HEAD AGAINST THE WALL/LA TÊTE CONTRE LES MURS
by George Franju
1959, 95 minutes, 16mm. In French with English subtitles. Archival print courtesy of the UCLA Film and Television Archive.
After committing “irrational” acts of vandalism aimed against his father, a troubled young dropout is committed to an insane asylum because of a false medical report. Exploring the darker regions of the human psyche, Franju reinforces themes of madness, imprisonment and the sanity behind insanity with an actual psychiatric hospital as the filming location.
“[A] devastating noir about a young dropout whose bourgeois father plunks him into an insane asylum. The great chanteur Charles Aznavour makes his screen debut as a friendly epileptic. Godard called it ‘an insane film about insanity, a film of an insane beauty.’”–Elliott Stein, VILLAGE VOICE
–Friday, March 14 at 7:00, Monday, March 17 at 9:15, and Thursday, March 20 at 7:00.
“[A] devastating noir about a young dropout whose bourgeois father plunks him into an insane asylum. The great chanteur Charles Aznavour makes his screen debut as a friendly epileptic. Godard called it ‘an insane film about insanity, a film of an insane beauty.’”–Elliott Stein, VILLAGE VOICE
–Friday, March 14 at 7:00, Monday, March 17 at 9:15, and Thursday, March 20 at 7:00.
There are no future showings scheduled.