Movies and Mental Illness E-Book

Danny Wedding

• Herausgeber: Hogrefe Publishing
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 1526

Beschreibung

The popular, critically acclaimed text on psychopathology in movies – now including the latest movies and more Explores films according to the diagnostic criteria of DSM-5 and ICD-11 Provides psychological ratings of nearly 1,500 films Includes downloadable teaching materials Films can be a powerful aid to learning about mental illness and psychopathology – for practitioners and students in fields as diverse as psychology, psychiatry, social work, medicine, nursing, counseling, literature, or media studies, and for anyone interested in mental health. Watching films relevant to mental health can actually help you become a more productive therapist and a more astute diagnostician. Movies and Mental Illness, written by an eminent clinical psychologist (who is also a movie aficionado), has established a reputation as a uniquely enjoyable and highly memorable text for learning about psychopathology. This new edition has been completely revised to explore current issues, such as children's screentime and celebrities with mental illness, and to include the numerous films that have been released since the last edition. The core clinical chapters raise provocative questions about differential diagnosis (according to the DSM-5 and ICD-11) for the primary characters portrayed in the films. Included are also a full index of films; sample course syllabus; ratings of close to 1,500 films; fascinating appendices, such as "Top 50 Heroes and Villains," psychotherapists in movies, and misconceptions about mental illness in movies. Accompanying the new edition are downloadable resources for teachers that include critical questions and topics for discussion, as well as fabricated case histories based on movie characters with Mini-Mental State Examinations that help explain, teach, and encourage discussion about important mental health disorders. In addition, the author plans a regular series of online "Spotlights" articles that will critically examine the psychological content of new movies as they are released.

Leseprobe

Movies and Mental Illness

Using Films to Understand Psychopathology

5th edition

Danny Wedding

About the Author

Danny Wedding, PhD, MPH, retired from the University of Missouri School of Medicine to become the Associate Dean for Management and International Programs at the California School of Professional Psychology, Alliant International University, San Francisco. In this role, he had oversight responsibility for psychology graduate programs in Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Mexico City. He subsequently chaired the Department of Behavioral Science and Neuroscience for the American University of Antigua School of Medicine and served in a variety of roles for the American University of the Caribbean in Sint Maarten. Danny is a retired navy captain who was a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow, working in the Senate, and an APA Congressional Science Fellow, working in the House of Representatives. He is the former editor of PsycCRITIQUES: Contemporary Psychology – APA Review of Books, the senior editor for Hogrefe’s book series on Advances in Psychotherapy: Evidence-Based Practice, and the coauthor of Positive Psychology at the Movies: Using Films to Build Virtues and Character Strengths. Danny’s best-known book is Current Psychotherapies, now in its 11th edition. He lives in West Linn, Oregon, where he continues to write and lecture on the portrayal of mental illness in contemporary cinema.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication information for the print version of this book is available via the Library of Congress Marc Database under the Library of Congress Control Number 2023945581

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Movies and mental illness : using films to understand psychopathology / Danny Wedding.

Names: Wedding, Danny, author.

Description: 5th edition. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20230537707 | Canadiana (ebook) 20230537715 | ISBN 9780889375536

(softcover) | ISBN 9781616765538 (PDF) | ISBN 9781613345535 (EPUB)

Subjects: LCSH: Psychology, Pathological—Study and teaching—Audio-visual aids. | LCSH: Mental

illness in motion pictures. | LCSH: Mental illness.

Classification: LCC RC459 .W43 2023 | DDC 616.89—dc23

© 2024 by Hogrefe Publishing

www.hogrefe.com

The authors and publisher have made every effort to ensure that the information contained in this text is in accord with the current state of scientific knowledge, recommendations, and practice at the time of publication. In spite of this diligence, errors cannot be completely excluded. Also, due to changing regulations and continuing research, information may become outdated at any point. The authors and publisher disclaim any responsibility for any consequences which may follow from the use of information presented in this book.

Registered trademarks are not noted specifically as such in this publication. The use of descriptive names, registered names, and trademarks does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.

Cover image: © razihusin – iStock.com

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ISBN 978-0-88937-553-6 (print) • ISBN 978-1-61676-553-8 (PDF) • ISBN 978-1-61334-553-5 (EPUB)

https://doi.org/10.1027/00553-000

Citability: This EPUB includes page numbering between two vertical lines (Example: |1|) that corresponds to the page numbering of the print and PDF ebook versions of the title.

Dedication

For Ryan Niemiec and Mary Ann Boyd

Two wonderful colleagues who walked beside me on this long and fascinating journey ...

|vii|Acknowledgments

I am constantly writing about and discussing movies, and there are numerous friends and colleagues to acknowledge. Many of the new film entries included in each new edition of Movies and Mental Illness grew out of discussions with these individuals, especially those who are mental health professionals interested in the fascinating ways in which psychopathology is portrayed in film.

Rob Dimbleby, my Hogrefe editor, is an extraordinary publisher, a true visionary, and a valued friend. I appreciate his enthusiasm for publishing an expanded and enhanced fifth edition.

I am also grateful to Mary Ann Boyd and Ryan Niemiec, cherished colleagues and friends, who served as coauthors of the first four editions of Movies and Mental Illness. This edition is dedicated to the two of them. Their ideas and writing are found on almost every page, but I remain solely responsible for any errors.

Many people provided specific feedback or suggestions relating to the psychopathology or movie portions of the book. These comments helped me make solid improvements in this edition. Thanks go to my colleagues in two divisions of the American Psychological Association: The Society for Media Psychology and Technology, and the Society for the Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. The members of these two divisions made multiple recommendations for films we have included in this new edition.

I benefited from hundreds of discussions about films with my oldest son, Joshua Wedding, and my peripatetic younger son, Jeremiah Wedding (whose decision to major in film studies was no doubt influenced by my habit of watching two or three movies each week). Kayley Harrington, Kristine Harrington, and Thomas Harrington also made numerous useful suggestions, along with their respective partners, Aaron Bach, Laurie Dukart, and Krystle Bartholomew.

