![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 25 of 40. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by utopizen on January 4, 2003, at 17:44:05
good movie, on HBO-2 or -3.
Posted by Dinah on January 4, 2003, at 18:58:02
In reply to Donnie Darko: almost as good as K-PAX!, posted by utopizen on January 4, 2003, at 17:44:05
Is it another movie with a therapist who makes all ours look bad? I want Judd Hirsch from Ordinary People!!!
Posted by utopizen on January 4, 2003, at 22:26:27
In reply to Re: Donnie Darko: almost as good as K-PAX! » utopizen, posted by Dinah on January 4, 2003, at 18:58:02
> Is it another movie with a therapist who makes all ours look bad? I want Judd Hirsch from Ordinary People!!!
>Oh, well, it's got a therapist, which like in K-PAX, also has some side-training as a professional hypnotist that she resorts to when higher meds and routine sessions fail.
But as far as themes go, there's like 12 all at once, and you'll create a new mental illness if you make yourself think you can discover one central theme (hint: even the director doesn't think there are fewer than 2).
It's on HBO1 a lot right now. Noah Wyle and Drew Barrymore play minor parts, along with Patrick Swayze.
Posted by utopizen on January 4, 2003, at 22:27:25
In reply to Re: Donnie Darko: almost as good as K-PAX! » utopizen, posted by Dinah on January 4, 2003, at 18:58:02
Oh, forgot to mention, the main character has paranoid schitzophrenia.
Posted by bluedog on January 5, 2003, at 10:34:51
In reply to Re: Donnie Darko: almost as good as K-PAX!, posted by utopizen on January 4, 2003, at 22:27:25
1. I really enjoyed K-PAX -I agree this was good (9/10)
2. I've never heard of Donnie Darko but I will keep my eye out for this one
3. Of course the original psych hospital movie was "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - haven't seen this one in a while. (9/10)
4. I just saw "Colour of Night" with Bruce Willis - lots of gratuitous sex scenes but the therapy parts were complete crap making us all look bad as Dinah stated in her post. Worst movie I've ever seen in my opinion. (2/10)
5. I recently saw "Girl Interrupted" - Now that I thought was an excellent movie. Angelina Jolie plays an excellent sociopath (didn't she get an Oscar for this role?) and Winona Ryder does well as someone diagnosed by the "experts" with "borderline personality disorder" though to me she was just plain old depressed (But then again I'm not a psychiatrist so what would I know?) (9.5/10)
6. That movie with Barbara Streisand as the therapist and Nick Nolte was not bad (I've forgotten the name of this movie) (7.5/10)
7. "Don't say a Word" - with Michael Douglas as the psych. I've reserved my judgement on this one. Didn't really know what to make of it.
7. Can't forget "Analyze This" - humour is always the best approach to this topic. All other approaches hit way to close to home and can leave me feeling a bit numb.(10/10).
Can anyone think of any others movies like the above and give them a rating out of 10. I wonder how many of the actors in these films have ever been on the AD med merry-go-round or had a real life therapy session?Your resident PSB movie critic
bluedog
Posted by Tabitha on January 5, 2003, at 13:37:14
In reply to Movies that feature Therapy/mental illness, posted by bluedog on January 5, 2003, at 10:34:51
_Prince of Tides_ was the name of that Streisand/Nolte movie. I thought that was one of those disgustingly perfect therapy scenarios that makes us all look bad.
_Twister_ featured Jamie Gertz as a therapist character who was the pitiful rival to Helen Hunt. She was always on her cell phone talking to patients and generally acting wimpy and ridiculous. That one actually made me feel bad about being a patient at the time.
I loved the therapist in the TV series _Once and Again_. He played therapist to Jessie when she had an eating disorder. He was actually one of the writers. That series, sadly cancelled, is coming out on DVD.
Posted by Dinah on January 5, 2003, at 16:36:33
In reply to Re: Movies that feature Therapy/mental illness, posted by Tabitha on January 5, 2003, at 13:37:14
Those therapists in movies think about their clients between sessions, seem to welcome calls at home, and on K-Pax even took a client into his home. It is so unrealistic.
