The screen writer (Apr-Oct 1948)

by Keith Sward + wood and Freud has not been a particularly happy one. HOW DO NEURQTICS GET THAT WAY? TF the average psychological film -*-fails to do justice to the functioning psychoneurosis, in terms of mere description, does it do any better in its dramatic handling of abnormal motivations? What of the dynamics of the emotional illnesses we have watched unfold on the screen? As the picture makers present the facts, how do neurotics get that way? Again, it is the films which treat neurosis as a meaningful disturbance of self-feelings and interpersonal feelings that have something to say on the subject of psychodynamics. Mourning Becomes Electra develops its classic theme of contorted family relationships. The Britsh film, The Seventh Veil, explores with intelligence the relationships that binds a rich, sadistic, middle-aged bachelor to his ward, a beautiful and talented, though compulsive and terrified young concert artist. (Even The Secret Life of JValter Mitty which does not pretend to deal with psychiatric truths on a serious level has the virtue of basing its theme on situations and relationships that are real at the core. This film also demonstrates what an intelligent screenwriter can do with psychological themes in the realm of fantasy.) In the average psychological picture, however, Hollywood is bungling its treatment of motivation from beginning to end. Take the theme that it is the single, malevolent, traumatic experience that slants a child neurotically and haunts him for the rest of his days. Such is the message of The Locket. We witness in this film a fullblown, highly dangerous neurosis. The central character of the picture is a kleptomaniac, a psychopathic liar and a murderess. All this deformation of personality is traced to the occurrence of a single childhood incident. The lovely psychopathic of The Locket got that way, the story goes, as a result of having been forced as a very young child to give up a dearly prized gift which she was later unjustly accused of stealing back. The mother of this unfortunate child is pictured on the other hand as a warm and level-headed sort of person. The same concept of dynamics recurs in other films. The sick one in Spellbound is worse than neurotic. He is pre-psychotic. He has amnesia. He walks in his sleep, flourishing dangerous objects. He is a suspected murderer. His troubles, we learn, are rooted in the fact that during his childhood he accidentally killed a younger brother and has since all but broken nervously because of his guilt feelings. With Possessed it is jilted love — again the ravaging single incident— that drives our principal character to murder and schizophrenia. The same principle of psychogenesis is repeated in Secret Beyond the Door. Here, our psychopathic villain is a liar, a man of dark moods, and a potential killer. One good push from Oedipus accounts for his downfall. He thinks his mother locked him in his room when he was ten years old and this is simply more than he can take. Need I say that the psychiatric doctrine of each of these films ^Possessed, The Locket, Spellbound, Secret Beyond the Door) is false? Neuroses arise in the first place and go on from there not because of the effect of any isolated causal incidents, but because the individual whom we call neurotic has been exposed to prolonged traumatic atmosphere. All reputable schools of psychiatry and psychology are of one mind on this point. Hence, the psychological film which plays up the single incident concept of psychogenesis is not psychological at all. It is distinctly un-psychological. It follows that no one of the four pictures in question gives us a picture of growth or progression, or of why it is that this or that character reaches the danger point or breaks the moment the pressure is turned on. Little more can be said for the type of film which avoids the question of motivation altogether. In instances of this sort, the neuroses that sprout under the kleig lights are "uncaused." They just happen. We see some personality breaking or going berserk with no provocation whatsoever. Shock, an inexcusably bad film, goes in for behavior that is uncaused or unmotivated. Here, we have a mad psychiatrist on our hands. This deranged physician commits two murders and does his best to drive a third person insane. The film gives us no hint of what may have prompted all these acts of psychotic violence. To be sure the doctor doesn't like his wife. But after all ! Evidently the moral of the picture — if it has one — is this: "When a person is seriously unbalanced, heaven only knows what he'll do next;" What about such a concept of human behavior, that you can expect anything from madmen? It is quite as false as the "single incident" theory of psychogenesis. The truth is, there is a certain consistency about all kinds of people, and the experienced psychotherapist can tell, within limits, where this or that mixed-up individual is headed. Certain cause and effect relationships and certain rough prognostications have been worked through in psychotherapy. The feelings and ac The Screen Writer, September, 1948