Mildred Pierce and Psychology
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A psychologist might well argue that all films are really about psychology because all films are about some aspect of human nature and human relationships - and these are the purview of psychology. Even a film that did not contain any humans (such as a nature documentary or Andy Warhol's hour-long shots of buildings) says something about human nature because it reveals something of the preoccupations of the filmmaker and those who watch the film. But some films are more overtly about psychological issues than are others. The 1945 film Mildred Pierce (a must for anyone who wants to make claims about being a classic film buff) is an especially intriguing blend of the cinematic and the psychological, for not only are the characters in the film replete with more than the average share of psychological twists (and psychopathological tendencies), but the film as a whole may be seen as an examination of the psychology of the entire city of Los Angeles.The film, which is based on the book of the same name by James Cain, is in large measure a story about how the psychology of the individual is affected by place. We might like to think that we are each possessed of an essential personality: We are who we are, and we would be this person whether we stood on the banks of the Seine or the Nile or the Mississippi. To some extent this is true: If you have been raised in Louisiana and, at the age of 75, take a two-week trip to see the pyramids because this fulfills a lifelong ambition, you
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ve. One of the reasons that this movie is so successful is that it refuses to be sentimental about such dreams, instead asking us to confront the psychological reality of such dreams. Even when we seek to make over our lives into some brave new existence, we tend to think small. Our dreams tend to be defined by the stereotypes that we read about in pulp fiction or see in the movies. The man who during his middle-aged crisis runs off with his secretary has moved far beyond Jungian archetype into the realm of clichT. The woman who is betrayed by a man and who picks herself up only to be betrayed again (for Pierce's second husband is as much a disappointment to her as is her daughter) is also a clichT. That ungrateful daughter as a stock figure was old when Shakespeare wrote King Lear.
The movie addresses a number of important psychological questions about growing older. At some point in each of our lives, we come to a fundamental understanding of our mortality. Of course, even young children know that they will die, but they do so in an essentially abstract way. As we grow older, we come to understand in increasingly visceral ways that we are mortal and we seek to make the time that is remaining to us more meaningful, more pleasura
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1215
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)
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