Well, I finally saw it! Went to the movie last night with Laura and Paulina and settled in for a real grown up film with intelligent dialogue. The film is visually beautiful and takes place during the early 1900's, one of my favorite periods. This is a film for the real movie aficionado. Not a blockbuster ride of a film that requires 3D glasses. It was thoughtful and provocative. Michael Fassbender played a very contained Carl Jung and I can tell you one thing, this guy is going to be a BIG, BIG STAR. I thought Keira Knightly overplayed it a bit in the beginning, but once she settled down did an effective job of portraying Sabina. Viggo, as always, was perfection. He could read from the telephone book and I'd deem it Oscar worthy. To all of you out there who enjoy a movie experience that engages, teaches, and makes you think, it's a must see. I give it a Solid A. 
After the movie we went to grab a bite, a few martinis and enjoyed a gabfest ... my favorite thing to do. A real girls night. I don't get to do these very often now because I am UNEMPLOYED but my loving friend Laura, picked up the tab for the eats, so thank you Laura. Every girl needs a bunch of good girlfriends to get through difficult times and I have been very blessed to have such loving and caring friends.
To everyone who reads my blog, I thank you for coming by and visiting. I hope my little stories and rants make you laugh or make you feel normal, whichever you need. We all need to relate to one another because life can be cruel sometimes and the things we are able to share, whether joy or pain, are the things that unite us. I hope I can touch you in some way and I pray you all had a wonderful Christmas. I wish each and every one of you a safe and happy New Year and pray 2012 brings you all that you need .... health, family, friends, and work. GOD BLESS YOU ALL!
Hi Debbie,
ReplyDeleteI always enjoy coming here. I am very interested in seeing this film because of the history concerning the great influence of Freudian psychoanalysis, particularly in the U.S.
Does the film get into any of that, especially through Freud's nephew Edward Bernays, father of public relations and in many ways father of a new consumer-based society?
Freud's negative view of human beings as sensual-driven dangerous creatures (confirmed to him by the monstrosity of WWI) led those in power to doubt that democracy should be left up to "the herd." During this period a consumer society was deliberately created (and Bernays was at the heart of it) to deal with the problem of post-war overproduction at a time when most people bought on the basis of need rather than desire like the rich could do.
So, using Freudian ideas as well as crowd theory, gradually the business elites deliberately created a culture in which people would no longer buy on the basis of need. Instead Americans now engaged in the consumption or buying of things that we were led to believe will allow for our ego and spiritual fulfillment.
This also, it was believed, would solve another problem: i.e., that people can't be trusted to maintain democracy on the basis of appealing to their reason. Since in Freudian terms we're just id-driven creatures, we need to be kept busy chasing after those things that meet those base desires, thus becoming a docile public who leave the important matters of running the country to the elite. And voila, that's how our betters keep America safe for democracy? Of course the Great Depression and the recent multi-year Great Recession have shown that if people aren't employed, are struggling to make ends meet, and can't buy on the basis of desires manufactured for us, then they start to think about other things, like all the corporate and political abuse and how we can stop it.
All the riots during the Great Depression and the surge of popular opinion against big business, have similarities to the current Occupy Wall Street protests, and surge of public opinion against corporate welfare for wildly profitable corporations and tax cuts for the uber rich, while hardworking Americans struggle for jack squat.
All of this reveals the weaknesses in the capitalism-equals-democracy propaganda that whose origins you can trace historically and which has become so engrained in this country that to question it is to risk being squashed like a bug -- ask the young protesters of the 1960s who protested back then the greedy and rapacious corporations, and found themselves smashed to a pulp by their lackeys in government. "We never had a chance," they said. Similar to today's protesters who get bullied, pepper-sprayed and jailed. In the end the elites win. Mark my words. Only a massive unity of protest at the polls or actions like the dump B of A campaign has any hope of turning things around.
Sincerely,
One of the lowly herd with a brain.
i am so sowee i haven't called. i am awful at that. can we please, please do something after the new year?
ReplyDeleteI for one love your stuff. You give me a case of the smiles.
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