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Look into my eyes. I don’t need therapy.

Thursday, December 24th, 2009

Merry Chrismikkah from the O.C.

Last weekend I gathered with friends for some holiday-time viewing that included Die Hard (yeah, it’s a Christmas movie), A Charlie Brown Christmas, The Office Christmas Special (BBC, duh), and the Chrismukkah episode of The O.C.  I bring it up because this holiday O.C. is also the episode where Marissa attends her first therapy session (and befriends in the waiting area an obsessive sociopath, so, that’s not great for her)

We were struck by Marissa’s vehement opposition to seeing a therapist.  It recalls Will Hunting’s persistent refusal — he mocks one alternative-y, hypnosis-y therapist, ”Look into my eyes. I don’t need therapy.” 

Marissa is allowed to move in with her cheery and lovable father (and out from under the roof of her shrewish mother), but her part of the deal is she has to go to therapy — because she overdosed in Tijuana, the latest in a series of drug/alcohol abuses.  Will is allowed to stay out of prison (and do math), but his part of the deal is that he has to go to therapy — because he beat the crap out of a guy who picked on him in kindergarten, the latest in a series of violent encounters.

It seems weird, kind of… why such refusal?  It’s odd to realize how strong the stigma is for many, though if Tony Soprano can go to therapy, so can Marissa.  (Though I suppose Tony didn’t go extremely willingly either.)  Is it sexist/classist to assert that it makes more sense for Will to react this way than Marissa?  Ryan is a very Will-like character, and his encouragement is what gets her to go — as if the out-of-control woman needs to be in therapy but the out-of-control men do not.

That two such different characters should react in this same way, against their best interests, speaks to the varied perception of the value of therapy and the necessity for a dramatic protagonist to be (unrealistically?) resistant to positive change.  It is only an ultimatum that gets them to that session, and to the next turn in their stories.

    Posted in Psychology, The Film | 2 Responses »

    Someone like you out there.

    Wednesday, December 9th, 2009

    A better ending than "I had to see about a girl"

    Towards the end of the film, Will Hunting grows tired of his role as math genius.  He walks out of Professor Lambeau’s office, casually setting fire to a proof that only a “handful of people in the world” could have completed.  What follows is, to me, one of the most memorable moments of the film, though it comes off somewhat comically in its incongruity.  Lambeau, crumpled on the floor, having beat out the fire with his bare hands, says to Will:

    Most days I wish I never met you. Because then I could sleep at night, and I didn’t have to walk around with the knowledge that there was someone like you out there…

    Stellan Skarsgard’s performance is solid, and the line heartbreaking, but I can’t help thinking it more appropriate to a story of love lost.  It’s a better line than “I have to see about a girl,” that’s for sure.  (I wish at the film’s conclusion Will had stolen Lambeau’s line instead of his weepy therapist’s.)

    Throughout the film there is an unspoken love Professor Lambeau feels for Will — his admiration of Will’s genius instills in him a vicarious sense of success, perhaps one he hasn’t felt since winning the Fields Medal (an award specifically bestowed upon young men, mathematicians under 40).  Lambeau tries to take on the role of Will’s father, which isn’t such a good idea — based on what we learn Will’s real father used to do to him.  Lambeau playfully tussles Will’s hair in one scene as they finish off a math problem, and we are to read Tom the bland T.A. as the jealous but undeserving son.  Will Hunting is the prodigal son, but he refuses this mantle. 

    “Most days I wish I never met you.”  It doesn’t quite work in the scene because until now, Lambeau’s affection and Tom’s jealousy is mostly played for laughs.  Lambeau has been kind of a villain (in Will’s world the educated and non-Southie-accented are elite, effeminate, and inauthentic) but here he gets his moment.  He’s a vulnerable and defeated old man.  But ultimately I’m not sure the character is developed enough for this moment to come off as sincere as Skarsgard performs it, which is a shame. 

    I think of the “someone like you out there” line a lot; it is broad in its stroke, elegant in its desperation. And for many of us it is difficult to sleep, knowing some one person is out there, without us.

      Posted in The Film | 2 Responses »

      If you want to read a real history book, read Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. That book will knock you on your ass.

      Monday, December 7th, 2009

      Matt Damon namedrops The People’s History of the United States by local academic Howard Zinn, in the Harvard bar scene of Good Will Hunting.  Damon and Zinn have teamed up for an upcoming History Channel program.

      Regarding the inclusion of the reference in the film, Damon has told The Boston Herald about his first exposure to Zinn’s work in fifth grade:

      My mother had read me the passages about Columbus, that two years after Columbus discovered America, more than 100,000 Indians were dead. And I wondered, ‘How is this guy so celebrated that we take a day off from school to bask in his greatness?’

      There was a whole other side to the story. What Columbus did, coming here, was a big achievement, but there was more to the story. And that was a great lesson to get at an early age.

