Got a chance to see this movie tonight and was definitely not disappointed. Check it out if you can!
shutter island
- Thread starter harmnot
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Glad that you enjoyed the film but I had a different experience of it.
I went to see this today and had high expectations given the director has put out some fine films.
I couldn't help thinking it was pretty strongly anti-psychiatry for most of the movie. The constant comparisons between Nazis and psychiatrists do leave an effect on the public perception of the field (even if there is some mitigation of this via the plot).
Overall I feel I should have saved my 10.00 and waited for it to come to netflix.
I went to see this today and had high expectations given the director has put out some fine films.
I couldn't help thinking it was pretty strongly anti-psychiatry for most of the movie. The constant comparisons between Nazis and psychiatrists do leave an effect on the public perception of the field (even if there is some mitigation of this via the plot).
Overall I feel I should have saved my 10.00 and waited for it to come to netflix.
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"I couldn't help thinking it was pretty strongly anti-psychiatry for most of the movie."
Anti-psychiatry and Hollywood are synonymous. Tom Cruise, Scientology, and the list goes on...
Although, there was a series on Showtime a couple of years ago, called Huff starring Hank Azaria and it was really entertaining.
Anti-psychiatry and Hollywood are synonymous. Tom Cruise, Scientology, and the list goes on...
Although, there was a series on Showtime a couple of years ago, called Huff starring Hank Azaria and it was really entertaining.
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Was it trying to put psychiatry as a whole in a bad light, or was it putting psychiatry in the 1950's in a bad light?
From what I've read of psychiatry and state mental hospitals at that time, I wouldn't have a lot of affection for it back then either.
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So I don't want to give too much away since most have not seen it yet but the movie is set in the 50s so you get the whole "wards look like torture chambers" thing going on. Regardless of what actually happens with the plot it does spend most of the screen time making you think "so Nazis run the place, I see"
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Yeah the commentary of the people behind me as we left the theater made me think they didn't quite understand the film. It also made me wonder how the general public is going to view psychiatrists after this, given that the "average" person may not be used to looking into the deeper meaning of a film, or stop to consider that this film took place in the 50s.
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I remember reading a film article in the 1980's about the fact that South Africans on film had become the new bad guys in cinema due to apartheid. That passed pretty quickly. And I don't think there's been an uprising in distrust/disgust for zee Germans with the rise in WWII pics over the past 5 years or so.
I think that most of your general public will walk out of a 1950's thriller and not make too many inferences that the bad guys are representative of the current profession. And for the exceptions, the nicest thing about people so easily swayed is that their attention span is usually short.
People watching th film, who've never been a psych patient or friend/family will likely not cognitively process that psychiatry is not like this anymore. They will viscerally experience it, and that's what will stick for the most part. Bummer. You gotta wonder who's trying to get what kind of gain out of many Hollywood movies. A few tweeks could have changed things.
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Yeah, I'm sure you're right. Some will undoubtedly make that leap and others won't. But I do think that those who are going to make that assumption (bad psychiatrist in this movie = bad psychiatrists in real life) are probably those who don't hold psychiatrists in high regard anyway.
These kind of movies need villains. Psychiatrists in the 1950's running mental hospitals had a lot of power, so there's pretty good potential there to make them good villains for a thriller. I doubt Lehane and Scorcese have a big axe to grind with psychiatry as a field.
At the end of the day, if something like that can do real damage to public perception of the field, the problem lies more with the field.
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Well, consider that the vast majority of films featuring psychology/psychiatry grossly misrepresent the fields. Anyone getting their information about either from the movies is going to be seriously misinformed.
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I have to say i walked into the movie understanding this sort of anti-psychiatry thing could happen so I had it on my radar.
I did feel somewhat like pavlov's dog for good portion of the movie because the movie kept making cognitive pairings between Nazis and psychiatrists, then cut to an ice pick like object (for a presumed labotomy), then back to a concentration camp, now back to the german warden, etc, etc.
