A Beautiful Mind Film Analysis
This movie is based on the true story of the brilliant mathematician John Forbes Nash Jr. He made remarkable advancements in the field of mathematics at a young age and had a very promising future. Unfortunately, John Nash had problems deciphering the difference between reality and hallucinations. He had a mental disorder known as Schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a severe, complex illness that causes hallucinations and can affect a person’s ability to think clearly, manage feelings, make decisions, and relate to others.
From the beginning of the movie it is not hard to find John Nash to be a little eccentric and odd. His social skills were a little off, and he seemed to never really relate to anyone; a
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This was an example of the delusional aspect of schizophrenia. After he returned home from the mental hospital it seemed like he was making a lot of progress although he wasn’t the same as he used to be probably because of the medication he was on and also, having to hear that everything you thought was real was all made up and the life you lived was fake could take a toll on someone. Just when things seemed to be going better for him and his hallucinations were rare to nonexistent he decided to not take his medicine because of its restrictions and they returned. He’d be doing well, without any hallucinations and then they’d come back as if he still believed they were real. Not only did this take a toll on his own life, his wife Alicia was suffering. She was pregnant and was married to someone who was not the same person he was when they got married. She felt obligated to help him, she still loved him but she couldn’t live a normal life with him if it continued. The love she had for him and the kindness of her heart led her to stay with him through everything, even during their hardest times. Eventually, John Nash began to have a little more control over his hallucinations. Although he still occasionally had them he ignored them once he realized that they were not real. This movie was based on the true story of John Nash, the genius who suffered with schizophrenia. I thought the movie was excellent and
John Nash’s need for self-esteem and belongings induced his hallucination. In addition, he was always a bit different because he went to a school that was full of people that had a tremendous amount of competition among the students. Consequently, this caused John Nash to feel the need to be extraordinary and distinctive compared to others. Furthermore, this could have inaugurated his delusion of being a secret spy that needed to extricate and succor the government to help win a war that never existed during his time. Also, this hallucination caused him to be paranoid about everyone believing they are from the Russians who are trying to kill him which caused many conflicts in him with other people. Additionally, his need to feel confident of him through the hard times during his university time guided him more to his hallucination. Moreover, his theories took longer compared to other people to prosper, compared to his friends and other students there. Besides, his hallucination of his roommate allowed him to feel welcomed and loved by someone that always agreed with John Nash’s decisions.
Throughout the duration of the film, John Nash appears to have a series of positive symptoms. According to King, positive symptoms “reflect something added above and beyond normal behavior”. This generalization is clearly evident in A Beautiful Mind. The most visible symptom that can be seen in John Nash’s behavior is his psychomotor movements. King states that “a person with schizophrenia may show unusual mannerisms, body movements, and facial expressions”. In the film, John Nash demonstrates these movements through
John Nash is an intensely unsociable man. Throughout the movie, ‘A Beautiful Mind’ he shows that in a few different ways. First of all, John Nash shows that he an intensely unsociable man when his wife finds out that his best friend is a not a real person. It’s just a figment of his imagination. He has no real friends. Secondly, he shows that he is unsociable because he eats and works alone at Princeton. He prefers to work alone in the library as opposed to being with his classmates in the faculty lounge. Lastly, he showed that he
John Nash was extremely intelligent man but let his work take over a lot of his life. I would describe his attitude as cocky as he believed he was much smarter than others and loved to prove it which is shown in the beginning with the board game between him and Hanson. I figured that he was one that knew he was there for the education and not to party like his fellow classmates were doing. He would stay in his room studying and figuring out the hardest math problems and working them on the windows. Figuring out math problems was what made his day.The clues that were the most alarming were when Nash and Charles are sitting on the roof they are chatting on a university building roof and getting to know each other better. Nash and Charles are
The evidence of the cognitive symptoms, as with any disease, is more difficult to see externally in a person suffering from Schizophrenia. John Nash was not a very social person and I believe that this is attributed to the inability of expressing thoughts and feelings caused by the disease. His office in the movie looks somewhat like what I imagined the inside of his mind to look like; cluttered. Pictures on top of articles, on top of more pictures. There were papers hanging from the ceiling and string connecting pictures while forming patterns. One pattern I saw repeated a few times throughout the film was a spider- web image. This to me just shows how everything in his mind seemed as though it was connected in some way.
