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The
Celluloid Strait-Jacket: The subject of mental illness has, for centuries, fascinated and appalled people. The mentally ill have variously been seen as blessed, cursed, possessed by demons, evil, innocent, depraved and beatified. They are considered separate from ordinary human beings, "different, "special." In contemporary America, despite advances in education and understanding, the mentally ill are still marginalized, thought to be "other" than "we." The experience of mental illness is viewed with a strange ambivalence; on the one hand, insanity is seen as humorous and used as the subject of jokes; on the other, it becomes almost a transcendent condition, as the mentally ill are thought to be more creative, sensitive and generally "better" than the so-called "normal." The film industry, reflective of the country's opinions while at the same time helping to mold them, promulgates these ideas with its cinematic treatment of the mentally ill. In discussing the depiction of emotional disturbance in film, it is important to make a clear distinction between what John McCarty has termed “psychofilm" and that which he calls "the psycho-case-study film" (ix and 180). The former category, which includes such movies as the Halloween series as well as the many filmed versions of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, was never meant to be taken as a serious depiction of mental illness, and is by nature sensational and exploitive. The latter category, considered herein, may be exploitive in its way, but attempts to maintain a somewhat realistic perspective on insanity, whether the topic is presented humorously or dramatically (183). The first of these psycho case-study films was G.W. Pabst's 1926 Secrets of a Soul, but the genre did not become widely popular until the late 1940s, when psychoanalysis became both a household word and a fashionable pastime (McCarty 180). In 1948, 20th Century-Fox, known for producing films on difficult topics, released The Snake Pit (Belton 74-75). Featuring Olivia de Havilland as a young woman who suffers a nervous breakdown and is committed, the film offered a gritty, hard-hitting look at the psychiatric hospitals of the time (Arany, Dyja and Goldsmith 23). Possibly because the film was based on an autobiographical account, its marginalization of the emotionally disturbed was not as apparent as would be seen in later films. Nevertheless, its artificially happy ending, in which de Havilland is cured by a compassionate psychiatrist and rejoins her husband, suggests that the experience of mental illness is totally unconnected to the rest of one's life (McCarty 182). In The Snake Pit it seems almost a vacation, albeit a brutal and frightening one. The Three Faces of Eve, from 1957, was similarly based on a true experience (Elley 616). Its protagonist, the mousy housewife Eve White (Joanne Woodward, who received an Oscar for the performance), suffers from dissociative identity disorder, which causes her to become, by turns, sexy, free-spirited Eve Black and level-headed, well-balanced Jane (Arany, Dyja and Goldsmith 23). As in The Snake Pit, Eve is ultimately cured—“integrated”—by benevolent psychotherapists, but not before the audience is treated to a flamboyant representation of this serious disorder. Eve, in all her manifestations, is obviously different from "regular" human beings; even the apparently normal Jane may at any moment switch to one of the more obviously unstable personalities. It is interesting to note that the woman on whom the film is based has disavowed it, citing its inaccuracies. David and Lisa, released in 1963, is a rather stark, bleak film that, nonetheless, advances the idea of mental patient as romantic ideal (Elley 139). Audiences were already used to dramas about teenage angst, due to films like Rebel Without a Cause and The Blackboard Jungle; David and Lisa took this a step further, introducing the angst of the disturbed adolescent as a somehow desirable state. David and Lisa attend a boarding school for the emotionally disturbed. Occasionally taunted by the people of the neighboring town, tormented by their own thoughts and feelings, they are beautiful, ethereal, other-worldly. They seem, in this special school, to receive very little education and only the sketchiest therapy; they evidently have all the time in the world to display their dysfunctions and explore their burgeoning friendship. The film, unlike those previously mentioned, contains no miracle cures. David and Lisa make progress, but are obviously still ill; the impression is given that they have remained "pure," untouched by the demands and pressures of the "normal" world (Elley 139). Although not an American film, Phillipe de Broca's Le Roi de Coeur (King of Hearts) merits mention because of its strong appeal to the counter-culture audiences of 1967 and because it is a prime example of the depiction of the mentally ill as better, almost holier, than their normal peers. Set in 1918, the story involves a Welsh soldier sent into a tiny French village to defuse a bomb. The village has been evacuated, except for the inmates of its insane asylum, who have taken over the roles of the absent villagers. The film makes it abundantly clear that the inmates are saner than the armies waging a World War; like David and Lisa, the inmates are innocent and pure (Hoberman and Rosenbaum 294). So glorified are they that, at the film's ending, the