The presence of therapists in Allen's movies is not surprising. Allen first began therapy in 1959 when he was 24; by the 1990s, he had been in extended psychoanalysis for intermittently periods with five different analysts.43 Still, beyond acknowledging that he is a long-term psychotherapy client, Allen's biographers have said little about the specific content of his analysis or the role it has played in his life since, beyond the occasional jokes and generalizations, Allen has rarely talked about his own analysis.
Despite this contrast between the public and private Woody Allen, many people assume there is little difference between the two. To his fans, he seems so familiar that we feel comfortable referring to him as “Woody.” Few people imagined that Hitchcock's personal life was like something out of his thrillers, yet many people believe that Allen's Manhattan existence parallels the lives portrayed in Annie Hall, Manhattan, and Husbands & Wives. And while Hitchcock's leading men (Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda) bear no physical or personality resemblance to him, Woody often plays the interchangeable protagonists in his films. Even if this sameness is due to his limited acting range, it emphasizes a singular personality. Occasionally in Allen directed films such as Celebrity, the male protagonist (Kenneth Brannagh) appears to be doing a Woody Allen impersonation. For all these reasons, most fans assume that the Woody character is much like Allen himself.
Because audience felt they “knew” Allen, the disastrous ending of his relationship with Mia Farrow disturbed many people. When the scandal broke, I was a few years into my clinical training in psychology, and it was a topic of heated conversation. Since Allen was associated with psychology, and many of my peers were fans, the whole affair seemed vaguely embarrassing. Among the people I knew there was an attitude that with all those years of analysis, Allen should have learned it was not a good idea to become involved with your significant other's adopted daughter. Before the affair, the psychotherapy presented in Woody Allen movies could be dismissed as gentle satire. But after the fact, there was an overwhelming impression that psychotherapy was a means for bored intellectuals to indulge themselves.44
Perhaps it would be prudent for psychology to simply bury its association with Allen. Yet psychologists and psychiatrists continue to analyze Allen's films for their portrayals of psychotherapy and human relationships in general. Some commentators see them as modeling the essential psychodynamic tenet that self-understanding is an ongoing process of making connections between past, present and future.45 Personally, I still find Annie Hall to be both hilarious and insightful. For better and worse, psychology has served a role in Allen's life while his films have influenced how psychology is understood by psychologists and nonpsychologists alike. And while one may be tempted to separate the art and the artist, in Allen's case it really isn't possible.
Closing Shots: Evaluating Psychobiography
Asking penetrating questions about the psychological origins of an artist's work doesn't necessarily mean that the answers will be profound—often, such questions open the door to cheap and easy psychoanalysis (“Filmmaker X has castration anxiety”) or tabloid level muckraking (“Filmmaker Y's mother was a prostitute”). Serious psychobiographers need to develop definite criteria to separate lurid speculation from psychobiography.
A good psychobiography should demonstrate coherence and consistence.46 All the “facts” of a person's life should fit whatever overarching psychological claim is being made. Facts that run counter to the developing theory mustn't be ignored but rather integrated into a revised theory. In addition, interpretations should not be based on a single instance but confirmed by multiple observations.47 Thus, if a filmmaker writes an emotional letter to his mother, this is not in itself evidence of major dependency issues.
Common mistakes in psychobiography include reconstruction in which one speculates about unknown events in order to support an interpretation. Spoto's unsubstantiated conjecture that Hitchcock had a death wish for his stern father would fall into this category.48 Even Freud made serious errors of omission and forced interpretation in his analysis of Leonardo Da Vinci, errors that say more about Freud's psyche than about his subject.49
Another danger in psychobiography is pathography—conceptualizing a person's whole life in terms of a pathology or illness.50 This type of criticism has been directed at entire theories. Freud began by observing his impaired clients and then built a general theory of the mind to explain their impairments. The examples I have presented (Hitchcock's conflicted relationships with women or Nicholson's family secrets) are also guilty of focusing on pathology. This orientation can lead to a one-sided view of people. The bonds of friendship that appear on screen in Harry Potter are an alternative example consistent with positive psychology, a movement toward a more optimistic and constructive orientation for the field.51
In the psychobiography of artists, it is difficult to avoid psychopathology however. Shakespeare uses the phrase “strong imagination” in A Midsummer Night's Dream, to capture the mental activity shared by both the poet and madmen.52 Certainly there is anecdotal and demographic evidence that genius and mental illness may be linked. Consider the artists/musicians/writers who experienced periods of psychosis: Kandinsky, Van Gogh, Schumann, Poe, Pound, Woolf, Plath, Hemingway, and Blake.53 Other lists could be generated for disorders such as depression, anxiety, and mania. The proportion of eminent people, particularly artists and poets, who have experienced significant psychopathology, is much greater than the general population.54 The relationship between creativity and mental illness is even more pronounced, given how imaginative creations can take on the qualities of dreams and altered states of consciousness. An ideal psychobiography addresses the unhealthy aspects of artists’ lives without reducing them to mere clinical diagnosis.
