Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

MoPoshy Absolutely brilliant

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

chazz46-2 CONTAINS SPOILERS -- While a freshman in college in 1965, I saw the movie "Lilith" and I was awestruck by the characters, the black and white screen with mystic lighting from prisms in windows, and Vincent, played by a new actor (Warren Beatty) whose character was quiet, pensive, observant, sensitive, empathetic, and searching for something meaningful to become after fighting in WWII. Being raised in a small town that had a high class asylum that was never considered an anathema to that community led to his searching for a job there. Here is where our schizophrenic blond beauty, Lilith (Jean Seberg) resided and the story of his improbable success as an on the job occupational therapist. Lilith was an incorrigible patient with whom nobody on the staff could ever make favorable headway. Vincent, a handsome, athletic, and intelligent (but naive unproven "professional") member of the junior staff was drawn to Lilith to the extent that he was foolishly in love with her. Lilith blackmailed him to carry on lesbian relationships and presumptive soft core pedophilia in public while under his attending responsibilities. He anxiously awaited his "turn" during the week for her total attention to him (and of course, sex). I thought is was quite ironic towards the end when the author's prosaic descriptions of Vincent's delusions gave the appearance that Vincent was experiencing psychotic symptoms. As he realized he was snared by Lilith and unable to do anything but whatever she commanded him to do, the only thing that was left to confirm that his thinking was organized was his ability to maintain steady control of his favorable reports regarding Liilith to his supervisors. .......but even this was tainted by the fact that the subterfuge was so implausible for any normal person to carry out. The book, which I read later, ended differently than the movie, by allowing Vincent to leave his employment after Lilith was transferred out by her parents and another patient died from his total abrogation of his professional responsibilities. The book does not allow Vincent to succumb to his progression of delusions and he enjoys living with his grandfather in town no longer associated with the asylum and presumably quite sane. But I loved the movie's ending.....in which Vincent, in his last moments at the asylum as a therapist, walks out of the front door with the mutual understanding of his supervisors and himself that his working there was not a good idea and that he had failed. But then Vincent stops, and turns around, and the camera does a closeup....where his last words of the movie is......"Help me." So, I believe the movie and the book present strong considerations for a serious nearly psychotic breakdown for Vincent. When I rotated med students in my practice 25 to 35 years ago, I often recommended this book as an entertaining way to demonstrate to the students how dangerous it can be to allow any romance in a professional relationship with patients. The descriptions of Vincent's many delusional episodes are evident after he realizes Lilith is in control. When he realized that he was a "loathsome procurer" for Lilith, he described his mindset in this way: " If I try to think about it rationally, my mind becomes a cauldron of hysterical remorse". He had long commentary of nearly autistic insights on the difference between air and water on their interactions with their surroundings, talking about falling in air but the buoyancy of water not allowing such dynamic movements, etc. I found the prose of Salamanca part of the mystical and mesmerizing qualities that made this book different from all the rest. In fact, I was surprised at how much the dialogue in the movie followed the book verbatim. Salamanca was compared to JD Salinger, but Salinger's intellect had to be light years beyond JD's based on the much deeper and highly prosaic descriptions of many truths we all experience in life. A great book that never got the highest critical acclaim it deserved. Chazz46

clanciai Almost all classical stories delving into mental institutions for an investigation of the conditions led by a perfectly normal and sane man, who associates with the patients freely as a fellow man, conclude with the sane protagonist ending up as a patient, and this is yet another variation of the old story, but told and filmed with remarkable subtlety. Especially the acting is outstanding concerning every single character, with of course a special credit to Jean Seberg, always beautiful, always fascinating, and here more than ever. Robert Rossen's ambition has apparently been to make his last film his most personal one digging into the severest problems of humanity, solving none of them but at least presenting them and making them viewable. Warren Beatty lives with some war traumas, has had an unhappy love affair and seeks a job at the asylum, where he meets Lilith, whose brother has killed himself for not daring to love her, while she is a person whom no one can help loving. One of them is Peter Fonda, another intellectual patient, who has a tragedy of unrequited love of his own. The tragedy here is tremendous in its covered discretion where words tell nothing while the untold stories boom with their silence. The photography adds to the fascination of the drama, and especially the music illustrates perfectly the effort to mask the untold horrors with a seductive gloss of beauty. This is a film for much afterthought that isn't easily disposed of. You can't help asking the question: What happened to Vincent next? My guess would be that he ended up as yet another doctor.

howardeisman The mental institution in this film, called "Poplar Lodge" I believe, is modeled on Chestnut Lodge, a Bethesda, Maryland institution famed for early attempts to establish interpersonal relationships with (rich) psychotic patients. This fits the institutional style depicted in this film. Hopwever, the main characters do not seem to be mentally ill so much as metaphores for the madness es in our society. The perception that sexual expression represents evil or crazy behavior, not changed all that much from the time this film was made, frequent wars, and the way sensitive people are brushed aside as others hustle toward dubious goals, are all personified as forms of madness. Okay so far.But the film does not quite work. The character played by Anne Meacham, seething with barely suppressed sexuality, works, but Lilith, played as a golden haired all American, girl next door beauty, doing and saying odd things, making up her own language, seeing herself as an outside observer of our society, is a character which doesn't hit home. She seems more quirky than mad. That she drives men into destructive actions seems somehow unlikely. At the most, she may be a catalyst for their weaknesses to be expressed.Jean Seberg doesn't personify madness. She seems just bemused. Warren Beatty conveys a lack of inner direction, a developing depression, and strange longings by looking blank, seeming inarticulate, and acting as if he has no idea of the direction his next step will take. All of this slows this film down to a very languid pace, frequently accompanied by a relaxed bop-along jazz score. Thus, the film is too slow, a long windup for a soft pitch. It is hard to feel much tension, even though it is clear that there is supposed to be a lot of tension. Nice try, but no cigar.

Jem Odewahn Often very haunting and beautiful, 'Lillith' is a hard film to put your finger on. After seeing it five days ago I'm still not entirely sure whether I really liked, but I was indeed fascinated by it. Warren Beatty and Jean Seberg as the title character both turn in interesting performances as the nurse and patient in a mental institution. Beatty slowly gets caught in Seberg's web, with her madness described as a state of 'rapture'. Is she better off existing in her own world? Is she happier? Some gorgeous black-and-white photography in this one, especially the shots of Seberg and Beatty making love for the first time. And the lesbian scene seemed really strong for the time period.