arts & entertainment

Mind Games from page 37

"Jung was certainly rather obsessed
with that; he wasn't anti-Semitic for his
time, but he said things like, `Freudian
psychoanalysis only works on Jews, and
he did talk about the classic thing that
Germans used to talk about: When their
ancestors were running around the for-
est wearing skins, Jews already had 2,000
years of culture. But at the same time, they
felt, the Jews wander — they don't have
their roots in this wonderful German soil
of ours.
"Jung felt that was a huge failing. And
then, of course, he was fascinated by
Jewish women; he had a couple of mis-
tresses who were Jewish, including Sabina,
so it was a complex thing."
Fassbender, who was born in Germany
but grew up in Ireland, laughed when
asked about all this perception of his
character as the quintessential Aryan. In
fact, after shooting A Dangerous Method,
his next role was that of the Holocaust
survivor-turned-supervillain Magneto in
the blockbuster X-Men: First Class.
"But Jung did believe very much in the
Aryan ideal, and that he had a lineage
back to the mythology of old;' said the
actor, who currently further explores
issues of lust and guilt in his role as a sex
addict in the film Shame.
"And so his affair with Sabina is like this
forbidden sort of tale — that of the taboo
relationship between Jew and [non-Jew],
and between the married Jung and his
patient. There was a level of excitement
that they were doing something that was
not right socially."

Based On Reality
The idea for A Dangerous Method
began back in 1977, when playwright
Christopher Hampton (Dangerous
Liaisons, Atonement), who is also the
film's screenwriter, read about a box dis-
covered in a basement in Geneva, obvi-
ously left behind by Spielrein when she
moved back to the U.S.S.R. in 1923. Inside
was one of her diaries, as well as letters
she had received from Freud and Jung
and drafts of letters she had sent them.
Hampton drew on these materials
as well as Jung's actual case notes from
Spielrein's treatment, which he unearthed
when a curator at the Burgholzli museum
invited him to photocopy the case file.
(The file has since been published.) The
result was his play The Talking Cure,
which Cronenberg read when the star of
his film Spider, Ralph Fiennes, portrayed
Jung in the London production.
In person, Cronenberg, who wears
jeans and has a shock of white hair, is as
calm and dispassionate as his films are
disturbing. He said he has never felt the
need to be in psychotherapy, even though,
as a young man, he read Freud's work
because of its cultural and intellectual
significance.
"I am turning into an old Jewish man,"
he joked when asked how he identifies
with Freud. But clearly the connection
runs deeper.
Like Freud, Cronenberg is an atheist.
Growing up with secular artist parents in
Toronto, he differed from his classmates
in that he did not attend what they called

"Jewish school" or become bar mitzvah.
He became an atheist, or more specifi-
cally, an existentialist, while studying the
works of Chaucer as a young man. While
immersed in that medieval Catholic
world, he came to the conclusion that all
religion was "delusional:'
This atheistic (and culturally Jewish)
outlook connects A Dangerous Method
with Cronenberg's early horror films,
as well as his more recent mainstream
work, such as A History of Violence and
Eastern Promises. If religion represents a
protection against loss and against death,
Cronenberg's movies remind us that
human existence starts and ends with the
body.
"The horror genre itself deals with
primordial things, and its view of death
tends to be extremely physical;' he said.
"To an existentialist/atheist like myself,
that seems to be the truth."
In Cronenberg's 1986 remake of The
Fly, starring Jeff Goldblum as a scientist
who merges his DNA with an insect, the
character's "disintegration, to me, is really
about aging and death:' he explained.
The gore in Eastern Promises,
Cronenberg's acclaimed film about the
Russian mob and human trafficking,
underscores his belief that homicide, to
an atheist, is even more hideous than to a
person of faith, because without an after-
life, murder equals "total annihilation."
Before a Los Angeles screening of A
Dangerous Method, Cronenberg staunchly
defended the veracity of the events
depicted, stating that much of the dia-

logue came directly from journals or let-
ters written by the real-life analysts.
When asked about some reviews that
have faulted Knightley's performance
as over-the-top, he pointed out that the
symptoms described in Spielrein's case
file were even more extreme.
As the conversation wound down at
the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, Cronenberg
explained why he prefers one father of
psychoanalysis over the other.
"Freud insisted on the reality of the
human body at a time we think of as
Victorian, when the body was not dis-
cussed. You could tell by the way people
dressed, in corsets and high collars, that
the body was to be contained:' he said.
"And there was Freud talking about
penises and vaginas and excrement and
the sexual abuse of children and incest
— which is why he was considered to
be so outrageous and so dangerous. To
me, Jung's focus on spirituality is very
bizarre, and his understanding of the col-
lective unconscious and archetypes is all
religion and an escape from the reality of
the body. So I'd say it's natural for me to
prefer Freud, flawed as his theories may
have been.
"But at the same time Cronenberg said,
mischievously, "Jung gets the most screen
time. As a director, that's the biggest com-
pliment you can give a character."

