Artificial Intelligence, 2001

Despite the obvious about this film, I think it dramatizes the aspects of the control and manipulation of individuals and the end result of those who fail to control and direct themselves. It is about a seemingly lone scientist who lost his son, obsessed and refusing to accept his loss. In desperation to recapture his son’s life, he has masterminded the creation of a robotic boy called David, who looks like his son. This sounds like the accusations made against scientists acquiring and using stem cells 30 years ago. Upon finding out about his origins David runs away. David’s replicas are sent out and one is purchased by Henry Swinton, for his grieving wife Monica, who’s son Martin is terminally ill. The story moves through the twists and turns of Monica and Henry’s adjustment to David. During this time Martin recovers and is brought home. Martin becomes envious of Monica’s attention to David and various competitions and childish pranks go on throughout his adapting to David. David too grows more interested in the human qualities of Martin’s relationship with his mother, wishing to be treated more human. Just when Martin is getting over his jealousy of David, an innocent prank causes an accident resulting in the near drowning of Martin and David is thought to be the cause. Unaware of the manner in which David would respond to a knife striking the palm of his hand (The Woman in Green) he is thrown into defense mode. He grabs Martin and unable to release him, they both fall to the bottom of the pool. Henry rescues Martin while David remains behind. Because Monica imprinted with David, giving him his human like qualities, they cannot return David and Henry then insists Monica dispose of David and takes him to a forest where he is left alone with his teddy. She gives him money and points him in a safe direction, apologizes for not teaching him about the world and then leaves. He responds to Monica’s abandonment as if he were a real boy. The story then moves through the various trials and tribulations David faces out in the world. He befriends a Loverboy mecha who gets David in and out of his many predicaments but is captured and returned to scrap for his misdeeds. David finally crashes into Manhattan, depicted in the future as being beneath the sea, where he remains for a long period of time. Upon awakening he discovers the Blue Fairy he sought for so long and believed could make him a real boy. The remainder of the film involves his re-acquaintance with Monica who went to sleep, but is brought back to life briefly, enabling David to recapture his relationship with her if only for a short time.

Do we possess artificial intelligence? Are we the result of what has been programmed into us? I think this is the true intent of the film, to explore this thinking. We do develop thoughts and feelings in response to what we see and hear, the nature of our brains. We as humans can develop thoughts and feelings independent of what we are programmed to think and believe. It takes the work of attention, a willingness to gain knowledge of ourselves and a reflection upon ourselves and what we have done and what we do, in creating our future selves and our future lives.   At some point in the process we do learn to love ourselves.  It may start by simply saying I love myself even if we don’t feel it and then we learn what it means to love one’s self and to act toward the self in a way that is loving.  Sometimes we acquire knowledge from the observations of the behaviors of others as David did and Martin failed to do in order to learn about ourselves and how to be, but turning our attention outward may fail us more often than turning our attention inward. We may choose not to love as we are programmed to do and at other times we love when we are made to think we should not. The following argument between the female colleague and Professor Hobby is the crux of the film.

Female Colleague: It occurs to me with all this animus existing against Mechas today it isn't just a question of creating a robot that can love. Isn't the real conundrum, can you get a human to love them back?

Professor Hobby: Ours will be a perfect child caught in a freeze frame. Always loving, never ill, never changing. With all the childless couples yearning in vain for a license, our Mecha will not only open up a new market but fill a great human need.

“Female Colleague: But you haven't answered my question. If a robot could genuinely love a person what responsibility does that person hold toward that Mecha in return? It's a moral question, isn't it?”

“Professor Hobby: The oldest one of all. But in the beginning, didn't God create Adam to love him?”

Did God really create Adam to love him or were we made to think this? Did love really enter the picture or was Adam the product of a sexual urge? Like David and the rest of us, Adam and all of his descendants learned to love through pain and suffering, yet as I have learned from the wisdom of others, suffering is optional and if we open our ears and our minds we learn to avoid unnecessary suffering.  Is hating or disliking certain kinds of behavior really inappropriate? Doesn’t it lead to a better way of behaving? I am reminded of Scott Peck’s book The Road Less Traveled. A love of money or the ruthless acquisition of it with no regard for others has nothing to do with love and in my opinion should never enter the market place. The word love is frequently and impulsively misused and exploited. Greed is destructive and is evil. An unloved child or unrequited love can become destructive and evil. Love for others in our capitalist society has been equated with the emptying of one’s pocket often for products that cause harm to the self in the end, and at the expense of the self. Caveat emptor, beware the ouroboros, he who wishes to escape the trap he has set for himself.  For some love thyself as thy neighbor should be the order of the day.