I also benefited from numerous films discussed with my wonderful wife, Karen Harrington; she shares my passion for films (but not always my passion for films dealing with depression, pathology, and suicide). Karen’s mother, Dorothea (Dody) Schwaiger, also helped with this edition – in part by walking away from several films after 15 minutes, helping Danny know when films were too confusing, provocative, or disturbing for the typical viewer (e.g., Bone Tomahawk, The Snowtown Murders, and We Need to Talk About Kevin).

Dr. Kimberly Kirkland arranged for me to spend the fall semester, 2022, in Sint Maarten (the Dutch side of the island) where I served for one semester as interim Associate Dean for student affairs for the American University of the Caribbean (AUC), a medical school where I have taught off and on for 20 years. I worked very hard, but my evenings and weekends were free (and lonely). This provided time to see dozens of films, and I was able to finalize this book while on the island.

Ms. Mounia Hanzazi, an AUC librarian, was also tremendously helpful in ensuring I had access to primary source material while away from my usual libraries and librarians.

This book has opened some incredible speaking opportunities. Drs. Moira Nakousi and Daniel Soto arranged for me to present talks on Movies and Mental Illness in Santiago, Chile; Dr. Catherine Sun invited me to keynote a conference in counseling psychology in Hong Kong; Dr. Saths Cooper invited me to present on the topic at the International Congress of Psychology in Cape Town, South Africa; Prof. Paul Crawford arranged for me to present at an International Health Humanities conference sponsored by the University of Nottingham; and I was able to present on the topic of bipolar disorders and cinema at the 12th International Review of Bipolar Disorders in Nice, France. The Nice talk coincided with the by-invitation-only |viii|Cannes Film Festival (Festival de Cannes), and I was able to use a flyer for Movies and Mental Illness to establish my credentials as a serious scholar and a writer with a genuine interest in films.

Finally, I want to thank the seven individuals who translated earlier editions of Movies and Mental Illness into Spanish, Korean, Turkish, Japanese, German, Italian, and Polish.

I appreciate the feedback from my colleagues, friends, family, as well as the many readers who have taken time to share suggestions and opinions. I hope you will let me know when you come across a great film that should be discussed in the next edition.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Foreword to the Fifth Edition

Preface

Chapter 1  Films and Psychopathology

Chapter 2  Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Chapter 3  Schizophrenia Spectrum and Other Psychotic Disorders

Chapter 4  Bipolar and Depressive Disorders

Chapter 5  Anxiety and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders

Chapter 6  Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorders

Chapter 7  Dissociative Disorders

Chapter 8  Sleep–Wake, Eating, and Somatic Symptom Disorders

Chapter 9  Gender Dysphoria and Sexual Dysfunctions

Chapter 10  Disruptive, Impulse-Control, and Conduct Disorders

Chapter 11  Substance-Related and Addictive Disorders

Chapter 12  Neurocognitive Disorders

Chapter 13  Personality Disorders

Chapter 14  Paraphilic Disorders

Chapter 15  Violence and Physical and Sexual Abuse

Chapter 16  Treatment

References

Appendices

Appendix 1: The American Film Institute’s Top 50 Heroes and Villains

Appendix 2: Syllabus for a Sample Course in Abnormal Psychology That Integrates Films

Appendix 3: Recommended Websites

Appendix 4: Twelve Misconceptions About Mental Illness and Mental Health Professionals Perpetuated by Movies

Appendix 5: Portrayals of Psychotherapists in Movies

Appendix 6: Films Illustrating Psychopathology

Film Index

Notes on Supplementary Materials

|xi|Foreword to the Fifth Edition

When Dr. Wedding asked me to write this foreword, I experienced the full range of what I guess are pretty predictable emotions. Rather than naming the rather embarrassing first iteration of my feelings, I’ll ask you instead to picture my 5-foot 6-inch frame walking through the majestic woods of New Hampshire with a puffed-up chest and a spring to my step. I’ve written about movies for much of my career, and Movies and Mental Illness is the altar on which every mental health professional who writes about film has felt compelled to leave an offering. Dr. Wedding’s book is a masterpiece. Nobody else has come even close to the scholarship, creativity, and almost impossible inclusiveness that await you in this fifth edition. As a result of this high, it took me longer than I’d care to admit to actually put pen to paper. Instead, I imagined over and over again that I had already written what would be the most celebrated essay in the history of the world that endeavors to discuss film and psychology. This, I recognized, was the Walter Mitty stage of writing. I was Danny Kaye in 1947 or Ben Stiller in 2013. The same Walter in both films, and both films perfectly capturing my state of mind. That’s the magic of movies.

But next came anxiety and fear. After all, if I have placed this book on the altar, then it is, by definition, beyond description. Imagine trying to write an introduction to something for which your admiration has come close to worship. It is akin to describing something awesome, something that is in its essence uncapturable. The magic of movies struck again. This time nearly suffocating me in one of those groovy space suits in 2001: A Space Odyssey. I was dumbstruck as I watched the planet Jupiter grow large and ominous, and my writing was delayed despite the pesky fact that the clock refused to stop ticking.

Like a delirious pinball, I ricocheted from one film to the next, looking to rescue myself from the paralysis of my task. I settled on the warnings of Captain Picard in Star Trek: Generations. Chatting with Commander Riker, Picard contemplates the passage of time. “Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives,” he muses. And to be honest, I was awfully close to being captured and devoured by time’s most pernicious weapon – that monster we call procrastination. But then I remembered that Picard, ever the optimist, turned the metaphor of predatory time on its head. “I rather believe that time is a companion,” he tells us. “What we leave behind is not as important as how we lived.” If we are talking about how we live, then it is here that I must confess that I have lived my life with and through the movies. My father took me to see 2001: A Space Odyssey when it came back to the theaters in the mid-1970s. I have been enamored of Star Trek from the moment I had the capacity to turn on the television set by myself. Onscreen stories are inextricably tied to who and to what I am.

