Original subtitles

Since ancient times...

...there have been three great changes in man's idea of himself.

Three major blows dealt us in our vanity.

Before Copernicus, we thought we were the centre of the universe...

...that all the heavenly bodies revolved around our earth.

But the great astronomer shattered that conceit...

...and we were forced to admit our planet.

...is but one of many which swing around the sun...

...that there are other systems beyond our solar system.

...in myriad worlds.

Before Charles Darwin...

...man believed he was a species unto himself...

...separate and apart from the animal kingdom.

But the great biologist made us see that our physical organism.

...is the product of a vast evolutionary process.

whose laws are no different from us.

...than for any other form of animal life.

Before Sigmund Freud, man believed that what he said.

...and did were the products of his conscious will alone.

But the great psychologist.

...demonstrate the existence of another part of our mind.

which functions in darkest secrecy and can even rule our lives.

This is the story of Freud's descent into a region.

...almost as black as hell itself:

Man's unconscious, and how he let in the light.

A new patient, Herr Professor.

Hysteria. Who admitted this patient?

I did, Herr Professor.

Do you ignore my rule barring so-called hysterics from my department?

I am blind, Herr Professor! I can't move my leg!

I know the rules, Professor Meynert, but this woman is sick.

With your permission I would like to make some tests.

Tests? By all means let us conduct tests here and now.

I'll use this occasion to enlighten you as the true nature of hysteria.

Be quiet.

This woman claims to be suffering from paralysis of the left leg.

In a genuine spastic paralysis, the leg wouldn't be so inflexibly rigid.

Our paralytic is putting on an exhibition more suited to the Volkstheater.

...than to a bed in my ward!

Her symptoms have been assumed with the purpose.

...of attracting attention, gaining pity, and escaping the responsibilities.

As for her claim to blindness...

A match.

Light it.

- What do you see? - Her pupils are contracting.

- Do you believe this is blindness? - No.

Herr Professor, will you permit me to make a test?

By all means.

No reaction.

Is this pretending?

Anaesthesia induced by maintaining the leg in an unnatural position.

Hysteria is another name for lying. Pity there's no therapy for that.

You'll see to it personally, that this bed is vacated at once.

Mother, what should I do?

Leave the hospital. Go somewhere else.

That would mean starting all over again.

I know how you and father have slaved to put me where I am...

- And how my sisters went without... - We wanted a doctor in the family.

�And Martha? I can't ask her to wait forever.

Before you and Martha were engaged...

...you thought of a Travelling Grant. Could you still get one?

Yes, yes.

That might be the answer.

Maybe.

- How long would you be away? - 6 months, a year. I don't know.

Where would you go?

Berlin... perhaps to Charcot.

- Is Charcot a city or a man? - A man, a genius.

He's in Paris conducting experiments in hysteria.

There are certain mental phenomena which defy all the rules of science.

Most of us refuse to admit they exist, not Charcot.

He's had the courage to break with the axiom.

...that thought and consciousness are one and the same.

He has proven that the mind can think in a state of sleep...

...artificial sleep induced by hypnosis.

Yes, he dares to use hypnosis, a heresy in science.

- Of course you're going to Charcot. - How do you know?

By your voice, when you talk about him.

I think it was all decided before your disagreement with Meynert.

So far away, Paris. A day, a night and a day.

- Have a nice trip. - Good bye.

- Good luck. - Good bye. Thank you.

...and Sigi cried the whole trip.

- Will you forget me, Sigi? - Of course not.

Good bye.

- Mama... - To keep you warm this winter.

- Thank you. - Papa.

Sigmund, this watch belonged to my father, Alev Ashalom.

Now, it's time for you to depart from your loved ones...

- I present it to you. - Thank you.

- As a symbol. Bye. - Thank you. Good bye.

Oh, what an unhappy accident!

Thank you.

The word"hysteria"

...is from the Greek word"hysteron", meaning"womb".

To this day, doctors believe the disease.

...only exists in women if...

...that is, they admit its existence at all.

There many who would deny it a place in the"Encyclopaedia Medica".

Excellent descriptions of hysteria may be found in the records.

...of witchcraft trials in former times.

Its victims were supposed to be possessed by the Devil.

There were veritable epidemics of this delusion.

Whole communities were infected.

Yes, it was infectious, yet it had no germ.

Hysteria violates the medical tenet.

...that all bodily symptoms must be of organic origin...

...and the psychological tenet.

...that the mind is capable of only one thought at a time.

But the facts do not cease to exist.

...because they are in contradiction to our beloved theories.

I intend to prove here by demonstration.

...that hysteria is a purely mental malady.

...and that the mind can be divided against itself.

...so that it pursues two lines of thought simultaneously.

- What do you see? - Paralysis.

Flaccid paralysis.

My dear Jeanne, how long have you been unable to walk?

- Since 1880. - Six years ago.

Did anything happen to you which might have brought on your illness?

No.

Here is one of the most characteristic facts of hysteria.

The patient remembers nothing.

Yet we've learned from her relatives.

...that the appearance of her symptoms followed immediately upon a railway crash.

She wasn't injured physically.

Her condition is due solely to psychological trauma.

And here, we have, to all appearances...

...a classical example of paralysis agitans.

Servais, when was it that you first began to tremble?

- A... A-bout a month ago. - Servais was a woodcutter by profession.

A cabin in which he had take refuge from a thunderstorm.

was struck by lightning.

The incident of which Servais has no memory.

...took place, not a month, but over a year ago.

Following the accident...

...he went into a state which is typical for victims of trauma:

His colour became leaden, his eyes vacant...

...his movements were mechanical.

He behaved as though he were in a state of hypnotic trance!

By means of hypnosis...

...a practice that science has but recently freed from the service of black magic...

we are able to produce a mental state in the patient.

...similar to that in which his symptoms were conceived.

I'm going to put you to sleep.

Look straight into the flame with both your eyes.

Straight into the flame.

Now you're going to sleep.

A very deep sleep.

You're going deeper and deeper into sleep.

A deep and peaceful sleep.

You're sleeping. Deeply, deeply.

You're now on rapport with Professor Charcot.

He'll give you orders and you'll obey them.

I now propose to demonstrate to you.

...that these two patients are not suffering from organic disease...

...but that their symptoms.

...are the result of ideas holding sway in their minds.

- Do you hear me, Servais? - Yes.

You're quite safe. You have no fear at all.

You're growing calm. Quiet.

Completely quiet.

When I clap my hands, you won't shake anymore.

Good, Servais. Very good.

We've eliminated the hysterical symptom by a spoken command...

...thereby demonstrating that his affliction isn't of organic origin.

Jeanne.

Sleep, Jeanne.

Sleep.

Deeper and deeper into sleep.

A gentle and restful sleep.

A sweet, peaceful sleep. Deeper, deeper...

Sleep.

Jeanne, now I give you over to Professor Charcot.

Do you hear me, Jeanne?

Yes.

Your legs. Sensation is returning to them.

Yes.

You can feel the blood flowing through them.

You are cured, cured!

You can move your legs.

Go ahead and move them.

Good, Jeanne.

You can even stand upon them.

Yes, you can stand.

Rise up and stand upon your legs.

Splendid, Jeanne. Splendid.

Open your eyes.

Walk, now. Don't be afraid.

Walk around the room.

And having demonstrated.

...that we can remove symptoms by suggestion...

...let's see if we're able to create them as well.

When I clap my hands...

...your legs will go to sleep.

They will no longer support you.

They will be paralysed. Immovable, without feeling.

Stand still, Jeanne.

Do you see Servais over there?

Remember how he shook?

Do you, Jeanne?

Like that.

Wasn't it, Jeanne?

And now...

...your arm is shaking like his did.

Now both your arms.

Shaking, shaking.

