All language subtitles for A Dangerous Method (2011).en

Good morning...

I'm Dr. Jung.

I admitted you yesterday.

I'm not...

I'm not mad, you know.

Let me explain what I have in mind.

I propose that we meet here, most
days, to talk for an hour or two.

Talk?

Yes.

Just talk.

See if we can identify
what's troubling you.

So as to distract you as little as possible,
I'm going to sit there, behind you.

I'm going to ask you to try not to turn around
and look at me under any circumstances.

Now...

Have you any idea what may have brought
on these attacks you suffer from?

Hu...

humiliation.

Any kind of...

humiliation.

Like, I can't bear to see it and
it makes me feel nauseated.

I start pouring with sweat, cold sweat.

My...

my...

my father lost his temper all the time.
He was always angry with me.

When you stopped talking just now,
did a thought come into your head?

I...

I don't know...

Or an image, perhaps.

Was it an image?

Yes.

What was the image?

It was a hand.

My...

my...

my father's hand.

Why do you think you saw that?

Whenever he would...

after...

whenever he...

he hit us, afterward we...

we had to kiss his hand.

What's odd is that case I was writing up last
week, I happened to pick the codename Sabina S.

And here she is... Sabina Spielrein.

Quite a coincidence.

As you know, I don't believe
there is such a thing.

Spielrein's not a very Russian name.

No, Jewish.

Father's a very successful
import-export man.

And she's exceptionally well
educated, speaks fluent German.

Aspires to be a doctor herself, apparently.

Perhaps she's the one.

What one?

The one you've been looking for.

For your experimental treatment.

The talking cure.

You're so astute.

I've already begun it with her.

He's kicking.

Can you feel?

Oh, yes.

There he is.

What I don't understand is
why Freud, having proposed

this radical therapeutic idea,
this talking cure, this

psychoanalysis, then lets
years go by without giving

even the barest outline of
his clinical procedures?

What's he playing at?

Presumably he uses the
method on his patients?

I've no idea.

So might you be the first
doctor to try this out?

It's possible.

Why don't you write and ask him?

I don't know him.

As it happens, Miss Spielrein's mother
wanted to take her to see Freud.

Another coincidence.

My father thinks my
mother doesn't love him.

And he's right, she doesn't.

How do you know?

My angel told me.

What angel?

An inner voice.

He used to tell me I was
an exceptional person.

For some reason he always spoke in German.

Angels always speak German
... It's traditional.

He gave me the power to know what people are
going to say before they open their mouths.

Useful ability for a doctor.

You hope to be a doctor
some day, don't you?

I'll never be a doctor.

Why not?

I have to go away for awhile.

I'm sorry.

We've just gotten started.

Military service.

We all have to do it.

Just for a couple of weeks.

It's a waste of time!

I can't tell you whatever
it is you want to know!

You're just...

you're just making me angry.

And even if I could tell you,
you'd be sorry you ever...!

Anyway, there's nothing wrong with me!

I don't even want to get better!

Stop it!

What?

Will you just stop that!

I'm sorry.

Can we get back now?

Yes, if you want to.

I need to get back.

It's a complete waste of my time.

Writing prescriptions for athlete's foot and
examining cocks from morning 'til night.

Is that what you do?

It's not good for me.

It's not good for my patients.

You're playing with your food.

I'm not hungry.

Is that so?

I shall have to tell Professor Bleuler.

Ha.

Do what you like.

Please, Miss, give me your hand.

Please.

You'll catch your death.

Miss Spielrein.

The Herr Direktor.

Blueleri feel you may have a little
too much time on your hands.

I'm a great believer in getting our
patients involved in some productive work.

What are your particular interests?

Suicide.

Interplanetary travel.

When Dr.

Jung returns, I shall ask him to discuss
all this with you in more detail.

You keep him away from me.

I never want to see him again!

Now, come along.

Don't make such a fuss.

Give me those legs.

Here's the sponge?

Just lie still.

That's better.

Hello?

I'm back.

How have you been?

I've been talking to the Herr Direktor
about finding some work for you.

I told him you'd always been
interested in medicine.

So he suggested you might like to
assist me occasionally in my research.

We're quite short-staffed so it
would certainly be a help to me.

Vienna.

Woods.

Box.

Bed.

Money.

Bank.

Child.

Soon.

Family.

Unit.

Sex.

Uh...

male.

Wall.

Flower.

Young.

Baby.

Ask.

Answer.

Cap.

Wear.

Stubborn.

Give way.

Ruefulness.

Child.

Fame.

Doctor.

Divorce.

No.

Thank you.

Is that all?

That's all.

How did I do?

Beautifully.

Good bye.

Yes, good bye.

Any preliminary observations?

Obviously, what's uppermost
in her mind is her pregnancy.

Good.

And she's a little...

what's the word?

Why don't we try a useful word invented
“ambivalent.

Yes, about the baby.

Anything else?

I'd say she was worried her husband
might be losing interest in her.