As I thought more about this foreword, I borrowed from the sense of responsibility and challenge that virtually every story about the intoxication of exploration has at some point unfailingly depicted. This assignment would not become the game over moment from Aliens that has come to exemplify giving up. This assignment would be my invitation to discover and to be amazed. My paralytic fear became Caliban’s resolve in The Tempest. “Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments will hum about mine ears,” he says. Rather than eschewing the island that made him, he embraces and celebrates the magic of his predicament. To me, Caliban’s thousand instruments are the countless movies that have enriched my life. As if to prove my point, I noted that The Tempest has enjoyed more than five different movies adaptations, and I adore every one of them. If the deformed Caliban can look upon his island with wonder, then I can certainly write this foreword with the same spirit of discovery and awe.

|xii|By now you’ll sense that the biggest impediment to my celebrating Movies and Mental Illness wasn’t time, or grandiosity, or even my lingering fear of abject failure. The impediment was the subject itself. To borrow again from Shakespeare, the “past is prologue.” I have never not loved movies. As such, I lose all sense of time when I thumb through this book. Wedding so seamlessly mixes the nuanced world of psychiatry with the nuanced world of movies that every time I sat down to write this essay, I would read a chapter or two, and then I was off to the cinema yet again. The wonder of our modern world is the immense and immediate accessibility of film. All you need is a laptop or a theater and a willingness to pay a few bucks. Because of this book, I discovered gems like The Boy Who Could Fly, revisited long forgotten favorites like Birdy, and soared through the clouds with the giddy and increasingly dangerous teens in Chronicle. In other words, every time I opened this book, I risked getting lost in at least three movies, each well over an hour long. I therefore feel this foreword ought to contain at least some form of warning. Movies and Mental Illness is that gift that at the same time becomes the best kind of trap. Hours will collapse as you read. You will turn to YouTube to search for the most obscure but illuminating movie clips. You will scan your local library for the DVD of that film that is no longer streaming. If you live in a rural setting as I do, you’ll drive hours to see that one film that just happens to be playing at that funky arthouse cinema nestled like a shrine on Main Street in some small New England town.

The real impediment to this foreword is knowing when to stop reading and to start writing. For a psychiatrist, this book is like the table of luscious food in Pan’s Labyrinth, but without the terror of the Pale Man to stop you from eating. Without the Pale Man’s menace, you have infinitely more freedom than the girl in Guillermo Del Toro’s haunting film. You can take more than just a grape. But with a feast like this at your fingertips, how in the world does one begin?

I suppose it is best to start with what is perhaps already obvious. Since humans have been humans, we’ve told stories. We had movies way before we had movie projectors. Homer describes each scene of The Odyssey as if he were intimately familiar with the local cinema in ancient Athens.

But Odysseus aimed and shot Antinous square in the throat

and the point went stabbing clean through the soft neck and out –

and off to the side he pitched, the cup dropped from his grasp

as the shaft sank home, and the man’s life-blood came spurting

out his nostrils –

thick red jets –

a sudden thrust of his foot –

he kicked away the table –

food showered across the floor,

the bread and meats soaked in a swirl of bloody filth.

(Book 22, Slaughter in the Hall, translated by Robert Fagles)

My goodness, this could have been written by Quentin Tarantino! The magic of stories rests in their iterative dialectic. We hear or we watch the same tales again and again, and yet when these stories are done well, they feel as fresh as the break of day. Thank goodness for the endless creativity of humanity.

But there is another constant with which this introduction must reckon. The variety of stories that we tell is matched only by the variety of madness that we suffer. Depression, mania, psychosis … these illnesses have been described for thousands of years. Say what you want about the flawed Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition (DSM-5). I will maintain that some form of the DSM was written long before the American Psychiatric Association (APA) claimed this catalogue as its own. Pathological states of mind have always been integral to our stories. In fact, I would go so far as to say that pathological states of mind are the essence of our stories. If you’ll accept this supposition, then it stands to reason that movies themselves are perhaps our best and most accessible |xiii|modalities toward understanding representations of mental illness. They are also among the most jarring means through which we can observe the many ways that these illnesses and their treatments can be dangerously represented. Is One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) a warning against the cultural entanglement of the conforming lens of psychiatric diagnosis, or a celebration of the uncrushable potency of human individualism? The answer, I’d argue, is both. Not surprisingly, this iconic film is mentioned more than 20 times in Movies and Mental Illness.

What makes Movies and Mental Illness so special is that it goes beyond simply cataloguing the mental states that occur in movies. Wedding writes that Cuckoo’s Nest shows us the dangers inherent in the powers given to psychiatric hospitals, and at the same time compares it with the 1948 film, The Snake Pit. He notes that the risk of inhumane treatment for psychiatrically ill individuals exists whether the person being treated is feigning the illness, as in Cuckoo’s Nest, or quite authentically suffering from a psychiatric syndrome, as in The Snake Pit. These nuggets of truth are the golden bits of wisdom that rest within the pages that follow.

Stories are incredibly powerful, and stories told on the screen are perhaps the most powerful of all. Movies invite us and envelope us. They challenge us and they rescue us. There are hundreds of movies mentioned in Movies and Mental Illness, each one a different story, and each one a variation on the same familiar theme. After all, a good movie is nuanced and fresh and, simultaneously, recognizable and familiar. This book works because the same can be said of psychiatric illness. Each person suffering from mental illness is overwhelmingly different and relentlessly familiar. We know people who suffer. We are people who suffer. The thread that ties us to movies is the thread that ties us to each other, and that is the thread of common experience. As we sit currently in the midst of an epidemic of mental suffering, the thread of psychological anguish is an all too common experience. This is hardly a newsflash, but we must keep this in mind as we read this book. Movies represent a potent arm in our arsenal toward fighting the stigma against mental illness. Movies can also help us to find new ways to understand and to treat psychiatric syndromes.

In Spiderman, Uncle Ben tells Peter Parker, “With great power comes great responsibility.” That’s what this book gives its readers: Power and responsibility. And to prove my point, it is worth remembering that this very sentiment was expressed in stories well before there were movie screens. In the first century BC, the fable of The Sword of Damocles tells us that Damocles becomes terrified when he is allowed by King Dionysius to occupy the throne for even a day. The responsibility of this power overwhelms him, and he gladly steps away from his brief stint as king. As with all good stories, this warning surfaces again and again throughout the millions of stories we’ve told each other since the beginning of time. From Damocles to Spiderman, we see through stories the responsibility we carry, and it is in this spirit that I ask you to enjoy this book. Read the following pages carefully, and watch the movies that you discover thoughtfully. If you teach about mental illness, this book should never leave your desk. If you are a clinician treating mental illness, this book should be among your most cherished guides. And if you suffer yourself, then let this book be your salve.

