The Freud Scenario

In 1958, the US director John Huston asked Jean-Paul Sartre to write a scenario for a film about Sigmund Freud. Huston wanted Sartre to concentrate on the conflict-ridden period of Freud’s life when he abandoned hypnosis and invented psychoanalysis. <i>The Freud Scenario</i>, discovered in Sartre’s papers after his death, is the result—a deft portrait of a man engaged in a personal and intellectual struggle that would prove a turning point in twentieth-century thought.<br><br>Sartre did not regard this script as a diversion from his larger intellectual project. Freud’s preoccupations with female hysteria and the father relationship touched on major themes in his own work, and <i>Loser Wins</i>, <i>The Family Idiot</i> and <i>Words</i>, some of Sartre’s most celebrated publications, are all in some way derived from his work for Huston.<br><br>Written for a Hollywood audience, <i>The Freud Scenario</i> demonstrates that, in addition to a towering intellect, Sartre enjoyed a genuine popular touch. Already widely acclaimed in France, <i>The Freud Scenario</i> stands as a valuable testament to two of the most influential minds in modern history.