Characters on the Couch
Film & Television Blog
by Dr. Sandra Cohen
GET OUT
Trauma, #Never Again
& Getting Out
Jordan Peele’s brilliantly conceived film, Get Out, does its job of shattering the myth that we’re living in a post-racial America. My great uncle, Leo Hurwitz’s film, Strange Victory, did the same in 1948 after we won the war against Hitler but came home to racism here. It’s now 72 years later and there’s still…
HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS
Family, Sibling Warfare & Love
Holidays are getting close and they’re complicated enough without COVID-19. Now you have to think twice (or, at least for different reasons) whether you can risk going Home for The Holidays. The usual question is: Do you want to go home to family, with all the quirks, neuroses, and old sibling warfare that Jodie Foster’s…
THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962)
A Narcissistic Mother & Her Child’s Soul
A narcissistic mother uses her children. She controls them, starves them of love. In John Frankenheimer’s The Manchurian Candidate (1962), that’s Eleanor Shaw Iselin, Mother of lead character Raymond Shaw. Raymond is convinced: “I’m not lovable.” No wonder he has enough hate to be brainwashed to kill. “Yes, Mother,” “Yes, Ma’am, and “Yes, Sir” govern his…
