Le Tête Contre Les Murs (1958)
Though primarily known for his second feature, the 1959 horror classic Les Yeux Sans Visage ("Eyes Without A Face"), filmmaker Georges Franju moved from documentary shorts to feature films with the black-and-white drama Le Tête Contre Les Murs. Though not a horror film in the usual sense, this excoriating look at a young man's incarceration in a mental institution is nonetheless chilling in its depiction of helplessness in the face of institutional power.
After stealing money from his attorney father (Jean Galland) and tossing his legal briefs into the fireplace, irresponsible delinquent François Gérane (Jean-Pierre Mocky) is promptly committed to a mental institution. There he is assigned to Dr. Varmont (Pierre Brasseur), a tyrannical psychiatrist who views himself as protector of society and François as a mental case.
Told that he will be incarcerated until he is "cured" of his psychosis, François befriends Heurtevent (pop singer Charles Aznavour in his first feature), a fragile fellow patient with whom he discusses the possibility of escape. Both attempt to transfer to the care of Dr. Emery (Paul Meurisse), a progressive psychiatrist, but Varmont refuses to release them.
Though he resents the dishonesty of his corrupt father and is childishly careless with money, François is no more insane than Jim Stark of Rebel Without A Cause (1955). He's simply a teen iconoclast with a wealthy and influential dad intent on crushing his rebellious spirit at any cost. Unfortunately for François, pére Gérane has an ally in Valmont, who believes that mental health is properly demonstrated through conformity.
In the world of Le Tête Contre Les Murs, it is doubtful that the antisocial François, further shaken by the terrors of the asylum, could ever be judged sane by either man. Filmmaker Bruno Dumont's recent Camille Claudel 1915 (2013) is a fact-based account of how the anguished French sculptor suffered a similar fate, and Wang Bing's 2013 documentary 'Til Death Do Us Part reveals, sadly, that in some parts of the world little has changed.
Le Tête Contre Les Murs was adapted from the 1949 novel by author Hervé Bazin, whose own parents once committed him to an asylum for his unruly behavior. The film was initially planned as the directorial debut of its star, Jean-Pierre Mocky. When the twenty year old Mocky couldn't secure funding due to his youth, the project was assigned to Georges Franju, then fifty. Though the script was written by Mocky and mathematician Jean-Charles Pichon, Franju, aided by the lush cinematography of Eugen Schüfftan and a wispy, carnival-esque score by Maurice Jarre - both of whom contributed to Les Yeux Sans Visage - interprets the material with his characteristic lyricism and poetry (and doves). An inmate's model of a strangely artificial-looking tree sparsely circled by benches dissolves into footage of its inspiration, the asylum's own unsettling courtyard, in but one example of Franju's visual artistry. The dense, dreamlike atmosphere and stylization of his Le sang des bêtes (1949), also seen later in Les Yeux Sans Visage and Judex, can be glimpsed throughout Le Tête Contre Les Murs.
Franju's cast, particularly Aznavour and Anouk Aimée, who portrays a young woman smitten with the unruly François against her better instincts, underplay their roles with Bressonian economy. Brasseur imbues the haughty Varmont with the clinical certitute and cold menace he brought to the role of Genessier in Les Yeux Sans Visage, a man unconcerned that he is playing God. In one brief but memorable scene, Edith Scob, the luminous young star of Les Yeux Sans Visage, offers an angelic hymn to an assembled throng of fellow inmates.
The Eureka! Masters of Cinema DVD release of Le Tête Contre Les Murs is handsomely restored with optional English subtitles. Bonuses include the film's original theatrical trailer (see below), as well as interviews with actors Mocky and Aznavour conducted in 2008. The former recalls that he was forced to direct several scenes because of Franju's inability to work for days after witnessing a violent incident at the asylum in Dury, France where the film was shot, an event that inspired a scene in which an inmate slashes another's face with a handsaw. According to Raymond Durgnat's "Franju" (University of California Press, 1967), Aimée and cinematographer Schüfftan were both reduced to tears by what they witnessed at the Dury asylum.
Told that he will be incarcerated until he is "cured" of his psychosis, François befriends Heurtevent (pop singer Charles Aznavour in his first feature), a fragile fellow patient with whom he discusses the possibility of escape. Both attempt to transfer to the care of Dr. Emery (Paul Meurisse), a progressive psychiatrist, but Varmont refuses to release them.
Though he resents the dishonesty of his corrupt father and is childishly careless with money, François is no more insane than Jim Stark of Rebel Without A Cause (1955). He's simply a teen iconoclast with a wealthy and influential dad intent on crushing his rebellious spirit at any cost. Unfortunately for François, pére Gérane has an ally in Valmont, who believes that mental health is properly demonstrated through conformity.
In the world of Le Tête Contre Les Murs, it is doubtful that the antisocial François, further shaken by the terrors of the asylum, could ever be judged sane by either man. Filmmaker Bruno Dumont's recent Camille Claudel 1915 (2013) is a fact-based account of how the anguished French sculptor suffered a similar fate, and Wang Bing's 2013 documentary 'Til Death Do Us Part reveals, sadly, that in some parts of the world little has changed.
Le Tête Contre Les Murs was adapted from the 1949 novel by author Hervé Bazin, whose own parents once committed him to an asylum for his unruly behavior. The film was initially planned as the directorial debut of its star, Jean-Pierre Mocky. When the twenty year old Mocky couldn't secure funding due to his youth, the project was assigned to Georges Franju, then fifty. Though the script was written by Mocky and mathematician Jean-Charles Pichon, Franju, aided by the lush cinematography of Eugen Schüfftan and a wispy, carnival-esque score by Maurice Jarre - both of whom contributed to Les Yeux Sans Visage - interprets the material with his characteristic lyricism and poetry (and doves). An inmate's model of a strangely artificial-looking tree sparsely circled by benches dissolves into footage of its inspiration, the asylum's own unsettling courtyard, in but one example of Franju's visual artistry. The dense, dreamlike atmosphere and stylization of his Le sang des bêtes (1949), also seen later in Les Yeux Sans Visage and Judex, can be glimpsed throughout Le Tête Contre Les Murs.
Franju's cast, particularly Aznavour and Anouk Aimée, who portrays a young woman smitten with the unruly François against her better instincts, underplay their roles with Bressonian economy. Brasseur imbues the haughty Varmont with the clinical certitute and cold menace he brought to the role of Genessier in Les Yeux Sans Visage, a man unconcerned that he is playing God. In one brief but memorable scene, Edith Scob, the luminous young star of Les Yeux Sans Visage, offers an angelic hymn to an assembled throng of fellow inmates.
The Eureka! Masters of Cinema DVD release of Le Tête Contre Les Murs is handsomely restored with optional English subtitles. Bonuses include the film's original theatrical trailer (see below), as well as interviews with actors Mocky and Aznavour conducted in 2008. The former recalls that he was forced to direct several scenes because of Franju's inability to work for days after witnessing a violent incident at the asylum in Dury, France where the film was shot, an event that inspired a scene in which an inmate slashes another's face with a handsaw. According to Raymond Durgnat's "Franju" (University of California Press, 1967), Aimée and cinematographer Schüfftan were both reduced to tears by what they witnessed at the Dury asylum.