A Dangerous Method

I think this was an exceptional and brilliant film and give it 5 stars, but I have been reading the work of Freud and Jung for thirty years and I think that many people unfamiliar with the history of psychoanalysis would find this film too complex and dense to be enjoyed. That is a shame since the themes explored are fascinating and the acting was first rate. But the bottom line is that this is a film that will appeal to a limited audience of intellectual viewers. The primary focus of the film was divided between the psychological struggles of a brilliant young woman and the sexual and intellectual struggles of a brilliant psychologist attempting to forge a model of human consciousness and unconsciousness while at the mercy of his own desires and impulses. A secondary theme was the professional scientific and personal relationship between Sigmund Freud and Carol Jung over a 7 year period critical to the development of the field of psychoanalysis. Carl Jung was very familiar with the work of Sigmund Freud and began writing to him about there mutual interests in abnormal psychology. But the two men were very different in many ways and these differences eventually lead to tension in their relationship. The film does a credible job of contrasting Freud, an Austrian Jewish physician, and the wealthy Jung, a privileged Swiss psychiatrist. Early in the film Jung begins to use Freud's method of analysis whereby the psychiatrists sits behind the patient so as to reduce projection onto the psychiatrist and to create a more ambiguous sensation for the patient so that they can actually focus on their own projections and images without looking to the therapist for approval or disapproval. Jung complains that Freud writes much about the intellectual side of the analysis without giving many details as to the actual implementation of the methodology, thus early in the film Jung's independent thought is demonstrated. Freud saw Sabrina Spielrein as a patient when she was 19 years old and published her case history as the case of Sabrina S. It is Emma Jung in the film who tells the viewer that surely this Sabrina S written about by Freud is the same Sabrina Spielrein who has been admitted to the psychiatric hospital under the care of Dr. Jung. Michael Fassbender does an outstanding job as he plays Carl Jung. The character of Jung is pivotal in this film and Jung is a brilliant but conflicted human being. Jung was an outstanding genius, comparable to the genius of Freud, but he loses his bearings when he begins an affair with Sabrina Spielrein. His attempts to gain control of himself and the relationship reveal his cold determination which Fassbender plays very well. Fassbender's athletic sexual physique appears to be ready to explode out of the tight Victorian clothing that binds him much as Jung's sexuality is exploding out of his overly controlled intellect. Jung may appear overly harsh, controlled and rejecting as he ends the affair with Spielrein but he was becoming unhinged from the ground upon which he had built his personal, intellectual and professional life. Kira Knightly does a superb job of playing Sabrina Spielrein. Spielrein has neurotic tics that manifest when painful or conflicting memories emerge. The early scenes where Spielrein relates to Jung how often her father whipped her naked behind and then forced her to kiss his hand after the whipping are very powerful. As a child Spielrein would sometimes urinate in fear while being whipped and her father would whip her again for the urination. She now dreams of a catlike creature whispering into her ear as a slug like creature crawls on her lower back. Jung is able to connect that Spielrein would masturbate to images and memory of physical punishment and that pain had thus become eroticized for her. Knightly was able to portray mental illness, repressed eroticism and intellectual acuity in one outstanding performance. Vincent Cassel deserves mention for the part he plays as Dr. Otto Gross, another brilliant but unstable mind in an addict. However it is in conversation with the way-out Gross that Jung comes to terms with his passion for a brilliant and beautiful patient. Viggo Mortensen plays Sigmund Freud with careful understatement. Freud believed that in Jung he had finally found the champion, the heroic son, who would carry his theories forward. Much of their relationship in the film vibrates between a father-son relationship, a mentor-mentee relationship, and a professional competition. Of course the scene is included where Freud and Jung share dreams on the voyage to America and Freud tells Jung that one dream he can not reveal since he would lose his `authority' which Jung relates as the point where Freud lost all authority for him. It is to the film's credit that it includes the discussions between Freud and Jung on strategy whereby Freud wished their work to remain focused, concentrated, demonstrable, and repeatable whereas Jung was becoming more expansive, overly inclusive, and willing to explore paranormal experiences that are almost impossible to demonstrate or repeat under controlled conditions. Both strategies may advance scientific thought but the tensions eventually disrupt their personal and professional relationships. Eventually the tables turn as Spielrein emerges from her neurosis and becomes a brilliant psychoanalyst in her own right, mentored and complimented by Sigmund Freud. Thus this 99 minute films is about two complex themes; the development, expression, and repression of sexual desires as demonstrated in the relationship of Spielrein and Jung and the creation, translation and re-creation of complex scientific ideology as demonstrated in the relationship of Jung and Freud.

