Freud’s Last Session (2023)
Genre: Drama
Runtime: 108 min
Director: Matt Brown
Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Matthew Goode, Jodi Balfour…
Plot: A fictional meeting occurs between C. S. Lewis, nicknamed “Jack”, and Sigmund Freud, two days after the start of World War II. A debate on the existence of God, as Freud greatly resents Lewis’ recent rejection of his own strain of Atheism in favour of Christianity, and many other subjects follows. The two men discuss issues such as Lewis’ trauma as a World War I combat veteran, J.R.R. Tolkien and the Inklings, and the nature of Freud’s and Lewis’ relationships with other people, such as Freud’s daughter Anna, who is pathologically dependent upon her father. However, she eventually introduces her lesbian partner, Dorothy Burlingham, to him.
Freud dies by suicide several weeks later due to the intense pain from his oral cancer. C.S. Lewis goes on to become a famous author of Christian literature, and the children he later takes in as evacuees during the war serve as inspiration for his Narnia series. Anna and Dorothy live together for decades, and Anna becomes known as the founder of child psychology. The film notes that Freud met with an unidentified Oxford don in the last days of Freud’s life, who could possibly have been Lewis.
* * *
[SOMBER INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC PLAYING]
[MAN 1 SPEAKING FRENCH OVER RADIO]
[WOMAN SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE OVER RADIO]
MAN 2: [IN ENGLISH] God the Creator…
[MAN 3 INTRODUCING HITLER IN GERMAN OVER RADIO]
[HITLER SPEAKING GERMAN OVER RADIO]
[HITLER’S AUDIENCE CHEERING OVER RADIO]
[HITLER SPEAKING OVER RADIO]
[CROWD CHEERING]
[CROWD CHANTING “SIEG HEIL!” OVER RADIO]
[FOOTSTEPS APPROACHING]
FREUD: Oh!
[LAUGHS]
[IN LATIN] The doctor lives.
“The doctor lives.”
Ja.
[SIGHS, GROANS]
JANIE: Just call him. Tell him you can’t come.
London’ll be bedlam.
No one tells a man like him anything.
But today is dangerous.
Stay here with me, and we’ll wait for news.
Bad news will find you anywhere.
Don’t leave, Jack.
We’ve survived one war, Janie.
We will again.
Right, that’s me.
[TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWING]
ANNOUNCER: Children’s evacuation train on platform one will be leaving immediately. All aboard now, please.
[TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWING]
NEWSREADER: [OVER PA] This is London.
There is still no official response to the prime minister’s ultimatum that all troops be withdrawn.
We’ve just received confirmation the Slovakian troops have joined the German invasion.
We return to the BBC Symphony Orchestra until we can bring you more news.
[ORCHESTRAL MUSIC PLAYING OVER RADIO]
[TURNS OFF RADIO]
Uh…
I’m not going in. I called institute.
The students expect you.
They will be fine with a free period.
They’ll need routine today of all days.
I can take care of myself.
Dr. Schur will be here with the morphine within the hour.
Or was that yesterday? Ja.
Also, uh, an Oxford don is coming here to see me, who needs an education in punctuality.
Who’s this?
Huh?
The Oxford don. Who is it?
Professor Lewis.
C.S. Lewis.
The Christian apologist?
Ja.
[CHUCKLES] He has a lot to apologize for.
Papa, I would like to bring Dorothy back with me.
On a day like this, no one should be alone.
We won’t be alone.
I’m certain that Dorothy will be more comfortable in her own home.
And perhaps next week.
And then next week, and next week.
How many times do I have to ask you?
You remember Professor Einstein’s visit?
Of course.
Ja.
A discussion about the true indication of insanity… as doing the same thing over and over and over and over and expecting different results.
So, the surest indication of sanity… would be the ability to change your mind.
Ja.
[FREUD SCOFFS]
[SOLDIER SHOUTING ORDERS]
[TRAIN BELL RINGING]
[BELL TOLLING]
ANNA: Professor Lewis?
Uh, yes?
Anna Freud.
Ah!
Nice to meet you.
And you.
Good luck.
[CAR DOORS SHUT]
[CAR ENGINE STARTING]
[GRUNTS]
[KNOCK ON DOOR]
[DOG BARKING]
Jofi, do you hear someone at the door?
Jofi?
[JOFI CONTINUES BARKING]
[DOOR OPENS]
Dr. Freud.
Professor Lewis.
I’d given you up for lost. Or dead.
LEWIS: What kind of a dog is he?
He’s a Chow. He’s highly intelligent.
His name is Jofi, and he’s my personal assistant.
Really?
Yes, really.
Ja. He stays with me through all my sessions.
He’s also my emotional barometer.
How so?
Well, if a patient is calm,
Jofi always stretches out at my feet.
But if a patient is agitated, Jofi stands at my side and he never takes his eyes away from the patient.
What shall I make of his running away at the sight of me?
Well, he’s also a fanatic about punctuality.
[JOFI BARKS]
Come in, please.
Fortunately, for her, my wife is traveling with her cousin, so I’ve sent out our housekeeper, Paula.
Paula? She’s gone.
I sent her out to stock up on canned goods or canned food.
Or tinned, as you say here. [CHUCKLES]
‘Cause you must always be prepared for and expect the worst. Correct?
Yes, yes, of course.
Yes, I’m terribly sorry for being so late.
All the trains were filled with children being evacuated to the countryside.
Bless them.
Ja.
I take it you’ve been listening to the radio.
Ja, ja. I always listen to the radio.
I find it most convenient to be warned before getting bombed or shot.
[CHUCKLES SOFTLY]
I have several engagements today, so our meeting must be brief.
Ah. Well, perhaps we should postpone.
Postpone? Postpone until when? Tomorrow?
Do you count on your tomorrows, Professor? ‘Cause I do not.
Of course.
Of course. Ja.
You British always say, “But of course, old chap.”
[BOTH CHUCKLE]
I wonder why. What does that mean?
I don’t know. Habit, I suppose.
Ja. Interesting. Habit.
Ja.
Well, you have a wonderful home.
Thank you.
How long have you lived here?
Oh. One year and four months.
My daughter, Anna, tried her best to replicate our home in Vienna.
You also are not a native of this country, am I correct?
I was born in Belfast.
But I’ve been here since I was sent to boarding school at the age of nine.
Ja.
We all try so valiantly to leave our past and our childhood memories, do we not?
But they will never leave us, will they?
Ja.
Not the sorrows of the world.
Hmm.
Well, I’m afraid this will… never be my home.
No.
[MELANCHOLY MUSIC PLAYING]
Never be my Vienna.
[SIGHS WEARILY]
Ah!
[PEOPLE CLAPPING]
[MAN SPEAKING GERMAN]
[IN ENGLISH] They’ve never given the Goethe prize to a psychoanalyst before.
They’ve never had psychoanalysts in Germany before.
[LAUGHS]
Here’s my prize with whom I am well-pleased.
Good…
Ja.
Dr. Freud, are you all right?
Ah! [CHUCKLES]
Here is my prize with whom I am well-pleased.
My favorite flower… azalea.
Oh.
Wait one moment.
Ja.
Ah!
Ja!
Das ist gut.