And your legs. You can't stop, can you?

You shake, shake...

Gentlemen...

...you've witnessed the birth of an hysterical symptom.

Now my assistants are going to awaken our patients.

They will remember nothing.

Servais will regain the use of his legs...

...but his tremor will set in again.

And Jeanne will cease trembling only to be paralyzed as before.

The hypnotic state is a counterfeit, alas.

It enables us to understand but not to cure.

- Mazeltov. - Mazeltov.

Mazeltov.

Your daughter, and mine now, is very beautiful.

As beautiful almost as my own Amalia was on our wedding day.

But Martha is luckier. All Amalia got was a humble cloth merchant.

But Martha has here a genius and soon the whole world will know it.

Whether these alien ideas spring from the subject's own mind...

...as in auto-suggestion following a traumatic experience...

...or by hetero-suggestion as in hypnosis...

...or by the Devil himself, as our forefathers thought...

...is relatively unimportant.

Important is that these ideas remain unknown to the patient...

...they are unconscious.

There is much talk nowadays about the unconscious.

So far, it has only been a philosophical abstraction...

...but Professor Charchot has enabled us to reach out and touch it.

We must now accept the fact that.

...there can be thinking that is not on a conscious level.

Are these unconscious thoughts the wild products of a shattered mind...

...or are they connected to the trauma by a chain of logic.

whose links we have yet to discover?

Thank you, Dr Freud.

I believe I reflect the sentiments of my colleagues when I assure you.

...of our appreciation of your report.

It is my personal opinion, however...

...that there's nothing in what we've heard that is new to Viennese physicians.

I'll say a few words.

I beg to disagree with our esteemed chairman...

...for I've found in what we've been told some ideas that are new...

...and some ideas that are true.

But the ideas that are true, are not new...

...and those that are new, are not true.

Some patients show nervous disorders similar to those presented to us.

But that's not new.

None of us is unaware that violent emotions can affect the central nervous system.

But why this talk of diabolic ideas and the unconscious?

Are we theologians or physicians?

Again, when our colleague feels obliged.

...to instruct and enlighten his seniors about hypnotism...

...he forgets in his enthusiasm that he is telling us nothing new.

It's not true that hypnotism is a scientific method.

I consider a hypnotist and his subject a pair of sick people.

...of whom the more seriously sick is certainly not the one hypnotized.

Viennese doctors leave metaphysical speculation to the Parisians...

...and heed humbly and patiently the lessons of physiological experiment.

- Do you wish to reply, Dr Freud? - Thank you, no.

I believe Professor Meynert has expressed our sentiments.

With your permission, I hereby adjourn the meeting.

Herr colleague, I congratulate you on a fascinating paper.

You're not afraid to touch the leper?

The man who read that paper is too intelligent to be affected.

If I won the approval of the eminent Dr Breuer it's reward enough.

I'd have joined the debate...

...but that would have required a confession I'm not prepared to make.

I've been dabbling in the Black Art too.

Hypnosis?

A young woman who had a nervous breakdown after her father's death.

When I took the case, she was suffering from a some disorders...

...including insomnia.

The first time I hypnotized her my thought was to get her to sleep without drugs.

But on entering trance she began to talk in random, disconnected phrases.

But presently I sensed a meaning behind her words...

...and began asking questions.

Before long I discovered the reason for her insomnia.

She was terrified of a recurrent dream in which she saw her father's body.

...being devoured by the cats of Naples where his death had occurred.

Telling me about it seemed to relieve her of its horror.

She quieted and passed from trance into restful sleep.

And, if one symptom could be relieved by such procedure, another might.

I've been hypnotizing her regularly these last few months.

I trace back from the symptom to it's source, make her remember...

...and the act of remembering the incident.

...causes the symptom to disappear.

- But surely it comes back. - No.

- Not one has come back. - She's still very ill.

Her vision's disturbed, she's semi paralyzed.

At the moment I'm working on her inability to drink water from a glass.

Water is dirty.

It looks so pure, so clear.

But it is full of vileness.

What makes you think water is dirty?

My father told me so in Naples.

In Naples, perhaps, but now you're back in Vienna.

You drank water here until a few days ago.

Why did you stop drinking water?

The animal!

What animal?

Filthy!

Long black tongue, black nose!

Horrible!

Cecily, remember.

What kind of animal was it?

- It was a dog. My dog. - Your dachshund, Schnapp?

Yes.

What did Schnapp do? Tell me.

You can see it happening now.

Schnapp is on my bed. At my tray.

He is drinking from my golden cup. Schnapp is defiling it.

The one that father gave me.

That nurse, mean, vicious creature... She let him do it.

I hate all nurses!

I'm thirsty.

So thirsty.

Sit up, Cecily. Sit up.

You can drink now.

Drink, Cecily. You will wake up drinking.

As you awaken, you will be drinking.

...and you will remember everything.

Wake up, Cecily.

Drink, my dear, drink.

Do you remember your dog drinking from your cup?

And I was so angry with the nurse. Is that all there is to it?

Yes, Mama. I can drink again.

How do you reconcile this with Charcot's theory?

If her mind had been divided...

why would remembering the traumatic incident relieve a symptom?

- The darkened part would produce wild ideas. - No. Charcot is mistaken.

Trauma doesn't divide the mind as an axe splits a leg.

It only causes the memory of the incident to be struck off from consciousness.

But how can unconscious memories create symptoms?

Because they are surrounded by emotions.

...that cannot find their natural outlet through consciousness.

If you are overcome by grief, you shed tears.

Angry, you strike a blow. Frightened, you run.

The emotion aroused in you is discharged in physical action.

But, what happens if the emotion is dammed up?

There's fire in the fireplace, but the way out it's blocked.

The fire doesn't go out. It smolders, and smoke fills the room.

...and finally it leaks out through a pantry window.

A morbid symptom is only emotional energy coming out the wrong place.

Freud, what do you think?

I think a door has been opened.

You've made a discovery as important as Pasteur's.

He isolated the germ, you've isolated the pathogenic memory.

Cecily's may be a unique case.

I'm rather inclined to think she's a classic case.

Would it be possible for you to try out this method in the hospital?

Yes.

You row to the middle of the lake...

what happens then?

- I stand up. - Yes?

The boat rocks. I'm falling.

The boat turns over. I'm in the water.

My brother calls for help.

I swim around the boat, but I can't find him.

- My brother is gone. - Where is he?

Drowned.

The boat sinks!

- I swim for the shore. - You swim?

I swim.

What are you doing, Dr Freud?

I order you to stop this at once.

Quiet, you fool.

In Professor Meynert's absence, I am in charge here.

- He doesn't approve hypnosis. - Damn you both.

I shall tell Meynert what you said.

I'll tell him myself.

What can I do for you, Herr Freud?

Professor Meynert...

...did you give anyone authority to stop me practicing hypnosis?

Of course.

But the patient was from the general ward. He wasn't from your department.

You are, Freud.

You realize you're forcing me to resign my post at the hospital.

You renounced science the day you rejected my offer and went to Paris.

Paris, the path to fame and fortune.

Six easy lessons... A la Charcot.

How dare you say that?

How will you prevent it? You'll hypnotize me?

At my command, everyone asleep!

The blind at attention! You are ordered to see!

Paralytics, about turn!

Quick march one-two, one-two!

Heil, Sigmund Freud, the conquering here of neurosis.

As if you knew what a neurosis is.

As if your Charcot knew.

It's a way of making life possible and you rob them of it!

You would bring the light of understanding into their poor benighted souls.

And the evil spirits will fly away when the cook crows.

Look.

Yes, scorpions. The fatal kind, from Mexico.

I'm testing the effects from their poison on the nervous system of higher animals.

Charming little fellows.

Here's the sun test.

Well, Freud...

