A Dangerous Method (David Cronenberg, 2011)

[knives]

Rather quiet on this one. Sad to see such a good film fly under the radar. Anyway who knew that it would take a period piece chamber film for Cronenberg to make another Cronenberg film? That's not to say his past two films aren't great, they are, but A Dangerous Method sees his exploration of the human psyche through sexuality being pushed to it's limits. This really hearkens back to Shivers territory where the normal and sane appearing individuals manage to become more human in destroying themselves and letting the monster out. As the film itself so beautifully puts it the ego attempts to protect itself from the sexual release that would provide the ultimate transformation. I'm not sure if I personally agree with all of that and other ideas that Cronenberg seems to approve and dismiss in equal measure, but it's fascinating all the same.

Another truly great aspect to the film is the editing and cinematography which might be the best I've seen in years. In many ways it's controlled and basic. There are no Aronofsky type flourishes that make you have to pay attention to the film. No, Cronenberg is mature enough to work with how the material needs to be, but all the same he promotes his ideas and characters through simple lensing and cuts. The film itself is not perfect on a scripted level, but every edit gives the feeling that each frame is essential. There's no better way to show this script. For instance in the early scenes between Fassbinder and Knightley the camera seems to cut to just three places. Covering them both and close-ups of each, but each cut is not alike and speaks different volumes. Occasionally during the master shot for example Fassbender will be out of focus while other times it will be done like a DePalma film. There's no sense of arbitration in that either. To paraphrase from the film again nothing is accidental.

That includes the four central performances which are all amazing. I'm particularly shocked that Vincent Cassell's small role hasn't garnered a lot of praise. It's only a handful of scenes comprising a minuscule amount of the runtime, but he takes over the film as he takes over the story and lingers like a poisonous shadow as the object of change that he is. It's shocking and effective. Likewise Knightley gives her best performance yet (though she sounds like a German Sean Connery sometimes) as the one person comfortable with her innate insanity. There's a jittery complexity to her contortions (and not just the physical ones that's applaud worthy. Fassbender, by the way, continues his winning streak as the Jude Law of 2011. Seriously if he doesn't get some oscar noms for something, even Shame, than the system will be even more broke than usual. He embodies the pettiness of the character with this quiet dignity that never becomes too big, but also never sinks into the background. It's the perfect sort of leading performance for this film. Mortensen basically plays Christophe Waltz in the least impressive performance of the film that still manages to be truly great and fantastic. He creates that right feeling of contradictions that the script needs to feel real to work. This is a man who's genius isn't constantly being stopped by his pettiness. The film has enough perfect moments that even when it doesn't succeed there's a feeling of the movie working.

[Grand Illusion]

This is indeed a fantastic film. Unabashedly intelligent, it feels no need to dumb down the material. The script focuses on how people are shaped by their philosophies and vice versa. The moments where Freud is trying to groom an Aryan heir so that psychoanalysis can be legitimized are captivating.

Also, the small bits where Jung is shown to be from an entirely different (monied) class separate his life experience from that of Freud and Spielrein in meaningful ways (leading up to the stark contrast in their fates on the end title cards). Jung's got it easy. No wonder he believes in magic.

But Cronenberg makes no such judgments. The film is perfectly removed from the subjects and seems earnestly interested in these people. And there are definitely Cronenbergian touches about how our minds are enthralled by our bodies. Don't let reviews tell you otherwise.

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I'm thinking specifically of the shot of Spielrein's fascination with her virgin's blood vis-a-vis her theories on sex and identity.

But the film also isn't just a boring history lesson. While it took me a while to get into Knightley's performance, all the players are great, including Cassel. I would actually disagree slightly with knives and say that Viggo Mortensen steals the show as a dry, witty, and razor-sharp Freud, keenly aware of everything, including his own legacy. This is probably the smartest film I've seen in years.

[Jack Phillips]

I would actually disagree slightly with knives and say that Viggo Mortensen steals the show as a dry, witty, and razor-sharp Freud, keenly aware of everything, including his own legacy.

In fact, good as the other performances are, Mortensen's is the one where I completely lost sight of the actor and saw only the character (I guess the beard helped).

Something weird happened while watching Fassbender do Jung, though. I kept thinking I was watching Christopher Plummer doing Jung. But maybe that was because I'd just seen Plummer in Dragon Tattoo.

[jbeall]

Under the radar or not even on the radar? I've been wanting to see this ever since I heard Cronenberg/Mortensen/Fassbender were attached to the project, but it's not playing anywhere near me. Is it slated for wider release in the near future?

[knives]

It's Sony Classic so it's probably not going to go too wide, but here's a schedule. Also want to note that I agree that Mortensen did a great job, just befuddled as to why he seems to be singled out compared to the rest of the great performances on display here.

