Characters on the Couch
Film & Television Blog
by Dr. Sandra Cohen
THE BIG SHORT
Danger Of Living In Bubbles
& Fooling Ourselves
The Big Short, directed by Adam McKay, starring Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, Steve Carell, and Brad Pitt, tells more than the story of the U.S. housing bubble from 2001 to 2005. More than the story of risky advantages taken by mortgage companies, hedge funds, and investment bankers to profit from it. I’m a psychoanalyst, not an…
SPOTLIGHT
Breaking The Cult Of Secrecy
Surrounding Sexual Abuse
“If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one” M. Garabedian Secrets are damaging. The film, Spotlight, directed by Tom McCarthy, tells the story of one very pernicious secret uncovered by an investigative team, named Spotlight, at the Boston Globe. That secret, the widespread sexual abuse by Catholic…
THE REVENANT
Humanizing Revenge
As much as I loved Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, I can’t say I felt the same about The Revenant. I know the film won big at the Golden Globes and has received Oscar nods for Best Picture and Best Actor. Perhaps that’s because a fantasy lives deep inside us about exacting revenge where we believe revenge…
