New film about Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot and his patient Augustine
AUGUSTINE
Opens May 17 in New York at Film Forum (http://www.filmforum.org/movies/more/augustine) and the Eleanor Bunin Munroe Film Center at the Film Society of Lincoln Center (http://www.filmlinc.com/films/on-sale/augustine1)
For more information, visit the film’s official website: http://www.musicboxfilms.com/augustine-movies-66.php
AUGUSTINE is based on the true story of the unusual relationship that developed between Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot, the pioneering 19th century French neurologist and mentor to Sigmund Freud, and his star teenage patient. In Belle Epoque Paris, 19-year-old kitchen maid Augustine (singer/actress Soko) suffers an inexplicable seizure that leaves her partially paralyzed and is sent to the all-female psychiatric hospital Salpetriere, specializing in the ailment of ‘hysteria’. Augustine captures the attention of renowned neurologist Dr. Charcot (Vincent Lindon) after she has another attack that appears to give her intense physical pleasure. Intrigued, he begins using her as his principal subject, hypnotizing her in lecture halls as she displays her unusual fits. Dr. Charcot, whose methodology was known for its theatrical panache, uses Augustine to demonstrate his theories regarding madness and neurosis to a riveted audience of all-male physicians. They gaze upon her from on high, in the medical “theatre” in which his famed presentations transpire. As Dr. Charcot and Augustine’s relationship continues, the lines between doctor and patient start to blur.
“A coolly febrile study of madness, Victorian sexual politics and power. The complex relationship between 19th-century neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot and of the most famous ‘hysterics’ he treated is charted with intelligent nuance.” – Leslie Felperin, Variety