Within Reach Yet Out of Touch

I am the fourth of four children.

Most baby pictures of me include some or all of my siblings.  My baby book contains my name, birth date, length and weight and little else.

This in no way represents a lack of love or attention from my parents.  It does offer a peak at one of life's simple facts i.e. as the number of kids goes up, the attention to some detail goes down. My mom, in her words, always “hated detail” which translated into precious few notations into baby books and even precious fewer photos of just me.

So, of course, I grew up craving detail, and instructions, and rules.  It’s sad, I know. I hear the universe giggle every darn day.

My youngest daughter's baby book

My oldest daughter's baby book

I think one of the most outward expressions of my need to embrace detail (oh, let’s face it, correct the past) is the collection of photo albums and baby books I have maintained for both of my daughters.  Like any new parent, I photographed each girl as much as possible. Like any fourth of four children, I made sure my younger daughter had many, many photos taken of just her.  Oh yes, no child of mine was going to search for solo pictures of herself that did not exist or wonder when her first tooth fell out.

I was going to get this detail right.  And I did, pretty much.  Then, I let the digital age take the wheel.

Some family photo albums.

My daughters grew up when film photography was all there was.  Delayed gratification ruled the day.  There was no immediate photo preview on the camera. Ordering double prints was the fancy deal of the day.  And I ordered them – like crazy.  I needed prints for each girl’s photo album and one for our family photo album.  I like to think of this as merely covering all the bases but it has the ominous scent of OCD. 

And those photo Christmas cards taken every year? A copy of each is in both girls’ baby books so they have a continuous record.  Birthday invitations? Have ‘em along with a detailed description of the day.  First tooth? First doctor visit? Height and weight for each annual physical? Check. Check. Check. 

Oh dear.

This is why Carina Chocano’s NY Times Magazine piece titled “The Dilemma of Being a Cyborg” grabbed me.  Ms. Chocano posits that as the tactile things of memories (photos, letters, music, keepsakes) are relegated to devices as data, we are distilling them into thin air and losing something real. “For everything that’s gained by our ability to store and maintain more information than ever before, something is lost that has to do with texture, context and association,” she writes.  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/magazine/what-happens-when-data-disappears.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=carina%20chocano&st=cse

Digital Photos

Her experience with data loss, (photos of her 3 year-old disappearing when her phone died) and a friend’s total data loss when her hard drive and back-up hard drive storage both died, sparked the author’s thoughts about what turns humans into cyborgs. She notes, “Our devices allow us to compress time and space in a way that we’re able to mentally transport ourselves between planes of existence with the touch of a button. (Or, rather, a digital rendering of a button).”   I realized I have succumbed to the vapor.

Most of the photos I’ve taken in the last five or six years rest in cyberspace on my external hard drive or stored in ‘albums’ on my phone or Shutterfly.com  I’ve lost touch with the touch of them.

My first and only attempt at scrapbooking was in 2009 when my oldest graduated high school.  I pillaged her computer for some photos since she naturally took over the job of photographing events in her life when she bought a camera.  I marveled at the life she was building.  I mean, I knew she was moving beyond life at home, but this abstract awareness solidified as dozens of photos I’d never seen whisked by me. 

Photo frames are digitized so a photo collection stored on a teeny memory card scrolls along presenting an eternal slideshow.  As I recently stood in line at a local funeral home to pay respects to a friend who's mother had died, I marveled at the large screen slideshow displaying photos of her life.  But I was physically drawn to the poster collages and various letters created by family members.  The items were lovingly placed along where visitors waited in line. I caught myself gently gliding my finger across parts of them, not in a touchscreen swipe, but as though I was touching her. The closer I could get to the memory of this woman, the better. Feeling a creased black and white picture from her childhood sure helped.

AT&T’s 1979 award winning slogan urging us to “Reach Out and Touch Someone” resonates.  Who could have predicted how we would apply that suggestion today? Ms. Chocano observes that her futuristic 3-year-old is “given to swiping a finger across things like TV sets and laptop screens and declaring them broken when they fail to respond to her touch.”

 I understand what we are gaining by increased digitization but I don’t understand if we see what is being sacrificed.  Or, maybe we press on embracing the iCloud or other external and ethereal "places" because to do anything less is to get left behind in the march to, well, where exactly?

