Event

Psychopathia Sexualis

The motion picture Psychopathia Sexualis is a screen adaptation of Krafft-Ebing's book of the same name. Writen in 1880, it was an attempt to catalogue all known forms of sexual deviance in a single work. While the book is comprised of 238 case studies, the film consists of approximately 20 vignettes ,ranging in length from 30 seconds to 15 minutes, that dramatize the varied forms of sexual paraesthesia documented in the book. Following the pattern of the original case studies, some of these episodes are little more than medical snapshots, while others offer detailed accounts of a person's struggle with sexual abnormality. These playlets will be connected via a medical lecture performed by Dr. Krafft-Ebing from the stage of an 1880s surgical theatre. Beneath the surface of this parade of sexual dysfunction lies the film's true aim: to penetrate the ulterior motive of the medical community.