Keira Knightley gets edgy for her... (VOGUE)

The Oscar-nominated Keira Knightley is breaking away from her usual demure, corset-wearing acting roles to portray a woman on the psychological brink.

There’s nothing straightforward about a designated meeting place in Venice. Italy’s bejewelled city, full of labyrinthine, intricate alleyways and dead ends, provides a perfect setting to interview Keira Knightley, who inhabits the dark and complex mind of patient-turned-analyst Sabina Spielrein in A Dangerous Method. This drama, set at the turn of the 20th century, is about the turbulent relationship between the great minds of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Known for her period movies, Knightley does the heavy lifting in her portrayal of this little-known Russian woman, responsible for injecting emotional intensity and sexual heat (albeit the disturbing kind) into this otherwise cerebral subject.

During my search for the appointed hotel where the interview will take place, as if in the midst of a Freudian dream, Knightley’s famous visage (promoting Chanel’s latest scent, Coco Mademoiselle) looks out from billboards along the way. Her expression is one of vague amusement. Finally, pushing through the glass doors of the Hotel Danieli, I am enormously relieved to see the Oscar-nominated actress calmly sitting at a table sipping espresso in the corner of the bustling lobby.

At first glimpse, Knightley looks as though she’s stepped out from one of the 17th-century paintings that hang on the surrounding walls. Her hair is dyed a darker hue than usual and, despite her modern blunt bob, which enhances her alarming beauty and dramatic bone structure, her face is simpatico with this gothic-inspired former palace. It’s this old-world quality that has aided her in securing leading roles that necessitate the ability to cross oceans of time


READ MORE OF THE VOGUE ARTICLE:  http://www.vogue.com.au/fashion/vogue+loves/keira+knightley+gets+edgy+for+her+latest+role,17137

Rhoades Review: ‘A Dangerous Method’ is more Jungian than Freudian (The Daily Advance)

By Shirrel Rhoades
The Daily Advance
Tuesday, February 14, 2012

 Sigmund Freud came up with what he called the Talking Cure.

His protégé Carl Jung bought into this dangerous method, but eventually broke off to explore the collective unconscious, telepathy, and areas of the mind that Freud termed mysticism. But according to “A Dangerous Method” the schism was mostly over a woman, a patient that Jung took as his mistress.

 The storyline is historically accurate, a screenplay by Christopher Hampton based on his stage play “The Talking Cure,” which was based on John Kerr’s book called “A Most Dangerous Method,” which was largely based on actual letters between Jung and his estranged mentor. Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung remain cornerstones in the field of psychoanalysis.

And Sabina Spielrein was at first Jung’s hysterical pain-driven patient, later his mistress, then Freud’s pupil, and finally a respected psychoanalyst in her own right – as implausible as that might seem. But as Jung tells her, a doctor must suffer illnesses in order to be able to cure.

 Director David Cronenberg used to be known for his splashy Canadian horror flicks (remember those exploding heads in “Scanners” and the murderous mutant children in “The Brood”?), but he has shown his true mettle in recent years with such films as “Crash” (winner of the Cannes Jury Special Prize), “Naked Lunch” (winner of the New York Film Critics Circle Award), “Dead Ringers” (winner of the Los Angeles Film Critics Award for Best Director), “A History of Violence” (winner of the Chicago Film Critics Award for Best Director), and “Eastern Promises (winner of the Directors Guide of Canada’s Craft Award for Best Direction).

However, “A Dangerous Method” is a far subtler film than Cronenberg’s usual milieu. About the infamous Talking Cure, this is a talky movie. The focus here is on Carl Gustav Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist who pioneered analytical psychology (sometimes called Jungian psychology).

Hot British actor Michael Fassbender portrays Jung as a repressed man, ambitious for fame, competitive with his father figure Freud, but weak of flesh. Twisting and twitching, Keira Knightley eschews her usual delicate beauty to unveil a character’s torturous psyche. Mad, vengeful, yet ultimately wise.

 Practically unrecognizable behind goatee and cigar (“Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar”) we find Viggo Mortensen. He’s downright placid as Sigmund Freud, a far cry from his previous bare-knuckle-action roles for Cronenberg in “A History of Violence” and “Eastern Promises.”

 Read further:http://www.dailyadvance.com/features/rhoades-review-8216a-dangerous-method8217-more-jungian-freudian-914303

Michael Fassbender: Review, "A Dangerous Method' (Ottawa Citizen)

There’s dangerous method acting in this talky film about sexual obsession

By Jay Stone, Postmedia NewsJanuary 12, 2012 9:12 PM

Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley) has a spanking good time with her analyst Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) in A Dangerous Method.

