Psychology

This paper explores the film, A Beautiful Mind to analyze how it illustrates paranoid schizophrenia to the general public. The film has gathered international recognition for its quality-driven storytelling. It won an Oscar for Best Picture. A Beautiful Mind is also appreciated for its inspirational message, that there is hope, and that there are ways to help those who are affected by this mental illness.

Keywords paranoid schizophrenia, medication, recovery, John Nash
One Brilliant and Resilient Mind A review of the film, A Beautiful Mind
The 2001 film A Beautiful Mind was inspired by the life of John Nash, who received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1950, and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1994 (Mudd Manuscript Library, 2007). The film stars Russell Crowe in the lead role, supported by Jennifer Connelly, Ed Harris, Christopher Plummer and Paul Bettany.

The film starts with the arrival of Nash (Russell Crowe) at Princeton University as a new graduate student. He is a Carnegie Prize for Mathematics awardee, suggesting to the audience of his brilliance in logic and numbers.  Nash expected that he will be staying in a single room, but he later met his roommate, Charles Herman (Paul Bettany), a literature student. Much later on, Nash met Alicia Larde (Jennifer Connelly) while teaching at MIT. They fell in love, got married and had a son. As the film progressed, Nash visited Princeton University and he ran into Charles, his graduate school roommate.

He also met Charles niece. Nash is then asked to decode encrypted telecommunications involving national security and military conflict. He accepted and was successful in deciphering a cryptic message. But he had to face the consequences of his participation in such a complicated situation. He eventually met William Parcher (Ed Harris) of the US Defense Department. Things developed further, and Nash found himself being chased by Russian agents. He feared for his life, became greatly paranoid and started acting irrationally. As his mission was extremely confidential, he could not disclose anything to Alicia, his wife, who is frightened by the change in his behavior. Nash became increasingly upset, restless and tense each passing day, until the life of his son was put at risk. Alicia was convinced that he has really been hallucinating. She sought the help of a psychiatric hospital, and Nash was taken in by psychiatric staff, whom he hallucinated to be Soviets. Alicia gathered enough evidence and managed to convince Nash that he has been experiencing paranoid schizophrenia and he has been hallucinating for a long time. She made it clear to him that he has to get well and redeem his normal life. In fact, Charles and his niece, as well as the other personalities involved in his cryptology mission, were all products of his hallucination. He went through therapy, got well, continued on with his life, and eventually got a Nobel Prize.

Sylvia Nasar, the author of the book from which A Beautiful Mind was based, said, This is the story of John Forbes Nash, Jr. It is a story about the mystery of the human mind in three acts genius, madness, reawakening (2002). Nash has indeed showed the world hope when he recovered from his illness and achieved an even greater height of accomplishment that won for him a Nobel Prize. One out of 100 Americans is likely to be affected by schizophrenia (Whitaker, 2002). A Beautiful Mind gave inspiration to a lot of families and loved ones of those who are going through the difficult ordeal of dealing with schizophrenia around the world.

A Beautiful Mind shows how delusions develop, how patients could believe such thoughts to be true, and how such symptoms can devastate their lives and the lives of their family and friends (Rosenrock, 2003). While the film has been criticized for its inaccuracies, the producers are quick to explain that the film was only loosely based on Nashs life. For instance, in the movie, Nash gave a Nobel Prize speech and he said, I take the newer medications. In real life, Nash stopped his medication. The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill lauded the films director, Ron Howard, for suggesting the vital role of medication in Nashs recovery (Whitaker, 2002). However, Nasar notes in her biography that Nash stopped taking anti-psychotic drugs in 1970. Nasar also concluded that Nashs refusal to take drugs may have worked to his advantage, because the drugs side effects would have not made it possible for him to re-enter the world of mathematics (2001). In the DVD copy of the documentary Howard explained that he did not want to show in the film that everyone could recover from schizophrenia without medication. Ironically, journalist Robert Whitaker reported that according to psychologist Courtenay Harding in 1987, one-third of chronic schizophrenia patients released from Vermont State Hospital in the late 1950s completely recovered. Those who experienced the best outcomes of therapy had one common factor They weaned themselves off anti-psychotic medications (2002).

Overall, the film, which won a Best Picture award from the Academy, has raised awareness on schizophrenia. This heightened awareness is necessary to further advance the studies being made regarding the illness. Interestingly, studies in undeveloped countries, nearly two-thirds of schizophrenia patients are doing fairly well five years after initial diagnosis about 40 have basically recovered. But in the USA and other developed countries, most patients become chronically ill (Whitaker, 2002). I doubt that Nash actually entertained such rich visual hallucinations because the general knowledge among mental health experts is that paranoid schizophrenics are predominantly affected by auditory hallucinations. On the other hand, without the visuals, the film may have not succeeded in illustrating how Nash was affected by the disease.

I especially like how the film showed Nashs inability to trust his wife while he was struggling with his paranoia. I also appreciate that there was a suggestion in the film about how to react under such a situation  Alicia worked to gain his trust, even gathered evidence for him and stayed by his side.
Suffice it to say that technically, A Beautiful Mind is a good film choice among young students of mental health because it will provoke questions and critical thinking among them. For the general movie audience, the media has to encourage them to take the film critically, and do not assume that the disease is accurately represented there. It is, after all, only loosely based on the life of a schizophrenic genius.

In her book, Nasar describes the present life of Nash by saying, At seventy three, John looks and sounds wonderfully well. He feels increasingly certain that he wont suffer a relapse. It is like a continuous process rather than just waking up from a dream, he told a New York Times reporter recently (2001).