Alberto Guerra Lopez
Professor Arekalyan
Abnormal Psychology
11 November 2018
A Beautiful Mind: Clinical analysis
The film titled A Beautiful Mind, is a film that was made in the year of 2001. A Beautiful Mind was based on the life of the immaculate schizophrenic mathematician, whose real name was John Forbes Nash Jr. The character John Nash was portrayed by the actor Russel Crowe. The film was inspired by the biographical novel “A Beautiful Mind” which was originally written by Sylvia Nasar. In the film it is seen that the film itself creates a timeline of John Nash’s life that begins when he enters graduate school at Princeton to study Mathematics. This is where the early symptoms of schizophrenia began to appear and seemed to continue in to the later parts of his life such as when he wins the Nobel Prize while still dealing with his disability. As time passes in the film, so does the schizophrenia which is made worse by the work done that was regarding to the military.
When speaking of schizophrenia, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, this is a type of “chronic and severe mental disorder that affects how a person thinks, feels and behaves” and causes people to seem as if they are “out of touch with reality.” There are many symptoms that are associated with schizophrenia, some of the most common signs are hallucinations, delusional behavior and trouble focusing. Moreover, there is no known cure or cause of schizophrenia, however, current research suggests that an imbalance of brain chemicals such as dopamine may be the answer.
Furthermore, the starting of the film helps the audience establish John as a peculiar genius who seems to be socially awkward but advances to how his schizophrenia starts to impact him. The film “A Beautiful Mind” starts with John introducing himself to other math graduate peers, this is where John tries to bond with other people by making jokes with good harmony but ends up offending other students and leaving right after. Additionally, he also offends other fellow graduate peers by calling their work unoriginal and proceeds to talk about how he will come up with an “original” idea and solve it. Subsequently, after this confrontation, John heads back to his room, where he meets his roommate, Charles who is supposedly a graduate student that studied English. In this scene, John’s schizophrenic delusions are obvious to the movie-goers as his room was only intended for one person.
Unfortunately, even if the film does not accurately pinpoint John Nash’s disability, it does help show an accurate representation of schizophrenia. Exclusively in the film, John’s schizophrenia starts to set in when he is in his early 20’s (This is the typical age in which a person with schizophrenia starts to show symptoms)(Gil), but doesn’t really show serious symptoms until his 30’s. Furthermore, even though John’s symptoms started late, they are still in the acceptable range of when the onset of schizophrenia can begin, this helps portray the accuracy of the disability. In the light of the movie it also seems to take advantage of symptoms such as delusions, reduced speaking/”flat effect” and various cognitive symptoms such as poor executive functioning, these are all valid and common symptoms of schizophrenia according to the National Institute of Mental Health. By the same token, the symptoms are put into effect when his roommate Charles appears and when John is talking to the other graduate students. When John is speaking to his fellow graduate peers, he does not talk much and when he does, he does it with little to no emotion, this can be attributed to the onset of his disability. Although the symptoms are accurate, the real John Nash never had delusion figures, he mostly suffered from auditory delusions. Overall, the beginning of the film helps accurately introduce several key characteristics of schizophrenia while also attempting to keep an accurate storyline.
As the film continues, so does the progression of John Nash’s illness. The illness seems to progress because at one point during the film John must give a speech about his current mathematical research. In this scene, John sees men dressed in suits surround him, here John believes these men are soviet spies who have been ordered to capture him. As a result of the delusion, John runs out the room and is chased by these supposed soviet spies. Eventually, they capture him, and it becomes obvious that these men are not soviet spies, indeed they are men who were sent to get him in order to take him to psychiatric hospital so that he can get help with his disability. Exclusively, John’s delusions have made him believe that he is working for the Department of Defense under a shady government agent, William Parcher. Additionally, John believes that he has been performing classified soviet code breaking and has been delivering the research to a top-secret mailbox in sealed envelopes. Comparatively, in the scene his wife, Alicia Larde goes to the hospital to visit him and she explains to him that there is no agent named William Parcher and that all the mail he has been dropping off at the mailbox has never been opened. Correspondingly, she shows John that it was not that hard to track down the so-called top-secret documents. Together with this scene, John is made to undergo insulin shock therapy and is made to take medication on the side to help cure his enfeebling schizophrenia. Identically, these shock therapy sessions are very brutal and require restraints to hold john down while his is observed by a team of nurses and doctors. Uniquely, with this his wife Alicia Larde was able to prove that no agent under the name of William Parcher exist, this helped John to realize the harsh truth that he has schizophrenia.
