In the new American art film The Mountain, which I considered at length in the current issue of the Reader, director Rick Alverson looks back on the final days of the lobotomy as an accepted psychotherapeutic practice. The movie follows the exploits of a traveling therapist (Jeff Goldblum) who visits state hospitals and performs the procedure on mental patients with the goal of bringing them to an “innocuous state.” Though he trades in incapacitation and seems to enjoy his work, Goldblum’s character isn’t evil per se; Alverson seems to be saying that the therapist merely follows the order of the day and that this allows him to see himself as rational, even humane. It’s a reminder of how the sciences (social and otherwise) are always evolving—what may seem the paragon of compassion in one era can seem barbaric one or two generations later.
The Cobweb Vincente Minnelli’s 1955 melodrama is set in a posh mental hospital; he choreographs the various plots and subplots with the same style and dynamism he brought to his famous musicals. Charles Boyer is the head of the clinic, a secret alcoholic worried about competition from hotshot young shrink Richard Widmark. Widmark, in turn, is caught in a triangle with his childish wife (Gloria Grahame) and an understanding colleague (Lauren Bacall). Among the guest loonies are Oscar Levant (who sings “Mother” in a straitjacket), Lillian Gish, Susan Strasberg, Fay Wray, John Kerr, Paul Stewart, and Adele Jergens; John Houseman produced. —Dave Kehr