We are all in this together. We are all, all of us, teachers and clinicians and patients. Fortunately for all of us, this amazing book is written for whatever hat we happen to be wearing at the time that we begin to read.

Steven Schlozman, MD

Chief of Child Psychiatry

University of Vermont

|xv|Preface

Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.

Alfred Hitchcock

I wrote Movies and Mental Illness because of my conviction that films are a powerful medium for teaching students (in psychology, social work, medicine, nursing, and counseling), engaging patients, and educating the public about the fascinating world of psychopathology. In addition, I wrote the book because I genuinely love watching and talking about movies. While the title is Movies and Mental Illness, this book also addresses serious problems that do not reflect mental illness per se, including neurodevelopmental disorders, physical or sexual abuse, and violence.

The first edition of Movies and Mental Illness grew out of a series of lunchtime conversations between a psychiatric nurse (Mary Ann Boyd) and me. Inevitably, these conversations included some discussion of recent films we had seen, and whether we thought the portrayal of whatever illness was depicted was accurate. The notes grew into a series of index cards, and the index cards eventually became the first edition. Later, a gifted young psychologist and cinephile named Ryan Niemiec joined the team. Mary Ann and Ryan have both moved on to other projects, but I have persisted in watching hundreds of new films and adding some discussion of almost all of them to this edition.

There are numerous changes made to each new edition, in part because dozens of excellent films have been released over the 8 years or so between editions that need to be included in any book that purports to be both contemporary and comprehensive. Over a hundred recent films have been added to Appendix 6 that illustrate psychopathology. Although it is impossible to list every film depicting every disorder, the book identifies and discusses the most important films that illustrate or involve psychopathology. The reader will find a significant number of these new films discussed in the relevant chapters.

Films are remarkable pedagogical tools, and my students have always appreciated the time I have taken to collect and organize video clips to use in the classroom. For example, I believe watching Michael Haneke’s Amour captures the pathos associated with caregiving with raw emotion and a vivid power that can never be had by simply reading about neuropathology.

One way to approach Movies and Mental Illness is to simply start with Appendix 6 and a highlighter, identifying interesting films, and then seeing what I have to say about them in the book.

I have updated the list of favorite films in each category (“Author Picks”). Mary Ann Boyd and Ryan Niemiec helped me identify these films. We did not always agree about which films were most important for readers to see, but we negotiated and debated each list and eventually selected around 10 films for each chapter that balanced artistic merit and clinical relevance. This addition is in response to the frequent requests for our recommendations for movies that can be used to help train mental health professionals and students from various health professionals.

I relied heavily on Rotten Tomatoes and the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) to refresh my memory on films that I had viewed years ago, or to get a second opinion regarding ratings for films.

I have continued to expand the sections on international films in each chapter. Often these films are more powerful and accurate than anything filmmakers in the United States have produced. I hope this will entice readers to watch more foreign language films; this is an especially interesting and rewarding way to learn about other cultures. In addition, watching foreign language films using Language Learning with Netflix (LLN) makes acquisition of a new language relatively easy and almost fun.

|xvi|In discussing psychopathology, I occasionally reveal endings or surprise twists to films, and this may spoil these films for some readers. I apologize in advance if this occurs.

The book was originally designed to supplement core texts in abnormal psychology; if the book is being used in this way, the relevant core chapters in the primary text should be read before reviewing the corresponding chapter in Movies and Mental Illness. Professors using the text to teach psychopathology can download supplemental material (see Notes on Supplementary Materials at the end of the book for instructions on how to obtain them) including questions that can be assigned to students to answer before coming to class. In addition, each appendix is available to download and share with students.

I will occasionally present detailed and specific information about mental illness, but these facts are almost incidental to the discussion of the films themselves, and I have tried to avoid redundancy with the many fine textbooks that already explain psychopathology in considerable detail. I assume the reader will look up unfamiliar terms or discuss them in class, and I have not always defined each new term.

I am a clinical psychologist and a college professor, and I’ve found that the judicious use of films dramatically increases students’ and clients’ understanding of abnormal behavior. For example, when lecturing about alcoholism, I sometimes supplement my lectures with a “demonstration” of delirium tremens using The Lost Weekend to illustrate withdrawal, and Denzel Washington’s character in Flight to illustrate tolerance. Before a lecture on bipolar disorder, I ask my students to watch Touched With Fire or Silver Linings Playbook. All four films provide intensity that simply cannot be captured by a classroom lecture or on the printed page. Likewise, when working with a client going through a divorce who becomes incensed over the behavior of their spouse, I might recommend watching Kramer vs. Kramer or The Squid and the Whale. A counselor working with parents attempting to understand and cope with their adolescent child’s suicidality might consider reviewing Boy Interrupted, and the parent of a trans child might find Cowboys meaningful and relevant. I have found that discussion of films offers a wonderful way to open clinically relevant areas that have not previously been explored.

One of the best experiences of my professional life was spending a year teaching graduate students in psychology at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea. I taught a course on psychopathology using Movies and Mental lIllness as a primary text. A modified syllabus for this course in presented in Appendix 2. In addition, Appendix 3 lists a number of websites that your students will find interesting, relevant and useful.

I occasionally discuss obscure films when a small section relates in a meaningful way to the points made in the chapter. There are also classic films such as Psycho, A Clockwork Orange, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest that have tremendous pedagogical value, and I take great pleasure in introducing a new generation of students to these movies. In addition, films such as Pelle the Conqueror or Antonio’s Line are occasionally included, even when there is no direct connection to psychopathology, because the films are provocative and moving and are good illustrations of psychological phenomena. For detailed examples of these and other films depicting character strengths, resilience, and various positive psychological phenomena, I recommend a book I coauthored with Ryan Niemiec, Positive Psychology at the Movies: Using Films to Build Character Strengths and Well-Being, which discusses over 1,500 films. Ryan will be publishing a new edition of this book in the future as sole author; he is primarily interested in positive psychology, and I am primarily interested in psychopathology, and we have each agreed to serve as the single author for the book we feel most comfortable writing – that is, Movies and Mental Illness for me, and Positive Psychology at the Movies for Ryan.

