“What truly is logic? Who decides reason?”: The Representation of Schizophrenia in A Beautiful Mind (2001)

Abstract

[eng] This paper analyses the representation of schizophrenia in the American film A Beautiful Mind (2001) in relation to Foucault’s theory of madness. Western society has for centuries created narratives of exclusion towards individuals labelled as mentally ill, causing their alienation from the community. Drawing on Foucault’s work on power, knowledge, psychiatry, and medicine, this study aims to determine how the film illustrates, and seems to reaffirm, the division between insane/sane through the use of the cinematographic technique of changing point of view. Specifically, it investigates how the shift in perspective in the middle of the narrative serves to construct the non-truth/truth dichotomy by portraying Nash’s reality (nontruth) as opposed to that of others (truth). To do this, film analysis of key scenes will be conducted. The paper concludes that, while at first sight A Beautiful Mind is driven by the dichotomy insane/sane, this binary opposition is destabilised in the final part of the film. In the same way, the belief in medicine as the only remedy for schizophrenia is also destabilised, as the film emphasises the personal effort and mental strength of the individual.