Dora, Film Treatment

Treatment for a 90 minute feature film by Peter Whitehead

Based on an analysis by Sigmund Freud

Principal characters

1. 1. Dora. Young, pretty girl between 20-25.

2. 2. Frau Kay. A handsome woman in early 40s.

3. 3. The father.

4. 4. A young man, good looking, who is to be the imagined lover of Dora.

5. 5. The narrator/Freud/writer.

Notes of the treatment and structure of the film

Although every attempt will be made to create a narrative the principal structure and technique of the film will be one of montage/collage as in a dream. Present time and past remembered time and imagined time will become more and more confused and overlap during the course of the film. The narrator will be seen early in the film only for one brief shot. Thereafter the film will be seen as a dialogue between the narrator and Dora. However the narrator will not be seen and Dora will either speak directly to the camera or will be seen not speaking and her voice will be on the soundtrack over the image.

In style the film resembles the French nouveau roman, such as the novels and films of Marguerite Duras or Alain Robbe-Grillet.

Scene One

The house, the gardens, the lawns reaching down to the edge of the lake, the trees at the edge of the lake, the small stream. All of these being explored by Dora. She will be wearing a very beautiful full-length white period costume. She is walking through the landscape thinking, dreaming, imagining, looking at the plants, touching the trees, seemingly as much in contact with her surroundings as she is also in contact with her own inward imaginings. At first there will be simply the natural sounds of the landscape, the sounds of the wind, the water, imminent storms. It is winter. It is cold. A frigid landscape. This sequence will last for approximately 10 minutes and will fully introduce Dora as a young girl appearing somewhat self-concerned, lost, anxious, unsure of herself. On the soundtrack, fading in very slowly will be words taken from Freud's account of their dialogue, the dialogue between himself and Dora, during his attempted analysis of her.

Disconnected fragments of conversation. Clearly Dora is remembering the experience of some time before in her life when she had gone to Freud to seek his help to sort out some of her inward problems. The voices will fade, the natural sounds of the wind in the trees will increase until it reaches the pitch of intensity [that] suggests anxiety and threat. Perhaps into this sound of wind and water will very slowly permeate the initial sounds of the music that will constitute the soundtrack, music that will as much as possible resemble the natural sounds of nature synthesized in the modern music studio.

Suddenly Dora turns and seems to see the camera or a person who is the camera looking at her. She stops, puzzled, almost afraid. Appears as if she wants to go away but cannot and stops. Gradually the camera walks towards her until it stands close to her.

Scene Two

A continuation from Scene One.

Dora asks "What are you doing here?"

The voice replies "What are you doing here?"

The dialogue continues, suggesting that Dora is speaking to someone that she had preferred never to see again. And yet she seems to accept the inevitability of the meeting. She suggests that it would be inadvisable for anyone to see them together. The narrator asks Dora how her father is. She turns away and looks towards the water.

From her point of view we see the waves lapping on the shore, the trees blowing in the wind. We see her hair from behind and we hear her voice as she says "My father died over a year ago." (Pause)

The narrator says "I am sorry, Dora, I don't know what to say." She turns on him sharply and says "Did it take the death of my father to finally render you speechless?" Slowly she walks away and either sits down on the grass or on a bench looking...