...do you think light kills evil spirits?

I rather think it revives them.

If the box remains open, they'll run about everywhere.

The room... the world will be alive with them.

Back into darkness.

There you are.

Leave to the night what belongs to the night.

- Schnapps? - Thank you, I don't drink.

You don't drink. You'd be too afraid of letting yourself go.

What would let slip if you got drunk?

One takes every precaution. One walls oneself in.

I know what you are. I've been observing you for a long time.

...and I am certain that neurosis is lying in wait for you.

I know the symptoms.

I know why you're attracted by other people's madness...

...because it makes you forget your own.

How would you like your old master to be sick of hysteria a la Charcot?

How well you'd take care of him.

No luck. I'm as sound as an apple.

Good-bye, Freud. Leave and don't come back.

- How old are you? - 30.

I was the same age when I made my choice.

In time, you too could become a very successful practitioner.

Have your own carriage, vintage wines, a brightly lighted house.

Not that I have any complaints.

I'm a better physician than I would have been a scientist.

Your paper on the vagus nerve is a classic.

And for that, unimportant as it is...

...rather than for my powers as a healer I may be remembered.

That and my association with you...

...perhaps if you choose to devote yourself to the study of hysteria.

How can I? I'll be lucky to eke out a living in general practice?

Hear me out...

...this is my opportunity to put back into the bank of science.

...something more than the sum of talent I withdraw.

Let me endow us. Say 200 guilders a month.

...and I'll send you my hysterical patients.

When the time comes, we'll publish our findings.

"Studies on hysteria", by Freud and Breuer.

Breuer and Freud.

And my wife said:

"I'm not jealous...

...but I would like to know how you have the nerve.

...to play the ladies' man with other women in front of me...

who knows from bitter experience that you're not a man at all".

It was like a slap in my face.

When you wake up, you'll remember everything you've told me.

Everything.

Wake up.

Father has had his heart attack.

I'm sitting at his bedside.

It's a warm summer evening.

Window is open.

I hear music.

Dance music.

It's coming from a house across the street.

They are dancing on the terrace.

I love to dance.

I long to be with them.

How wicked of me when my poor father may be dying.

I'm a bad daughter.

I close the window to keep the music out.

Room becomes stifling.

I can't breath.

I am going to wake you.

And when I do...

...you'll be able to breathe normally again.

Wake up.

You'll remember everything you said.

Wake up.

Music coming through a window.

A wife's scornful words.

...not cataclysms like railroad crashes and lightning bolts.

Yet all memory of them, too, was struck from consciousness.

Could there be a psychic mechanism.

which defends the mind against intolerable memories.

...as lymph glands do the body against infection.

A mechanism of repression.

which banishes such memories to the unconscious?

And locks the door.

Dr Freud.

- How do you do, Herr von Schlosser? - How do you do?

Heine, Beaudelaire, Rambeau.

- You like poetry? - Yes, very much.

- Do you write verse yourself? - I try.

I cannot find the rhymes.

Thank you.

Your tunic?

No. It was my father's when he was my age.

A captain in the Hussars.

You can see the rent from a saber at the Battle of Custoza.

Why do you have it on display?

- I'm proud of my father. - And yet you attacked him.

Yes.

And without reason.

I must be going mad.

Are you going to put me in an asylum?

Because I shall kill myself first.

Sit down, would you?

There's nothing to be afraid of. I'm here to help you.

Sit down.

Sr. Von Schlosser...

I want to concentrate all your attention on the end of this cigarette.

Relax.

That's it.

I'm going to put you to sleep.

Your eyelids are getting heavy.

I'm going to count from five to one and your eyes will close.

Five, four...

...three, two...

...one.

You're asleep.

You're going into a deep, deep sleep.

It's the day of the incident. You and your father are at table.

What are you doing?

I'm watching his hands.

- He is carving meat. - Yes?

The knife flashes.

He looks with hatred at me across the table.

His eyes flash like the knife.

He would like to draw the knife across my throat.

I stare back at him, holding his eyes.

My look is a challenge.

It enrages him.

He's going to strike.

It is he or I.

I strike first.

I'll bleed you, you filthy swine!

Why do you call your father a swine?

He raped a young girl.

He? Your father?

- A girl of 17. Every night. - What girl?

My mother.

Mother.

You'll remember nothing of this when you wake.

Nothing, I'm going to wake you.

One, two, three, four, five. Wake up!

Eyes open! Wide awake!

Dr Freud!

Dr Freud!

Mother.

- Mother. - No, dear, it's Martha. Your wife.

Sigi?

Sigi. Dr Breuer is here.

Breuer.

This is an honour.

I was making a call nearby and thought I'd stop in.

What've you been doing with yourself?

Between patients and chess problems...

...another article for the"Neurological Journal".

"On the Origin of the Acoustic Nerve".

But this is pure anatomy.

It's good to be back with experimentally proven facts.

I was homesick for neurology and I didn't know it.

What about"Studies on Hysteria"?

The discovery is yours. I contributed nothing.

There's no reason to share the credit.

You look a bit peaked. How's his appetite, Martha?

He eats hardly anything.

- Sleeping properly? - Tosses all night, and cries out.

I'm going to examine him here and now.

- Sit down. Open your shirt. - No.

There's nothing wrong with me, I assure you.

What is it then?

I understand you gave up Fraulein Wolf's case.

Yes, and Herr Brenner and Frau Jonas.

- Yes. - Surely they weren't all cured?

I couldn't go on prescribing cold baths and massage.

I'm surprised at your prescribing them at all.

- What else is there? - Need you ask?

You should see the Koertner girl.

She's living proof of the effectiveness of our hypnotic method.

Freud...

when was the last time you hypnotized a patient?

Eh...

- I don't remember. - Which case was it?

Which...

I know.

It was the son of a general. His name escapes me.

- You never told me about him. - There's a little to tell.

I saw him once. He was psychotic. I was forced to commit him.

Why did you stop in the middle of our work?

Meynert said,"It's better to keep scorpions locked up in darkness."

I'm forced to agree with him.

You were making such strides forward, giant strides.

Did you know Meynert had a heart attack?

I was called in yesterday on consultation.

- Will he recover? - Matter of weeks or days.

- Should I give him any message? - No.

Well, I must be on my way. I've calls to make.

Martha.

- There's nothing wrong with him physically. - Thank heaven.

- How is Mathilda? - Very well, thank you.

She's been after me to take a holiday.

I can't even get Sigmund away for an afternoon in the country.

That's the penalty for being a doctor's wife.

Let me hear from you.

You sent for him, didn't you?

- Didn't you? - Yes. I thought you might be ill.

What is it? I can't bear to see you so unhappy.

- Wont' you tell me? - There's nothing wrong with me.

For Dr Freud.

Sigi, a coachman is waiting.

Professor Meynert. What does he want?

He's critically ill. Breuer just told me.

The arrogance of the man. "Come immediately".

He's dying, Sigi.

Yes, how amazed he must be at the thought.

He always took himself for Jehovah.

Freud?

Come in.

Closer.

Come closer.

I've read all your pieces in the"Neurological Journal".

Your style has become more sober, less belligerent.

You've learned how to set forth your views without wounding anyone.

In short, they're fit for the wastebasket.

- Lf you asked me here... - Spare a dying man.

Breuer says that you've given up the idea of proving the hysteria.

A pity.

I could have settled the question by presenting you with a classic case.

Who?

Myself.

I have a whole complex of symptoms.

Migrains, night terrors, even paralysis.

Remember how I carried my right hand-thumb hooked around a waistcoat button.

...as though I was having my portrait painted?

You never suspected, did you?

Did you know this when you drove me away from your clinic?

I knew it before Charcot. I've known it for 20 years.

And yet you held me up to ridicule before our colleagues?

