The President's Analyst

Theodore J. Flicker's 1967 film is a sharp satire on the politics of its moment. The psychoanalyst Sidney Schaefer is honoured at first to be chosen as the president's therapist, then quickly crushed by the job, since he hears the country's most secret matters and can tell no one. When he runs, every intelligence service in the world comes after him, some to abduct him and some to kill him. The film mocks spies, psychoanalysis, hippies, middle-class family life and government agencies in turn. Its real target emerges at the end: the most dangerous organisation is no state but the telephone company, whose aim is to bring everyone's communication under direct control. What counted as exaggeration then is now the most discussed thing about it. Who it's for: viewers who like sixties American satire and black comedy. Who it's not for: anyone expecting a coherent plot; the film is scattered and deliberately absurd.