An Angel At My Table
Frames of Mind: Madness of the Muses
Wednesday, November 15, 2006 – 7:30pm
USA/UK 1990. Director: Jane Campion
Colour, DVD, 158mins.
Jane Campion’s brilliant adaptation of Janet Frame’s Autobiography
“All poets are mad.” . – Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)
Originally conceived of as a television miniseries, Jane Campion’s brilliant, heart-breaking three-part film adapts celebrated New Zealand author Janet Frame’s
three-volume autobiography. The first section, “To the Is-Land,” tells of Frame’s poverty-stricken childhood on a New Zealand farm, where she grows up chronically shy and awkward, acutely aware of being different, and finds refuge in books and writing. In the second section, “An Angel at My Table,” she dutifully enrols in teachers’ college, even though she desperately wants to be a writer. A nervous collapse leads to a wrongful diagnosis of schizophrenia and eight years in a mental institution, enduring hundreds of electroshock treatments. Amazingly, Frame continues to write throughout these terrible years; it is the publication of her first book, and its winning of a prestigious literary prize, that convinces doctors not to carry out a planned lobotomy. The final section, “The Envoy from Mirror City,” charts Frame’s blossoming as an artist, her travels to Europe on a literary fellowship, her stumbling onto the bohemian art world of the 1950s, and her awkward first romantic relationship. Kerry Fox gives a mesmerizing breakout performance as the adult Janet. Colour, DVD. 158 mins.
Frames of Mind is a monthly film event utilizing film and video to promote professional and community education on issues pertaining to mental health and illness.
Post-screening discussion with Ramon Kubicek. A writer, artist, and educator, Ramon currently teaches film history as well as art and design history at Emily Carr Institute and Langara College. He has published essays, short fiction, poetry, criticism, and two books on art, including One Source: A Celebration of Spirit and Art.
Moderated by Dr. Harry Karlinsky,
Director of Continuing Medical Education and Professional Development, Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia.