Thinking as a partner

Not properly an exchange.

The child waiting to be questioned by Police. Screenshot from ‘Changeling’ (2008), directed by Clint Eastwood.

Not for all the actors that special test-bench which is a transition to the direction makes it a success : it is, however, for Clint Eastwood who doesn’t deny his many experiences in the western and action genre.

I’d like to briefly comment “Changeling”[1], a word which doesn’t exist into the Italian language, but it is clear in its original English language : a disappearance with stealth replacement, and also that mental procedure by which someone deceives, or let himself be deceived. And the quiet title does not deceive on the real event which reports and refers – beyond the chilling news – how any deceit and the deceiving itself can hurt, often cruelly, by taking possession of someone else’s life, as if it were just an ‘object’ to collect and to get rid of when is too much.

The deceive is so described by Clint Eastwood as an obvious arbitrariness which the social position allows : whether it is a representative of the institutions or a socially integrated homicidal maniac, or even a desperate woman when they introduce to her a child who is not her missing son.

The director doesn’t take away anything to what the onlookers can have access in order to weigh up, to participate, to judge at last; he does display, without inventing the orders of facts, only using the logic of each character. The presence of a non governmental[2] institution is proving essential to intervene where the bureaucracies corrupt a State, although democratic and Justice hands over, due to men who represent it too : and irreplaceable proves the defense of a lawyer who decides to help Christine Collins releasing her from the psychiatric hospital to where she was committed against her will.

How she could recognize Walter if he was not him ? He was dressed ‘such as’ him, but he was not him…

But if he was ‘such as’ him, why do you say that he was ‘not’ him ?

Swindled, first of all has been Walter Collins, disappeared at the age of nine years on a day like many others but of whom still remain proof in the homicides ranch. And swindled too has been the child introduced to Christine by the Police and doing everything in order to be accepted by her and to get off the road, but she is overwhelmed by her own pain, she only wants ‘her’ son back, or alternatively an admission of error : maybe by governmental representatives ? Or by the maniac himself who, from the prison sends for her just before his own execution ?

Negatively charged is the pain itself because it cannot help any solution, quickening indeed with damages and sweeping away any logic which only could allow at least a slightly favourable result.

Still decisive is finally a child, the first one kidnapped by the maniac and become himself a murderer : while he is waiting to be questioned by the Police and sit in the corridor, he relives the crossroads of his collapse, the madness very very close. By a mental path, absolutely unforeseen but reasonable the same, he asks to speak with the officer[3] who arrested him, and collaborates up to the recognition of the victims and to the terrifiant prooves : his confession can untie just a few of his persecuting memories, but anticipating a possible rehabilitation too.

It’s about an ‘innocence’, by no means taken for granted.

                                            Marina Bilotta Membretti / Cernusco sul Naviglio - January 25, 2021

[1] Inspired by a child kidnapping and murder by a maniac in Los Angeles in 1928, ‘Changeling’ plot and sets are by J. Michael Straczyinski.

[2] Here is the local Presbyterian community and specifically reverend Gustav Briegleb who for years has been fighting against Police corruption.

[3] It is about a private detective for minors – played by John Malkovich – who collaborates with Police and who is entrusted with a report.

Original painting by Stefano Frassetto[2].

“…In the afternoon (Monday, March 30) father and son came to me me during visiting hours… The father begun saying that notwithstanding all the explanations, the fear for horses didn’t diminish…

But, while I was listening to Hans telling about his phobia for horses, I was watching at both of them sit in front of me, and a new piece of the solution has been flashing in my mind…

Jokingly I asked Hans if maybe his horses were having glasses, but he negatively answered, then I asked if his father was having glasses, and again he answered negatively and then if, against any evidence, by black around the mouth he meant the mustache : then I could reveal to him that he feared his Dad because Hans loved so much Mom…

Maybe he believed that the matter made Dad angry but that was not true, because his Dad loved Hans and he could tell everything to Dad…

‘Why on earth do you think I’m angry with you ? – at that point the father interrupted me – ‘Did I scold, or hit you ?’

‘Oh, yes, you hit me’, Hans corrected.

‘That’s not true. And when ?’

‘This morning’, warned the child and his father remembered that Hans had hit him surprisingly with the head in the stomach, and he as a consequence had given Hans a blow with the hand. It was interesting that he didn’t remember the detail as linked with the neurosis. However now he meant that as a hostile frame of the child towards him, maybe also as a demonstration of the need for punishment…

After that consultation, I received almost daily reports on changes of conditions of the young patient… As you could see, now a possibility opened to reveal his own unconscious productions, and his phobia took its course…”[3]

                                                     Marina Bilotta Membretti / Cernusco sul Naviglio – October 27, 2020

[1] “Ereditare da un bambino. Perché no?”, Marina Bilotta Membretti (2014) Gruppo Editoriale L’Espresso SpA (oggi GEDI Gruppo Editoriale SpA) Isbn 978 88 91081 63 6 – short essay on individual competence in the cure of thinking.

