Head Strong - 4 Classic Movies That Were Surprisingly On Point About Mental Health
With a sensitive topic like mental health, it’s easier to miss the mark than hit the bullseye. Mental health on screen has gotten way stronger recently, and respectful depictions of mental health are a top priority for today’s studios. But what about the movies that got it right, way back when?
good.film
2 years ago
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Like brazen stand-up comic Ricky Gervais, we’re firm believers that no topic should be out of bounds when it comes to entertainment. But with a layered and sensitive subject like mental health, it’s a lot easier for movies and series to miss the mark than it is to hit the bullseye.
Take films such as Me, Myself & Irene or What About Bob. Sure, some could argue that these are “just comedies”, and they’re from a different era; intended as simple entertainment, not an authentic, educational experience. But when Me, Myself & Irene operates under the premise of schizophrenia meaning you have a split personality, and What About Bob includes a number of scenes mocking Tourette’s Syndrome - yeah, it’s not great.
The good news: on screen mental health depictions have gotten way stronger. Accurate, respectful depictions of mental health are a top priority for today’s filmmakers and studios. The Queen’s Gambit, for example, touched on issues of addiction, PTSD and the autism spectrum, and absolutely check-mated the 2021 Emmys with a groundbreaking 11 wins.
But what about the movies that got it right, way back when? We had a dig to check out a handful of classics from a generation (or three!) ago that, in hindsight, did a surprisingly great job of exploring mental health in respectful and insightful ways. First up, we’re going all the way back to the glorious Forties…
1944: Gaslight
A newlywed fears she's going mad when strange things start happening at the family mansion.
If you’re wondering if the premise of psychological thriller Gaslight is “that” gaslighting - the behaviour that’s only recently become widely understood - you betcha. We’re talking manipulative, crippling emotional abuse, causing the victim to question their own sanity.
You could think of Gaslight as a 1940’s The Girl On The Train, but in place of Emily Blunt you’ll be enjoying one of the early greats in Ingrid Bergman, who picked up that year’s Best Actress Oscar for her undeniable portrayal of the fragile, shattered Paula.
After falling head over heels for charming pianist Gregory, Paula begins to experience weird occurrences: knocking sounds coming from the attic, and the gas-fed lamps flickering and dimming. The events become so inexplicable that Paula starts to question her own sanity - and her oily new hubby Gregory coolly perpetuates this mindset.
He starts a pattern of deliberately and carefully manipulating his wife while pointing out how “irrational and forgetful” she’s suddenly become. He chides her for losing an heirloom brooch he gifted her, for example, when he himself had hidden it. As for the flickering gaslights? “It’s all in your imagination,” he tells his broken wife.
Spoiler alert: it’s ultimately revealed that the cunning Gregory has (of course) been after Paula’s inherited fortune the whole time - and is hellbent on psychologically destroying her in order to swoop in on her newfound riches.
“Gaslight may have been well regarded in its day, having won two Academy Awards alongside its Best Picture nomination, but it's the film's entry into the modern lexicon through the term ‘gaslighting’ that has defined its place in cinema.”
- Cinema Sight
For a nearly 80-year-old film, you’ll be shocked by how accurate Gaslight is in portraying the dark art of psychological manipulation. It’s no wonder that, yes, the definition of ‘gaslight’ really came from this movie: “when a person lies for their own gain to another person so repeatedly, and with so much confidence, that the victim begins to doubt her own sanity”.
So when today’s psychologists regularly use ‘gaslighting’ as the term to describe perpetrators causing their victims to question their perception of reality, they’ve got this superb and suspenseful thriller to thank.
1958: Vertigo
A retired San Francisco detective suffering from acrophobia investigates the strange activities of an old friend's wife, all the while becoming dangerously obsessed with her.
Ever noticed those super cool, super cinematic shots where the on-camera subject doesn’t move, but the background seems to stretch before your eyes? This iconic film technique is known as the Vertigo effect: coined after first appearing in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 classic which many critics and movie lovers cite as the greatest film ever made.
Vertigo tells the story of detective John “Scottie” Ferguson (James Stewart) who, after seeing another officer fall from a rooftop while in pursuit of a criminal, develops acrophobia (an extreme fear of heights) and vertigo, forcing his early retirement.
With the concept of vertigo manifesting as a symptom of mental illness being a recent one, it’s impressive to behold in a film made way before studies like this were even conceived. Onya Hitch - truly a man decades ahead of his time.
“The film is named for a mental disorder, vertigo. But it is a film about desperation and aloneness.”
- Psychology Today
The film does an amazing job at visually depicting the vertigo that its protagonist feels. Through Hitchcock’s masterful cinematography choices and visual effects, we experience the sensation Scottie is going through himself. It’s a brilliant depiction of the feeling of a genuine phobia on film. And all it takes is one look at the iconic Vertigo effect to realise the influence it had on conveying emotional states on camera as we know them today. JAWS, anyone?