Browsing book stores or record stores, something I definitely took for granted, now elicits a cherished nostalgia.  The release of vinyl albums and the efforts of small book store owners to stay afloat point to a quixotic human need to touch.  Author Ann Patchett (Bel Canto and State of Wonder) recently visited The Colbert Report TV show to promote not her book but a book store she recently opened in Nashville. The store name, Parnassus Books, is an homage to Mount Parnassus believed to be the Greek mythological home of learning, literature and music. http://www.parnassusbooks.net/  Ms. Patchett is putting her money where her books are, quite literally.

Times author Chocano addresses this reach back, noting “It strikes me that the current fetishization of analog technology has less to do with nostalgia than it does with an urge to slow down the transfer of data from the internal to the external, from the individual to the collective and to make it all less instant, less ephemeral, less interchangeable, and more tangible more linear and more contextual.”  I recall when our new elementary school was built about ten years ago.  My youngest was in kindergarten and the classroom in which she learned to tell time had a lone digital clock.  This rattled me.  Was analog dead? Well, the watch display case at Macy’s jewelry department tells me otherwise, but it sure isn’t on the rise.

At one of my high school reunions, a woman named Patty who was integral in its planning did something so spontaneous that it sticks with me today.  As she rushed out the door to the event, she had a flash that many alums would be talking and asking about each other's children.  She glanced at her kids' photos nearest the door, grabbed them and sped out.  When I picked up my reunion name tag, I noticed an array of 5 x7 and 8 x 10 framed photographs of kids displayed alongside. I first thought they were of alums as youngsters until I asked Patty. I howled at her snappy reasoning.  Patty brought me into her world with one swipe of her arm.  Today, I think the we would be swapping phones containing photos. Effective? Yes. Heartfelt? Not as much as seeing those framed photos. I was knocked out by her fun reflex and quick thinking!

Of course we can't be lugging around framed photographs all the time, but we can become more engaged by their physicality.

An over reliance on digitization feels like I'm asking my eyes to do the work of my hands. I am human after all – with an array of senses all of which must be fully engaged.  I want to remember because I know how to. I want to reach out and touch.  Ms. Chocano's thoughtful conclusion resonates, “Maybe our desire to digitize and archive every little thing is not a proof of a fear of forgetting.  It’s a manifestation of our urge to remember how to remember.” 

Acceptance Arrives in Many Ways

Here is a look at the Live Action Short Films up for an Academy Award tonight!


A good film touches us in some way – a great one grabs us by the collar with both fists.

The Academy Award nominees for Live Action Short Films fit neatly in either of these two boxes. For me, what separated them was how deeply they churned in my gut.

Pentecost

In the tale of an Irish altar boy caught in the web of expectations from his father, his parish priest and his archbishop, Pentecost invites us to witness a comedic coming of age moment.  The boy, Damian, unwittingly injures a priest when he swings a metal incense ball a bit too enthusiastically and finds himself banned from his duties and from watching his beloved Manchester United football team.  Damian says he’s thankful to be relieved of the church duties because he never wanted them in the first place. This goes unheard.  A plot twist finds Damian as the incense bearer again this time for an all-important archbishop’s visit to his country church.

The predictable ending, in which some spirit moves the hero, places this film into the ‘good’ box for me.  However, a hilarious scene that can only be described as a private pre-Mass pep talk is delivered with such fervor that if you close your eyes, you’d swear it was being given in a Super Bowl locker room at halftime. 

 Krish Gupta as Raju

Raju provides a sobering riddle that is dropped into the lives of a German couple as they spend the first hours with their newly adopted four year old son, Raju in colorful, raucous, bare bones Calcutta, India.  In a bustling marketplace with his new father, the boy seemingly vanishes and, from that point, the film pulses with doubt, fear, and anxiety. The father stumbles into a discovery about his sweet child that ironically clarifies his next decision but muddies the waters for his spouse.  Here Raju quietly explodes with a gut check for the audience, asking the question: What would you do?

Interestingly, the film begins with its conclusion, and this deliberate sequence adds greater power to its fuel injected ethos.  In twenty-four minutes, the film dispenses an intense dilemma that sank its teeth into me. 

Ciaran Hinds (Jim) and Kerry Condon (Patricia) in "The Shore"

Ireland is once again a backdrop in The Shore in which an Emerald Isle son, Joe, returns with his daughter, Patricia, to his coastal birthplace and is embraced after a 25 year absence.  A more meaningful reunion lies beneath Jim’s trip across the Atlantic as he seeks his childhood friend, Paddy, and sweetheart, Mary to right a wrong.  The trilogy find themselves in a sequence of two person conversations, sorting out their shared past, as they unlock the contents of their hearts. 