Thank you.
Since we have so little time, we should talk about why I wrote you.
Oh, yes, yes, my book, Pilgrim’s Regress.
Oh, yes. It was a satirical parody based on, uh, The Pilgrim’s Progress, was it not?
By… [MUTTERS] What’s his name? Don’t tell me, don’t tell me.
John Bunyan, correct?
Yes.
Ja. Ah, John Bunyan.
Now, he was a true genius.
Ja. And I think your satire would’ve been quite splendid.
That is, if anyone still reads John Bunyan.
It’s my understanding that what I have written offends you.
Offends me how?
Well, my satirizing you with the Sigmund character.
Bombastic, vain, ignorant.
Oh.
Perhaps I was a little overzealous.
I’m sorry if you took it as a personal attack.
But I cannot apologize for challenging your worldview when it fully negates my own.
Which is?
That there is a God.
That a man doesn’t have to be an imbecile to believe in him. And those of us who do, are not suffering from an obsessional neurosis.
Oh, really? Oh.
Well, most interesting. [CHUCKLES] Good.
Interesting. See, I’ve never read your book.
[SCOFFS]
FREUD: “As I wandered through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place wherein I found a den, and in that place, I laid me down to sleep, and as I slept, I dreamed a dream.”
John Bunyan. [CLICKS TONGUE]
[LAUGHING]
Ja. Professor Lewis, forgive me, but I must ask you this.
Why would you come here to see me if you disagree so passionately with my views?
Well, not all of them.
When I was a student, we devoured your every book to discover our latent perversions.
I was shocked when I read that you declared Pilgrim’s Progress a work of genius. Seriously?
A clash between God and Satan?
Ah. But I did not say whose side I was on, did I?
You’ve always insisted that the concept of God is ludicrous.
Yes.
So, why do you care what I think if you’re satisfied in your disbelief? Why…
Why am I here?
Why?
Uh, curiosity.
Why someone of your supreme intellect would suddenly abandon truth and then…
[LAUGHING HEARTILY]
…then embrace a ludicrous dream, an insidious lie.
What if it isn’t a lie? Hmm?
You ever considered how terrifying it would be to realize that you were wrong?
FREUD: Ooh!
Not half as terrifying as it would be for you, my friend.
[CHUCKLES] No, no.
You said earlier that you challenge my worldview.
You challenge my belief in disbelief.
Is that correct?
I do, yes.
Good. Wunderbar.
Welcome to my den.
[FREUD CHUCKLES]
[TELEPHONE RINGING]
Oh. One moment.
Hello? Anna?
Have you frightened off your professor yet?
[LAUGHS] Not yet.
Soon, perhaps.
[CHUCKLING]
You go back to your lectures.
Das ist gut.
All right.
Have a good day.
[HANGS UP RECEIVER]
MAN: His daughter?
I don’t pay tuition to listen to her opinions.
She’s not even a doctor.
Why should I waste my time listening to her lecture?
You shouldn’t, Mr. Hensell. You’re right.
You’ll learn nothing.
I’m sure you know all there is to know about adolescent narcissism.
Did you speak to your father about tonight?
You do know we are about to be at war, don’t you?
Well, that’s nothing new for him.
Never met anyone more bellicose.
You used to find him charming.
Did I?
I hardly remember.
Dorothy, be reasonable.
I’m in England, aren’t I? With you.
“Reasonable” would be
that we at least shared the same roof. We did in Vienna.
Children don’t even understand.
Didn’t know your father had such delicate sensibilities.
I have a lecture. Find me later.
I always do.
Good morning, gentlemen.
MEN: Good morning.
Shall we begin?
Sit, please.
Not there. That’s the transformation couch.
You be careful.
Of course.
[CLEARS THROAT]
A colleague of mine, Erik Larson, he telephoned me this morning to tell me he knows a colleague of yours, Mr. Tolkien.
Yes. Yes, we’re close friends.
Oh. John Tolkien?
Mm.
Brilliant. Genius.
So, tell me, what exactly are the Inklings?
That’s what we call our literary group at Oxford.
We discuss each other’s work.
Mostly fantasies?
Often, yes.
I’ve spent most of my life examining fantasies, trying to make sense of dreams.
And yet, at my age, I don’t… [CHUCKLES]
I don’t know what I think anymore.
And given what little time I have left in this strange house, perhaps I should start by trying to make sense of reality. Whatever that is.
[BOTH CHUCKLE]
Maybe it is all a dream in the end.
Spooky, spooky, spooky.
Would you like a drink?
Ooh. No. Thank you.
Well, I’m going to have one, ’cause I need one. [SIGHS]
Ja.
Are you sure?
Whiskey.
Whiskey it is. Whiskey, ja.
Thank you.
Ja.
“All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.”
Edgar Allan Poe wrote that.
And he went mad, so you be careful.
Ja.
[FREUD GROANS]
[DRINKS POURING]
[GRUNTS] Calm.
So, tell me, was it your parents who injected you with this fairy tale of faith?
No.
My faith ended with my childhood.
I buried it with my mother. She died when I was young.
Ah.
Go on.
[BELL TOLLING]
[SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING]
LEWIS: My father was consumed with grief, unable to process it, or to take ours into account.
His only solution was to send us off to England for boarding school.
[SHIP HORN BLOWING]
It was perhaps my life’s greatest trauma.
More so than the war.
It was all sea and islands now.
A great continent had sunk, like Atlantis.
YOUNG WARREN: Jack, can’t wait for you to see this.
LEWIS: On my next birthday, my brother, Warren, gave me the most wonderful present I’d ever been given.
A new world.
A toy forest he created in a biscuit tin.
I thought it was the most beautiful thing I’d seen.
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
Moss, twigs, tiny stones, flowers.
The moment I saw it, it created a yearning…
I never felt before.
[CUCKOO CALLING]
[HUMMING]
I called that feeling joy.
I still do.
Ja. And do you think that was
an inherent desire for a creator?
Yes.
Ja.
You said you were led to joy by a biscuit box.
Or a biscuit tin. Is that correct?
Thank you.
Ja.
Yes.
Ah. Interesting.
Prost.
Yes, our deepest cravings are never satisfied, are they?
Or even identified.
See, in German, it is called “Sehnsucht.”
Means “longing.”
I experienced that longing, that desire, when I was a young boy.
The strong desire to walk in the woods.
[BIRDS CAWING]
Sigmund!
Sigmund, stoppen!
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
[WATER BUBBLING]
Sigmund!
FREUD: I was never frightened.
I was never sad that my father had vanished or disappeared, because finally I was alone in the dark woods.
Those dark forests… to which I’d always been drawn.
Where I was most at peace with myself and with the world.
Ja.
Ah.
Would that my father had walked in the woods with me.
Thus your search for a divine father figure.
If anything, it made me determined to avoid father figures.
A normal fatherson relationship.
A boy’s love, worship and adoration for the father transformed into a recognition of the father’s imperfections and into an even stronger desire to displace and kill the old bastard.
Right? [LAUGHS]
And your relationship with your own father?
Ah…
Well, at best, it was a… bitter disappointment.
Same anger you feel toward a God that does nothing.
The wish that God doesn’t exist can be just as powerful as the belief he does.
