Rx Hollywood

Michael Deangelis

Description

Rx Hollywood investigates how therapy surfaced in the themes, representations, and narrative strategies of a changing film industry. In the 1960s and early 1970s, American cinema was struggling to address adult audiences who were increasingly demanding films that confronted contemporary issues. Focusing upon five fields of therapeutic inquiry—therapist/patient dynamics, female "frigidity" and male impotence, marital discord, hallucinogenic drug use, and the dynamics of confession—Michael DeAngelis argues that the films of this period reveal an emergent, common tendency of therapy to work toward the formation of a stronger sense of interpersonal, community/social, and political engagement, counteracting alienation and social division in the spirit of connection and community.

Prior to the 1960s, therapy had been considered an introspective process, one that emphasized contemplation and insight and prompted the patient to investigate memories and past traumas. In the 1960s, however, therapy would move toward more humanistic, client-centered, community, group, and encounter models that deemphasized the "there and then" of past feelings and experiences and embraced the "here and now" of the present. These kinds of therapy promised to heal the self through a process of reaching out, helping individuals to connect with communities, support networks, and other like-minded individuals who shared a needed sense of belonging.

Drawing on a wide range of films, including Marnie, The Boston Strangler, The Chapman Report, Carnal Knowledge, Divorce American Style, Diary of a Mad Housewife, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, and Five Easy Pieces, DeAngelis shows how American culture framed therapeutic issues as problems of human communication, developing treatment strategies that addressed individual psychological problems as social problems.
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction

1. Analyst/Patient Relationships: Psychotherapeutic Dynamics

2. Therapy and the Sexual Block

3. Marriage Therapies and Women’s Liberation

4. Psychedelic Therapies

5. Therapy and Confession

Conclusion
Notes
Works Cited
Index

Sujets

• Película fotográfica
• Visual culture
• Psychology
• History of film
• Cinema
• Film

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 22 janvier 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438468532
• Langue: English

Extrait

Rx Hollywood
Also in the series
William Rothman, editor, Cavell on Film
J. David Slocum, editor, Rebel Without a Cause
Joe McElhaney, The Death of Classical Cinema
Kirsten Moana Thompson, Apocalyptic Dread
Frances Gateward, editor, Seoul Searching
Michael Atkinson, editor, Exile Cinema
Paul S. Moore, Now Playing
Robin L. Murray and Joseph K. Heumann, Ecology and Popular Film
William Rothman, editor, Three Documentary Filmmakers
Sean Griffin, editor, Hetero
Jean-Michel Frodon, editor, Cinema and the Shoah
Carolyn Jess-Cooke and Constantine Verevis, editors, Second Takes
Matthew Solomon, editor, Fantastic Voyages of the Cinematic Imagination
R. Barton Palmer and David Boyd, editors, Hitchcock at the Source
William Rothman, Hitchcock: The Murderous Gaze, Second Edition
Joanna Hearne, Native Recognition
Marc Raymond, Hollywood’s New Yorker
Steven Rybin and Will Scheibel, editors, Lonely Places, Dangerous Ground
Claire Perkins and Constantine Verevis, editors, B Is for Bad Cinema
Dominic Lennard, Bad Seeds and Holy Terrors
Rosie Thomas, Bombay before Bollywood
Scott M. MacDonald, Binghamton Babylon
Sudhir Mahadevan, A Very Old Machine
David Greven, Ghost Faces
James S. Williams, Encounters with Godard
William H. Epstein and R. Barton Palmer, editors, Invented Lives, Imagined Communities
Lee Carruthers, Doing Time
Rebecca Meyers, William Rothman, and Charles Warren, editors, Looking with Robert Gardner
Belinda Smaill, Regarding Life
Douglas McFarland and Wesley King, editors, John Huston as Adaptor
R. Barton Palmer, Homer B. Pettey, and Steven M. Sanders, editors, Hitchcock’s Moral Gaze
Nenad Jovanovic, Brechtian Cinemas
Will Scheibel, American Stranger
Amy Rust, Passionate Detachments
Steven Rybin, Gestures of Love
Seth Friedman, Are You Watching Closely?
Roger Rawlings, Ripping England!
Rx Hollywood
Cinema and Therapy in the 1960s