But books are the worst culprit. I can't read a book by Steven Levenkron without getting mad at my therapist for not being him. Although I'm betting if I were his client, he wouldn't be him either.
Posted by syringachalet on January 6, 2003, at 1:35:12
In reply to Movies that feature Therapy/mental illness, posted by bluedog on January 5, 2003, at 10:34:51
bluedog,
I can remember being a 'resident' on a psych hospital unit that was a great deal like the ones on Cuckoos Nest. It was built originally as a TB sanitariam in the 1940s.
It was in the late 1970s and I saw several people in canvas restraint jackets from time to time and more than once saw a nurse give a patient a shot of thorazine through their pants into their thigh to calm them. They did ECT only on the medical unit because the laws had been changed and they had to sedate you to prevent fractures from the intended seizure that was common. Actually, by giving the sedation they also learned that it lowered the patient seizure threshold, and caused them to have a more prolonged episode and "helped the patient' to forget what had depressed him so much and clamed those that were aggressive or violent and were a danger to themselves or others.
It was not until the 1980s that it got more difficult for familys and others to have their 'crazy uncle or sister committed' indefinitely.
It took two 'designated examiners' one usually an MD, to have a involuntary committment. Most of the time it had to be based on the fact that you were a damger to yourself, to others or gravely disabled.(That last one was usually very difficult to prove.)Thanks to Ronald Regan we then had so many people leaving the hospitals and living initially in group homes and having active treatment in community mental health centers( a good thing)..to eventaully living on the streets...and thats where we are today...
I have never had a patient to my home. With the type of patients I deal with keeping that professional distance is one of the few things that keeps me safe and helps me help them as much as I do...
I think in a private practice clinic, the boundaries might be a little more relaxed;
I dont know.The majority of patients I deal with have little or no behaviorial boundaries. It is vital for me to keep some in my theraputic relationshp with them so by patterning behavior, they begin to develop a few boundaries of their own.
( For some the first time in their lives.)
Being able to doing this has helped many of them live safer, more calm daily lives.The art of discretion is not a common trait in most of the unfortunate souls that I care for.
It is a learned behavior. One of the new doc sympathically refered to some of them as "at the bottom of the food chain" or 'the forgotten people' when it comes to the availablitity of services.
Basically I work with those that noone else will... and I just hope that they can live their lives outside of institutional walls as long and as independently as their illness allows..
That is my greatest goal for them...to succeed at whatever level that might be...and know that someone does REALLY care.....
syringachalet
Posted by bluedog on January 6, 2003, at 10:37:05
In reply to Re: Movies that feature Therapy/mental illness, posted by syringachalet on January 6, 2003, at 1:35:12
Syringachalet
Your post has given me very much food for thought. You would probably be surprised to learn that my job also involves dealing with exactly the same type of people that you deal with in your job. Those that no-one else wishes to deal with including their own families.
The problems you speak of in the USA are almost exactly the same here in Australia with severely ill people simply living on the streets. I think it's pure economics that drives these laws. Governments simply don't want to make the necessary funds available for sufficient beds at state psychiatric facilities because there are simply no votes in it for them.
It pure irony that I deal with people on a daily basis who suffer from the most severe forms of mental illness that you can possibly imagine and here I am myself also a psychiatric patient. In comparison to the people I deal with I really have no cause for complaint but it's still difficult to put it into perspective when you are severely depressed and feeling suicidal and you are not well enough to continue carrying out the duties of your job. (I've only recently returned to work after a four month sick leave period)
Professional detachment is absolutely necessary but still very cruel. I know this because I have myself been at the receiving end of that professional detachment that I myself have had to exercise but it's still a very bitter pill to swallow especially when you are at a low point.
In my job we often need to call the Psychiatric Emergency Team (PET) who will arrive with the police to take away a person who has "lost it". This usually involves the police restraining the person in question and then a sedative being administered and then a trip to the local psych clinic for some R&R. Normally these people are back on the streets within days.