Ham was cursed by his father for seeing him naked.

You're my spiritual son.

I'm not sleeping. I'm gathering my energies.

Sit down. Don't interrupt.

Neurotics form a brotherhood.

They learn to recognize each other as I did you.

They have only one rule: Silence in the presence of the enemy.

Our common enemy...

...the normal people who would knock our deformities, torment and degrade us.

You belong to the brotherhood.

I feared you because you seemed determined to betray us.

So I did what I could to discredit you.

My life has been a sham.

I misused my talents...

...hiding the truth even from myself.

I suppressed my real being.

The result...

I'm dying in a state of pride and ignorance.

I don't know who I am.

It's not I who lived my life, but another...

...the creation of my vanity.

Break the silence. Do what you set out to do.

Betray us. We need a traitor.

Go to the heart of our darkness. Hunt out the dragon.

Angels and saints slay dragons. I am neither.

If you lack the strength, make a pact with the Devil.

What a splendid thing to descend to hell and light your torch from its fires?

Farewell.

Farewell.

Yes? What is it?

I would like to speak to His Excellency, the General.

This house is closed. His Excellency is living in Salzburg.

And his son Carl?

Herr Carl is dead.

He's dead?

Yes, he died of pneumonia six months ago.

- Did he die here? - No.

Where?

- In an asylum? - Yes, if it's any business of yours.

God, no...

Forgive me, Carl.

What an unpredictable fellow you are.

You divorce yourself from psychology for an entire year...

...then, two weeks after taking it up again.

...you formulate a general theory of neurosis.

That on the basis of a single experience, your own.

No, Breuer. On the basis of all the cases we've observed.

For instance about Greta Hubner?

Music come through the window of her dying father's room.

She longs to be moving to its rhythm in a man's arms.

Certainly sexual associations can be found in almost every case...

...if you look for them hard enough.

I'm not denying the importance of sexuality in all our lives.

...as a contributing factor, but you'll never convince me.

...it's the one and only cause of neurosis.

This theory is based on facts.

We pursued it together.

Now when you see where it's leading, you shrink from it.

I've been practicing medicine for over 16 years.

Listening to secrets of the bedchamber is a routine chore.

- Repression works in the unconscious. - Against what?

Against an instinct that nature has given us?

Is nature in war with herself?

At war with our society.

which would collapse in a day if sexuality were allowed free expression.

My concern is not with the mores of society.

I'm a physician. In my mind facts take precedence over theory.

The emotional conflicts of many of my patients are not sexual in origin.

Which patients?

Cecily, for one.

You'd be hard put to unearth an erotic element in her case.

Maybe you haven't gone far enough.

She's completely unaware of herself as a woman. Her body's asleep.

If this is your challenge to my theory, could I see her again?

I don't suppose it would do any harm.

Cecily, I want you to try again.

Think back to the first time you had trouble with your vision.

When was it?

I don't remember.

You angry with me?

Never, Cecily.

How could I be? Now...

Where were you when you had trouble seeing for the first time?

Italy, Naples.

- In that place. - Which place?

- Hospital, they took me there. - What for?

To identify...

...his body.

- What time did your father die? - One o'clock in the morning.

- Where were you then? - I was in my hotel room, alone.

They woke me with their knocking on the door.

Louder. Louder.

- I thought they'd break down the door! - Who, Cecily?

The doctors.

They came to tell me about my father.

Breuer...

Doctors leaving the hospital to report a death?

Go on, my child.

They told me they came to take me to the hospital.

They took me down the hall to his room.

They were playing music for the patients.

I couldn't bear it!

There were other doctors there.

One of them said that my father was dead.

There were nurses who were staring at me.

They looked so funny.

The other doctors were staring too.

"Look at him", they said.

"Is this your father?".

I couldn't look.

I couldn't.

Cecily...

I'm going to wake you.

You'll remember everything you told me.

When you are awake...

...your lovely eyes will be able to see clearly again.

Wake up, Cecily. Wake up. Now.

You remember what happened in the hospital.

Now you can see, can't you?

There, there, Cecily.

It all... Takes time.

We'll try again another day.

I'll just put you back to sleep to calm you.

Sleep, Cecily.

You are deeply asleep now.

At peace.

Breuer, I'd like to ask her a few questions.

There sessions are very tiring. We mustn't overdo it.

But she's so close to the memory.

- Very well. - Thank you.

Cecily...

...you'll be able to hear Dr Freud. He's going to question you.

Because I ask you to, you'll answer him.

Cecily, you're going back in time.

Back in time.

You're in Naples, in your room, at the hotel.

It's night time.

There's a knock at the door.

What do you do?

I get up. I light the lamp.

I open the door.

You open the door, without knowing who's outside?

But I know they're doctors.

How do you know? Are you sure?

- Are they saying anything? - Yes.

- Yes! - What are they saying?

- Police! Open the door! - What happens now?

Gently, Freud.

What happened?

They take me to the hospital.

Tell me about the nurses. You said they were strange.

Their dresses...

In Italian hospitals nuns take care of the patients.

- It's a protestant hospital. - In Naples?

- Yes. - And they play music?

Yes, and it's horrible!

In a protestant hospital they played music after midnight?

Yes, to insult my father!

You're not in a hospital. Where are you?

I told you.

You're not in a hospital, where are you?

It's a brothel! It's a brothel!

- My child, you can't... - What happens then?

What happens?

They take me to the room...

where woman are standing around the bed.

I hate them! I can see the one who killed him!

- How did she killed him? - With lust.

He died in her arms.

They are forcing me to look at him.

"Is this your father? Do you recognize him?".

I won't look.

They force me.

There's lipstick on his mouth.

That's enough. I'm going to awake you.

- Just a minute. - She is still my patient.

I know.

You are in Vienna now.

And when you awake, you'll remember what you've said.

Cecily, wake up.

I can see!

I can see!

Clearly!

Clearly!

What have I said?

Go away!

You'd better leave us now.

In any case, Fraulein Koertner...

...your vision will be normal from now on.

Get out!

Venice must be lovely in the spring.

I do envy Mathilda.

We haven't had a vacation in 2 years. I kept promising her.

Mathilda finally put her foot down.

- When are you leaving? - Tonight.

Tonight?

Could you to take over my practice for me?

Of course, yes.

Come with me on my calls...

I'll introduce you to the ones who need regular attention.

- Is Fraulein Koertner among them? - No.

Cecily is cured. You'll see for yourself.

What a magnificent recovery.

The last symptom disappeared March 7th, five days ago.

Now she moves as freely and gracefully as a young deer.

Thank you, Freud. I'll pick you up at 2:00 PM.

Fine.

- Strange. - What's strange?

It's not like Breuer this sudden departure.

He always plans so far ahead.

Did you notice the carnation in his buttonhole?

Mathilda tells me that he gets flowers from one of his patients.

- Well? - Her name is Cecily.

- So? - Mathilda's no fool.

Bravo, Cecily! Magnificent!

Thank you, Dr Breuer.

Dr Freud, how nice to see you again.

My behaviour was unforgivable the last time we met.

- Not at all. - But that was before I was cured.

- Is this your knitting? - To keep some poor baby's feet warm.

- One of your charities? - Such a cold word, charity.

You didn't tell me where you were going on holiday.

- I'm going to Venice. - Alone?

- My wife and I. - Venice? You'll love it.

My poor father took me there. It will be like a second honeymoon.

Who knows, doctor, for whom these may be.

We must be on our way. I only stopped in to say good-bye.

I wish you happiness with all my heart.

You have a heart?

I'm talking nonsense. I know how devotedly you took care of me.

Won't you kiss me good-bye?

Dr Breuer?

Freud...

- I'm Dr Torsch. - Breuer.

Most unusual. She has the symptoms of labour.

