In our collective imagination, the madman is often related to the figure of the monster. Deprived of reason, unable to organize the world in a normal way, he builds a particular universe according to his own rules. Consequently, his point of view that doesn’t propose a representation of reality as we know it, leads to what we could call the Unknown.

The close links between art and madness are well known. The madman as a subject in art and the madness of the artist in her/his private life are two examples commonly cited when this subject is brought up. Nevertheless, it’s only with the arrival of a certain modernity that madness itself will be depicted in art. With this representation of madness also arises the question of the artistic representation of reality, of our everyday world and how we perceive it. Does the world have to be portrayed the way our optical organ perceives it or, on the contrary, is a more personal vision preferable, even if it disturbs reality? This issue becomes all the more pertinent when transposed to the context of cinema.

Still from M – Fritz Lang (1931)

Born at the end of the nineteenth century, cinema’s only aim to capture reality. Its inventors, the Lumière brothers, conceived it as a scientific means to transmit knowledge, know-how, and the incredible diversity of the world through moving images. The first recorded images were rough recordings of daily life (L’Arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat or La Sortie de l’usine Lumière à Lyon). And even if the Lumière brothers sometimes tried to stage an action (L’Arroseur arrosé or Bataille de boules de neige), their production was characterized primarily by their or their collaborators’ recording of filmed landscapes throughout the world.

Thanks to Georges Méliès who believed in the artistic and commercial destination of this invention, cinema developed the capacity to free itself from the sole and unique possibility of representing reality. Méliès was indeed the first to invent special effects in cinema. Cinema, as a synthesis of the other arts, also benefited from the contributions of literature and painting.

Over the years, cinema created its own language. Storytelling evolved, developing myriads of aesthetic and thematic opportunities. As in painting, the madman or the psychiatric institution (The Snake Pit, 1948; One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, 1975) but also the madness of creation (Lust for Life, 1956) have often been staged on film. As a theme, madness has been the prerogative genre cinema, with a predilection for staging crazy characters with criminal intentions (M – Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder, 1931; The Shining, 1980). Bringing madness to the big screen certainly depends upon the qualities of the actor ‘playing’ the role. It’s through her/his gestures and way of speaking that mental pathologies can be expressed and troubled spirits characterized. However, the cinematographic language offers other means to get there as, for example, space.

Still from The Snake Pit – Anatole Litvak (1948)

Space can be considered as an element of set design, but it can also be seen an important parameter in the thematic and aesthetic elaboration of a film. Managing space is managing a point of view. The moment the story of the film proposes to follow what happens from the madman’s point of view, the importance of studying the representation of space in cinema through the prism of madness becomes obvious. Therefore, not only the performance of the actor will be primordial, but also the representation of his distorted world through the aspect of space.

This dossier proposes a specific approach to the expression of madness through the representation of space in two artworks: a painting and a film. How did both Chaïm Soutine and Robert Wiene play with madness in their creation? That’s the starting point for this comparison.