A Dangerous Method (2011)

Beautiful and fascinating, this story of Carl Jung, Jung's first patient, and Sigmund Freud is surprisingly not Oscar-nominated, despite a steady hand from director David Cronenberg, amazing production design, luscious cinematography, and good performances from Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley, and Viggo Mortensen. The "method" is the "talking cure," introduced by Freud and employed by Jung in treating Sabina Spielrein, a Russian (the characters are supposed to be speaking German, and Spielrein German with a Russian accent; all speak English, and kudos to Knightley for her Russian-accented English). Frequently young and/or attractive actresses are deemed "brave" for appearing unpretty in movies, so Knightly (her last appearance in these pages was Never Let Me Go) could have earned that with her grimaces and extra jutting of her already prodigious jaw as the literally hysterical Spielrein, but her top billing is erroneous, as it is clearly Jung's story. Fassbender (last in X-Men: First Class, next in Shame, which we saw a few days ago, and I completely forgot to mention him in Inglourious Basterds) lends Jung the requisite intelligence, passion, and inquiring mind. Mortensen (to me he'll always be the sexy Blouse Man in A Walk on the Moon (1999), but here he is, third from the right, in his first role in Witness (1985), and I liked him in 28 Days (2000), A History of Violence (2005), and Eastern Promises (2007) which did earn him an Oscar nod), aged to perfection with a balding wig and facial hair, gives us a wonderful, controlling Freud, stuck in his oral phase, as he is never without a cigar in his mouth.

I've long been a big Cronenberg fan, beginning with The Dead Zone (1983) which was in my 1980s top five list, moving on to The Fly (1986), Dead Ringers (1988), Crash (the 1996 one with James Spader and Holly Hunter, not the 2004 ensemble movie of the same name), A History of Violence, and Eastern Promises. This one has plenty of perversion, as do the others, but much less blood. Cinematographer Peter Suschitzky (shot the latter four Cronenberg pictures and many others) provides the glorious images. Christopher Hampton (I covered him in Chéri) adapted his play The Talking Cure, which was in turn adapted from John Kerr's book A Most Dangerous Method.

Jack and I admired the magnificent sailboat, the pens, gadgets, and all sorts of doo-hickeys appropriate for the first two decades of the twentieth century setting. Spielrein's and Mrs. Jung's wardrobes are also spectacular. I covered composer Howard Shore in Hugo and here is the first track of the lovely score, but I have a new anecdote. I got to speak with author Alan Zweibel, one of the original Saturday Night Live writers, recently. I mentioned his "Spud beer" spot (sorry, video isn't readily available), from that 1975 season, Howard Shore and his All-Nurse Band (they were all men, wearing nurse dresses and caps for the bit) performed the song St. James Infirmary and Zweibel played a patient in a hospital gown. Zweibel told us was his very first appearance on TV, and he was impressed that I remembered. Jack said, "That's just what she does."

Anyway, this is definitely worth seeing, so trundle on down to your local art house and give it a look, but leave the children at home.

Milestone! This is movie number 450 summarized on the blog. And, since September 3, 2008, I have seen and written up 431 distinct pictures, an average of 10.5 per month. But who's counting?