There are many facets of a good film, including the artistic direction, quality of the acting, the music, cinematography, direction and editing. Nevertheless, sometimes we can come away from the cinema feeling dissatisfied without necessarily being able to articulate why. Perhaps it is to do with expectation but often it is at a more subtle level; did the film feel psychologically believable? This can apply across all genres of film. Thus, one of the great challenges confronting the author or screenwriter is to get this right and to communicate the intentions to the Director; some are better than others in this respect.
The new book, Cinema as Therapy by John Izod and Joanna Dovalis, is a pleasing read and contributes an understanding as to why some films are more satisfying than others. The authors have devoted a chapter to each film, which I believe works rather well. Thus, the book is a particularly useful reference for the films they use as examples. In Part 1, the book concerns itself with Encountering phases of grief (Birth, Tsotsi and Million Dollar Baby); Part 2 is entitled Transitions to wholeness (Trois Coleurs: Bleu, Trois Coleurs: Blanc and Trois Coleurs: Rouge) and Part 3, Transcending the personal (The Son’s Room, Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter etc. and Spring, Morvern Callar and The Tree of Life).
The style of each chapter is to provide a summary plotline fleshed out with psychoanalytic explanation, which includes reference to significant academic writings in the field. To give you a flavour for example, in Tsotsi the authors write “Recall now that the movie opened with the throwing of dice. A long, seemingly universal cultural history connects the game with attempts to foresee fate. Fate, according to Jung, is a label for whatever remains locked in the unconscious”. And later on, “The only character with confident and controlled access to unconscious impulses that feed her emotions is Miriam”. This illustrates that the authors take as their starting point, that the psychoanalytic view of the world has something to contribute to our understanding, which of course, is not a universally held view. For the newcomer to the field, it can also be a little heavy going. Nevertheless, I would recommend that the reader sticks with it, as it does provide an explanation for why some actors seem better than others at getting the characterisation right. For example, in Million Dollar Baby, the authors talk about the role played by Morgan Freeman as Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris, who functions both as the trainer’s and the audience’s wise old man.
The Tree of Life chapter starts with examples from the script and then how the film works with these ideas. The authors say “It’s worth taking stock of what understanding an audience can and cannot receive from these opening sequences”. Further, “In these early scenes, the actors’ movements blend with fluent Steadicam coverage and the Canticle’s sweet calmness, endowing spectators with a sense of flow that embellishes the grace and beauty of the universe”.
A very useful glossary of terms and academic references are to be found at the end of the book. They intend the book to be interesting reading for therapists, students, academics working in film studies and filmgoers. I am sure it will be. The title “Cinema as Therapy” might put the casual reader off from picking the book up and if so, they would be missing out because I find the book to be well written, accessible and an interesting read for the non-expert. Maybe the authors are too discreet to mention it of course, but I hope that script writers will find it to be essential reading, because if they do, they will write better films for us to enjoy.