I think for the most part the movie did a good job portraying schizophrenia as it is in reality. Nash experienced delusions of grandeur that blurred the lines between reality and imagination, illuminating a powerful example of just how debilitating schizophrenia can be. Auditory hallucination is the most common symptom found in schizophrenia. The one’s experienced by Nash in the film were in-line with how the DSM specifies them to be. The film puts a large emphasis on the paranoia experienced by Nash. In the DSM-IV, paranoia was a specifier for a sub-category of schizophrenia, called paranoid schizophrenia. The new version of the DSM does not include paranoia as a specifier for schizophrenia, rather it is viewed as a comorbid mental disorder. One aspect I thought was overdone concerns the visual hallucinations. It was necessary for the entertainment value of the film, but is largely inaccurate in its attempt to represent the visual hallucinations experienced by individuals who have schizophrenia. Visual hallucinations are not common in schizophrenia, especially not to the degree the movie depicts, in which whole scenarios and events are vividly made up. I think it is a common misconception that visual hallucinations are a hallmark of schizophrenia. I think that the producers of this movie included
In the film, “A Beautiful Mind”, Russell Crowe plays the character of John Nash. John Nash is an awardee of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics. During his university years, Nash puts extreme pressure upon himself as he tries to publish a work out of his original idea which allows him to develop a new concept of governing dynamics. Some years later, Nash is invited to the Pentagon to crack encrypted enemy telecommunication. Despite his success in this field, Nash believes that he can do greater things as he finds his regular duties at MIT unexciting and beneath his talent. Nash finds himself working under a mysterious supervisor, William Parcher, from the United States Department of Defense. He starts looking for pattern in newspapers and magazines in order to prevent a Soviet plot as he becomes increasingly obsessed about these patterns. Dr. Rosen suggests Alicia, John’s wife, that Nash has paranoid schizophrenia which implies that some individuals from his life were all part of his hallucinations which includes his roommate, Charles, and supervisor, William Parcher. However, John’s pride in his work and his desire to be great, prevent him from seeing the truth as he keeps working for Parcher. Despite facing such obstacles, Nash learns to accept that Parcher and other figures are all part of his hallucinations. I am the kind of person who sets my own personals goals and gets
Throughout the film, John Nash displays some of the classical schizophrenic symptoms. This essay will elaborate more on these symptoms. Furthermore, what could have been
A Beautiful Mind illustrates many of the topics relating to psychological disorders. The main character of the film, John Nash, is a brilliant mathematician who suffers from symptoms of Schizophrenia. His symptoms include paranoid delusions, grandiosity, and disturbed perceptions. The disease disrupts his social relationships, his studies, and his work. The more stressful his life becomes the more his mind is not able to distinguish between reality and fantasy.
John Nash is well above average in terms of intellectual functioning. He is diagnosed with schizophrenia. He first started exhibiting symptoms of schizophrenia when he attended Princeton University. The symptoms that were observed were hallucinations and delusions. In Nash’s mind, he had a college roommate name Charles Herman. In addition, he stated that he met Herman’s niece named Marcee and a secret agent named William Parcher, whom he worked for at a secret location by breaking Russian codes. He developed persecutory delusions while working for William Parcher because he believe that Russians are trying to kill him for
In the movie it seemed like he did not have a lack of social involvement with the outside world but once the viewer realized that the roommate and Parcher were not real then it all came together. All of Nash’s symptoms started when he began looking for his original idea to be published. The DSM5 says the reaction to stress causes individuals with schizophrenia to have increases in negative mood and behaviors. I believe the stress of trying to find something new pushed him over the edge and forced him to create a world that helped him cope with the pressure but in reality it created more work for him to do. Nash’s over all functions in everyday life were impaired due to his disorder. After going to the psychiatric hospital and beginning his medication he began to suffer from intellectual paralysis cause by the medication. His delusion might have gone away but his work and overall well-being suffered which caused him to stop taking the medication and have another psychic
John Nash, the main character, faces many challenges in his professional life as well as in his personal life. His friends who later become his colleagues think that he is just plain crazy. They also find him entertaining. However, they cannot resist looking down on him for his strange behavior, difficulties
The movie, "A Beautiful Mind", John Nash, who is played by Russell Crowe, is a true story about a mathematician whose life is horrific because of his disease, schizophrenia. He was an egocentric man who studied Mathematics in Princeton University. During the whole time that he studied in Princeton, he was trying to come up with his own original idea. He felt that by only
According to the DMV-IV John Nash was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia because of certain criteria he showed, hallucinations and delusions. It is listed in the DMV-IV as 295.30 Paranoid Type-Schizophrenia (DSM-IV, 1994). Dr. Nash had a break from reality when he
John Nash suffers from Paranoid Schizophrenia. He is a gifted mathematician who began graduate school at Princeton University in 1947. We will begin Mr. Nash’s history from this point in time, for it is here that his symptoms first began to emerge. During this time in his life he is in what is known as the prodromal phase of schizophrenia, which is a period before active