Michael Buckley's 'Sympathy In The Film Witness'

Diagnosing an individual with a mental illness balances on a fine line between giving a life-long label and misdiagnosing. Mental illness is best viewed on a continuum allowing for a varying degree of severity. In the field, mental health professionals are faced with determining what signifies the appropriateness of diagnosing a mental illness. A professional’s judgment is impacted by their personal perceptions and observations, societies views and norms, and the patient’s history. The film, “How Mad Are You? A Search for Insanity” demonstrates the difficulties in distinguishing those who are mentally ill from those seen as healthy ( ). I will explore my reactions and thoughts regarding the participants’ experience as well as the mental health professionals. Additionally, I will share how this information is applicable to my future career in the field of social work.

This documentary is very fascinating. The history of the madhouse tells the story of the shutdown of Britain’s asylums through testimonies from people who were inmates. The patients there were isolated completely and were abused with drugs and experiment. Through their testimonies, not all of the patients have mental illness. Most of the patients there were people who are socially inadequate, have depression, agoraphobic, or people who didn’t even behave the way the society or families thought they should be. Joan is an example. She said, she had been in the army during the war, which may have led to her developing panic attacks and claustrophobia when she was 25 year old. This behavior is now common among our society, but look at what happened

The film’s key subject throughout the film was how all of the patients had led sane lives up until the point in which they suffered a mental health crisis. After their crises, they were not able to get out of the system. Their cries, pleas, and screams were not always heard. Many were simply treated with medication forcing them to be permanently institutionalized. I believe that the film’s overall purpose was to increase awareness on the difficulties of treating mental illnesses, not just for the patients, but also for everyone involved. It shows the chaos of the emergency room as patient, physicians, and psychiatrists struggle with mental illness.

Illness is one of the few experiences that all humans have in common and generally is met with empathy. However, people who suffer from mental illness are not privy to this treatment. For centuries, mental disorders have been demonized and stigmatized even in the modern era where humans have a much better understand of the mechanisms of the mind. Before the advent of psychiatry in the eighteenth-century people believed that mental illness was actually demonic possession resulting in the ostracization and murder of the mentally ill in the name of God. The Victorian era was met with a different view of mental illness, in that it was understood that it was a malady of the mind and people needed constant medical treatment, thus federally mandated asylums were created. Since mental illness was not understood there was a lot of misconceptions and fear surrounding the field. It is no surprise that the master of macabre and the creator of Horror, Edgar Allen Poe, decided to explore themes of mental illness in his stories. Poe’s most famous story about mental illness was The Fall of the House of Usher, where the main characters are plagued with an undisclosed mental malady. Through Poe’s use of point of view, style, tone, and tropes, he painted a perfect picture of the Victorian view of the mentally ill and the mind of the artist which was believed to be different faces of the same coin.

Laurell K. Hamilton spoke in great words that, “there are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.” Hamilton embodied a central state of mind of a person who is mentally ill. The wounds mentioned are those caused, and worsened, by traumatic events and public perception of a person with a mental illness. The women in the short stories that have been read embody an internal injury caused by an outward force. In “Story of an Hour”, “Rose for Emily”, and “Yellow Wallpaper” it is impactfully shown how traumatic life experiences can lead to and worsen mental illnesses.

People with mental health issues have been viewed and treated in a variety of ways within western society throughout time. Historically if an individual displayed behaviours which disrupted their function in society and defied social norms they were viewed as lunatics, insane or even cursed (Cowan, 2008; Elder & Evans & Nizette, 2009). It is from these past issues that many people still have unreasonable thoughts about mental illness; their misconceptions have created unreasonable fears and negative attitudes toward those who experience it. This negativity brings for many the barriers of not only

