Characters on the Couch
Film & Television Blog
by Dr. Sandra Cohen
BLUE VELVET: Why Desire Goes Wrong
David Lynch’s troubling and sexually violent 1986 film Blue Velvet reveals the corruption and dark impulses under what seems to be a white picket fence kind of purity and innocence. In Lynch’s signature style, this jolting movie strips bare the confusing urges and compulsions people live with related to desire, need, and what is or…
ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT: What Happens When Love Hurts You
What happens when love hurts you? In Payal Kapadia‘s All We Imagine as Light, Nurse Prabha’s sad, lonely, closed-up face tells us (almost) all we need to know. Prabha has been failed twice by love. No voice against an arranged marriage. A husband who abandons her. What’s there to do but devote herself to the…
CONCLAVE: The Why’s of Secrets & Breaking Free
Why do people keep secrets? Mostly, shame, terror, fear of being found out, or a desire for power and control. Edgar Berger’s Conclave shows a struggle with secrets, past and present. There are the Cardinals’ secrets and the Church’s widespread cover-ups. Lawrence, the Dean, is tasked with managing the Conclave, where the next Pope is…
