Showing posts with label sigmund freud. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sigmund freud. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Keira Knightley: English people are obsessed with spanking By MUSIC ROOMS on 04/04/2012
The actress played Sabina Spielrein who has a relationship with her therapist Carl Jung in 'A Dangerous Method' and in one scene she had to be slapped on her butt by her co-star Michael Fassbender, who portrayed Jung. Keira claims she was barely asked about the erotic scenes when promoting the film - which also stars Viggo Mortensen as Sigmund Freud - in every country other than her homeland, which has led her to deduce her countrymen are fetishists.
Speaking to the movie's director David Cronenberg in the new issue of Interview Magazine, she said: "With 'A Dangerous Method' people liked the spanking an awful lot. But I'm not quite sure. It's weird, though, with the spanking.
When we were in Venice, I didn't get asked about it once in however many days we were there ... And then in Toronto I got asked about it a little bit more. But in England, it was pretty much the only thing I got asked about. I'm not quite sure what that says about the English."
READ MORE: http://www.musicrooms.net/celebrity/47262-keira-knightley-english-people-are-obsessed-with-spanking.html
Thursday, March 15, 2012
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
Thursday, March 8, 2012
How Canadian are the Genies in the age of co-production? (CBS NEWS TORONTO)
A Dangerous Method, a film about Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud shot in Austria, and starring three big international stars, is a leading contender for Genie Awards with 11 nominations.
Not only does Canadian David Cronenberg have a nomination for best director, but German star Michael Fassbender and American Viggo Mortensen are in the running for performance awards.
The German-Swiss-British-Canadian co-production is just one of the internationally backed films in line for the Canadian film awards. There’s also The Bang Bang Club, a South African-Canadian film, In Darkness, a Polish-German-Canadian film and The Whisteblower, a German-Canadian film about Bosnia.
Read further: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2012/03/07/videp-stub-genies-copros.html
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
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
Friday, January 13, 2012
Michael Fassbender: Review, "A Dangerous Method' (Ottawa Citizen)
There’s dangerous method acting in this talky film about sexual obsession
Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/Freud+Jung+woman+liked+spanked/5986239/story.html#ixzz1jJVZi0mP
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.
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
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Michael Fassbender on ‘A Dangerous Method’ and Working with Viggo Mortensen and Keira Knightley: “You Get to Heights You Wouldn’t Reach on Your Own”
“I tried to bring in some humor,” he told the Huffington Post in a recent interview promoting the film, which also stars Viggo Mortensen as Jung mentor Sigmund Freud and Keira Knightley as young psychoanalyst Sabina Spielrein. “When we pick Jung up in this portion of his life, he was very ambitious, determined, and insecure. Like anyone who’s starting off with a belief system. But Freud and Jung also both had massive egos. Anyone who questioned their work was dismissed.”
A Dangerous Method, which opened in the U.S. late last month, finds Jung and Freud at a turbulent time in their relationship and is set against the beginning of World War I. The actors who portrayed the influential psychologists got along much better off-screen than their characters did on it.
“These are people at the top of their game. Everyone came to work prepared, did their homework,” Fassbender explained. “We had fun, played around with things. When you’re working with such people, you get to heights you wouldn’t reach on your own.”
Fassbender also talked about how those heights wouldn’t be possible without one film legend in particular. “Steve McQueen — he’s family to me now. He changed my life, giving me the opportunity in (2008’s) Hunger. For me, a thirty-year-old unknown to get a leading role, and somebody willing to take a risk — that was a big deal and allowed me to show potential within the craft. I’m forever indebted.”
Dailyactor
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
One on One: Keira Knightley Talks 'A Dangerous Method'
Hollywood
Before speaking with Keira Knightley about her new movie A Dangerous Method, I took another glance over her lengthy list of previous roles. She's really done a little of everything—action (The Pirates Trilogy), comedy (Bend It Like Beckham), romance (Pride and Prejudice), sci-fi (Never Let Me Go) and a few projects that are nearly unclassifiable (The Jacket). Not surprising, considering she's one of the most versatile, in-demand actresses working today. The real shocking part? She's only twenty-six!With so much of her career ahead of her, it's no wonder why Knightley is branching out, starring in one of the truly daring films of 2011. In Method, the actress co-stars as Sabina Spielrein, a young girl stricken by dementia who finds a cure through her own budding interest in psychoanalytics. Her doctor and mentor is the famed Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender), who helps her overcome her physical and mental issues through correspondence with his own colleague, Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen). Jung and Spielrein's relationship complicates when their work evolves into a lustful romance.
Knightley spoke to me on her day off from a new movie to discuss A Dangerous Method, digging deep into the clouded mind of her character, working with legendary director David Cronenberg and why crafting intense drama doesn't stop her from having a swell time:
I was trying to figure out where you would be exactly, since I believe you're in the middle of filming?
Keira Knightley: I'm in the middle of filming Anna Karenina, but I've actually got the day off. So I'm sitting in Shortage House in London.
Well, extra thanks for talking to me! Your character, Sabina Spielrein, is a real person, ingrained in history. Where did your relationship with her life begin? How much research did you have to do to prepare to embody her?
KK: I'd never heard of her before, so when I read the script, that was the first time I knew anything about her. I thought she was fascinating. But the idea of playing her, I thought, 'Wow this is daunting.' Quite often when you play characters, you understand them on an emotional level. You go, 'OK, she's sad because of this, I get that.' But with her there was really nothing. I had no idea why she would want to behave like that, or what would cause that kind of behavior. So I immediately phoned up Christopher Hampton who wrote the screenplay and the play it was based on. So I phoned him and said, 'I'm going to play it…HELP.'
