Cronenberg's Next: 'The Talking Cure'
Filed under: Drama, Independent, Deals, Cinematical Indie
What do Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and David Cronenberg have in common? The first two are considered the founding fathers of psychoanalysis; the latter will be making a film about them. According to ScreenDaily.com, Cronenberg's next project "will be an adaptation of Christopher Hampton's play The Talking Cure, re-teaming him with Crash producer Jeremy Thomas."Hampton's play, which premiered in December 2002, is set in the early 20th Century and centers on Jung, portrayed on the London stage by Ralph Fiennes. A review by Lizzie Loveridge at CurtainUp says that Hampton "looks at the issues which initially united these two pioneering psychiatrists and that which eventually divided them and took them off into other areas of investigation." The narrative then plunges into the relationship between Jung and an 18-year-old Russian woman who was his first patient. The CurtainUp reviewer felt that the 2 hour and 25 minute play "tells us more about Jung's affairs than his ideas."
Cronenberg always seems to be shuffling priorities on his projects, dependent on financing and other factors that are probably out of his control, but the combination of Cronenberg and psychoanalysis sounds potent, a great match of filmmaker and subject, and probably a welcome change of pace for the director after A History of Violence and Eastern Promises. Producer Jeremy Thomas has an excellent track record; in addition to Crash, he and Cronenberg worked together on Naked Lunch. No word on casting yet, but Fiennes previously gave an excellent performance in Cronenberg's Spider, so I imagine he would be first in line to recreate Jung on the big screen.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-02-2007 @ 8:30PM
Beesmum said...
I hate to be pedantic, but psychoanalysis is more of a blanket term for Freud's school of thought and people like Lacan and Melanie Klein who worked from Freud's theories of sexuality. Freud's work focuses primarily on how sex affects the development of the psyche and how neurosis is formed through repressed sexual desires. While Jung thought sex was important to psychological development, the large majority of his work focused more on myth and alchemy, and how the recurrent archetypal forms that they contained created a sort of road map for both psychological and spiritual development in an individual. I'm pretty sure Jung labeled his method analytical psychology. I know it's really just mincing words, but I hate to see Jung lumped in with Freud, especially since it sounds like this work is going to focus more on Jung. I'm a huge Cronenberg fan, and I'm interested in Jung's ideas, so I'm excited to see how this project turns out.
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11-19-2007 @ 4:02PM
Todd Laurence said...
Before Jung got involved with Freud, he had several
dinner conversations with Einstein, and that led to
his association with Professor W. Pauli, Nobel laureate-
physics. The letters between them were published under
the title, "atom and archetype" - and it includes the
final conclusions about the nature of mind and matter.
In google search, type in, The Nostradamus Code-Explained,
which offers the final theory to reality, with appropriate
comments by senior researchers at Princeton University.
"entelekk" - numomathematics
Reply
11-19-2007 @ 4:14PM
Todd Laurence said...
Before Jung got involved with Freud, he had several
dinner conversations with Einstein, and that led to
his association with Professor W. Pauli, Nobel laureate-
physics. The letters between them were published under
the title, "atom and archetype" - and it includes the
final conclusions about the nature of mind and matter.
In google search, type in, The Nostradamus Code-Explained,
which offers the final theory to reality, with appropriate
comments by senior researchers at Princeton University.
"entelekk" - numomathematics
Reply