Another important factor in the movie is the scene where John is in the psychiatric hospital. Here it is seen that they use inhumane techniques to cure schizophrenia. The psychiatric hospital is white in every room and hallway, this gives the audience an unsettling feeling about the place. Exclusively, this scene is meant to take place in the year 1950 and is shown in the treatments that were used. Subsequently, it was during this era that new treatments were being introduced in attempt to cure schizophrenia, which is shown when John is forced to undergo insulin shock a couple times a week. Additionally, the results of his treatment ended up being appalling and eventually was smirched because anti-psychotic drugs were being inaugurated. Again, the introduction of anti-psychotic drugs plays a very important role in allowing schizophrenic people to live normal lives. Additionally, during this scene the movie makes it look as if people diagnosed with schizophrenia are easily cured, all they have to do was spend a short amount of time in the hospital and take medication for them to return to their normal life. This is proven to be false because John Nash was bugged for multiple decades by his disability and during this extended period, he couldn’t do any work. Conclusively, this domino effect of events shows a turning point in the movie and helps give insight into John Nash’s life and others who are dealing with schizophrenia.
In like manner, after John is released from the psychiatric hospital, John tried to continue to his life as a normal being and tried to continue his mathematical research. Correspondingly, John was required to take medication in order to help treat the symptoms of his disability, but he claimed that there was a problem. John claimed that when he took the medication, he was not clear-minded and that it did not allow him to make progress either it be little or none. Equally, John stops taking the medication prescribed so that he can think freely again. Moreover, there is a scene in where John is giving his baby a bath after his wife went out to the backyard to hang up some laundry. Alicia notices that something is not right and begins to sprint back into her house and finds the baby is almost drowning while John himself is having a schizophrenic episode and telling her that his roommate Charles was watching the baby. Again, Alicia proceeds to rescue the baby all while she watches John have an argument with what appears to be nothing but is Charles and William Parcher. During this supposed argument, Parcher pulls a gun on John’s wife, this causes John to try and tackle Parcher in order to save his wife, since in his mind all that is happening is real. It is seen in the scene that he runs at Parcher, but he runs at his wife and knocks her over. Additionally, as Alicia attempts to leave the house John realized that none of what just happened is real, which shows that he recognized that he was going through a delusion phase. Here is when the attitude of the movie changes as John has come to terms that he may or may not be able to beat off his schizophrenia.
In the light of his relapse, John faces the decision that he will have to continue taking medicine and return to the psychiatric hospital thus this will hinder the research he is doing. Eventually, John returns to Princeton university and agrees to work out of the library. While John is working at Princeton university, he still had to learn how to deal with his delusions in a new environment, this proved to be difficult but manageable. It is during this period of John Nash’s life that he was able to resume his research and wins himself the Nobel prize in economics for a work that he had done for his dissertation. This scene still shows that
John has delusions such as seeing Parcher and Charles but chooses not to acknowledge them. This shows John as being able to vindicate his disability and that is how he “healed” himself.
Furthermore, this scene is one of the most important in the movie, because it helps to show that we do not know much of schizophrenia. By scrutinizing this scene, it shows how the movie was able to represent certain things that we have yet to learn about schizophrenia. The film portrays John as being able to simply pay no attention to his delusions just by excusing them and without using medication although this can also be done with external factors in his life. It is stated that a supportive environment and aging can lead to better results for individuals who suffer from schizophrenia (Rettner). The aforementioned, can be seen in the film because John’s wife and peers are all supportive and even help John get a professorship at Princeton university. Moreover, while John may attribute his remission to rationalization, it may be due to these factors. According to Rettner, studies have shown that up to 60 percent of individuals with schizophrenia can achieve remission with treatment, however no one knows how remission occurs. This statistic mentioned shows how much research is lacked but also shows how much progress was made as John Nash was originally diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.
In conclusion, after watching the film and analyzing the details of climatic scenes and reading multiple reviews and even reading reviews that were written by John Forbes Nash Jr, it is safe to say that the film did a good job of accurately portraying the convolutions of schizophrenia to the movie-watchers. Even though the scenes may have not always accurately depicted specifically what happened to John Nash, it still portrays ideas and facts about schizophrenia. The actor Russel Crowe did great job and helped to enlighten the audience about what it is like to go through life with schizophrenia. Similarly, in John Nash’s real case of schizophrenia it is very unusual and digresses greatly from what the average schizophrenic will encounter. Somehow John was able to put his schizophrenia into remission without the use of medication which seems to be very unheard of amongst experts. Finally, the film also incorporated all the correct views and science that was known to exist in the years 1950 through 1960, this helps give the audience a realistic view into what was really known about the mental disability schizophrenia. Conclusively, this movie did an amazing job and was able to accurately shows examples of what it is like to live with schizophrenia and can educate individuals about what is known about the disability.
Resource(s)
1. Gil, Robert. “Beautiful Minds: A movie raises questions about schizophrenia.” News from Columbia Health Sciences, Columbia University, 11 Feb. 2012,
www.cumc.columiba.edu/publications/invivo/vol1_iss3_Feb11_02/pov.html.
Accessed 13 Nov. 2018.
2. The National Institute of Mental Health. “Schizophrenia.” National Institute of Health,
www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/schizophrenia
Accessed 15 Nov. 2018.
3. Rettner, Rachael. “Beautiful Mind” John Nash’s Schizophrenia ‘Disappeared’ as He Aged.” Scientific American, 4 June 2015,
www.scientificamerican.com/article/beautiful-mind-jonh-nash-s-schizophrenia-disappeared-as-he-aged/.
Accessed 10 Nov. 2018