There’s what sz is like intellectually and factually, and documentaries are fine for that. But rarely can they tell you how it feels for survivors and their caregivers.
That’s what drama is for… Lying to tell the “truth”.
A must watch is Out of the Darkness with singer Diana Ross. Wonderful movies, it’s really trying to bring awareness to everyone and its also trying to show people that black people can get sz and to be kind to people that are homeless.
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HOME, it’s a new movie that came out and it’s super good!
It’s on netflix
I am surprised no one mentioned Fight Club
Rachel Getting Married is a good one
The Intouchables- not about sz but a great story about a caretaker
And what is wrong with Beautiful Mind? We don’t live in a utopia people, it is a great movie that actually breaks stigma.
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Ooh fight club. I think he had many mental problems with him like possibly Multiple personality disorder with psychotic features
If we are getting into lesser movies Whoopi Goldberg’s “The Telephone” is worth a look.
hey,
Hands down Angel Baby.
Favourite… Donnie Darko…not as a schizophrenic movie but just about madness in general… Metallic rabbits are such the bomb!
A Beautiful Mind was good for the audience it reached…but I think it’s depictions of the positive symptoms was a bit too flaky…paranoia is so much more subtle than drawing things on walls…it’s eating into your basic consciousness and is so much more insidious…
A friend in the struggle,
rogueone.
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I got to disagree with you on ‘a beautiful mind’. I suppose the movie itself made a decision that its was a story that wanted to reach the maximum number of people with all manner of backgrounds. And that included people that had zero knowledge on mental illness. The dramatisation of the sheer terror of mental illness contained is the only way they could have done this. How else could you dramatise schiz whilst keeping a diverse audience captivated? How paranoia actually occurs in schiz is not something that could be dramatised in a way that everyone could understand.
Also all concerned with the movie had to design their movie so that it would not scare the average joe which would in effect act as a polarising work. People could not leave movie theatres thinking ‘crikey I hear the odd voice’ , ‘I think such and such a person is odd’ , ‘this situation seems a bit unusual’.
No , the schiz in the movie had to act as a plot device , had to create sufficient distance between John Nash’s schizophrenia and the average joes mental state. The average joe when he viewed the series of complex visual hallucinations in the movie , were allowed to feel unthreatened by the movie itself.
Yet the movie still accurately represents the terror of delusions and hallucinations. While admittedly exaggerating the hallucinations themselves.
So I humbly say , you got the movie wrong dude.
I don’t watch movies about Sz. Bad enough that I have to live with it, not sure why I want to go back for a second helping. Plan to introduce my daughter to that cinematic masterpiece known as Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure this weekend. Parenting, it’s important.
10-96
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After watching Foxcatcher, I have just ordered Angel Baby and Frances off Amazon. I am also thinking of ordering Keane, Spider, Soloist and Shine.
Some of these films have mixed reviews so I will let you know what I think after i have seen them.
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I didn’t read the book, however I did look into the life story of John Nash, in short. He agrees the movie doesn’t represent his life at all
Before I finally caved and went for help my grandparents and older brother always made references to that movie A Beautiful Mind. They kept saying “that’s you! that’s you!” at 27 years old I finally watched it recently. Had a mental breakdown and checked into a crisis center. Turns out they were right. A little research suggests the actual storyline of the movie hardly follows the life events of John Nash but it made for a good move nonetheless. I don’t know if I was finally willing to accept that all the weird troubling problems Ive had all my life is something with so much stigma or if I happened to be in a such a state that let me accept such suggestions.
But people who want to “not feel threatened” are just exhibiting ego justification when they project anything they have in common with John Nash onto him and his schizophrenia. It’s not okay. It just makes our disorder a scapegoat.
’ fringe ’ was a good depiction of sz, walter was a total 
nut…lol
take care 
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Yeah , well , life’s a b1tch 
That’s not the right attitude…yeah life is a bitch but we can retaliate. I want to fight stigma as well as I possibly can on the side. It’s not even my number one goal in life, my first goal is helping others who are like me or worse off than I am. Or people who are messed up but not take out back shoot in head level of messed up. I want to help people with severe mental illnesses. I can say that I understand and not be holding any single molecule of doubt or uncertainty when I say that I understand.
I have something going for me…something unique. I also have the usual academia crap under my belt.
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I hear yeh , I hear yeh. I suppose , the problem is that you can help people to go so far , but I think people don’t like to be reminded how fragile their minds really are. That is a large part why people use words like ‘evil’ , ‘monster’ , etc , they like to think that they could or would never go their , and its useful for them to brand other folks with some disacossiating term.
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Pans Labyrinth is an interesting shout, really good cinematography and such a contrast between the fantasy scenes and the stark reality of the Spanish civil war. It’s left uncertain whether one should see it as a fantasy or as a film about mental health.
Sucker Punch I remember as well, about a kind of shared hallucinatory experience between a group of girls in a mental institute. Not a great film but vaguely interesting.
The Fisher King I really enjoyed, probably Terry Gilliams best film. And a great performance by Robin Williams.
Shutter Island was good too, my GP actually recommended I watch it when i first started hearing voices.
One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, perennial classic about mental health. Way to go, Jack.
It’s funny there was a time when I couldn’t watch these films, it somehow cut too close to the bone. But I eventually started to get more interested in the general phenomenon of mental health and how it is portrayed. I do find it interesting that in most of these films it is the hero who has the mental health condition, and it is often not resolved as part of the story arc.
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Steppenwolf, from the novel of the same name. It is a1974 film about a schizophrenic.
At the beginning of the movie, the 48 year old protagonist comforts himself that at the age of 50, he’ll allow himself to commit suicide. Then, he meets a beautiful young woman, and the adventure begins.
Jayster
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One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest