'Who took the Drugs? Displaced Hallucinations in Psychedelic Fiction Films'

Abstract

My paper explores how, in films like Wonderwall (1968), More (1969) and Performance (1970), psychedelic effects are not contained by the points of view of characters who are under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs. I argue that psychedelia inflects cinematography and setting, so that narrative realism, psychological realism and abstraction are combined to form a radical new aesthetic. My paper considers how the films achieve this blending of modes by deploying other psychedelic arts in the image and soundtrack or by drawing on the cinematic and literary avant-gardes.