[hearthesilence]

Hope it gets a wider audience, maybe a few Oscar nominations will help. (The last two Cronenberg films nabbed a few major ones, so who knows?) It's kind of ridiculous how films like these have been marginalized by Hollywood distribution - the grosses and number of exhibiting theaters keep getting smaller and smaller each year.

[jbeall]

It's Sony Classic so it's probably not going to go too wide, but here's a schedule. Also want to note that I agree that Mortensen did a great job, just befuddled as to why he seems to be singled out compared to the rest of the great performances on display here.

Hm. Nowhere within 90 miles on that list. Crap.

[LQ]

It's been a number of months since I've seen it now, but I remain less enthused about the film than others here. I certainly thought the performances were great, especially Knightley's considering what I've seen of her in the past, and I loved the all-too-brief interlude with Cassel. However, the film read like an entry in a dusty encyclopedia in that it was devoid of any cinematic drama, pathos, zest, outside of Sabina's unbridled gnashing. It also seemed way too broad (or again, "encyclopedic") for the sort of intimate, knotty relationships presented in the film. There's so much gold there, I only wish Cronenberg had mined deeper.

Ebert Presents contributor Kartina Richardson's thoughts on the film. Short, but ahem, definitely interesting, and perhaps more provocative than the entire movie that inspired it. Whether you agree with her or not, gotta admit she has quite a knack for exploring the senses in cinema.

[Alan Smithee]

Wow I haven't seen the new At the Movies but Kartina Richardson is definitely a far cry from Ben Lyons.

edit: But after looking her up I have to say she is incredibly uncomfortable in front of the camera.

[mfunk9786]

Really? I always enjoy her pieces, I think she just has a very deliberate manner of speaking. Maybe I'm wrong, though.

[LQ]

edit: But after looking her up I have to say she is incredibly uncomfortable in front of the camera.

I agree with mfunk, I find her on-screen presence to be extremely confident and yes, deliberate. Her segments on Ebert Presents, although infrequent, are always very memorable and welcomed due to what she's saying, but also in large part to how she's saying it.

Although, she could recite the phone book to me and I'd still be charmed.

[triodelover]

edit: But after looking her up I have to say she is incredibly uncomfortable in front of the camera.

I agree with mfunk, I find her on-screen presence to be extremely confident and yes, deliberate. Her segments on Ebert Presents, although infrequent, are always very memorable and welcomed due to what she's saying, but also in large part to how she's saying it.

Although, she could recite the phone book to me and I'd still be charmed.

Her blog is a recent discovery for me (though Ebert's site) and I've found her voice - both in her writing and the filmed bits - captivating and refreshing. And yes, a great deal has to do with how she says it.

[Highway 61]

I unabashedly loved this. I wasn't expecting much. Eastern Promises disappointed me, and the trailer for this made it look like a caricature of Cronenberg's work. But this turned out to be the director's best since eXistenZ, perhaps even since Naked Lunch.

It's so refreshing to see a movie featuring characters talking about ideas that can also function as riveting entertainment on a dreary winter evening. Cronenberg deserves a lot of credit for keeping the whole affair lean and understated and never dumbing down the material. It reminds me very much of The Fly in that Cronenberg trims out all the fat and allows the drama to come almost exclusively from character interaction and development. He receives plenty of support from his four leads who are all terrific. I disagree with Knives when he says Viggo was the weakest of the quartet. He's terrific at portraying Freud as likable and charming, yet every bit the domineering authority you imagine him to be.

Finally, it's also fun to watch Cronenberg and Suschitzky experiment with split-diopter compositions. This is the only film I can think of that makes such extensive use of the technique aside from De Palma. And unlike De Palma, Cronenberg seems to prefer to integrate the two halfs as seamlessly as possible, which I think is so much more effective.

[Reliakor]

The film did a very effective job of conveying the excitement of discovery occurring during this period of psychoanalysis' inception, and I thought the performances all accomplished. What really fascinates me about Cronenberg is how dense he manages to make his 99/100 minute films feel.

