Film

Lilith (1964)

Director: Robert Rossen

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Rossen's sadly underrated last film (from a novel by JR Salamanca), an ambitious reworking of legend through the emotional involvement of a trainee therapist (Beatty) with a schizophrenic girl (Seberg). Stylistically, the framework of Lilith is established by the ironic contrasts of the two walks that Vincent (Beatty) completes: the first, a purposeful one towards the asylum, and the last, a desperate zig-zag through the various corridors and stairways of the asylum itself, out into the gardens, and finally winding up where the first one began, with an exhausted and curiously childish plea for help. The irony is extended even to the cry for help, since the same social worker (Hunter) had, in the first instance, politely enquired if she could help him. It is within this framework that Rossen develops the shifting relationship between Vincent and Lilith, beginning as patient and guide, and ending as beguiler and beguiled.

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