Posted by bob on January 4, 2002, at 23:56:58
In reply to A Beautiful Mind - movie and book, posted by sid on January 1, 2002, at 10:14:11
Well... I saw the movie just a little while ago. I'm kind of on the fence about it. Maybe I missed something, but at one point in the movie, he stops taking his meds. He starts to have his delusions again, and they say he has to go back to the hospital. He never does, and they never show that he starts to take his meds again. What is that? He just wills himself out of severe paranoid delusions? I think it does a slight disservice in that respect by leading people to believe they can will themselves to be better. Near the end of the movie he mentions that he takes the "newer" drugs. I don't know, maybe I missed something, but there seems like a real long period there when he wasn't being treated. Ahhhh, if the mentally ill only really did have that luxury!
If you really look at his life once the disease took over, it was kind of sad. He basically hung out in the library of Princeton for decades, being made fun of by the students. This story never would have been told by Hollywood if he hadn't won the Nobel prize. There would have been very little happiness there.
poster:bob
thread:16098
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20020102/msgs/16307.html