Opinion

Into The Freudian “Woods”

David Benkof Contributor
Font Size:

The movie version of Stephen Sondheim’s Broadway classic “Into the Woods,” which opened in theaters on Christmas Day, is much more than several interwoven, fractured fairy tales. It’s a thicket of symbols and themes that draw directly on the ideas and Weltanschauung of Sigmund Freud.

The central symbol of the movie is, of course, the woods. They represent Freud’s Id, the primal instinct filled with sexual and violent urges. In civilization, the Id is at odds with the conscience – what Freud called the Superego. But in a primeval setting, the Superego doesn’t exist, or as Cinderella’s Prince (Chris Pine) sings, “Right and wrong don’t matter in the woods.”

The story opens, of course, “Once upon a time,” in a small village at the edge of the woods, thus teetering on the boundary line between civilization and chaos. The main characters enter the forest in search of their wishes: Cinderella (Anna Kendrick) wants to attend the ball at the King’s festival; Little Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford – get used to hearing her name) wants to bring food to her Granny; Jack (Daniel Huttlestone) reluctantly prepares to part with his bovine friend to help feed his family; and the Baker (James Corden) and his Wife (Emily Blunt) seek ingredients for a potion that will convince the Witch (Meryl Streep, dazzling as always) to lift a curse that has kept them childless.

These wishes are each character’s “woulds” (Woods) – their visions of fulfilling their lives.

Freud actually had a lot to say about wishes. His The Interpretation of Dreams (1899) proposed that when the Id’s desires are repressed by the Superego and the Ego (the self, essentially), people can go through the involuntary thought process of “wish fulfillment,” expressed through anything from daydreams to fantasies to psychotic hallucinations – in other words, fairy tales.

The most primal moments in the movie’s woods are disturbing, to say the least. Johnny Depp’s wolf represents pedophiliac desire. His only number is “Hello, Little Girl,” in which he sings of the “scrumptious carnality” of the child and her grandmother. He’s clearly not just hoping to eat them. I mean, he literally offers Little Red Riding Hood candy!

After their encounter, the young girl describes her confused feelings (“excited and scared”) in her song “I Know Things Now.” Her almost biblical ambivalence about her new carnal knowledge comes right out of Genesis: “Isn’t it nice to know a lot? And a little bit… not.”

The woods are also the site of a brief adulterous encounter between the baker’s wife and Cinderella’s prince. As the prince departs with the royal equivalent of smoking a cigarette, the paramour he leaves behind regrets allowing the woods to distract her from her responsibilities:

Back to life, back to sense, back to child, back to husband;
You can’t live in the Woods;
There are vows, there are ties, there are needs, there are standards;
There are shouldn’ts and shoulds.

No Freudian analysis of a work of art would be complete without reference to phallic symbols. Into the Woods has two: Jack’s beanstalk (he describes a sexual awakening being brought close to a female giant’s breast); and the tower inhabited by Rapunzel (Mackenzie Mauzy) as her own prince (Billy Magnussen) woos her.

Perhaps for the first time in American history, our greatest living composer and our greatest living lyricist are the same person. Director Rob Marshall displays admirable talent in bringing coherence and beauty to a Sondheim show that exists on manifold levels, rich with symbolism and thematic complexity.

I know I’d be happy ever after if “Into the Woods” inspires many more movie musicals with fidelity to their source material that nonetheless explore the meanings of the stage versions even more intensely.

But is that likely to happen?

I wish.

David Benkof is a frequent contributor to the Daily Caller. Follow him on Facebook or Twitter (@DavidBenkof) or E-mail him at benkof@dailycaller.com.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel