There’s a part in one of my favorite Hitchcock movies, Spellbound (1945), in which Ingrid Bergman, a clinical psychologist, takes Gregory Peck, a man who has amnesia and may have commited a murder, to her former psychology professor’s house to hide out from the authorities. Professor Brulov is the epitome of a German academic: eccentric, kind, and highly intelligent, he is genuinely happy to see Ingrid Bergman, who, he says, was his best assistant. It’s a wonderful part of an interesting movie, but lately it’s taken on even greater significance for me.
I first watched the movie on television as a teenager, at which time I identified with Ingrid Bergman (of course I did–the movie is all about Freudian wish fulfillment, after all). Some years ago, as a middle-aged professor, I watched it again with my students when I taught a course on the films of Alfred Hitchcock, and I realized with a rather unpleasant shock that I had evolved without realizing it from the young, attractive, and inquisitive Dr. Constance Peterson into the aged, almost-but-not-quite-grumpy Profesor Brulov. (In Mel Brooks’ hilarious spoof of Alfred Hitchcock’s movies, High Anxiety [1977], Professor Brulov is transformed into Professor Lilloman, which the protagonist mistakenly pronounces as “Professor Little Old Man.”) And, while it has taken me a few years to accept this transformation, I’m now fairly comfortable with my new, much less glamorous, role as mentor to my former students.
The reason is simple. Constance Petersons are a dime a dozen. The world is filled with beautiful young people making their mark on the world. But Brulov–he’s different. In fact, he’s quite special. Think of it this way: When Peterson is in trouble, she seeks him out, and Brulov helps her without asking any difficult questions, despite the fact that he knows she’s lying to him. He trusts her even more than she trusts him, which is touching, in a way. And so one thing that this very complex movie does is set up the idea of a mentor relationship between Brulov and his former student. It’s an interesting side angle to the movie that I never really noticed before.
And, now, in my retirement, I am learning to embrace this new Brulovian stage of life. I have had very few, if any, mentors in my own career, so while I’m not too proficient at it yet, I hope to grow into the role in the years to come. The way I see it, we need more Professor Brulovs in this world; we can’t all be Ingrid Bergman or Gregory Peck, after all. I’m happy that my students remember me with something other than aversion, after all, and so becoming Professor Brulov is, at least for now, quite enough for me.
The Tabard Inn 
Perhaps, the reason for this change is simpler than you think. Great professors make even greater mentors.
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