Contrary to reason: Documentary film-making and alternative psychotherapies
Des O'Rawe
History of the Human Sciences March 29, 2023 DOI: 10.1177/09526951231155058 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Historical analysis Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | The article argues that the collaborative, democratic aims of cinéma direct coincided with the ethos of institutional psychotherapy in Ruspoli's A Look at Madness, and compares this alignment with the relations between documentary form and LSD-assisted psychotherapeutic techniques depicted in Van Gasteren's Now Do You Get It Why I Am Crying? |
Abstract
This article explores how post-war documentary film-makers negotiated complex social, formal, and autobiographical issues associated with representing mental illness and its treatments, and the extent to which their respective approaches helped to challenge conventional attitudes to alternative psychotherapies – especially within the context of advances in new documentary film-making technologies, alongside a wider culture of social activism. Focussing on A Look at Madness (Regard sur la folie; Mario Ruspoli, 1962, France) and Now Do You Get It Why I Am Crying? (Begrijpt u nu waarom ik huil?; Louis van Gasteren, 1969, Netherlands), the article discusses how the collaborative, democratic aims of cinéma direct coincided with the ethos of institutional psychotherapy, and compares this with the relations between the documentary form and the subject of LSD-assisted psychotherapeutic techniques in Van Gasteren's film.