Translations upon cinema as a psychotherapeutic rite

Abstract

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.