What makes you think that?

Long reaction times to the
words “family” and “divorce”.

I see.

And when you said “cap, ” she said “wear”.

Might that be a reference to contraception?

You have quite a flair for this.

Can I ask you something?

Of course.

Is she your wife?

I'm sorry.

Sorry?

I promised you a son on Christmas Day.

And here she is a day
late and the wrong sex.

Don't be absurd.

'A' for Agathe.

Next time I'll give you a boy.

Can you explain why your
nights have been so bad?

I'm afraid.

Of what?

There's something in the room.

Something like...

like a cat, only it can speak.

It gets into bed with me.

Last...

last night, it suddenly
whispered something in my ear.

I couldn't hear what.

But then...

I felt it against my back.

Something slimy like...

like some kind of a mollusc,
moving against my back.

But when I...

when I turned around,
there was nothing there.

You felt it against your back?

Yes.

Were you naked?

I was.

Were you masturbating?

Yes.

Tell me about the first time you can
remember being beaten by your father.

I suppose I was about four.

I'd broken a plate or...

oh, yes, and...

and he told me to go into the little
room and take my clothes off.

And then...

he came in... and spanked me.

And then...

I was so frightened that I
wet myself and then he...

he hit me again.

And then I...

That first time, how did you
feel about what was happening?

I liked it.

Would you repeat that, please?

I couldn't quite hear.

I liked it.

It excited me.

And did you continue to like it?

Yes!

Yes!

Before long, he only just had to say to me
to go to the little room and I would...

I would start to get wet.

When it came to my brothers or
even just threatened that...

that was enough.

I'd have to go down and...

I wanted to lie down and touch myself.

Later, at school, anything would...

set it off, any kind of humiliation.

I looked for any humiliation.

Even here when you hit
my coat with your stick.

I had to come back right
away, I was so excited.

There's...

there's no hope for me.

I'm vile and filthy and corrupt.

I must...

I must never be let out of here.

So good to meet you at long last.

Professor Freud.

You're most welcome.

Please.

Perhaps the terms themselves
should be reviewed.

If, for instance, we could come
up with some milder term than

“libido” we might not encounter
such emotional resistance.

It would make the teaching
side of things much easier.

Is euphemism a good idea?

Once they work out what we actually mean,
they'll be just as appalled as ever.

I take your point, but I still
think it's worth trying to

sweeten the pill when it comes
to questions of sexuality.

And, by the way, please don't feel
you have to restrain yourself here.

My family are all veterans of the most
unsuitable topics of mealtime conversation.

I have a number of clinical
examples which I believe

support my position with
regard to sexuality.

Hm.

And how is your little Russian patient?

As I told you, after the initial abreaction
there was the most dramatic improvement.

We've enrolled her in the
medical school at the

University where she's
doing extremely well.

She's a walking advertisement for the
effectiveness of psychoanalysis.

Psychoanalysis.

Oh?

It's more logical.

And it sounds better.

If you say so.

Are you still treating her?

Yes, and we continue to
unearth new material.

For example, the extraordinary procedure she
devised as a small child, where she would sit on

one heel, attempt to defecate and at the same
time try to prevent herself from defecating.

Hm.

She said this gave rise to
the most blissful feelings.

Nice story.

Those of my patients who remain
fixated at the anal stage of their

erotic development often come out
with the most amusing details.

And, of course, all of them
are finicky, compulsively

tidy, stubborn and extremely
stingy with money.

No doubt your Russian
conforms to this pattern.

Well, no, she doesn't.

The masochistic aspects of
her condition are much more

deeply rooted than any anal
fixations we may have uncovered.

The two are intimately connected.

I can only tell you that
she's rather disorganized,

emotionally generous and
exceptionally idealistic.

Well, perhaps it's a Russian thing.

Is she a virgin?

Yes.

Certainly.

Mmm.

Almost certainly.

No, certainly.

Hm.

I don't think you have
any notion of the true

strengths and depths of the
opposition to our work.

There's a whole medical establishment, of
course, baying to send Freud to the auto-da-fe.

But that's as nothing compared to
what happens when our ideas begin to

trickle through in whatever garbled
form they're relayed to the public.

The denials, the frenzy,
the incoherent rage.

But might that not be caused
by your insistence on the

exclusively sexual interpretation
of the clinical material?

All I'm doing is pointing out what experience
indicates to me must be the truth.

And I can assure you that in a hundred year's
time, our work will still be rejected.

Columbus, you know, had no idea
what country he'd discovered.

Like him, I'm in the dark.

All I know is I've set foot on the
shore and the country exists.

I think of you more as Galileo.

And your opponents as those
who condemned him, while

refusing even to put their
eye to his telescope.

In any event, I have simply opened a door.

It's for the young men like
yourself to walk through it.

I'm sure you have many
more doors to open for us.

Of course, there's the added difficulty,
more ammunition for our enemies,

that all of us here in Vienna, in our
psychoanalytical circle, are Jews.

