Translations upon cinema as a psychotherapeutic rite

The following retraces the path of a director tracing the path of a muse from early Spring 1979 through January 1981. What resulted was a form of psychodrama enveloping the cast, crew, and director in the making of an autobiographical feature film, "The Flower of Pain." As the lessons of life are learned through one's mistakes, the enlarging of these mistakes and personal failings onto a cinema screen affords both the illumination of motivation and the expiation of the past. The cinema can no longer be a place one goes to in order to escape but rather, a place one goes to in order to find oneself; one enters the cinema for repairs. Similarly, there is inherent therapy in the creative process, and this must be imposed onto the viewer. One must be able to take a film home and use it. To the extent that this kind of filmmaking is a communal act, it requires the development of techniques and refinement of skills that encourage the actor to live concentrated in front of a camera, confident that his own personal experiences, his traumatisms and philosophy, coincide with the film's design.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

1981

Author dc:creator

• Gianvito, John Henry

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Richard Leacock.

• Architecture.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/74297

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/74297