Lights—Camera—and What Is the Meaning of the Action?: Behind the Scenes of the Film Series with Leon Levin

The scene is set. Sun streams through the countless cactus plants on the window sills into the yellow room surrounded with colorful art, exotic wall decor, rich wooden antiques, plush carpets, and comfortable furniture. The director surveys the room, repositions his chair. He says, “We should be face to face.” He pulls his chair in closer. He is focused, serious, attuned. He pays close attention to the details. He is Leon Levin and it is with just such presence and depth that he attends to the film series for the Baltimore Washington Center for Psychoanalysis.

“We choose films that are the product of the impulse to communicate—films which express the deep, inner psychology of the filmmaker,” says Levin, describing his vision of the film series. He paints the picture for me. “Two-hundred-fifty interested people are sitting in the dark, passively letting the images of the movie into them—a deeply emotional experience that may very well supercede the experience of talking when it comes to getting to unconscious material, much like dreams.”

We talk about the parallel between films and dreams, the vividness and meaning of the visual images, the comfort and the opportunity of the displacement, the “deniability” of film and the consequent opening it gives each viewer to analyze and to access unconscious fears and wishes.

Flash back now to 1957: Topeka, Kansas. Levin is in his residency at Menninger surrounded by colleagues all increasingly intrigued by the new European films finding their way across the ocean. A popular film series emerges in Topeka coordinated by Levin and followed by other residents such as Arnold Richards and Otto Kernberg.

Dissolve to the 1980s: Washington, D.C. Steve Sturry starts a film series as psychoanalysts from the Baltimore-Washington area blaze the trail of interest in the parallels between dreams and films.

This, Levin believes, was a result of the stimulus provided by Jacob Arlow's paper on Blow Up published in the Psychoanalytic Quarterly. Prior to that, literature was the dominant art form that psychoanalysts were discussing because movies were considered too “low class.”

Scene change to Baltimore, late 1980s: First the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA), then the Walters Art Gallery, and then again the BMA become home to the film series that continues to this date. The original coordinator, John Cowl, hands the baton to Levin who runs with it after a successful decade of growing and diverse audiences.

He strives for a connection between our institute and the community and believes that the films provide for a common dialogue to begin to understand the motivations of people and how we deal with things.

“We were early to use psychoanalysis and films as a tool to raise awareness of psychoanalytic ideas in the community,” says Levin. “Many other institutes in other cities followed suit with their own film series, but for some reason, many of the others have not continued.” He suggests that maybe they don't have someone who will keep it alive. A film lover since childhood, his pleasure in the series is palpable.

Levin, the 2006 Maryland Psychiatric Society Life Service Award recipient, shifts the focus away from himself. He expresses his great appreciation of the excellent film discussants over time, the committed group of savvy film enthusiasts that meet each January on Sunday mornings at his house to review the films, and of the stimulating discussions that always follow. He speaks of technology and the current ease of reviewing a movie over and over, of his never ending amazement of the variety of ways that different people see films and particularly of the aspects that he realizes he himself misses. “I learn a lot about myself—by what I don't see.”

Levin comments on himself as a discussant: “I only discuss films that move me. I watch them many times. It's a big investment of time and emotion to watch repetitively and to expose oneself.” We muse at the strong parallels with the psychoanalytic process: the repetition of the stories, the emotional investment, the exposure, the attention to meaning, the things we see and the things we don't, the decisions we confront as analysts and film reviewers of which tack to take. Not a wonder that this dedicated psychoanalyst has directed such an enriching and successful film series.

Flash forward to 2006: Levin prepares for yet another exciting film series. He speaks of the loyal core following and the ever increasing audience of newcomers, comprising those in the field and in diverse fields. He strives for a connection between our institute and the community and believes that the films provide for a common dialogue to begin to understand the motivations of people and how we deal with things. We talk about the exciting prospect of a future film series for children and adolescents. His wish for the film series: that it sparks interest in psychoanalysis. Do we have any doubt?

And now…the envelope please…and the winner for best film series director goes to…Leon Levin.