Images of Madness: 3 films by Éric Duvivier

Éric Duvivier was immersed in the film world from a young age (he is the nephew of Julien Duvivier). After World War II, he began studying medicine in Paris. By 1950, he combined his two passions by becoming a “medical filmmaker,” directing over 700 films for health professionals (largely and mostly funded by the pharmaceutical industry). Although intended for educational purposes and restricted to the medical profession, these films readily borrow from the most innovative forms of fiction or experimental cinema. He collaborated with actors like Pierre Clémenti, Jacques Dufilho, Michaël Lonsdale, Dominique Blanck, and put his visual inventions at the service of the poet Henri Michaux (Images du monde visionnaire) or Henri-Georges Clouzot (for his unfinished film L’enfer). As a producer, distributor, director, industrialist, and entrepreneur, Éric Duvivier’s unique and fascinating career offers insight into the singular intertwining of art, science, and industry. The three-film program offers a deep dive into a filmography rich in surrealist imagery, saturated colours, poetic hallucinations and unconventional direction, that all seek to translate the diverse and varied states of what we conventionally call “madness”. 

PHOBIE D’IMPULSION proposes — like in Autoportrait d’un schizophrène — an intimate, first person account of the nightmarish experience of impulse phobia, the fear of losing control and acting violently on oneself or others, through mise en scène (jumpcuts, space-time ellipses, condensation and displacement) that evokes Maya Deren, Alain Resnais, but also at times Italian gialli (Argento, Avati). Leaving aside the didactic, learned exposé, PHOBIE D’IMPULSION is a stunning example of Duvivier’s the creative impulse and filmic mastery. The pharmaceutical company Roche who produced the film was responsible for the release in 1963 of Valium.
CONCERTO MÉCANIQUE POUR LA FOLIE OU LA FOLLE MÉTAMORPHOSE: Featuring Jacques Higelin and Dominique Grange, costumes and art direction by pop islandic artist Errò, this futurist experimental medical film could evoke all at once the works of Méliès, Jodorowsky, Mandico, painters like Di Chirico, Dali, lettriste poetry, sci-fi b-film aesthetics, etc. A critique of the alienating effects of modern technology and commodities, this crazy, sometimes disturbing and uncanny concerto shows the range of unexpected creative avenues Duvivier was willing to pursue to answer the commissions he was handed. In this case, like for many other Duvivier films, the film was produced by Sandoz, known, among other things, for having synthesized, in 1938, lysergic acid diethylamide, also known as LSD.   
AUTOPORTRAIT D’UN SCHIZOPHRÈNE: Based on the lived experiences of a person living with schizophrenia who also composed the poetic text we hear in the film, this subjective incursion into the mind of a desperate, hallucinating man, played by renowned actor and filmmaker Pierre Clémenti (Bertolucci, Pasolini, Garrel, Bunuel, etc.) offers an example of Duvivier’s engagement with psychedelic lyrical filmmaking, as well as his continued collaboration with the pharmaceutical company Sandoz. (André Habib)

Films:
Phobie d’impulsion Frankreich 1967 16 mm OV with French subtitles 23 min.
Concerto mécanique pour la folie ou La folle métamorphose Frankreich 1963 16 mm OV with French subtitles 17 min.
Autoportrait d’un schizophrène Frankreich 1977 16 mm OV with French subtitles 22 min.