Michael Nathanson (Stillman) in "Time Freak"

Humor appears again in Time Freak in which a Groundhog Day-like plot finds two friends experiencing the power and pitfalls of minute time travel. Evan finds his friend Stillman with his fully operational time machine in a Brooklyn warehouse. Lined with charts, diagrams, and timetables, the spot becomes Stillman’s frequent home base.  His plans of traveling to Ancient Rome become surpassed by life’s simpler conundrums, like retrieving a shirt that is never ready for pick up at the corner dry cleaners and botching a chance meeting with a woman he’d like to date.  The waters become even murkier when the woman tells the time weary traveler to stand up to the dry cleaner.

Stillman sinks into quicksand as he relentlessly tries to repair the situations.  It is like watching someone repeatedly tumble down the same set of stairs – no matter how often he reaches for something to break his fall, he lands badly bruised at the bottom. Every. Single. Time.

It is a purposeful mirror held up for the audience - how many times do we mentally revisit a moment in time with a different dialogue and outcome? Stillman shows us how fruitless these mental ‘do-overs’ are when acted out. Every. Single. Time.

Edvard Haegstad as Oskar in "Tuba Atlantic"

I was prepared to dislike Tuba Atlantic for superficial reasons – freezing coastal Norway, seagulls being gunned down, a cantankerous man named Oskar who is told he has six days to live, sparse settings. That is until Inger, the self-described Angel of Death hospice worker, arrives and melts it all away.  She is an angel in a mechanical, awkward, teenage sort of way that simply endears her to the audience and, eventually, to Oskar. 

The unlikely pair stumble along as their disjointed natures struggle to connect, in spite of themselves.  The cacophonous climax announces what is possible when kindness is offered and accepted. 

The five films share a theme of acceptance.

In Raju and Tuba Atlantic, both wrestle painfully and begrudgingly to reach it; The Shore resurrects it after being buried 25 years earlier; Pentecost and Time Freak tickle audience funny bones to release it.

While my vote for Oscar goes to Raju, I believe Tuba Atlantic will pick up the award because of its quirkiness.  In the spirit of acceptance, I will embrace any outcome! 

Short, and Definitely Sweet

And the Oscar goes to...

That familiar pregnant pause on Oscar night gives viewers one more chance to silently choose the winner before they are revealed.  Up until that moment, who will win Best Actor and Actress, Best Director and Best Picture, are topics on moviegoers’ tongues for weeks before the Academy Awards ceremony.

But when is the last time you heard someone argue the finer points of what animated short film will capture the golden statue?  Thanks to some clever marketing, the likelihood of just such a conversation is greater than ever as Oscar’s lesser known contenders have become more accessible to film goers.

Bryn Mawr Film Institute (along with other area art cinemas) is screening three categories of Oscar nominated films that otherwise would go unnoticed by the general public. Separate screenings of the nominated live action shorts, animated shorts, and documentary shorts are being shown to better acquaint movie fans with these time-condensed genres. ShortsHD opened up this annual screening practice in 2005 and audiences have jumped at the chance to learn more about entries in these genres.

As a film enthusiast, seeing them makes me feel like an Oscar night insider.
The animated short films emotionally transported me back to my Saturday-morning-cartoon-filled youth. I watched transfixed at the colorful, whimsical parade of images floating across the screen. The cartoon analogy ended there, however, because these films swim in sophisticated waters. Themes of isolation, hope, the environment, parental expectations, and more are interpreted in  a broad color spectrum using minimal dialogue.

The notable differences between each animated short film emphasize the endless creative options filmmakers have available today to realize their vision.

Dimanche/Sunday

Two Canadian entries, Dimanche/Sunday and Wild Life, use the vast Canadian landscape as backdrop to their stories. A young boy and his routine weekly visit with relatives is juxtaposed with a speeding train that literally shakes everything around it as it frequently passes by the sparse homes in Dimanche.  No dialogue is used as the boy’s understated isolation and childhood ennui are bracketed by oversized adults and the overpowering locomotive. Life is moving too fast and loud on the outside while the child’s world reflects a slow, quiet interior. The “T” shaped feet drawn on every character made me chuckle and created a cartoonish style to the black and white short.

