Abstract
This article examines a celebrated documentary made for Italian state TV in 1968 and transmitted in 1969 to an audience of millions. The programme – The Gardens of Abel – looked at changes introduced by the radical psychiatrist Franco Basaglia in an asylum in the north-east of Italy (Gorizia). The article examines the content of this programme for the first time, questions some of the claims that have been made for it, and outlines the sources used by the director, Sergio Zavoli. The article argues that the film was as much an expression of Zavoli's vision and ideas as it was linked to those of Franco Basaglia himself. Finally, the article highlights the way that this programme has become part of historical discourse and popular memory.
Highlights
This article examines a celebrated documentary made for Italian state TV in 1968 and transmitted in 1969 to an audience of millions
The focus of the early movement was the town of Gorizia, in the extreme north-east of the country, right on the border with Yugoslavia, where a psychiatrist called Franco Basaglia took over as Director of the Provincial Psychiatric Hospital in 1961
The film contains most of the common elements of the standard ‘Gorizia’ story, as told in other accounts: the key, charismatic role of Franco Basaglia himself, a contrast between ‘closed’ and ‘open’ institutions, a strong implied connection between mental illness and social class and another one between mental health treatment and wealth; the voice given to the patients, a sense of resistance to change which needed to be overcome and aspects of horror and torture as features of the ‘old’ asylums
Summary
This article examines a celebrated documentary made for Italian state TV in 1968 and transmitted in 1969 to an audience of millions.
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