Open: 19:30 - 23:00 hrs
Tickets: € 3
FREUD (1962)
Directed by John Huston
140 minutes // In English
Doors open at: 19:30 hrs
Film starts at: 20:00 hrs
This is a surprising biopic about the pivotal early years of Sigmund Freud, when he was 28 years old and making his initial breakthroughs in treating neurosis. Of course his radical theories, including the importance of our childhood in forming our adult psychology, were outright rejected by the scientific community... and he was basically thrown out of the profession. The narrative eventually focuses on one particular case, and it almost feels like a murder mystery even though the mystery that is being unraveled is about the human mind. What a wonderful approach, and at times it makes it feel almost like a film noir. This was obviously a cherished pet project for director John Huston, who also narrates the movie and gives little details about the events that are about to unfold. In the end, what he created is mesmerizing.
Man, it's hard to believe, but director John Huston actually asked French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre to write the script. Sartre did it, and gave Huston a five-hour long script. Huston said there was no way the Hollywood studio would agree to such a long film, so he told Sartre to re-write it. After some time Sartre came back and gave him the revised version—but it was even longer. Now it was 8 hours long! In the end Huston cut it down to 3 hours, and the studio cut out another half hour. Sartre refused to be part of such a debacle, and demanded his name be removed from the credits. But although the film is radically different because of its shorter length, you can still feel Sartre's fingerprint on it.
If you go to university now and take a course in psychology, on the first day they will tell you a bit about that crazy guy Sigmund Freud, and then immediately move on to more modern ideas of what psychology is about. The reason for this is that the university system here in Holland has been totally overtaken by an American discourse that eliminates Europe's past. There is little comparative studies these days offering alternative points of view, you're only given one side of the story, and it's the American perspective. It's not only true with psychology, it's also with economics, geo-politics, cinema, the social sciences, the medical field, and even the so-called fine arts. It's a shame, European education used to be more subtle, open, rich and complex.
Even though John Houston is a legendary director, somehow this flick was pushed aside and almost totally forgotten about soon after it was made. When seen today, it strikes you as a lost masterpiece. The atonal music soundtrack by Jerry Goldsmith is brilliant and sharp... and strangely enough, director Ridley Scott cut out parts of the music score and pasted them into the soundtrack for his movie Alien. And of course there are also some additional weird synthesizer music pieces to go along with the dream sequences. Some people feel that David Lynch was influenced by the cinematography of this film when he made The Elephant Man, and indeed it seems it could be true, with some of the images almost interchangeable in each film. It boasts two great performances by both leads - a young Susannah York, and the soon-to-be-dead queer icon Montgomery Clift.
Ventilator cinema // OT301
Overtoom 301 2nd floor