So I went to his house and he basically handed me an enormous pile of books and he said, 'start reading.' So I spent four months reading as much as I possibly could about the subject. There's actually very little about her, except for the book that the screenplay is based on, by John Kerr (A Most Dangerous Method). And then there was…I was lucky enough to find a book called Sabina Spielrein: Forgotten Pioneer of Psychoanalysis, a collection of essays written about her, and also translations of some of her diary entries and Jung's original notes. So I worked from that for quite a bit, and that was helpful. I also spoke with a couple of psychiatrists, including the one that compiled that book, a Jungian analyst. Just about the nature of what she was suffering from, sadomasochistic personalities, that kind of thing.It was completely fascinating. But when you're playing someone who's mad—I don't like that word—but as much as their behavior to the outside world seems illogical, it's completely logical to them. So you try to answer the questions of why this is the way this person must behave. What has driven them to this particular way?
Considering the state Sabina is in at the beginning the film, was physicality a big part in realizing your character?
KK: No…I think the first part was the script. For her, she was ravaged by tics, hysterical fits. But what does that mean? What is a hysterical fit? So I went to Christopher and he said, 'Well, anything you want, really.' And then I spoke to the psychiatrist and asked her 'what is a tic?' And she said, 'Well, it can be anything.'
Helpful!
KK: Yeah. So believe or not, there weren't very specific descriptions of exactly what it was. So I did a lot of reading, and the physical side was based on a part of her diary where she describes herself as a dog or a demon. I thought it might be quite interesting to show that. So it was and Francis Bacon paintings, which were quite good for understanding internal struggle.
Really? Which paintings?
KK: Francis Bacon's Study for a Crucifixion. There were three of them and they were all weirdly helpful. And then I got on Skype with David and started making faces and asked him which ones he liked.
So there was a video Skype call that was just you making weird faces at David Cronenberg.
KK: Yup, pretty much. And give him an idea of the accent. In a conversation before he said he wanted "mid-Atlantic with a blush of Russian" and wanted the tics to be not funny and 'on your face.' So I said, 'OK," went away for a few months then came back and did a little show and tell.
So how much time did you spend making faces at yourself in the mirror?
KK: Oh, a good couple of hours, really. Just making faces. It was like, 'Oh, that one looks horrible, I think I'll make that one!'
How did you and David work together to discover the right tone, to figure out what worked and what didn't?
KK: Well, it's kind of amazing. I don't know how he does it, really. There weren't many discussions. I didn't meet him physically until the first day on set—or rather, the day before the first day when he saw what I planned to do. But before that, he's like a horse whisperer. He creates this calm, creative atmosphere that makes everyone believe they're exactly the right person to be there. It's the most empowering, amazing thing ever.
It's very tricky to make this film, especially with hysterics. This is a strange thing to say, but on film I think depression works really well because it's a kind of low energy, internalized thing, which you can pull people into. Hysteria is very highly energized that pushes people away. In another director's hands I would have been very concerned about playing this part, but because he's so brilliant, his taste is so wonderful he knows when to go really far and then when to pull things back. He basically said, 'go as far as you can and I'll pull you back.'
So it sounds like you didn't have too much time to prepare before showing up to set. Were you able to rehearse with Viggo and Michael? Or does it just happen on set?KK: Exactly. That's the weird thing about David, it just happened! I have no idea. We got to Cologne, which is where we were shooting and I said, 'OK, should we rehearse?' and he was like, 'no.' I think me and Michael went out for a night of of drinking quite a lot of martinis. 'Hello! Nice to meet you!' And then we were on set.
I'm beginning to think all great movies are born from long nights of drinking.
KK: Well, I think it was actually the day before the first day. I wouldn't have been very with it if it was the day before. [Laughs] We did have one day before, where David took us on set, and we started with those kind of character scenes and he told us how he was thinking of shooting it and we went through it once. Literally we went, 'Yup. Fine. Great.'
Did the intensity of the on-screen action bleed over into the behind-the-scenes atmosphere? Is it a worry that you'll carry around emotional baggage while not on set?
KK: Oh, no, it was so fun, so happy. I was so grateful it was these people. It was the opposite of what you would think when you watch the film—we didn't take it home. I spent four months on my own researching it and knew it quite well, so I knew what it was going to be and it was just a question of getting it out. Once it was out, it was out. That's quite nice!
After this movie, I can't imagine Viggo and Michael palling around and smiling.
KK: But they're hilarious together! Absolutely hysterical, like a comedy duo. That's what's so weird about the whole thing.
Apparently they need to do a buddy comedy! After delving into the world of psychoanalytic, do you suddenly find yourself analyzing everyone?
KK: [Laughs] No, no, it's really annoying! The research was so specifically into her, I haven't retained any knowledge whatsoever. I read some amazing books, but I was only looking for things to use to play the character. So, no, as my study goes, it was a complete failure. But for studying for the part, it was very useful!
Monday, October 24, 2011
22 New Images from David Cronenberg’s A DANGEROUS METHOD
Collider
by Matt Goldberg Posted:October 24th, 2011 at 8:54 am
Seduced by the challenge of an impossible case, the driven Dr. Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) takes the unbalanced yet beautiful Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley) as his patient in A Dangerous Method. Jung’s weapon is the method of his master, the renowned Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen). Both men fall under Sabina’s spell.I liked the film when I saw it at TIFF but found it a bit too sterile. However, it’s Cronenberg which means it’s at least worth your time. Hit the jump to check out the images. A Dangerous Method also stars Vincent Cassel, and opens in limited release on November 23rd.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Keira Knightley - Film review of "A Dangerous Method"
"A Dangerous Method" in theaters Nov. 23
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.
Reach Katie here.
Friday, September 23, 2011
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.
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