Extension Course: Psychoanalytic Themes in Six Classic Hollywood Films IV

Instructor

Thomas Wolman, M.D.

January 22 – March 4, 2024
Mondays, 7:00 – 8:15 p.m.

No class: 2/19

Pay Fee – $200

No CME or CE credits offered.

Course Description

Continuing our exploration of psychoanalytic themes in Hollywood movies, we turn our attention to the Western genre. We begin with three paradigmatic examples: My Darling Clementine (1946), Red River (1948) and The Searchers (1956). In part two of the course, we consider Westerns that many consider “revisionist”: High Noon (1952), Shane (1953) and lastly, Johnny Guitar (1954). In the classic examples, we follow the twists and turns of the western myth, for as a character in “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” says: “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend”. We entertain the idea that a myth is not simply a wish fulfilling narrative, but rather, the exposition of a problematic/conundrum. What it does not provide is an explanation or solution to the problem. Of course, these films also offer ample material for psychological consideration. The three revisionist examples, to the extent that they reject or devalue the myth, have been called “anti-westerns”. Preserving the trappings of the Western, the, by contrast, pursue different agendas. High Noon (1952), for example, can be read as an ethical parable. In Shane, the Western – for all its pretensions – has been internalized as a young boy’s fantasy. And in Johnny Guitar, (1954) the male protagonists are reduced to onlookers in a battle between two powerful women.

It is expected that registrants watch each of these films on their own time prior to the class discussion.

Questions for class discussion:

a. What are the unconscious subtexts of these films.

b. What level of awareness do the characters sustain of their personal conflicts?

Thomas Wolman, M.D. was born and raised in in New York City. He moved back here recently after having lived in Philadelphia for 45 years. He attended Johns Hopkins University and the Pennsylvania State University Medical College. Subsequently he trained at the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia, where he taught in both the psychoanalytic and psychotherapy training programs. He has taught at Jefferson Medical College, the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and most recently, the psychiatry residency at Temple University School of Medicine. He has written on Winnicott, Mahler, Kohut and Lacan, as well as on contemporary film and literary themes. He is married with two adult children and three grandchildren.