I don't see what difference that makes.

That, if I may say so, is an
exquisitely Protestant remark.

I dreamed...

I dreamed about a horse being hoisted
by cables to a considerable height.

Suddenly, a cable breaks and the
horse is dashed to the ground.

But it's not hurt.

It leaps up and gallops away,
impeded only by a heavy

log, which it's obliged
to drag along the ground.

Then a rider on a small horse appears in front
of it so that it's forced to slow down.

And a carriage appears in
front of the small horse so

that our horse is compelled
to slow down even more.

I imagine the horse is yourself.

Yes.

Your ambition has been
frustrated in some way.

The rider slowing me down.

Yes.

I think this may refer to
my wife's first pregnancy.

I had to give up an opportunity
to go to America because of it.

Ah.

The carriage in front perhaps alludes to
an apprehension that our two daughters,

and other children perhaps still to come,
will impede my progress even more.

As a father of six, I can vouch for that.

Not to mention the inevitable
financial difficulties.

No.

Fortunately, my wife is extremely wealthy.

Ah.

Yes.

That is fortunate.

This log...

Yes?

I think, perhaps, you should entertain the
possibility that it represents the penis.

Yes.

In which case what may be at issue
is that a certain sexual constraint

has been brought about by a fear of a
succession of endless pregnancies.

I'm bound to say that if one
of my patients had brought me

this dream I might have said
that the number of restraining

elements surrounding this unfortunate
horse could perhaps point

to the determined suppression
of some unruly sexual desire.

Yes.

There is that as well.

I wonder if you're aware of the fact that our
conversation has so far lasted 13 hours?

I'm so sorry.

I had no idea.

My dear young colleague,
please don't apologize.

It was our first meeting, we had a
great deal to say to one another.

And unless I'm much
mistaken, we always will.

I shall have to be extremely careful.

What do you mean?

Why?

He's so persuasive, he's so convincing.

He makes you feel you should abandon your
own ideas and simply follow in his wake.

His followers in Vienna are
all deeply unimpressive.

A crowd of Bohemians and degenerates just
picking up the crumbs from his table.

Well, perhaps he's reached
the stage where obedience

is more important to
him than originality.

Hm.

I tried to tackle him about his
obsession with sexuality, his

insistence on interpreting
every symptom in sexual terms.

But he's completely inflexible.

In my case, of course he'd have been right.

Yes, as you would expect
him to be in many cases.

Possibly even the majority of cases.

But there must be more than
one hinge into the universe.

Do you like Wagner?

The music and the man, yes.

I'm very interested in
the myth of Siegfried.

The idea that something
pure and heroic can come...

can perhaps only come...
from a sin, even a sin as dark as incest.

This is very strange.

What?

As I've told you, I don't
believe in coincidence.

I believe nothing happens by accident.

All these things have significance.

The fact is I'm in the middle of writing
something myself about the Siegfried myth.

Are you really?

I assure you.

Which is your favourite of the operas?

Das Rheingold.

Yes, that's right.

Mine too.

Can I ask you something?

Of course.

Do you think there's any possibility
I could ever be a psychiatrist?

I know you could.

I hear nothing but good reports
on your work at the university.

You're exactly the kind of person we need.

Insane, you mean?

Yes.

We sane doctors have serious limitations.

“Dear Friend, I feel I can, at
last, permit myself this informal

mode of address as I ask you to
grant me a very particular favour.

Dr. Otto Gross, a most
brilliant but erratic

character, is urgently in
need of your medical help.

I consider him, apart from
yourself, the only man

capable of making a major
contribution to our field.

Whatever you do, don't let
him out before October

when I shall be able to
take him over from you.

And remember his father's
warning, made when Otto was

watch out for him, he bites.

You still feel threatened by your father?

Anyone with any sense feels
threatened by my father.

He is extremely threatening.

His wish to have you
hospitalized, you don't think

that arises from a concern
for your welfare?

Listen, what does any normal old patriarch
want in the twilight of his life?

Grandchildren, grandsons, am I right?

And yet, last summer, when I presented him
with not one, but two little Grosses,

one by my wife, one by one of my most
respectable mistresses, was he grateful?

And now that there's another
one on the way, admittedly

by some woman I hardly
know, he's apoplectic.

And all he can think is to get me
banged away in some institution.

You got any children?

Two girls.

Same mother?

Yes.

So you're not a believer in monogamy?

For a neurotic like myself, I can't
possibly imagine a more stressful concept.

And you don't find it necessary or
desirable to exercise some restraint

as a contribution, say, to the
smooth functioning of civilization.

What, and make myself ill?

I should have thought that
some form of sexual repression

would have to be practiced
in any rational society.

No wonder the hospitals
are bulging at the seams.

Tell me, do you find the best way
to enhance your popularity with

your patients is to tell them whatever
it is they most want to hear?

What does it matter whether
we're popular with them or not?

Well, I don't know.

