Jacques Lacan(1901-1981)
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Jacques Lacan (1901-1981) was an influential and controversial French
psychoanalyst, from a Catholic family, who were vinegar merchants.
Witnessing the hideous suffering of World War I veterans prompted him
to become a doctor.
Lacan's wife Sylvia Bataille was an acclaimed French actress (Renoir's
Crime of Monsieur Lange and his A Day in the Country) whose first
husband was the troubled surrealist novelist Georges Bataille (Ma mere,
Story of the Eye - both filmed 2004). The Batailles' daughter Laurence
(1930-1966) also became a psychiatrist and acted in Renoir's movie
French Cancan.
Lacan himself was influenced by surrealists, including Spanish painter
Salvador Dali, inspiring Lacan to devise a unique synthesis of
psychiatry and Surrealism. He pushed for psychiatry to go "back to
Freud's" basic principles, and his theories have been categorized as
"post-structuralism." His interdisciplinary approach has been credited
with his theories becoming influential outside of psychology, for
example, in philosophy. His students include anthropologist Claude
Levi-Strauss and philosopher Michel Foucault. His critics include the
U.S. linguist Noam Chomsky.
Lacan much preferred public seminars to writing.
psychoanalyst, from a Catholic family, who were vinegar merchants.
Witnessing the hideous suffering of World War I veterans prompted him
to become a doctor.
Lacan's wife Sylvia Bataille was an acclaimed French actress (Renoir's
Crime of Monsieur Lange and his A Day in the Country) whose first
husband was the troubled surrealist novelist Georges Bataille (Ma mere,
Story of the Eye - both filmed 2004). The Batailles' daughter Laurence
(1930-1966) also became a psychiatrist and acted in Renoir's movie
French Cancan.
Lacan himself was influenced by surrealists, including Spanish painter
Salvador Dali, inspiring Lacan to devise a unique synthesis of
psychiatry and Surrealism. He pushed for psychiatry to go "back to
Freud's" basic principles, and his theories have been categorized as
"post-structuralism." His interdisciplinary approach has been credited
with his theories becoming influential outside of psychology, for
example, in philosophy. His students include anthropologist Claude
Levi-Strauss and philosopher Michel Foucault. His critics include the
U.S. linguist Noam Chomsky.
Lacan much preferred public seminars to writing.