This isn't anything beyond what you'd imagine it to be.
On the positive side, it's well constructed, Clift does a fine job as the notorious Austrian psychoanalyst and even 'looks' closer to him than previously expected.
Susannah York does an excellent job as "the patient" in this one. It really was a very challenging role by all accounts, and she helps make this as believable and 'relatable' and realistic as this film deserved.
But then, there's the fact this film lasts a whole two hours and twenty minutes, and given the point of the film once it's finished one could probably see about half an hour removed from it as a reasonable option. There wasn't any need for all that footage, and the essential dialog and scenes had easily enough to exist within a frame of about 1hr50.
The film doesn't for instance exploit the darker aspect of the man and settles for a regular early 60's mainstream rendition. In that sense, the film doesn't look or feel like an 'intellectual film', but perhaps could've introduced more of the imagery and visual symbols etc...
So on no level are we really dealing with something special. It's a good Freud bio film, but it is too long, and too linear.
6.5/10
On the positive side, it's well constructed, Clift does a fine job as the notorious Austrian psychoanalyst and even 'looks' closer to him than previously expected.
Susannah York does an excellent job as "the patient" in this one. It really was a very challenging role by all accounts, and she helps make this as believable and 'relatable' and realistic as this film deserved.
But then, there's the fact this film lasts a whole two hours and twenty minutes, and given the point of the film once it's finished one could probably see about half an hour removed from it as a reasonable option. There wasn't any need for all that footage, and the essential dialog and scenes had easily enough to exist within a frame of about 1hr50.
The film doesn't for instance exploit the darker aspect of the man and settles for a regular early 60's mainstream rendition. In that sense, the film doesn't look or feel like an 'intellectual film', but perhaps could've introduced more of the imagery and visual symbols etc...
So on no level are we really dealing with something special. It's a good Freud bio film, but it is too long, and too linear.
6.5/10