[2] Stefano Frassetto is born in Turin in 1968. After his degree in Architecture at ‘Politecnico’ he begun as graphic novelist for local magazines. In the ‘90s he edited in France too, on ‘Le Réverbère’ and on ‘Libération’ : then he created ‘Ippo’ for ‘Il Giornalino’ and then the stripe ‘35MQ’ for the swiss magazine ‘20 Minuti’. In 2000 he came into ‘La Stampa’ as portraitist for cultural page and the insert ‘Tuttolibri’, then for the weekly ‘Origami’. Today he works also for the swiss magazine ‘Le Temps’.

[3] “Il piccolo Hans”, Sigmund Freud (1908) – Feltrinelli Editore Univ. Economica (2010) pp. 155-156 : when his parents turn to Freud, Hans is less than five.

Power to naivety ?

Screenshot from “Parasite” (2019) : subject, direction, dramatization and co-production by Bong Joon-ho.

You maybe wonder that a small Country – South Korea – successfully emerging among Eastern Nations could produce a film – even multi-award winning at Cannes 2019[1] - revealing that the secret of the Power is the naivety : and, more over, you wonder as the film has been thought, shot and presented less than a year before of the present Covid19 pandemic, begun by an unknown virus which however belongs to the already known viral stock of ‘Coronavirus’.

It’s quite funny, because the film exposes a nice reasoning, not so far from truth, about the capacity of naive people to grasp the Power and so widely spread the real face of naivety, not at all soft or indolent if not for their basic laziness.

The awarded director Bong Joon-ho competence has been to point out the habit of the Power, which is not to belong to one class, or caste, but to be - without any ‘viral’, or biological, cause – seductive enough to grasp people, dandling their weakness, in a mental cannibalism and so shifting out of control and, sometimes unfortunately, with the worst consequences.

There’s room for an useful crossroads, into one’s own competence to single out the emotions, which are usually split with an only compensatory value, as the vital connection for a benefit-oriented thinking.

There isn’t so any irony in this well done and multi-award winning film : however, as a direction coming from a growing Country, we couldn’t expect but a soft warning.

                                             Marina Bilotta Membretti / Cernusco sul Naviglio – September 3, 2020

[1] At the ‘Cannes Film Festival’, 72° edition 2019 “Parasite” won the 'Palme d'Or', other than awards as the best film, the best foreign film, the best director, the best original script.

Gustav Mahler[1] and Freud’ carefulness.

Original painting by Stefano Frassetto[2].

“Abysses and dizzinesses”[3], sometimes impenetrable, as in the Symphony n°2, enflaming and unreachable other times : Gustav Mahler called Symphonies his own uncontrollable emotions[4].

Very appreciated as a conductor[5], although not so popular among orchestral players due to Mahler’ experimental perfectionism, managed – when youngest but already talented and tireless – to oppose his father Bernard – rough and unfortunately violent man with his own family[6] more than in his grocery store for which he obtained a license in 1860 – and to profitably pursue the musical studies he adored and from which Bernard, who nurtured and financed Gustav’ talent, did give him proud reviews.

Second born with fourteen brothers and sisters, many of whom died in their early childhood, and considering himself a support of his mother Marie, so humiliated and unhappy, the young Gustav soon learnt, in front of choleric outbursts, to keep out himself of them, inventing an ‘elsewhere’ where music “opened the doors of a fairy world”[7] and not accessible to other ones, as in his famous ‘Adagio’ of Symphony n°10.

Once achieved success and reached an unexpected comfort that allowed him not only to lead a lively intellectual and sentimental life in Wien, but also to spend long and profitful summers in the lovely Maiernigg, on Wörthersee lake, where he swam and rowed with pleasure, Mahler did never distance from his pain as it was prolific for his works : he worked in a very little cottage of a few square meters he had built in the wood behind his house, and which also now is proposed to visitors.

He was fifty and with an enviable curriculum behind him, put up note by note, concert by concert, opera by opera without sparing of strength and sentiments. His young wife Alma, which from Latin language is translated with ‘soul’ and that as a middle name was Marie like Gustav’ sad mother, was at that time a very brilliant violinist, sure a lot of men envied her to him : she came into the severe musician’ home, she infact not the least of an undefined number of emotional relationships, so candid and passionate on the musician part, and she accepted at first the solitary habits of a thoughtful composer.