      Damon and Zinn

        Posted in Matt Damon, The Academy, The Film | 1 Response »

        What we tweet about when we tweet about Good Will Hunting

        Monday, November 30th, 2009

        At Harvard bars recreating scenes from Good Will Hunting. I am NOT the guy with the blonde ponytail. On 12:59 AM Nov 26th 2009 from web
        RT @oliviamunn: My 2-year-old niece can count to 10 in English, Spanish AND Vietnmase. Holy crap she's like Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting. On 6:37 PM Nov 25th 2009 from Echofon
        The "apples yupie" from Good Will Hunting is doing gold buying commercials? Now I'm sold! On 6:14 PM Nov 24th 2009 from TweetDeck
        Is the guy in the Goldline.com ad the Harvard douche who gets schooled by Damon in "Good Will Hunting"? http://yfrog.com/3go51kj On 12:01 AM Nov 25th 2009 from Tweetie
        Laptop screens on Amtrak reveal which movies make sense with no sound. "Good Will Hunting" easy to follow. "Miss Congeniaility" baffling. On 12:37 AM Nov 25th 2009 from Seesmic
        He's dressed and has his har cut like matt damon in good will hunting. I don't even know this guy and I hate him like burning. On 2:15 PM Nov 17th 2009 from TinyTwitter

          Posted in The Film | No Responses »

          You’ll be serving my kids fries at a drive-thru on our way to a skiing trip

          Friday, November 27th, 2009

          As previously discussed on Blog Will Hunting, Scott Winters (Clark, the Harvard bar jerkface) is currently appearing in commercials for Goldline.com. 

          Scott Winters loves gold
          Scott Winters loves this gold
          Scott Winters likes to hold and touch gold

          Watch the videos on YouTube, particularly the one on Market Stability, where Winters fondles gold lovingly.  Apparently gold looks like an ipod!

            Posted in The Film, The Post-GWH Era | 5 Responses »

            The English “-ing” form of a verb

            Thursday, November 26th, 2009

            forresterdvdcover

            Not long after Gus Van Sant’s Finding Forrester was released, I was discussing the director with my friend Brendan, at a rooftop party in Brooklyn. (I included that last detail so you’d know that I am — or at least have been — or at least think I may have been — cool.)

            With Good Will Hunting and Finding Forrester under his directorial belt, we envisioned Van Sant’s next film…. We suggested it be an autobiographical bio-pic in which a brilliant young filmmaker overcomes adversity to find his own voice (with the help of a mentor character who doesn’t quite follow the rules). The experienced and uninspired Van Sant, as mentor, must confront the commercialization of his recent films and the accompanying loss of passion for his work… together, mentor and student, they learn to reject the Hollywood system and find their own way.

            The name of the film: Running Out of Gerunds.

            Now, no one ever thinks this is nearly as brilliant and funny as we did.  (And I realize now that “finding” in this instance is probably not actually a gerund, but a present tense verb.  The hubris of youth!)  Nevertheless, I love the joke dearly.

            Running Out of Gerunds

            To be fair, it is certainly notable that Van Sant took the clout he earned with the success of Good Will Hunting and went ahead and made a big fat failed experiment of a movie that is probably only successful as commentary on the intersection of the low-budget-and-scrappy and the movie-star-laden-and-over-marketed.

            Only because of Good Will Hunting did anyone let Van Sant make Psycho.

            A few years later he returns to commercial filmmaking.  In a way Finding Forrester is simply a sequel to Good Will Hunting, and as Van Sant explains in an interview with The Believer, “The most interesting films that studios want to be making are sequels. They would rather make sequels than make the originals, which is always a kind of a funny Catch-22.”

              Posted in The Film, The Post-GWH Era | No Responses »

              So he likes apples, but he loooooves gold

              Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

              Scott William Scott


              Scott William Winters — you know him as Clark (the pony-tailed participant in the “how do you like them apples” exchange in GWH) — is back! 

              Turns out he often plays jerks like Clark, and has a jerk family.  His brother, Dean Winters, plays Liz Lemon’s ex-boyfriend (and jerkwad) Dennis Duffy on 30 Rock.  And just yesterday I saw the last of four episodes of 24 in which Scott William Winters plays a jerk from the FBI who doesn’t respect civil liberties. 

              Well it seems Scott has also just become a spokesman for Goldline International, “a leading gold and precious metals trading company.” 

              Scott says:

              It’s a pleasure to represent such a reliable and trustworthy source for investing in gold and silver. As a long-time client of Goldline, I have first-hand experience with their superior customer care, quality products, and how easy they make it to buy gold. I look forward to encouraging other investors looking to diversify their portfolios with gold to work with Goldline.

              Whoa. 

              The new Goldline commercials starring Winters have yet to hit the YouTubes, but we’ll definitely be keeping an eye out. 

                Posted in The Film, The Post-GWH Era | 1 Response »

                Tonight in Cambridge: Regurgitate Gordon Wood

                Thursday, November 19th, 2009

                image

                Some blogging-on-the-go here… Historian Gordon Wood speaks at Harvard Book Store tonight.

                You know, as Will Hunting says:

                Of course that’s your contention. You’re a first year grad student. You just finished some Marxian historian, Pete Garrison prob’ly and so naturally that’s what you believe until next month when you get to James Lemon and get convinced that Virginia and Pennsylvania were strongly entrepreneurial and capitalist back in 1740. That’ll last until sometime in your second year, then you’ll be in here regurgitating Gordon Wood about the Pre-revolutionary utopia and the capital-forming effects of military mobilization.

                  Posted in The Film | No Responses »