I suppose due to my job and my own illness I usually become numb after viewing movies like like "Cuckoos Nest" or "Girl Interrupted" and why I much prefer the the comical approach of movies like "Analyse This"
Though I still think "Girl Interrupted" was a very good movie.
warm regards
bluedog
Posted by wendy b. on January 6, 2003, at 10:47:34
In reply to Movies that feature Therapy/mental illness, posted by bluedog on January 5, 2003, at 10:34:51
I know some people talked about this movie last year when it came out... I recently saw it on video, and found it a good movie as far as filmmaking goes, and acting too, but I don't know very much about the way schizophrenia affects perception, so I don't know if it's really true to life or not. The John Nash character kept seeing two or three figures who were very real to him, but no one else could see them. He seemed to get drawn into an altered state of consciousness when he saw them, and had visions of grandiosity, such as making mathematic formulae for the FBI.
The sections on his insulin-shock therapy (now a thing of the past, or so I've read), were terrible to watch. An anorexic, self-injuring friend of mine from group therapy (she'd been hospitalized 25 times) freaked out about that part, and fled the theater...
I liked the way they portrayed him later in his life, as someone who could still give instruction and be useful to students. So it gives a public who might not be aware of the effects of disabilities a view that mental disability doesn't mean unable to work or do a job. More people need to know this...best to all,
Wendy
ps: What about the classics 'The Snake Pit'? Or 'The Three Faces of Eve'? Or 'Sybil'? Didn't Patty Duke Astin do one about her memoir?
Posted by Noa on January 6, 2003, at 11:38:28
In reply to Re: 'A Beautiful Mind' anyone?, posted by wendy b. on January 6, 2003, at 10:47:34
>>Didn't Patty Duke Astin do one about her memoir?
Yes, I think there was a TV movie.
Posted by Noa on January 6, 2003, at 11:51:00
In reply to Re: Movies that feature Therapy/mental illness, posted by syringachalet on January 6, 2003, at 1:35:12
>>>Thanks to Ronald Regan we then had so many people leaving the hospitals and living initially in group homes and having active treatment in community mental health centers( a good thing)..to eventaully living on the streets...and thats where we are today...
If I am remembering correctly, I think the community mental health initiative is really thanks to Roselyn Carter (and earlier I think the initiative originally might have started with the Kennedy family). In the Carter era, she was active in developing plans to have more community based mental health treatment, housing, therapy, medicaiton management, etc., so that people could live functionally in the community and not have to remain in state hospitals. I believe she headed a commision to this effect.I think it is with the Reagan era that, while people were released from hospitals into the community, because the hospitals were being drastically cut and closed, the community facilities were never developed as planned, because they were never funded (beginnin with the Reagan era). In Reagan's admin, there were also starting to be drastic cuts in state funding of community based services because he switched state funding to "block grants" rather than targeted grants, which made it easier to reduce the amount of the grants to states without being blamed for cutting any particular program.
So imho, Reagan's legacy is really the 2nd part of your statement:
"...to eventaully living on the streets...and thats where we are today..."
Posted by Noa on January 6, 2003, at 11:57:50
In reply to Re: Reagan's legacy? » syringachalet, posted by Noa on January 6, 2003, at 11:51:00
On the subject of these vulnerable people, a good book is E. Fuller Torrey's "Nowhere to Go: The Tragic Odyssey of the Homeless Mentally Ill".
Unfortunately, Amazon says it's out of print and of limited availability.
Posted by rayww on January 6, 2003, at 12:21:04
In reply to Re: Movies that feature Therapy/mental illness, posted by syringachalet on January 6, 2003, at 1:35:12
This thread should be on PBF because your life is pure religion. Bless you for what you do.
