Director — Adieu Lacan

Director’s Statement

Jacques Lacan (1901-1981) was a controversial French psychoanalyst who today is widely recognized as one of the most important intellectuals of the 20th century. His work is known for its difficulty but Betty Milan’s writing--on which the film is based--makes him palpably human in a way that inspired me to make ADIEU LACAN.

I was fortunate to find in David Patrick Kelly an actor whose exceptional performance in the role of Lacan profoundly illuminates the psychoanalyst's passion for his work. The performance of Ismenia Mendes as Seriema, the young woman who chooses to do an analysis, forms the perfect counterweight to Lacan as played by David Patrick Kelly: her youth and adherence to the truth of her own experience makes their encounter a riveting one.

Cinematographer Valentina Caniglia and I were particularly inspired by Carl Theodor Dreyer’s film THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC. Dreyer’s classic silent film uses extreme angles to portray the radical asymmetry between the position of Joan of Arc and that of her accusers.

We used this same dynamic to represent the role of subjective transference that drives forward the analysis. I was drawn to Dreyer’s 1928 film after watching the drama series IN TREATMENT, starring Gabriel Byrne, which served as an example of what I wanted to avoid. This is not a criticism of the drama series but I was immediately aware how their use of the camera, which worked so well for telling their story of psychotherapy, was completely wrong for telling the story of psychoanalysis.

IN TREATMENT is constantly shot with a camera parallel to the ground at eye-level; the intricate movement of its coverage--largely confined to one room--is one of the principle accomplishments of the show. However, the level camera reflects a theoretical precept: we are watching a therapist intent on remaining in a level and balanced relationship with his client in an exchange in which both sides remain equals.

In psychoanalysis--at least in the work of Freud and Lacan--the analyst is in the position of the cause of desire for the person doing an analysis--a completely asymmetrical relationship, as anyone who has had parents or a caregiver or been in love can attest.

This approach in psychoanalysis is due to the theorization of transference, I felt it was crucial that I get this right: the high, low and often Dutch angles of Dreyer’s film were the inspiration for the solution that Cinematographer Caniglia and I worked out.  In the months leading up to filming, we met repeatedly in order to formulate, review, throw out and totally revise our approach to filming each scene. I knew that--at the moment of filming--we could make decisions about the camera that, paradoxically, would be completely spontaneous and based on the actors' work because of our preparation.

I feel extremely fortunate and grateful for the work of all of the members of our small cast and crew. With a very limited budget and amount of time their dedication made the film possible and brought this important story to life.

- Richard C. Ledes

Director’s Biography

Producer, writer, and director Richard C. Ledes was not named ”Richard” after his mother’s brother, who died a schizophrenic in a veterans psychiatric hospital after he either escaped or wandered off and was hit by a train. He was named after her father, a judge in Baltimore, who died of sadness a few months after his son, the schizophrenic, was hit by a train. Richard C. Ledes was not named after a schizophrenic.

Ledes’ film FRED WON’T MOVE OUT was named by the BFI (British Film Institute) as one of the 10 essential films of legendary actor Elliott Gould (MASH, THE LONG GOODBYE). Ledes’ film THE CALLER won Best NY Narrative Feature at the Tribeca Film Festival.

His first feature film A HOLE IN ONE, set in 1953, starring Michelle Williams, about a woman who wants a lobotomy, originated in a piece of performance art that Ledes based on the psychiatric records of his maternal uncle. He made A HOLE IN ONE after completing a doctorate in comparative literature at NYU. Much of his research for the film derived from the research he did for his dissertation; it was on the cultural traces of the rise of mental healthcare in the U.S. around treating veterans after WWII. During his research he volunteered at an outpatient center for severely mentally ill: assistant-directing their theater program and leading groups in which they read aloud the short stories of Poe, Melville and Hawthorne. This combination of a personal connection to a film’s theme with research into its broader significance remains an important dimension of his work.

His latest film IKONOPHILE Z, “a light romantic comedy about the extinction of all life on earth,” is currently in post-production. Additionally he is in development on VIENNA 1913, based on a play by the same name written by the late renowned French psychoanalyst and playwright Alain Didier-Weill.

Ledes is also the only translator of William Burroughs into English (Burroughs did a series of interviews in France that were published in French; the original recordings were lost; for a collection of the work of Burroughs published by Semiotexte, Ledes translated the French translations back into English).