FREUD

"Freud" is John Huston's amazingly level-headed, clear-eyed biopic, not so much of Freud himself, but of psychoanalysis and it grips you like a good thriller should. The problem is it's so level-headed at times it feels almost simplistic; it's like a horror story that could just as easily have been called 'Demons of the Mind', and while it's superbly shot in widescreen black and white by Douglas Slocombe the images are almost oppressive. (Jerry Goldsmith's score doesn't help; it's like a prequel to his work on "The Omen"). However, the script by Wolfgang Reinhardt and Charles Kaufman is very fine; complex ideas are presented coolly and intelligently and if the dreams seem to be interpreted a little too matter-of-factly then that is probably down to what we already know; we have already assembled the jigsaw puzzle in our heads. Such 'big' revelations as we blame our parents for our sexual hang-ups hardly feel new. It is also very well acted. Montgomery Clift is a superb Freud; this was the last really good thing he did and there's very good work from Susannah York as one of his patients, the girl who desired her father and wished her mother dead and who comes out with the classic Freudian slip of saying 'prostitute' rather than 'Protestant'. So despite its faults it remains something of a key work in the Huston canon, sitting very comfortably along side such 'literary' works as "Reflections in a Golden Eye", "Moby Dick", Wise Blood" and "The Dead". At the time of its initial release it was treated very shabbily by the critical establishment; its recent release on dvd should go some way to making amends.