Michael DeAngelis
Cover image: Bob Carol Ted Alice . (Paul Mazursky, Columbia Pictures, 1969).
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2018 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Production, Eileen Nizer
Marketing, Michael Campochiaro
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: DeAngelis, Michael, 1957– author.
Title: Rx Hollywood : cinema and therapy in the 1960s / Michael DeAngelis.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, 2018. | Series: SUNY series, horizons of cinema | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017015615 (print) | LCCN 2017033038 (ebook) | ISBN 9781438468532 (ebook) | ISBN 9781438468518 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Psychoanalysis in motion pictures. | Psychoanalysis and motion pictures. | Psychiatry in motion pictures. | Motion pictures—United States—History—20th century.
Classification: LCC PN1995.9.P783 (ebook) | LCC PN1995.9.P783 D33 2018 (print) | DDC 791.43019—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017015615
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Andrew, my prince
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Analyst/Patient Relationships: Psychotherapeutic Dynamics
2 Therapy and the Sexual Block
3 Marriage Therapies and Women’s Liberation
4 Psychedelic Therapies
5 Therapy and Confession
Conclusion
Notes
Works Cited
Index
List of Illustrations Figure 0.1 On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (Vincente Minnelli, Paramount Pictures, 1970) Figure 0.2 Wild in the Streets (Barry Shear, American International Pictures, 1968) Figure 1.1 A Very Special Favor (Michael Gordon, Universal Studios, 1965) Figure 1.2 Coming Apart (Milton Moses Ginsberg, Kaleidoscope Films, 1969) Figure 2.1 Reflections in a Golden Eye (John Huston, Warner Bros/Seven Arts, 1967) Figure 2.2 Carnal Knowledge (Mike Nichols, Embassy Pictures, 1971) Figure 3.1 A Guide for the Married Man (Gene Kelly, 20th Century Fox, 1967) Figure 3.2 Bob Carol Ted Alice (Paul Mazursky, Columbia Pictures, 1969) Figure 4.1 The Love-Ins (Arthur Dreifuss, Columbia Pictures/Four-Leaf Productions, 1967) Figure 4.2 Skidoo (Otto Preminger, Otto Preminger Films/Sigma Productions, 1968) Figure 5.1 The President’s Analyst (Theodore J. Flicker, Paramount Pictures., 1967) Figure 5.2 The Boys in the Band (William Friedkin, Cinema Center Films/Leo Films, 1970)
Acknowledgments
I first developed an interest in this project through discussions with the students in my “Hollywood in the 1960s” course at DePaul University, and I continue to be grateful to have an academic position that puts me in contact with such bright, engaged, and reflective students. I am equally grateful to my dean, Salma Ghanem, who authorized and supported a two-quarter academic leave that the University Research Council awarded me, and without which this book could not have been completed. And I am lucky to have such amazing and generous colleagues as Bruno Teboul, Carolyn Bronstein, Lexa Murphy, Kelly Kessler, Blair Davis, Paul Booth, and Luisela Alvaray, who have made me feel welcome in the community of the College of Communication ever since I started there in 2010. I offer special thanks to my friend and distinguished colleague Dusty Goltz, who helped me to stay on track with the project even when I felt less than motivated. Wonderful conversations with my colleague Jim Motzer after Group Ride class at Galter LifeCenter consistently reaffirmed my enthusiasm and appreciation for the wildly diverse cinema of the 1960s.
It has been entirely a pleasure to work with SUNY Press, and I am indebted to the two anonymous manuscript readers for providing generous, detailed, and insightful feedback that helped to make the manuscript revision process feel smooth and organized. I am very grateful to James Peltz and Rafael Chaiken for their kindness and support throughout this project. And I owe so much to Murray Pomerance, the editor of this series and a remarkable colleague ever since I met him twenty years ago, who has always had a boundless reserve of confidence in my abilities.
Carol Coopersmith, Susan McGury, Peter Forster, and Miriam and Yoav Ben-Yoseph are lifelong friends and amazing human beings whose joy, love, generosity, and support always remind me about how lucky I am to be a part of a world whose presence they grace. And Teresa Mastin continues to be a supreme force who inspires me with her warmth and wisdom.
As if it weren’t wonderful enough that a research facility like the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences even exists, the kindness, generosity, organization, professionalism, and exceptional expertise of everyone who works there have made the experience of conducting research an absolute pleasure. I only wish it were a bit closer to Chicago!
Ken Feil, Steven Cohan, Pamela Robertson-Wojcik, and Mary Desjardins are friends and scholars of unassuming brilliance that inspire me whenever I read anything that they write, or when I have the privilege of connecting with them. They have all been role models to me in this writing process, as has Harry Benshoff, who first turned me on to Skidoo over twenty years ago. I have never been the same, and I can’t thank him enough.
My personal trainer and close friend, Jesse Berg, has motivated me through the various stages of this project much more than he could ever know. Through our welcome conversations each Monday morning, he has helped me to think through and organize many of the governing ideas of this book, lending me his curiosity, interest, and insight as a careful listener and discerning critical thinker. I also greatly appreciate his father Gaius, who generously took the time to meet with me for a long, productive, and enlightening conversation about confession and spirituality.
Finally, and most emphatically, I thank Andrew Ramos, my partner of thirty-two years (and much more recently, my spouse), for the confidence, love, and support he has always shown, not only by agreeing to watch and discuss Rosemary’s Baby , The Hospital , and Carnal Knowledge with me during his very limited free time on weekends, but by doing much, much more than his fair share of our daily chores so that I could have more time to write. Every night when he comes home from teaching Pilates, I count my blessings for being with a man with such integrity, intelligence, judgment, and exceptional beauty.

As notated, a portion of chapter 2 comprises an expansion of material originally published in “1972: Movies and Confession,” American Cinema of the 1970s: Themes and Variations , Rutgers University Press, 2007.
Introduction
“ W E HAVE A LOT OF SICK PEOPLE in this country,” President Johnson suggested in a June 11, 1968, address, “but the country is not sick” (Young, A9). By the time of this declaration, however, just six days after Robert Kennedy’s assassination, and two months after the assassination of Martin Luther King, the nation had been bombarded with