1975: One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest
A petty criminal fakes insanity to serve his sentence in a mental ward rather than prison. He soon finds himself as a leader to the other patients—and an enemy to the cruel, domineering nurse who runs the ward.
Miloš Forman’s superb film was only the second in history to win the so-called ‘Big 5’ at the Oscars - taking home Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay, a feat that’s only been pulled off once since (shhhh, The Silence of the Lambs). That’s some rarified air when it comes to gold hardware. But shiny statuettes aside, the real accolade is how this stunning 1970’s drama manages to explore mental health in such a progressive way.
Randle McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) plays a crazed prison inmate being transferred to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation, with a twist: McMurphy is faking it. He has a hunch that the hospital will be easier to deal with than a life in prison - but he didn’t count on facing the ruthless Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher) and her barbaric methods of ‘maintaining order’. Yep, we think it’s messed up too.
McMurphy struggles to comprehend that Nurse Ratched and her team of psychiatrists have full control over his life, and how long he will be kept locked away. This complete loss of autonomy sends McMurphy into a complete spiral.
Weighty yet laced with humour, topics like tyranny, sacrifice, and the fragility of the human mind are tactfully interwoven in Cuckoo’s Nest. The quality of the directing, cast and screenplay combine to handle the sensitive themes with surprising clarity. Keep in mind that the outright naming of specific mental conditions like dementia and psychopathy was pretty rare in cinema at the time.
There’s no beating around the bush when it comes to the traumatic, intense scenes in the film. The depictions of electroconvulsive treatments (ECT), for example, are harsh and difficult to watch, especially as they were unnecessary and non-consensual - but are super important when it comes to authenticity, and still hold up today.
“Looking back on the impact One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’s legacy [has] had on modern audiences and the stigma surrounding mental illness, we can only wonder why subsequent films haven’t quite measured up.”
- Inverse
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest boasts ingenious artistry and a clear message: mentally unwell people aren’t receiving the right treatment and are often neglected. This kind of institutional abuse is an issue we’re still shedding light on and addressing today; the final report of Australia’s Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability is due to be handed down in September 2023.
In its handling of the relationships between sanity, conformity and rebellion, it’s clear that Forman’s film was well ahead of its time.
1999: Girl, Interrupted
Set in the changing world of the late 1960s, Susanna Kaysen's prescribed "short rest" from a psychiatrist she had met only once becomes a strange, unknown journey into Alice's Wonderland, where she struggles with the thin line between “normal and crazy”.
If there was ever a film that broke through stereotypes of people suffering with mental illness as ‘basketcases’ (ouch), Girl, Interrupted is it. With an adolescent focus and a story covering trauma and higher functioning mental illness, the film is an incisive look at what living with a mental health condition can be like.
Girl follows 18-year old Susanna (Winona Ryder) who, after a suicide attempt, is admitted to Claymoore Psychiatric Hospital. She meets an array of different characters, all suffering in their own way, and takes a particular liking to sociopath Lisa (Angelina Jolie, who won an Oscar for her role).
The film is based on the real life memoir of Susanna Kaysen’s time at McLean Psychiatric Hospital, and a Hollywood adaptation starring big names was the perfect way to get it out to as wide an audience as possible. In one study after the film’s release, a 17-year-old girl who was interviewed described Angelina Jolie’s performance as “empowering… it helped her be more comfortable with her own bipolar and antisocial disorders.”
It’s admirable how diverse the mental illnesses represented are. Diagnoses such as Borderline Personality Disorder, Bulimia, Anorexia, and Sociopathic Personality Disorder are all covered in the film. In a time where very few disorders were accurately represented on screen (if at all), Girl, Interrupted was a huge leap for representation. Kaysen herself was quite pleased at how meaningful the film based on her novel has now become.
“Girl, Interrupted is a deliberately unnerving account of life under tyrannical patriarchy, where a refusal to adapt to norms can result in the loss of your basic human rights. In our modern political climate, I can’t think of a better narrative to revisit.”
- Them
Girl, Interrupted brought mental health awareness to a whole new generation of moviegoers. It not only realistically portrays Susanna coming to terms with her own mental illness, but gives a deeper insight into how the perceptions of others can impact our view on ourselves.
We might be better now, but at least we weren't all bad then
We can’t deny how far Hollywood has come portraying mental health in a much more positive and realistic light. Comparing films from decades past to more recent award-winners like Silver Linings Playbook and Black Swan, or TV shows like Fleabag and Euphoria is pretty much a no-contest - modern comes out on top.
The more contemporary the media is, the more likely it is to be an accurate, balanced portrayal of mental illness. That’s progress we can be grateful for - but as we hope our list here shows, not every movie from last millennium deserves to be cancelled.
Whether it’s 2023, 1944, or any year between, themes like these are human and universal. So if you ask us, it’s fascinating to look back at films that intentionally set out to be ahead of their time in the mental illness discourse - and actually hit the mark.