Posted by syringachalet on January 6, 2003, at 15:24:00
In reply to Re: Movies that feature Therapy/mental illness » syringachalet, posted by rayww on January 6, 2003, at 12:21:04
Thank you rayww, bluedog and all for your understanding and support. I find comfort in those who are walking in my shoes daily and those who can personally identify with a topic I have such passion for...the forgotten people.
I went through Hell myself to prove that I could get myself well enough to use a gift that God granted me to reach out and help these people that I care so deeply about.
To get my registered nurse license, I went through so many psych evals and employment reference checks back in the early 1080s that at times I almost gave up. I lost some very nice jobs back then because of this insane regime.
I actually had a kind of 'witch hunt' among my nursing classmates when I came across an old patient friend of mine that I knew well while hospitalized in the state hospital. It was my refusal to claim to these people he was just crazy and denying him I knew him... that classmates that wanted me bumped from the program. These classsmates were people that I had also tutored through several of the really tough courses in our nursing program.
Thankfully my instructors didnt listen to them and as long as I preformed as well in my
clinical and classroom obligations as everyone else, I was allowed to stay and graduated with honors.Even today I get funny looks from people when I tell them Im a nurse. They think that because of my MS and my mobility chair that I couldnt possibly be competent to be a nurse....
I jokingly tell them that my employer hired me from the neck up...it ususally get at least one smile and one red face, usually appropriately placed.
Yes, movies like A Beautiful Mind do stir me and were probably targeted to the general population as at means of both entertainment and education.
Probably a small attempt to let people know that mentally illness has 'come a long way, baby... that MI peope can and do function in society and at various levels. That their mostly hidden and greatest disbility lies in the minds and hearts of those that preceive them as such.It was John Nashs ability to think abstractly and 'outside the box' that kept him in a tornado of fear, paranoia and depression.
Freud often said that anger turned intoward was depression...maybe John Nash had good reason to be depressed... and angry, dont you?Thank you and be well.
We cant all be heros.. some of us must sit on the curb and clap as the rest go by.....
syringachalet
Posted by Noa on January 6, 2003, at 18:01:18
In reply to Re: Movies that feature Therapy/mental illness, posted by syringachalet on January 6, 2003, at 15:24:00
wow--you are a brave and good person.
as for the classmates and their intolerance--it's a shame, though not surprising, to hear that. Especially a shame in nursing, where the ethos of care is so prominent.
But I think people do that so as to distance themselves from the vulnerabilities they see in patients--a kind of protective us vs. them mentality to help the professionals cope with the incredible stress of the work with people who are suffering. So it makes you one of the rare great ones, who can do the work without having to do that kind of distancing. And I'm sure it makes you great at what you do.
Posted by syringachalet on January 6, 2003, at 23:25:19
In reply to Re: Movies that feature Therapy/mental illness, posted by Noa on January 6, 2003, at 18:01:18
Noa, I am humbled by your candor. Thank you.
You are correct. I have (and Im sure most of you all have as well) found that its much safer and easier emotionally to be angry with someone or something than to be disappointed.
Anger is projecting a feeling and a energy away from ones self.
Disappointment is having to own that feeling; to have that fear of vulnerability and interspect with self evaluation of judgement.Face it.. we are all our own toughest critics. Most of us put more blame and punishment on ourselves than we would ever do to anyone else, even someone we dispised.
My grandmother often said that you have to be your own best friend before you can be anyones elses...
gee.. as a kid I only thought she made great ginger cookies... :o)Take care. syringachalet
Posted by Noa on January 7, 2003, at 18:27:06
In reply to Movies that feature Therapy/mental illness, posted by bluedog on January 5, 2003, at 10:34:51
I guess one of my favorites is Memento. I loved this movie. I felt that it created an effect in the viewer much like what was happening to the protagonist, and made me think a lot about the nature of memory, dreams, focus, etc.