A DANGEROUS METHOD ★★★

Starring: Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley, and Viggo Mortensen
Directed by: David Cronenberg
Rating: 14A (sexual content, adult themes, not suitable for children)
Playing at: ByTowne Cinema, AMC, SilverCity

The cinema of David Cronenberg is consumed by the transformation of bodies and the psychology that follows from that, a genre that resulted in a lot of oozing and bodily fluids in the earlier, wetter films, and much brooding in his later, more mature ones. A Dangerous Method seems like a departure — it’s about the ideas of psychoanalysis as developed by Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung — but around the time that Keira Knightley twists her face into paroxysms of orgasmic pain as she’s being spanked with a belt by Michael Fassbender, we realize that a) the human mind can never be divorced from the body that houses it, and b) Keira Knightley can contort her chin into an alarming forward thrust.

Indeed, Knightley dives so wholeheartedly into hysteria that one has no option but to suppose it must be on purpose. She plays the real-life Sabina Spielrein, a young Russian woman who, in the late 1890s, was transported to the Swiss clinic of Dr. Jung (Fassbender) to see if his new “talking cure” could save her. Sabina screams, laughs, twists her arms and hands into frozen claws, and yawns hugely with the pain of memory: She appears to be suffering from some form of muscular paralysis and a serious case of theatrical overkill.

This isn’t just method acting. It’s dangerous method acting.

It doesn’t take long for Dr. Jung to discover that she has spent her childhood being physically abused by her father, and that she enjoyed it. “I looked for any humiliation,” she recalls, an instant psychotherapeutic breakthrough that you suspect would have taken years under stricter Freudian analysis. “I’m vile, filthy and corrupt.”

Such self-laceration is the beginning of a cure, apparently, although Sabina will never lose her taste for the lash. She becomes the masochistic lover of Dr. Jung, an otherwise calm and measured man whose brand of psychoanalysis also depends on a belief of mysticism: “Catalytic exteriorization phenomenon,” he calls it, when the crack of dry wood occurs just a few minutes after he thought it might. He’s married to a wealthy woman (Sarah Gadon), who does not satisfy his unexpectedly perverse urges. Having a mistress to spank is just the thing.

This adventure in sexual liberty is a metaphor of sorts — the libido meeting the id, perhaps — that occurs under the far-off tutelage of a superego in the person of Freud (Viggo Mortensen). Freud is a father figure to Jung, just as Mortensen is something of a muse to Cronenberg (this is their third film together), and the therapists analyse one another’s dreams with a quick facility. Actually, given the ready-made symbols (that log could be a penis), Freud’s interpretations are almost comically obvious.

The men are at odds, however, in their approaches: Freud is the strict pragmatist, Jung, the quasi-spiritualist. “We’re on our way, bringing them the plague,” Freud says as he and Jung sail into New York City harbour on a visit to the U.S. Unfortunately, they’ve sailed out again by the next scene: A Dangerous Method doesn’t do much with its historical opportunities.

Freud’s disapproval of Jung’s affair seems pretty mild for a man whose field is the complex intricacies of the human soul. The screenplay by Christopher Hampton, based on his play The Talking Cure, portrays a subtle conflict — Freud is jealous of the fact that Jung married a rich woman — that will eventually result in differing approaches to psychiatry. It’s a talky film, but the characters are so rich that even the rhetorical shortcuts are compelling: The human mind is also endlessly fascinating.

The result is a dreamy but somewhat stilted historical document whose sexual obsessions come with the sense of remove that sometimes characterizes Cronenberg’s films. Spielrein, who went on to become an eminent psychiatrist herself, seems pathologically needy, but never very sexual, and Jung’s turmoil comes across as morose opportunism. Mortensen provides some acerbic spark, but the real treat is a small role by Vincent Cassel as Otto Gross, a psychotherapist who believes that indulging all his desires is the road to mental health: He’s an educated rake. “Freud’s obsession with sex has a great deal to do with the fact that he never gets any,” Gross says. Possibly, it’s as simple as that.

Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/Freud+Jung+woman+liked+spanked/5986239/story.html#ixzz1jJVZi0mP

Keira Knightley - Film review of "A Dangerous Method"

Katie Buenneke | October 6, 2011
Theater Editor

"A Dangerous Method" in theaters Nov. 23

David Cronenberg's newest movie, "A Dangerous Method," provides an interesting look at the psychiatric field in the early 1900s.

The film, which follows a young Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) as he first employs Sigmund Freud's (Viggo Mortensen) "talking cure" on a young patient, Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley), provides insight into the beginnings of psychoanalysis. The topic itself could be either incredibly boring or really quite interesting depending on how it's presented, yet the film somehow manages to walk right down the middle. While the movie doesn't necessarily have viewers on the edge of their seats, it still manages to keep their attention.

