This Lacan in Scotland seminar ”Adieu Lacan’ Film Discussion’ took place on Zoom on Thursday 30 June 2022. Dr Calum Neill, Director of Lacan in Scotland, interviews Richard C. Ledes about the film ‘Adieu Lacan’ of which he is the director.

Video timestamps:

0:00 – Introduction
1:13 – Imagined audience
11:45 – Representing analysis
22:13 – Transmitting psychoanalysis
27:55 – Interpretation
33:26 – Language & context
40:22 – Time
45:00 – Place
47:38 – Actors
55:29 – Lacan today
1:06:54 – Experience of directing
1:11:49 – Future plans
1:15:46 – Closing Remarks

Description of the event:

“With realistic acumen and artistic expertise, ADIEU LACAN portrays the struggles of a young woman, Seriema, who is trying to understand why her path to motherhood has reached an unbearable impasse. Following two miscarriages and the possible loss of her marriage, Seriema travels to Paris in 1972 to undergo psychoanalytic treatment with the maverick French analyst, Jacques Lacan. Her analysis is an attempt to help her to disentangle the enigma of her question: why has motherhood become a seeming impossibility? 

Inspired by the story of Betty Milan, a Brazilian psychoanalyst and writer, it follows closely her own actual psychoanalysis with Lacan. Based on her play “Goodbye, Doctor” and her novel “Lacan’s Parrot,” in which Milan recounts her analytic work, ADIEU LACAN offers an insightful and accurate account of an actual psychoanalytic cure.”

– Mavis Himes, Psychoanalyst and author of “The Power of Names.”

Watch a trailer of the movie here.

The film is available to rent/purchase on streaming services such as Amazon and Apple TV.

Richard C. Ledes is an American film director, producer and writer based in New York City. He is best known for his 2012 feature film drama Fred Won’t Move Out about Alzheimer, starring Elliott Gould and Fred Malamed, which was named by the British Film Institute (BFI) as one of the 10 essential films of legendary actor Elliott Gould. Ledes’ film The Caller won Best NY Narrative Feature at the Tribeca Film Festival and was co-written by Lacanian psychoanalyst Alain-Didier-Weill. His other movies include A Hole in One starring Michelle Williams, depicting the rise of mental healthcare in the U.S. after WWII, and his latest one currently in post-production, Ikonophile Z, “a light romantic comedy about the extinction of all life on earth”. Ledes is also the only translator of William Burroughs into English.