Many readers will disagree with the ratings I have assigned films included in Appendix 6. However, it is important to remember that my ratings are based primarily on the pedagogical value of the film, and only secondarily on the film’s artistic merit.

|xvii|I am including my email address below, and I hope both professors and students will write to me after reading this book. I also hope those readers who share my enthusiasm about movies as a teaching tool will recommend additional films that I can include in the next edition of Movies and Mental Illness.

Danny Wedding, PhD, MPH

[email protected]

|1|Chapter 1Films and Psychopathology

For better or worse, movies and television contribute significantly to shaping the public’s perception of the mentally ill and those who treat them.

Steven E. Hyler

For contemporary audiences, attending movies is an experience that provides catharsis and unites the audience with their culture in much the same way that the tragedies of Sophocles and Aeschylus performed these functions for 5th-century BC Greek audiences.

Glen Gabbard and Krin Gabbard (1999)

|2|Introduction

In all human perceptual experience, nothing conveys information or evokes emotion quite as clearly as our visual sense. Filmmakers capture the richness of this visual sense, combine it with auditory stimuli, and create the ultimate waking dream experience: a movie. The viewer enters a trance, a state of absorption, concentration, and attention, engrossed by the story and the plight of the characters. When someone is watching a movie, an immediate bond is set up between the viewer and the film, and all the technical apparatus involved with the projection of the film becomes invisible as the images from the film pass into the viewer’s consciousness. The viewer experiences a sort of dissociative state in which ordinary existence is suspended, serving as a psychological clutch (Butler & Palesh, 2004) in which the individual escapes from the stressors, conflicts, and worries of the day. This trance state is further enhanced in movie theaters where the viewer is fully enveloped in sight and sound, and in some instances, experiences the sense of touch through vibration effects. No other art form pervades the consciousness of the individual to the same extent and with such power as cinema. Many consider movies to be the most influential form of mass communication (Cape, 2003).

Hollywood took the original invention of the cinematic camera and invented a new art form in which the viewer becomes enveloped in the work of art. The camera carries the viewer into each scene, and the viewer perceives events from the inside as if surrounded by the characters in the film. The actors do not have to describe their feelings, as in a play, because the viewer directly experiences what they see and feel.

To produce an emotional response to a film, the director carefully develops both plot and character through precise camera work. Editing creates a visual and acoustic gestalt, to which the viewer responds. The more effective the technique, the more involved the viewer. In effect, the director constructs the film’s (and the viewer’s) reality. The selection of locations, sets, actors, costumes, and lighting contributes to the film’s organization and shot-by-shot mise-en-scène (the physical arrangement of visual images). Arısoy and Gökmen (2021) have described the ways in which lighting can be used creatively to enhance both significance and fear in horror films, using Dogtooth (2009) as an exemplar film.

The Pervasive Influence of Films

Humans are creatures whose lives cry out for meaning and purpose, and we impose meaning even on random and unconnected events. In 1944, psychologists Fritz Heider and Marianne Simmel made a simple animated film using two triangles, a circle, and a box. Each shape moved, seemingly in a random manner. They asked people to watch the short film and describe what was happening. Inevitably, these research subjects “interpreted the picture in terms of [the] actions of animated beings, chiefly of persons” (p. 243). In short, viewers created a story, even when none existed. We need stories in our lives, and movies provide a compelling vehicle for sharing these stories. David Carroll has noted,

By creating stories of our lives, we construct the salient features of our social identity, our sense of identity in relation to the important others in our lives. Our ability to construct stories that highlight the central features of our lives is an essential part of what it means to be a human being living in a social world. (Carroll, 2013 , p. 121)

Film has become such an integral part of our culture that it is the mirror in which we see ourselves reflected every day. Indeed, the social impact of film extends around the globe, and movies produced in Hollywood are watched in movie theaters in Europe, Asia, South America, and Africa, often in remote and surprising locations. Traveling is a personal passion, and I was surprised – and delighted – when I gave |3|international lectures and discovered that many people in my audience had watched and loved many of the films I cherish.

The widespread popularity of online movies, streaming video (e.g., Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu), nominally priced Redbox rentals on street corners, the use of unlimited rentals for a monthly fee, and in-home, cable features like On-Demand make hundreds of thousands of movies available and accessible to anyone in the world (and certainly anyone with Internet access). We are no longer limited solely to the film selection and discretion of the corner video store. In addition, people now have wide access to films beyond Hollywood, including access to films from independent filmmakers, even those from developing countries. Moreover, with the affordability of digital video, neophyte and/or low-budget filmmakers can now tell their stories within the constraints of a much more reasonable budget without sacrificing quality (Taylor & Hsu, 2003); this increases the range of topics and themes that can be covered. Award-winning films such as Gravity (2013), Rust and Bone (2012), The Revenant (2015), and Life of Pi (2012) were all shot using digital video. However, some directors, such as Quentin Tarantino and Christopher Nolan, have been adamantly opposed to digital video, with Tarantino claiming, “If I can’t shoot on film, I’ll stop making movies” (Bramesco, 2016).

The current ubiquity of movie streaming is illustrated by the success of companies like Netflix, and Blockbuster’s decision not to buy Netflix in 2000 has gone down as one of the biggest boardroom mistakes in corporate history. In 2010, Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy after losing $1.1 billion; at that time, Netflix was worth around $13 billion (Graser, 2013). Netflix’s stock value has dramatically increased since then, although competition in the streaming market also has increased markedly, with companies like Disney, Amazon, and Apple all competing with Netflix.

Films have a greater influence than any other art form. This influence is felt across age, gender, nationality, and culture – and even across time. Films have become a pervasive and omnipresent part of our society, and yet people often have little conscious awareness of the profound influence the medium exerts.

Films are especially important in influencing the public perception of mental illness, because many people are uninformed about the problems of people with mental disorders, and the media tend to be especially effective in shaping opinion in those situations in which strong opinions are not already held (Heath, 2019). Although some films present sympathetic portrayals of people with mental illness and those professionals who work in the field of mental health (e.g., The Three Faces of Eve, David and Lisa, Ordinary People, and A Beautiful Mind), many more do not. Individuals with mental illness are often portrayed as aggressive, dangerous, and unpredictable; psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, and other health professionals who work with these patients are often portrayed as “arrogant and ineffectual,” “cold-hearted and authoritarian,” “passive and apathetic,” or “shrewd and manipulative” (Niemiec & Wedding, 2006; Wedding, 2017). Psychiatrists are often negatively portrayed in the cinema (Gabbard & Gabbard, 1999), and psychoanalysts have been ridiculed and misrepresented in numerous films (Sabbadini, 2015).

