Images of Madness: Ballet, Burlesque, Self-Portrait

This programme of three films, made between 1963 and 1978 and all funded by the Swiss pharmaceutical company Sandoz, shows us the variety of styles and approaches Éric Duvivier used to explore psychopathologies and their symptoms: hallucinations, delusions, dissociative disorders, morbid fixations, from symphonic ballet, mainly shot in the studio with decor evocative of surrealist paintings, in Ballet sur un thème paraphrénique, to caricatural burlesque sketches in Auto-stop, featuring comic actor Jacques Dufilho and actress Dorothée Blanck, renowned for her work in Agnès Varda’s films. Finally we find experimental lyrical cinema with psychedelic overtones in Autoportrait d’un schizophrène, starring Pierre Clémenti (who went on to act in works by Buñuel, Pasolini and Bertolucci), where one senses a kinship with La Cicatrice intérieure by Philippe Garrel or The Horla by Jean-Daniel Pollet. In Duvivier’s oeuvre, one can unequivocally recognise the hallmarks of a sensitive and inventive artist who goes beyond a scientific commission (Dr Didier-Jacques Duché serves as a medical consultant; the texts often come from patients), and seeks ways – through a radical exploration of form and cinematic language – to convey, sometimes through dance, humour or filmed self-portraits, the subtle contours of “madness”.

André Habib