[1] He studied Ancient Greek, English literature and Theatre at Amherst College, graduating magna cum laude in 1979.
The performance “Taste” had introduced him to the topic of his doctoral dissertation: the rise of mental health care after World War II based on the treatment of returning soldiers and how it became party of American culture.
His dissertation was finished in 1996 and named "The Pure Products of America Go Crazy: The Language of Schizophrenia in the United States During the Early Cold War”.
[4] It subsequently served as research material for his first feature film A Hole in One starring award-winning actress Michelle Williams.
There he assistant-directed a series of plays created and performed by the patients, one of which, "Room 13A" was about a drug that cured all mental illness but had one side-effect: it brought back the dead.
[5] A Hole in One is a feature film that stars Michelle Williams as a young woman who seeks out a lobotomy during the rise of the procedure in the 1950s.
Ledes conducted extensive research for the film over many years, including volunteering at an outpatient center for severely mentally ill. Additionally, he visited George Washington University, which holds the archives of Dr Walter Freeman.
He also cites "The Lobotomist: A Maverick Medical Genius and His Tragic Quest to Rid the World of Mental Illness" by Jack El-Hai, which came out after "A Hole in One", as a reliable reference point.
Ledes creates a mood of constant narrative dissonance, a sensation heightened by the strange comings, goings, and seemingly ad-libbed sayings of his characters, countless jumps in time, scientific and historical information thrown about with reckless abandon, and dreamy cinematographic moves (in one shot, the camera takes on the point of view of an oncoming wave)[8] David Rooner from Variety has compared the film to Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind.
A contemplative thriller about an executive whistleblower who exposes a corrupt energy corporation's abuses, the film is a departure from the high stylization of A Hole in One..
And as the two men's lives continue to intertwine, the puzzle pieces fall together, it's revealed that the man fully expects to be assassinated at any moment—and that he's haunted by a childhood incident that occurred during World War II.
[13] Shot in the house where Richard Ledes' parents lived for close to fifty years shortly after they moved out, the film's story is semi-autobiographical.
Its poignancy is distilled in a scene in which a music therapist leads three generations of the family in singing "Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit-Bag," “Ain't We Got Fun?"
Spencer List, Bill Raymond, Wendell Pierce, Meital Dohan, Matt Servitto and David Costabile also are part of the ensemble cast.
"Foreclosure" references Caravaggio's "The Sacrifice of Isaac" (which was also featured in the first released trailer), Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling and the character of Huckleberry Finn.
It is set under the faux parameters of a romantic comedy that takes place in Manhattan and is mixed with real life interviews with the firefighters from Breezy Point and Far Rockaway who lost their homes to fire and water during Hurricane Sandy.
[24] It premiered in New York in April 2015 at the Queens World Film Festival[25] and in Paris, France at the ÉCU The European Independent Film Festival[26] No Human Is Illegal is a personal encounter with the world of the refugees detained on the Greek island of Lesvos since March 20, 2016 due to the EU-Tukey deal on the migrant crisis.
Some of the themes that feature prominently in Ledes' films are mental illness, the NYC Greek Community, racial identity, the economic crisis, neo-Nazism, Alzheimer disease, lobotomy, politics.
The concepts of French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan figure in the texts of Ledes' films which also underscore a post-Marxist form of ideology.