David Cronenberg Talks ‘A Dangerous Method,’ Hints At Madness And Hysteria From Keira Knightley?

Attending a recent fan exhibition in Toronto, director David Cronenberg has taken to discussing his recently-wrapped tale about the forefathers of psychoanalysis in “A Dangerous Method.”

“It’s called ‘The Dangerous Method,'” Cronenberg explained at FanExpo; also note the potential title change. “It’s based on a play by Christopher Hampton called ‘The Talking Cure’ and it’s about Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung and the birth of psychoanalysis at the turn of the century. It begins in 1904 and ends in 1912.”

“The three main characters are Freud, Jung and a woman named Sabina Spielrein who was not very well known until the ’70s when people discovered a cache of letters that were discovered in Geneva, in Switzerland. To the surprise of many people who had never heard of her and maybe seen one or two pieces that she had published in psychoanalytical journals, she was a huge influence on Freud and Jung. She started off as a patient of Jung — she was crazy.”

Cronenberg interestingly addresses the misconception of mental disorders in the 20th century, particularly from the point-of-view of women, seemingly hinting at “madness” and “hysteria” from the character of Sabina Spielrein, played by Keira Knightley.

“It’s interesting how certain madnesses disappear. There was a disease called ‘hysteria’ from the Greek word that means womb. It was considered mainly a woman’s disease. Women would get hysterical, and they would fall down and faint and they would mumble and they would talk. Nobody talks about this disease anymore. It’s interesting how some diseases are culturally created rather than physiologically. And that was one of them. Really [Sabina] was a passionate, intelligent, very creative woman who didn’t have an outlet for those things so it manifested itself as madness until she met Carl Jung. She was 18, he was about 29. They had an affair, she become his mistress. So it’s the story of the three of them particularly and it’s a really fascinating story.”

The director then went on to discuss the story of Freud and Jung in much greater detail, highlighting some of the aspects of the story likely explored in his film. Of course, the following would be considered spoilers so, reader beware.

“I’ve been very fascinated by Freud,” Cronenberg elaborated. “Not just the father of psychoanalysis but as a writer, an artist and an iconic figure in cultural history and intellectual history. I didn’t know that much about Jung. I knew that they had a huge falling out and split… but it was really the addition of Sabina that made it come alive rather than do a biopic about Sigmund Freud. This is not that. This is really quite dramatic and interesting, it’s a strange ménage à trois, you know? Not that Sabina ever had an affair with Freud but she did leave Jung and then go study with Freud. To Jung, that was like a total betrayal, it was worse than if she just slept with him. It was an intellectual, spiritual betrayal.”

“I just was just fascinated by those characters and to do a period pieces based on real characters is very interesting. It’s quite different to doing a movie with invented characters. You have some restrictions but you have incredibly rich material given to you. You have a lifetime of a person, and in the case of these characters, you have people having written for 100 years about these people. So it’s really rich, kind of dense material that you can get.”

No word yet on when ‘Dangerous Method’ could see a release — maybe a Cannes premiere? — but it’ll definitely be one of the headlining acts in our Most Anticipated films of 2011 pieces. [YouTube via /Film]