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Characters On The Couch

How a psychologist thinks about your favorite Film & TV characters.

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The Wolf of Wall Street There are no friends in the world of Greed

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET
No Friends In A World Of Greed

July 31, 2014 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf Of Wall Street is an indulgently voyeuristic picture of MORE, MORE, MORE, (we call it Greed), at every level. Money, sex, drugs – there’s no stopping the film’s main characters, Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his cohorts, from their purely hedonistic pursuits. And, yet, that’s still not enough. Is Martin Scorsese …

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No Friends In A World Of Greed
SAVING MR BANKS: You Think This Movie is About Saving Mr. Banks ... Oh Dear

You Think This Movie is About SAVING MR. BANKS? Oh, Dear…

July 31, 2014 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

Saving Mr. Banks takes many of us back to delicious childhood memories of Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke singing “Jolly Holiday,” “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” “Let’s Go Fly a Kite,” and “A Spoonful of Sugar Makes The Medicine Go Down.” Yet, what we couldn’t know as children is the heartbreaking story behind PL Travers’ Mary Poppins; a trauma …

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Heartburn A Novel by Nora Ephron

HEARTBURN
A Novel by Nora Ephron

July 31, 2014 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

“’Tis the season to be jolly.” It’s also the season to miss people. Nora Ephron is someone to be missed. She could make us laugh at our necks, and at almost anything. Her novel, Heartburn (a barely fictionalized account of the end of her marriage), even manages to make us laugh at divorce. Why does she …

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A Novel by Nora Ephron
ENOUGH SAID When Eva Meets Albert A Relationship After Divorce

ENOUGH SAID
When Eva Meets Albert…A Relationship After Divorce?

July 31, 2014 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

If you’re a divorced or divorcing woman, you can probably relate to Eva’s (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) struggle to open her heart to Albert (James Gandolfini) in Enough Said. Readiness for a relationship after a divorce is not easy for many reasons. But, what undermines a post-divorce relationship faster than anything else is fear. Especially fear that comes …

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When Eva Meets Albert…A Relationship After Divorce?
CAPTAIN PHILLIPS Can Ruthlessness and Empathy Coexist?

CAPTAIN PHILLIPS
Can Violence & Empathy Coexist?

July 31, 2014 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

I grip my armrests. As Captain Phillips begins, the theater becomes the USS Maersk Alabama. We, the audience, are the crew, stormed by Somali pirates bent on winning their power battle no matter what. It’s terrifying, and Paul Greengrass’s riveting documentary-style film Captain Phillips makes that terror almost unbearable. But there’s more to the film than …

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Can Violence & Empathy Coexist?
Blue Jasmine How Unreal Can A Character Become

BLUE JASMINE
Why A Character Is Unreal

July 31, 2014 by Dr. Sandra E. Cohen

What happened to Woody Allen in his film Blue Jasmine? This prolific filmmaker is well known for creating quirkily neurotic yet lovable characters—even characters with depth. However Jasmine French, the lead character in Allen’s latest film Blue Jasmine isn’t one of them. Jasmine, a Chanel-clad, Park Avenue socialite whose gilded life is unraveling before her, is …

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Why A Character Is Unreal
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Inspiration

“We come to Film and TV to find our hidden stories. If we look deeply into a character’s psyche, there is much to see about ourselves.”

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