Mental illness in film

Mental illness has appeared frequently as a major theme or background element in film.

Characteristics

A striking feature of the overwhelming majority of fictional (as distinct from documentary) film presentations of psychiatric disorders is their gross distortion of the phenomena ostensibly portrayed. The films that do most closely adhere to psychiatric reality include some that are based on actual persons, such as two French films starring Isabelle Adjani as Camille Claudel and as Adèle Hugo, daughter of Victor Hugo (The Story of Adele H.).

On the other hand, some films that purport to recount authentic psychiatric cases have raised doubts. Thus, psychiatrist Herbert Spiegel, who consulted in the "Sybil" case, has stated the view that Shirley Ardell Mason ("Sybil") had been manipulated by her Freudian psychiatrist, Dr. Cornelia B. Wilbur, into acting like a person with dissociative identity disorder ("mulitiple personality disorder").^[1]

Among the least convincing "serious" films, especially at several decades' removed from their production, are those that attempt to be didactic, such as Spellbound, The Snake Pit and Whirlpool.

Examples

• The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
• Secrets of a Soul (1926)
• M (1931)
• The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933)
• Cat People (1942)
• Leave Her to Heaven (1945)
• Spellbound (1945)
• Possessed (1947)
• The Snake Pit (1948)
• Whirlpool (1949)
• Harvey (1950)
• Sunset Boulevard (1950)
• A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
• Lust for Life (1956)
• Autumn Leaves (1956)
• The Three Faces of Eve (1957)
• La Tête Contre les Murs (1958)
• Vertigo (1958)
• Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)
• Peeping Tom (1960)
• Psycho (1960)
• Splendor in the Grass (1961)
• Through a Glass Darkly (1961)
• What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
• Shock Corridor (1963)
• David and Lisa (1962)
• Lilith (1964)
• Marnie (1964)
• Red Desert (1964)
• Bunny Lake is Missing (1965)
• The Collector (1965)
• Repulsion (1965)
• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
• Marat/Sade (1967)
• The Swimmer (1968)
• Le Boucher (1970)
• Play Misty for Me (1971)
• Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)
• Frenzy (1972)
• Images (1972)
• A Woman Under the Influence (1974)
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
• The Story of Adele H. (1975)
• Face to Face (1976)
• Sybil (1976)
• Taxi Driver (1976)
• The Tenant (1976)
• Apocalypse Now (1979)
• Woyzeck (1979)
• Ordinary People (1980)
• The Shining (1980)
• Frances (1982)
• Pink Floyd: The Wall (1982)
• Sophie's Choice (1982)
• Zelig (1983)
• Birdy (1984)
• The Boy Who Could Fly (1986)
• Blue Velvet (1986)
• Fatal Attraction (1987)
• Dead Ringers (1988)
• Camille Claudel (1988)
• Rain Man (1988)
• Born on the Fourth of July (1989)
• The Dream Team (1989)
• My Left Foot (1989)
• Awakenings (1990)
• Crazy People (1990)
• Jacob's Ladder (1990)
• Misery (1990)
• The Fisher King (1991)
• Raise the Red Lantern (1991)
• The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
• What About Bob? (1991)
• Benny & Joon (1993)
• Mr. Jones (1993)
• The Madness of King George (1993)
• This Boy's Life (1993)
• What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993)
• Forrest Gump (1994)
• Blue Sky (1994)
• Clean, Shaven (1994)
• L'Enfer (1994)
• 12 Monkeys (1995)
• Don Juan DeMarco (1995)
• Breaking the Waves (1996)
• The Dentist (1996)
• Shine (1996)
• As Good as It Gets (1997)
• The Butcher Boy (1998)
• Patch Adams (1998)
• Girl, Interrupted (1999)
• Fight Club (1999)
• Instinct (1999)
• Julien Donkey-Boy (1999)
• Mifune's Last Song (1999)
• The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)
• American Psycho (2000)
• Englar Alheimsins (2000)
• Memento (2000)
• Me, Myself and Irene (2000)
• Pollock (2000)
• Requiem for a Dream (2000)
• A Beautiful Mind (2001)
• I Am Sam (2001)
• K-PAX (2001)
• Session 9 (2001)
• Mulholland Dr. (2001)
• Prozac Nation (2001)
• Donnie Darko (2001)
• À la folie... pas du tout (2002)
• The Hours (2002)
• He Loves Me... He Loves Me Not (2002)
• Oasis (2002)
• One Hour Photo (2002)
• Spider (2002)
• Swimfan (2002)
• A Tale of Two Sisters (2003)
• Identity (2003)
• Sylvia (2003)
• The United States of Leland (2003)
• Radio (2003)
• The Aviator (2004)
• The Machinist (2004)
• Barfuss (2005)
• Keane (2005)
• Proof (2005)
• Neverwas (2005)
• Tideland (2005)
• Hannibal Rising (2007)
• The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)
• Away from Her (2007)
• Ben X (2007)
• The Number 23 (2007)
• Mad Detective (2007)
• The Black Balloon (2008)
• Séraphine (2008)
• The Uninvited (2009)
• Adam (2009)
• Antichrist (2009)
• Mother (2009)
• Observe and Report (2009)
• Precious (2009)
• The Soloist (2009)
• Under Our Skin (2009)
• It's Kind of a Funny Story (2010)
• Peacock (2010)
• Shutter Island (2010)
• Temple Grandin (2010)
• Inception (2010)
• Black Swan (2010)
• The Roommate (2011)
• Take Shelter (2011)
• Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011)

See also

• Mental illness in fiction
• List of films featuring mental illness

Notes

1. ^ Dr. Spiegel described his observations and conclusions in a 1997 interview: Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen, "Sybil: The Making of a Disease? An interview with Dr. Herbert Spiegel," New York Review of Books, April 24, 1997. [1]

References

• Danny Wedding, Mary Ann Boyd and Ryan M. Niemiec, Movies and Mental Illness: Using Films to Understand Psychopathology, 2nd ed., Cambridge, MA, Hogrefe & Hufer Publishing, 2005, ISBN 0-88937-292-6. http://www.hogrefe.com/program/movies-and-mental-illness.html
• David J. Robinson, Reel Psychiatry: Movie Portrayals of Psychiatric Conditions, Rapid Psychler Press, 2003, ISBN 1-894328-07-8.
• Glen O. Gabbard and Krin Gabbard, Psychiatry and the Cinema, American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc., 2nd ed., 1999, ISBN 0-88048-964-2.
• Otto F. Wahl, Media Madness: Public Images of Mental Illness, Piscataway, NJ, Rutgers University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8135-2213-7.