Ah. Good.
[AIRRAID SIREN BLARING]
Gas mask.
I can’t breathe in this.
Come on!
I can’t go on.
Well, I’m not leaving you.
Don’t be a fool.
Give me your arm.
[AIRRAID SIREN CONTINUES]
[BELL TOLLING]
FREUD: Let go of my arm. I’m all right.
LEWIS: Come on.
I’m all right!
All right.
MAN: Down to the cellar, please.
This way to the cellar.
Keep moving.
[BABY CRYING]
Keep moving. Down to the cellar. Thank you.
[AIRRAID SIREN CONTINUES]
WOMAN: Come on.
[ELECTRICITY CRACKLING]
[GHOSTLY EXPLOSIONS AND MACHINE GUN FIRE]
[GHOSTLY SCREAMING, SHOUTING]
FREUD: Professor Lewis?
Are you all right?
You were in the war, ja? In the war?
[GHOSTLY MACHINE GUN FIRE]
Infantry.
Breathe in.
Deep breath in, ja? Focus on me, ja.
Focus on me. Focus on me.
There. Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
That’s good. Good.
MAN: False alarm. We’re all clear.
[AIRRAID SIREN CONTINUES]
[PEOPLE MURMURING]
LEWIS: Dare I say that you look rather at home?
Ah. It’s called art appreciation.
For me, it is like studying cave painting. Who is that?
God pronouncing to Joshua that he’s delivered Jericho, prior to it happening.
Ja?
The story of the Good Samaritan.
FREUD: And?
LEWIS: St. Roch and his leg.
And his dog.
Oh.
This?
LEWIS: I’m afraid I haven’t a clue.
PRIEST: St. Brigid.
Patron saint of nuns.
No, it is not St. Brigid.
Who is it then?
Saint Dymphna. You should know that.
Thank you, Father.
[CHILDREN CHATTERING]
MAN: [OVER PA] Return to your homes. False alarm.
Apologies. There are no bombs.
[LEWIS LAUGHING]
What? I don’t understand.
“Apologies. There are no bombs.”
Ja?
What would he do if there were? Send sympathy cards?
Ja.
[LEWIS CONTINUES LAUGHING]
FREUD: This is how we forget.
This defensive humor.
I wrote a book on humor.
Yes, yes, I read it.
We English take our humor pretty seriously.
[CHUCKLES] I find English humor is like a foreign language to me.
Yes, I would agree.
Ja.
Your examples were somewhat clinical.
Jokes pinned down like dead frogs.
And then dissected.
Are you saying my methodology is flawed?
No, no, no, no, no. No.
Your jokes were. They aren’t funny.
But I used classic illustrations.
Let me think. Uh… Oh, yes.
Two Jews before a bathhouse.
Ja.
One Jew says to the other, “Have you taken a bath?”
And the other… [LAUGHING] He says…
He says…
What does he say?
“Why? Is one missing?”
That’s right!
Ja, ja.
Meaning, to take a bath, meaning bathing, and, “Have you taken a bath?” meaning stolen one.
[LAUGHS] Ja, it’s an example of mimesis.
You know, conflicting. Our thoughts conflicting action.
About as funny as a hanging.
What?
Come on.
I feel insulted. You say I have no humor?
[TELEPHONE RINGING]
Hello?
Max?
How late?
That’s quite severe.
Ja, I’m in terrible pain.
I’m in pain. I need medicine.
Max?
Ma… [SLAMS RECEIVER]
Is there anything I can do to help?
No, thank you.
[TURNS ON RADIO]
MAN: [ON RADIO] With the destruction of the entire Polish air force by the Luftwaffe, military and civilian casualties are already estimated to be over 20,000.
We return to our musical program.
Switch it off.
[MUSIC PLAYS ON RADIO]
[RADIO SWITCHES OFF]
[SIGHS WEARILY]
Twenty thousand killed in just two days.
It’s almost impossible to take in, isn’t it?
[CHUCKLES WRYLY] Must be more of God’s mysterious ways.
I wonder what your Inklings would say to that?
WARREN: Utter nonsense, Weldon. There is no such thing.
It’s a physical ailment.
I feel it every time I step inside.
Library terrors? Stop yourself.
Doesn’t anyone else feel while entering a library and it grips you… terror at the number of unread books?
No. No. Quite the reverse.
WARREN: Moving on.
Who’s reading?
Well, I have a new chapter.
Ah.
Tolkien, then.
Chapter 48.
I move that we order another round first.
A miracle. My brother is buying.
Warnie.
Gentlemen, same again?
Yes, please.
Tolkien, have you been indoctrinating my brother again?
Me? No, never.
What about Weldon?
Ah.
He’s always been an atheist.
He’s a rabid one.
How could he, of any… How could he, of anyone, take the Bible literally?
It’s a fictional anthology of myths and legends.
Jack, when you read myths about gods that come to earth and sacrifice themselves, their stories move you, so long as you read it anywhere but the Bible.
That’s nonsense, and you know it.
Pagan myths are born through God expressing himself.
But the myth of Christ, that is God expressing himself through himself.
And what makes it more than myth is that…
Well, Christ actually walked the earth among us.
His dying transforms myth into truth.
And it transforms the lives of all those who believe in him.
John, you’re a scholar.
Don’t you have an obligation to the truth?
Yes. The same as you.
So, do your research. Examine the evidence.
Hmm.
LEWIS: Which I did.
No book was safe, from current scholarship back 1,600 years, starting with the “Codex Sinaiticus,” the oldest surviving manuscript copy of the New Testament.
“Matthew, 400 A.D.”
[JACK WHISPERING]
Jack?
Hmm?
Bedtime.
Good night.
[CHUCKLES] What are you reading that’s so fascinating?
The Bible?
Yes. Have you read it?
It’s been quoted at me.
It’s often a weapon, isn’t it?
The Creation.
Adam and Eve?
You don’t really believe all of that, do you?
That they were real?
I believe it doesn’t really matter what I think.
That’s a relief, ’cause I’m sure it says right there that man should not be alone.
Come along.
Do what your good book says.
You’re scaring me, Jack.
There’s nothing to be scared of.
It’s just a little bit of homework.
I’m perfectly convinced that whatever the gospels are, they aren’t myths.
They aren’t… artistic enough.
[BOTH CHUCKLE]
[STUTTERS] They’re clumsy.
Most of the life of Jesus is left completely unknown to us, and writers building a legend? Wouldn’t allow that to happen.
You’re convinced of Christ’s existence because of bad storytelling?
Christ’s existence isn’t up for debate, only who he was.
The man was chronicled by his contemporaries and historians. Even H.G. Wells, whose skepticism rivaled mine own, admitted, here was a man.
This part of the tale could not have been invented.
Ja, that Christ was a man, I don’t argue.
Like, Muhammad or Buddha.
I’m sorry. What was that?
I said I have no doubt that Christ was a man, like Muhammad or Buddha.
But only Christ claimed to be the Messiah.
Oh, God.
He even claimed the power to forgive sins. Absurd, isn’t it?
Professor Lewis, please help me up.
Are you all right?
Oh, yes.
Never felt better.
Danke. Ah!
Oh! [CHUCKLES]
Oh, Professor Lewis, perhaps you could help me understand something.
It’s a conundrum, a puzzle that has kept me terribly confused for a long time.
Of course, yes.
Why should I take Christ’s claim to be God more seriously than the numerous patients I’ve treated over several years who claim to be Christ?
I mean, please enlighten me because, in my humble scientific opinion, those poor, wretched patients of mine were all raving lunatics.
So I must conclude that you yourself and your friends, and, yes, the good carpenter of Nazareth must all have been a little… [WHISTLES]
But this is only my humble scientific opinion.
What do I know? [CHUCKLES]
Ah. [SIGHS]
Well, allow me to retort.
Did you find a single person whose concept of reality was otherwise sound?
FREUD: No.
[SIGHS DEEPLY]
[BREATHING HEAVILY]
[DISTORTED, DISTANT CHEERING]
[CHEERING FADING]
[TELEPHONE RINGING]
Hello?
Anna?
Ja. Thank you.
Chamberlain.
CHAMBERLAIN: [OVER RADIO] …stating that unless we heard from them by eleven o’clock, that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us.
I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that, consequently, this country is at war with Germany.
And so it begins.
Again.
CHAMBERLAIN: It is evil things that we shall be fighting against.
Brute force, bad faith…
The talks broke down.
…injustice, oppression and persecution.
Against them, I am certain that the right will prevail.
MAN: That is the end of the prime minister’s statement.
[RADIO CLICKS OFF]
[FOOTSTEPS APPROACHING]
Anna?
You all right?
Thought we would be safe when we left Vienna.
Well, we don’t know how Hitler will respond.
Leave the country now. Tomorrow.
Let me help you while there’s still time. Please.
Where would I go?
MAN: Come with me to London.
I don’t know. I have Anna to think of.
ANNA: He will never leave Vienna.
And you will never leave him.
What about you?
Well, it’s time, I’m afraid. For the children.
Though, I have to admit, I’m in agreement with your father.
New York does little for me either.
What I wouldn’t give to see you
on Madison Avenue, in proper society.
[CHUCKLES WRYLY]
Would you come to London?
[LOUD KNOCK AT DOOR]
[DOOR OPENS]
Good evening.
Sigmund Freud?
Don’t.
My name is, Dr. Ernest Jones. I’m a British subject.
I’m a personal acquaintance of Chancellor von Schuschnigg.
Step aside.
I’m Sigmund Freud.
No. No, no.
Anna!
What?
My father is a very sick man.
What are you doing?
Take me instead!
I know everything he does. I’ll be more helpful.
All right then.
Wait. Be quiet now.
[SOFTLY] If they take you, nobody will be safe.
FREUD: Here.
If there’s no hope.
Miss Freud, shall we?
Ladies. Gentlemen.
Till we meet again.
[SOLDIERS MARCHING]
[SOLDIER YELLS ORDERS]
[MARCHING STOPS]
SOLDIER: Fire!
[GUNS FIRE]
[INHALES SHARPLY]
[GATE CLANGS OPEN]
[KEYS JINGLING]
[BREATH TREMBLING]
[JUDAS WINDOW OPENS]
Ja, 12 hours we waited.
I wonder why they let her go.
I don’t know.
Perhaps she wasn’t useful to them, to the Gestapo.
She’s quite an innocent person, you understand.
After she was released, I bribed all the necessary people to leave the country immediately.
And I mean immediately, ’cause something had taken me by the throat and dragged me so close to a personal family tragedy, that finally, I was awake.
I awoke when I suddenly recognized the face of the beast.
The monster.
[SIGHS] History is littered with monsters.
Oh, I agree, I agree.
And they all live happily and contentedly within each and every one of us.
Do they not? Ja.
The dybbuk. The beast in the darkness.
And the bogeyman. Oh, hush, hush, hush.
Here comes the bogeyman.
Don’t get too close to him. He’ll catch you if he can.
[BOTH LAUGH]
But it is too late, my friend.
Because we’ve chosen to live our precious lives in the stifling smoke of the burning of the books and the smoldering embers of our hate.
No, there’s no…
There’s no escape from the beast, my friend, because our moral certainty is the beast.
We are the pestilence. We are the famine and death.
We are the apocalypse.
[BREATHING HEAVILY]
Ja.
And at my exalted age, I’m mightily grateful that I shall not live to see another Adolf Hitler.
Thank God.
I’m sorry. What did you say?
Oh…
Ah.
[CHORAL MUSIC PLAYING]
FREUD: I was raised by a strict Catholic nanny who took me to church every Sunday.
[SPEAKING GERMAN]
FREUD: [IN ENGLISH] She was like a mother to me.
[FREUD’S FATHER SPEAKING HEBREW]
FREUD: [IN ENGLISH] My father,
he was equally devout in his beliefs.
[FREUD’S FATHER CONTINUES IN HEBREW]
[KISSES]
[BOOK THUDS]
[SPEAKING GERMAN]
[NANNY SPEAKING GERMAN]
Ja.
The battling bibles, ja?
“Let us love our neighbors as we love ourselves.”
I have here a paper signed by the German chancellor, Herr Hitler.
You just heard him on the radio, your beloved prime minister, Mr. Chamberlain.
Ja. He said exactly the same thing last year, just after the Munich crisis. You remember that?
He’d told us all to go back to our beds and sleep in peace?
Yes. Thank you, ja.
“Let it be understood, there will be peace in our time.” Ja.
[CHUCKLES] Oh!
Oh, thank you, yes.
So, let us love our neighbors as we love ourselves.
What a wonderfully simpleminded, imbecilic impossibility that was.
Well, I wholeheartedly disagree.
Well, of course you disagree. You have to disagree, don’t you?
Otherwise, the entire structure of your childish faith would collapse into rubble, would it not?
Just as the whole of Europe is about to collapse into rubble, ja?
What should we do now?
We should, you know, turn the other cheek.
The Polish people welcome the tanks and the Gestapo, yes.
And the planes as they, of the Luftwaffe, as they bomb their buildings and they butcher their children. Yes, why not?
[LAUGHS SCORNFULLY]
Turn the other cheek. Please.
I don’t know if it’s a coincidence, but, it seems to me, I think, that Jesus himself…
Yes, the good carpenter of Nazareth commanded…
It says it here in the good book, the Bible.
Matthew, chapter 18.
“Verily, I say unto you, unless you become as little children, you shall not enter the kingdom of Heaven.”
Wonderful.
“Suffer little children to come unto me.”
It seems to me, Professor, that we’ve never matured enough to face the terror of being alone in the dark.
But religion…
For one bright, shining moment, religion made the world our nursery, a little playpen.
[BELL TOLLING]
I have only two words to offer humanity, grow up.
[CHUCKLES SOFTLY]
[FREUD COUGHS]
Oral darn surgery.
Badly fitting prosthetic.
I’m always afraid that I might… sneeze out my teeth.
[CHUCKLES]
[FREUD GROANS]
And I need my medicine.
It’s this prosthesis.
Anna calls it “The Monster.” [CHUCKLES]
But…
I have to clean it, and then… call her to come and readjust it.
When will your wife be home?
Anna’s the only one who can touch it.