Wild Life

Wild Life’s sweeping vistas of softly colored quilt-like images make up the countryside where a young adventurous man of means sets off to be a gentleman farmer. With an overly romanticized view of his new surroundings, the young dandy is a curiosity to his few rural neighbors as well as a disappointment to his entitled father. He realizes the gravity of his choice as winter approaches and he literally succumbs to its overwhelming power. It reminded me of the 2007 feature film Into the Wild and how an untamed world can crush the most curious of souls.

A Morning Stroll

A lone, unsuspecting chicken saunters along the same urban street in 1959, 2009, and 2059 in A Morning Stroll. While the chicken follows the same path, hops up several steps, pecks on the same front door to gain entrance, nothing is the same around him. The nonplussed capon travels through three vastly different scenarios before he reaches his destination, making this stark short film the most rambunctious of all the contenders. The bird’s journey is short, but each time period presents its own brand of danger and dark forces, giving a pointed view of humanity’s decline over time. The bird reminded me of a much slower, plumper version of the beloved Looney Tunes character, the Road Runner, as things and people explode around him while he casually continues on his way.

La Luna

La Luna, Disney’s Pixar Studios offering, presents a child’s wide-eyed wonder as he helps his father and grandfather harness the moon to do some lunar clean up. The threesome climb a ladder into space to sweep up the sparkling glass stars covering the moon. Both men rediscover the magic of their duties as they watch the youngster embrace the enchanted lunar surface. Moonlight and starlight illuminate the human warmth in this sweet, multi-generational tale.

The Fantastic Flying Books
of Mr. Morris Lessmore

My favorite of the bunch, however, was The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore.  We meet the bookish Mr. Morris as a hurricane-like wind blows him and his book stacks off an iron-railed porch in New Orleans (a Katrina reference perhaps?) and sends him into a world of life-like books. He hesitantly enters a wondrous home library where books dance and play with exuberance and he learns to embrace their whimsy. Books as birds strike the perfect chord as they excitedly flutter when Mr. Morris gives them attention. The film demonstrated for me how we, as readers, are transported by books, if we just allow ourselves to become lifted into their worlds.

Three additional films titled Amazonia, Skylight, and Nullarbor rounded out the animated short offerings (though they are not nominated for an award) and added a rich dimension to the whole experience.  You can bet I won’t be getting popcorn out of the microwave this Sunday when the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film is about to be presented.

This year I’ll whisper my personal choice, like any other Oscar insider.

Breaking Codes, Secrets, Trust

US Navy code breakers sit in a stark, unremarkable room. They mechanically reveal messages from Japanese correspondence using time-tested code-cracking methods. Their precision is abruptly broken when a new code stymies one seasoned operator.

What to do?

This is the opening from which the movie The Red Machine reveals a super-secret spy mission undertaken in Washington, D.C. in 1935.  BMFI screened the deliciously intense film on Saturday, February 11 , along with a comical companion short “newsreel”, Gandhi at the Bat. Filmmakers Stephanie Argy and Alec Boehm, appearing with actor Roger Ainslie (Cmdr. Petrie), were all in attendance to answer audience questions.

L to R: Roger Ainslie, Stephanie Argy and Alec Boehm of
The Red Machine and Gandhi at the Bat

Stephanie and Alec brought their enthusiasm for the spy/detective movie genre (along with a costume and some props from the film and fun movie swag) and discussed how they concocted the espionage film. Their deep interest in detective-style storytelling began with a book. “We were in New Orleans book shop and came upon The American Magic Codes: Ciphers and the Defeat of Japan,” Stephanie recalled. The US military’s use of a local con man/safecracker to steal a book containing Japanese communication codes sparked for them. That idea ignited when they were making the Gandhi short film.

“The actors from Gandhi inspired us and gave face to the story we were trying to shape,” Stephanie said.   Based on a short story of the same name by Chet Williamson in a 1983 New Yorker magazine, Gandhi is a supposedly secret newsreel about the peacemaker’s 1933 visit to the US in which he attends a Yankees vs. A’s baseball game.  The hilarious writing was brought to life in part through the authentic-looking visual effects that Stephanie and Alec created.

Petite and wearing a t-shirt with the word ‘SPY’ on it,  Stephanie explained that she and her partner look at spy themes for the fun challenges they present for the audience and themselves. “We’re drawn to pulp, spy, and thief story lines for the intrigue everyone experiences.” Intrigue fills each scene of The Red Machine, as the plot crescendos. A naval officer and safecracker are paired to secure a Japanese code book locked away in a US embassy. Their unlikely match seems questionable, until they discover others’ secret agendas.

Rear view of spy sneakers specially
made for The Red Machine.

