Characters on the Couch
Film & Television Blog
by Dr. Sandra Cohen
LEO HURWITZ 1966
THE SUN & RICHARD LIPPOLD
Unifier & Transformer
The Sun and Richard Lippold (Watch Film) begins with Leo Hurwitz, reminiscing. “In the studio of Richard Lippold, where being a musician as well as a sculptor, he played Bach and Pachelbel for me, where we talked for many hours, an idea came to me which is now this film.” This film, of course, is…
LEO HURWITZ
ESSAY ON DEATH
IN MEMORY OF JFK 1964
“A very dangerous and uncertain world, the President said on that last day …” Leo Hurwitz’s Essay On Death (Watch Film) speaks to death’s randomness. Of course, JFK’s murder wasn’t random. But death can come out of nowhere at any time. And, that means we live constantly with the fragility of life. At the same…
THREE BILLBOARDS
OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI
How Does The Buck Finally Stop?
Martin McDonagh’s darkly comic and deeply painful Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri gives us a tough look at how anger and blame is one (ineffective) way of trying to handle very difficult feelings. We have Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand), a bereaved mom: hardened, blunt, feeling uncharacteristically helpless, and furious about it. The town’s much loved…