Suppose you want to fuck them?

If there is one thing I've learned in my short
never repress anything.

So you've never slept with
any of your patients?

Of course not.

I have to steer through the
temptations of transference and

counter-transference and that's an
essential stage of the process.

When transference occurs, when the
patient becomes fixated on me, I explain

to her that this is merely a symbol
of her wretched monogamous habits.

I assure her that it's fine to want to sleep
with me, but only if, at the same time,

she acknowledges to herself that she wants
to sleep with a great many other people.

Suppose she doesn't?

Then it's my job to convince her
that's part of the illness.

That's what people are like.

If we don't tell them the truth, who will?

You think Freud's right?

You think all neurosis is of
exclusively sexual origin?

I think Freud's obsession
with sex probably has a great

deal to do with the fact
that he never gets any.

You could be right.

It seems to me a measure of the true perversity
of the human race, that one of its very few

reliably pleasurable activities should be the
subject of so much hysteria and repression.

But not to repress yourself is to unleash all
kinds of dangerous and destructive forces.

Our job is to make our
patients capable of freedom.

I've heard it said that you helped one
of your patients to kill herself.

She was resolutely suicidal.

I just explained how she could
do it without botching it.

Then I asked her if she didn't prefer
the idea of becoming my lover.

She opted for both.

That can't be what we
want for our patients.

Freedom is freedom.

I've been thinking about Wagner's opera.

In it, he says that perfection
can only be arrived at through

what is conventionally thought
of as sin, is that right?

Which must surely have to do with the energy
created by the friction of opposites.

Not just that you're the doctor and I'm the
patient, but that you're Swiss and I'm Russian.

I'm Jewish and you're Aryan and all
other kinds of darker differences.

Darker?

If I'm right, only the clash of destructive
forces can create something new.

When my father brought me to you, I was
very ill and my illness was sexual.

It's clear that the subject I'm studying
is entirely grounded in sexuality.

So, naturally, I'm becoming
more and more acutely

aware of the fact that I
have no sexual experience.

Law students are not normally
expected to rob banks.

It's generally thought to be the man
who should take the initiative.

Don't you think there's
something male in every woman?

And something female in every man?

Or should be?

Maybe.

I expect you're right, yes.

If you ever want to take
the initiative, I live

in that building there,
where the bay window is.

I can't understand what you're waiting for.

Just take her to some secluded spot and
thrash her to within an inch of her life.

That's clearly what she wants.

How can you deny her
such a simple pleasure?

Pleasure is never simple,
as you very well know.

It is.

Of course it is.

Until we decide to complicate it.

What my father calls maturity.

What I call surrender.

Surrender, for me, would be
to give in to these urges.

Then surrender.

It doesn't matter what you call it as long
as you don't let the experience escape.

That's my prescription.

I'm supposed to be treating you.

And it's been most effective.

I'd say the analysis
was not too far from completion.

Mine, yes.

Not so sure about yours.

I've been spending so much
time with him, I'm afraid

I've been neglecting some
of my other patients.

He's immensely seductive, quite sure
he's right and obsessionally neurotic.

Pretty dangerous, in fact.

Do you mean you doubt your
powers to convince him?

Worse than that.

What I'm afraid of is his
power to convince me.

On the subject of monogamy, for
example, why should we put so much

frantic effort into suppressing
our most basic natural instincts?

I don't know.

You tell me.

Thank you.

I really needed that.

“Dr. Jung, rest assured that thanks
to you, I am alive and healthy.

But please be so good as to
tell my father that I am dead.

And whatever you do, do not pass by
the oasis without stopping to drink.

Otto.

Who is it?

A friend.

Come inside.

It's so beautiful.

I feel as though we've always lived here.

They say we'll be able to move
in by the end of the week.

I'm sorry to be like this again.

What do you mean?

So big and unattractive.

Don't be absurd.

I expect you wish you were a
polygamist, like Otto Gross.

If I were, it would be something quite
different than what we have, which is sacred.

I would have to be sure
you understood that.

I wouldn't want to know anything about it.

I have a surprise for you.

The boat you always wanted with red sails.

Thank you.

Thank you for all of this.

You're a good man.

You deserve everything that's good.

If I say something, will you promise
not to take it the wrong way?

What?

Don't you think we ought to stop...

now?

I'm married.

Obviously, I'm being deceitful.

Is it right for us to
perpetuate this deceit?

Do you want to stop?

Of course I don't.

When you make love to your wife, how is it?

Describe it to me.

When you live under the same roof
with someone, it becomes habit.

You know, it's always very tender.

Then this is another thing.

Another thing in another country.

With me, I want you to be ferocious.

I want you to punish me.

I knew it was a boy this time.

I told you.

I believed you.

Will you come back to us now?

Pity.

I should never have sent
Doctor Gross to you.

I blame myself.

No, I'm very grateful you did.

All those provocative discussions helped
crystallize a lot of my thinking.

Hm.