She herself believes it.

Yet she's not pregnant, nor could she be.

Cecily.

- Cecily, Cecily. - I knew you'd come.

Yes, Cecily. Sleep, sleep.

Close your eyes, close your eyes.

You're falling asleep. Deeply asleep.

You're deeply asleep.

Do you know what's happening to you?

- I'm having a baby. - No, you're not. You couldn't be!

I order you to stop thinking these false thoughts.

You're going to wake, and when you do, they will be gone.

Forgotten.

Wake up, Cecily. Open your eyes.

Breuer...

- You can't leave her like this. - I must.

Must?

You're her doctor. She needs you.

It's Mathilda. She imagines there's something between Cecily and me.

That I'm in love with the girl. I must go to preserve my marriage!

Martha.

What are you doing, dear?

I was reading one of your manuscripts.

Is there any reason why I shouldn't?

- I'd rather you didn't. - Why?

Because of the nature of the material.

It's for physicians to read. Not one's wife.

Your friends' wives know all about it. I seem to be the only one who doesn't.

What are they saying?

It's not so much what they say as how they say it.

Slyly, in whispers.

Patients have left you.

Is it because of the kind of questions you put to them?

Maybe.

But they say you're the only doctor in Vienna who asks such questions.

In the world, perhaps.

Martha, this is not for your eyes.

�How can you, you of all men...

...be interested in such... Things?

Dear, I know it's hard to understand, but you must trust me.

I need your trust.

My friends and their wives only whisper about me today.

Tomorrow they may stone me in the streets.

I trust you.

- What is it, dear? - Martha, papa had a stroke!

He fell down in the street. They brought him home unconscious.

I think he's dying.

- Sigi, your father. - He's very bad.

He's been calling for you. Hurry!

I think papa is dying.

- Dr Breuer... - Yes, Herr. Freud?

Breuer, I'm giving you my son.

I want you to do for him.

...as I myself would like to have done.

With your help, he has nothing to fear.

Sigi...

what is it?

I... I couldn't go through the gate.

I wasn't... Allowed.

Darling, you were dreaming.

Dreaming.

Dr Breuer is here.

How are you feeling?

I feel...

I was in the midst of a dream.

"The eyes shall be closed".

What does that mean?

Mean?

Nothing, I suppose, if it was in a dream.

Except dreams have a meaning.

For whom?

For the dreamer.

To himself about himself.

But they speak in riddles.

Could it be dreams are ideas escaping from repression...

...in disguise?

Everyone was mourning.

Everyone but me.

I was in shirtsleeves at my father's funeral.

Why could I not mourn? I loved him.

Or did I?

The dream says I didn't.

Stop torturing yourself. Your father died happy.

You honoured him. You were a good son.

That's not what the sign says. "The eyes shall be closed."

Whose eyes? My father's?

I was at his bedside. I closed his.

Of course you did.

Well then, whose?

Mine?

Everybody at the station walked about with closed eyes.

Mine were open.

Brazenly open.

That's...

That's why I wasn't allowed through the gate.

Now I understand!

Understand what?

The meaning of those words. "The eyes shall be closed."

Remember?

The sons shall close their eyes to the sins of the father.

I broke the law.

But what sin of his couldn't I close my eyes to?

Breuer, take me back to the cemetery.

What sin?

What sin?

What sin?

It's happening.

My...

...my legs won't hold me.

- I can't. - Come back to the carriage.

Why?

Why is it when I turn away I feel myself again?

Meynert was right.

Yes, I'm a neurotic! These are hysterical symptoms.

You're emotionally exhausted.

I wonder... What...

What terror...

What hidden terror keeps me from standing by my father's grave.

...and threatens my love for him?

What could the good man have done?

Once, as a boy, I was with him on the street.

when some hoodlums called him "dirty Jew" and knocked his hat off.

All he did was pick it up and walk on.

From that moment, I saw him less as a God, more as a man...

...but I didn't hate him for his weakness.

The memory must go further back.

- Could neurosis begin in childhood? - Why not?

The traumatic incident could be before the awakening of the sexual impulse.

Yes.

If that's true, my sexual theory of neurosis collapses.

In which case, I'd be thankful.

You never believed in it, did you?

We close our eyes to the infinite variety of life.

when we try to reduce it to a single law.

It was only a matter of time.

...before some husband appeared with a horsewhip.

I'm not afraid of scandal...

...but how can I defend a theory which is disproved in myself.

Breuer, hypnotize me.

Bring back the memory about my father.

Two weeks in the mountains will cure all your ills.

- I'm not seeking a cure. I want an answer. - It's no use, I won't accept the case.

Which reminds me I want you to treat Cecily Koertner.

Her mother came to see me last week.

She had seen lots of doctors, but her condition hasn't improved.

Frau Koertner wanted me to take the case again.

It's out of the question for obvious reasons, so I...

...recommended you and she agreed.

Dr Freud, I'm so tired of being sick.

At night, sometimes...

I lie in the dark and cry for hours.

It's like a prison.

Tell me...

...did you have any illness before your father's death?

The usual childhood ones. Nothing very serious.

But when I was 14, I was in bed for several weeks.

- Why? - I couldn't walk.

My legs wouldn't support me.

The doctors didn't know why.

It started after a fainting fit. I collapsed on the street.

Yes?

I was out with father.

It was Christmas time. He made me wait outside while he went into a shop.

- He left you alone in the street? - Yes.

When he came back I was lying on the pavement.

Had anything happened to frighten you?

- I don't think so, I can't remember. - You could, under hypnosis.

Now I want you to think about sleep.

Only about sleep.

Your lids are getting weighted.

Your breathing deeper and deeper as in sleep.

Sleep. Go to sleep.

It's no use.

Why do you fight it? You were almost asleep.

What did Breuer say if he knew you'd put me to sleep?

- You see him sometimes, don't you? - Yes, I do.

Does he ever ask about me?

No.

You must put Dr Breuer out of your thoughts.

He'll never come here again.

So far as you're concerned, he doesn't exist.

Dead, like my father.

You were very close to your father?

Yes, he was a wonderful man.

You were with him in Naples. Where was your mother?

At home. It was spring cleaning time.

She didn't trust the servants.

Mother's got a great sense of duty.

Father thought it was one's duty to enjoy life.

He took me everywhere. We were always together.

Why, I even ran this house when mother had her accident.

What accident?

She was out driving one day. Her cart overturned.

She hovered for some time between life and death.

- How old were you then? - 13.

It was the happiest time of my life.

I didn't mean it like that! Of course I missed mother.

But... I don't know.

Father let me arrange the flowers at table and seat the guests.

I could put up my hair and wear jewellery.

We made a very handsome couple everybody said.

Six nights of the week and up till all hours...

- And the seventh? - Father played tarot.

He loved that.

I suppose a serious man like you doesn't approve of card playing.

It happens to be my favourite game.

I must revise my idea of you.

You said it was the happiest moment in your life.

Then your mother came home.

And everything was changed.

It was back to hair ribbons and bed at 9 PM.

Mother's a German soldier's daughter.

She and father come from quite different worlds.

Not even their religions were the same.

She insisted I be brought up as a prostitute.

I meant Protestant.

My tongue got tangled up.

You said the hospital was a protestant hospital.

when in fact it was a house of prostitution.

Do you remember when you first heard that word?

How do you know when you first heard a word?

Is she in love with you, too?

You could call it that.

- What are you going to do about it? - Nothing.

Because of her feeling for Breuer, I wasn't able to hypnotize her.

To her, the act has erotic significance.

She felt she was being unfaithful.

But now, any day, she'll ask me.

How can you lend yourself to such a thing if that's what it means to her?

There is no other way than hypnosis to reach the unconscious.

Dr Breuer gave up the case.

She's ill. She needs help.

