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A Dangerous Method
(2011)
by Johnny Web (Uncle
Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)
A
Dangerous Method is a portrayal of the relationships
among four pioneers in psychoanalysis: Sigmund
Freud, Carl Jung, Sabina Spielrein, and Otto Gross.
In a nutshell, here's how they interacted in real
life:
Speilrein was a rich, troubled teenager who was sent
to Jung's clinic in Zurich by her family, who could
not longer control her seizures at home. Jung took
on her case personally and decided to use Freud's
new technique of "talking therapy." Speilrein's
problems stemmed from the fact that her father
spanked her naked body and that she took pleasure
from it, often masturbating afterwards. The
situation was exacerbated by the fact that Speilrein
had been raised in a sheltered environment and did
not understand the actual nature of sexual contact.
Speilrein could not understand or accept her own
sexual response to bering punished by her father,
and apparently turned her guilt into external
manifestations of apparent madness. Jung was
successful in bringing Speilrein into a controlled
state of mind, but in the process became attracted
to her.
Soon after taking the Speilrein case, Jung traveled
to Vienna to meet Freud himself. Among other things
in their original 13-hour discussion, the two
geniuses touched upon Speilrein's treatment. The two
men formed an instant friendship. Freud was so
impressed with Jung's clinical skills that he sent
him one of his own patients, a fellow therapist
named Otto Gross. In the course of the Gross-Jung
discussions, the free-thinking and uninhibited Gross
planted in Jung's mind the idea that it would not be
such a bad idea to have sex with a patient like Miss
Speilrein. It was not so much later that Jung would
be deflowering his patient, which began a seven-year
affair, followed by another nine years of
correspondence.
This relationship was obviously a breach of
patient-doctor trust, not to mention a real danger
to Jung's marriage to a refined and rich woman. Jung
first tried to justify his misbehavior to Freud by
portraying Speilrein as his seductress. Freud then
wrote to Speilrein to chastise her. Speilrein was
outraged and demanded that Jung write back to Freud
and explain in detail how they really came to be
lovers. Jung eventually clarified the situation to
Freud, and the three of them continued to interact
for many years, during which time Speilrein herself
became a psychoanalyst. Many people say that Freud
and Jung began their friendship over Speilrein, and
ended it the same way. Others say that the Speilrein
case started their rift, but the men really split
because Freud was appalled by the non-scientific
side of Jung's personality, which led him into
alchemy, spirituality, ESP, Eastern mysticism, and
astrology. Still others say that their break was
merely professional, based upon Freud's
unwillingness to accept Jung as an equal who
diverged in many places from Freud's principles.
All of the above is portrayed with more or less
scrupulous accuracy in the film, based upon the
historical evidence, especially various letters
exchanged by the principals. Where the film gets off
into the world of imagination is in picturing the
exact nature of the sexual relations between Jung
(Michael Fassbinder) and Speilrein (Keira
Knightley). The following portions of the film's
plot are NOT justified by historical sources:
Since Speilrein experienced pleasure from being
humiliated, Otto Gross (Vincent Cassel) counseled
Jung to pleasure her by "thrashing her within an
inch of her life, as she clearly wants." Jung
eventually did just that, giving Speilrein pleasure
by whipping her buttocks. When a guilty Jung, a
practicing Catholic, tried to break off the
relationship, Speilrein persuaded him to stay with
her by suggesting that he analyze his own sexual
needs and determine which of those could not be
satisfied by his wife. Since Jung obviously took
pleasure in the sadistic part of the S&M
relationship with Speilrein, and could not bring
himself to suggest anything similar to his beloved
and dignified wife, the sessions with Speilrein were
deemed essential to his own sexual satisfaction. The
Jung-Speilrein spanking sessions are portrayed in some fairly
graphic detail on screen. While Keira Knightley's
bare bum is never actually seen on camera, her
breasts are bare in these sessions, and her facial
expressions show her becoming intensely aroused by
the humiliation.
The on-camera spankings may sound sensational to
you, especially since nobody knows what the
Jung/Speilrein relationship really consisted of,
but I was grateful for those moments, which
supplied the only life in the film, except for the
very brief appearance of Cassel as the weaselly
wastrel Otto Gross. The rest of the film is based
on a dry, dense non-fiction tome called "A Most
Dangerous Method: The Story of Jung Freud and
Sabrina Speilrein," and basically is an accurate
account of historical figures reading one
another's letters aloud or discussing complex
clinical theories in small, dark rooms.
There was one major outdoor scene, and it provided
my favorite scene in the film, the only scene
which indicated that anyone associated with the
film had a sense of humor or could tell a story
with images rather than words. Jung takes Freud
out for a sail. Jung looks like any sailor at sea,
ruggedly working his sail and his rudder,
occasionally making a statement in a voice loud
enough to be heard over the wind by a man several
feet away. Freud, on the other hand, sits
awkwardly and stiffly on the deck as he tries to
have a serious conversation in a controlled indoor
voice. Freud holds a walking stick in
one hand, and wears a hamburg. As the camera
assumes Jung's vantage point, we can only see
Freud's head and shoulders. His low position
within the boat and his inappropriate attire
make Freud look for all the world like Toulouse
Lautrec. For
all Freud seems to know, he might just as well be
in his office or a Viennese cafe, except that the
floor is moving and things seem to be moist and
windy around him. Freud, who spent an entire life
studying the nature of pleasure, seems incapable
of feeling any himself.
This correlates well with another
scene in which the profligate Otto Gross
speculates that the only reason Freud thinks
about sex so much is that he isn't getting laid.
Analyze THAT, shrink-boy.
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