Figure 1. The Movie Poster (https://thatsmaths.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/beautiful-mind-poster.jpg)
“A
Beautiful Mind” movie is based on a true story about
Doctor John Forbes Nash Jr. (June 13, 1928 – May 23, 2015) and
directed by Ron Howard. This movie was released in 2001 from DreamWorks
Pictures and Universal Picture starting Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly and
many other well-known actors. This movie won 4 Oscars, 32 other awards and
received 58 nominations. The source material for the movie was the biography
which is written by Sylvia Nasar, also called "A Beautiful Mind”.
Our Main character mathematician Dr.
Nash was arrogant as well as brilliant in his graduate school at Princeton. He
has only one friend and roommate, Charles who helps him in all the time. Nash
meets Alicia, falls in love with her and marries her. Nash began having mental
problems in his early 20's. Similar to his real life, the film captures the
suffering of a person from this disorder as it affects his education,
profession, social, and family life. He was hospitalized for paranoid schizophrenia.
Later, Nash became a mysterious, creepy man at University. But through the
support of his beloved wife and his friends he experienced a dramatic recovery.
In 1994, he won the Nobel Prize in economics.
As in the movie, Nash begins to hear
voices and becomes unable to differentiate them from real voices. The movie is
somewhat overstated in the extent that these voices affect his life at the
university. However, it is comparable enough to his real life as to illustrate
the reality of the disease in its damage of 30 years of his life.
Other than the main character, Alicia is
playing an important role as the woman most attached to Nash. When Nash begins
to weaken due to mental illness and weird behavior start to disturb her
severely. It’s true that her patience and concern played a critical role in his
recovery from mental illness. Nash confesses this in his Nobel speech: “I have made the most important
discovery of my career, the most important discovery of my
life. I am only here tonight because
of you [Alicia]. (Howard, 2001). But there were some more personal
issues with them in reality that didn’t discuss in the movie.
Dr. Nash was suffering from schizophrenia
which is a severe mental disorder that affects the way a person thinks, acts,
expresses emotions, sees reality and relates to others. Schizophrenia isn’t as major,
common mental illnesses but can be the most chronic and disabling.
Schizophrenia can be found in approximately 1% of the world’s population
regardless of national, ethnic or economic background. (WHO, 2019). These are the evidence in the movie
that was proved Nash has schizophrenia. (Cadabam's Group, 2017).
Delusions of Grandeur
Early
warning sign of schizophrenia. Not noticed. But mistook as genius act
Incident
2: Nash have been in university library for two days
without going to his room and spent whole time drawing mathematical
explanations on library windows.
Reduce Daily activities
Stay
away from daily activities, neglecting own sanitization purposes and isolated
from social world. These are negative signs of schizophrenia.
Incident
3: Nash believe that some government spies are chasing
him.
Suspiciousness
Nash
think that he and his family is in a danger of harm from someone persistently.
Incident
4: Nash meets an imaginary friend called Charles and
his niece Marcee and talking to them.
Hallucination
Nash
seeing and hearing things that are not real. * In real world Nash never had visual
delusions figures such as Charles. And he suffered generally from auditory
delusions only.
Incident
5: Nash cut his hand during the stay at hospital
Self-harm
People
with schizophrenia are often into self-harm other than hurting others.
Incident
6: Nash listening to what his imaginary soviet spy man
said and trying to stop his wife calling to doctor.
Lack of Insight
Failure
to recognize the need of treatment and they are unaware of their illness.
Nash would have positive hallucination
of people like Charles and his niece Marcee. And his negative hallucination
would include people such as government spies and Russian soldiers. Both his
roommate Charles and Charles' niece Marcee and government agents are all
treated as real people instead of hallucinations. Only when John realizes that
Marcee has not aged over several years is he able to admit she is a
hallucination. And viewers also able to find out them as illusions at the same
time Alicia finds out. Nash began to ignore the hallucinations and
taught himself to realize that his imaginary people are not real. The movie is
showing how Nash's acceptance of his illness as he is able to recognize that
the voices are not real and letting them run his life.
He engage in society more often to
normalize his world. He started teaching math and try hard to live like a
normal mathematician. Finally he got a better feeling. And that is the
wonderful turning point of this movie.
The
shots of A Beautiful Mind consists of
mainly medium, high and low angles. The film uses golden shade colors to show
happy and positive moods. Blue and gray tone uses to show the darkest moments
in Nasha’s life. The moment that Nash accidentally try to kill their child the
movie shows even climate of that day is also changed to rainy and windy day.
Overall, A
Beautiful Mind is a cinema masterpiece. With realistic soundtrack and
enigmatic orchestral score pieces; smooth and fluid cinematography; excellent
acting and direction; superb screenplay. (Chris,
2017). The target audience of this movie are adults who like movies
based on exceptional true stories, those who like biographical movies and those
who are interested in mental illnesses especially schizophrenia.
A Beautiful Mind tells not
just the story of a schizophrenic but it also represents the effect the
disorder has for the family, how it causes the breakdown of one’s reputation
and the ability to overcome schizophrenia and become a genius. This has
surprised the viewers as it was based on true story. This movie gives hope who
are suffering from mental illnesses that they are not alone and they can do
anything that they want.
References
Cadabam's
Group. (2017). Symptoms of schizophrenia Explained by - A Beautiful Mind
(2001), Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUFe7M55NP8&t=2s
Chris, N.G., (2017). Overcoming Insanity within A Beautiful
Mind. Retrieved from http://chrisng.hubpages.com/hub/beautifulmind
Howard, R.
(2001). A Beautiful Mind. Dream Works
Picture. Retrieved from https://123movies.email/movies/a-beautiful-mind/
Nasar, S. (1998). A Beautiful Mind: A Biography of John Forbes Nash, Jr. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-81906-6,
Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/abeautifulmind_201912/mode/2up
Ranna,
P. (2017), Schizophrenia, American
Psychiatric Association
WHO.
(2019, October 9). Schizophrenia. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/schizophrenia
