La Tête contre les murs (1959)
Directed by Georges Franju

Film Review

A decade and a half before director Milos Forman made a spirited condemnation of American society's treatment of the mentally ill in his multi-Oscar winning  One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), a comparatively obscure French film trod similar ground, but failed to have anything like the impact.  La Tête contre les murs was intended to draw the public's attention to the kind of psychiatric practices that were known to exist in contemporary France - the most shocking being the enforced incarceration of healthy individuals in mental institutions by their unscrupulous relatives.  The film also deals with some wider societal issues, such as the growing division between the generations, a theme that would underpin much of the work of the incipient French New Wave.

La Tête contre les murs certainly doesn't pull any punches in its depiction of the kind of psychiatric care that was prevalent at the time (and that's care in the deeply ironic, Orwellian sense of the word).  The film has been dismissed as being overly sensational in some quarters and at times it does feel a tad didactic.  Nonetheless, it offers a powerful examination of what continues to be an important social concern, namely how the mentally ill are to be treated.   The two prevailing schools of thought are presented to us, with the kind of restraint and measured impartiality that we can expect to find in a rabidly right-wing tabloid newspaper.  A Dr Crippen-like fiend (Pierre Brasseur) assures us that the mentally ill are a danger to society and should therefore be incarcerated until the day they die. Meanwhile, his saintly counterpart (Paul Meurisse) is equally adamant (but with a nice smile, softer voice and much better tailor) that mental illness is curable and that the aim should be to treat its victims so that they can go on to live reasonably normal lives within society.  Five decades on, the same debate still rages.  Mental illness remains both a stigma and an unsolved problem.

The film was the result of one of the most improbable collaborations in French cinema.  Jean-Pierre Mocky, an established actor, was keen to begin a career as a film director and, having read Hervé Bazin's semi-biographical novel, he found an ideal subject for his first film.  Although he had written a complete screenplay, Mocky was unable to find a producer who had confidence in him.  The controversial nature of the proposed film's subject matter was also a stumbling block - just who would pay to watch a film about abuse in a mental institution?  Mocky finally secured financial backing after he had talked Georges Franju, a well-regarded director of documentary shorts, into directing the film.  (He later approached the legendary screenwriter Jacques Prévert to write the dialogue, but went elsewhere when Prévert demanded an exorbitant fee.)

It is a matter of conjecture as two which of these two men had the greater creative control over the film.  Franju's imprint is readily apparent in the film's striking visual style, its unsettling mix of realism and dreamlike poetry.  On the other hand, Mocky not only co-wrote the script (with playwright Jean-Charles Pichon), he also chose all of the actors who appeared in the film and cast himself in the principal role.  Mocky recalls that during the making of the film he was called upon to direct several scenes when Franju suffered a temporary mental collapse after witnessing an inmate in a real psychiatric institution attack another inmate with a razor blade.

The seismic conflicts that ripple though the narrative - between the pre-and post-WWII generations, between the psychiatric doctors and their patients, and also between the doctors themselves - are underscored by the obvious conflict of approaches that Franju and Mocky bring to the film.  In his late forties, Franju was a traditional kind of filmmaker who had little affinity with the younger generation that Mocky so obviously represented.  By contrast, Mocky was a rebel and agent provocateur, even at this early stage in his career, and was closer in spirit to the New Wave auteur filmmakers, represented by François Truffaut, Jacques Rivette and Jean-Luc Godard.   Given the scale of the difference in their personalities, interests and artistic styles, it is incredible that Franju and Mocky were able to work together and craft such a coherent and alluring piece of cinema.

One of the main strengths of La Tête contre les murs is its prestigious cast list, which included established actors of the calibre of Pierre Brasseur and Paul Meurisse, rising stars such as Anouk Aimée, and popular chansonnier Charles Aznavour in his first substantial dramatic film role.  Despite having had next to no prior acting experience, Aznavour manages to be pretty well the star of the film; his arresting portrayal of a lonely epileptic made him the recipient of that year's Crystal Star Award (the precursor to the César) for Best Actor.   By contrast, it is difficult to warm to Jean-Pierre Mocky's interpretation of a juvenile delinquent, since the part calls for much great vulnerability than the actor is able to project.  Brasseur would virtually reprise his role as the sinister medical man in Franju's subsequent Les Yeux sans visage (1960), which is widely regarded as the most frightening horror film made in France.

Another notable contributor to the film is Eugen Schüfftan, the renowned cinematographer who began his career working with such creative giants as Fritz Lang and Abel Gance in the 1920s.  Schüfftan brings some characteristically bold expressionistic touches (including oblique camera angles and use of intense blocks of shadow, à la classic film noir) that add greatly to the sense of menace that pervades the film.  This is most effective in the chilling climax, which evokes something of the endless silent scream of Edvard Munch's famous painting as the helpless protagonist is drawn into the Kafkaesque web of doom for the last time.  Maurice Jarre's eerie score also has an expressionistic resonance, although it does occasionally jar with the mix of realism and poetry that Franju and Mocky seem to be striving for.

Stylistically and thematically, La Tête contre les murs is something of a mongrel, a strained collaborative effort in which its various artistic talents can be seen, too visibly, to be pulling in different directions.  The film also suffers from a slight lack of dramatic impetus and characterisation that barely rises above the superficial.  Yet, for all this, it still manages to be a hugely compelling work, an engaging social drama that tackles a serious subject with compassion, eloquence and intelligence.  However we judge the film on its artistic merits, it cannot be denied that it has made a significant contribution to the debate on how mental illness is to be treated, a debate that continues to this day.

Film Synopsis

Worn down by the troublesome behaviour of his rebellious son François, Maître Gérane, a well-known lawyer, has him interned in a  psychiatric hospital.  The two doctors who treat the wild young man cannot agree on the best way to treat him - Dr Varmont favours a classical treatment, whilst Dr Emery prefers a modern approach.  François knows that he is not crazy and so plans to escape, together with another patient named Heurtevant, hoping to that his girlfriend Stéphanie will provide him with shelter...