I was sitting there thinking that the level of processing most people have will not be able to move beyond the strong emotional nature of the cognitive pairings (even if the plot elevates it at the end a lot of people will not understand the point).
Oh well, the cinematography was cool at least.
I did feel somewhat like pavlov's dog for good portion of the movie because the movie kept making cognitive pairings between Nazis and psychiatrists, then cut to an ice pick like object (for a presumed labotomy), then back to a concentration camp, now back to the german warden, etc, etc.
I was sitting there thinking that the level of processing most people have will not be able to move beyond the strong emotional nature of the cognitive pairings (even if the plot elevates it at the end a lot of people will not understand the point).
Oh well, the cinematography was cool at least.
Well, movies are a visceral, fantasy experience, generally, as this one is. Neither our onduct nor educational endeavors can overcome the general public's desire to use mental illness and/or psychiatrists as a subject for entertainment. Movies do regularly have a political, moral, or ideological agenda, not that this one necessarily does. The Nazi/Psych associations are probably exploited for sheer shock value, but they still reinforce the anti psych/anti mental illness stigma. I think the substantial issue is that this movie reinforces that stigma and can only have a negative effect in that way. To what degree this fleshes out, who knows? I wonder what how the APA feels about it, maybe they'll post something soon.
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Ditto. Protesting how psychiatrists are negatively displayed in a few movies makes the profession look like it's on much shakier and less confident ground than it actually is. That's a move I'd expect more from the Church of Scientology than the APA.
The funny thing about this film is that the psychiatrists are actually not "bad" in this movie; if anything, they are trying anything to prevent institutionalizing DeCaprio in the end. For God's sake, they allowed the main psychiatrist to be played by Sir Ben Kingsley; the field can't get any more respect in the cinema than that. Also, did anybody notice that the actor who played Jame Gumb (aka Buffalo Bill) from Silence of the Lambs was one of the guardsmen? All in all, there was some inconsistencies; antipsychotics causing hallucinations? Overall, most lay people (including my parents) won't/don't get this film.
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Your parents won't get the film? And you did not realize that the antipsychotics causing hallucinations were part of his delusion? 😛
Another thing, I have this friend who goes into a dither after every knew Disney film because it is OBVIOUSLY promoting a gay agenda. And he can point to numerous instances in each film where traditional values are subverted while moral depravity is exalted.
My point? Not every piece of art has a "lesson" or an agenda. I would say anyone who went from positive or neutral about psychiatry to negative absolutedly failed to understand the film.
By the way, top notch filmmaking. I would go as far as saying this film was a masterpiece. So much to see and think about. So many subtleties and details to chew on. Beautiful and thought-provoking cinematography. Every detail of every scene has its place and meaning. The way music was used in the film was at first confusing bordering on annoying, but when it all comes together you realize it was truly genius.
I mean, you know the ending, even though it is not shown to you, from about 5 minutes into the film, yet Scorcese manages to string you along and keep you in suspense moment-to-moment...on call, gotta settle down lol
While reading a review of Shutter Island, I came across a recommendation for the documentary "Titicut Follies" by Frederick Wiseman -- and have been itching to see it since. The movie, made in 1967, depicts the lives of patients at the Bridgewater State Hospital for the Criminally Insane and was banned for 24 years due to privacy violations. The ban was overturned in 1991. Anyone see this thing? It sounds fascinating and tragic.
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Actually, about half of my patients attribute this side-effect to at least one antipsychotic they've been given.... 🙄
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Right.
Mammals seem to be wired to effectively associate anything new that's taken orally with any feeling/emotion/pain/etc. In Learning Theory class we learned it as the Garcia Effect. Evolutionarily, it may work to assure that any new taste that's linked chronologically with an effect gets and especially strong memory so that things that make you sick in any way are consistently and completely avoided. College peers who got sick on a certain brand or type of alcohol carefully avoided that particular drink - but often missed the point that excessive ETOH caused them problems. One girlfriend was sure it was the Nacho Cheese Doritos that made her sick, not the dozen beers, because she'd had 2-3 beers before but the Doritos were new to her.