Romanticize me…

Amazon.com: Science & Weather: Season 1, Episode 9 "The Incredible Human Machine": Amazon Instant Video

…this is an excellent video and I prefer it over later versions.

Network, 1976

It is saddening to have to admit I have never seen this film in the 36 years it has been out.  When it did hit the screens my life was so chaotic I didn’t even think about looking at a movie and the ones I did see at the Drive-In Theater were mostly because I was working there.  That was true until about 1982 after I had settled into a good job.  Within a year that all changed and it was chaos but no Agent 99.  It stopped and started several times and I still didn’t see this film and no one mentioned it to me.  Now I know why.

It isn’t as good as it could be, but  some of Hollywood’s finest actors give it their best.  Mr. Peter Finch is stellar as Howard Beale and Holden comes in second place.  Dunaway holds her own amid these two well seasoned actors, this film not being one of her best.  Duvall is quite convincing in his role, having topped himself since this film.  Beatty’s role brought together the Beale character’s god delusion.  Beatty is another fine actor having better roles and performances since this film.  Ferrell and Warfield give talented supporting performances as well.

In this scene Beale orates his sentiments about the television and man’s demise because of it.  Of course I think it is assuming most people have viewed The Woman in Green, and Stepford Wives and are peeved at what corporations are doing to people with it, so this film helps move this emotional repression along but creates another by its ending.  In this dialogue we are confronted with the same I,me, you problem, ie, “we are the illusion”,directing the viewer’s attention to Beale and the news reporters, who actually aren’t illusions.  They actually represent the projections of those ideas we repress and often hide even from ourselves, this film quite clearly being one of those ideas and the fear of being murdered by those in the industry, another.  To do it any other way to correct the I, me, you would seem odd but I think it would be better received by the brain.   The brain receives this as me the viewer being an illusion yet, from the film we also deduce this is how many corporations see viewers, as illusions, little robots to be manipulated, our every move directed, or even nonexistent.   The illusions created by the film now become evident.  Beale isn’t the one who loses his job and he doesn’t really get shot down but our brains receive the information this way.  Schumacher’s illusion is an incestuous relationship acted out with a woman not much older than his pregnant daughter which is never mentioned in the film, while they do mention Diana’s father complex.  Of course this likely never happens in reality.  I wonder if this film is alluding to the Kay Francis film titled Illusions?

I don’t think this is as it sounds.  I think it is in keeping with the ideas of Ernest Holmes and others who believe man has learned all he needs to learn.  Of course this isn’t altogether true as man in his quest for more is always creating some problem to be overcome or some thing to be conquered, so we have to keep learning new things.  And too, from my own experiential knowledge of consciousness, it has to be frequently reinforced from external sources, though sometimes human memory is enough.  So the individual isn’t finished in that sense.  We don’t all know everything nor do we have the capacity, unless we do develop larger brains.  Of course the film presents this segment to the viewer, as man becoming less rather than more because of his television viewing.  We do know what we see on television, to the brain, is like having experienced it in real life (wish I had seen Caged before I ended up in prison myself, not that I wanted to go to prison mind you…).  With that in mind, more is not always better where it is concerned, but consider that not having experienced something at all might leave one vulnerable to some real life catastrophe.

I do think people are angry.  I think we’ve been angry as children and we often stuff this anger for decades and we then hurt ourselves and others with it.  So it is therapeutic when Beale gets riled up and gets everyone else to get riled up enough to confess they are even angry.   Then the Ecumenical Army is breathing down Diana’s neck about their ratings because Beale has depressed his audience at this point.  Unfortunately Beale hasn’t reached the people who employ him and in a shocking ending, on their course for wealth at the expense of others, they conspire to have him murdered.   Beale is one of the illusions and joins the ranks of the viewer, one of the chess pieces in the game of life that fails to comply, memories of Kent State come to mind.  The others are concerned about points and ratings and how that calculates into dollars.  Of course this scares the hell out of the viewer who then becomes more compliant with the wishes and desires of the corporations using such tactics to manipulate behavior, which was to be the end result of Kent State.  I received this as being an omen to giving over so much power to these kinds of bullies. 

