Asylum
Cast & Crew
Peter Robinson
Richard W. Adams
Richard W. Adams
Peter Frelinghuysen
James Gleason
Nancy Robinson
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
This documentary looks at everyday life in Kingsley Hall, a London psychiatric residence overseen by Scottish psychoanalyst R. D. Laing and colleagues from the London-based Philadelphia Association. Following Laing's theories, which question the very notion of insanity and reject traditional psychiatric hospitals as places where doctors have all the power, the patients of Kingsley Hall coexist with their doctors in the large, rundown building. Allowed to "live and let live" in the safety of the Hall, the patients are seen interacting with one another and their doctors, while a small camera crew films them. As American doctor Leon Redler notes, the only requirement of the self-funded Hall is that residents pay a share of the rent. When one patient, a confused, soft-spoken young woman named Julia, tries to introduce herself on camera, David, an older, apparently schizophrenic patient, talks over her incoherently. Though obviously well educated, David, who also marks the walls with large, cryptic messages, cannot control his speech. Other patients, including the young and timid Jamie, Wendy, a thoughtful, articulate Canadian, and Lee, an American with severe social anxieties, are shown. As part of her therapy, Julia acts like a baby and is coddled by the others. After Julia is taken away unexpectedly by her uncle, Wendy, who has formed a bond with her, phones Julia's family. Wendy explains that everyone at the Hall is "searching" and that Julia will be stronger for her experiences. To Wendy's relief, Julia returns to the Hall soon after. In another exchange, Redler questions Jamie about his well-to-do father's plans to take him home for an indefinite period. The father, who is worried that Jamie might become a homosexual if he does not soon learn to be comfortable around the opposite sex, admits to the doctor that he has arranged secretly for his son to meet a non-threatening young woman. Although Jamie has told the doctor he would like to stay, he leaves with his father without complaint. Laing then discusses his theory that the mentally disturbed can help one another as they pass through different stages of their trauma. Laing notes that some Kingsley Hall residents have already spent time in psychiatric hospitals that failed to help them, while others are looking for a safe haven, or asylum, in which to have their breakdowns. After Laing states that all Kingsley Hall residents are encouraged to visit any doctor or hospital they wish and take any medications their doctors prescribe, the film focuses briefly on patient Richard. As the high-strung Richard is seen traveling on the London underground, he talks about his breakdown, during which he attacked a woman in a theater. Back at the Hall, Wendy reveals that, while growing up in Toronto, she hid behind two false personas¿one weak and needy, the other outgoing and happy¿but now feels free to be her true self. Wendy admits that she came to London to meet Laing, whose books she read and admired. The end of the film concentrates on David, whose persistent, incoherent and sometimes violent outbursts have antagonized and terrified his housemates. Redler speculates that David, the eldest of six boys, is jealous of Lee and Richard, who arrived at the Hall after him, demanding attention just as his younger siblings once did. As a group, the various residents discuss how to handle David and whether he should be forced to move out. With the doctors' help, Lee tries to make peace with David, but David continues his unintelligible ramblings and nothing is resolved. Later, Laing speaks with David. Through quiet questioning, Laing calms David, enabling him to talk about his former life as a computer scientist and university professor.
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
Onscreen credits read: "Filmed and edited by Richard W. Adams" and "Recordist and associate cameraman-editor William P. Steele." Although onscreen credits include a 1972 copyright statement for Peter Robinson, the film was not registered for copyright at that time. A videocassette of Asylum was registered for copyright by the estate of Peter Robinson on March 26, 1993, under the number PAu-1-727-010. In the film itself, only R. D. Laing is identified fully. The other residents are referred to only by first names, or no name at all. Dr. Leon Redler is not called by name, but his identity was confirmed by modern photographs. The patient "Julia" is occasionally called "Julie" in the film.
The following statements appear onscreen prior to the title card: "In recent years there has been a growing movement to reappraise our traditional ways of thinking about mental illness and mental health. One expression of this trend is a small community in London where a three-man camera crew lived for six weeks to make this film. The community continues and develops the work of Kingsley Hall, the experimental community founded in London in 1965 by the British psychoanalyst and author, R. D. Laing, and his colleagues in the Philadelphia Association." Closing credits include the following statement: "This film could not have been made without the help and advice of Leon Redler, M.D., Michael Yocum and Paul Zeal and the generous co-operation of the community residents . . . and visitors."
In 1965, following the publication of his popular psycho-philosophical books The Divided Self: An Existential Study of Madness and Sanity and The Politics of Experience, Scottish-born psychoanalyst R. D. Laing (1927-1989) and six colleagues founded the charitable organization The Philadelphia Association. (Although the Association included many Americans, the use of the name Philadelphia refers to its original Greek meaning, "brotherly love," not to the American city.) The aim of the Association was to provide alternative care to the mentally disturbed, especially those with schizophrenia. Laing, a traditionally trained clinician, believed that the rigid structure of typical psychiatric hospitals, which divided patients from doctors, hindered mental healing. As a psychoanalyst, he was known for his ability to communicate with hard-to-reach schizophrenics. He was strongly against sedating patients with drugs, although in the film, he makes a point of saying the residents were allowed to use drugs if they chose.
East London's Kingsley Hall, built in 1912 and used originally as a nursery for the poor, became the first of twenty residences set up by the Association. A contemporary brochure for the Hall described it as "a melting pot, a crucible in which many assumptions about normal-abnormal, conformist-deviant, sane-crazy experience and behaviour were dissolved. No person gave another tranquilisers or sedatives. Behaviour was feasible which would have been intolerable elsewhere. It was a place where people could be together and let each other be." The Hall's most famous patient was Mary Barnes, a nurse-turned-painter who wrote a book about her residency called Mary Barnes: Two Accounts of a Journey Through Madness. The Association's lease on the Hall expired around the same time that Asylum was being shot. According to a modern interview with American cameraman-editor Adams, two television crews had been either thrown out of or denied access to the Hall prior to director Robinson's documentary. At that time the Hall was in extreme disrepair and was viewed negatively by the local community. With the help of director Richard Attenborough, who filmed scenes for his 1982 film Gandhi there, the Hall was renovated in the early 1980s. Today it houses the London branch of the Gandhi Foundation.
