Cinema and psyche

State of the Art

by Peg Aloi

Bet MacArthur, coordinator of the Boston Institute of Psychotherapy's eighth annual film series "Psychology Goes to the Movies," isn't buying what she describes as the trendy belief that psychoanalytic thought is somehow "dead" or at least no longer relevant. "Freudian ideas are now so ingrained," she says, "that many people say things like `Oh, he's so anal' or `She's so repressed' without even realizing the source of this terminology. Freud has become lingua franca in every US household. That idea is a good subtext for this series. Is Freud dead? No, he's at the movies."

Moviegoing as therapy? If comedy can relieve stress, and drama can offer catharsis, then art films, subtle or blatant, can yield glimpses of myths or archetypes, echo our dreams and emotions, stimulate our creative impulses. Even horror films can provide a waltz with violence, a tango with fear, a brush with mortality. "Harrison Ford has said that going to the movies may well be the last remaining way that people come together as a community," says MacArthur, who is both a clinical social worker and a film writer. "Film is the literature in which people discover themselves, so therapists need to be conversant with it. I remember in the 1970s how many people were so affected by Ordinary People; The Crying Game also had a significant impact."

The series's theme this year, "Beyond Good and Evil: The Villain Within," offers films that examine criminal pathology, including David Mamet's cult classic House of Games, Fellini's La strada, Al Pacino's Shakespearean documentary Looking for Richard, and Fritz Lang's masterpiece M, which stars Peter Lorre as a serial killer. Says MacArthur: "We originally wanted this year's theme to be crime in film, but most crime films are not terribly psychological. That led our committee to ask, `What is the nature of wrongdoing? How do people get into trouble?' "

The series's selections are not crime films per se, but the protagonists do engage in criminal behavior. "The Lindsay Crouse character [in House of Games] has a hunger for connections. M was the first film to examine a sex maniac, and the German press at the time was horrified, saying `a psychopath should never be the subject of a work of art.' "

The structure of the series is unusual. Each film is introduced by a filmmaker, who briefly addresses its historical and social context. Afterward, a licensed psychologist remarks on psychological content, for students who are attending (one can get academic credit); then both commentators lead a discussion with the audience. Among this year's guests are filmmaker Eileen Finkelstein; music and film critic Daniel Gewertz; psychologist and Fellini scholar Ed Mendelowitz; and Jim Gilligan, former head of the Bridgewater State Hospital (the one documented in Fred Wiseman's Titicut Follies).

Another aim of the series is to enhance basic film literacy. "Variety just had an article which said that campus film programs are dying out," says MacArthur. "Young people and others have very few opportunities to see films that existed before a year ago, except on video. Film is the primary medium of our cultural education, but schools simply don't teach it."

"Beyond Good and Evil: The Villain Within" begins this Friday, February 26, at 7:30 p.m. at Lesley College in Harvard Square. Admission is $10, $5 for students. For more information, call 267-1561.