In 1924, Hollywood producer and mogul Samuel Goldwyn offered Sigmund Freud $100,000 (about $1.7 million today) to work on a project about a great love that transcended an era. Freud refused.

The eminent Austrian psychologist and psychiatrist also turned down a director who was looking for psychoanalysts to help him make a silent film.

The reason the psychoanalyst did not want to work on the big screen was because he felt that filmmaking and therapy could not be combined and that the end result would be too glossy.

Of course, those who worked in the entertainment industry had never heard of the father of psychoanalysis, who was ignored even by his students, many of whom immigrated to America in later years to escape Hitler.

So, despite the “no” of the psychoanalyst, Freud’s ideas penetrated the thinking of screenwriters, directors and critics, and fictional and real therapists appeared on the big screen. From Shrinking to The Patient and Couples Therapy to Stutz, bringing psychoanalysis to TV and film has been a strong point for producers.

In the 1950s, when Hollywood stars suffered a mental breakdown, they took refuge in a “secret” clinic owned by Dr. Jones. Carl Meninger. It was in this clinic that the actor Robert Walker breathed his last because of a large dose of sedative given to him by his assistant, Dr. Walker. Meniger.

Also, when Vivien Leigh passed out on the set of The Elephant Walk, two psychoanalysts were brought in to give her advice.

The rise of Freudian psychiatrists was not only driven by insecurities. According to author Stephen Farber, who interviewed several psychiatric psychoanalysts for his book Hollywood on the Couch (1993): became part of Los Angeles. Angeles Community.

After all, most Hollywood stars were interested in various innovations, the main thing is that they can be made out of the public eye.

Thus, psychoanalysts who apply Freud’s theory, in fact, have gone the way that nutritionists, psychics, tennis instructors, etc. used to go.

Career in Hollywood as…a student of Freud

Freud’s most influential student to make a career in Hollywood was May Rom, an aspiring Russian who spent her childhood with the artist Marc Chagall.

When she herself arrived in California in 1938, she began to delve into the childhood traumas of all Hollywood stars.

Depressed and drug addicted David O. Selznick, unable to cope with the success of his film Gone with the Wind, sought solace in her clinic.

So, despite the fact that psychoanalysts became the best friends of Hollywood stars, it was not until 1961 that Freud’s life appeared on the big screen.

John Huston, a game-loving, cigar-chewing director, dreamed of making a film about a psychoanalyst for many years. He even wanted Marilyn Monroe to play the patient.

However, Freud’s daughter, Anna, pressured Marilyn Monroe to withdraw from the film, so she announced shortly after that that she did not wish to play the role.

A film titled Freud: The Secret Passion was finally released a year later, with Montgomery Clift taking on the role of Freud.

However, the on-screen and off-screen psychoanalysis did not last long, as over time the actors began to take medication or use more direct forms of therapy instead of sitting on the “confessional couch”. In addition, most modern films do not explore the stories of their characters, but prefer action, as a result of which the Freudian analysis has lost its “brilliance”.

Source: The Economist, The Times.