which Freud always tried to present himself, viz. as the lonely and uncompromising searcher for truth who, despite prejudiced resistance from his colleagues, made revolutionary and highly unexpected discoveries.

Some of the lies of this movie can be unmasked by any laymen. Others may need advanced research. I shall start with the latter. Today, no genuine scientist denies that no trace of interesting observations can be found in the writings by Freud or his followers. Much more prominent is their capacity for giving treatment to a patient during as much as 15 years, without detecting conspicuous circumstances which are crucial to therapeutic success, and which a competent clinician could have found out in 15 minutes. (This is not a rhetoric exclamation of mine. Cases of this variety have been thoroughly documented.) Nor is any part of the theory supported by any observations. And despite extensive labour, no one has found a single patient who had been cured or improved by Freud (or by any of his followers). It is a pattern of lies that neurotic symptoms are caused by ‘repression' (involving complete amnesia) of childhood experiences; that psychoanalysts have invented a specific method for lifting repression; and that patients undergoing psychoanalytic treatment will suddenly recollect childhood experiences, which it is absolutely impossible to get access to by any other method. - Michael Yapko has established that 28 % of those licensed psychologists in the U.S. who attend conferences, believe that recollections from the patient's earlier reincarnations can be obtained by means of hypnosis. This fact tells little about patients, hypnosis, or reincarnation. Instead, it tells much about many people who are attracted by the psychological profession.

Let us try out the possibility that every result of modern research about Freud and psychoanalysis is faulty. Can other lies be found in the movie, which will be manifest to any layman? Definitely. In the beginning of his career Freud applied hypnosis in order to unearth experiences which supposedly had caused the symptoms and the disease. This is not a category of misinformation that a layman could expose. But note the subsequent step: Freud abandoned hypnosis and proceeded with non-hypnotic treatment. The movie depicts how patients nevertheless recall the same kind of hitherto repressed events. However, what is the nature of Freud's non-hypnotic treatment? If we may believe the film, it is nothing else than ordinary conversation. Almost all people have often participated in such colloquies. Of course, if I talk with a friend about my school days, I may recall many events I may not have thought of for 40 years, and may gradually recall things I did not recall immediately. But Freud makes it absolutely clear that lifted repression is altogether different from this pattern. He asserts that the variety of recollections he helped forth could never have emerged during ordinary colloquies. - - - If Sartre had applied his capacity for critical thinking, he would have felt that Freud's account COULD NOT be true. And any layman who devoted a few seconds to reflect on the logic of the movie, would have arrived at the same conclusion. In other words, if the movie mirrors the true state of things, the recollections and symptom removals were a kind of supernatural miracles.