Characters on the Couch
Film & Television Blog
by Dr. Sandra Cohen
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…
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…
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…