Top view of Stephanie Argy's
spy sneakers

The Red Machine’s title is based on the names US Navy code breakers would give to the machines they worked to easily identify country and code origins.  “We tried to get a photograph of the real Red Machine,” Stephanie added. The request for a photo from the NSA reaped no bounty, so they looked at lots of photos of cipher machines and collaborated with their prop master to build what they thought it might look like. However, two years later they found one such photo on the NSA website. “We asked the wrong question,” she laughingly added. ”The machine was always there, but we literally asked for a photo of it. The right question would have been, “Can you take a photo of it and send it to us?’” 

A red machine: Inner workings exposed.

Literal translations aside, the device created for the film was seen by Stephanie and Alec as the vehicle to set the characters in motion. “The idea of this machine was as a sort of precursor to what eventually would become the computer,” Stephanie noted.

The couple’s teamwork continued in post-production with Stephanie working as the primary editor, and Alec as sound editor. To maintain objectivity, they followed advice from a colleague who understood the pitfalls of working on a project with a partner. “A friend suggested that we remember to keep a pair of fresh eyes on each step,” Stephanie recalled. Stephanie would edit the film and Alec was the ‘fresh eyes’ to her choices. Likewise, after Alec did sound editing, Stephanie offered her opinions.

Dress worn by Naomi Shimada
(Madoka Kasahara) in
The Red Machine

As for their unintended code used to describe how they felt about the difficulty of their projects on a given day, they used The New York Times crossword day of the week as their opinion shorthand. Stephanie explained, “You know, Monday puzzles are usually the easiest ones, and by Friday, they’ve grown substantially more difficult. So we would say something like ‘this looks like a Tuesday,’ to communicate how close to the mark something was.” I thought their use of daily puzzle appearance was the perfect tool for filmmakers who are so taken with clever mystery and breaking codes.

Asked about the challenges they faced in making the self-financed film, Alec (a possible doppelganger for actor Phillip Seymour Hoffman) used the analogy of a mine car. “Keeping the mine car on the rails in the mine shaft as much as possible was, by far, the biggest challenge for me,” he said adding “there are so many factors that can push you off course.”

Top secret file of safecracker Eddie
Doyle (Donal Thomas Cappello)
from The Red Machine.

Stephanie’s reply was introspective: “Saying our goodbyes.” She added, “Once the script was done, it was sad but we knew we had to cast the film so that made me happy.” The cycle of one piece ending and one beginning juggled the sadness and joy throughout until the film’s eventual completion. The couple’s mix of practical and intangible reflections reminded me, an avid movie goer, that the human factor behind the movie magic is always present on and off the screen.

Stephanie’s closing remarks regarding the choice of the film’s time period offered a deeper glimpse into the couple’s purposeful approach to films.  “Looking back on those times, we know they were very rough,” she shared, noting the Depression years and early events in pre-WWII Europe. “It’s our way of saying we got through those times and can get through these as well.”

Link to Bryn Mawr Film Institute: http://www.brynmawrfilm.org/ 
Link to The Red Machine web site: http://www.redmachinethemovie.com/
Link to Roger Ebert review (3.5 stars) of The Red Machine: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100818/REVIEWS/100819989/1023

Love by the Numbers

Once I heard a friend describe Love as a verb, it made perfect sense. It still does. This weekend, however, I heard the search for Love described not in terms of grammar, but in terms of math and science.  This was a huge departure from my comfort zone and gave me reason enough to write about it. 

First, a word about today – Valentine’s Day.  Love gets a kick start every February 14. It's
the day we try to squeeze some display of Love into a 24 hour span.  Valentine's Day has the laser focus of New Year's Eve in that we feel obliged to act on it because of its place on the calendar.  We are pressed to feel/experience Love simply because the calendar says so.

Of course, we can express love anytime, anywhere for any reason. February 14 just defines the effort, albeit a little unnaturally.  Sprinkling some math and science onto this equation makes it even more unnatural. Yes? Not necessarily.

This weekend, CBS Sunday Morning aired a piece called "The Science of Love" in which the mechanics of on-line dating services were explained in terms of how clients match up with one another.  Many services use algorithms to better identify what customers are seeking by tracking their on-line searches. The largest on-line dating service has taken this approach into a new direction with results that target what singles really want instead of what they say they want.  
 http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7398426n&tag=contentMain;contentBody

Natural heart shaped lava from Maui

Match.com employs a team of mathematicians to create algorithms to calculate customer behavior when searching online so the company can better pinpoint what customers truly want. Clients check off what traits they seek in a partner, their results are fed into an algorithm, and the match is made.  Ah, not so fast.  “We realize people break their own rules,” a mathematician who works for the online dating service offered.  So, while someone’s background along with personality traits and the like are specifically identified as choice characteristics by customers, the proof of what they really want is in the actual activity done on the site.