Movies offer filmmakers different types of psychological outlets. Some are autobiographical in how they depict events which are recreations of the filmmaker's past. This may be done for the sake of nostalgia or perhaps as an opportunity to work through the past. Both tendencies can be seen in the films of Woody Allen.
For some filmmakers, their work becomes a stand-in for their fantasies about alternative lives. People create art in order to expand their range of experience, to pretend to be in a different time and place. As a creative medium, movies are particularly good at allowing artists to explore magical worlds (Harry Potter), exotic locales (Vertigo), or historic events (1900).
Filmmakers also tend to make movies about the things they desire. Freud compared creative storytelling to children playing make-believe or adults daydreaming. He contended that all these individuals are indulging in wish fulfillment.55 While reality may prevent people from acquiring unlimited love, wealth and power, these limitations can be overcome in stories. On the other hand, films also contain images of despair, violence, and horror, experiences that most people would not wish upon themselves. In some cases, making a movie is a way for filmmakers to face their fears, psychologically preparing for the worst. The frequent violent confrontations in Scorsese's films are one example; Roman Polanski's are another.
In most cases, the psychological experience of a filmmaker cannot be categorized as purely autobiographical or pure wish fulfillment. Movies represent a range of experiences that can get mixed up together in a single film. While Vertigo allowed Hitchcock to vicariously fetishize Madeleine, it also reflects his guilt in requiring that Scotty pay for his weakness. Such multidimensionality can be seen in the audience for movies as well.
Further Reading
Farber, S. and Green, M. (1993) Hollywood on the Couch: A Candid Look at the Overheated Love Affair between Psychiatrists and Moviemakers. William Morrow, New York, NY.
Lax, E. (2000) Woody Allen: A Biography. Da Capo Press, Cambridge, MA.
LoBrutto, V. (2008) Martin Scorsese: A Biography. Praeger, Westport, CT.
McGilligan, P. (1994) Jack's Life: A Biography of Jack Nicholson. W.W. Norton, New York, NY.
Schultz, W.T. (2005) Handbook of Psychobiogra
phy. Oxford University Press, New York, NY.
Spoto, D. (1983) The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock. Little, Brown, Boston, MA.
Chapter 5
Picturing the Audience—Psychological Profiles of Moviegoers
A few weeks after it was released, I saw Black Swan on a big screen with a state-of-the-art projection and sound system in a theater in Louisville, Kentucky. For years the cinema had been the only art theater in town, but when a nearby multiplex closed, it altered its format to capitalize on a larger audience. While it still showed independent films, it mixed these smaller movies with wide-release titles. Black Swan was the perfect film for such a venue. Directed by wunderkind Darren Aronofsky, it had artistic credibility, on the way to becoming a box office smash.
I went to an early evening show on an impulse, after doing some errands. I chose Black Swan because it had been well-publicized, the ads looked intriguing, and it had gotten some good reviews. It was not a film my wife would want to see; she's not a fan of violent psycho-horror-dramas, even ones set in the world of ballet.
I got my trough of popcorn and bucket of cherry coke and took a seat in the middle aisle, toward the back. The place was soon packed, and I watched people as they came in. The majority were somewhere between college age and thirty-something. Gender was mixed, perhaps skewing a little toward the female. Most of the audience appeared to be upper middle-class; their dress was nondescript Midwestern casual, with a smattering of hip urban styles. The audience was primarily white with a number of Hispanics, Asians and African-Americans. Most were in groups of two to four, either on dates or out with friends, with younger people sitting in larger packs.
A group of giggling high school girls sat in the front (apparently the R rating was not a prohibition). A well-dressed couple in their twenties sat directly in front of me; judging by the man's comments before the movie started, Black Swan was not his choice. A college-age woman and her mother sat next to them; even in the darkened theater, they communicated palpable tension, particularly during the lesbian love scene. A few seats ahead of me, I saw an older man and woman leave soon into the movie, when vulnerable ballerina Nina's (Natalie Portman) self-mutilating hallucinations were just beginning. Down in front, I heard a woman repeatedly threaten to take her pre-school child home if he wouldn't keep quiet (a promise she didn't make good on until about three-fourths through the movie).
A few days later, I got into a discussion of the film with a group of undergraduate students who had all seen Black Swan. Their orientations to the film differed widely. One young man, a movie buff who had taken every film course the college offered, had been looking forward to the film ever since the concept was leaked to the media. Two women next to him recalled Natalie Portman from the Star Wars prequels and chose Black Swan because “there was nothing else on.” They agreed that they never would have gone to the movie if they'd known about its grotesque and sexual content (and vowed never to see another Natalie Portman movie). A third woman strongly disagreed; she hadn't known much about the movie and admitted that she “usually doesn't go for scary movies,” but qualified her preferences, stating that she likes movies that differ from the “same old thing.”
This chapter shifts the focus to viewers of films. The above example presents a snapshot of the audience for a particular movie and highlights the big picture questions about moviegoing behavior: When and where do people watch movies? What kind of movies do people go to see? And what kinds of people go to see which kinds of movies?