She's only ill for a man's attention.

To the extent of blindness and paralysis?

No, Martha.

Her attachments are also symptoms.

Is falling in love a symptom?

Before me, it was Breuer.

Was he the first?

Maybe we're both reflections.

...of someone else's image.

An original love which for some reason she's repressed.

I wonder...

I thought love was between a man and a woman who were meant for each other.

What about us?

Are we reflections of others in our past?

It may be you bear a likeness to some image in my heart...

...some forgotten image.

You said your father gave him to you on March the 7th.

Was that a special day?

I don't think so.

It's just that I always liked to celebrate the day papa gave him to me.

And nothing special happened on that day?

- Well... - What?

I'd made mother very angry.

Papa had taken me to the ballet.

We went around backstage to the dressing room of one of the dancers.

She was beautiful and smelled so nice.

Papa told her I was a dancer too...

...and she laughed and said: "Your daddy loves dancers."

I couldn't wait to get home and paint my face like hers!

I used my watercolours.

Suddenly mother came in.

What are you doing?

Don't you dare paint your face!

I burst into tears.

Papa picked me up and to comfort me.

...promised me the doll the next day.

It was March the 7th.

What sort of women paint their faces?

Actresses, dancers...

And?

- Prostitutes? - When did you first hear that word?

I was about 9 years old.

I was coming along the hall and I heard shouting in the drawing room.

Mother was saying to Lucy, our maid...

I've got eyes in my head! I know what's been going on.

Pack your things and get out of here.

Get out of this house!

You're nothing but a prostitute.

Lucy left the same day.

I was sad. We were friends, like sisters.

She always had time to play with me.

Father liked her too.

He said: "You're a dear little girl."

Why do you suppose you mother called her that name?

- I don't know. - Concentrate.

Your father and Lucy.

Together.

What do you see?

- A tower. - A what?

- A red tower. - Yes?

Red Tower Street.

Have you been there?

I'm sorry, Dr Freud. I'm being very frivolous.

I don't even know why it came to my mind.

Tell me...

What do you know about Red Tower Street?

It's the street where I fainted that day with papa.

You fainted in Red Tower Street?

It can't be washed out.

What can't be washed out?

That's what mother said. I'd spilled some wine on the counterpane.

She said:"You stupid girl, how could you be so careless?

It can't be washed out."

It looked like blood.

Did that upset you?

I suppose it must have.

...because I dreamt about it. Mother's words...

And the tower! That's where I saw the tower!

Can you remember your dream?

I was walking along by the seashore...

...and suddenly I saw a tall, round, red tower.

Above the entrance there was an inscription and a coat of arms.

A funny one. A staff with a snake wound around it.

- And the inscription? - I don't remember.

There was a woman.

Her body was painted with marvellous images.

She could have been an Egyptian.

A tall, handsome man came up to her in full evening dress.

The woman said...

I'm Frau Putiphar.

She tried to fit on the man's finger a wedding band of the thinnest metal...

...but his own gold one prevented it.

Hers slipped off and rolled away.

At that, the man turned and run.

He stumbled and fell to the ground as if dead.

When I got there, I found only a heap of clothes.

A window in the tower opened and a woman looked out.

It was my mother.

She pointed threateningly to the painted girl and said:

"Blood will tell, my girl. It can't be washed out.

No matter what you do."

What did you say that the painted woman's name was?

- Frau Putiphar. - You say Putiphar.

Isn't Putiphar the character in the Bible?

She used the French pronunciation.

- Can you think of another word like Putiphar? - Putain.

Which means"prostitute" in French.

Who was Frau Putiphar?

She tried to seduce Joseph in the Bible.

- And then? - She took revenge.

Who is Joseph?

What do you mean?

Do you know anyone by the name of Joseph?

Dr Joseph Breuer.

The Joseph in your dream didn't make love to the painted girl.

Who is she? Do you know any girl who paints herself?

She was an Egyptian.

What did your mother say to that Egyptian?

"Blood will tell. It can't be washed out."

What your mother said to you yesterday, it can't be washed out.

It isn't me.

I'm the painted girl.

Who was rejected by Joseph and therefore hates him.

I don't hate him.

You can't admit it to yourself. Not yet.

But in your dream you made him die.

I can't bear to be this person.

None of us can bear facing all our wishes.

That's why we repress them.

Do you realize what's happened in this room today?

You and I

...found our way into the unconscious without hypnosis.

Apparent coincidences slips of the tongue have been the signposts.

Your dream...

with its symbolic language.

...has told you the truth about your feelings for Dr Breuer.

But I had this dream long ago.

Or others like it long before I even met Dr Breuer.

A tower, and sea and women.

Was there a man in those dreams?

Yes.

There was?

Could you describe him?

No.

No, I can't.

My precious hour gone, so soon.

10 o'clock.

Tomorrow.

Her father.

Is it her father's figure which moves through that recurrent dream?

Is he the phantom husband.

...by whom she bore the doll her imaginary child?

No.

Unthinkable!

Not her father!

You're making progress.

Let's go on. Where did we leave off?

Let's go back to Red Tower Street.

Christmas time. You're waiting for your father.

You said it was important, my remembering what made me faint.

But why?

Could remembering that help me to walk again?

That was the occasion of your first attack.

If we can find the cause of that attack...

...you will be cured once and for all.

Hypnotize me. You may today.

- No. - I'll reveal my every secret.

No. No more hypnosis.

We've found a better method.

Think of Red Tower Street. Say whatever comes to your mind.

- But I can't see you. - I know.

Hold nothing back however trivial it may seem.

Traffic, shops, people.

Where will this lead us?

Nowhere if you censor your thoughts.

Take the censor off guard.

Right now, what are you thinking?

- Tarot cards. - Yes?

- Do you play tarot with your wife at home? - No, at the house of a colleague.

And he tells his wife that he plays at your house.

All men are alike.

Go on.

- I just thought... - What?

No, it's nothing, it's not important.

I was just remembering.

Papa promised me to take me to the opera. I'd been looking forward to it.

He came home and said he'd forgotten...

...and he had to go and play tarot with friends.

I started to cry and went upstairs to my room.

That's all.

Surely that's not all.

Close your eyes. What do you see?

- Running. - Yes?

I'm running through the streets.

I'd been forbidden to go outside alone at night.

- You were alone? - Yes.

No.

No, there was papa.

I was following papa.

I heard the front door slam.

If he'd been going where he'd said, he would've taken the carriage.

I was so afraid he'd see me I kept slipping into doorways.

Where did he go?

I knew I shouldn't follow him any farther...

...but then I did.

To Red Tower Street?

He held her by the arm and smiled into her face.

A shiny, painted creature!

Papa had preferred her company to mine!

I felt ill and dizzy and then I fainted.

I couldn't face it so I fainted!

The same thing had happened in Naples.

He lied to me!

While mother was lying in hospital.

...he was out making love to streetwalkers!

I hated him!

I hate him, I hate men!

You've found it!

You've found the memory!

Walk.

Why is she not cured?

Everything pointed to her experience in Red Tower Street.

...as the cause of her neurosis.

But it could only have reflected some earlier trauma.

Earlier?

Before adolescence?

Again the tormenting contradiction Breuer pointed out.

How can sexual instinct.

...become the object of repression before it is awakened?

How can in the innocence of childhood could.

...a sexual experience be traumatic?

Say he is the victim of an adult's aggression.

Unless it entailed pain or violence, it would mean nothing to the child.

...for the good and simple reason that he has no sexuality.

But the experience is not repressed at the time...

...only later, in adolescence...

...the memory arouses his sexual excitement...

...excitement which morality condemns.

It is only then that he feels shame and guilt...

...and...

...the memory becomes intolerable.

An elaborate structure, and what is it based on?

