Freud / The Secret Passion (1962) ***

The Oppenheimer of its day. Instead of splitting the atom, seizing on inexplicable division within the brain.  Rather than untapping raw energy concealed inside a previous passive element, delving into the raging unknown of the human psyche. While lacking Christopher Nolan’s cinematic bravura and his post-discovery crucifixion of the main character, nonetheless an intense, under-rated piece. Without doubt one of the few genuine examples of ideal casting – tortured actor playing tortured character.

In the main it’s a tale of three case studies: Oedipal complex exhibited by suicidal Carl (David McCallum), the paternal fixation of Cecily (Susannah York), and Freud’s own sexuality, his strong feelings for his mother. Along the way there’s a potted history of psychiatry. Freud eventually discards the traditional route of hypnotism for getting to grips with a character’s malfunctioning brain and invents the new technique of simply talking to the person. Bit by bit like a forensic analyst going deeper and deeper into character-forming events in early childhood that trigger shame, revulsion and guilt in emotional maturity.

In the case of Cecily, her inability to face the consequences of early circumstances – she was abused by a father she had convinced herself she adored – forces her either to reinvent key moments of her life (believing her father died in a hospital rather than a brothel) or to become afflicted by blindness, phantom pregnancy and paralysis.

It doesn’t shy away from the intimacy of the psychiatrist-patient relationship that can lead to a vulnerable client falling in love with her doctor or, conversely, the physician taking advantage. Freud often felt bound up with his patients’ dilemma, some potent imagery shows him physically unable to free himself from a client.

It unwinds like a detective story, almost a film noir where the investigator goes down the wrong path and finds clues buried within himself, becoming aware of how complicit the mind can become in concealing from the conscious part of the brain what the unconscious cannot deal with.

Theoretically, with mental health issues more to the fore these days, we are all familiar with the causes of emotional disturbance but, in fact, far from this being old hat, in the same way as Oppenheimer shed new light on a significant event with which we are all familiar, I found it quite fresh, especially as, in his intensity, Freud could have been blood brother to the renowned physicist.  

As you might expect, Montgomery Clift (The Misfits, 1961) is quite superb. You might think there’s not much acting involved here, Clift just being himself. But compare this performance with The Misfits or the later The Defector (1964) and you can see both similarities and considerable differences. No actor was more adept at revealing soul through the eyes.  

The less experienced Susannah York (They Shoot Horses, Don’t They, 1969) and David McCallum (Sol Madrid / The Heroin Gang, 1968) overplay their hand, depending too often on physical expression to show torment. Larry Parks (The Jolson Story, 1946), in his final movie, is more discreet as the shrink falling dangerously in love with his patient without stopping to examine what forces led her to harbor romantic inclination towards him.

As with Oppenheimer, information dumps are made credibly dramatic, and Freud’s lecture on infant emotion to a shocked audience is a stand-out.

John Huston (The Night of the Iguana, 1964) wisely uses the Viennese backdrop as window dressing rather than the camera over-indulging in scenery, although there is a hint of the Sherlock Holmes in scenes of illicit night life.

French philosopher and playwright Jean-Paul Sartre (The Condemned of Altona, 1962) worked on the screenplay along with Charles Kaufman (Bridge to the Sun, 1961) and Wolfgang Reinhardt (Hitler – The Last Ten Days, 1973).

Worth a watch. Unmissable Clift performance.

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