What, not even your doctors?
No.
Not my doctors.
Especially not.
[BREATHING HEAVILY]
ANNA: Papa.
[CHILD SHOUTING ECHOING]
[CHILD LAUGHING ECHOING]
Sigmund.
[WOMAN PANTING, MOANING]
[MAN SHOUTING ECHOING]
FATHER: [ECHOING] Sigmund!
[SPEAKING GERMAN]
If it wasn’t for him, most certainly I would have died.
Ja.
I find a terrible humor in that.
Dr. Sigmund Freud, with his oral obsession, finally rendered speechless.
[CHUCKLES]
Now, that is a joke.
Can there be a better one?
Maybe not.
But if it was a joke, who do you think made it?
Ah! You made a joke yourself. Your first one.
[TELEPHONE RINGING]
Hello?
Dr. Schur.
Where are you?
Children aren’t necessarily afraid of war.
Instead of running away, they might run toward it with primitive excitement.
The real danger isn’t that a child might react with shock.
The real danger is that the violence of the world… might meet the violence inside the child.
[KNOCK AT DOOR]
[DOOR OPENS]
WOMAN: It’s your father.
ANNA: Thank you.
Ja, Vater?
Dr. Schur’s not coming. He blames the traffic.
Can’t get into town.
He says he’ll call my prescription to a pharmaceutical chemist shop.
And do you want me to come home?
FREUD: Of course.
I want you here. That’s why I’m calling you.
It’s just… Before, you didn’t say
I’m in terrible pain. I need medicine.
Papa
Think of me for once, instead of her.
Ja, Vater.
[LINE DISCONNECTS]
There is an emergency.
Can someone dismiss my class, please?
Out of five scheduled lectures in the last two weeks, you’ve canceled two, and today you’re leaving halfway through your third.
It’s unavoidable. My father’s in great pain and he needs me.
As do we!
Surely, you can bring in a nurse.
He doesn’t want that.
With all respect, does your father always get everything he wants?
Doctor, you as much as anyone know the importance of my father’s work, beside his creating your occupation and mine.
So, yes, he gets anything he wants.
If you’ve a problem with it–
The problem is yours.
It’s called an attachment disorder.
Idolizing one’s parents past adolescence isn’t a virtue.
It’s a compulsion.
Well… thanks for the analysis.
[FOOTSTEPS DEPARTING]
[BREATH TREMBLING]
[BREATHING HEAVILY]
LEWIS: Oh. So your daughter teaches.
FREUD: Yes. She also had a private psychoanalytical practice for children.
At first, I was afraid that by following in my footsteps, Anna would leave no mark of her own.
I hoped that was my own narcissistic fear.
Oh, the tangled webs we weave… when first we practice to deceive.
Yes, Anna’s dedicated to the science.
And to you, it seems.
[COUGHS]
Do you have a photograph of your wife?
Of course. But not in here.
Why? Are you married?
No.
Oh. Do you live with someone?
A woman or a man?
I beg your pardon?
I said, do you live with someone? A woman or a man?
Or does homosexuality offend you? If so, why?
Homosexuality is not immoral.
Why so?
Moral sense in a man is created by fear, and that fear comes from the castration complex. [COUGHS]
So women have nothing to fear?
Precisely.
Without this fear, these impulses cannot be countered.
Then, how are they countered?
Through traditional relationships with husbands and fathers.
You are a walking contradiction.
Well, I’m human.
I’m inherently flawed.
[CHUCKLES]
And I’m deeply damaged.
And no doubt, I’m damaging to others.
[DOOR OPENS]
DOROTHY: Anna?
[ANNA BREATHING HEAVILY]
You all right?
Yeah. It’s nothing.
Tell me.
I’m worried about my father.
I have to find a chemist.
Well, is your mother…
She’s away.
He has no one.
There must be someone.
Me.
Chemists are closing early like other businesses.
Let’s make some calls first.
I will find one on my way home.
Then we’ll go together.
Absolutely not.
Bernbridge isn’t wrong, you know.
If your patients showed this kind of codependency, you’d diagnose ’em with an attachment disorder.
This is my duty. Why can’t you see that?
Duty is not the same thing as cringing servitude.
Dorothy, he is my father.
Yes.
And what else?
Doesn’t smoking aggravate your mouth?
FREUD: Mmhmm.
It does. [CHUCKLES]
It aggravates everything. ‘Cause I’m dying.
I’m rotting away. I’m decaying. We’re all dying, rotting away and decaying.
But I’m determined to relish and revel in the only sexual pleasure left, right?
So, I bid farewell to thee, my phallic and anal stage, and I regress to thee, my oral stage, whatever that is.
Extraordinary. We’ve been talking this long, and this is the first mention of sex.
Bravo. Well observed. Yes. [LAUGHS]
But I think… [COUGHS] I think your definition is far too narrow, ’cause I apply the term “sexual” to all interactions that, uh, bring pleasure, ja?
The infant sucking on its mother’s breast.
The great Sigmund Freud sucking on the nipple of a cigar. Ja.
Sexuality is the font of all happiness, my friend.
There’s much more to happiness than that.
Sex is only one of many Godgiven pleasures and… and, frankly, not the most lasting.
Ah. Took you less than a minute to bring God into sex.
Fascinating.
[LAUGHS] But despite your church propaganda, I think we made considerable progress uncovering and overcoming our repressions today.
Progress?
We’ve gone from sex being the subject never spoken of to our not being able to talk of anything else.
It’s as if we invented it.
Well, perhaps we did. Ja.
Yes, psychoanalysis is inherently sexual.
Oh, yes, we infantilize it, turning it into the lie that sex under any circumstances is perfectly normal and healthy.
There is a sexual code running through the Old and New Testaments: sex is to be shared between two people who are committed to each other.
[LAUGHS]
Well done. Good.
I think your Bible is a bestiary of sexuality.
Ja, a bestiary. An encyclopedia of it.
Help me tie these apron strings, will you?
Ja, a bestiary.
Ja.
Where’s my cigar? I left a cigar somewhere. Um…
You know, it’s interesting because you good people, you always pick and choose those special Bible verses, the ones that support your own virtuous bias.
Isn’t that correct?
Like, “No sex, please, before marriage,” ja?
It’s ridiculous.
Not only naive, but I think it’s a mindless, sadistic cruelty, really.
Like sending a young man to perform his first concerto with a great orchestra, when he’s only played his piccolo when alone in his bedroom.
Ja. Put these things in the sink.
They aren’t going to wash themselves, are they?
I would have thought that needing to depend on men would cause women to give up sex completely, especially as you say homosexuality isn’t immoral.
Well, perhaps lesbianism is different.
How so?
FREUD: I don’t know.
Perhaps unchecked, it becomes progressively more unstable.
But not homosexuals?
No, their conditions have a different source.
I don’t understand.
What’s the source of a woman’s lesbianism?
Her father.
And what about your father?
Ah! It’s too late to turn back now.
[SIGHS]
My father and I…
Now, there’s an interesting tale.
Uh, my father and I…
[CLICKS TONGUE] Uh, made our peace before he died.
He was… a good man.
Ja?
What he couldn’t afford emotionally, he made up for financially.