In 1920, as a newlywed, he had finished setting to music five poems of the German Friedrich Rückert and, with a special passion, the one known as : “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen…”, ‘I am lost to the world… and I am resting in a kingdom of peace’ (editor’s note) which brings back an imaginary but possible world also in the daily life, but for the best intellects only.

While identifying himself in a reconciliation of the deep pain to which he did never get up to be able to sublimate it, drop by drop, in a living levitation from which one’s body could slip as a distant echo, he was able to obtain a music which, also through the use of strings and a frequent ‘march’ time, could even be hypnotic.

Physically prostrated by the disease, in 19100 “Mahler sought advice to the Wiener neurologist Richard Nepallek, who suggested to consult Sigmund Freud[8].

Freud was at Leyden, in Netherland. Mahler gli telegraphed to him, Freud answered inviting him to come soon.

Then Mahler, fearing the diagnosis, found an excuse not to go, and so on for three times. Finally,  Freud wrote to him that the last possible chance was the end of August, because then he would have left for Sicily.

Mahler set off with reluctance, and along the way wrote to Alma passionate teenage letters : after all, he perfectly realized their qualities, and with some humour too.

Freud spoke with him in the afternoon of August 26, or 27. They talked about for almost four hours, walking together for Leyden.

Freud reassured Mahler : explained to him that his age was not an obstacle, because Alma in him was looking… his own father, lost too soon. Also Mahler, on the other hand, was looking for his own mother in Alma. When Mahler said that his mother was named Marie, and that Marie was Alma’s middle name, Freud decided that Mahler suffered from ‘Marienkomplex’…

Gustav came back to Toblach more relaxed, but… Alma became definitely the ‘myth of Alma’, and their marital love did translat its earthly reality into a wonderful unreal projection…”[9] According to what Freud reported after their talking, Gustav Mahler knew enough about psychoanalysis[10].

However he never practiced it.

                                      Marina Bilotta Membretti / Cernusco sul Naviglio – August 7, 2020

[1] Gustav Mahler (1860-1911), Austrian of a Jewish family, was a great musician, also composer and conductor.

[2]Stefano Frassetto is born in Turin in 1968. After his degree in Architecture at ‘Politecnico’ he begun as graphic novelist for local magazines. In the ‘90s he edited in France, on ‘Le Réverbère’ and on ‘Libération’ : then he created ‘Ippo’ for ‘Il Giornalino’ and then the stripe ‘35MQ’ for the swiss magazine ‘20 Minuti’. In 2000 he came into ‘La Stampa’ newspaper as portraitist for cultural page and the insert ‘Tuttolibri’, then for the weekly ‘Origami’. Today he works also for the swiss magazine ‘Le Temps’. In 2022 Frassetto published his first comic review ‘35MQ : 2012/2022 Dieci anni di inettitudine’.

[3] “Mahler. La musica tra Eros e Thanatos”, Quirino Principe 2002 / Bompiani, p.608

[4] The title of this article imitates the refrain of the Italian singer Lucio Battisti song, ‘Emozioni’.

[5] In 1897 he was called to conduct the ‘Imperial Royal Court Opera’, now ‘Wiener Staatsoper’ : in order to accept the job, he decided to be baptized, so converting to Catholicism. From 1909 to 1911, when he died, he was conductor of the ‘New York Philarmonic’, obtaining broad consensus and concerts success.

[6] “Mahler. La musica fra Eros e Thanatos”, cited., pp.86-89

[7] “Mahler. La musica fra Eros e Thanatos”, cited., p.109

[8] Freud was at the time fiftyfour, only four years more than Mahler and already published, among others, “Psychopathology of dailly life” (1901) and “The wit and its relation with unconscious” (1905). Mahler however thought about they both were Jewish by origin and Wiener by adoption, what favoured the musician’s request for that consultation.

[9] “Mahler. La musica tra Eros e Thanatos”, Quirino Principe cited., pp.775-776

[10] “Vita e opere di Freud”by Ernst Jones (1879-1958, neurologist and British psychoanalyst : he was the protagonist in welcoming in England the psychoanalysts persecuted by Nazis; between 1920 and 1939 he founded and directed the ‘International Journal of Psycho-analysis; between 1932 and 1949 he was president of the ‘International Psychoanalytical Association’). Translat. By A.Novelletto and M. Cerletti, Vol. II, Ed. ‘Il Saggiatore’ pp.107-108