Sybil (1976 Film) - Discussion

Discussion

Sybil is a multi-layered, multi-dimensional film. These various elements are evident from the very beginning of the film to the very end. On the surface, it is about multiple personality disorder. This was the subject of all the advance publicity about and much of the overt reaction to the film. However, beginning with subliminal flashbacks in the very first scene, the viewer becomes increasingly aware of specific incidents of child abuse closely related to manifestations of Sybil's illness. That is, most of Sybil's dissociations occur in association with occurrances of music, painting, water, children, knives, buttonhooks, Christmas, or the colors green or purple. By definition, child abuse always involves a child and an abuser; which in Sybil's case was her mother. Therefore, another level of the movie is about mothers and children. There are, in fact, six characters in the film that represent mothers or mother-images. (I) Hattie Dorsett; Sybil's natural mother and the source of all the issues in the film. Related to Hattie thematically are: (A) The white-haired woman. Forty years of age when Sybil was born, Sybil never remembers a time when her mother did not have white hair. Sybil blacks out in two scenes where she sees a plump, middle-aged woman with white hair. (B) The cat. In Sybil's recurring nightmare, she is pursued by a headless mama cat which Dr. Wilbur identifies with Sybil's mother. Curiously, Sybil also owns a cat. (II) Frieda Dorsett; Willard's second wife, and technically, Sybil's stepmother. She appears in only one scene, in which she constantly "babifies" Willard and, to some degree, Sybil. (III) Grandma Mary Dorsett: Willard's mother, and Sybil's beloved grandmother. (IV) Miss Penny; the school teacher on the field trip to Central Park. A school teacher is legally authorized to act in loco parentis (i.e., "in the place of the parent"). She's the bureaucratic mother who runs things "by the book"; spouting platitudes like "Willful waste makes woeful want", and regimenting her students with a game of "Follow-the-Leader". (V) Dr. Wilbur: Sybil's psychiatrist. Of all the "mothers" Sybil encounters in this movie, Dr. Wilbur is the only one who does not abandon or betray her. (VI) Sybil herself. Though presented as the woman who can never have children, Sybil herself is undeniably a mother figure. As an artistic device, the alternate personalities in the movie are all presented as children. The one alternate from the book who was clearly not a child, The Blonde, was omitted from the movie. As becomes increasingly clear throughout the movie, Sybil must become their mother. Early in Part One, Dr. Wilbur sees this, and reluctantly accepts motherhood responsibilities on herself. By the end of the movie, it becomes clear that the dramatic endpoint of the film is for Sybil to accept this responsibility on herself. The idea of Sybil's motherhood is enhanced by inserting the names of Sally Field's two real-life sons, Eli and Peter, into the first scene where Sybil is calling the children at the end of the field trip.

Sybil's motherhood leads to one more level of understanding of the film: as a presentation of mother-daughter relationships. From the very beginning of the film to the very end, Sybil is presented with virtually every type of mother, from the very worst (in the book, Dr. Wilbur literally and explicitly states that Hattie Dorsett is "the worst mother of which I have any knowledge"——presumably including professional and historical knowledge) to the very best.