Welshman deserts his army, strips naked, and joins them in the asylum. Although it has been pointed out that "[E]very loony is exactly the same as the others, their mental illnesses are at exactly the same level and they look at the world in exactly the same manner," the film remains popular (Peary, qtd. in Hoberman and Rosenbaum 295). So beloved is it that, thirty-five years after its release, it is still being shown on the cult movie circuit, where it is often paired with Harold and Maude, another gentle paean to creative insanity. Ken Kesey's novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was adapted for the movies in 1975. Set in the ward of a psychiatric hospital, the film contrasts the warmth and humanity of its deranged patients, particularly the rebellious, anarchic malingerer McMurphy, with the coldness and cruelty of their "normal" caretakers, personified by the vindictive, sadistic Big Nurse. As is often the case, many changes were made in translating the novel into film. Significantly, the viewpoint was shifted from that of a schizophrenic patient, to a more objective, detached perspective, which, ironically, causes the characters to appear much more romantic than they seem in the book. McMurphy takes on an almost godlike aspect as he encourages the other inmates "to take charge of their lives and learn to laugh again" (Tibbets and Welsch 311). Ultimately lobotomized and killed, McMurphy remains an inspiration to the inmates, as borne out by the escape from the ward by Chief Bromden, considered its most disturbed inhabitant. The message is plain: the mentally ill are better—kinder, more compassionate—than those who judge them insane (311-313). In recent years, films about the mentally ill have tended to be humorous, while at the same time maintaining the position that the disturbed are qualitatively different from more "normal" people. Rain Man, from 1988, ostensibly serious, derives fun from the behaviors of the autistic savant Raymond, taking pains, nevertheless, to showcase his moral superiority to his avaricious, devious brother (Elley 491). The Dream Team, released in 1989, sets a group of psychiatric patients loose in New York City. 1990's Crazy People places an ad executive, suffering from a nervous breakdown, into an upscale residential clinic, where he discovers that "crazy people" make more sense than do sane ones and, not incidentally, write excellent ad copy (Elley 128). From 1991, What About Bob? casts Bill Murray as a man so riddled with phobias and so emotionally needy that he has worn out one therapist and is passed along to the smug, pompous Richard Dreyfuss, who has written a best-selling self-help book. When Dreyfuss goes on vacation, Murray tracks him down and follows him, insinuating himself with Dreyfuss's family and friends and taking over his life. Dreyfuss eventually loses his mind as Murray sheds his fears and tics, marries Dreyfuss' sister, and writes a self-help book of his own. In the course of the film, Murray, as Bob, is consistently shown to be a more caring, more compassionate and generally nicer individual than is his therapist (Arany, Dyja and Goldsmith 22). For yet another time, however comedically, a person suffering from mental illness is presented as different from "normal" people better, perhaps, but still "the other." In 1997, a breakthrough was achieved with Columbia-Tristar's release of As Good as It Gets. In this film, which won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Actor and Actress, a person suffering from a mental illness is seen, possibly for the first time, as a complete human being, no better or worse than any other. Melvin is a writer of romance novels who is afflicted with obsessive-compulsive disorder. His overwhelming fears and rituals force him to hold people at a distance and restrict his mobility, but within these confines he thinks and feels as normal people do. In the course of the film, through his fondness for a small dog, his reluctant friendship with a gay neighbor, and his growing love for a waitress in the restaurant he frequents, Melvin begins to lose some of his compulsions. He begins to take medication for his problems, because, as he tells the woman he loves, "You made me want to be a better man." There is nothing miraculous about the changes in Melvin; there is the sense that he has a long road ahead of him before he is cured, yet his future begins to look hopeful. Neither a saint nor a joke, Melvin is not "the other." He is definitely, triumphantly, one of "us."' The movie industry's depiction of the mentally ill has ranged from the melodramatic to the comedic, both mirroring and shaping the public's perceptions. The emotionally disturbed have been routinely viewed as other than human, something strange and different. While As Good as It Gets seems to point to a more realistic treatment of mental illness in American films, it remains to be seen whether it is the beginning of a healthy trend, or merely a happy exception to a long-established rule. Works Cited Arany, Lynne, Tom Dyja, and Gary Goldsmith. The Reel List. New York: Dell, 1995. Belton, John. American Cinema/American Culture. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994. Elley, Daniel, Ed. Variety Movie Guide. New York: Prentice, 1992. Hoberman, J. and Jonathan Rosenbaum. Midnight Movies. New York: Harper, 1983. McCarty, John.
Psychos: Eighty Years of
Mad Movies, Maniacs, and Murderous
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