Such questions are variants of a phenomenon psychologists call “selective exposure.”1 People have to make choices about which environments and events they are willing to expose themselves to—a library, a city street, an office, a movie theater, and so on. They make these choices based on the degree and type of stimulation that will reward them. In the case of entertainment, the movies we expose ourselves to vary from person to person, yet patterns emerge that reflect historical, cultural and personality trends.
Movie Audiences through the Years
For over a century, movies have been a pervasive cultural presence, but the cinematic universe continues to expand. In recent years, people have become used to watching movies on planes, in cars, at the doctor's office, and so on. Thanks to digital devices like BlackBerries and iPhones, movies have become even more portable and ubiquitous. With cyber-cinema options like Netflix Online sprouting at a rapid rate, it feels as though all movies are available all the time. The only thing the audience has to do is plug in.
Yet, no matter how flexible viewing options become, people will always enjoy watching movies at a certain time in a certain place. There is a historical and physical quality to movie watching, even if it feels as though images are simply being radiated into us.
The context of movie viewing can be important to how a movie is experienced. You may watch Avatar on an iPhone and follow the plot, but you won't experience its multidimensional magnificence. You could view The Social Network in an empty second-run theater in Kalamazoo, but it won't be the same as seeing it at a packed showing in Harvard Square. Gone with the Wind can be checked out on a decaying VHS tape from the local library, but it can't compare with seeing a celluloid print debuted in a grand movie palace.
The history of film exhibition demonstrates how new technological and financial innovations have altered the viewer's experience.2 By the turn of the twentieth century, moving pictures were a popular form of entertainment. Like travelling theater productions or concert tours, movie exhibitors would transport their equipment from town to town, and at the invitation of local organizations, set up a screen in an opera house, church, or other public space. Initially, films focused on short, exciting spectacles (an approaching locomotive) presented to amazed audiences. By the 1910s, small nickelodeons sprang up in cities and towns. The content of motion pictures moved toward the story-based, star-driven films that defines mainstream filmgoing. Grander, more technically sophisticated films like D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation and Intolerance required opulent palaces that could seat thousands of people. Such cinemas started out in major urban areas, but by the 1920s, movie theaters were found all across the country.
With the emergence of “talkies” in the late 1920s up to the early 1960s, movies were the dominant form of American entertainment. It was known as the Golden Age of Hollywood. Many elements define this period, including a set of stylistic conventions and a mode of production dominated by the major studios. Movies and movie stars saturated popular culture. During this time, a quarter of Americans’ recreational budget was spent on movie admissions. Attendance peaked in 1946–48 when the weekly average audience was 90 million (in a population of approximately 140 million).3 Not quite everyone went, and some people claimed they didn't like them, but no one was unaware of the movies.
The Golden Age began to fade with the development of television. By 1960, almost all American households had a TV,4 and people preferred to spend more time in front of the tube than the silver screen. TV did not eliminate the audience for film, but it put a hefty dent in it. By 1975 only 4% of recreation expenditure went to movie admissions and theater attendance was down to 20 million.5 A 1977 Gallup poll indicated that 30% of respondents preferred to spend an evening watching television, compared with 6% for movies.6
Television and film were not always in direct competition; Hollywood soon co-opted TV as an alternate means of exhibiting movies. Local stations broadcast older movies during non-network times (during the day and late at night), and the networks advertised “first-time on television” primetime broadcasts of newer box office hits. The availability of uncut movies on cable further changed the landscape, and television continues to be an important medium for seeing movies.
But television was only the first in a series of visual technologies that have challenged movie theaters as the apotheosis of popular culture. Other technological and exhibition trends have significantly expanded the possibilities for film viewing. In the mid-60s, drive-ins
accounted for nearly a quarter of all film revenues. As a relative bargain, they attracted teenagers and low- to mid-income families. Drive-ins also encouraged Hollywood to produce a greater range of B-movie genres—family comedies, beach movies, cheap horror films, science fiction, and so on. The social atmosphere for watching a movie was altered now that people could have close contact with a small group of intimates (family, friends, dates, etc.) while at the same time isolate themselves from other moviegoers. Audiences experienced drive-in theaters as more comfortable, private and fun.7 It was these qualities that, according to the Saturday Evening Post, allowed drive-ins to simultaneously serve as “passion pits” to entice teenagers, and havens for families where parents could be entertained without having to pay a babysitter.8
Videotape brought movies into the home in a way that gave audiences more control than viewing on broadcast TV. Tapes (and later DVD and Blu-Ray) allowed choice in viewing options. As a result, viewing patterns associated with watching recorded video differed from watching TV. One study indicated that when people watched a video, they made more preparations, engaged in fewer household activities (doing chores, conversing, etc.), and were more attentive and engaged.9 Choosing to watch a movie on video is seen as an event that deserves its own space and attention.
Psychology at the Movies Page 10
