How a psychologist thinks about your favorite Film & TV characters.
We all need friends. Like Gordie and Chris in Rob Reiner‘s 1986 film classic Stand by Me. Especially now. When the new fears of COVID-19 layer on top of old traumas, worries, and sadness – and can make them prey upon you like the gang of teenage bullies in the film. Won’t leave you alone. …
Silence isn’t always golden. Not in Ingmar Bergman’s book. And, his various film treatises on silence speak to us loudly on many planes of emotional existence, and those planes are never smooth. Of course, silence can provide a necessary space for personal truths to appear. For imaginings to ripen and take hold. Or, a respite …
Can a cold narcissistic father drive a girl insane? The short answer is yes. Wilfred Bion defined psychosis as hatred of reality. And, what is there to love about the reality of a self-obsessed father who cares more about his own desires than his children? Facing that is horror. We see it in Through A …
“I sing because I can experience a lot of feelings…” Otherwise, Janis Joplin had no one to hear. The most chilling part of Amy Berg’s documentary, Janis: Little Girl Blue, is to witness the cold formality of Mother and Father Joplin. No one can miss Janis’s hunger for love. Less obvious are the roots of …
In her Human Rights Campaign award speech on 3/14/15, Shonda Rhimes said that writing as a child saved her. I’m sure it did. Yet, I think her ability to create a world of people who served as placeholders until she could find her “people in the real world” is the most important thing. Shonda was …
Why does someone create an illusion of who they are? Wes Anderson, a master of psychological ironies, tells us quite a lot about that subject in The Grand Budapest Hotel. At the center of the film is M. Gustave trying to live as someone he is not. All around him are juxtapositions of barbarism with …
