Freud

David Suchet, now famous for his portrayal of Agatha Christie's super sleuth Hercule Poirot, stars as the father of psychoanalysis in this six-part 1974 BBC docudrama series. Each of the first five episodes opens with a prologue set in London circa 1939—when the elderly Sigmund Freud was suffering from cancer of the jaw—before flashing back to an earlier period. Viewers follow Freud's professional development from a young Viennese neurologist (first promoting drugs—notably cocaine—and then hypnosis as means of dealing with emotional disorders), through his invention of the theory of repression and the technique of dream interpretation, to his later eminence and eventual break with former disciple Carl Jung, with scenes of Freud's private life interwoven throughout. Along the way, the series also captures the strong opposition that Freud's provocative ideas often sparked in both his colleagues and the public, largely because of their strong sexual component. The final segment depicts the dying Freud recalling, often with changed emphasis, events illustrated in the previous programs. The intensity of Suchet's career-altering performance (which he discusses in a fascinating supplementary interview) factors largely in the emotional weight of the entire production, which is lightened only by the brief appearance of Miriam Margolyes as a flighty noblewoman whom Freud treats. Filmed in Austria, New York, and London, director Moira Armstrong's Freud is an enlightening ruminative study of a landmark figure. Recommended. (F. Swietek)