Beautiful Mind the Movie Brought the Reality

¶ … Beautiful Mind

The movie brought the reality of schizophrenia closer to personal experience, not only because the film is adapted from the true story of John Forbes Nash, Jr., a Mathematics genius. It is also because the sight-and-sound properties of the cinema have that distinct capability of connecting the audience to the innermost chamber of the characters' personalities and vicariously revealing their frank thoughts and feelings. One could almost feel and think what John Jr. did as he struggled against the disorder.

The movie also tells us that being exemplary or being on top can take its toll. The rest of us who belong to "normal" levels may admire geniuses, but have no idea how excruciating it actually is to be different. Being different is not necessarily being better or happier, just because the world needs hard and accurate thinkers like John Jr. In order to continue developing and coping with "progress." His being "immensely strange and arrogant" and preference for solving only unsolvable Math problems were his ways of coping with the awesome and awful expectation and self-expectation to do more than others. The heavy weight of expectation led him to deviate and imagine crypto-Communists everywhere, as well as see himself as someone of huge religious significance. Voices all around and telephone calls pounded in his head and pushed him to do more and strain more beyond his mind's limits. He was condemned to achieve and praises or honors did not relieve him. His marriage suffered because his focus was out of it and entirely in pursuit of the ever-heightening expectations not only of his professors, the community, his parents and, but also and most of all, by himself.

That his psychosis developed around the time of Alicia's pregnancy and childbirth had to do with his reaching the full age of 30. By 30, a person's journey is usually defined. At 30, a person has made the most important decisions he will make in his whole lifetime. At 30, he shall have defined the direction to his future. But at 30, John Jr. essentially drained himself, because at an earlier age of 21, he already finished a doctoral thesis, which later won a Nobel, which was his life accomplishment. Nothing else needed to follow, yet the cruel prodding to succeed continued.

Movie watchers will not bother much about the technicalities of movie production but will learn more about how genius and torture from an illness can occur to and in the same mind. Most of those who will see the film may not relate very much with John Jr. because they are not mentally like him: the movie may, indeed, even stigmatize mental illness further. (Quinet) But because it is the true story of a Mathematical genius, viewers will recognize this victim as one of them in the same human family.

It must be remembered, though, that the story happened in the 50s when schizophrenia was still considered a progressive and degenerative as well as incurable mental disorder. (Quinet) That was exactly the dreadful pronouncement of John Jr.'s psychiatrist - that his problem did not have the precise treatment as yet and that he just had to stick to his regimen and hope that his condition would improve with the advancement of science. (Quinet) And according to the movie plot, John Jr. did get well, not in the sense that his disorder disappeared, but that the constant moral and emotional support he received from his wife, friends and school community finally enabled him to reject the force that overpowered his mind for practically all his life. It was the same force that created the disorder. By rejecting it, he grabbed control from it and his mind was released from it.

The movie shows how good things went for John Jr. which led to his recovery: his psychiatrist was always there - night and day - and with the same vigor and concern for his wellness. There are not too many like this today, as there were not too many then. Furthermore, the devotion of his wife Alicia remained, although she divorced him when he could not appropriately perform his roles as husband and father when John Jr.'s schizophrenia began. She was an extraordinary woman who was extraordinarily supportive and loving to him despite his repulsive mental shape. Not many wives will be like Alicia, in the 50s, today or in the future. John Jr. was indeed set apart from the mainstream not only as a hapless genius torn by his mind but also as a man who struggled against the coercions of that genius.

Statistics say that approximately 10% of the American population consists of those disabled permanently by schizophrenia. (Gale 1999). The mortality is also high, in that 10% of those with the disorder commit suicide and 20% attempt it. (Gale) Medical authorities maintain that the chances of recovery are greater with early diagnosis and long-term treatment. Such recovery does not promise much if it is chronic and severe and not discovered and treated early enough.

Schizophrenia is described as a mental illness, which is characterized by delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech and behavior, a lack of emotions and occupational malfunctioning. It may be short-term if it occurs only from one to six months. (Gale) John Jr. described his own brilliant mind's torments as "perceiving crypto-Communists everywhere, his own religious superiority and great importance, voices at all times and telephone calls from his opponents." (A Beautiful Mind) His wife divorced him for his inability to relate with her as he should. His colleagues found him aggressive and arrogant. And he moved out of a stable professorial job only to seek admission as a refugee in Europe. When admitted at the MacLean Hospital, a colleague viewed him as totally lost.