Films such as Psycho (1960) perpetuate the continuing confusion about the relationship between schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder (formerly multiple personality disorder); Friday the 13th (1980), Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), and The Adopted One (2020) all perpetuate the pernicious misconception that people who leave psychiatric hospitals are violent and dangerous; movies such as The Exorcist (1973) suggest to the public that mental illness is the equivalent of possession by the devil; and films like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) make the case that psychiatric hospitals are simply prisons in which there is little or no regard for patient rights or welfare. These films in part account for the continuing stigma of mental illness. Many of these themes are explored in Sharon Packer’s book Mental Illness in Popular Culture (Packer, 2017).

|4|Stigma is one of the reasons that so few people with mental problems receive help (Corrigan, 2018). The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) estimates that only half of those with mental disorders reach out for help with their problems, even though many current treatments for these disorders are inexpensive and effective (NIMH, 2023). In addition, there is still a strong tendency to see patients with mental disorders as the cause of their own disorders – for example, the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) has polling data that indicate that about one in three US citizens still conceptualizes mental illness in terms of evil and punishment for misbehavior.

Psychiatrist Peter Byrne (2009) has pointed out that films rarely portray mental illness or mental health practitioners accurately, but he also makes the compelling point that the job of a director is to create a film that will generate revenue for producers and investors, and it is not necessarily their job to educate the public. Byrne has described five rules of movie psychiatry:

Follow the money: Filmmaking is a commercial enterprise and producers may include inaccurate representations in their films to “give the public what they want”.

Film begets film: Every new film draws on previous films within the genre.

Skewed distribution hides more films than censorship ever did.

There are no mental health films, just mental illness ones.

If it bleeds, it leads: Violence, injury and death often ensure prominence of a story in both news and film. (Byrne, 2009, pp. 287–288)

Byrne’s points are well-taken, although I would challenge Number 4, because Ryan Niemiec and I wrote a book titled Positive Psychology at the Movies (Niemiec & Wedding, 2014) in which we document over 1,500 movies that display character strengths and other healthy aspects of human psychology, including positive mental health. This edition of Movies and Mental Illness also describes many films that offer positive depictions of mental health, and Dr. Niemiec has followed up our positive psychology book with a 2020 article in the Journal of Clinical Psychology titled “Character Strengths Cinematherapy: Using Movies to Inspire Change, Meaning, and Cinematic Elevation” (Niemiec, 2020).

Positive Psychology at the Movies is clearly an exception, however. Most books, like Movies and Mental Illness, focus on negative depictions of mental illness. Johnson and Walker (2021), as editors of a recent book titled Normalizing Mental Illness and Neurodiversity in Entertainment Media: Quieting the Madness, examine those films in which portrayals of mental, emotional, and developmental disabilities succeed.

Movies can portray powerful role models that can be especially meaningful for children and young people. Black Panther (2018) and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) are two examples. Both films are based on positive representations of Black culture. Zakia Gates (2022) noted that Black Panther promotes belief in Black power, excellence, and intelligence, and the film offers a role model of a Black female scientist, in the character of Suri. They note that there are few such models of Black male scientists, and ask: “If LeBron James conducted a critical analysis using physics and mathematics to make a 3-point shot, then what is the likelihood that young Black males’ interest in the STEM programs would increase?” (p. 115).

Cinematic Elements

A film director must consider countless technical elements in the making of a film, often orchestrating hundreds of people, many of whom monitor and pass down orders to hundreds or thousands of other collaborators. However, there are three general phases involved in making a film.

The time spent prior to filming in the preproduction phase is often seen as the most important. Many directors storyboard (draw out) every shot, and choreograph every movement for each scene to be filmed. Countless meetings with each technical supervisor (e.g., cinematographer, costume designer, set designer, electrician) are held to facilitate preparation, coordination, |5|and integration. The director will also scout out locations, work to cast appropriate actors for the various roles, and may rework the screenplay.

In the production phase, the director attempts to film their vision, working closely with the actors and actresses to encourage, stimulate, guide, or alter their work, while carefully monitoring camera angles, lighting, sound, and other technical areas.

In the postproduction phase, editing and laying out the musical score and background sounds are major areas of focus. The director integrates each of these elements while working to honor the original purpose, message, and underlying themes of the film.

Table 1.  Film elements with movie examples

Film element

Explanation

Classic example

Recent example

Themes

Overall meaning, messages, motifs (e.g., love, good vs. evil)

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019); The Tale (2018)

Cinematography

Visual appeal, framing, camera work, lighting

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

Roma (2018); 1917 (2019); Nightmare Alley (2021); Oppenheimer (2023)

Pacing

Movement, fluidity

Jaws (1975); Fargo (1996)

1917 (2019); Marriage Story (2019)

Sound

Music, score, sound effects

Ben-Hur (1959); Jaws (1975)

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018); Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi (2022)

Mood

Tone, atmosphere

M (1931)

The Snowtown Murders (2012); The Lighthouse (2019)

Art

Set design, costumes

Star Wars (1977)

Little Women (2019); West Side Story (2021)

Dialogue

Conversation, modes of communication

Annie Hall (1977); Pulp Fiction (1994)

Green Book (2018); Belfast (2021)

Acting

Character portrayal, depth and quality, casting

The Philadelphia Story (1940)

Joker (2019); Nomadland (2020); The Power of the Dog (2021)

Editing

Continuity, transitions

Citizen Kane (1941)

Ford v. Ferrari (2019); Tick, Tick ... BOOM! (2021)

Screenplay

Storyline, plot; original or adapted to the screen

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

The Power of the Dog (2021); Minari (2020)

Direction

All elements together, quality of film overall

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Parasite (2019); The Power of the Dog (2021)

Some of the most important cinematic elements are summarized with film examples in Table 1. Of course, these three phases exclude |6|countless other tasks involving financing, budgeting, marketing, and other business, administrative, consulting, and legal aspects. A mental health consultant may be used with certain films and may play a key role in any phase, particularly involving fine-tuning the screenplay and helping the director and actors understand psychological and related phenomena; I believe mental health consultants should be sought out for every film portraying a psychological condition or a therapeutic encounter. Unfortunately, such consultants are sorely underutilized in cinema. However, the directors of films such as A Beautiful Mind, Antwone Fisher, and Analyze This did use psychologists and/or psychiatrists as consultants. Stephen Sands, a pediatric neuropsychologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York was a technical adviser for Analyze That (2002), starring Billy Crystal as a psychiatrist and Robert De Niro as a mobster. “De Niro was so eager to accurately portray mental illness that he visited a psychiatric hospital where Sands worked and participated in a group therapy meeting” (Stringer, 2016).

