How a psychologist thinks about your favorite Film & TV characters.
“A very dangerous and uncertain world, the President said on that last day” Leo Hurwitz’s Essay On Death (Watch Film) speaks to death’s randomness. Of course, JFK’s murder wasn’t random, but the fact that death can come out of nowhere at any time means we live constantly with the fragility of life. At the same …
Martin McDonagh’s darkly comic and deeply painful Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri gives us a tough look at how anger and blame is one (ineffective) way of trying to handle very difficult feelings. We have Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand), a bereaved mom: hardened, blunt, feeling uncharacteristically helpless, and furious about it. The town’s much loved …
Leo Hurwitz’s film, Here At The Water’s Edge (Watch Film), features the 1960 New York City’s waterfront. Made with photographer Charles Pratt, the film is a cinematic poem to the people who work on the water. Pratt, who largely financed the film, made it possible for Leo to use his vision as an artist and …
Let’s remember the threats of fascism. Forgetting is a very dangerous thing. And, Leo Hurwitz’s film, The Museum and The Fury 1956, shows us why. Yet we do forget when we don’t want to see what exists on our own soil. Leo’s 1948 film Strange Victory details the seeds for fascism in America: racism, antisemitism, and …
This Piece on The Young Fighter Written By Manfred Kirchheimer. Edits By Tom Hurwitz The first tape recorders were stolen from the Nazis. Enter John T. Mullin and Bing Crosby. Just after the Allies’ victory in Europe, Mullin was investigating a rumored secret German radio-wave ray for the US Army. He came up dry on …
The Young Fighter (Watch film) begins with a tough Brooklyn narrator’s voice. Tough as the boxing world is tough, tough as Ray Drake’s manager and trainer are tough; tough as the decision Ray Drake had to make. Would he become the Champ his manager and trainer were bent on making or the family man he …