Part of this is probably due to the pacing. "A Dangerous Method" is a very lingering film, with a general sense of laissez-faire. To some extent, the actors reflect this; both Fassbender and Mortensen deliver lovely, if understated performances.

Keira Knightley's performance is by turns similar to her co-stars' and surprisingly unrealistic. At the beginning of the film, Sabina is afflicted by a mysterious condition, and Knightley seems to only be convincing herself that she is genuinely afflicted — it mostly comes off as an actress playing pretend. However, as the talking cure begins to work on Sabina, Knightley's performance improves drastically. Vincent Cassel makes a dangerously charming appearance as the hedonist Otto Gross.

The real highlight of the movie is the relationship between Jung and Freud. The movie itself does not tell a story so much as offer a look into the lives of these two historic psychologists. Fassbender and Mortensen play off of each other well, illustrating what happens when two great minds collide. Mortensen, in particular (who looks like much more than a decade has passed since his portrayal of Aragorn in "Lord of the Rings"), turns in a very enjoyable performance.

"A Dangerous Method" is a beautiful movie, with incredibly picturesque scenery. However, the editing is choppy at times, which can be disorienting, and the sound mixing is hyperrealistic, slightly detracting from the world of the film. Also, given that the movie takes place over the span of eight years, it is slightly jarring that the appearance of the actors does not change at all (other than when some of the females are pregnant, and babies grow up); Sabina, who begins the film age 18 and ends it 26, looks the exact same throughout.

As a whole, the movie is generally well done, but intangibly disappointing. It's a nice enough film, but nothing really stands out about it.
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Keira Knightley Interview For David Cronenberg’s ‘A Dangerous Method’

Flicks and Bits

 

Keira Knightley Interview For David Cronenberg’s ‘A Dangerous Method’

Drawn from true-life events, David Cronenberg’s ‘A Dangerous Method’ chronicles the turbulent relationships between fledgling psychiatrist Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender), his mentor Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) and Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley), the troubled but beautiful young woman who comes between them. Into the mix comes Otto Gross (Vincent Cassell), a debauched patient who is determined to push the boundaries. In this exploration of sensuality, ambition and deceit set the scene for the pivotal moment when Jung, Freud and Sabina come together and split apart, forever changing the face of modern thought. ‘A Dangerous Method’ is set for release November 23rd in the US, and Febuary 10th in the UK. Check out what Keira Knightley had to say about the film in a quick interview below.
What was the research process for you like on ‘A Dangerous Method,’ to help you understand Sabina more?
Keira Knightley: As soon as I knew I was going to play the part I phoned Christopher Hampton (screenwriter), and said, ‘help!’ He said, ‘alright, come around.’ I thought that he was going to give me a talk for a couple of hours and I’d take notes, which he did, but he also handed me a massive pile of books and said, ‘Read all of those, it’s somewhere in there.’ So I did that, I also found a translation of the diaries and Jung’s notes, Jung biographies, including ‘Memories, Dreams, Reflections.’ Sabina’s diary entries, a lot of that, they were very helpful. Then I spoke to couple of analyses as well, just to get an idea of what exactly hysteria was and what it would come from.

It’s such a frantic and frenetic role, was that a challenge in crafting?
Keira Knightley: It was a very challenging role, I think that was one of the reasons I wanted to play her, because I didn’t know who she was. I think very often when you play characters, there are certain threads that link you, emotionally you can understand exactly what the person went through, with this one I had no frame of reference. But that was what was fascinating and exciting about it. So it really was a question of trying to find logic with what was perceived from the outside to be madness. Because I think as much as she knew that she was ill, there were logical reasons within her for the way she behaved, so it was really about trying to understand what that logic was, and then find out from the inside and build her up. With the help of David Cronenberg, we managed to craft something. It was a very exciting process.

Is it cathartic, in a strange way, playing a role like Sabina?
Keira Knightley Oh yeah, it can be incredibly cathartic, particularly with a role like this. It’s almost strange what a wonderful time we had making this film (laughs). It’s….particularly my character is very dark, so it seems almost perverse that we had such a wonderful and fun time outside that. I think part of that was because you’re going to these incredibly dark places, you’re trying to think of that and it all comes out in that direction, then afterwards you leave it and you go and watch football, have a beer and have a really nice time.
You seem to love acting in historical based films.
Keira Knightley: I do a lot of costume dramas (laughs), I don’t know why, I really just enjoy them. I think it’s a taste thing, I just really enjoy them. I love reading about them, I love history books so it’s a privilege that that’s part of my job.