The character of Prof. Louis Levy was created by Woody Allen for the movie Crimes and Misdemeanors. He was really the psychotherapist Martin S. Bergmann, who was a clinical professor of psychology in NYU. There is an interesting interview with Martin S. Bergmann in the 2nd part of the BBC series The Century of the Self. (see my post Freud’s nephew Edward Bernays and the PR Century)
“You will notice that what we are aiming at when we fall in love is a very strange paradox. The paradox consists of the fact that when we fall in love we are seeking to re-find all or some of the people to whom we were attached as children. On the other hand we ask of our beloved to correct all of the wrongs that these early parents or siblings inflicted on us. So that love contains in it a contradiction, the attempt to return to the past and the attempt to undo the past.”
After the character of Prof. Louis Levy committed suicide in the film, Cliff Stern (Woody Allen) reviewed a clip from the documentary footage in which Levy states: “But we must always remember that when we are born we need a great deal of love to persuade us to stay in life. Once we get that love, it usually lasts us. But the universe is a pretty cold place. It’s we who invest it with our feelings. And under certain conditions, we feel that the thing isn’t worth it anymore.”
Further Reading:
Love and the Fear of Death
The Century of the Self by Adam Curtis
Stickup by Woody Allen
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