If you've seen it already, and haven't seen the web site, here is the address:
For those who haven't seen it, my personal recommendation is to see the film first and then go to the web site. But here is a taste of what it is about:
(from Yahoo/Greg's previews): "Leonard Shelby (Pearce) is a man plagued by a rare type of short-term memory loss that prevents him from remembering things for more than a few minutes, so he keeps notes for himself in the form of snapshot photographs and tattos. As the film, which is told in reverse, starts, we find that he is in the middle of a quest to find and kill the man who raped and murdered his wife (Fox). Among the people who (maybe) help Shelby are Teddy (Pantoliano) and a bartender, Natalie (Moss)..."
[http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hp&cf=prev&id=1808405113&intl=us]The web site is closer, I believe, to the story upon which the movie is based, called "Memento Mori", and indeed, the web site is created by the author of the story,Jonathan Nolan, who is the brother of the movie director, Christopher Nolan. The story can be found at Esquire online:
http://www.esquire.com/features/articles/2001/001323_mfr_memento_1.html
Posted by ayrity on January 8, 2003, at 0:20:15
In reply to Re: Movies -- Memento, posted by Noa on January 7, 2003, at 18:27:06
Hey, I just happened to rent Memento last weekend. Great movie. I'm still replaying the scenes in my head and trying to reconstruct the movie in chonological order! A real brain teaser, and realy lets you experience a bit of what the character's thought process is like.
> I guess one of my favorites is Memento. I loved this movie. I felt that it created an effect in the viewer much like what was happening to the protagonist, and made me think a lot about the nature of memory, dreams, focus, etc.
>
> If you've seen it already, and haven't seen the web site, here is the address:
>
> http://www.otnemem.com/
>
> For those who haven't seen it, my personal recommendation is to see the film first and then go to the web site. But here is a taste of what it is about:
>
> (from Yahoo/Greg's previews): "Leonard Shelby (Pearce) is a man plagued by a rare type of short-term memory loss that prevents him from remembering things for more than a few minutes, so he keeps notes for himself in the form of snapshot photographs and tattos. As the film, which is told in reverse, starts, we find that he is in the middle of a quest to find and kill the man who raped and murdered his wife (Fox). Among the people who (maybe) help Shelby are Teddy (Pantoliano) and a bartender, Natalie (Moss)..."
> [http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hp&cf=prev&id=1808405113&intl=us]
>
> The web site is closer, I believe, to the story upon which the movie is based, called "Memento Mori", and indeed, the web site is created by the author of the story,Jonathan Nolan, who is the brother of the movie director, Christopher Nolan. The story can be found at Esquire online:
>
> http://www.esquire.com/features/articles/2001/001323_mfr_memento_1.html
Posted by M. Lee on January 8, 2003, at 7:22:38
In reply to Movies that feature Therapy/mental illness, posted by bluedog on January 5, 2003, at 10:34:51
Adding Solaris to this thread of movies is a bit of a stretch...
The plot is that a psychologist is sent to a space station to find out why the astronauts are behaving strangely. He soon finds himself affected in the same way. Each character is forced to face their own repressed memories which have taken on a very real life of their own.
The book that the movie is based on (by Stanislaw Lem) is one of the best that I have ever read. I had also seen the original russian movie (by Tarkovsky) from 1972. Very good if you enjoy movies like "2001"
The new movie was pretty well done, though the focus of the new movie was a bit different than the book and first film. I was not very impressed with the acting, and a bit disappointed with changes to the ending. Other than that, I found it interesting.
My friend (who had not read the book or seen the first film) enojoyed it alot.
Posted by M .Lee on January 8, 2003, at 13:22:30
In reply to Re: 'A Beautiful Mind' anyone?, posted by wendy b. on January 6, 2003, at 10:47:34
[The movie has been out for a while now, but if you haven't seen it yet, you might not want to read on...]
> I know some people talked about this movie last year when it came out... I recently saw it on video, and found it a good movie as far as filmmaking goes, and acting too, but I don't know very much about the way schizophrenia affects perception, so I don't know if it's really true to life or not. The John Nash character kept seeing two or three figures who were very real to him, but no one else could see them. He seemed to get drawn into an altered state of consciousness when he saw them, and had visions of grandiosity, such as making mathematic formulae for the FBI.
