A Beautiful Mind Essay. How the director shows the nightmare of schizophrenia.

by bridgetlampard (student)

A Beautiful Mind Essay - Stage 1 English

Bridget Lampard

According to Dr. Rosen in the film, ‘the nightmare of schizophrenia is knowing what’s true’. How are two or three techniques used to develop this idea in A Beautiful Mind?

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that does not allow its victims to be able to tell the difference between reality and delusion. This nightmare that they face is hard for people to understand and relate to. “Imagine if you had suddenly learned that the people, the places, the moments, most important to you, were not gone, were not dead, but worse, had never been”. Ron Howard uses a range of film techniques in A Beautiful Mind that allows the viewers to understand the nightmare that John Nash experiences. The use of dialogue, point of view, symbols and motifs helps to develop the idea of this nightmare.

The use of point of view in A Beautiful Mind allows the audience to be involved in the mind of John Nash. Finding out that people, places and moments are in fact not real is the nightmare of a schizophrenic mind. Subjective point of view is used for the majority of A Beautiful Mind, this allows the viewers to see John Nash’s life in the way he experiences it. The camera points in the same direction in which Nash looks in. This creates the point of view and establishes the idea that you are looking through his eyes. The viewers tend not to doubt that the delusional characters are not real, until Nash himself is told. This is because everything the viewers see is from the point of view of Nash. Objective point of view would not allow the viewers to understand the schizophrenic mind. If the film were to be shot in the perspective of other characters then the viewers would not believe Nash to be sane. The use of the subjective point of view is so effective that the viewers feel completely broken when Nash realises that Charles, Parcher and Marcy were actually never there for him. The viewers feel broken because they themselves believed those characters to be true, all because of the subjective point of view used. This realisation is the nightmare that schizophrenia patients have to face.

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Howard creates important dialogue in A Beautiful Mind that helps the audience feel the same nightmare that Nash feels. The dialogue shows how in charge the delusional characters are of his life at the beginning of the film. The viewers always hear the delusional characters before Nash can see them, compared to the real characters where the viewers see them before Nash hears them. This shows not only the difference between reality and delusion, but also that the characters are in his head. There is always a lot of dialogue between Nash and the delusional characters in the beginning of the film compared to the absence of dialogue between them at the end of the film. The dialogue shows how much more confident and happy Nash is around the delusional characters. He fidgets less and shares his most important life moments with the delusional characters. This dialogue helps the viewers realise how important they are in his life. When it is told that these characters are in his head, as a viewer the same pain and nightmare is felt as Nash.

The delusional characters are all symbols of something that Nash wants and needs in his life. They support him with what he needs to hear and they are there for him when no one else is. Charles symbolizes the fun, relaxed best friend that he never got to have. He supports Nash throughout his time at Princeton and even further through his life. He always wants the best for Nash. Parcher is the delusional character that symbolizes John’s ego that needs to be fed. He needs to hear that he is the ‘worlds best natural code breaker’ as he feels underappreciated for his brilliance and talent in reality. Marcy symbolizes the unconditional love that John lacks and needs in his life. These symbols show the viewer how important these characters are to Nash, their existence in Nash’s mind is also one of the reasons he seems to sane in the beginning of the film. If these characters were not to exist, Nash would seem quite strange, lonely, quiet and under appreciated and this would never let the viewers connect to Nash the way they do in A Beautiful Mind. The symbols of the delusional characters develop the idea of the nightmare because when Nash realizes they are actually delusional, the viewers understand why he completely falls apart, and how much of a nightmare it is for him to face.

Without these techniques in A Beautiful Mind the viewers would not be able to understand the nightmares that Nash and other schizophrenia sufferers face. The techniques show the difference between reality and his delusions and help the audience to feel for Nash’s nightmare.