Did he really send you his hotel bill?

Only for a couple of nights.

He's an addict.

I can see that now.

He can only end by doing
great harm to our movement.

You realize this makes you
undisputed Crown Prince, don't you?

My son and heir?

I'm not sure I deserve such an accolade.

Don't say another word.

I often take my walk up here.

It's inspired some of my best ideas.

You mustn't think I have a closed mind.

I have absolutely no
objection to your studying

telepathy or parapsychology
to your heart's content.

But I would make the point that our
own field is so embattled that

it can only be dangerous to stray
into any kind of mysticism.

Don't you see?

We have to stay within the most
rigorously scientific confines.

Are you all right?

Yes, but I can't agree with you.

Why should we draw some arbitrary line and
rule out whole areas of investigation?

Precisely because the
world is full of enemies

looking for any way they
can to discredit us.

And the moment they see us abandon
the firm ground of sexual theory

to wallow in the black mud of
superstition they will pounce.

As far as I'm concerned, even to raise
these subjects is professional suicide.

I knew that was going to happen!

What?

I felt something like
that was going to happen.

I had a kind of burning in my stomach.

What are you talking about?

It's the heating.

The wood in the bookcase
just cracked, that's all.

No.

It's what's known as a catalytic
exteriorization phenomenon.

A what?

A catalytic exteriorization phenomenon.

Don't be ridiculous.

My diaphragm started to glow red hot.

And another thing... it's
going to happen again.

What?

In a minute, it's going to happen again.

My dear young friend, this is exactly
the kind of thing I'm talking about.

You see?

That's just...

you really can't be serious.

There are so many mysteries,
so much further to go.

Please.

We can't be too careful.

We can't afford to wander
into these speculative areas.

Telepathy, singing bookcases, fairies
at the bottom of the garden.

It won't do.

It won't do.

There's a poem by Lermontov keeps going
round my head about a prisoner who finally

achieves some happiness when he succeeds
in releasing a bird from its cage.

Why do you think this is preoccupying you?

I think it means that when I
become a doctor what I want

more than anything is to give
people back their freedom...

the way you gave me mine.

Right.

That's enough now.

There we go.

Fascinating.

Come along, my dear.

All the standard symptoms
of the nymphomaniac.

Yes.

Except that whenever anyone responded
to her advances, she would run a mile.

That's the puzzling feature of the case.

Hm.

I must say it's a great pleasure to
see you in your natural habitat.

There's a rumour running
around Vienna that

you've taken one of your
patients as a mistress.

It's absolutely untrue.

Well, of course it is.

So I've been telling everyone.

What's being said?

Oh, I don't know.

That the woman's been bragging about it.

That somebody is sending
out anonymous letters.

The usual sort of thing.

Bound to happen sooner or later.

It's an occupational hazard.

Yes.

I hope I'd never be stupid enough to get
emotionally involved with a patient.

I'm confused.

I feel trapped.

I've trapped myself into
feeling divided, guilty.

I've never wanted you to feel guilty.

I don't see how we can go on.

You mustn't say that.

I have some kind of illness.

Try to remember the love and patience I
showed towards you when you were ill.

That's what I need from you now.

Of course.

You have it always.

Oh, please don't go.

I must.

I have to.

No.

I have to.

No!

I have to!

I can't say I'm sorry
to say goodbye to him.

Not the easiest house-guest we've ever had.

No.

I don't think he ever recovered
from the first view of the house.

Still, I suppose compared to
that tiny flat in Vienna...

Why did he refuse to
meet the Herr Direktor?

Oh, he's always been a great one for
bearing incomprehensible grudges.

Did he say anything to you
about anonymous letters?

Surely you didn't think I'd let you
go without putting up a fight?

Secretary Fraulein Spielrein!

Why are you doing this?

Please sit down.

And how could you treat me this way?

Sit down.

I tried to explain the
situation to your mother.

I don't know how you dared
say those things to her.

She came in waving an anonymous letter
demanding to know if it was true.

I told her even if it were,
the position would not be

quite as she imagined, since
you're no longer my patient.

Of course I'm your patient.

Technically not.

Not since I stopped charging you.

That's what she said.

I told her I didn't believe
her and she told me

you said your fee was 20
francs a consultation.

I was trying to make the point that
I would take you back as a patient

but that I could only undertake
to see you inside this office.

How can you be so cold and offhand?

I was trying to make her understand the
distinction between a patient and a friend.

Listen... I've made a stupid mistake.

Is that what it was?

I broke one of the elementary
rules of my profession.

I'm your doctor and I believe
I did you some good.

I can't forgive myself for
overstepping the mark.

I should have known that
if I gave you what you

wanted you wouldn't be
able to help wanting more.

I don't want more.

And I never wanted more.

I never asked for more.

You didn't have to ask.

And even if you're right,
which I dispute, do you

think this is a proper way
to behave towards me?

Refusing to speak to me
except in your office?

I'm your physician.

From now on, that's all I can be.