He supported my life’s work.
Uhhuh.
Yes, and, well, I now live with my… my brother, Warren.
Warnie, we call him. We call him Warnie.
Just your brother?
[SIGHS] It’s complicated.
Yes, it usually is, isn’t it?
I told you I was in the war.
No, you didn’t tell me.
You showed me you were in the war.
It’s always going back to the war, isn’t it?
[SCOFFS]
I don’t know.
Ja.
LEWIS: Mm.
[SOLDIERS MARCHING]
[DISTANT EXPLOSIONS]
[DISTANT GUNFIRE]
SOLDIER 1: Jack, are you all right?
SOLDIER 2: Steady.
[BOMBS WHIZZING, EXPLODING]
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
[EXPLOSIONS CONTINUE]
SOLDIER: Radio’s out. We need to move forward.
I suppose I should have some starlet’s pic.
It’s just my mom.
LEWIS: If I still had my mom, I’d probably do the same.
[DISTANT GUNFIRE]
[BOMBS WHIZZING, EXPLODING]
[RATS SQUEAKING]
LEWIS: There goes dinner.
Lewis, make me a promise.
If something happens to me, take care of my mother.
And if anything happens to you,
I’ll do the same for your father.
SOLDIER: That’s an order.
FREUD: So, how much of that day do you remember?
Little to none. I was…
It was chaos from the outset.
[WHISTLE BLOWS]
[SOLDIERS YELLING]
[BULLETS WHIZZING]
LEWIS: It was my last time over the bags.
PADDY: Jack, are you all right? Come on!
LEWIS: Paddy and I made it into noman’sland.
[SURREAL INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC PLAYING]
[DEER GRUNTS]
PADDY: Jack!
Jack! Jack, we can’t stay here!
[SOLDIERS YELLING]
[EXPLOSION]
[SOLDIERS SCREAMING IN DISTANCE]
[SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING]
[EXPLOSION]
[LOW RUMBLING]
[SOBBING]
Hel…
[PANTING]
Help!
Help! Please help!
Help!
Please help!
[EXPLOSIONS ECHOING]
Lewis?
Yes. He’s over there.
Well, I was going to take you out dancing.
I think we’ll have to settle for a picnic here instead.
Mrs. Moore?
I’m so sorry.
Right.
[SOLDIER SHUDDERING]
I can’t tell you what your visit means to me.
The letters you wrote to me after Paddy’s death, they keep me close to him.
He carried this with him.
The shrapnel that killed him, part of it is… still in my chest.
It’s too close to my heart to remove it.
Now, Jack, um, we need to talk about something quite serious.
You told me about the promise that you and Paddy made to each other.
Mmhmm.
It’s a lovely gesture, but… I don’t need anyone to be my guardian angel.
I might look ancient to you, but–
No, you…
Quite the opposite.
[CHUCKLES] The right reply.
Not to mention that I don’t believe in angels.
Or depending on anyone but myself.
Let’s not look at it like a guardianship then.
Let’s call it a friendship.
Agreed.
A friendship.
Your friend’s mother.
I made a promise.
Hmm.
How long have you had this relationship?
I wouldn’t call it a relationship.
Any bond between two people is a relationship.
How old is she?
Mrs. Moore was in her early 40s.
Oh. Hmm.
Does Mrs. Moore have a first name?
Janie.
Janie. Ooh.
Tell me, did you find Janie an attractive woman when you first met her?
She was my friend’s mother.
All the more reason to find her more attractive.
Often, men who lose their mothers at an early age are drawn to more mature women.
I resent the implication, and my personal life is really not your concern.
Oh, really?
Mm.
FREUD: But your conversion is.
It fascinates me.
[CHUCKLES WRYLY]
Ja.
You lived with her, with Janie, in your days as an atheist, so I would like to know whether your conversion or your battle trauma caused you a newfound virginity.
I won’t discuss this any further.
[SPUTTERS] My private life is precisely that. Yes.
As you wish.
LEWIS: Hmm.
[CHUCKLES]
But I consider what people tell me far less interesting than what they choose not to tell me.
Well, bully for you.
[KNOCK AT DOOR]
[JOFI BARKING]
Let me.
Hello. Can I help you?
No one can today, I’m afraid.
Is Miss Freud in?
No, I’m afraid not. No. She’s
FREUD: Who is it?
Oh, it’s, it’s Ernest, Sigmund.
FREUD: Hi, Ernest.
Dr. Ernest Jones.
Jack Lewis. Pleasure.
I should leave you to your doctor.
FREUD: He’s not my physician.
I’ll take a walk around, get some air. Yes.
That’s good.
Take Jofi with you.
Come in.
Right.
Let’s go into the garden before it gets dark.
Autumn evenings are drawing in now.
LEWIS: Yes. Thank you.
[SIGHS]
There we go.
So, Ernest, to what do I owe the honor?
I’ve been told about a… a first-rate psychoanalytic facility being established in a town called Bury.
It’s near Manchester.
It’s going to be a teaching hospital.
[LAUGHS]
You don’t… You don’t expect me to travel in my condition, do you?
No. No, no.
Oh.
I was thinking about Anna.
Oh, ja?
They’d love to have her.
Huh.
She’d be safer there.
Ja.
That’s one thing.
What’s the other?
Well, they’ve asked me to join the faculty.
Oh, ja?
Ah.
Are you seeking a professional relationship with Anna, or is it a personal one?
Well, that would be Anna’s choice, don’t you think?
What do you think?
[BELL TOLLING]
Please. My father’s having a medical crisis.
He needs help immediately.
Sorry, the pharmacist has left for today.
Can you call him back? My father’s Dr. Sigmund Freud.
The sex doc?
Good luck to both of you. I’m sorry, ma’am.
Has Anna given you any indication that she would be interested in a relationship?
No, I’ve… I’ve spent… very little time with her socially.
Ja?
I just think she would only benefit from a… a wider circle of professional and personal acquaintances.
Besides myself?
Well, no, I… I didn’t mean to imply
No, of course not.
[CLICKS TONGUE, INHALES DEEPLY] Well, perhaps we could talk again when you’ve had some time to think.
That’s not necessary.
I can speak with her then?
No.
Can I ask why?
Yes.
Anna and I have an understanding that she will not consider any relationship until we both feel it is suitable.
You’re 20 years older than Anna, she’s still a young girl.
She’s far too young to experience any sexual feelings. That’s why.
Sigmund.
What?
What are you saying?
Huh?
What are you…
What are you saying, Sigmund?
Anna spent years in treatment for… for a complex.
A complex which proves she is capable of normal sexual behavior.
I don’t want to talk about it.
A complex that most often stems from an unhealthy paternal attachment.
I don’t want to talk about it!
I don’t want to talk about anything!
Go!
That was 20 years ago.
Please wait here.
Dr. Schur.
Dr. Schur.
It’s Anna Freud.
I need your help.
Anna.
All the chemists are closed.
I had nowhere else to go. He needs his medicine.
Come in.
Thank you.
FREUD: Dorothy. Perhaps next week.
DOROTHY: Thank you, Dr. Freud.
Don’t.
What could I possibly ask?
My therapy sessions are mine alone.
Find your own therapist.
