Rosenhan experiment [Shock Corridor]
Last night I watched Shock Corridor (Sam Fuller, 1963) based on reddit’s recommendation, and it turned out to be pretty damn good. Fuller did a fantastic job of weaving eerie, alarming, chaotic moments into the otherwise really classical looking black and white 50s hospital setting; the momentary diversions to colour, for instance, had a particularly strong impact on my senses, drawing me out of my standard ‘aged movie’ mindset and into something more critically aware, surprised, impressed. I would say it’s more one of those strange Hollywood delights than a truly outstanding movie, though. Fans of surrealism will no doubt appreciate the healthy dose of absurd that permeates its plot, characters, politics, poster art:
It’s right along lines of the title-linked Wikipedia article about planting sane people into insane asylums and watching how psychiatrists seem to consistently (and with considerable prognostic detail) misdiagnose them as insane. (And, especially interestingly, how the mental patients themselves are better able to detect the plants as imposters!) Really makes you question the whole concept of ‘in/sanity’…
Source: reddit.com
Film.
