Spellbound: a psychological mystery thrilling film
Plot:
A psychoanalyst Dr. Constance Petersen helps John Brown, to recall his childhood memory and solve the mystery of the murder of Dr. Edwardes.
( hospital: meet+love -- hotel --terminal -- house: two doctors analyze the dream--ski--resolve: Dr. Murchison is the murderer)
Feeling: (film perspective)
-attractive, romantic
--Will he kiss me or kill me?
--evidence+answer, many places that you will question
--histrionics of that age
--two tickets humor
-astonishing,horrible --like Rebecca, use of music, tension
-doctor-patient relationship: tender and serious
soft, emotional, sick man and rational, protective,courageous persistent women
-would be better if: he really kills; the women is not so strong, but emotional, like L'amant -how
can she be so sure?
Intro to Psychoanalysis theory:
--Opening: The fault is not in our star, but in ourselves.--Shakespeare
importance of banishing mental illness
--Dr. Constance: Childhood memory: people would feel guilty for what they have not done
(hope that people they do not like are unfortunate, but if it really happens, they fell guilty .
a complex (shown in the movie)
unpleasant experience -complex from unconscious--dream
-- see the key of psychoanalysis:
doctor: open-minded, loving, persistence, imagination and association
relationship; trust and understanding needed
- Dream as pieces of puzzle
psychoanalysts: examine+ put in place + find out what you are trying to say to yourself
-- see quotes
Dream-featured dream and Freud Theory (compared)
-- Displacement
--overpowering Music: confusion, fright, uncertainty
--kissing everyone--constance (wish dreaming)
--next
Psychoanalytical Symbolism in the dream:
objects and repressed memory:
eyes, curtains (cutting the hair), scissors
playing cards (some of them blank)
a man with no face, a man falling off a building
a man hiding behind a chimney and dropping a wheel, and wings: Murchison; valley
the lines in white --- ski tracks
twisted wheel: revolver
Comments on Psychoanalysis:
- It is mysterious, uncertain
- Freud or Carl Jung psychoanalysis? stresses soul, emotion,value,self-recognition, reconciling
My suspicion about this film:
--overstate the function of hypnosis(hypnotherapy) and psychoanalysis
detectives?
( Q: distinction of dreaming and hypnosis)
--inconsistent with Freud: pits of memory, where is the wish?
-where is condensation?
-overly simplistic: the one-to-one relationship in symbolism; in reality, more complex
-- What's the symbolic meaning of other things in the dream?
Quotes
"The analyst seeks only to induce the patient to talk about his hidden problems, to open the locked doors of his mind. Once the complexes that have been disturbing the patient are uncovered and interpreted, the illness and confusion disappears and the devils of unreasonale driven from the human soul." - Screenwriter Ben Hecht's written prelude the film.
"People often feel guilty for something they never did, and it usually goes back to something in their childhood. A child often wishes something terrible would happen to someone - and if something does happen to that person, the child believes he has caused it, and he grows up with a guilt complex over a sin that was only a child's bad dream." - Ingrid Bergman as Dr. Peterson, citing the psychoanalytic theory that will ultimately explain the film' s mystery.
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