All Divided Selves

A lyrical collage of film about R.D. Laing completed in 2011. Using footage from the Flat Time House archive amongst multiple other sources, Luke Fowler's film focuses on one of the key characters in the history of Better Books. The film concentrates on archival representations of radical psychiatrist RD Laing and his colleagues as they struggled to acknowledge the importance of considering social environment and disturbed interaction in institutions as significant factors in the aetiology of human distress and suffering. RD Laing was associated with the art and poetry gatherings at Better Books and his controversial psychiatric writings and methods considerably influenced the creative practices of the artists involved at Better Books. All Divided Selves reprises the vacillating responses to these radical views and the less forgiving responses to Laing's latter career shift; from eminent psychiatrist to enterprising celebrity. A dense, engaging and lyrical collage- Fowler weaves archival material with his own filmic observations including footage from a SIGMA gathering with John Latham and others at Brazier's Park in 1964.