The asylum and madness are enduring themes in the history of cinema, from the silent The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920) to found footage horrors such as Grave Encounters (2011) and Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum (2018). This talk explores how cinematic representations of the asylum and its patients have reflected real-life developments in psychiatry, including the demolition of Victorian institutions and moves toward community-based care in the late 20th century. We will also see how film itself played a role in these developments, with documentary exposés of asylum life like Frederick Wiseman’s Titicut Follies (1967) revealing the real-life horrors of the institution.
Jennifer Wallis
Dr Jennifer Wallis is a historian of psychiatry and medicine at Imperial College London. Her publications include Investigating the Body in the Victorian Asylum: Doctors, Patients, and Practices (2017) and the co-authored Anxious Times: Medicine & Modernity in Nineteenth-Century Britain (2019). She also writes on film and music, with publications on rape-revenge plots in made-for-TV movies, British cult film, and industrial music. She is the Press Officer for indie publisher Headpress.