Shattered Dreams (1990)

Michael Nouri and Lindsay Wagner are excellent in this portrayal of upper class domestic violence.   While thinking about this film and studying the unconscious, subconscious and conscious minds, it occurred to me that John started abusing his wife, not because of anything innately wrong with him. Charlotte did not commit her verbal acts of aggression or compliance because of anything innately defective in her, they both were the victims of the unconscious thoughts and feelings of possibly their parents or other authority figures in their lives. Carl Jung mentions this in his book, Man and His Symbols, pg. 192, "...whenever one of these personifications of the unconscious takes possession of our mind, it seems as if we ourselves are having such thoughts and feelings. The ego identifies with them to the point where it is unable to detach them and see them for what they are. One is really possessed by the figure from the unconscious. Only after the possession has fallen away does one realize with horror that one has done and said things diametrically opposed to one's real thoughts and feelings - that one has been the prey of an alien psychic factor." This of course was also true for Jung himself as he was a student of Freud's. The Veteran's Administration also has documented information of a similar nature in their International Handbook of Traumatic Stress Syndromes.

My concern is whether this type of film truly offers any healing to the viewer who may also have been a victim of a similar situation as it can desensitize one to abuse.  For those who suffer PTSD, I think viewing a similar traumatic circumstance may only re-enforce a personal trauma and all of it's symptoms, including the physiological responses to personal traumatic events.  To resolve the dissociative problems resulting from trauma, is to reintegrate that which has been dissociated.  Leading one to seek divorce is not true healing of the family unit.  Some situations make it necessary, so that one can seek additional help if desired. I do realize this film was made at a time when people were becoming more aware of the prevalence of domestic violence.  Unless one has been trained to see the mental and emotional patterns, it is difficult to see what this film is truly dramatizing. 

In Beyond the Brain,, Stanislov Grof states, "Thus, the insight that it is important to experience more of the same discomfort to reach resolution is essentially accurate. However for this to happen, the experiential pattern must be completed internally, not acted out."   This is part of the healing of the developmental issues.  I think similar ideas are expressed in L. Ron Hubbard's book, Dianetics in which he talks about clearing an engram by having an auditor walk you through certain steps of the clearing process. This is of concern to me as it seems confusing. We see actors and actresses acting out scenes and yet we are told by Psychiatrists and Psychologists that acting out can actually inhibit healing.  They have not experienced the trauma.  

The body can also store memories of movements, feelings and postures that can possibly trigger traumatic memories.   This is normal and how our brains record events for our future safety.  I think healing a slap on the face would better be treated by some other means than an auditor.  By that I mean that erasing those memories isn’t enough and can set one up for the same problem in the future, Modified versions of events in films can help integrate various aspects of one’s life and provide an opportunity to move beyond the traumatic event. 

Having lived through a similar situation in my own family, I didn't understand why one would not just pick up and leave after the first blow was struck.  I could relate to this film despite the differences in economic backgrounds as abuse is abuse.  The dynamics are more complicated than they were able to portray due to time.   Other films like Nuts and Magdalene Sisters also detail the struggle of getting free from abusive situations.

 

One of the best actors, my favorite, in a compelling film about prison life…

…a film I related to, based on my own experiences.  Jane Alexander, Kotto, Hamilton, Freeman, Keith, Ness and all, giving stellar performances in this important film on corruption in prisons.

Prime Suspect, Final Act…

In her final act, Tennison crosses the line, escalating an already heated situation.  A young black man is being blamed for having sexual relations with a white girl, then killing her. He's been pursued by the police, injured himself trying to escape and now is face to face with his tormentor, while the real killer is free and leading Tennison down a dead end street.  Jane has been chewed out by her boss for her drinking.  She wakes up on a sobering morning unable to recall the night before, is finally forced to confront her drinking problem, and her father has passed away.  She is making mistake after mistake in the course of events leading up to her confrontation with Curtis who calls her a bitch and on whom she unleashes her rage, leading to the death of a fellow officer.

