When a movie ends, do you find yourself wanting to sort through the characters’ inner lives? Do you want to pull it apart and discuss? Want to watch the movie with a professional therapist at your side? If so, there’s a film series for you.
Tonight, The Baltimore Washington Center for Psychoanalysis brings back “Close-Ups: Psychoanalysts Look at Film” for its 31st season at the Knott Auditorium at the University of Notre Dame of Maryland. And it’s definitely for those chatty movie-goers, who are invited to analyze a movie alongside mental health professionals.
Dr. Noreen Honeycutt, the director, says the goal of the series is to set the stage for the psyche to unroll.
“Film is almost like a dream where we can suspend realities and let the art fill us up. And then react to it.”
The psychoanalytical world is extremely interested in art, Honeycutt says, and those paths cross often. How one reacts to a piece of art and why that reaction is relevant are questions that spark psychoanalysis in a very fluid way.
Tonight’s pick is Where the Wild Things Are.
Honeycutt says she didn’t like the film when she first saw it - it was nothing like the book. But she watched it a second time and loved it.
“Every single prop and decision has meaning and it’s not accidental.”
http://youtu.be/Vr3Xp9kkwek
Honeycutt says you can see nine year old Max building, destroying, and rebuilding forts, fantasy villages, and even relationships as he tries to deal with his parents’ breakup.
http://youtu.be/dJm3uOvkmY0
Here, Honeycutt says Max is given both love and freedom: the wild things are like a dream that play out the conflict of his real life.
Honeycutt says the series can be a gateway to those who are curious about analysis but don’t have the means.
“In these tough economic times, how do people have access to therapy?”
She’s also tries to connect people in need of mental health services to therapists who might work with their budgets.
The series runs for the next four Fridays. Tonight: Where The Wild Things Are, April 19th, The Sea Inside; April 26th, Departures, and May 3rd, As It Is In Heaven.
Doors open at 6:30, film starts at 7:30, tickets are $15.00/ door.