A half dozen cases?

There will be more.

Two at least.

Whose?

Cecily's for one.

Indeed?

Her father was the man she loved.

You only reflected his image.

Such a fixation must have sprung from an erotic incident.

Why did she fall ill again after you had cured her?

Because the memory of that incident never came to light.

And the second case?

Mine.

I can feel it moving inside me like a snake.

The memory of something I witnessed.

...between my father and my sister.

I reach down. I almost touch its coils...

...and then my courage fails.

...and it escapes into another dark corner.

Freud, I say beware.

Your own morbid imagination, that's the snake.

Your sexual theory has become an obsession.

To support it you'd drag your father's memory thought the mire.

In the name of whatever is holy to you, give it up!

In science, there is nothing holy but the truth.

Yes, in science, but we are physicians first.

Truth is a dangerous prescription.

...to be administered with the same caution as strychnine.

It's effects can be lethal.

Cecily is your patient now.

It is not my province to interfere with your methods...

...but I plead with you...

...do not make this girl the touchstone of your theory.

What are you doing?

Don't you dare paint your face!

Let her be!

- Papa! Papa! - My baby...

He carried me to his room and undressed me.

And he sang to comfort me.

Is that when he promised you the doll?

Yes.

No.

No, it was later, during the night when I woke up and cried.

- You slept in his bed? - Yes.

Why were you crying in the middle of the night?

I don't know.

Mama had been angry with me.

- Isn't that why? - Is it?

Well, yes. That's surely why.

You woke and cried. Why?

I'd been asleep.

You woke up. You cried. Why were you crying?

He'd locked the door.

Water was splashing in the bathroom.

Father came towards me in his red robe.

Tall, like a tower.

Strong as a god when he embraced me.

And he promised you a doll if you wouldn't tell?

Yes! Yes! Yes!

I can walk.

I can walk.

You made me walk.

My father was a criminal.

I'm sure he suffered for that he did.

I'm tired.

I'm so tired.

- Are you happy for me? - I am, yes.

I'll go to sleep now if you'll hold my hand.

I must go now.

Of course.

I forget you have other patients...

...more important than me.

Not more important. I have other patients.

Please, don't let me keep you.

I'll call this evening, if you like.

She walked. The aggression was remembered and she walked.

Yet something is wrong.

What about the doll?

It's the evidence of her father's crime. She should hate it...

...yet she loves and cherishes it.

Perhaps the answer lies still further back, as in my own case.

Mother.

When was I first on a train?

When we left Freiberg for Leipzig.

- Did anything happen on that trip? - Nothing in particular.

Nothing?

You were very young and a train whistle frightened you.

Yes.

We stopped overnight in a hotel in Breslau.

...to break the journey.

At dawn, we boarded again.

Every time the train whistle blew, you cried with terror.

You said it was an animal in pain. A big animal.

I must have heard that same whistle on the way to Breslau...

- And it didn't frighten me. - No.

You only cried on the second half of the journey.

Then it must've happened in the compartment.

What?

The trauma.

Whatever incident it was I connected.

with the whistle that frightened me so.

- But nothing happened. - You're sure?

You're sure you never left us alone the three of us.

...in the compartment?

Mitzi? Your sister wasn't born then.

- Wasn't born? - Not for another six months.

Of course.

But of course.

Yet there she is in my memory.

And not an infant, a little girl.

You were only 4 years old.

Memory plays queer tricks.

And always to a purpose.

When we were in Breslau in the hotel, where did I sleep?

In my bed.

To comfort you for your first day away from home.

And father?

He was in the next room.

Even so he heard your crying, got up and he came in.

Heard me crying...

...that night... in the hotel.

Yes.

- I gave you this to play with. - Yes, I remember.

And what was it you called me? My little...

- Arab. - Arab.

Because your hair was so black.

May I have that?

Yes.

For a few days.

I was just coming to your house. Where is Fraulein Koertner?

She's not at home?

She left a message that you'd know where to find her.

- How long has she been gone? - Over an hour. Shall I drive you?

No.

Where shall we go?

- Let's go to that hotel. - Why?

My was a client there. I know that place.

I've never made love. You'll have to teach me.

Come.

But you can have me for nothing.

You made me able to walk again. You deserve a reward.

I've got a nice smooth skin.

- Cecily, stop play acting! - Why did you come after me?

I came to take you home.

I belong with those women. My blood is bad.

I'm rotten to the core! I'm my mother's daughter.

I don't deserve the father I had.

The most loving father that ever lived.

And I, his daughter...

...accused him of such an unnatural, unspeakable act!

Only a born harlot could tell such a lie!

Cecily...

...look at me.

What you told me was a lie?

- Of course. - Why did you lie?

Because you wanted me too.

It pleased you. I could see it in your eyes.

He didn't touch me.

You must believe me.

You must!

- I'll kill myself! - Cecily!

Cecily!

Don't come near me!

You believe me?

I believe you.

Give me a reason.

- Give me one reason why I shouldn't. - For my sake.

I'm the guilty one.

It was my lie, not yours.

If you destroy yourself, that will be my doing too.

I gave you this to play with.

Yes, I remember.

What was it you called me? My little...

- Arab. - Arab.

Because your hair was so black.

Hold him back, you weakling!

Honour me, your father!

The little Arab.

Sought my mother with his body and called down my father's wrath.

What hidden memory escaped its prison in that dream?

It could only be of the night in Breslau.

when mother gave me this to quiet my sobs.

Why was I crying?

The answer is cast in this metal.

I lay in a big bed, watching my mother.

She was naked to the waist, I remember.

He took her away from me. She was going to lie down beside me.

I would have cuddled against her soft, warm body.

But he drew her into his room.

Souls burn in hell. The hell of hatred, of jealousy.

I wished him dead.

To justify that guilty wish, I conjured up the crime against my sister.

I was jealous of my father. I wanted my mother all to myself.

I wanted to be rid of him.

I'm the guilty now. I dishonoured my father.

I saw the light.

It's too late.

Sigi, what is it?

Dear, I want to leave Vienna.

Go anywhere. Be a doctor in a small town...

...anywhere away from here.

But why, Sigi?

My theory has offended everyone.

And no wonder. It's false...

And destructive. Cecily tried to kill herself tonight.

Breuer warned me.

But you didn't mean any harm. Why punish yourself?

I deserve to be punished.

I invented a theory to dishonour my father.

I desecrated his image in the fathers of my patients.

In the country...

we can be close again. I know.

I know you've hated the work I've been doing.

It's created a wall between us.

I can't deny that.

When you're in your office with a patient, a woman...

I try not to think what's happening.

The secrets you're hearing. The obscenities.

I hate them and her and you!

And I hate myself for failing you.

I'm not a good wife. I'm selfish and jealous.

So, it should mean all the more when I say you mustn't stop.

You mustn't stop, Sigi.

What are you doing?

Your diary, when you were a student.

Listen.

"Progress, like walking...

...is achieved by losing then regaining one's balance.

It's a series of mistakes".

- Do you remember? - Yes.

Do you remember the end?

"From error to error, one discovers the entire truth".

I used to say to myself.

...the false is often the truth standing on its head.

Reversal...

Yes.

Yes, she claimed that her father had seduced her.

False.

It wasn't he who desired his daughter, it was she who wanted him.

And it was not a memory that she had repressed.

No!

It was a fantasy.

Yes.

They'd shared the same bed.

The next morning she had her doll, her child by him.

Was she lying to me? No. To herself?

No.

The unconscious is pitch dark.

I told myself in my darkness.

...that father had torn my mother away from me...

...because I couldn't bear her deserting me for him.

Yes, yes, yes, yes!

It fits.

Cecily loved her father. I loved my mother.

She hated her mother. I hated my father.

The truth has emerged, upside down.

