NYPSI EXTENSION PROGRAM: Psychoanalytic Themes in Six Hollywood Films II with Thomas Wolman, M.D.
January 3 – February 14, 2022 Mondays, 7:00 – 8:15 pm 6 classes / $150 Fee Location: This course will be held virtually on ZOOM Click here, visit nypsi.org or call 212-879-6900 to register
NYPSI Extension Program: Psychoanalytic Themes in Six Hollywood Films II
This course will continue the psychoanalytic exploration of Hollywood films begun in the 2020-2021 year. Once again, we will examine six films in six different genres: wartime adventure, film noir, romantic thriller, melodrama, courtroom drama and “Hollywood” movie. This year’s collection includes several films from the 1950’s during the peak years of psychoanalytic interest among filmmakers. This year we will also link each film with a thematically similar film. We begin with the universally loved and much viewed “Casablanca” (1943). Another film, “Rome Open City” (1945) deals with the same antifascist theme from a radically different perspective. “Kiss Me Deadly” (1955) is, for me, the ultimate film noir. Surprisingly, it presents a critique of the male psychology in its “manifest content”. Other films such as “Gun Crazy” (1949), operate at the same level. “Imitation of Life” (1959) uses the practice of “passing” to address racism in the context of the 1950’s. We will compare it to the contemporary film, “Passing” (2020) available on Netflix. In the guise of an entertaining thriller, “Rear Window” (1954) presents a trenchant critique of the voyeurism that is part and parcel of the moviegoing experience. This film invites comparison to the British film, “Peeping Tom” (1950). “Anatomy of a Murder” (1959) is a superb courtroom drama, whose frank treatment of sexual themes formed part of an assault on censorship, undertaken by its director, Otto Preminger, and begun with “The Moon is Blue” (1953). We end the series with “Mulholland Drive” (2001), a film that manages to be both entertaining and enigmatic at the same time. It takes its inspiration from earlier Hollywood movies such as “The Wizard of Oz” (1939), “Sunset Boulevard” (1950) and “The Bad and the Beautiful” (1952).
It is expected that registrants watch each of these films on their own time prior to the class discussion.
No CME/CE credits offered.
Thomas Wolman, M.D. was born and raised in in New York City. He moved back here recently after having lived in Philadelphia for 45 years. He attended Johns Hopkins University and the Pennsylvania State University Medical College. Subsequently he trained at the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia, where he taught in both the psychoanalytic and psychotherapy training programs. He has taught at Jefferson Medical College, the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and most recently, the psychiatry residency at Temple University School of Medicine. He has written on Winnicott, Mahler, Kohut and Lacan, as well as on contemporary film and literary themes. He is married with two adult children and three grandchildren.
NEW YORK PSYCHOANALYTIC SOCIETY & INSTITUTE
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212.879.6900 | nypsi.org