Vocabulary
Look at the following phrases from the text and explain the underlined parts in your own words:
1) Proponents of cinema therapy say that, in addition to getting award nods … 2) … ultimately deal with life's ups and downs. 3) I was counselling a woman who had been badly let down in a relationship … 4) … watching and discussing the film was a catalyst for unlocking all the feelings she had repressed. 5) … films can bring out the most deeply buried emotions. 6) … portrays an unemployed man who lashes out in frustration 7) … which depicts a socially inept woman who learns to overcome her insecurities 8) … show them how failing to face up to an illness can result in tragedy 9) It also demonstrates the consequences of being too much of a perfectionist or too much of a doormat 10) popcorn cinema therapy is rather heavy on cinema and rather light on therapy 11) if it's done right as a precursor 12) characters in the movie who modelled behavior that you would like to emulate 13) … to edit screenplays, rehearse scenes, and try out people 14) patients should not cancel their next therapy session to catch a matinee 15) … useful to people who find it difficult to articulate their emotions.
2. Discussion
1) What are the main forms of cinema therapy?
2) Why might film therapy be a particularly effective way of helping people who deny their problems?
3) What does Dr Rex Haigh mean while saying that the movie therapy can be very useful as an accessory?
4) Are there any films that you are never tire of watching? Do you agree that the films that are most comfortable watching may suggest something about your own situation, psychological / emotional problems?
5) Think of films you know well. What are the main characters in these films? What issues and emotions do they address? Can they help to overcome psychological problems?
Text 5. Connery’s unbreakable bond Quiz: How Well Do You Know Sean Connery?
Which film won Sean Connery his only Academy Award?
The Avengers
The Untouchables
The Man Who Would Be King
The Name of the Rose
T
he
pre-stardom Sean earned his crust in a variety of occupations. Which
of these was NOT one of Connery’s early jobs?
A milk delivery man
A male escort
A nude model for Edinburgh Art College
A coffin polisher
Which actors did Connery beat out for the role of James Bond in 1962’s Dr No?
Richard Burton, Dirk Bogarde and Michael Redgrave
Peter Sellers, Norman Wisdom and Kenneth Williams
Albert Finney, Richard Harris and Peter O'Toole
Cary Grant, David Niven and Trevor Howard
In which Bond film did Connery remark that drinking Dom Perignon at the wrong temperature was “like listening to the Beatles without earmuffs”?
Thunderball
You Only Live Twice
From Russia With Love
Goldfinger
Connery received a then record sum for reprising his role as 007 in the 1971 film Diamonds Are Forever. How much was he paid and what did he do with it?
$550,000, which he used to develop a golf course outside Edinburgh
$775,000, which he used to purchase his villa in Marbella
$1.25m, which he donated to the Scottish International Trust
$1.75m, which he used to finance his next film, The Red Tent
Name the one Alfred Hitchcock film that Connery starred in:
Marnie
Torn Curtain
North by Northwest
Frenzy
Connery is still dogged by controversial comments he made in a 1964 magazine interview. What was he quoted as saying?
That he has no time for homosexuals: “My profession is so packed full of gays that I’ve had to get used to them, but I could never, ever have one as a friend”.
That he subscribes fully to James Bond’s cold war ethos: “Once you realise that the Russians are the Antichrist, the only realistic solution is to bomb them back to the Stone Age”.
That it is acceptable to hit women: “If a woman is a bitch, or hysterical, or bloody-minded continually, then I do it”.
That the cause of Scottish nationalism justified violence: “The English are the oppressor, colonialists, and we must force them out by any means necessary.”
Which legendary hero did Connery play in Terry Gilliam’s 1981 fantasy Time Bandits?
Don Quixote
King Agamemnon
Robin Hood
King Arthur
In the 1989 comedy Family Business, Sean Connery played Dustin Hoffman’s father. How much older is Connery than Hoffman?
12 years
16 years
Seven years
28 years
Connery has two tattoos on his right arm. One reads “Scotland Forever”. What does the other one say?
“Royal Navy”
“Mum and Dad”
“Death or Glory”
“Marbella for the Taxes”
Now read the article and do the tasks.
At 70, Sean Connery remains magnetic on screen and the most formidable advocate of Scottish independence.
IF you did not know who he was, it would be easy to mistake Sean Connery for a hard-done-by, grey-bearded old gentleman who is a victim of a conspiracy to assassinate his character, drive him from his homes and generally make his life miserable. He radiates indignation as he lists the wrongs done to him by - among others - foreign press barons, the Government and Hollywood. But then, suddenly, his expression warms and he lapses into a friendly discussion of Scottish football, his golf game and current films.