You do look a bit flushed.
I wonder what you could’ve talked about.
Must be convenient to live upstairs from your therapist.
And I could say the same of you, having me so close.
Very convenient.
But I do wonder what could have aroused such a physical response.
Everything to do with you and nothing at all.
So then he knows.
He knows.
[THUNDER RUMBLING]
[RAIN PATTERING]
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
WOMAN: Sophie, look how he’s walking.
Sophie, look at him walking.
She’s going to catch you.
[CHILD SQUEALS IN DELIGHT]
Let’s try it one more time.
Oh, yeah, those can fly.
Yes.
LEWIS: Huh. He’s inescapable.
This way, Jofi.
[THUNDER RUMBLING]
[DOOR OPENS, CLOSES]
[GROANS SOFTLY]
Has Jofi finished walking you?
LEWIS: [CHUCKLES] Yes.
We saw the notice for your lecture.
FREUD: Postponed indefinitely.
LEWIS: Come on. Komm zu Papa.
Jofi. [LAUGHS]
Sorry. I thought he’d…
No, it’s, my mouth, you see. Ja, I have oral cancer, and the smell of decay is not so good.
Ja.
No, he did not run away from you.
He ran away from me. He ran away from the stench of death.
I’m afraid I’m no longer his best friend.
[SPEAKING GERMAN]
Ja.
[IN ENGLISH] Hey! I want to show you something!
Give me a hand. Thank you.
I want to show you Momus. Ja.
[CHUCKLES]
Do you know Momus?
Momus? No.
Momus is a god.
The Greek god who chastised all the other gods of Olympus.
He laughed at them, mocked ’em for their absurd their stupidity.
For creating us, for creating humanity.
So they banished him.
They banished Momus to live with us.
To live with humanity.
Ja.
Familiar theme.
Ja.
He became the sad god.
The god of satire and irony.
[LAUGHS] Such as this? Look at this.
What would you call a confirmed nonbeliever whose desk, whose den is guarded by a myriad of gods and goddesses?
A collector. That’s what I am.
I’m a collector. That is the sad irony of my life.
I am a passionate disbeliever who is obsessed with belief and worship.
Ancient beliefs and worship, yours included. Ja.
Hmm. All sharing similar concepts.
Right and wrong, good and evil, choice between them.
Ja.
Yeah.
Ja.
I need more handkerchiefs.
Are you all right?
So, what were we saying? Oh, yes… [CHUCKLES]
Yes, the good is to be chosen.
And your God, who created good, or whatever that is,
He must also have created the bad and the evil.
Ja?
He allowed Lucifer to live. He let him flourish.
[LAUGHS]
But, logically, he should have destroyed him.
Am I correct?
Think about it.
God gave Lucifer free will, which is the only thing that makes goodness possible.
A world filled with choiceless creatures is a world of machines.
It’s men, not God, who created prisons and slavery and…
[THUDDING]
…bombs.
Man’s suffering is the fault of man.
What?
Man’s suffering is the fault of man!
Ja, I hear you, I’m not deaf.
[FOOTSTEPS]
[CHUCKLES]
So is that your excuse and explanation for pain and suffering?
I mean, did I bring about my own cancer?
Or is killing me God’s revenge for my disbelief?
Tell me.
I don’t know. I don’t know.
You don’t know?
Professor Lewis, I am shocked. I am shocked.
I don’t know and I don’t even pretend to. It’s… It’s the most difficult question of all, isn’t it?
If God is good, then he’d make all of his creatures perfectly happy. But we’re not. We’re not.
So, God… God lacks goodness.
Or power.
[CHUCKLING] Or both. I don’t know.
[FREUD LAUGHS]
You don’t know.
Well, finally, finally, finally.
We’re making progress.
What if God wants to perfect us through suffering?
Make us realize that happiness, real happiness, eternal happiness, can only come through him.
If… If pleasure is his whisper, pain is his megaphone.
Oh, ja. [LAUGHS]
Yes.
Well, I’m sure that the cherubic little altar boy, Adolf Hitler, who served in his church every Sunday morning,
I’m sure he’d agree with you. Ja. Absolutely. Totally.
I’m afraid I cannot agree with you.
We speak different languages.
You know, you believe in revelation. Fine.
I believe in science and the authority of reason.
There’s no common ground.
There is also the dictatorship of pride.
Why does religion make room for science, but science refuses to make room for religion?
Oh, please. You’re breaking my heart.
How capacious and comfortable was Galileo’s soul when he told the Pope that the sun does not move around the world, but the other way?
The stupidity of church leaders is an easy target.
Precisely! ‘Cause they hide behind their ignorance.
You hide behind your ignorance! I hide behind mine!
We all do from time to time. So…
‘Cause we’re human.
‘Cause we have lost our nerve and our confidence in ourselves.
How often do we say to ourselves, “God is a mystery. He… We are small, he is mighty. It is written by God. It is God’s plan.”
Ja, I’ll show you something.
[SCOFFS]
God’s plan.
That was… [SNIFFLING]
That was my daughter.
Sophie.
She… She was the apple of my eye.
And she died from the Spanish influenza at 27 years old.
She was a mother.
And a wife.
And my little grandson.
He was plucked from us.
Killed by tuberculosis at the age of five.
Five years.
[LAUGHS WRYLY]
Ja.
What a wonderful plan for God… to kill a little boy.
I’ll tell you something.
I wish that cancer had eaten into my brain instead of my cheek and my jaw, so that I could hallucinate God and seek my bloody vengeance on him.
Bloody hypocrites!
There’s so much pain in this world.
And that is God’s plan?
ANNA: It’s the same fantasy I always have.
We are on horseback.
His family hates mine.
He’s avenging them.
I cannot escape.
The knight is coming closer. Closer.
Then he kisses me… everywhere I am bleeding.
His face to mine.
His lips near my lips, red and dripping.
He whispers… “Tell me your family secrets.”
LEWIS: How advanced is your cancer?
FREUD: It is inoperable.
And it’s only a matter of time.
How much time?
That is for me to decide.
Dr. Schur and I have a pact.
[LAUGHS]
And don’t you look at me like that, Professor Lewis.
I know what you people think of suicide, that it is wrong, and it is a sin.
It is.
Ja.
Look in there.
You see, hell’s already arrived.
Have you told your wife?
No.
She shares your superstitions.
Anna?
Anna? No, she knows I’m going to die, ja.
That you’re planning to kill yourself?
No. Why should I cause her pain?
You’re protecting her, or you’re afraid she’d talk you out of it?
You really are persistent, aren’t you?
A true convert, like a reformed alcoholic.
You have any more questions?
‘Cause I’m tired.
Yes, actually.
[HORNS HONKING]
It’s all right.
LEWIS: Is Anna married?
FREUD: No.
[FREUD COUGHS]
I’m surprised.
It is not an easy task for any of us to choose the right mate.
You mean for Anna to choose.
Do you have a question for me, Professor Lewis?
Dr. Jones today…
Dr. Ernest Jones?
Yes. He asked to see Anna, not you.
He did?
Yes.
But why would she need a mate when she has all the stimulation she needs?
Do you have a question for me?
Yes, is she seeing someone?
Man, woman, both?
