Céline Roustan

Freud’s famous Dora Case Study has always been polarising, but for a publication that dates back to over a century ago, it is infuriating to see how relevant it still is. With Hysterical Girl, Emmy-nominated director and producer Kate Novack revisits the case study by giving a voice to the female patient, finally allowing her to share her side of the story. By taking some creative liberties and imagining what Dora would have said if interviewed, Novack builds a powerful and topical narrative by contrasting her recollection of events with Freud’s words and more recent archival montages.

Novack had wanted to make a film about Freud for a while, but was waiting to discover the right angle and approach, revealing that she was “never sure of the right way in or the story that felt most urgent”. She got acquainted with the Dora case back in college, but it is by re-reading it around the time of the Kavanaugh hearings that the inspiration struck. “I was stunned by the parallels between the two”, the director reveals. “The syntax was different but the line of inquiry was just so similar”.

“His views are actually the bedrock of this pervasive thinking that silences and shames victims of sexual assault”

Drawing this comparison gave Novack the inspiration she needed to push ahead and finally make a film exploring Freud’s influence and how it is still very much present today. Aiming to refute a claim that she’d heard repeatedly throughout her research – that Freud was “no longer relevant” – the filmmaker hopes her film will help to show that “his views are actually the bedrock of this pervasive thinking that silences and shames victims of sexual assault”.

By playing with the conventions of the documentary genre, Novack proves how much her thesis is undeniable. The story at the center of the film has only ever been told from one point of view, Freud’s and even worse, the only perspective we have, actively discredits the other party – here Dora, by quickly labeling her as hysterical. Sound familiar?

Archival footage of Freud acts as a reminder of how little attitudes have changed since he published his Dora case study

“The aim was to experiment with upending Freud’s official narrative”, Novack reveals as we discuss her motivation, adding that as “there was no extant text in Dora’s own words, we created one”. And what she created will come as no huge surprise, it is yet another story of abuse where no one believes the woman and everyone, including other women, side with the abuser instead of seeing clearly through his gaslighting techniques.

Unfortunately, as we all know or could have guessed, the sessions with Freud are typical of men who would rather call a woman hysterical instead of admitting that they might be right and that one of the members of their boys’ club is actually involved in some wrongdoing. Novack cleverly ties his line of questioning and his “findings” with more modern-day references by making them travel through the 20th century and beyond by intercutting perfectly edited and carefully chosen archival footage.

It’s the perfect approach to make this story relevant to 2021, as Hysterical Girl tackles a woman’s right to be angry (without being labeled “hysterical”) and the consistency that sexual assault claims are still not taken seriously and constantly discredited. At key moments throughout the narrative, the edit acts as a mode of time-travel, transporting the story (and its audience) through the decades and adapting it to the (not so) evolving society we live in today. Watching the archival material is painful – especially the Christine Blasey Ford and Anita Hill footage – but it is important in adding this new and essential context to Freud’s well-known essay and reveals something even more disturbing. Something many of us were already aware of, but the impact of seeing it all laid out clearly before us is devastating.

Hysterical Girl started its festival journey with a selection at the 2020 Covid-aborted edition of SXSW, it premiered online as part of the New York Times Op-Docs catalogue and went on to be shortlisted for the 2021 Academy Awards. For her next project, Novack plans on exploring gaslighting and motherhood with a similar approach, combining scripted performances, archival footage and observational documentary.