Curtis and Jane are very much alike, it is only their labels, positions in life, and the forces that work to maintain that position that prevent them from seeing each other for who they really are or for having any feelings of empathy toward each other.  We at first think Curtis is going to be a good guy and offers to give Jane a glass of water but walks away. Jane is no different than Curtis in that she is being haunted by her past, Curtis is haunted by a dead girl and hunted by the police.

Why is Otley the one who gets shot instead of Jane, this isn't the first time Jane has fowled up and she killed her own unborn child?  Isn't there a transference or some projective identification going on between Jane, Curtis and Otley?  Jane is suicidal, drinking herself into stupors at every chance?  I see upper class chauvinism all over this film.

Is this really entertaining or is it showing us who we really are?   Is it any different than watching the gladiators in Rome. Why do I like them? Is it really about eking out the truth and getting the real bad guy, despite your faults and failures or is it about the sado-masochism lurking around every corner waiting to come out of hiding to get us, that keeps us looking for ways to cope?   Maybe Agatha Christie would have said it better.

One of the best crime films I’ve seen, superbly acted.   You hardly know they are acting.   The directing is much better in this film than in earlier episodes.

An important film…

This film is one of those fact based films that gets turned into a myth by film makers…

…I did view this film and understand perfectly what it is dramatizing as I have experienced it myself.  Therefore one can conclude some films do intend educating the public.  The subjects of the film lose sight of their reality hunt, with a surprise ending inserted into their reality, that would shock most viewers unfamiliar with sci-fi crime films.  Because of the shock effect, viewers would hardly entertain any other reality about this film, thus their truth is lost.

There are sleeping issues in this film.

Taylor and Rorke, who I am familiar with from I dream of Jeanie, are very good in this film but Stanwyck makes several obvious flub ups I attribute to misdirection.  One case in which it is obvious the director tells her to look up at the camera at the wrong time and she seems to have jumped the gun when responding to Hudson’s character in the film.   It also appeared there was intent on selling the public on electric percolators, so the sleeper might have been viewing an ad for an electric percolator which may have attributed to Stanwyck’s error.   These ads were popular in the 60’s with a woman dressed in a full skirt, tight fitting blouse and glaring look and wide smile.  If I had not experienced this for myself in my sleep and during my waking hours, I would never have deduced this information from this film.

Proxies for Reality

Another highly underrated and very talented actress, Marla Gibbs…

Losing Chase

I am sure there are those who love to be seduced and would rather romanticize a serious subject as this one.  Cinematically it is a work of art and the acting is well done.  Otherwise, the story misleads in my opinion.  It misguides the viewer by calling it a lesbian film leading one to think the film is about a lonely desperate housewife who’s self absorbed business oriented husband forces her to seek solace in a mentally and emotionally abandoned college student whose mother also happens to be mentally ill.  It is about mental illness and poor thinking on the part of Chase, Richard and the boys.  It is about recovering from mental illness to some degree but we don’t see this process at all.  We do see a young naive and confused caretaker who is in over her head with an adult woman who isn’t sure of her own sexual preference or is androgynous and unafraid to express the male tendencies, though kissing between parent and child is not unusual and is often part of the bonding between parent and child.  Is Chase merely re-enacting onto Elizabeth what her husband did to her or is she re-enacting what one of her parents did to her?  It borders on child molestation to me, although nothing sexual happens between them but is strongly alluded to and even misperceived by Chase’s oldest son.  Was Chase molested?   Was Elizabeth being molested?  It is clear Elizabeth was in desperate need of parenting since her ill mother was mentally unable to fulfill this need.   Isn’t Elizabeth really developmentally disabled?  Yes.  I would say she is to a degree, depending on details of her own mother’s onset of illness.  To romanticize and misconstrue such desperate needs by a young college student and an adult woman fails the intelligence of the viewing public in my opinion.  It is clear Elizabeth is unconsciously attracted to mentally ill people because of her attachment to her own mother who was unable to provide proper parenting.  We aren’t sure by the end of the film whether she gains awareness of her own tendencies.  Elizabeth is reenacting a life pattern created by something outside both her and her mother.  How can that be romantic?   Does Chase set her up for more mental illness?   Clearly the writer knows nothing about mental illness nor child development.  The film’s negatives outweigh the positives.

This is a good series, really good acting.

