Quando Nietzsche Chorou

This movie is surreal. Literally, it has a lot of surrealistic scenes to mess with your mind, but also the whole presentation is surreal because there are so many bizarre angles. At its heart, it's a sober portrayal of depression and humanity's discontent (so you'd think it would be slow & heavy). But mostly it's humorous, at times as silly as the movie "Airplane!". It also features historical references, but you can't help feeling that the writer is being deliberately playful, distorting facts right before our eyes with a wink and a smile. In all, I think it's an entertaining experience, especially if you don't take it too seriously.

It definitely has the qualities of a period piece romp, like maybe "Casanova" (2005), "Molière" (2007) or one of my faves, "Impromptu" (1991) about Chopin. But "When Neitzsche Wept" has a more subtle tone which prevents me from saying it's intended to be a comedy like the others I mentioned. Also, don't expect a biopic because it's not really about any particular man so much as it's about everyman's internal struggle between passion (freedom) and logic (duty).

This film takes a somewhat light-hearted approach to a very dark subject, and I think that's what makes it unusual and clever. It's entertaining and digestible, but also there are a few powerful monologues delivered by Neitzsche (Armand Assante) that I had to rewind and hear again because they seemed to appear out of nowhere. Then suddenly we're back to a crazy scene of a redhead woman in diapers jumping around a crib. Don't worry, it all makes sense; it's just... surreal!

I read the book several years ago, and didn't remember much of it, beyond being fascinated by the psychological-philosophical explorations of the legendary characters and intrigued by the migraine issues that Nietszche and Breuer attempt to solve. But the book is deeply intellectual, and it was difficult to imagine it translated to the screen. Unfortunately, the director's interpretation falls very limp indeed, despite valiant attempts by a cast of worthy actors.

Melodrama substitutes in most scenes for subtlety and quiet depth. Two-dimensional beauty in the female characters substitutes for the much harder to convey inner beauty.

I found the heavy-handed artificial accents maintained by all to be especially distracting, if not constantly irritating -- the thick German/Austrian/Russian accents were like bad scenery pulling the focus from any authentic expression of the characters. The wisdom of Nietszche is disappointingly obscured in this mediocre effort.

"And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

Fine production values, a dry sense of humor throughout, literate script, decent casting (Assante transcends his usual "heroics" and plays a crumbling soul nicely and Cross is always workmanlike and solid), and, slyly, the film (as the book did) finally gives Nietzsche credit for inventing modern psychoanalysis (since Freud, et al, in the field stole from his works outrageously and lavishly, without assigning him the proper credit for his startlingly original insights into the world-historical human, all too human capacity for self-deception).

A tough work for an adaptation, but this movie succeeds where something like "Freud" dismally collapsed into timid clichés.

Nietzsche would have gotten many a devilish laugh out of this work's visual craftiness.

And appreciated being treated, not as a cartoon "Overman" idol, but a struggling, flawed, tragic-comically-profound human.

"Ecce Homo", his anti-"autobiography" warned those who followed not to take him too seriously.

If this film stimulates a few people to pick up his "Joyful Wisdom" (La Gaya Scienza) or "Dawn", it will have made its honorable point.

Yalom was, in essence, giving Nietszche a posthumous brother's embrace for his loneliness and struggle and brilliance and scorn and lack of recognition while he lived.

This movie does the same.

To a guy, who, friendless and abandoned and ignored through much of his writing life, still affirmed the Universe and humanity in the words:

"Man would rather have the Void for a purpose than be void of purpose." -F.N.

Worth a viewing.

Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud did work together and they did collaborate on a book about Anna O, who was most likely Bertha. Lou Salome did have relationships with Nietzsche and Freud and many others. All of these things are true.

But, Breuer did not treat Nietzsche. That is in the author's (Irvin D. Yalom) imagination, and what a great imagination it was. The story makes a super philosopher seem human, with frailties that we all suffer. It also makes for an interesting story of how psychoanalysis came about. I can imagine that it really did develop this way as Breuer and Feud discovered what worked and what didn't. We see free association or "chimney sweeping" as Bertha called it, we certainly see transference, and much more as the discipline developed.

Ben Cross was excellent, Armand Assante gave the best performance I have ever seen from him, Jamie Elman let us see Feud as a young man, Katheryn Winnick certainly makes me want to see her again, and Michal Yannai was delightful.

A great period piece that will delight all who care about philosophy and psychology.

It is not a great movie. It is not a masterpiece. It may be boring and fake at first sight. But... A film about a Nietsche. Not very different of the philosopher. The character is seductive, power and Armand Assante is brilliant in his skin. The atmosphere is carefully recreated. Colors, gestures, social conceptions are pieces of a small visual museum. So, the movie is a good introduction to understand the shadows of XIX century end. For look the existence with the eyes of men of a special way to discover the essence of to be. Certainly, the film gives only sketches of great people. Lou Salome is more than strange muse of a philosopher and Nietsche is prophet in another sense than the character. No bad, no extraordinary. Only good subject of reflection. And introduction to cultural scene.