"People might say things like it’s important they (their date choice) have the same religious affiliation – that one’s broken quite a bit,” Match.com President Mandy Ginsburg explained in the CBS video. “But searches showed something different.”  It apparently comes down to a difference between “what I say” vs. “what I do.”  Customers may have said they were seeking particular attributes for a possible mate, but when they began to search the site, significant differences were revealed that were inconsistent with their initial parameters.

Snow heart

It appears two plus two does not necessarily equal four in the world of online dating searches. But the new algorithms now used by Match.com have resulted in twice as many emails sent between clients. The matches seem to be truer.  It is interesting to note that mathematics can still play a role in understanding the often unknowable side to human behavior.  And speaking of human behavior, CBS brought in the opinion of a Psychology professor from Northwestern University to weigh in on the use of dating algorithms.  “We have very little reason to believe that collecting information from two people who have never met can predict long term compatibility,” stated Professor Eli Finkel, Ph.D. 

 Dr. Finkel is one of several authors of the study titled “Online Dating: A Critical Analysis from the Perspective of Psychological Science” which sees online dating as an option for singles searching for love but concludes that “it may be luck that sparks a relationship rather than mathematical equations.”  He notes, “I would encourage singles to think twice about whether online dating is the best use of their money.” http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/journals/pspi/online-dating.html

A psychologist chose luck while an online dating service chose math.  Can this collision of the two disciplines be any sweeter?  Of course it can! In keeping with my noted discomfort with math and science as Love measurements, I invite a third guest to the party - a sports analogy.

http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view
_photog.php?photogid=2187

It was the love of baseball and frustration with how other teams cherry picked great players from the team’s roster that brought Oakland A’s general manager, Billy Beane to a crossroads back in 2001.  I watched the movie “Moneyball” this weekend, which looks at how the famed GM changed the parameters used in player selection. Beane whittled down the traditional criteria like fielding percentage, player size, and even what a player’s girlfriend looked like (yes, a factor noted in the film) to the statistic that mattered – getting on base.   Beane’s controversial choice was like David to the traditional Goliath-like machine of player selection used by baseball scouts. 

Immersed in pages of statistics, the scouts, in Beane’s estimation, were all looking at the wrong information.  A recent Yale grad who majored in economics presented Beane with statistics that gave new life to an old system.

While the impact of Beane’s decision was compelling, it was his commitment to a new vision that grabbed me by the throat.  His decision flew in the face of everything he had been taught by baseball.  He chose a mathematical course that, ironically in a game of statistics, was a humongous leap of faith.  Beane may not have been seeking Love, but his search involved a love for something that he felt was being ruined.  It is, in my estimation, a grand slam of a love story. And math was at its core.

Whether it’s in the numbers or the stars for you, here’s to feeling Love’s warm embrace not just today, but every day.  Now, that is one for the books.

Dangerous: The Method or the Men?

Overstepping the slender line that separates the doctor/patient relationship is one of the most dangerous decisions a health professional can make—at least that was the consensus reached by moviegoers discussing the film A Dangerous Method following a recent afternoon screening during its opening weekend at Bryn Mawr Film Institute.

An alternative event to the Super Bowl XLVI, some 20 or so filmgoers joined Dr. John Frank of the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia to talk about their impressions regarding the film's characters as part of BMFI’s "Inside the Characters" forum. The guided discussion, offered monthly at BMFI, opens an opportunity to answer the timely post-movie question, "What did you think?" or, more specifically, "What did you think of the characters?"

Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) and Sigmund Freud (Viggo
Mortenson) discuss their views on the 'talking method' of
psychoanalysis at the turn of the 20th century.

The discussion initially focused on the expanded view of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung as two of the film's trio of main characters during a period where they collided on their professional journeys. The film looks at how these forces of psychoanalysis navigated their work and relationship with each other, as well as how they formulated and employed the 'talking method' of treatment. The discussion was equally rich and uncomfortable as moviegoers wrestled with the way these men’s personalities and practices collide in their search to understand the human psyche. 

