In my review of The Position I hinted that occasionally I have found it a burden to be the daughter of a professor of clinical psychology. However, it also has some perks in the form of interesting stories that come my way…

A few months ago, my dad told me this anecdote: In the late 1920s, a young man and his father were hiking in the Alps. The father jumped/fell/was pushed to his death, and the son was arrested for parricide. It was widely known that there had been much tension between the two, and at the trial it was argued that the Oedipus complex provided the motive for the alleged murder. Sigmund Freud wrote a letter in the young man’s defense, saying, in effect, that the mere presence of the Oedipus complex in no way distinguished the defendant from any other man alive. Such “evidence,” therefore, was insufficient proof of motive.

Although I don’t recall exactly how this story came up in conversation, my dad’s purpose was to convey his pleasure in Freud’s wit & wisdom. The anecdote was supposed to be entertaining, and when he told it, it was. However, I forgot all about it until just recently, when he reminded me of it at a family gathering. There was one detail of the story that I hadn’t paid attention to the first time around, but when he told it again, boy did my eyes pop.

Are you wondering where I’m going with this? Did you guess?

Yes! The young man was Philippe Halsman. The same Philippe Halsman who created the Jump! book.

Now doesn’t this put a whole different spin on the idea that Halsman kept asking people to JUMP???

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Actually, Halsman’s story is not at all funny. I’m sure if Pops had known the details he never would have told it with such relish. When Halsman was arrested in 1928 he became the target of a huge anti-Semitic smear campaign, one of the first Jewish victims of the rising Nazi party. He was thrown in prison even though there was no evidence of his guilt; his name was dragged through the mud, and he was treated with the grossest disrespect and injustice you could imagine. There was a big uproar, and many prominent people in addition to Freud (Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann) rose to his defense. There was another trial, and in another miscarriage of justice he was found guilty again. Eventually his sentence was commuted, but he was asked to leave Austria and never return. (Full article here.)

In this context, Halsman’s interest in photographing people in midair is poignant and compelling. I discovered that there’s a movie called Jump! It hasn’t been released in the US, though, and it doesn’t seem to be on Netflix either. I would love to see it.

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Well, the meme doesn’t seem to be going so well. I only know of two people who have done it: Valerie, and a non-blogging friend of mine who put his pictures on Facebook. I thought about creating a flickr group but it turns out there already is one. I guess I’ll have to join it.

C’mon you guys! Jump! And take pictures!