Characters on the Couch
Film & Television Blog
by Dr. Sandra Cohen
You Think This Movie is About SAVING MR. BANKS? Oh, Dear…
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…
CAPTAIN PHILLIPS
Can Violence & Empathy Coexist?
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…
BLUE JASMINE
Why A Character Is Unreal
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…