I was reading The Psychology of the Transference last night. I related something I read to this segment of this episode.  I have not been seeing this program.  I stumbled onto one of the videos which seemed familiar to me, I checked it out.

In Jung’s Psychology of the Transference, Jung talks about the weakening of consciousness and a sudden loss of initiative.  This gives rise to unconscious content which manifests itself as compulsions like overeating, overworking, obsessions.  He goes on to say that in dealing with the unconscious and in order to protect his weakening consciousness, fear of insanity, the patient needs an island.  In the scene below Rizzoli’s mother is found in her apartment painting the walls without Rizzoli’s permission.   Rizzoli confronts her about this.   This gives her mother an opportunity to vent her anger and make Rizzoli feel guilty about being born, “I got stretch marks for you missy”.   This feeds Rizzoli’s obsessive need to fix things, overwork and find killers.  She’s looking a killer in the face, but is afraid to confront her about what she is doing, 

Some of the dialogue is a little treacherous but all in all it is a good show.

Lilith, 1964

I was attracted to this film recently after discovering dialogue regarding schizophrenics, I thought was a bit prejudiced.   Having been diagnosed with schizophrenia I never believed I had, I set out to discover the nature of my diagnoses.  Since that time I have uncovered numerous films and books at the root of most of my problems and nothing innately wrong with me, in fact I never had a chance to even develop a normal personality that wasn’t contaminated with films mostly due to hypnotic suggestions employed by numerous film makers in the 1940’s and 1950’s.  I recently discovered this film as being part of the cause for my diagnoses in 1991. 

This was a skillfully created film and as skillfully acted.  The characters were not quite as convincing as in other films like Girl Interrupted but they were keenly portrayed with a focus on the transactions between the patients and Vincent.  Vincent does seem the focus of the film rather than Lilith.   The film claims to be about a mentally ill woman named Lilith who is schizophrenic.  She is portrayed as gifted and highly intelligent but frequently drifts into these periods of delusion as if she is living in another place and time, the players showing up from time to time.  Vincent does appear as her inept caretaker.  Lilith seems to have a fixation on water I interpreted as part of her birth peri-natal matrix and the source of her happiness.  Numerous scenes of a waterfall and rushing water are symbolic of the beginnings of birth.   She’s an adult still possessed of infantile qualities.   I interpreted the scene in which Stephen nearly falls into the raging water, as Lilith innocently but recklessly wanting Stephen to experience what she was feeling within herself, being free from the dark depressing confines of the womb. 

The three, Lilith, Vincent and Stephen form a triangle as does Vincent and the two psychiatrists.   As the story progresses he seems to fall in love with Lilith knowing Stephen has feelings for her too, discrediting Stephen as a viable suitor for her.  I see Vincent as a victim of Stephen’s transferences and his affections for Lilith which Vincent acts out with Lilith and Lilith confuses with her brother.  He becomes so entangled with Lilith, blaming her condition rather than his incapacity to manage the emotional states of both Stephen and Lilith, he is unable to separate Stephen’s feelings from his own.   Vincent crosses the line and becomes sexually involved with Lilith.  She seems to possess a sexual freedom difficult for Vincent to understand and he finds himself in another triangle, a sexual one, now wanting to isolate Lilith from Stephen and Yvonne, taking her on various outings alone.  At a point in the film her behavior leads one to think she is a pedophile as her behavior is clearly inappropriate.  Lilith is being abused and so I would surmise they have re-enacted something of Lilith’s past? Thinking he is falling deeper in love with Lilith he returns a gift Stephen made and gave to Lilith, a box for her pastels.   Stephen, unable to bare what he thinks is a rejection, kills himself.  This sends Vincent fleeing to Lilith for comfort she is unable to give and she too becomes distraught and falls into a depressed state.   At the end of the film we see Vincent heading towards Lilith’s room and there he finds it destroyed by her rage.  Lilith has regressed to a more primitive state of existence and is in isolation, likely where part of her life began after birth, an incubator.   

At a point in the film I began to see Vincent as the patient and clearly the mentally ill person, Lilith having been his caretaker.    It is hard to tell until the end of the film he is the real patient but everything seemed to be going in reverse, as in the film Suspect. 