Psychotic patients, with a tenuous grip on reality, often associate some medicine they took with the hallucinations or delusions they had (even if those existed long before taking that medicine) for the same reason. And, of course, with psychosis and depression and bipolar, pt's often get worse before the medicine gets a chance to work - so pt's and families often attribute the worsening to the medication taken.
This is all generally amenable to Patient/Family Education before taking meds. Our job.
Actually, the psychiatrist taking care of DeCaprio said "The antipsychotic may be causing your hallucinations and headache."
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Right, and the lady in the cave told him that she used to be a doctor and blah blah.
Need to watch the movie with literary Impressionism in mind. Most perfect film representation of Impressionism (not painting, mind you, literature) I've ever seen.
The doc telling him that the aps were making him hallucinate was one of his hallucinations. Ask your mom and dad. They'll explain it to you
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I have to say I didn't find it very antipsychiatry at all. I didn't see the nazi scenes as paired with psychiatry either - they just helped show us his delusion playing out.
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Oh, if you didn't notice yet, there are huge spoilers all over, but whatever, too late by this point, right? More SPOILERS to follow...
Yeah, I also did not feel it was anti-psychiatry per se. The movie shows the experience of a delusional psychotic patient and eventually explains this. That some people may misunderstand and interpret this movie as being anti-psychiatry doesn't change the fact that ultimately it shows psychiatry as doctors trying to help very sick people.
As for the doctor telling him his medications were causing his hallucinations, I raised an eyebrow at this at first, but I believe the only doctor to say this was the one hiding in the cave on the seashore and the movie eventually reveals everything she tells him as part of his delusion. Therefore she must just be some kind of hallucination. This is held up by the fact that he was hallucinating up to this point with his partners body on the rocks and then the rats coming out of holes and covering the rocks on the shore.
What bothered me the most was how animated the psychiatric patients were. Expressive faces and lots of hand gestures. It bothered me. Maybe they were just actors playing along with what the psychiatrists had set up and not really patients? I don't know, it isn't made clear, and I tend to not have that much faith in movie makers to get stuff like this right.
Yeah, I also did not feel it was anti-psychiatry per se. The movie shows the experience of a delusional psychotic patient and eventually explains this. That some people may misunderstand and interpret this movie as being anti-psychiatry doesn't change the fact that ultimately it shows psychiatry as doctors trying to help very sick people.
As for the doctor telling him his medications were causing his hallucinations, I raised an eyebrow at this at first, but I believe the only doctor to say this was the one hiding in the cave on the seashore and the movie eventually reveals everything she tells him as part of his delusion. Therefore she must just be some kind of hallucination. This is held up by the fact that he was hallucinating up to this point with his partners body on the rocks and then the rats coming out of holes and covering the rocks on the shore.
What bothered me the most was how animated the psychiatric patients were. Expressive faces and lots of hand gestures. It bothered me. Maybe they were just actors playing along with what the psychiatrists had set up and not really patients? I don't know, it isn't made clear, and I tend to not have that much faith in movie makers to get stuff like this right.
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As I told my wife, "don't worry honey, Leo DiCaprio couldn't ACTUALLY be schizophrenic." I think I kept her fantasies intact.
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titicut follies can also be rented from some independent video stores, for example: http://www.hollywoodexpressvideo.com/
Thanks, guys - getting a copy and thinking of organizing a screening for the residents.
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Great movie. Just like with Shutter Island, it shows what psychiatry used to be. Not so long ago, I'd say the majority of medicine was pretty barbaric.
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deleted276313
I'm guessing that it would reinforce stereotypes of psychiatric treatment rather than introduce them. I have noticed that society as a whole seems to always go back in the past and think that something that is barely performed anymore (such as a lobotomy) is still standard practice.
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It is a testament to how far we've come and how far we still have to go.