Since we’re intrinsically bisexual.
With her teaching and her practice, she has no time for relationships.
Except for you.
Well, you’re very fortunate.
Especially, considering she’s the only person that you’ll permit to touch your mouth.
She’s a professional.
A physician?
I told you, she’s a member of the Psychoanalytic Society.
Don’t members need to be doctors?
Well, there’s special cases.
ANNA: He takes my hand, makes me touch him.
There…
and there.
Anna presented a paper that was very well-received.
It must’ve been. What was the subject?
Hmm?
Sadomasochistic fantasies.
I escape, but the knight is too strong.
He catches me.
I tell him to punish me.
Only now I am a boy.
LEWIS: These fantasies, were they based on Anna’s patients’ treatments?
Based on her own analysis.
And who was her analyst?
Hmm?
I asked, who was her analyst?
I was.
The knight takes the boy in his arms.
FREUD: No.
Please.
No more knight. You’re not a boy or a girl.
You’re my daughter. My daughter. Do you understand?
Why?
We must stop this.
It’s too painful for you and for me.
I cannot help you with this.
You would send me to someone less than you?
No, I cannot help you
Papa, I need you.
Stay calm. No.
I need you. I need you!
Anna, you do not need me.
Listen…
Please.
I need you!
Please.
I need you.
[SHUSHES]
I need you.
[SHUSHES]
Please.
Yes, all is well.
There.
Good.
Das ist gut.
That’s my girl.
Good.
I need your help.
All is well.
Do you have any more questions?
Oh, yes.
But I won’t presume to ask them.
I’ll only remind you of your earlier observations that psychoanalysis is inherently sexual, and what people say is less important than what they cannot.
[MUSIC PLAYING ON RADIO]
[RADIO TURNS OFF]
You do that every time, you know?
I’m waiting for the next news broadcast.
Why not just turn the music down? Why off?
Because I object to being manipulated.
All music sounds like church music to me. That’s why.
[LEWIS SCOFFS]
My objection to church music is that it trivializes the emotions I already feel.
I think that you’re afraid to feel them at all.
Wow.
Is that your final diagnosis? Fascinating.
Not all of it. No.
I also think that you’re terribly selfish, putting your own pain above the pain of those who love you.
You lie to yourself, thinking that you can control death… the way you control your world and your daughter.
You believe that you can… outthink your fear by hiding behind your desk in your den of gods.
But… truth is, you’re terrified.
Understandably. But terrified, nonetheless.
Ja.
We’re all terrified.
Ja.
You… Earlier this afternoon when the air raid warning sounded, do you remember the siren? Ha!
You most certainly did not behave like a man who took great comfort in his last days in this terrible, terrible world, did you?
Ja, so where was your great faith?
Where was your precious joy of meeting your beloved Creator?
Disappeared.
Why?
Because you know, beyond all your selfprotective lies and your fairy tales, that he does not exist.
Ja.
You see, you bury your doubts.
You bury your memories of the war.
But at the core of your being… you are a coward.
We’re all cowards… before death.
[COUGHING]
Oh, God…
[GRUNTS]
Oh, God.
I’ll phone a doctor.
No. No hospital. No doctors.
Just get some towels.
Towels? Yes. Yes.
Uh…
[GRUNTS IN PAIN]
Get this damn thing out. Here.
It’s the prosthesis. Get it out.
Just…
I–
Put your fingers in. Ja.
I…
Ja.
It’s not coming.
Ah, just pull.
[CRACKING]
[GRUNTS]
It’s…
I’ve got it.
Oh, God. Get some water.
Yes.
Look at that. [LAUGHS]
Oh.
Would you like to lie down?
Ja, danke. Ja.
[FREUD LAUGHS]
Well, “The Monster” nearly won.
Little bastard.
[GROANS]
[LAUGHING]
Damn it all.
What can I do?
Just go.
No. I’ll stay with you until someone comes.
I want you to go, please.
Don’t talk.
You’d like that, wouldn’t you?
No more talk.
[LAUGHING]
[LOW RUMBLING OVERHEAD]
Oh, my God.
Bombers.
Ah…
Transport planes. Ours.
Oh. I was afraid.
So was I.
What were we thinking?
It was madness to think we could solve the greatest mystery of all time.
There’s a greater madness: not to think of it at all.
Ah.
[CLOCK CHIMING]
I’ll call you a taxi.
No, no, no, please.
I’d rather walk to the station.
Get some air.
Is that the same statue we saw in the church?
FREUD: Ja.
You have a Catholic saint on your shelf.
Yes, Saint Dymphna of Ireland.
She was the patron saint of the mad and the lost.
Makes sense.
Well, there’s a train back to Oxford in an hour.
Good.
Yes.
[CHUCKLES SOFTLY]
Well, I’m terribly sorry to have disappointed you.
No, no. The offense was mine.
I didn’t say offended, I said I disappointed you.
My idea of God, it constantly changes.
He shatters it again and again.
But still I… I feel the world is crowded with him.
He’s everywhere, incognito.
And his incognito is so very hard to penetrate.
The real struggle is to keep trying.
To come awake.
Stay awake.
[CHUCKLING]
One of us is the fool.
[LAUGHS]
If you’re right, you will be able to tell me so.
But if I’m right, no one will ever know.
Give me a hand up.
Of course, yes.
[FREUD GROANS]
Oh!
Ja.
Death is as unfair as life.
Goodbye, Professor Lewis.
We will meet again, perhaps.
God willing.
Before you go, I want to give you something.
I have a book for you.
Thank you.
Right.
Don’t open till Christmas.
[LAUGHS]
Good.
Well, my friend, auf Wiedersehen.
Goodbye.
Goodbye.
MAN: [ON RADIO] His Majesty, King George, speaking from Buckingham Palace.
We now return to the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
[ORCHESTRAL MUSIC PLAYING ON RADIO]
ANNA: Professor!
Miss Freud?
I hurried.
You okay?
I have his medicine.
He’s waiting for you, but he’s fine, really.
[PANTS]
No need to worry.
I’m so glad you were here.
It looks like you survived your visit.
“In the fell clutch of circumstance, I have not winced, nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance, my head is bloody, but unbowed.”
“Beyond this place of wrath and tears, looms but the Horror of the shade. And yet the menace of the years finds and shall find me unafraid.”
Well, cheers to us both.
I have to go. He’s waiting for me.
[CAR APPROACHING]
DOROTHY: Anna.
I’m sorry.
Are you sure we should do this?
[THUNDER RUMBLING]
[ORCHESTRAL MUSIC CONTINUES]
[WHISTLE BLOWS]
[TRAIN HONKS]
[TRAIN CHUGGING]
[ANIMALS CHITTERING, CALLING]
[SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING]
[ORCHESTRAL MUSIC CONTINUES]
[DOOR OPENS]
[FOOTSTEPS APPROACHING]
[MUSIC CONTINUES]
[MUSIC CONTINUES]
[TRAIN CHUGGING]
[TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS]
FREUD: From error to error one discovers the entire truth.
[MUSIC CONTINUES]
[LOUD THUD]
[TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWING]
[LOUD THUD]
[MUSIC CONTINUES]
[MUSIC ENDS]