Today, using talking as a way of emotionally healing is the predominant path taken in psychoanalysis. At the turn of the 20th century, this method was in its infancy. Its use (and abuse) provided the basis of one of the film's troubling themes. 

Jung (Michael Fassbender) successfully treats a young female patient whose consuming hysteria blasts the movie's first scene wide open. The patient, Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightly) responds exceedingly well to the talking method of treatment, but reminds us that a complete cure can be elusive. Her uncontrolled bouts of fear are dramatically reduced.  This opens the door for her intuitive intelligence to emerge as she attends university to study psychology.  However, lingering sexual arousal from being beaten continues to burn within her, a sad reminder of her father’s beatings when she was a child.



Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightly) and Carl Jung (Michael
Fassbender) in A Dangerous Method.

Audience members seemed to appreciate the defined success of the married Jung's care for his patient until his suppressed sexual needs supersede Spielrein's treatment.

Spielrein's portrayal as the one who initiates the physical relationship with Jung did not sway the discussion participants from the overriding concern about the damage done when a patient/doctor relationship breaks the bond of appropriateness. Said one participant, "This goes to the basis of aberrant behavior and abuses any trust between the two." The group seemed unanimous in demanding that, as the professional, the doctor’s role in protecting that trust was paramount.

In the post-movie chat, other participants whose professional life is/was in social work or mental health also took pointed exception to Jung's breach of conduct. One woman explained, "We'd be in a terrible state if everyone did whatever they wanted." Added another, "Jung goes directly against keeping the necessary boundaries of the doctor/patient relationship." The film's presentation of this taboo behavior tainted Jung's professional achievements for many in the discussion.

In the film, psychologist Otto Gross (Vincent Cassel) represents uninhibited expression and freedom to the extreme. Gross described a patient's desire for the same freedom to both have an affair with her doctor and to commit suicide as a consistent expression that should not be "cured." "Freedom is freedom," he quips much to the audience and Jung's disdain. The audience was as critical of his character as they were of Jung’s malfeasance. One participant noted, "He was a horror."

It is not always smooth sailing for Freud and Jung
in A Dangerous Method

The character of Sabina Spielrein was interesting because of how she seeks answers while remaining acutely aware of her scarred past. "I give Sabina credit," one male participant stated, noting that she benefits from Jung's initial treatment and unhappily moves beyond their sexual relationship to "ultimately succeed in getting better and living a very productive life." The contrast from this woman's uncontrollable breakdown at the outset to her resounding intellectual achievements received appreciation from some—but not all—in the group.

Another woman noted, "Sabina was never really cured, even though she achieved a great deal in her field." This led to a discussion regarding how much does one need to be healed to live a productive life. As discussion leader, Dr. Frank added, "Sabina was seen as someone history cast aside early on, but her work in the new area of child psychology was eventually recognized as groundbreaking."

Freud's (Viggo Mortensen) influence as father figure to Jung and to the psychoanalytic movement in Europe received notable emphasis in the film and also with the discussion participants. Said one woman, "The film supported the view that Freud and Jung were smart men but when it came to their personal relationship, Jung struggled with having Freud as a substitute father." 

Spielrein's deeply rooted humiliation at the hands of her biological father also influenced how she saw both Jung and Freud. "Each character was traumatized in some way by the other," added one gentleman. "The father-figure role impacted all their lives."

Delving inside the film's characters with other moviegoers added a dimension to the movie experience that mirrored its intent—by talking through our impressions of the film's players, we not only had our say but had to consider how others saw them. The power of talk, whether as a psychoanalytic tool or vehicle for discussion, gives us all a chance to be heard.

Upon exiting A Dangerous Method, I reflected that the film’s title was somewhat misleading since 'the method' was not necessarily dangerous. The danger lay with how Jung, Freud, and Gross chose to use it, reminding me that sometimes, the disease seeps into the cure. 