The short documentary Crooked Beauty, directed by Ken Paul Rosenthal, narrates Jacks Ashley McNamara’s experience in a psychiatric ward and how her time in the facility shapes her new appreciation for her mental illness. One controversial issue has been trying to identify the true cause of mental illness. On the one hand, most people may think mental illness is simply a biological disorder that can be cured with a combination of medication and doctors demanding appropriate behavior until it sticks in the patient’s mind. On the other, McNamara contends that mental illness is a misconception with a patient’s oversensitivity, where it is harder for the patient to ignore certain events than “normal” people, and their doctor’s textbook knowledge. In McNamara’s mental institution, the psychiatrists simply trap her in a padded room and prescribe many different pills to suppress her mental illness instead of embracing her differences or showing her how to use those differences to her advantage. In attempt to prevent those who are mentally ill from feeling the same anger and frustration she felt, she demands a change in the line psychiatric treatment when she says:

Crazy by Pete Earley and a series of class videos highlight the tension between access to care and the right of refusal for mental illness patients. Core themes and patterns in the material show the difficulties between state governments and local resources. Each film and book explores the availability of voluntary community-based treatments; personal and professional ethics regarding the individual choice to refuse treatment; and community demands for consumer safety and others.

Michael Redhill, author of the story “I Witness”, states that “The true measure of success in life is how well we connect”. According to him, interaction with members of the society and establishment of valuable relationships are the key concepts to achieving the optimal life. Although this may be a way to interpret success, there are countless other ways the word can be defined, unique to every individual. For some, it is calculated by social status; for others, success is solely determined by their happiness.

Entering the taboo world of mental illness, stigmatized as the crazy and psychotic by decades of

Randle picks up a woman who in her first greeting asks the patients if they are all “crazy” and they respond by nodding their heads. This shows that these individuals have come to adopt being “crazy” as part of their identity, because of being institutionalized and given that label. Further suggestion of this idea is in the scene where Nurse Ratched reveals to Randle that many of the in-patients are at the psychiatric hospital on a voluntary basis, and only few of them are committed, showing their internalization of their identity as mentally ill patients. Another point that can be drawn from the film is the way, which Nurse Ratched conducts the group therapy sessions. The sessions did not appear as beneficial or therapeutic to the individuals participating in them. It is evident that Nurse Ratched, an individual in a position of power, manipulates the patients into confinement in the hospital through her group therapy sessions. She consistently revisits past traumas and difficulties for the patients, which reinforces the symptoms they believe they suffer from which causes them to feel unstable and unable to leave the hospital. Thus, through these examples in the film, it is suggested that individuals admitted to psychiatric hospitals have come to adopt their mental illness as a defining feature of their identity.

There are some key, unique approaches to mental illness that have been inculcated into the theme of the film. One of these, and most probably the most potent, is the issue of questioning the true existence of mental illness. On repeated occasions, Susanna questions the true validity of her diagnosis. Even at the end of the film, she still questions the effectiveness of her treatment

“Both the book and the movie are insightful views into societal problems such as stereotypes about the people who have mental disorders. But the film is largely out of date in terms of depicting hospital staff as manipulative or evil. From what I saw when I worked in a similar institution, mental hospitals are a calm, healing environments—as they should be” (Wind Goodfriend, 2012).

In society, both past and present, individuals with mental illnesses are judged and stigmatized for their inabilities and differences. The Australian filmmaker, Michael Buckley explores this aspect of society through his short biographical film Witness implicating the life of John Harrowell and his sufferings due to being institutionalized at such a young age. The text runs for brief period of time, but within that short period of time, a variety of filmic techniques are utilised to create a more emotional impact on the viewers. Through the utilisation of three prominent filmic techniques; symbolism, characterisation and themes, Buckley is able to effectively portray the tragic life of John

Understanding mental illness for the average person can be challenge or even unattainable. Unknown aspects from each individual illness grasps differing urges that are unrelated to the majority of people. The film industry, however, is used as a productive machine of creating empathetic relationships between its audience and the people being portray in the film. A combination of the film industry and the implementation of characters struggling with mental illness delivers a provoking message to an audience of people willing to learn the situations of all people. The movie A Beautiful Mind manages to fulfill the dramatic effects of a film and the realities within an individual suffering through mental illness.