>I read the book about a year ago, and then saw the film a while later. I think that the movie depicted his delusions in an interesting way, that drew me into the character and his world (as it is shown in the film.) It is described _very_ differently in the biography. I don't think that it would even be possible to show the description from the book on screen. IMHO, as an average moviegoer, the "artistic license" that they took drove the plot of the movie forward in a novel way.
But, that doesn't answer your question about "true to life" My feeling is that it's too much to expect from a movie, and perhaps even too much to expect from an accurate biography. In an interview with the biographer, Nash himself had difficulty explaining what he experienced. Many of the descriptions are based on what other people observed and heard Nash talk about during his illness.
There was one historical inaccuracy that bugged me, though. The movie left the impression that Nash's work for the Pentagon was a delusion. Nash _was_ hired to do research at RAND from 1950-54 (under a Pentagon contract) and was granted 'secret' security clearence by the gov't. He applied the mathematics of game theory to the problem of strategy in nuclear conflict. He did not have the 'top-secret' clearence needed for access to nuclear weapons documents, though, so his work was mostly theoretical. (Unlike other researchers at RAND who formulated the strategies that were actually used.)That ommision made it easier to film the delusion scenes, but it also ignored the fact that in real life Nash worked on some pretty scarey stuff during the height of the cold war. His symptoms of paranoia surfaced at about the time of McCarthy. The question about if this "triggered" the onset of his condition is something that the book does not attempt to answer. But knowing these facts does put his life experiences in a broader persective. I seem to recall that some reviews of the film may have mentioned this idea.
> I liked the way they portrayed him later in his life, as someone who could still give instruction and be useful to students. So it gives a public who might not be aware of the effects of disabilities a view that mental disability doesn't mean unable to work or do a job. More people need to know this...
>I missed that positive aspect of the portrayal at the time I saw the movie. I guess I was too bothered by the idea that he "willed" himself to get better after going off his meds.
That theme can't be blamed on historical inaccuracy, though. The real John Nash was quoted as saying that applying willpower to overcome his illness was like dieting. His own doctors wouldn't comment on that, although they could not explain his remission.
I left the movie feeling rather low. If I don't get better, is it because I lack the willpower? Or, does that only work if you have a Nobel Prize winning intellect?? Ohh, and don't get me started on the "love conquers all" theme... I'll be typing for days! :)
Having said all this, I now have to go take a shower, because I feel like I reek of Political Correctness! ;)
After all, it's "only" a movie. Maybe these topics just hit a bit too close to home, for my comfort.
Posted by OddipusRex on January 8, 2003, at 17:32:59
In reply to Re: 'A Beautiful Mind' anyone? (SPOILER!) » wendy b., posted by M .Lee on January 8, 2003, at 13:22:30
I also read the book and thought the movie was not at all an accurate portrayal. For example the real John Nash never had visual hallucinations which were in the movie. I too noticed his insistence in the book that his son (who is also schizophrenic) could cure himself if he wanted too. It's worth noting that in the book his wife divorced him although she did let him live at her house for some of the years of his illness. I also thought it was interesting in the book that so many of his colleagues had ill family members of their own or became ill themselves at a later date. It makes one wonder about the connection between the "mathematical personality " and schizophrenia. It also occurred to me that his recovery in later years might have been because he refused medication for so long (in the book) that as he aged out of the florid symptoms (delusions, hallucinations) he was not troubled with the aftereffects of the years on medication. It is well known that many schizophrenics lose the positive symptoms in late life but the negative ones(possibly from the old APs) tend to linger. I liked the book though. It was fascinating. As far as movies, I think Angel Baby whick was an Australian movie from the 90's was probably more realistic but very very sad.
> [The movie has been out for a while now, but if you haven't seen it yet, you might not want to read on...]