And it will walk on one premise alone.

There must be sexuality in childhood.

Even in infancy.

Tell it not in Gath, my love...

...and, above all, hide the good news from the Philistines.

Forgive me. I haven't cried in a long time.

She talked in her sleep last night...

...as she did when she was little.

She used to wake up screaming.

...and say she had dreamed that I was dead.

There was a time when I wished that she was dead.

When was that?

When I carried her in my womb.

Before I was married...

I was a dancer in a cheap cabaret.

One night after I'd done my turn...

I went back to my dressing room and there was a man sitting there.

A hansom swell...

with a flower in his buttonhole.

Six weeks later we were married.

We creatures, as everyone knows, long for respectability.

I wanted only to forget the past.

To be a good wife and mother.

I was pregnant before the honeymoon was over...

...but I waited to tell Joseph till our first night home.

I'll never forget the look of his face.

Without a word he arose and left the house.

He never touched me again.

He married me only to have a harlot in the house.

Well, doctor, who is the guilty one?

Must there be a guilty one?

- Not even he? - No.

His desire for prostitutes was a neurotic symptom.

But what caused it?

He's dead. We shall never know.

Do you remember, as a child, dreaming of your mother's death?

Why do you think you dreamt such dreams?

Was it to fulfil a wish you couldn't consciously admit?

So I was a monster even then?

Whatever stands between desire and fulfilment that the child wishes away.

Your mother stood between you and your lover.

My lover? I was 4 years old.

You loved your father. Your mother kept him from you.

- You wanted her out of the way. - She snatched me away from him.

Carried me off to my bed and left me alone so she could go back to him.

- Put her down! - Papa! Papa!

Papa! Papa!

She was keeping him from me.

I wished she was dead. I wanted to kill her.

Why?

Why do I hate her so now

...as if it had happened yesterday, not those years ago?

Time does not exist in the unconscious.

Shall I tell you your story?

Like every child, you needed your mother's caresses...

...the warmth of her body.

You were denied them.

So you turned to your father who did caress you.

You came to depend on those caresses.

You threw yourself into whatever role you thought would give him pleasure.

You played the dancer, you played the mistress of the house...

...you even played your father's wife.

Then your mother interfered.

You wished her dead.

Desire for your father, the death wish for your mother.

In time you learned this two-fold urge was forbidden.

It had to be repressed.

Thereafter, whatever happened to you...

whatever misfortunes, fanned its fires.

Cecily, no you are not guilty.

Or, if you're, your guilt is shared by every human being.

The innocent is born into a world.

...in which it cannot help but lose its innocence.

Every child is foredoomed to become a sinner.

I sinned too. I dreamed of killing my father.

- Then you were a monster too. - No, I was a child.

I accept everything you say to me...

...but you told me that knowing the cause of my illness would cure me...

...and I still wish I were dead.

And now I'm cured, you'll never see me again.

I will see you again because you're not cured.

My symptoms are gone.

Yes. All but one.

- Which? - Your love for me.

That isn't a symptom.

Why do you suppose you went to Red Tower Street last night?

To punish myself for a lie I told.

No.

You were pursuing your father. Pursuing him through me.

You were still seeking his caresses.

...by catering to his desire for prostitutes.

Pursuing him through you?

I'm only a reflection of his image.

But I love you for yourself!

Did you love Dr Breuer for himself?

I just thought I loved Dr Breuer.

I was wrong! And there's no connection.

Yes, there is. You told me so yourself.

Describe the tower again.

It was...

...round and red... Tall.

And there was a coat of arms over the door.

Yes. A staff with a snake.

- Isn't that the doctors' emblem? - There was also an inscription.

Can you remember it now? Try.

"Royal Ministry of Communications".

Communications...

Communicating...

Tell you my secrets.

- Am I right? - Yes.

This makes your dream an allegory.

Through love, it says...

...you'll be able to reveal your secrets to the doctor whose emblem is above.

When they're told and understood, you'll be cured.

Then you...

...accept this love?

As a sacred trust...

...until it disappears to make room for another love.

A love of your own choice.

Our work is only beginning. It will take time to put your past in order.

There'll be relapses...

...but the day will come when you will face life on its terms.

Believe me.

I do.

I shall expect you in my office, tomorrow, 6:00 PM.

Would you please tell Mama...

I'd like to see her?

I marvel at the ease.

with which you suit things to your own convenience.

Yesterday you condemned parents. Today, the children are guilty.

There is no guilt in sexuality at its source.

Only after the river has passed through cities.

I disapprove of your new theory. It repels me.

Do you think I'm going to risk my reputation.

...simply to have my name on another book?

We could sign our contributions separately, if you like.

No! I will not be connected with it in any way!

Well, then, let's leave the chapter out.

- Thank heaven. - In that case...

I shall read it as a paper at the next Medical Congress.

And end your career in one night.

Freud.

Sigmund.

Your father asked me to look after you.

Take his place in your life.

You've accepted me. I've loved you as a son.

Yes, and I've loved you.

As your spiritual father, I forbid you to read this paper.

The time comes when one must give up all one's fathers.

...and stand alone.

Gentlemen!

"The age of innocence" it is called.

...because the child is not supposed to have any sexual awareness.

This mistaken belief.

...reflects society's own feelings of fear and guilt.

In fancy, he is a veracious young animal intent on filling his stomach.

Warm milk flows into his mouth. It gives him pleasure.

Pleasure he seeks to extend even when his hunger is satisfied.

So, he sucks on a false nipple or his thumb.

The gratification sensitizes the region of his mouth and lips.

...so that it becomes an erogenous zone.

Which, in adult life...

...finds pleasure in the kiss.

The infant is bathed. He is fondled and caressed by the mother.

His whole body responds to her loving care.

His desire for her breast extends to a desire for the mother herself.

Inevitably, she becomes the first love object of the child.

The, he discovers that she is not alone.

He has a rival: His father.

So, before he can understand or contend with it...

...he is consumed with jealousy.

Trapped in a conflict between love and hate.

There is little new in this. The ancient Greeks.

...revealed their knowledge of these truths in the story of Oedipus...

who, all unknowing, killed his father and took his mother to wife.

And...

Thereafter was condemned to wander through life, blind and homeless.

The shadow of this doom lies over us all.

Gentlemen! We are not in a political meeting.

Dr Freud must be allowed to speak!

It is in the Oedipus Complex:

The child's fixation on the parent of the opposite sex

...that infantile eroticism reaches its climax.

Each...

Each human being is confronted with the task.

...of overcoming this complex within himself.

If he succeeds, he will be a whole individual.

If he fails, he will become a neurotic...

...and himself wander forever, blind and homeless.

Sit down!

Gentlemen, I am deeply grateful for your kind attention.

You have not ceased to display the detachment...

...the love of truth for truth's sake that ennobles our profession.

Gentlemen, have you any questions?

Just one question.

And I shall not ask it of the speaker.

You are aware of the esteem in which we all hold you.

Do you share your collaborator's views?

Sir, my collaborator is an eminent man.

He is a zealous worker...

...and there are many here who would do well to have.

...his scruples and professional conscience.

How dare you?

And how dare you ask me for references regarding Dr Freud?

Who in this hall can say: "I am worth more than that man"?

No one is dreaming of that, Dr Breuer.

I would simply like to know whether you share the speaker's views.

To be specific, what do you think of infantile sexuality?

I do not believe in it.

I have never believed in it. I can never accept it.

Never accept it, never!

Gentlemen, the meeting is adjourned!

"Know thyself'.

2,000 years ago these words were carved on the temple at Delphi.

"Know thyself'.

They're the beginning of wisdom.

In them lies the single hope of victory.

...over man's oldest enemy: His vanity.

This knowledge is now within our grasp.

Will we use it?

Let us hope.