Connery does not often give interviews, and, after talking with him in Los Angeles about his latest film, Finding Forrester, in which he stars and which his company produced, it is easy to understand why. He does not suffer fools gladly, and for the interviewer unaware of Connery’s convictions, it is difficult to know which subjects are likely to set him off. Even for those who know his foibles, seemingly innocent subjects can hit a raw nerve.
His life in Marbella, for example? “I don't have a house there any more,” he snaps. “I haven’t been to Spain for over three years. I took a hammering from the press there, and I never quite understood why.” But, he says, softening, he has happy memories of his early years there, when there were far fewer people living on that part of the Costa del Sol. He now lives in the Bahamas with his second wife, French painter Micheline Roquebrune, whom he married in 1975.
Although it is 50 years since he lived in Scotland, 70-year-old Connery, who was recently knighted, is fiercely proud of his roots. Born Thomas Connery, he was brought up in a tenement flat in a working-class area of Edinburgh and, famously, dropped out of school at 13 to work as a milkman on a horse-drawn float where he was known to the regulars on his round as Big Tam. For decades, he has backed the SNP [Scottish National Party] drive for an independent Scotland, both ideologically and financially, and the education trust he started there in 1970 is now worth, he says, £2.25 million and spends about £90,000 a year on educating youngsters. One of its most recent contributors, he reveals, was Mel Gibson, who donated $10,000 in exchange for permission to use a Connery film clip in his recent comedy What Women Want.
He says he suspects that it was his support for the SNP that delayed his knighthood for so long. “People questioned why the knighthood had taken so long to be offered to me and it was kind of strange,” he says. “Obviously, I’d crossed paths with somebody somewhere. I certainly didn’t go to them and I never made it an issue to find out why it had taken so long, but I took nearly a week to make a decision about whether to accept it. There were no conditions with it so I thought it was an honour that I would accept for Scotland. It wasn’t going to change what I am and what I do, and up to now I haven't used it.”
In some ways, Connery’s occasionally brusque manner resembles that of his character in Finding Forrester. William Forrester is a mysterious, reclusive author who, shortly after publishing a Catcher in the Rye-type coming-of-age novel, retreats into a shabby Bronx apartment where he lives for 40 years, unheard of by anyone except the publishing house. He develops a friendship with a talented black teenager who gradually brings him out of his shell.
“It’s certainly a change of pace,” says Connery, “but it’s the kind of movie that I like to see, about relationships. I think it’s an intelligent film - I like the humour of it.”
Although his performance was highly praised, it hasn’t garnered Connery, who won the best supporting actor award for The Untouchables in 1987, a further Oscar nomination. Which is another thing that does not surprise him. “You see the same faces coming up for the same stuff, and I don’t live in Los Angeles, so I’m not a member of the club.”
Although Connery has starred in films as rich and diverse as Marnie, The Man Who Would Be King, The Hill and The Anderson Tapes, it is for his seven turns as James Bond that he will always chiefly be remembered. Never Say Never Again (1983) was his last, although he was offered large sums of money to continue in the role and, more recently, to play a Bond villain. “There comes a time when you have to make certain decisions for change,” he says, “I could have continued and made an enormous amount of money staying within that range, but it was not interesting to me.”
He expanded into the production side of the business with 1992's Medicine Man, in which he also starred, and the following year he formed Fountainbridge Films, which has produced most of his recent movies.
Although he tends now to shun the action-accented films in which he made his name, he would, he says, be tempted to return in another Indiana Jones film, having played Harrison Ford's father in the last installment, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
“It was hard work, with long days and different locations all over the place, but it was fun because of the calibre of the actors and the director [Steven Spielberg]. I would be happy to do it again.”
Of the present crop of films, he admires Gladiator and its star, Russell Crowe. “I thought it was terrific. Crowe gave a great performance, and the film was really moving on so many levels. I think one of the reasons it’s so good is that we have gone so far with big action movies that they’re all gadgetry; and now we’re suddenly back to the basics of good story and character.”
Connery’s trip to Los Angeles is remarkable in that it is the first time he can remember that he has visited the city and not headed for one of its private, secluded golf courses. Golf, which he used to play daily in Spain when he was not working, is losing its attraction for him. His game, he says, has taken a turn for the worse and he is thinking of giving it up.
“It’s not such an important thing to me any more,” he says. “I’m not having a good time at the moment on the golf course - you only have to ask my wife - and my interest is waning. I used to be obsessive about it, but now I’m thinking of easing back towards playing doubles tennis instead.”
The interview over, he courteously shakes hands and strides from the room, plainly anxious to return home to the Bahamas and to the prospect of tennis partners who refrain from asking questions.
Exercises and Tasks