I think this film was rather kind to the splintered relationship of Freud and Jung. It was also kind about Freud's massive and mysogonistic ego he supposedly had in real life. Although, most male physicians at that time could be described as the same, so I suppose Siggy was not abnormal, he was just very famous and jewish and some older history books do not flatter him. He did earn his fame, but most of his notable first patients were females suffering from "hysteria." Later on he was called out from those early cases as not proven "cured" because he didn't comply with the standard scientific technics by using several other variables, like placebos, to prove it was his technic that cured. It was also anti-semitism and intellectual jealousy that literally declared war within this new field during and after WWI. He had great fame as being the father of psychoanalysis during his lifetime and he used it for doing good. Freud contributed so much and so did Jung. Yet, Freud is still the contender. Viggo is a wonderful actor and I think he did something excellent here with his role as Freud. His quiet way of questioning, suggesting, active listening and his fatherly chuckles, especially the one he delivers while reading the scathing letter from Jung towards the end of the film. Knightly, held nothing back in her performance as Sabina Spielrein. A sexually frustrated hysteric that finds freedom and eventually her own fame as a child psychologist. Forced to strip naked as a young girl and through spankings and humiliation from her father, she developed sexually in a neurotic and repressive way that contradicted with church, society and medicine at that time. She is a patient of Jung, and because of her high intelligence from a university education in medicine, is allowed to participate in some experiments. Vincent Casteel makes a brief, yet compelling performance as the unbalanced, psychoanalyst Otto Gross, needing treatment for himself. Otto is a referral patient from Freud sent to Jung for treatment by the demands of Otto's father. Jung tells him he heard he helped a patient commit suicide. Otto offhandedly responds that she was suicidal and he merely told her how to do it without botching it and gave her the option of becoming his lover. He follows up with a resigned "she opted for both." Casteel plays this role of Otto, with such a beautiful contradiction of reckless indifference and human grace. He is wonderful in the scenes with Michael Fassbende, in shocking and baffling him with his philosophy, and explaining Freud's theory of transference between physcian and patient in a wicked way. He looked like lucifer sitting outside in that garden enjoying his cigarette, with that slight grin on his face, and taking control over the conversation between himself and Jung. I loved him! Casteel could have played the part of a shorter Jung, but we would have missed him as that poor, deranged physician and his shenanigans. Jung starts to give in to the transference and experiments with Spielrein, that crosses boundaries. When news leaks out about Jung's affair with her, he breaks it off and asks Freud to help soften the blow by writing to her. This brings about some dramatic moments between Jung and Spielrein where Spielrein wields some power to get justice or payback, however you want to see it. Both come out with gain at the end of the film, but in real life, Spielrein was later murdered by Nazis back in Russia during WWII and Jung lived a long, full life. This intervention from Freud eventually leads to her working for him and becoming a child psychologist. Freud's refusal to give any credence to Jung's theories into mysticism is the wedge that breaks their working relationship apart. Fassbende is excellent with Knightly as he restrains and gives tension from himself at the right moments that brighten Knightly's performance...he does this really well with all of the actors. I love his sober restraint when Knightly is helping him on an experiment with the actress Sarah Godon playing his wife. His coldness allowed Godon's subtle awkwardness feel more intense, without Godon having to over due it. The scene with Viggo in Freud's study, when wood is snapping from the bookcases and Fassbende is in a lather, telling Viggo he knew it would happen and predicted the second one snapping, and goes on about mysticism all agitated, while Viggo's reaction is fatherly as he scoffs at it. Viggo is a tad condicending to him, but not cruel in his reaction. Yes, this film plays with history, but I haven't seen a feature film about historical figures be any where in the ballpark when it comes to accuracy.This is a good one if you've ever had to study a little bit of Freud and Jung a long time ago, and don't mind a little salt in your sugar. It's a fun movie, not a documentary.