[dad1153]

Caught it Wednesday night at the Lincoln Plaza in NYC. I can't believe Michael Fassbender gets third-billing (though Keira Knightley gets appropriate top billing) in a movie in which he's in almost every scene and his performance walks such a tightrope between intellectual honesty and the need to fulfill (and repress) the very emotions his character is so invested in studying/analyzing. If being the Christopher Reeve of "A Dangerous Method" helps Fassbinder score a Best Supporting Actor nomination then I'm all for it because I so want 'The Year of Fassbender' to at least score some award accolades (haven't seen "Shame" yet). Vincent Cassell is hilarious in his muse-like couple of scenes that upend Jung's facade of normalcy with Sabina. I wasn't initially impressed by Viggo's take on Freud (second billing?) but, sitting on it for a couple of days, I've come to appreciate the seductive persona that Cronenberg and Mortensen craft as a catalyst that drives both Spielrein and Jung professionally and sexually off their rocker without compromising everybody's remarkable academic achievements. Ironically, despite being the top-billed actor, Keira's take on Sabina Spielrein (her arc is a validation of the theories being discussed by both nacent schools of psychotherapy) is interesting but also the least individual portion of "A Dangerous Method" by virtue of the narrative's highlight being the handful of meetings between Jung and Freud. Spielrein ends up becoming the emotional/sexual volleyball being tossed back and forth between the Freud and Jung characters, effectively making Knightley a supporting actress in a movie in which she gets top billing (as she should since Keira manages to exude and verbalize the aspects of Sabina's personality/sexuality that would crack Carl's professional/repressed wall).

As the son of a psychologist that grew up attending college classes (in Spanish) when my mother couldn't find a babysitter I was familiar with everything discussed/shown in the movie. And yet, by virtue of its setting (the birth of psychoanalysis) and format (basically an intellectually-erotic love tringle between the three leads in which Freud "watches" from afar) I can't recall a movie in which conversations about sex are more seductive and erotic than the handful of actual sex scenes we're shown. Despite some dodgy come-and-go accents (particularly Knightley's) Cronenberg scores a ton of dramatic and (dare I say it?) romantic mileage out of material that could have been either neutered and/or uninteresting in the wrong hands. The next-to-final scene when

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Jung points to the pregnant Spielrein and laments it isn't his child she's carrying

broke me since the full weight of the decisions Jung had made was worn on his stressed face. Love the bookends of the movie showing how Sabina came/went into-out of Jung's life in different-yet-similar states of mind, although the

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"Godfather 2"-like ending, right down to the dolling into the troubled lead's face

was a peculiar way to end the movie. It's as if Cronenberg didn't know how to close the show so he remembered why he liked that classic movie and just copied it.

Despite all that this is easily Cronenberg's best movie of the past decade. Highway 61 is correct that, as in "Dead Ringers," Cronenberg and his DP have come up with technical experimentation (split-diopters without an out-of-focus section, especially when Jung first treats Spielrein by talking to her from behind, which makes me wonder whether they just spliced together a normal shot with a foreground shot-on-green-screen) that doesn't feel as in-your-face as when Fincher does it in "Social Network" or "Zodiac." I hope Fassbender does another Cronenberg movie and becomes his next Viggo from now on.

[Alan Smithee]

Really? I always enjoy her pieces, I think she just has a very deliberate manner of speaking. Maybe I'm wrong, though.

I could see that. I definitely like her and I'm gonna check out the new At the Movies.

The film did a very effective job of conveying the excitement of discovery occurring during this period of psychoanalysis' inception, and I thought the performances all accomplished. What really fascinates me about Cronenberg is how dense he manages to make his 99/100 minute films feel.

I agree completely. Obviously a 10 hour film can be as good as a 2 hour film but I often use Cronenberg as my example for the special power a concise, well executed 90 minute film can have.

[Jack Phillips]

The next-to-final scene when

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Jung points to the pregnant Spielrein and laments it isn't his child she's carrying

broke me since the full weight of the decisions Jung had made was worn on his stressed face.

I thought this was the film's only misstep, an attempt to insert a movie-moment into what was an otherwise immaculate recreation of historical events (I blame Christopher Hampton). Speilrein's personal connection to Freud and Jung was unknown to the world until her correspondence was discovered in the 1970s. That connection had been suppressed, as John Kerr makes clear in his book.

Of all the important people who later wished Speilrein forgotten, none had so desperately pressing reasons as did Jung. Speilrein had been closest to him during that personal transformation that first made Jung into a Freudian. Likewise, she had been at the center of the sudden squall of distrust that led to the break with Freud. Ultimately, she alone was in a position to provide the missing biographical keys linking Jung's earlier endeavors with his later ones.

Jung didn't want this information floating about free of his control, and he was no doubt relieved when Spielrein disappeared back to Russia.

So, not only is the notion that

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Jung would lament the fact that he and Speilrein hadn't had a child together ridiculous, the idea that he had taken up with his second mistress as a way to "commemorate" and perpetuate his relationship with Speilrein

is even more outlandishly nonesensical.

[knives]

It fits with the themes of the movie though and that's more important than historical accuracy at least to point number two that you make.

