Hidden Gifts: The Mystery of Angus MacPhee

by Nick Higgins
Icarus Films, New York, 2005/2008
DVD, 26 mins, colour
Sales, $225
Distributor’s website: http://www.icarusfilms.com/.

Reviewed by Rob Harle
Australia

harle@dodo.com.au

We are so accustomed to being abused with intense audio and fast paced visual action in films that when a slow, peaceful documentary comes along it takes a while to adjust. This is one such film.

Hidden Gifts by Nick Higgins is a gentle film about the life of Angus MacPhee, an extraordinary man by any account. The film is in colour with fine camera work, excellent scenery, good background audio but is far too short at only 26 minutes.

MacPhee was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1946 and taken from his island home, in the north of Scotland, to Craig Dunain Psychiatric Hospital near Inverness. During his fifty years of incarceration “he spoke not a word to the hospital staff”. His “elective mutism” perhaps intensified his chosen means of expression, weaving. He incessantly and compulsively wove grasses into beautiful artistic clothing such as boots, gloves and coats.

Had it not been for art therapist Joyce Laing discovering the work of MacPhee, his work would have been destroyed and his amazing story probably never told. The film features interviews with Joyce Laing, McPhee’s sister Peggy, and various hospital staff who recount stories of the “quiet big man”. Laing explains throughout the film how individuals like MacPhee, because of their mental illness, live in an almost permanent dream world. The art some of these individuals produce is direct from the unconscious, not influenced by social conditioning, and is characterised by a compulsion to create what Laing calls “art extraordinary”.

Whilst I enjoyed the film very much and am grateful it was made, partly because it makes a contribution to our understanding of creativity and mental illness, it left me wanting more. Unfortunately the film leaves many questions unanswered. It does not delve deep enough into schizophrenia nor what brought on MacPhee’s illness. Did being “called up” for military service in WW11 exacerbate a potential genetic condition? Did taking him from his beautiful, isolated island home bring on his elective mutism? Visual coverage of his extraordinary artwork is not in sufficient detail, and explanation by a contemporary art critic would have shown his work to be almost timeless. The artwork which won a recent major art competition in Australia was a hand woven grass, hand-pushed lawn mower! All these questions and details could have been investigated much more which would have made the film longer, more informative and even more enjoyable than it was.

This film also highlights the importance of recognising the value in what may seem to be old bits of junk lying around and long forgotten items. I hate to think how much of our cultural heritage is thrown out because of indifference and ignorance. This situation was highlighted recently in a New York exhibition, Lost Cases, Recovered Lives: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic. This exhibition focuses on twelve of the four hundred suitcases found in the closed Willard Psychiatric Center’s attic. These suitcases were put in storage when patients were admitted to the hospital, many spent their lives institutionalised and died there. The belongings – letters, objects, photographs – found in their suitcases were the only clues to the bizarre lives of these “forgotten of the forgotten”.

Thankfully due to the interest and care of Joyce Laing, Nick Higgins and Hidden Gifts: The Mystery of Angus MacPhee, MacPhee’s work and moving story will not be forgotten.