Great film, loved it! I'm a huge fan of all three stars and now Cronenberg. The film goes into a lot of cultural, sociological, economic context enough to give a sense of importance of it's subject matter as uncharted territory without burdening it's viewers, making complex ideas easy to grasp by a wider audience and at the same time making the material relavent to our times through a modern lens. At the time it was made, could anything shock audiences anymore? Just about everything has been shown in film to the public by now, so that it's easy to be jaded but this still has the ability to shock, causing me to ask 'Was this real?'! I witness more films since this one that touch on the same subjects outside the context of psychology and far more understated too. The salient part of this film for me was the expended energy to keep this new science, a science. One not mixed up with religion, philosophy, politics and in this case, metaphysics, because much effort nowadays is in blurring if not obliterating the boundaries between them, as attractive as that can be. The supplemental material included in disc 2 reveals how attention to detail was lovingly applied for it's authenticity. Profound, influential. Loved it!

An interesting and thought-provoking film. Five stars, but I have some minor reservations. Lets psychoanalyze this: 1] Jung. While certainly a womanizer, Carl Jung was quite mainstream. Though he and his patient Sabina Speilrein were lovers, Jung didn't spank her in the bedroom with his belt. Not even for medicinal purposes. Did this come from the director's fertile imagination or his suppressed desires? 2] Freud. It was bold, but silly to cast Aragon of "The Lord of the Rings" (Viggo Mortensen) as Sigmund Freud. This didn't pay off, because Viking-looking VIggo (Isn't he Danish?) looks more like Jung than Freud. Freud was 5' 7'" (170 cm), while Viggo is six feet-tall. Details are important. While Viggo acts well, he doesn't look believable. But perhaps Freud himself wouldn't have mind it? 3] Frau Spielrein. Making "Pirates of the Caribbean's" Keira Knightly into Sabina Spielrein didn't quite work either in my view. Sabina was attractive to Jung because she was (apart from being neurotic) very rich, very bright and very exotic. She was a Russian. She came from Rostov-on-Don, heiress to the fortune of a Russian-Jewish merchant. She spoke German with a Russian accent. Correct me if I am wrong, but Keira doesn't fit this profile, although she did best she could with her West London accent. Perhaps I am nitpicking. Overall, the film is good and, in cinematographic terms, good-looking. The music-score is nice. While casting is overall suspicious, Vincent Cassel is brilliant as Otto Gross, a deranged over-sexed psychoanalyst. Jung's wife is also well cast. The costumes are tremendous; the atmosphere of the times is well reproduced. I highly recommend it to everyone interested in the history of psychoanalysis and films for grown-ups. P.S. The main argument between Jung and Freud perhaps should have been better explained in the film: it was about nature of the libido. Freud conceived of the libido as a quantitative (or "economic") concept: it is an energy which can increase or decrease, and which can be displaced. Freud insisted on the sexual nature of the energy, and he maintained a dualism in which the libido is opposed to another (non-sexual) form of energy. Jung opposed this dualism, positing a single form of life-energy, which is neutral in character. I believe Freud was nearer the truth: at least he stayed scientific, while Jung descended into the alchemy.

It seems that those naughty sophisticated intellectual Europeans of 100 years ago were not casually naughty, they spent a lot of time thinking about it. On the historic side this movie introduces us to a young Carl Jung Carl a doctor first experimenting with the new Freudian psychoanalytic methods, his older father figure Sigmund Freud and the wildly hysterical Sabina Spielrein. These are three historical figures two known to us, one almost forgotten. In fact the three of them had some type of relationship although perhaps not as portrayed. There exists extensive record of close friends Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud and their breakup is a matter of historic record. The Russian born Sabina Spielrein did first enter this group as a patient and later as a leading light in founding the field of child psychology. She would know the two men quite well the record is not clear if she would become a mistress to either. Between the quality of the acting the costumes and sets this is a five-star movie. The problem is in the story line. Upon reflection it does not hold together. Specifically the arguments being presented by the principles and the principal visuals do not coincide. As A Dangerous Method would have it, Dr. Jung would become passionately involved with his former patient and provide her with the S and M sex she wanted. To dispense with the sexual side of the movie Sabrina clearly enjoys her role on the receiving end of violent sex. Carl is not portrayed as enjoying it very much. He looks to be experimenting with sex as therapy rather than a means of allowing either himself or her to experience the freedom that is one of the central themes of the larger story. The inconsistency is that Dr. Jung argues that Freud is wrong in assigning sexuality as the single driving force behind psychology. However it is the sexual activity between Carl and Sabrina that consumes a very large portion of the movie. What in fact drove the breakup between these two founding giants. is that Dr. Jung developed a number of theories largely emphasizing elements such as racial memory. For racial memory to work people would receive particular impulses genetically. In the early 1900s there was no scientific basis for genetics at this level and the specificity of racial memory still sounds more mystical than scientific. Very little of the story line in A Dangerous Method covers or clarifies the their differences. The good news is that the principal actors Michael Fassbender (Carl Jung), Kiera Knightley (Sabina Spielrein) and Viggo Mortensen (Dr. Freud) perform their roles brilliantly under the very tight direction of David Cronenberg. Miss Knightley portrayal of hysteria and her transition into a trained psychologist are exceptional performances. The bulk of the dialogue of this movie is thought-provoking the sexual visuals do not support the intellectual themes. This is not a popcorn movie. The hysterical version of Sabrina makes demands on the viewer. The sex scenes whiel kinky are more clinical than titivating. Consequently the audience for this movie is going to be those who do not plan to turn off their brains, are not too committed to absolute historical accuracy and are not going to turn away at the first sign of a bared nipple.

