FREUD AT THE BIJOU
Sigmund Freud liberally cited literature, drama, and the visual arts to flesh out his theories. At one time or another, he probed the inner being of Sophocles' Oedipus, Shakespeare's Richard III, Dostoyesvsky's Raskolnikov, and Michaelangelo's David. Music and movies, however, go largely unmentioned in his work. Freud's unresponsiveness to melody probably stemmed from a congenitally tin ear. But his silence about the cinema screen has never been explained away so easily. The prevailing notion is that he viewed film as lowbrow American entertainment, unworthy of serious study.
In l925, Samuel Goldwyn offered Freud $lOO,OOO to consult on a project about great historical love affairs -- Anthony and Cleopatra's for openers. Freud promptly telegraphed Goldwyn a resounding Nein! The producer's wrath at rejection by a mere Vienesse wigpicker (and a writer to boot) may have informed his famous observation further down the line that "anyone who sees a psychiatrist should have his head examined."
The Goldwyn episode and a few critical remarks to Karl Abraham on another occasion afford some evidence of Freud's low estimate of cinema's aesthetic value. Abraham had come to Freud for an imprimatur regarding his consultancy with G.W. Pabst on Secrets Of A Soul (l926). Freud did not want his name connected with the project, and was openly skeptical about Abraham's participation. But the strongest proof usually offered to prove the Founding Father's aversion to the silver screen is that he attended but one movie in his lifetime. Prior to a lecture engagement in l9O9 at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, Freud enjoyed a brief New York stopover. Ernest Jones, his biographer, records that the Freudian entourage took in Chinatown, Coney Island, and then, at an unknown theater, a Keystone Cops-type film "with plenty of wild chasing". The master was said to be "quietly amused" -- and that was that, as far as any further Freudian visits to the Bijou were concerned.
Except that it wasn't.
Charles D. Lieber, a Manhattan publisher who as a teenager summered with Viennese relatives, recently related to me the following anecdote dating back to the close of Freud's life. Lieber's maternal uncle, Dr. Otto Lifczis-Liff, was a Viennese attorney specializing in entertainment and literary law (he later emigrated to Israel and became a high-ranking police official). A great admirer of Freud's work, he knew Freud's appearance from pictures in books and newspapers. He also loved movies, and often took his nephew to the Kreuzkino, a small downtown theater which regularly showed subtitled Hollywood films -- Westerns, detective fare, and the like.
Either in the summer of l936 or l937, Lieber and his uncle went to the Kreuzkino for a typical American double feature. After the show, as the two walked up the aisle to leave, his uncle excitedly directed Lieber's attention to an elderly gentleman with a shawl around his shoulders, seated with two other people. "Das ist der Sigmund Freud!", he whispered ("That is Sigmund Freud!"). The theater's house lights were up. Lieber, too, was aware of what Freud looked like, and is sure that his uncle's identification was correct. However, he does not remember anything notable about Freud's companions except that they were obviously much younger,
and were speaking to each other across the older man. Nor can he recall what was being shown that day.
What are we to make of this intriguing piece of Freudiana? On the day in question, did Freud attend the movies for the second time in nearly thirty years? Did friends, or younger relatives drag him to the Kreuzkino, or did he go willingly? Did he indeed view cinema as lowbrow entertainment, unworthy of serious study, but a nonetheless potent escape from the burdens of unravelling his patients' unconscious scripts? Or was he in fact a secret cinephile, harboring a private passion for the art he publically scorned? As the bartender of The Crying Game said, who can know the secrets of the human heart?
And Siggy -- please pass the popcorn.