When Nietzsche Wept

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."

Occasionally ridiculous in the dream/hypnotherapy sequences and borderline slapstick bio-pic in others, 'When Nietzsche Wept' somehow remained compelling enough to have me sit right through to the end despite an unconvincing father of psychoanalysis still having to show ID for the age of consent (Jamie Elman as Freud) and Katheryn Winnick as cigar chomping proto ladette femme fatale Lou Salome.

There is very little exploration of Nietzche's philosophical ideas here but instead his incredibly prescient innovation in the realm of psychology as seen through the prism of the incipient discipline of psychoanalysis in Vienna circa 1882. Ben Cross is brilliant as the likeable albeit conveniently repressed and commensurately flawed Dr Breuer, adrift in a loveless marriage, a materially successful career but bereft of passion, danger or excitement in his unfailingly dutiful life. Things start to resemble the relationship between poets Verlaine and Rimbaud at this point (see Agnieszka Holland's 'Total Eclipse' from 1995) with Nietzsche advising Breuer to throw off the shackles of his unthinking conformity and embrace his freedom. Nietzsche certainly never did this, having died a virgin (despite being portrayed in a whorehouse) and was an invalid for most of his adult life on a pension paid for by academia. Whether Breuer actually makes this existential plunge is open to debate as the Director would have us believe this whole extended sequence was under Freudian hypnosis. Armand Assante was assigned one of the most thankless casting gigs of all time by being asked to portray the most innovative and radical thinker humankind has produced in over a thousand years. My gut feeling, on a personal level is that when Friedrich Nietzsche entered a room, that room got larger i.e. Assante exudes a cynical but palpable personality consistent with what he sees as his remit but I suspect Nietzsche was silent, inscrutable and withdrawn which is clearly anathema to cinematic portrayals. The movie is based on Irvin D. Yalom's 1992 novel which I haven't read but is purportedly concerned with the idea of limerence which as an idea is about as robust as 'gender' in 2023.

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.

Knowing nothing of the book, and based solely on the DVD cover and description I expected a disappointingly shallow, titillating pseudo-intellectual romp through the fields of pretense. But the portrayal of the rare humanity of these characters as they confronted their obsessions and limitations drew me into rapt attention at the next plot development. Perhaps I'm just shallow and easily amused, but this story gave a fairly good look at a decent man, Joseph Breuer, and his struggle to really feel his humanity. This is an important story, one rarely told because how many story tellers have been through the fire of transformation to live for real? Where do you find an audience willing to sit through something they're desperately trying to avoid themselves? Maybe package it as a shallow and titillating pseudo-intellectual romp. Sure there were times when I saw through the weave of the story, for a moment I even saw Assante speaking lines rather than Nietzsche talking but for the most part this story was to me a real story of people really evolving right before our very eyes. That's not something you're going to see every day.

Its not a tremendous film, a must see, of a picture at his own, When Nitszche Wept is very good driven style of fan fiction, that manage to get us near to a lot of Niche, and Freud, concepts -but in reality is only near, because as lots of book-film adaptations, it takes a to much of the director's point of view-, it gets it right in some moments and is not a waste of time at all, but it suffers from his flaws, the nature of art, is specific to each category it belongs, this is most like and homage, and want us to remember very important things, and don't care about being very technical with the acting, the passing, or the writing itself, it's made great with the cameos that it have, and the good vibe the producers have toward those beautiful mind that they were, but maybe fails, to stand alone as film,