A Dangerous Method is about the relationship between Carl Jung (played by Michael Fassbender), Sigmund Freud (played by Viggo Mortenson), and Sabina Spielrein (played by Kiera Knightly) and the birth of psychoanalysis. The "method" is the talking cure that Freud developed and Jung put into practice. One of the people Jung used the method on was Spielrein, who went from being his patient suffering from "hysteria", to his mistress, and then a colleague after Jung encouraged her to go to medical school after which she also became a psychiatrist and became a psychoanalyst. Many people may watch the movie just because of the joke about a particular scene made on an episode of Family Guy, but the movie is really quite good outside of that. Knightly really shines in her role as Spielrein, playing someone that goes from crazy and playing in the mud to being a doctor herself, but always seemingly on the edge of slipping back into hysteria. The movie also does a great job detailing the complicated relationship between Jung and Freud from their initial meeting to their eventual falling out. The movie spans a nine-year period of time in the 1900s that ends just before World War I begins. For those who get the Blu-Ray, the extras are fairly light. There is a commentary track on the film with the Director, David Cronenberg, which provides a lot of detail about the story and some about the filming process. Then there are a couple of short behind-the-scenes features. What was included was good, but not extensive. Although, I would not expect more bonus material from a lower-budget independent movie. Overall, the movie is well-written and very well-acted. It is very much a period piece and tries to be an accurate historical drama. In fact, much of the script was put together based on the extensive correspondence between the real people that have been preserved over the years. So, if you are a fan of historical dramas, especially ones that are not massive blockbusters, this is definitely worth checking out.

If director David Cronenberg's early films like Videodrome and The Fly were concerned about "the new flesh", then his most recent efforts have been fascinated with "the new mind." It might be the drug addled world of Naked Lunch or the disturbed mind of Spider or the amoral world of Eastern Promises, but the director has gone from visceral horror into more intellectually disturbing terrain. And "A Dangerous Method" fits this world view quite well. I was leery of seeing this film since it generated very mixed reviews, with some people loving it and others finding it tedious. I liked it a lot and think the problem is that this is really two films. On the surface everything is Victorian prim and proper. Except for some naughty spanking scenes, the film has few Cronenbergian flourishes. But go one level deeper and follow what everyone is talking about and things get more disturbing. When Carl Jung uses Freud's experimental "talking method" on a new female patient Sabrina Spielrein, we get into a world of sexual repression, adulterous affairs, mysticism versus hedonism, and hints of European Anti-Semitism on the eve of World War II. There may also be an intellectual menage a trois going on here - with Jung as ego rebelling against superego father figure in Freud and Spielrein as id (and Vincent Cassel's hedonistic Otto Gross could serve as Libido, I guess). Cerebral and complex, and let's be honest, dialogue heavy in quite a few places, this is not an action packed film. But it is an intellectually challenging and provocative multi-level film, with superb cinematography and fine performances by all the leads. I must admit I am a fan of director Cronenberg - but I am not blind to his faults. He can be very distant and aloof as a director - M Butterfly was definitely not his best effort and Spider left me cold. I found Dangerous Method challenging and involving from start to finish. In his early film Scanners, Cronenberg had a famous scene where a human head literally explodes. Cronenberg is still there in your head, just messing with it in an entirely new way.

A remarkable film from a constantly growing director, one of my all time favorites, Mr Cronenberg. Blu-Ray looks & sounds exceptional. It was exactly as described & arrived on time.