❑

A Dangerous Method is scheduled to
open in Detroit on Friday, Jan. 20.

e vv s

vilit I Nate Bloom
Special to the Jewish News

Emow

Golden Hebrews
Here's the list of Jewish nominees for
41) a Golden Globe; the awards show airs
live 8 p.m. Sunday, Jan.15, on NBC.
(11)
First, the acting categories: Best
actor, musical or comedy film: Joseph
Iti) Gordon Levitt, 30, 50/50; Best
Supporting Actor,
dramatic film: Jonah
Hill, 28, Moneyball;
and Albert Brooks,
64, Drive. Best
Actress, TV drama
series: Julianna
Margulies, 45, The
Good Wife; Best
Gordon-Levitt
Actor, TV comedy
or musical series:
David Duchovny, 51,
Californication; Best
Actress, TV mini-
series: Evan Rachel
Wood, 24, Mildred
Pierce.
Allen
Best Director,

lc

-

38

January 12 • 2012

motion picture:
Woody Allen, 76,
Midnight in Paris; and
Michel Hazanavicius,
44, The Artist.
(Hazanavicius, as
recently noted in this
column, is a French
Hazanavicius
Jew whose grandpar-
ents were from Eastern Europe; he
often speaks about his Jewish back-
ground. The director's real-life wife,
actress Berenice Bejo, who co-starred
in The Artist, is a Best Supporting
Actress nominee; I don't know if she
is Jewish.)
Best Screenplay, motion picture:
Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris; Michel
Hazanavicius, The Artist; Grant
Heslov (co writer), 48, The Ides of
March; and Aaron Sorkin (co writer),
50, Moneyball. Best Original Film
Score: Howard Shore, 65, Hugo. Best
Animated Film: Tintin (directed/pro-
duced by Steven Spielberg, 65).
In the Best Motion Picture cat-
egories – the Globes have two – the
award goes to the winning films' pro-

-

-

ducers, of whom there are many. I will
simply note that several films nomi-
nated for Best Dramatic Film or Best
Comedy or Musical Film have strong
Jewish connections. Dramatic Film:
Moneyball (director Bennett Miller,
44; actor Jonah Hill, writer Aaron
Sorkin); and War Horse (director
Steven Spielberg). Comedy/Musical
Film: Midnight in Paris (Woody Allen,
actors Corey Stoll, 35, and Adrien
Brody, 38); and The Artist (Michel
Hazanavicius).

New On The Tube

Are You There, Chelsea? debuted 8:30
p.m. Wednesday, Jan.11, on NBC; the
first episode can be viewed online. The
show is based on a bestselling 2008
memoir by come-
dian/talk-show host
Chelsea Handler, 36.
(Handler, the daughter
of a Jewish father and
a Mormon mother,
was raised a Reform
Jew.) The show's main
character, Chelsea
Handler

Newman (played by Laura Prepon), is
a thinly disguised version of Handler.
Chelsea N. pours drinks at a sports bar
and hangs out with a wacky group of
friends. Handler, herself, will appear
sometimes as Chelsea's older sister,
Sloane.
Prepon, 31, is the daughter of a
Jewish father and a non-Jewish
mother. She now identifies as a
Scientologist.
Rob is a sitcom debuting 8:30
p.m. Thursday, Jan.12, on CBS. Rob
Schneider, 48, stars as a lifelong
bachelor who has just married into
a tight-knit Mexican-American fam-
ily. Schneider is the son of a Jewish
father and a Filipino Catholic mother.
While secular, he identifies as Jewish
and did himself proud
when, in 2006, he
paid for a big ad in
Variety an ad that
was an open letter
from him denounc-
ing Mel Gibson's then
recent anti-Semitic
Schneider
remarks. ❑

–