>
> > I know some people talked about this movie last year when it came out... I recently saw it on video, and found it a good movie as far as filmmaking goes, and acting too, but I don't know very much about the way schizophrenia affects perception, so I don't know if it's really true to life or not. The John Nash character kept seeing two or three figures who were very real to him, but no one else could see them. He seemed to get drawn into an altered state of consciousness when he saw them, and had visions of grandiosity, such as making mathematic formulae for the FBI.
> >
>
> I read the book about a year ago, and then saw the film a while later. I think that the movie depicted his delusions in an interesting way, that drew me into the character and his world (as it is shown in the film.) It is described _very_ differently in the biography. I don't think that it would even be possible to show the description from the book on screen. IMHO, as an average moviegoer, the "artistic license" that they took drove the plot of the movie forward in a novel way.
>
> But, that doesn't answer your question about "true to life" My feeling is that it's too much to expect from a movie, and perhaps even too much to expect from an accurate biography. In an interview with the biographer, Nash himself had difficulty explaining what he experienced. Many of the descriptions are based on what other people observed and heard Nash talk about during his illness.
>
>
> There was one historical inaccuracy that bugged me, though. The movie left the impression that Nash's work for the Pentagon was a delusion. Nash _was_ hired to do research at RAND from 1950-54 (under a Pentagon contract) and was granted 'secret' security clearence by the gov't. He applied the mathematics of game theory to the problem of strategy in nuclear conflict. He did not have the 'top-secret' clearence needed for access to nuclear weapons documents, though, so his work was mostly theoretical. (Unlike other researchers at RAND who formulated the strategies that were actually used.)
>
> That ommision made it easier to film the delusion scenes, but it also ignored the fact that in real life Nash worked on some pretty scarey stuff during the height of the cold war. His symptoms of paranoia surfaced at about the time of McCarthy. The question about if this "triggered" the onset of his condition is something that the book does not attempt to answer. But knowing these facts does put his life experiences in a broader persective. I seem to recall that some reviews of the film may have mentioned this idea.
>
>
> > I liked the way they portrayed him later in his life, as someone who could still give instruction and be useful to students. So it gives a public who might not be aware of the effects of disabilities a view that mental disability doesn't mean unable to work or do a job. More people need to know this...
> >
>
> I missed that positive aspect of the portrayal at the time I saw the movie. I guess I was too bothered by the idea that he "willed" himself to get better after going off his meds.
>
> That theme can't be blamed on historical inaccuracy, though. The real John Nash was quoted as saying that applying willpower to overcome his illness was like dieting. His own doctors wouldn't comment on that, although they could not explain his remission.
>
> I left the movie feeling rather low. If I don't get better, is it because I lack the willpower? Or, does that only work if you have a Nobel Prize winning intellect?? Ohh, and don't get me started on the "love conquers all" theme... I'll be typing for days! :)
>
> Having said all this, I now have to go take a shower, because I feel like I reek of Political Correctness! ;)
> After all, it's "only" a movie. Maybe these topics just hit a bit too close to home, for my comfort.
Posted by Noa on January 8, 2003, at 17:47:01
In reply to Re: 'A Beautiful Mind' anyone? (SPOILER!), posted by OddipusRex on January 8, 2003, at 17:32:59
I had some similar questions about the visual hallucinations(usually quite rare, as I understand it),the course of his illness, how long he was on meds, the effects of meds, etc. But I have to say, the movie was effective in one way--they had me. I knew some stuff was delusional but there was some that I didn't realize was delusional until well into the movie.
As for the Rand research--to me it was clear that he did work for Rand in some security clearance capacity. It just wasn't clear where the boundaries were (because of the delusions).
Some things that bothered me: first, for a movie that could pull that kind of effect off, there were some very sloppy details. To me, a movie of that expense should see to all the details. For example, Dr. Rosenberg was based in the Boston area, but when Nash has the later breakdown in his Princeton home, and his wife calls the doctor, the doctor appears almost instantly, as a local doctor. There were other detail problems like this, but this is the one that I remember now.
My friend thought I was being nit-picky, telling me it is just a movie, but I really think details can be important (Hitchkock or Allen would never have let those slip by).