Don't you love me any more?

Only as your physician.

You think I'm going to stand for this?

What choice do you have?

And there's your 20 francs.

“Dear Professor Freud, I would be most
grateful if you would allow me to

come and visit you in Vienna on a
matter of great interest to us both.

“Dear Friend, I have just received
this extremely strange letter.

Do you know this woman?

Who is she?

“As you will not doubt recall, Spielrein was
the case that brought you and me together,

for which reason I've always regarded her
with special gratitude and affection...

until I understood that she was
systematically planning my seduction.

Now I have no idea what
her intentions may be.

Revenge, I suspect.

I have never shown such
friendship to a patient.

Nor have I ever been made to
suffer so much in return.

I am hoping you will agree to act as a
kind of go-between and avert a disaster.

Your famous saying is carved in
block letters on my heart...

whatever you do, give up any
idea of trying to cure them.

“Experiences like this, however painful,
are necessary and inevitable.

Without them, how can we know life?

“Dear Miss Spielrein, Dr.

Jung is a good friend and
colleague of mine whom I believe

to be incapable of frivolous
or shabby behaviour.

What I infer from your letter is that you used
to be close friends, but are no longer so.

If this is the case I would
urge you to consider whether

the feelings that have survived
this close friendship are

not best suppressed and
forgotten and without the

intervention and involvement of
third persons such as myself.

Secretary Herr Doctor.

Fraulein Spielrein.

What is it?

I heard you were leaving the hospital.

As you see.

People are saying it's because
of the scandal I caused.

I'd been planning to leave anyway.

Well, I'm sorry if... I precipitated it.

You've always been something of a catalyst.

I've had a letter from Professor Freud.

Oh, yes?

The thing that shone through
was how much he loves you.

But... what was also clear is
that you denied everything.

You let him think I was
a fantasist or a liar.

I don't see that it's any of his business.

I've come here to ask
you to tell the truth.

What?

I want you to write to him
and tell him everything.

And then I want him to write to me again to
confirm that you've told him everything.

Are you blackmailing me?

I'm asking you to tell the truth.

Why is this so important to you?

I want him to take me as his patient.

Does it have to be him?

It has to be him.

You don't feel the same
way about him, do you?

I'm disappointed by his rigid pragmatism,
his insistence that nothing can possibly

exist unless some puny or transitory
intelligence has first become aware of it.

All the same, will you write to him?

I could have damaged you, you know?

Far worse than I did.

I chose not to.

All right.

I'll do it.

Thank you.

It means everything to me.

Are you going somewhere for the summer?

Berlin with my parents.

But you are going to come back
to the university to qualify?

Of course.

I'm going to America with Freud,
although he doesn't yet know it.

That's nice.

Good bye.

“...In view of my friendship
for the patient and her

complete trust in me, what
I did was indefensible.

I confess this, very unhappily,
to you, my father-figure...

Hm.

“Dear Miss Spielrein, I owe you an apology.

But the fact that I was wrong and
that the man is to be blamed

rather than the woman satisfies
my own need to revere women.

Please… accept my admiration
for the very dignified

way in which you have
resolved this conflict.

Do we have all the necessary
paperwork, Ferenczi?

I have everything, Professor.

Hm.

Good.

I've always been in two
minds about America.

Maybe we made a foolish error.

Do they really want us there?

They postponed the Congress for two
months so that you could attend.

Surely that gives you some indication.

Hm.

Yes.

I think it's going to be a great adventure.

Yes.

I hope you're right.

I go this way.

What do you mean?

I left my wife to make the arrangements.

I'm afraid she's booked me
a first-class state room.

I see.

I was on the Swiss-Austrian border
somewhere in the mountains at dusk.

There was a long wait because
everybody's baggage was being searched.

I noticed a decrepit customs official
wearing the old royal and imperial uniform.

And I was watching him walking up
and down with his melancholy and

disgruntled expression, when someone
said to me, “He isn't really there.

He's a ghost who still hasn't
found out how to die properly.

Is that the whole dream?

All I can remember.

Did you say the Swiss-Austrian border?

Yes.

Must have something to do with us.

You think so?

Everybody's being searched.

Hm?

Perhaps that's an indication that
the ideas which used to flow so

freely between us are now subject
to a most suspicious examination.

You mean the ideas flowing
in your direction.

And I'm afraid the old relic
shuffling about in this

entirely useless fashion
must almost certainly be me.

Wait a minute.

Whom you very mercifully wish
could be put out of his misery.

A humane death wish.

Perhaps the fact that he was unable to die
simply indicated the immortality of his ideas.

Oh.

Yes.

So you agree it must have been me?

I didn't say that.

No.

Never mind.

It's a most entertaining example.

What about you?

Do you have a dream to report?

I had a most elaborate dream last night.

Particularly rich.

Well, let's hear it.

I'd love to tell you but
I don't think I should.

Why ever not?

I wouldn't want to risk my authority.

