A Dangerous Method
David Cronenberg
2011
This is a grown-up movie about grown-up things for grown-ups. It’s talky talky talky, which makes sense, since it’s about the birth of talk therapy. It’s also a lot more than that.
It’s pretty exciting to see what apparently is a pretty painstakingly accurate depiction of the early days of psychotherapy (accurate if David Cronenberg is to be believed, and who knows about that). Freud was wrong about a ton of things, but he did get the ball rolling, at least, and I find it fascinating to see Freud and Jung tossing ideas around and being really quite concerned about the reaction of the rest of the world to what they were doing, which was revolutionary.
And this is Cronenberg, so of course there are a whole lot of deeply uncomfortable and conflicted feelings about sex. Keira Knightley’s Sabina Spielrein is extraordinary and intense and sometimes terrifying, and Cronenberg not only doesn’t tell you how to feel about her, he’s got ways to make you feel a lot of different ways about her. It’s clear that her sexuality has been deeply affected by her earlier abuse– this makes you feel uncomfortable. But it’s also clear that she’s doing things that she very much wants to do, and expressing her sexuality in ways that seem very much not to have been acceptable, which also makes her kind of a liberator. That she goes on to become a psychotherapist herself seems pretty relevant, too.
And speaking of extraordinary actors– I’m not sure we think of Viggo Mortensen that way, but look at these three movies that he’s done with Cronenberg: A History of Violence, Eastern Promises, A Dangerous Method. Could there be three more different parts?* And he absolutely nails all three.
I’m really entertained that, of all the movies Cronenberg has done, he says that this one is far and away the heaviest on digital effects. Pretty much every scene is people sitting around and talking. But it turns out that a lot of the landmarks are computer-generated– the houses in the background, Lake Geneva through the window, the bridge over the river. It’s pretty amazing.
There’s a lot going on here, there are a lot of layers. This post could be very, very long, even though I’ll stop it now. They do make movies for adults, and we should appreciate them.
*Probably, but you see what I mean.
I didn’t know about the special effects. It has been a while since I watched (and liked) this movie, but now that you mention it, the outdoor scenery seemed incredibly authentic. Nice review, Fletcher.
Indeed, Keira Knightley did make me uncomfortable, but maybe not for the same reasons you enumerated. Her initial scene looked to me as if she were trying too hard to be crazy, which colored my perception of her for the rest of the movie. I had difficulty thinking of her as anything other than an actress playing a part. And I’m a big Keira Knightley fan. Freud and Jung were brilliantly played, even in an understated way, which made for a counterpoint to Knightley’s chewing of the scenery. I enjoyed the hell out of this movie, and I’m glad you did, as well.
That’s interesting, I definitely didn’t feel that way about her. Her crazy was SO crazy, and more than that, so grotesque, that it went way past taking me out of the movie and just made it really hard to watch. Which was probably part of the idea. That’s a nice point about the counterpoint of Freud/Jung vs. Spielrein. This was a really good movie.
By the way, The Courteeners still rock.
Freud was wrong about a lot of things? OK, smarty-pants, name two.
1) All the sex stuff.
2) Repression.
Christopher Hampton is an amazing writer, dramatist (playwright, lyricist, librettist) and screenwriter. Directors do not write. This project we originated for Julia Roberts 15 years ago. The book contends Sabina and Jung did not have sex, but their letters prove they did. Otherwise the Jung Foundation could and would have sued and stopped the film. I know all this, I am responsible for the life of the project and its first producer, long before Cronenburg found our play in a bookshop. I got the shelved script turned into a play because I so loved the story of Sabina S and would not let it die. David Cronenburg never saw our play THE TALKING CURE, brilliantly written by Hampton, and acted by Ralph Fiennes. I am credited as Associate Producer on film, and was against the title change, which was confusing to audiences. It merely sold a lot of books for the author who did not do his research very well. Yes, Viggo is absolutely amazing. He is a consummate actor. I wanted our film to be called what it was titled and meant to be: THE TALKING CURE. Yourtube “A DANGEROUS METHOD THE UNTOLD STORY”, 8 mns short by me, Tiana Alexandra-Siliphant on TIANAWORLD.COM.
Except for diretors who write! Like SILVER LININGS a MUST SEE! RE THE TALKING CURE/ A DANGEROUS METHOD: Your review got me going! 20TH Century Fox have yet to thank me, they got well over a million dollars for doing NOTHING. A lot of good scripts sit on shelves in hands of lawyers, and worse, forgotten. I did my best to bring it to life. (Thanks? Dont mention it!) Christopher Hampton will direct our play in German re-titled (here we go again) A Dark Desire in German: Eine Dunkle Begierde at the Josephtaad theater in VIENNA 2014. Glad you enjoyed the film, it has been a long arduous road. Pirated by all, even before our VENICE PREMIERE. I was there. Thanks to you, I will post the pix & clips. Read our play THE TALKING CURE on Amazon & Samuel French, etc, published by Faber & Faber UK, who has our latest play APPOMATTOX spans about Lincoln and LBJ — who was Shakespearean! FB our page Christopher Hampton & Tiana Alexandra Projects