The Infernal Dream

Directed by Zoe Beloff

The Infernal Dream incorporates two archival motion pictures Motion Studies Application and Folie a Deux both artlessly made instructional productions from the early 1950’s. Motion Studies illustrates methods of Scientific Management to show how work more efficiently on the assembly line. “Folie à Deux” is the clinical name of a contagious paranoid. The film was made to illustrate how to identify, but not treat, this mental disorder. Together they show two sides of the same coin, the presentation of the productive and unproductive body. The efficient and orderly gestures of women stuffing envelopes in Motion Studies Application find their distorted reflection in flamboyant gestures of the mother and daughter in Folie à Deux. In both films people are represented as the bearers of motion. One could call them objects.