Spellbound (1945)

Our Project has already been derailed by Netflix. Casablanca is next on the list, but apparently there is a long wait for it, so we received our third movie on the list. I guess we'll come back to Casablanca when we get it.

Spellbound is a Hitchcock film that was a legit 1945 Best Picture nominee. Starring a young Gregory Peck (who had me spellbound by his handsome good looks) and beautiful Ingrid Bergman, this movie is a psychological thriller in the truest sense of the term. Bergman plays the role of a budding and very intelligent psychoanalyst who becomes spellbound with trying to heal John Balentine (Peck) who is spellbound in his own twisted guilt complex. The film is chock full of great Freudian psychology complete with dream interpretation. The primary dream sequence is a Salvidor Dali-inspired crazyland that Hitchcock intentionally made vivid and striking to avoid the cliche cloudy, blurry dream sequences of the time.

I've had minimal exposure to Hitchcock, but Amanda, who's been a longtime fan, says this movie is classic Hitchcock. He uses heavy contrast lighting and close shots to create tension. He even throws in a first-person shooter scene with the camera looking down the pistol sights at the potential victim. The story is interesting and picks up pace throughout its unfolding, churning out a few delectable plot twists that would keep most modern audiences guessing.

The engine of this story is the process of Freudian psychoanalysis, a treatment of mental illness that many today are unfamiliar with on account of the shift to behaviorism in the middle of the 20th century. Psychoanalysis is a process by which the therapist attempts to help the patient identify the origins of his anxieties or guilt by uncovering the unconscious sources of hurts or anxieties created in his childhood development. What's curious about this process it that though Freud and/or psychoanalysis are usually the subject of ridicule and disdain on a level similar to Olympic curling, a few modern therapies operate very similarly and are quite effective. Theosphostic ministry and inventory-ing (common to 12-step groups) employ this method of facilitated guidance that leads the individual to the sources of his pain and empowers him toward internal healing. As a Christian, I believe that true and complete healing, the kind that breeds forgiveness and newness, only comes from the touch of our nurturing Father. By His sacrifice, we have access to abundant life. Similarly, it is Bergman's character whose sacrificial and life-endangering gesture that snaps John Balentine out of his guilt curse and toward a new life. I really don't think it was Hitchcock's intention to make Dr. Petersen (Bergman) a Christ figure, but it is a nice parallel nonetheless.

Next up: The Bishop's Wife (or Casablanca)