New Center of Psychoanalysis
This event addresses: Racism
Join NCP’s Film and Mind series online! A once a month psychoanalytical discussion on a topical Film!
This month we analyze C’mon, C’mon (2021, 108 minutes) which is an emotionally rich film from writer-director Mike Mills starring Joaquin Phoenix and Woody Norman. One of the salient and most interesting aspects of C’Mon, C’Mon for psychoanalysts is that the film, which derives most of its power from its portrayal of intimacy developing between the characters, and particularly a man and a boy, is that the narrative setup insulates the characters from sex and sexual temptation. Mills carefully and subtly delineates the incest barriers and builds relationships on the repressive force of (sexual) Latency. The 9 year old child at the center of the film uses “Adult” language as an adult might, but is subjectively unpulled by the adult magnetic power of “sex”.
As a result of attending this session, participants should be able to:
Explain emotional honesty and discuss your opinion how early should it be offered to children.
Using the film as a springboard, discuss forms of ego strengthening that can be offered to children who seem to be fated (by genetic predisposition) to develop Bipolar I disorder
Analyzing this film as its own form of dream-like creation (mise-en-scene), describe how this non-narrative, non-verbal function is used by writer-director Mills to demonstrate the adaptative capacity of human youth in the face of ceaseless media-spread klaxon alarms
Describe Latency as described by Freud in The Three Essays on Sexuality (1905) and explain what those observations offer to the understanding of C’Mon, C’Mon.
