Characters On The Couch

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

leo hurwitz

LEO HURWITZ
HEART OF SPAIN 1937
In A Dictatorship Human Hearts Don’t Matter  

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In a dictatorship, human hearts don’t matter. Leo Hurwitz shows this frightening reality in his powerful film, Heart of Spain 1937. America is now in a fight similar to that of Spain’s democratically elected republic against fascist General Francisco Franco. We need a conduit of empathy similar to Dr. Norman Bethane’s blood transfusions to soldiers in …

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HEART OF SPAIN 1937
In A Dictatorship Human Hearts Don’t Matter  

LEO HURWITZ’S PSYCHOANALYST SISTERS
Marie H. Briehl and Rosetta Hurwitz
Pioneers in Child Psychoanalysis  

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Leo Hurwitz was a pioneer in the development of the documentary film in America, but he wasn’t the only pioneer in the Hurwitz family. His older sisters Rosetta (Rose) and Marie were pioneers in bringing child psychoanalysis to the United States. They were among the first child analysts to train with Anna Freud in Vienna …

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Marie H. Briehl and Rosetta Hurwitz
Pioneers in Child Psychoanalysis  

LEO HURWITZ
A Pioneer In The Beginnings Of America’s Documentary Film Part 3
A Radical Filmmaker In The Making

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 “Leo Hurwitz’s task in life: creating and practicing the documentary film tied intrinsically to the quest for human freedom, liberation, equality, and truth.” Tom Hurwitz, Leo’s son. In 1926, Leo went to Harvard. This was quite an achievement for the Jewish son of working-class immigrants. Yet remarkably in line with the family’s intrinsic belief in, equality. …

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A Pioneer In The Beginnings Of America’s Documentary Film Part 3
A Radical Filmmaker In The Making

LEO HURWITZ
A Pioneer In The Beginnings Of
America’s Documentary Film Part 1
Leo Hurwitz’s Family Influences

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Leo Hurwitz (1909 – 1991), a pioneer documentary filmmaker, was part of a small group who founded America’s documentary film. Notably, Leo and his colleagues invented the social documentary form. According to his son, Tom Hurwitz, Leo’s films “exemplified a new way of making films about the real world. And about ideas that help us …

Read moreLEO HURWITZ
A Pioneer In The Beginnings Of
America’s Documentary Film Part 1
Leo Hurwitz’s Family Influences