The second thing I remember bothered me was this: after the breakdown scene, his wife gives the "love with conquer all" speech--this just seemed like Hollywood fluff to me.
Posted by M. Lee on January 9, 2003, at 10:28:26
In reply to Re: 'A Beautiful Mind' anyone? (SPOILER!), posted by Noa on January 8, 2003, at 17:47:01
> Some things that bothered me: first, for a movie that could pull that kind of effect off, there were some very sloppy details. To me, a movie of that expense should see to all the details. For example, Dr. Rosenberg was based in the Boston area, but when Nash has the later breakdown in his Princeton home, and his wife calls the doctor, the doctor appears almost instantly, as a local doctor. There were other detail problems like this, but this is the one that I remember now.
>Maybe the doctor wasn't really there!? ;)
I'm curuious, what other details did you notice? I hadn't picked up on that one.
> My friend thought I was being nit-picky, telling me it is just a movie, but I really think details can be important (Hitchkock or Allen would never have let those slip by).
>Yeah, attention to detail is important. It can make the difference between a good movie and a great film.
I read that for the movie "Titanic" they commisioned a set of china (identical to pieces retreived from the ocean bottom) for the dining room scenes. That seems a bit overboard, or rather the wrong kind of important detail.
In "2001" there is a scene where the human loses a game of chess to the intelligent computer. He seems to take it for granted that he would loose. But, the computer made a mistake during the game, kind of cheated, actually. It was the first sign in the film that something was wrong with the computer.I didn't know that fact until recently. An actor friend of mine suggested that this detail was just an accident. Until I pointed out that the director was a "chess hustler" in college - he used to play the game for money. The sequence of moves in the game that they played is from a chess tournament from like 150 years ago, with the only exception being the computer's "mistake." It's not likely that he would have taken the trouble to include such an obscure reference and gotten it wrong. It's not the kind of detail that I picked up on, but some people would have.
> The second thing I remember bothered me was this: after the breakdown scene, his wife gives the "love with conquer all" speech--this just seemed like Hollywood fluff to me.
>I don't recall reading any suggestion of that in the biography. It was one of things that really bothered me after seeing the movie.
Posted by syringachalet on January 10, 2003, at 0:10:07
In reply to Re: 'A Beautiful Mind' anyone? (SPOILER!) » Noa, posted by M. Lee on January 9, 2003, at 10:28:26
Im back...
In this movie, I saw enough of myself that it distrubed me.
There were times in my past that I had to learn
to ignore peoples voices and their faces that were not truly there. They were the voices of my Mother and others. I referred to them as the voices from my past...kind of like in A Christmas Carol with E Schrooge.
I had learned that to listen to them and do what they said got me into trouble and ruined my life. There were times in my past(esp during those first years of recovery) that i need a lot of 'gentle reality checks' from family and friends...I also often felt that i was being forced to'walk over the hot coals barefoot' to learn those things that most 'normal' people learn throughout their growing up and on into adulthood..I realized then I had a lot of catching up 'growing up..to do in the real world to fit in and be what I wanted in my life..More than anything, I..like John Nash, learned what my independence and freedom was worth. That daily freedom to pursue those things in life that are of value to me personally came with a price.
John obviously loved his wife and his work.
I have met a few people that have been labeled 'genesis', they were definitely not very social animals. I tend to think that it is like nature gave them this 'gift' and then expected them to devoted their whole lives on this Earth to help mankind and if they had time for a personal life after, then it was OK.Most of the really good surgeons (esp heart transplant surgeons) I have had the honor to meet have a JN type personality.. socialy distant, a non-people person, task oriented-focused. ( and quite frankly, if I had to have surgery, I wouldnt mind having a doc that his primary focus was doing a really good job on my surgery..)
Yes, there were lots of technicial medical pieces of this movie that I also could disect.
To do that would be like disecting a beautiful flower...once you have disected it, just how beautilful would it be then...Take Care.
syringachalet
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