Directors attempt to artfully integrate the technical elements of sound, camera, and lighting fluidly with the plot, themes, pacing, and tone of the film, while eliciting quality acting performances. Danis Tanovic, director of a film that won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, No Man’s Land (2001), about the Bosnian-Serbian war, speaks to many of these elements as he describes the shock and disharmony of the war that he attempted to depict in his film:

This shock is something I have reproduced through my film. On one side, a long summer day – perfect nature, strong colors – and on the other, human beings and their black madness. And this long, hot summer day reflects the atmosphere of the film itself. Movements are heavy, thoughts are hard to grasp, time is slow and tension is hiding – hiding but present. When it finally explodes, it is like fireworks – sudden, loud, and quick. Panoramic shots of landscape become unexpectedly mixed with nervous details of action. It all lasts for a moment or two, and then tension hides again, waiting for the next opportunity to surprise. Time slows down again. (Danis Tanovic, quoted in the DVD insert for No Man’s Land)

Changes in color and sound significantly impact the viewer’s experience of a film. Butler and Palesh (2004) offer the example of Steven Spielberg’s manipulation of these cinematic elements in Saving Private Ryan (1998). In addition to screams turned slowly into sobs or mumbles, colors are subdued to an almost black-and-white appearance so that when red is introduced in the battle scenes amid the muted background, the depiction of the reality of war becomes even more vivid for the viewer.

For the most skilled directors, virtually everything that the camera “sees” and records is meaningful. The sense of subjective experience produced by a sequence of point-of-view shots facilitates the viewer’s identification with the film’s characters, their perceptions, and their circumstances. Extreme close-up shots and a variety of panning techniques facilitate the importance of an emotional expression or inner conflict or develop pacing for the film. High-angle and low-angle shots give emphasis to character control, power, strength, weakness, and a variety of other dynamics. For example, in American Beauty (1999), high-angle shots are used at the beginning of the film focused on Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) to indicate a passiveness and submission to authority prior to his transformation to a strong-willed, commanding character. In The Shawshank Redemption (1994), a high-angle shot of Andy Dufresne in the rain with his arms raised symbolizes redemption and makes the character appear Christ-like (see Figure 1). High-angle shots were also often used in Alfred Hitchcock’s films, and they – like his cameo appearances – became part of his cinematic signature.

Contrast this image with a different low-angle shot also reminiscent of the crucifixion of Christ in Cool Hand Luke (1967; see Figure 2).

Each viewer possesses unique perceptual preferences, prior knowledge about the film’s content, and preconceptions about the images the film contains that mediate their perceptions |7|and experience. Rarely, if ever, do any two viewers have an identical experience when viewing the same film. Each viewer subjectively selects, attends to, and translates the visual and acoustic images projected in a theater into their own version of the story. Often viewers are affected by, or identify with, the film’s characters so strongly that it appears clear that the defense mechanism of projection is present. This process is facilitated when the viewer can anticipate the storyline, the plot, or the outcome. The avid moviegoer quickly realizes familiar themes, similar settings, and “formulas” for plots and endings across a variety of films.

Figure 1.  High-angle shot from The Shawshank Redemption (1994, Castle Rock Entertainment). Produced by Liz Glotzer, David V. Lester, and Niki Marvin. Directed by Frank Darabont.

Figure 2.  Low-angle shot from Cool Hand Luke (1967, Jamel Productions). Produced by Gordon Carroll and Carter De Haven Jr. Directed by Stuart Rosenberg.

|8|The Close-Up

When we see an isolated face on the screen, our consciousness of space is suspended, and we become vividly aware of all of the nuances of emotion that can be expressed by a grimace or a glance. We form beliefs about a character’s emotions, moods, intentions, and thoughts as we look directly into their face. Indeed, many of the most profound emotional experiences (such as grief) are expressed much more powerfully through the human face than through words. Consider the dynamic film, Amélie (2001), in which director Jean-Pierre Jeunet purposefully chooses characters (as he does for all his films) who have very expressive faces. There are numerous close-ups of several of the characters’ faces throughout the film. He explains that he wants to have characters who are interesting for the viewer to see. In turn, this enhances viewer interest and character development.

Director Woody Allen uses close-up shots smoothly and effectively, and they are a hallmark of many of his films. Some of the close-up images of Cate Blanchett playing the role of Jasmine in Blue Jasmine (2013) are unforgettable, and they linger long after the viewer has left the theater (see Figure 44).

This ability to share and comprehend subjective experiences through empathic interpretation of the language of the face is clear in early silent films, and these films still have the power to evoke strong emotions. In fact, many early directors of silent films, confronted with the development of “talkies,” feared that the addition of sound would place a barrier between the spectator and the film and restore the external and internal distance and dualism present in other works of art. The principles of observing emotional nuances can be extended from the human face to the background and surroundings in which the character moves, and a character’s subjective vision can be reproduced by a film as objective reality. For example, film can show a frightened, paranoid individual, enhancing the effect by portraying distorted, menacing houses and trees. This technique was used in the expressionist film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920).

What we see in a facial expression is immediately apparent to the spectator without the distraction of words, and a good actor can convey multiple emotions simultaneously. It has been shown repeatedly that real people playing themselves are less convincing than actors. This is true with instructional films, advertisements, and docudramas, as well as feature films. In Ordinary People (1980), director Robert Redford tried to cast a psychiatrist as the therapist, but the effect was unconvincing. Redford finally decided to cast actor Judd Hirsch in the role, and the film ended up winning an Academy Award for Best Picture, and Hirsch received a nomination for Best Actor. A notable exception was One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), a film in which a bona fide psychiatrist played the role of the hospital director, and filming occurred on the grounds of an actual psychiatric facility, Oregon State Hospital.

