Posts by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen
BIRDMAN
The Voice In His Head
Truth Or Dare, Friend Or Foe?
What do we talk about when we talk about someone losing his grip on reality? When it comes to that question, Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s brilliant film, Birdman, is meaty stuff for a psychoanalyst like me. Riggan Thompson, former action hero, has-been, failed husband and father, is struggling to change his life – against a Voice…
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THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL
What Fake Personas Cover-Up
Why does someone create an illusion of who they are? Wes Anderson, a master of psychological ironies, tells us quite a lot about that subject in The Grand Budapest Hotel. At the center of the film is M. Gustave trying to live as someone he is not. All around him are juxtapositions of barbarism with…
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THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING
My Views On Loneliness
Loneliness comes in many forms. James Marsh’s The Theory of Everything tells a few stories of loneliness – Stephen Hawkings’, Jane Hawkings, and Jonathan Hellyer Jones. Jonathan – choir director, family helper, and the man who became Jane’s second husband – captures vividly what can become loneliness’ black hole when he says: “I suffer from the…
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THE IMITATION GAME
Turing’s Anxiety
Keeping Peas And Carrots Apart
Peas versus carrots: thinking versus feeling. Which is the winner? Alan Turing’s mathematical thinking, as The Imitation Game shows, cracked Nazi Germany’s Enigma code during WWII and saved millions. Yet, the same man’s brilliant thinking couldn’t save him. Crippled by terrible psychological fears (far worsened by Britain’s criminalization of homosexuality), his crafty “imitation game” was…
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BOYHOOD
Feeling Stuff is the Point of Life
Boyhood, Richard Linklater’s beautiful new film, is so compellingly real it’s easy to forget we aren’t watching a 12-year documentary of an actual family. With deft cinematic strokes, Linklater melds one phase of this family’s life. And Mason’s (Ellar Coltrane) journey through adolescence from ages 6 – 18, moves seamlessly into the next. Yet, Linklater’s…
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LOVE IS STRANGE
No. This Is The Best Of Love
Ben (John Lithgow) and George’s (Alfred Molina) relationship, in Ira Sach’s virtuoso film, Love Is Strange, celebrates the best of love. Love can bring many things – happiness, joy and companionship, yes. But, also, conflict, mismatch, disappointment, hurt, and loss. The specialness of Love Is Strange is how this film gives us an open window into just what adult…
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