[Jack Phillips]

The final scene could have been made to be both thematically congruent and historically accurate (and dramatically satisfying, come to that). As it is now, it screams out "movie ending."

[dad1153]

And given how great the movie that came before that ending is (which I'll grant you is a conventional cinematic ending but I still thought it delivered good pathos... I was crying) I can live with it and still consider the whole of "A Dangerous Method" one of my favorite movies of the year.

[matrixschmatrix]

The next-to-final scene when

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Jung points to the pregnant Spielrein and laments it isn't his child she's carrying

broke me since the full weight of the decisions Jung had made was worn on his stressed face.

I thought this was the film's only misstep, an attempt to insert a movie-moment into what was an otherwise immaculate recreation of historical events (I blame Christopher Hampton). Speilrein's personal connection to Freud and Jung was unknown to the world until her correspondence was discovered in the 1970s. That connection had been suppressed, as John Kerr makes clear in his book.

Of all the important people who later wished Speilrein forgotten, none had so desperately pressing reasons as did Jung. Speilrein had been closest to him during that personal transformation that first made Jung into a Freudian. Likewise, she had been at the center of the sudden squall of distrust that led to the break with Freud. Ultimately, she alone was in a position to provide the missing biographical keys linking Jung's earlier endeavors with his later ones.

Jung didn't want this information floating about free of his control, and he was no doubt relieved when Spielrein disappeared back to Russia.

So, not only is the notion that

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Jung would lament the fact that he and Speilrein hadn't had a child together ridiculous, the idea that he had taken up with his second mistress as a way to "commemorate" and perpetuate his relationship with Speilrein

is even more outlandishly nonesensical.

I don't think your logic follows at all- what we see is an intensely personal moment, one in which Jung is speaking not out of his rational desire to advance his views and his personal celebrity, but in which he is conscious of the change that has come about him and the intensity of his connection to Speilrein.

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While he certainly may have had no interest in promoting her within his professional life, that doesn't make the personal connection we see ring false- regretting that he could not sacrifice his safety and ambition to pursue his relationship with Speilrein, regretting that the child could not have been his, regretting his loss of the both of the key relationships we see in the film. I think the movie may have struck the note slightly more heavily than necessary (it always feels a little forced when someone says of events we've seen that they were the most important in the speaker's life) I don't think it's overall an unnecessarily forced or Hollywood moment, nor does it conflictwith the fact that Jung later totally suppressed the existence of the relationship.

I enjoyed the movie immensely- I liked how unabashedly intellectual the construction of the movie was, and I liked the very Cronenbergian way in which the desires of the flesh and intellectual connections coincided. I went in with very little interest in the early history of psychoanalysis, and something of a dislike for Freud, but I found myself utterly engrossed and very charmed by the subtle, dry humor Mortensen brought to the role. And certainly, I liked the subtlety with which some of the major themes were developed- the distance between Jews and Aryans in the world we see, Jung's blindness to the trappings of his own class, Freud's slow ossification from a man who believes he is opening a door to a new field to a man who can brook no disagreement with his interpretations- it's absolutely something I need to watch again, just for the beautifully wrought sense of time and place, which are achieved without ever making the thing feel like a Weinstein-esque 'heartwarming' and conventional biopic.

I found Knightly's performance distracting at first- the fits her character throws seemed somewhat self conscious and actorly- but post cure, I thought she was marvelous, projecting a fascinating combination of brittle fragility and aggressiveness, playing what could in another film have resolved into a victim or a bitchy Other Woman without ever falling in either direction, nor losing the keen sense of intelligence nearly everyone in the movie had. My thoughts are still somewhat inchoate at the moment, but this is a movie it is absolutely worth going out of your way to see.

[John Cope]

An excellent interview with Cronenberg on his life and career with special mention, of course, of A Dangerous Method.

[dad1153]

^^^ Thanks for that link. Love Cronenberg's not-subtle swipe at Dan O'Bannon for stealing ideas from "Shivers" for "Alien," calling John Landis a 'genre freak' and the story behind how "Spider" got made for very little money ('I didn't!' actually made me laugh out loud).

[Luke M]

Saw this today and echo matrixschmatrix's thoughts. I wish this were getting more recognition.

[matrixschmatrix]

she definitely remains the real lead, one of Cronenberg's surely too few brilliantly heroic women.

Yeah, I think with Speilrein as with, say, Geena Davis in The Fly we get portraits of women who are both intellectual and sexual without either diminishing the other, and without the sense of sexuality feeling like a display for the viewer. There are definitely Cronenberg movies with women central to them that aren't particularly impressive characterizations- Maria Bello's History of Violence character seemed fairly thin- but I think it's an area where Cronenberg has the capacity to shine.