Take it from me, what you're
looking at is the future.

You think they know we're on our
way, bringing them the plague?

Fraulein Spielrein.

Whose idea was it for you to
send me your dissertation?

The Herr Direktor.

Yes, of course.

He kept insisting this was the kind of material
you were looking for for your Yearbook.

It certainly is a very fascinating
case you've chosen to investigate.

But if we're to consider it
for the Yearbook, there are

one or two mistakes which
will have to be dealt with.

Of course.

Might you have a little
time to discuss all this?

Yes.

When I left the hospital and moved
out here I was afraid it would take

years to build up a roster of
patients but I'm already under siege.

Anyway, I don't see why a
little more work won't

make your dissertation
eminently publishable.

Do you think we'd be able to
work on it together without...?

It's always going to be something
of a risk, us seeing one another.

Yes.

But I believe we have the character to be
able to deal with the situation, don't you?

I hope so.

I somehow imagined you'd have
found another admirer by now.

No.

You were the jewel of great price.

Shall we say this time next Tuesday?

And I'll start gently
ripping you to shreds.

Explain this analogy you make between the
sex instinct and the death instinct.

Professor Freud claims that the sexual drive
arises from a simple urge towards pleasure.

If he's right, the question is why is this
urge so often successfully repressed?

You used to have a theory
involving the impulse towards

destruction and self-destruction,
losing oneself.

Well, suppose we think of sexuality as fusion...
losing oneself, as you say, but

losing oneself in the other...
in other words, destroying one's own individuality.

Wouldn't the ego, in self-defense,
automatically resist that impulse?

You mean for selfish not
for social reasons?

Yes.

I'm saying that perhaps true sexuality
demands the destruction of the ego.

In other words, the opposite
of what Freud proposes.

When I graduate, I've
decided to leave Zurich.

I have to.

Why?

You know why.

It's true.

I'm nothing but a philistine Swiss
bourgeois complacent coward.

I want to leave everything, break
away and disappear with you.

Then comes the voice of the philistine.

Where will you go?

Vienna, maybe.

Please don't go there.

I must go wherever I need to feel free.

Don't...

You know your paper...

led to one of the most
stimulating discussions

we've ever had at the
Psychoanalytic Society.

Do you really think the sexual drive
is a demonic and destructive force?

Yes, at the same time as being a
creative force, in the sense that it can

produce, out of the destruction of
two individualities, a new being.

But the individual must always
overcome resistance because

of the self-annihilating
nature of the sexual act.

Hm.

I've fought against the idea for
some time, but I suppose there

must be some kind of indissoluble
link between sex and death.

I don't feel the relationship between the
two is quite the way you have portrayed it,

but I'm most grateful to you for animating
the subject in such a stimulating way.

The only slight shock was
your introduction, at the

very end of your paper,
of the name of Christ.

Are you completely opposed to any kind
of religious dimension in our field?

In general, I don't care if a
man believes in Rama, Marx or

Aphrodite, as long as he keeps
it out of the consulting room.

Is that what's at the bottom
of your dispute with Dr.

Jung?

I have no dispute with Dr.

Jung.

I was simply mistaken about him.

I thought he was going to be able to
carry our work forward after I was gone.

I didn't bargain for all that second-rate
mysticism and self-aggrandizing shamanism.

Nor did I realize he could be
so brutal and sanctimonious.

He's trying to find some way
forward so that we don't just have

to tell our patients, “This is
why you are the way you are.

” He wants to be able to say, “We can show
you what it is you might want to become.

Playing God, in other words.

We have no right to do that.

The world is as it is.

Understanding and accepting that
is the way to psychic health.

What good can we do if our aim is simply
to replace one delusion with another?

Well, I agree with you.

Hm.

I've noticed that in the crucial
areas of dispute between Dr.

Jung and myself, you tend to favour me.

I thought you had no dispute with him.

Hm.

You still love him.

That's not why I'm pleading his cause.

I just feel that if you two don't
find some way to co-exist, it will

hold back the progress of
psychoanalysis, perhaps indefinitely.

Is there no way to avert a rupture?

Correct scientific relations
will be maintained, of course.

I'll be seeing him at the
editorial meeting in

Munich in September and I
shall be perfectly civil.

To tell you the truth, what finished him
for me was all that business about you.

The lies, the ruthless behaviour.

I was very shocked.

I think he loved me.

I'm afraid your idea of a mystical union with
a blond Siegfried was inevitably doomed.

Put not your trust in Aryans.

We're Jews, my dear Miss Spielrein,
and Jews we will always be.

Now, the real reason I invited
you here this evening was to ask

if you'd be prepared to take
on one or two of my patients?

I was interested in what you
said about monotheism...

that it arose historically out of
some kind of patricidal impulse.

Yes.

Akhnaton, who, as far as we
know, was the first to put

forth the bizarre notion
that there was only one God.

Also had his father's name erased and
chiseled out of all public monuments.

That's not strictly true.

