Stairway to Light

Stairway to Light (1945)

*** (out of 4)

Oscar winning short about how mentally disabled people were at one time thrown into dark dungeons and chained to walls until Dr. Phillipe Pinel determined that love could cure any disease. This short means well and tells an interesting story but I'm really not sure Charles Manson would be a better person if we just released him from prison and said we loved him.

Turner Classic Movies usually shows this as part of their Oscar month so that will be your best shot at seeing this.

Back when going to the movies was practically an all-day affair, studios made short subjects and most studios had regular series of shorts that followed a basic framework and usually had the same narrator, writers, etc. One of the best and most successful was The Passing Parade, which took its stories from real life, either everyday people in everyday life or footnotes in history, such as the subject of this Oscar winning short. Narrated in an almost flat, somewhat folksy style by John Nesbitt, it tells of the early efforts of one French doctor to help the criminally insane. A very effective and memorable piece, Turner Classic Movies runs this as filler regularly, particularly in March as part of their "31 Days of Oscar" feature. Highly recommended.

This episode of MGM's long-running short subject series concerns Doctor Philippe Pinel. Never heard of him? That's something that can be said about most of the subjects of this series. Pinel was an indifferently successful doctor who became the head of an insane asylum during the First Republic. In attempting to understand what was actually wrong with his patients, some of whom had been imprisoned for more than thirty years, he made a great discovery. He realized that kindness was more likely to cure them than chaining them up and beating them.

Radical stuff at the time, and perhaps even in 1945, when this short was released. It won an Oscar for Best Short Subject.

Sammy Lee's "Stairway to Light" looks at Philippe Pinel, who revolutionized how people deal with mental illness. This story is important nowadays because of how we see mentally ill people treated like criminals. Part of this is lack of understanding of mental illness, but it's mostly police forces that get trained to treat everything as a crime with no nuance. Does a cop have to kill a mentally ill relative of a celebrity or politician before the police get forced to treat mental illness as a health issue?

Anyway, this was the first time that I had ever heard of Philippe Pinel. Everyone who cares about studying mental illness should heed his advice. "Stairway to Light" isn't a great short, but a good introduction to Pinel's work.

What a wonderfully humane story, of a great man who needs to be better known for his innovations. I'm now on the lookout for a more in depth study of his work. I'm sure for one so pivotal in the treatment in those labeled as 'mad' or 'insane', that one must exist. Perhaps those who have seen this and were interested enough to investigate further, can recommend a good one

I've just seen this as one of the extras on the 2010 Australian (Region 4) DVD release of the 1945 classic "The Picture Of Dorian Gray". So if you're looking to find a permanent copy on DVD, in an excellent transfer, that's where you'll locate it. Hope that helps those who enjoyed this fabulous story