Someone Behind the Door

The Sleeping Tiger, classic psychoanalysis…

The films opens with Mrs. Esmond coming home, finding Frank Clemmons seated in the living room reading a book.  Frank Clemmons has been given a reprieve from prison in lieu of staying with Dr. Esmond and his wife Glenda, for 6 months upon the recommendation of Dr. Esmond, in hopes of curing the habitual felon; the repetition compulsion.  Clemmons looks at Mrs. Esmond with child like sexual interest, the transference, while Mrs. Esmond passes a sardonic look toward Frank, oppressing any relief from his depressed state, making him angry, the counter-transference induction or grafting (Heinrich Racker, chapter, The Counter-transference Neurosis), which he later acts out on the maid while she is cleaning up, tripping her and causing her to fall. The benefits of Mrs. Edmonds’ counter-transference is not immediately evident although it has its advantages as Frank introjects these traits onto himself. Or, is Frank simply recovering his own attitude towards the Establishment and upper class society?

The film is a classic example of the Oedipus Complex with a twist, the way I see it.   Dr. Esmond and Clemmons begin to delve into Frank’s past uncovering piece by piece the cause of Frank’s criminal behavior.   Though, in this story, during the course of Clemmons’ treatment he confronts Mrs. Esmond about her own past which had little difference to Frank’s. She is quick to point out she refused to let her past affect her future, unlike Frank who appeared to be letting his past ruin his life. She is still projecting her own self loathing onto Clemmons, as she is in an unhappy marriage and begins to identify more with Frank, his lifestyle and the people with whom he associates finding her current marriage to be boring and less than she had dreamed it might be, her husband often treating her like his daughter.  This is the counter-transference on Frank’s part as he was apt to deduce her disgust with him had been with herself and her present situation.   Frank, who now refers to Mrs. Esmond as Glenda, seems to fall in love with Mrs. Esmond and Mrs. Esmond with him, compensating for a lack of affection in both their lives and is at first like a mother-son relationship.  They seem to ineptly struggle with each other enmeshed in their depressions and self loathing, both sinking further into emotional and psychological depravity. They arrange various encounters kept secret from Dr. Esmond. In the realm of psychoanalysis this is an unhealthy sexual bonding called sexual acting out. In psychotherapeutic treatment it can cause serious damage to the patient’s mental health, Heinrich Racker, Transference and Countertransference, page 144, Use of Countertransference and Transference.  This continues even after Dr. Esmond walks in on a scene in the kitchen where Mrs. Esmond is preparing dinner. 

Dr. Esmond refuses to dismiss Frank from his home and after Clemmons commits a robbery, he takes sides with Frank in an attempt to win Frank’s confidence and prevents the police from searching his home where Frank has hidden stolen money. This event triggered a breakthrough in Clemmons’ analysis after which Dr. Esmond and Frank take a two day fishing trip. Frank, having faced the destructive impulses ruling his thinking and behavior, is free and wants to move on with his life, trying to end his entanglement with Mrs. Esmond, now suffering from her own mental and emotional problems. She goes to extremes by biting herself claiming Clemmons assaulted her in an attempt to prevent Frank from leaving. Frank was giving her what her husband did not, because of her husband’s own problems and his commitment to Frank, who, at one point, begins to confront this when he offered to take Mrs. Esmond on a long vacation.

After Dr. Esmond reported to his wife that Frank was gone, she leaves the house in a frenzied mental state and races down the road where she picks up Frank and they speed off. Frank tries to console her and reason with her. Now, herself in the throes of a depressed state, unable to cope with her own deprivation and wanting to hold onto the one thing she believes is giving her life back to her, she speeds toward an oncoming truck. Frank grabs the wheel and they crash through a sign. Frank survives the crash, Mrs. Esmond appears to have lost her life at the scene.

Taking the story one step further it was evident to me, Mrs. Esmond may have been the true cause of Frank Clemmons’ problems all along and through synchronicity, he found his way into her home for psychotherapy. It also seems possible Dr, Esmond, already aware of his wife’s mental instability, sought out the help of a resident student to assist him with his wife’s therapy or the good Doctor found a way to manipulate her demise, deluding both her and his patient. There are a few allusions to it but the film fails to expound on this part of the story.

Seems it could be related to Someone Behind the Door.

 

 

Atonement (2007) - Official Trailer - YouTube

I thought this was an excellent film.  Most interesting story.