Not true?

No.

You mean it was most probably a myth?

No.

I mean there were two perfectly straightforward
reasons for Akhnaton, or Amenhopis

IV as I prefer to call him, to excise
his father's name from the car touches.

First, this was something traditionally
done by all new kings who

didn't wish their father's name to
continue to be public currency.

In much the same way as your article in
the Yearbook fails to mention my name?

Your name is so well-known it hardly
seemed necessary to mention it.

Do go on.

Secondly, Amenhopis only
struck out the first half

of his father's name,
Amenhotep, because, like the

first half of his own name,
it was shared by Amon,

one of the gods he was
determined to eliminate.

Hm.

As simple as that?

The explanation doesn't
seem to me unduly simple.

And do you think your man,
whatever you call him,

felt no hostility whatsoever
toward his father?

I have no means of proof, of course.

For all I know, Amenhopis may have
thought that his father's name was quite

familiar enough and that now it might
be time to make a name for himself.

How sweet it must be to die.

“If I may say so, dear
Professor, you make the

mistake of treating your
friends like patients.

This enables you to reduce them to the level
of children, so that their only choice

is to become obsequious nonentities or
bullying enforcers of the party line...

while you sit on the mountaintop, the infallible
father-figure and nobody dares to pluck you by

the beard and say, Think about your behaviour and
then decide which one of us is the neurotic.

I speak as a friend.

Hm.

“Your letter cannot be answered.

Your claim that I treat my friends like
patients is self-evidently untrue.

As to which of us is the neurotic,
I thought we analysts were

agreed a little neurosis was
nothing whatever to be ashamed of.

But a man like you, who behaves quite
abnormally and then stands there shouting at

the top of his voice how normal he is
does give considerable cause for concern.

For a long time now our relationship
has been hanging by a thread.

And a thread, moreover, mostly
consisting of past disappointments.

We have nothing to lose by cutting it.

“You will be the best judge of
what this moment means to you.

The rest is silence.

So good to have met you
at last, Dr. Spielrein.

We did meet once before when I
was your husband's patient.

I think you're right.

Your children are glorious.

Thank you.

You must let us know when yours arrives.

I expect you want a boy.

No.

No, my husband and I both
think we would prefer a girl.

Really?

I wish you could help him.

Why?

What's the matter?

He's not himself.

He's very confused and
bogged down with his book.

He's not sleeping.

He's not taking on any new patients.

He still hasn't recovered from the violence
of his break with Professor Freud.

What you're describing is
very unlike my memory of him.

If you were staying in town, I'd try to
persuade him to let you analyze him.

I know he always set great
store by your opinion.

You are taking patients now?

I've pretty much decided to
specialize in child psychology.

I'm not sure if it's a
field he approves of.

I haven't discussed it with him but...

You better go and talk to him.

No one can help him more than you.

I hope you're right.

Your children are beautiful.

So you're married.

Yes.

He's a doctor?

Yes.

His name is Pavel Scheftel.

Russian.

Yes, a Russian Jew.

What's he like?

Kind.

Good, good.

Are you all right?

Yes.

I haven't been sleeping very well and
I keep having this apocalyptic dream.

A terrible flood from the
North Sea to the Alps.

Houses washed away.

Thousands of floating corpses.

Eventually it comes crashing into
the lake in a great tidal wave.

And by this time, the water, roaring down like
some vast avalanche, has turned to blood.

The blood of Europe.

What do you think it means?

I've no idea.

Unless it's about to happen.

What are your plans?

We've been thinking of
going back to Russia.

As long as you leave Vienna.

I spoke to him last week.

I can't believe there's nothing to be done.

There's nothing to be done.

The day he refused to discuss a
dream with me on the grounds

that it might risk his authority,
I should have known.

After that, for me, he had no authority.

It was a blow when I discovered
you'd chosen his side.

It's not a question of sides.

I have to work in the direction my instinct
tells my intelligence is the right one.

Don't forget, you cured me with his method.

What he'll never accept is that what
we understand has got us nowhere.

We have to go into uncharted territory.

We have to go back to the sources
of everything we believe.

I don't want to just
open a door and show the

patient his illness squatting
there like a toad.

I want to try and find a way to
help the patient reinvent himself.

To send him off on a journey
at the end of which is

waiting the person he was
always intended to be.

It's no good making yourself
ill in the process.

Only the wounded physician
can hope to heal.

I'm told you have a new mistress.

Is that right?

What's her name?

Toni.

Is she like me?

No.

She's an ex-patient?

Yes.

Jewish?

Half Jewish.

Training to be an analyst?

Yes.

But she's not like me?

Of course she makes me think of you.

How do you make it work?

I don't know.

Emma, as you've seen, is the
foundation of my house.

Toni is the perfume in the air.

My love for you was the most
important thing in my life.

For better or worse, made
me understand who I am.

This should be mine.

Yes.

Sometimes you have to do something
unforgivable just to be able to go on living.