Walking and Talking

A Dangerous Method

I like Walking and Talking Movies in the same way Brandon Taylor likes Paperwork Movies. Walking and Talking is just a genre putting on a nice outfit and taking it for a stroll. Its a vibe and a pace. Walking and Talking romance? When Harry Met Sally. Excellent talking (moaning counts), beautiful Central Park in the Fall walking.

Walking and Talking suspense? Michael Clayton ranks, tho maybe this is more Driving and Pause to Commune w Horse than strictly Walking and Talking.

Walking and Talking HR Nightmares? Give me A Dangerous Method all day all night and (after a pause for an espresso and perhaps some stretching) into the following day.

The set up is simple: Freud and Jung walk and talk about how to further their nascent field of work, people walk and talk about how big a deal sex is, Jung has a nice boat and doesn’t want to leave it.

But it’s suuuuch great walking and talking.

Viggo as Freud, shaved and hat-wearing, wields a raised eyebrow w the same deadliness as he did a sword in Hobbits Save the World parts 1–3. Fassbinder, a copper conductor of virility, spends the entire movie politely clothed until he removes *gasp* his wire rimmed glasses. And dammit I actually gasped when he did toss those glasses onto his notebook because it was a real moment of nakedness.

What can I say? Is it basic to find conversations about sexuality stimulating? How much of our desire to fuck, marry, and kill is foundational to who we are? Is psychology is simply the way we mediate our impolite urges? Or is the only way we have to reconcile both the animal and social parts of our selves?

I love all these questions and I love that Cronenberg made a whole movie with people walking, talking, asking, and not quite answering them.