Year: 2018
Type: article
Abstract: English abstract: First tested und used for therapeutic purposes in psychiatry, LSD entered the sub- und counter-cultural field of the beatnik and hippie movement in the 1950s and 1960s as a chemical promise of individual liberation from societal restrictions. In this process, “psychedelic” movies emerged as a new genre, picking up narratives of the substance-induced freeing of the mind and developing cinematic stagings of being “high” on LSD. The article compares a selection of “psychedelic” movies produced since the 1960s, including “The Trip”, “Easy Rider”, “Altered States” and “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”. It focusses on the question of how narratives of the chemical transgression of the mind, understood as part of the counter-cultural movement, transformed into representations of intoxication as expression of individual fragmentation and pointless escapism at the mercy of societal constraints.
Source: Body Politics
Author: Christof Beyer
Language: English
Topic: Cinema History and Criticism
Subfield: Visual Arts and Performing Arts
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4411611848