Essay on Film Analysis: Beautiful Mind

Music is an escape from the challenges of reality. It is also an escape from oneself. In The Soloist which is based off of a true story, Nathaniel Ayers and Steve Lopez are two strangers with different life challenges that bring them together. Steve Lopez is a reporter for the Las Angeles Times who needs a story for his column. Nathaniel Ayers is a homeless musician who struggles with schizophrenia. Through their challenges an unlikely friendship begins to occur.

In the movie A Beautiful Mind, which primarily takes place in the 1950s, John Nash exhibits signs of schizophrenia. He shows both positive and negative signs of the disorder. However, the movie does not portray all symptoms of schizophrenia accurately. Throughout Nash’s life-long battle with his illness, his family is dramatically affected. Overall, the movie implements a positive stigma of the disorder. While John Nash’s journey with his illness is not an entirely accurate depiction, the movie gives a positive light and awareness to schizophrenia.

Throughout the many years, there have been many negative public perceptions of Schizophrenia, which is known by majority of the public as an indication of mental illness. This disorder is most of the time perceived by the public as caused by psychological factors. People with this mental illness are considered to be unpredictable and threatening (Angermeyer & Matschinger, 2003, p. 526). Most patients have a behavioural dysfunction. Victims, families and society carry a substantial burden due to this illness (Wood & Freedman, 2003).

The Soloist is a film based upon the true story of Nathaniel Ayers, a Juilliard musical prodigy who has schizophrenia, and Steve Lopez a journalist for the Los Angeles Times, who befriended the (then) homeless Ayers when he was living on the streets of LA. Schizophrenia is a chronic and severe mental disorder that affects how a person thinks, feels, and behaves; those who suffer from schizophrenia may seem like they have lost touch with reality. The symptoms of schizophrenia fall into two categories: positive and negative. People with “positive” symptoms may “lose touch” with some aspects of reality, and those with “negative” symptoms are associated with disruptions to normal emotions and behaviors. The movie presents a realistic portrait of schizophrenia and the associated problems of homelessness. It also uses a significant number of the mentally ill homeless population of Los Angeles as extras, which seems to give the film a greater authenticity.

Both A Beautiful Mind, directed by Ron Howard, and The Soloist, directed by Joe Wright, are films that attempt to explore the obstacles people with schizophrenia face in a society where mental illness is often met with negative stigma. From finding sufficient treatment to maintaining an independent lifestyle, individuals with schizophrenia are put under a great deal of pressure to meet social norms despite the sometimes debilitating and emotionally draining effects of their disease. A Beautiful Mind and The Soloist highlight these struggles, and because they are both based on true-stories, they are able to depict the realities of what living with a mental illness is like in a relatively realistic manner.

The Motion picture “The Soloist” is about L.A. Times writer Steve Lopez discovering a musically gifted homeless man named Nathaniel Ayers. Desperately needing to catch a deadline Mr. Lopez considers writing a story about Nathaniel. While researching Mr. Lopez begins to discover interesting things about the talented musician. Nathanial Ayers was accepted to The Julliard’s School of music, the most prestige school for music in North America. After one year at Julliard Nathanial dropped out, it turns out that Nathanial had a case of Paranoid Schizophrenia that forced him into a spiral of madness, which soon caused him to become homeless and lose a chance at becoming on of the greatest musicians of

According to Mathers et al., (1996) “Schizophrenia ranks among the top ten causes of disability worldwide and affects one in one hundred people at some point in their lives.” (Cardwell and Flanagan, 2012). Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder which is commonly diagnosed in 15-30 year old individuals. It disrupts a person’s cognition, perceptions and emotions, making it extremely difficult to diagnose. Bleuler (1911) introduced the term schizophrenia, which translates as ‘split-mind’ or ‘divided self’ and accounts for the earlier interpretations of the disease. These misunderstandings and the ongoing misrepresentations, especially within the media, has stigmatised the illness. This raises the need for better understanding and

“The Soloist” is a movie about a talented musician in his mid-fifties named Nathaniel Anthony Ayers. He attended Julliard but had to drop out due to the onset of schizophrenic episodes. His time at Julliard playing the cello was cut short when the voices in his head at the onset of his schizophrenia began to interfere with his playing. After having difficulties with his family, he found himself living on the streets of Los Angeles.

Around the world, only 1% of the population is diagnosed with Schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is defined as a long-term mental disorder which affects emotion, behavior, and perception. Which leads to self withdrawal from society and the formation of fictitious relationships. The movie I watched was A Beautiful Mind. In this movie, the main character- John Nash- battles against schizophrenia. John Nash was a young mathematical genius, who attended the prestigious Princeton University. While making large strides in his field, Nash began developing signs of schizophrenia. While working at the University, Nash developed fictitious friends, as well as a fictitious job. Nash believed these events to be true until his wife and coworkers at the university informed him. Despite his diagnosis and rigorous treatment, he continued to keep fighting it and tried to find his place in society.

Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder that affects many individuals around the world. It affects how a person thinks, feels and behaves. The focus on this paper will be on the film entitled A beautiful Mind. This film focuses on the life of John Nash, who was diagnosed with Schizophrenia. This paper will include three parts. Part one will describe Mr. Nash’s diagnosis based on the DSM-5. Part two will include literature review explaining Mr. Nash’s diagnosis. Then, based on this literature review, I will develop a complete biopsychosocial to implement a treatment strategy to help Mr. Nash. Part three will describe how the film portrays the disorder that Mr. Nash is diagnosed with.

The purpose of the movie “A Beautiful Mind” is to raise awareness among the general population to ease misconceptions about schizophrenia and to show examples for better understanding of this mental illness. By emphasizing several virtues that the main character, his wife, and his friends present throughout the movie, viewers can learn to be more respectful of those who suffer from schizophrenia and

In the movie, "A Beautiful Mind", the main character, John Nash, is a mathematician who suffers from schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is actually the most chronic and disabling of the major mental illnesses and it distorts the way a person thinks, acts, expresses emotions, interprets reality and relates to others.

Many live attempting to decipher the riddle of life. What is life? What is the purpose? What makes? Even though we only seek happiness why can’t we ever seem to achieve it? When we do reach happiness why can’t we seem to grasp it and hold it for more than the few short hours that pass like seconds? The question we must answer first is “What makes happiness, true?”

A Beautiful Mind gave an extremely spellbinding and scholarly view on the influences of a dysfunctional behavior. Through cases and circumstances it helped show circumstances that individuals must endure with in the event that they have schizophrenia or neurosis. A feeling of trust was demonstrated on the grounds that Nash defeated his sickness and with help numerous others can accomplish this conclusion. A

This paper, broken into two sections, includes a mock case study of a young woman, from the movie Black Swan, who meets criteria for a Schizophrenia spectrum disorder, followed by current research on schizophrenia and recommended treatment. Because specific temporal information is unavailable and the key difference between schizophreniform disorder and schizophrenia is duration, the diagnosis made for the purpose of this paper is schizophrenia. The research portion will cover current research and treatment of schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a disorder defined by a heterogeneous set of irregularities across multiple modalities, including “cognitive, behavioral, and emotional dysfunctions” (American Psychiatric Association, 2013, p.100). This mock case study is an important reminder for counseling students: Client symptoms may not always be transparent to clinicians. Clients may purposefully withhold information, lack insight to report, or may have sufficient factual insight to avoid the perceived stigma of reporting.