Movie Mentals

Mental Illness in the movies

I love the opening of this piece and could not agree more. Movie theater as padded cell. Also, I wanted any reason to post this picture of my favorite Jolie character, Lisa, with puppet and pill tongue.

From GreenCine:

"The movie theater is a miniature mental asylum. A temporary home made of cushioned seats (and padded, sound-proof walls) for the bereft, the dazed, the longing, the beautiful losers; men and women who need images almost as much as they need real people.

"Maybe that explains why some of the most iconic and compelling characters in American cinematic history are those who embody madness in one of its many forms; like we moviegoers who watch and live vicariously through these fictional people, the characters themselves struggle with a relationship between reality and image, trying to find a fulcrum between the outside world and imagination: Randall P. McMurphy, irreverent would-be savior of 'The Cuckoo’s Nest;' Kathy Bates as Annie Wilkes, deranged stalker/fan par excellance, 'hobbling' her favorite author in Stephen King’s Misery; Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, 'god’s lonely man,' dangerous dreamer, epitome of urban social alienation; Dr. Hannibal Lecter, fascinating in his genius brand of cannibalistic insanity; or Sally Field as Sybil, bringing the complexity and pathos of multiple personality disorder to national consciousness. And the list goes on...