Word: leuchter
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Chris Farley, died as the result of addictions. No one has studied the mental health of comics specifically - it's pretty hard to get celebrities to agree to answer a nosy mental health survey - but "there's a high rate of mood disorders among performers in general," says Andrew Leuchter, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California at Los Angeles who has treated comics. "This is a high stress kind of existence. Putting yourself on the line night after night, you can have tremendous mood swings depending on how well you think you're doing...
...There's a tremendous fear that, 'If I give that up I won't be funny anymore, I won't be able to act anymore, I won't be able to write anymore,'" says Berman. In fact, performers are more apt to see their careers improve with therapy, says Leuchter. "They become much more pleasant to interact with and other professionals find them much easier to deal with." Did ya hear the one about the easy-going, well adapted comedian? Didn't think so. He's busy working...
...that wants to find out more about you." Nevertheless, several years passed during which the filmmaker was alternately consumed by other projects and unable to secure the money needed for what was clearly a risky project. When funding did arrive, Morris returned to Auschwitz to recreate parts of Leuchter's journey and interviewed him again, recording many more hours of an older, if not wiser, Fred...
...interviews that form the core of "Mr. Death" are strikingly non-judgmental, allowing the audience to make up its own mind about Leuchter based on the words that he wants them to hear. Surprisingly, or perhaps not, Morris himself has few doubts about his subject. "My only claim on behalf of Fred," he muses, "is that I find Fred interesting, and that there are likeable aspects to Fred's personality. This is not to say that I think Fred is a good person, or that what he has done is a good thing. I think that he's done terrible...
...Leuchter, who Morris believes is honestly not an anti-Semite, appears confused and frightened by other people's responses to his actions, but he remains confident in that he did the right thing. "There's nothing in the movie that made him change his views in any way," the director says. "I gave him a laundry list of all the reasons why I thought he was wrong, and you know what he said? 'Even so, I think I'm right.' If you want to hold a belief, I mean really hold a belief, there is no evidence that can force...