August 27, 2024
By Elisa Leonelli
Freud’s Last Session describes an imaginary discussion between Sigmund Freud (Anthony Hopkins), the father of psychoanalysis, and C.S. Lewis (Matthew Goode), author of the series of novels The Chronicles of Narnia.
Freud’s Last Session © Sabrina Lantos
Freud, 83, had taken refuge in London from Vienna in 1938, after Nazi Germany occupied Austria, and suffered from mouth cancer. Lewis, 40, taught literature at Oxford University, and came to see him, or so imagines this film from a 2009 play based on the 2002 book The Question of God, a series of psychiatry classes at Harvard University. The Austrian scientist, Jewish and atheist, and the Irish writer and Anglican Christian, friend of the Catholic Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings, discuss whether Jesus was really the son of God, as well as narrating episodes of their lives, seen in flashbacks.
Anthony Hopkins-Freud (c) Sony Classics
We interviewed director and screenwriter Matt Brown, who had written and directed The Man Who Knew Infinity (2015) with Dev Patel, and British actor Matthew Goode. Both explain how current this film is, set on September 3, 1939, at the beginning of World War II, at this historic moment with two ongoing wars, in Ukraine and Gaza.
Brown says: “In recent years the world situation has become so polarized and continues to worsen, so it seemed incredible to me that these two great brains could meet and have a civil debate on the existence of God, a question that in my opinion can never be resolved. I get caught up in that phrase by Albert Einstein, revered as the greatest scientist of our time, that science without religion is lame and religion without science is blind. I hope that after the audience has seen our film and heard the two opposing views, they will have these kinds of conversations as well.”
Matthew Goode-Lewis (c) Sony Classics
Goode adds: “It seems to me that Freud and Lewis had a lot in common, the idea of faith and spirituality considered a moral guide on how to live our lives, the need to tell the truth, to take care of our neighbor, to behave honestly. We need enlightened minds to guide our countries and represent the popular will, because we live in a complicated world, where there should be separation between church and state. I don’t want to talk about the Middle East, but we should take power away from the current leaders of Gaza and Israel and replace them with smart people who can use diplomacy to start conversations, because if we don’t talk, we go to war.”
Published in Italian by Voilà Magazine, Italy