Link to Bryn Mawr Film Institute where I will occasionally appear as a guest blogger: http://www.brynmawrfilm.blogspot.com/2012/02/dangerous-method-or-men.html

The Road Not Taken

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http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=587 "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference." Robert Frost's exemplary poem, "The Road Not Taken," often serves as the thought provoking nudge many seekers sense when taking one path in lieu of another.  The poem is not so much a road map, but more of an explanation for what someone feels when making a life-changing choice. Standing at the place of choice, the bittersweet truth is that we step onto one path knowing we are stepping away from another.  It's a little like life's game of hokey pokey - putting one foot in and taking one foot out.  Four world travelers recently graced the stage at People's Light and Theatre Company (PLTC) in Malvern to share why and how the roads they opted to travel on have taken them into worlds they thought were  unimaginable.  PLTC paired the free event as the last of three community pieces to their world premiere production, "Fallow" by Ken Lin. In the play, a grieving mother (played by MB Scallen) unintentionally becomes the seeker her "beamish boy" son (played by George Olesky) was before his cruel murder. The mother returns to California to meet the migrant field hands he worked with and goes to the jails where his murderers have been sentenced.    The emotional journey opens uncomfortable opportunities for the mother as she finds herself choosing to move in directions she could not fathom before her son's death.  These choices provided the stimulus to the post-show discussion at PLTC. Each participant shared a common leap from one path to another, though they would probably say instead of leaping, they listened.   In moments of aching clarity, these individuals described why they made significant life changes to help others.  Tricia Neale who left the Mayo Clinic as a supervisor in the Orthopedic Biomechanics lab felt her calling while she doled out mashed potatoes on a mission trip to New York City.  "I was overwhelmed with the knowledge that I needed to do something different," she said. She and her husband moved to Philadelphia in 2007 where she works as Associate Pastor at St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church and as Executive Director of Feast of Justice which feeds 1600 families.  "I feel more fulfilled now because everyday I can say this is exactly what I am meant to do," she added.  http://www.feastofjustice.org/ Michaelanne Harriman stayed the course in the world of art when she reconstructed her life's work from painting sets in suburban Malvern to working in the Hunting Park section of Philadelphia, creating community art projects through the Ayuda Community Center.  Direct contact with community members became her focus so, in her words, she could be "the hands and feet of Christ, so our faith looks like something."    Her neighborhood has no shortage of heartache.  The artist is undaunted.  "My heart is broken more than ever in my life but seeing the brokenness is something I am thankful for," she powerfully added.   Harriman runs an art center and hosts workshops as well as coordinates temporary and permanent neighborhood art installations alongside her neighbors.  http://www.ayudacc.org/ http://www.travelingmercies.org/10636/21301.html Aldo Magazzeni sees his full circle life as pieces collected from his impoverished childhood in Italy, his education in America, and his eventual creation of the Traveling Mercies non-profit foundation to "help the diverse needs of those suffering throughout the world." Along with helping provide water systems and sustainable farming projects,  Magazzeni, with Traveling Mercies members, sees no borders wherever need exists.  He only sees opportunities to serve.  Each project puts him in front of the poverty of his childhood and this signpost invigorates him to move forward and serve the world.   http://www.travelingmercies.org/ An avid photographer, he has compiled a series of photographs some of which were displayed in the PLTC lobby.   They honor those his foundation has touched.  "The photos give a voice, not to me or to the photo, but to the people...to record a relationship and an experience with the people I was meeting," he stated. Entering the bleak, inhumane world of human trafficking and forced sex trade could not have been more of an about face for someone who saw herself as "a mom," but Carol Metzker's decision to become an advocate for the 27 million voiceless victims throughout the world came swiftly in 2004 as she stood face to face with Indian girls preyed upon by the slave trade. "Girls the same age as my daughter were being sold into lives of despair," she softly shared. "I thought, 'I can either burn this from my memory or do something to stop this,'" the writer stated as she shook her head. "The choice was obvious."  The audience felt the tonnage of despair as  Metzker described conditions that are not only oceans away but also exist within Chester County, PA.  Illiteracy, extreme poverty, natural disasters and living with no options are the ingredients that feed the human trafficking pipeline.  Metzker added that the work done by her fellow panelists directly closes the flow of despair and will eventually eliminate the scourge. http://ftsblog.net/ http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_ photog.php?photogid=2365 All four of the speakers feel hope on their life paths because they see the beauty within those being helped.  Michaelanne Harriman expressed it best when she said, "There's an intense beauty in life in the middle of the ashes.  When we are reeling from tragedies, the kids always show me how to dance in the middle of it.  Where there is beauty in the ashes, there's hope."  This hope was the basis for a community art project directed by Harriman called "Rise" which gave visual form to Maya Angelou's poem "Still I Rise."  The poem's assertion floats seamlessly across the work of all four social justice participants as they believe the only direction for change is up. "Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like Hopes springing high, Still l'll rise."  Link to People's Light and Theater Company, Malvern PA. http://peopleslight.org/ Link to "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173536   Link to "I Rise" by Maya Angelou http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/175742