When Nietzsche wept
Nietzsche and Breuer and up essentially psychoanalyzing each other, both afflicted by obsessions about women and death (like most middle age white males I know). The interesting twist here is the continuous juxtaposition of two different kinds of “talk therapy”: psychoanalysis and philosophical council. The first one attempts to speak to the emotional side of us, the second to the rational one. Neither can succeed on its own. Breuer gets frustrated by Nietzsche's “high-minded” philosophical council of taking the cosmic perspective, embracing the challenge and pain because they'll make him a better man. What Breuer really wants is to shag a former young patient (despite being married to a beautiful woman), and not die. Don't we all? (Incidentally, the book is an excellent “insider's look” at men's inner feelings, a must-read for women.)
But the emotional approach on its own also fails. In the book, Breuer has tried to help the very same patient he is sexually obsessed with, succeeds for a while, only to see her falling back into her original illness, jeopardize his marriage and career, and then do the same thing over again with another doctor.
As both Plato and particularly Aristotle clearly understood, the pain of the human condition is generated by the difficulty of balancing what they identified as the three parts of the soul (emotions, rational, and “spirited” -- in charge of will), curiously close – though not exactly parallel -- to Freud's own trinity of Id, Ego and Superego (respectively the emotional, rational, and moral “minds”). David Hume also famously chimed in that “reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions (in “A Treatise of Human Nature”), by which he meant that we don't do anything unless we care for it, regardless of how logical (or not) the thing in question is.
But of course, the real issue is: now that we know all of this, does it actually help us overcome our fear of death? (Or, for that matter, to shag the woman or man we want?) Well, yes and no. Knowledge by itself (Aristotle again) will not do. But knowing where some of our pain and powerful drives come from and how they act should help us controlling or channeling them. Aristotle's recipe was: practice makes better. Virtue and happiness are not something we are born with, they are things we work toward. Like all worthwhile exercise, it is painful and a bit unpleasant, but if we stick to it, it becomes easier, and perhaps even enjoyable in its own right. Of course, it may take us a few decades...
THE MOVIE
When Nietzsche Wept is an independent film released in 2007, starring Armand Assante, Ben Cross and Katheryn Winnick. The movie is based on a book of the same name by Irvin D. Yalom and was directed by Pinchas Perry.
The film follows the storyline of the book quite faithfully, although neither the book nor the movie is based entirely on reality. Although the main characters and some of the facts are true, the center piece of the novel (and of the movie), which was the therapeutic encounter of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and Austrian physician Josef Breuer, never happened.
When Nietzsche Wept
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
When Nietzsche Wept is an independent Bulgarian film released in 2007 and produced in the USA, starring Armand Assante, Ben Cross and Katheryn Winnick. The movie is based on the novel When Nietzsche Wept by Irvin D. Yalom and was directed by Pinchas Perry.
Plot
The film opens with the Russian-born novelist—who eventually became a member of Freud's 'Vienna Circle'-- Lou Andreas-Salome (Katheryn Winnick) who had an unconsummated (Platonic) 'love affair' with German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (Armand Assante), and to whom he allegedly proposed in 1882 (although whether her claims are true is very much up for debate) writing a letter to Dr Josef Breuer (Ben Cross), after hearing of his newly developed talking cure (Breuer was a friend of Sigmund Freud (Jamie Elman), who also appears in the story, and one of the influential fathers of psychoanalysis.). The two meet, and a reluctant and troubled Breuer agrees to Salome's plan; to cure the intense migraine attacks that plague Nietzsche, and at the same time, without his knowing, cure the despair that her refusal of marriage has inflicted upon him. Salome has persuaded Franz Overbeck (Nietzsche's friend) to send him to Breuer, however, Nietzsche offers no support to Breuer, so the course of treatment must end. In a chilling parallel, an encounter with a mistreated horse causes Nietzsche to redeem his appointment with Breuer (Nietzsche finally went mad after stopping a man from whipping a horse using his own body, before breaking down in tears and descending into insanity). Nietzsche later visits a whorehouse, where he has another attack of migraine, exacerbated by the overuse of a sleeping draught. Nietzsche decides that he will, instead of pursuing treatment, leave for Basel. Meanwhile, an up-and-coming psychologist Sigmund Freud, friend of Josef and Mathilde Breuer, suggests that if Breuer was to make some confession to Nietzsche, he may stop seeing any positive sentiment shown as being a bid for power, and indulge in confessions of his own. So, the next time they met, Breuer makes the suggestion that, while he treats Nietzsche's body, Nietzsche must "treat" Breuer of the despair that he feels after falling in love with one of his patients, Bertha Pappenheim (played by Michal Yannai), otherwise known as Anna O., a famous case which was discussed in a joint book by Breuer and Freud, later on. The confessions lead to the two becoming open with each other, learning each other's way of life and finally the two becoming friends, but not before the film has explored a great deal of Nietzsche's philosophy and Breuer's psychoanalysis. Breuer's anguish over his supposed unhappiness is explored by means of his highly symbol-laden dreams, thus showing the importance of interpretation as a stepping stone in what would constitute Freud's approach to psychoanalytic techniques. The film is host to a variety of famous faces of the day; Josef and Mathilde Breuer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Lou Salome, Sigmund Freud, Bertha Pappenheim, Paul Rée as well as references to Franz Overbeck, and the music of the composer, Richard Wagner.
Critics
In terms of Nietzsche's thought, the representation is most immature and pedestrian. The strongest parts of the film are few and far between in this regard. Nietzsche and Breuer on a swan-shaped pedalo, in a state of absurd and chaotic mania, contemplating the passage of time in an insane dream to the theme from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake gives a marvelous insight into the peculiar nature of Nietzsche's concept of time, but this scene is all too brief; if it had been any longer, we would perhaps expect dilution to occur once more. The other strong scene is Nietzsche presenting the concept of the eternal return to Breuer, which competently grasps the existential implications of the notion. This is let down by the subsequent descent of Breuer into an existential rebellion, in which his behaviour becomes erratic,impulsive and foolish, in a great departure from the form and style we might expect of someone who has truly grasped Nietzsche's thought.
As a whole, the film is probably worth watching, since there really isn't anything else out there like it. The dream sequences are marvelous, and I suppose this is relevant to Nietzsche's thought, but it definitely remains unclear whether this relevance is intentional, or merely a device. Watch with low expectations, or you will be sorely disappointed, and perhaps even a little angered at the representation of Nietzsche and his thought. I am left hoping for a greater film to appear in the near future, which will cast this peculiar piece of cinema in a more objective light.
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