Quentin Tarantino is an expert in the extreme close-up shot, and there are numerous examples in Tarantino films, such as Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994), the two Kill Bill films (2003, 2004), and Django Unchained (2012). It is almost impossible to forget the scene in Kill Bill 2 in which the bride rips out Elle’s one remaining eye and crushes it between her toes. The “Here’s Johnny” close-up of Jack Nicholson peering through the door he just hacked open in The Shining (1980) has become iconic. Other films noted for close-up shots include There Will Be Blood (2009), The Godfather (1972), Full Metal Jacket (1987), The Seventh Seal (1957), Psycho (1960), Persona (1966), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), and The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Jordan Peele’s Get Out (2017) effectively uses close-up shots to convey the protagonist’s terror as he begins to realize the reality of the situation in which he finds himself (see Figure 3).

Identification

As a film is being projected onto a theater screen, we project ourselves into the action and identify with its protagonists. At one time it was thought |9|that to maintain the attention of viewers, a film had to have a central character and theme. At times, this central figure has been an antihero. However, directors such as Robert Altman and Quentin Tarantino have experimented with techniques in which they rapidly shift among short vignettes that may be only loosely linked with a storyline or central character. Altman’s Short Cuts (1994) and Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994) are two examples of this approach. Crash (2004), directed by Paul Haggis, was so expert at interweaving stories to enhance meaning and viewer engagement that it won an Academy Award for Best Picture, among many other awards. Love Actually (2003), starring Hugh Grant, Martine McCutcheon, Liam Neeson, and Laura Linney, weaves together the romantic lives of eight couples whose lives are linked in complex ways that none of them fully understand or appreciate. Another example of this approach is Cloud Atlas (2012), a film in which multiple actors play multiple roles in vignettes that are loosely but meaningfully connected. The film addresses the obscure links between past, present, and future events. Critics were divided over whether it was entirely successful; however, I found the film engaging and provocative.

Figure 3.  Close up shot from Get Out of Daniel Kaluuya, playing the role of Chris Washington (2017, Universal Pictures, Blumhouse Productions, QC Entertainment, Monkeypaw Productions, Dentsu, Fuji Television Network). Produced by Jason Blum, Marcei A. Brown, Phillip Dawe, Gerard DiNardi, et al. Directed by Jordan Peele.

Suture

Viewers integrate separate, disjointed photographic images into coherent scenes and weave different scenes into the whole film experience without conscious effort or appreciation of the complicated psychological processes involved. Suture, to use a medical metaphor, occurs when cutting or editing is necessary, and the resulting cinematic gaps are “sewn” shut by viewers.

Film scholar Shohini Chaudhuri (2006) notes,

The healing of narrative can only happen after the wound has been inflicted; and the more wounded we are, the more desperate we become for meaning and narrative. We can see this at work in Psycho (1960), where we follow and identify with Marion Crane until she is murdered halfway through the film in the famous shower scene, where every |10|cinematic cut appears to be the stab of a knife. This inflicts a traumatic wound on the viewer who is left with no-one to identify within the empty motel except the cinematic enunciator. So desperate is our need for meaning and narrative that we then identify with Marion’s murderer, Norman Bates, when he arrives to dispose of her body and her belongings. We even feel anxious for him when, momentarily, Marion’s car refuses to sink into the swamp. Suture is the “hook” by which the film accomplishes this entrapment of the viewer. (Chaudhuri, 2006, p. 50)

According to suture theory, instead of asking, “Who is watching this?” and “How could this be happening?” viewers tacitly accept what is seen on the screen as natural and “real,” even when the camera’s gaze shifts abruptly from one scene, location, or character to another. Suture works because cinematic coding makes each shot appear to be the object of the gaze of whoever appears in the shot that follows. The most cited example of suturing is the shot/reverse shot, in which each of two characters is alternately viewed over the other’s shoulder. The Coen brothers are noted for their use of the shot/reverse shot technique (e.g., No Country for Old Men [2007]).

Sound

Sound can create tension and evoke powerful emotions. It is a critical part of movies, and some sound scores have become iconic (e.g., Jaws with only two notes, repeated and becoming louder; the haunting theme music from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly). When sound comes from within a film and is appropriate to the events happening on the screen (e.g., screaming teenagers in a horror film), the sound is called diegetic; when sounds are added in postproduction, such as a musical score, the sounds are nondiegetic (e.g., the Star Wars theme, the sounds that accompany the shower scene in Psycho, or commentary by an omniscient narrator). Typically, both kinds of sounds are included in films. Baumgartner et al. (2006) studied the emotional power of music by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) to assess how our brains respond to affective images (fearful or sad pictures), either alone or combined with emotional musical excerpts. Subjects’ emotional experiences were markedly enhanced when sound was added to the images presented.

The combination of sound and images showed increased activation in many structures known to be involved in emotion processing (including for example amygdala, hippocampus, parahippocampus, insula, striatum, medial ventral frontal cortex, cerebellum, fusiform gyrus). In contrast, the picture condition only showed an activation increase in the cognitive part of the prefrontal cortex, mainly in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Based on these findings, we suggest that emotional pictures evoke a more cognitive mode of emotion perception, whereas congruent presentations of emotional visual and musical stimuli rather automatically evoke strong emotional feelings and experiences. (Baumgartner et al., 2006, p. 151)

Representation of Psychological Phenomena in Film

Film is particularly well suited to depicting psychological states of mind and altered mental states. The combination of images, dialogue, sound effects, and music in a movie mimic and parallel the thoughts and feelings that occur in our stream of consciousness. Lights, colors, and sounds emanate from the screen in such a way that we readily find ourselves believing that we are experiencing what is happening on the screen.

In Secrets of a Soul (1926), German director Georg Wilhelm Pabst dramatized psychoanalytic theory with the help of two of Freud’s assistants, Karl Abraham, and Hanns Sachs, and depicted dream sequences with multilayered superimposition (achieved through rewinding and multiple exposures). Freud himself did not |11|