Part 1: Analyze This is a 1999 gangster comedy film directed by Harold Ramis. He co-wrote the screenplay with playwright Kenneth Lonergan and Peter Tolan. The film starred Robert De Niro as a mafioso and Billy Crystal as his psychiatrist. A sequel, Analyze That, was released in 2002. I had the pleasure of watching these two comedy films about a mafia mobster who has a psychotic-break while in prison and several panic attacks outside prison. It was more than a dozen years, though, after these films were released before I watched them. That is the pattern now in the evening of my life. I have not been to the cinema in all the years of my retirement from paid-employment since back in 1999 when I lived in Western Australia. I wait, and eventually I can watch the movie on television. Initially there was no plan to create a sequel to Analyze This, but the positive reaction generated by the first film encouraged the producers to consider a sequel and discuss it with the studio and actors. They believed, as Crystal put it, that: "There was an unfinished relationship between Ben Sobel and Paul Vitti, the psychiatrist and the mobster, from the first film" and "there was a good story to tell", so the sequel was commissioned. I leave it to readers with the interest to Google the story, the plot and the characters, the production and background details, the box office and reception/ratings the films received, the money which the films grossed, and all the who's whos. Part 2: "Freud has never been more relevant," said David Cronenberg(1943- ) recently. Cronenberg is a Canadian filmmaker, screenwriter, and actor. He is one of the principal originators of what is commonly known as the body horror or venereal horror genre. "Because of Freud's understanding of what human beings are, and his insistence on the reality of the human body. We do not escape from that. Jung went into a kind of Aryan mysticism, whereas Freud was insisting on humans as we really are, not as we might want to be."2 Cronenberg points out in relation to some of his more extreme depictions of violence and sex, mental health issues and criminality that: "Different countries have different reactions to my depictions of somewhat extreme situations and topics..2 Some films are successful in some places; some not. What will play in Glasgow for three years non-stop will be taken off the air in a dozen or more Middle Eastern countries.......I'm interested in people who don't accept the official version of reality, but try to find out what's really going on under the hood."-Ron Price with thanks to 1Wikipedia, 7/2/'15; & 2Steve Rose, "David Cronenberg: Analyse this," The Guardian, 6 February 2012.

1. WHEN A PSYCHOSIS IS FUNNY
...and when mental illness is stigmatized
Part 1:
Analyze This is a 1999 gangster comedy film directed by Harold Ramis. He co-
wrote the screenplay with playwright Kenneth Lonergan and Peter Tolan. The
film starred Robert De Niro as a mafioso and Billy Crystal as his psychiatrist. A
sequel, Analyze That, was released in 2002. I had the pleasure of watching
these two comedy films about a mafia mobster who has a psychotic-break while
in prison and several panic attacks outside prison. It was more than a dozen
years, though, after these films were released before I watched them. That is the
pattern now in the evening of my life. I have not been to the cinema in all the
years of my retirement from paid-employment since back in 1999 when I lived
in Western Australia. I wait, and eventually I can watch the movie on television.
Initially there was no plan to create a sequel to Analyze This, but the positive
reaction generated by the first film encouraged the producers to consider a
sequel and discuss it with the studio and actors. They believed, as Crystal put it,
that: "There was an unfinished relationship between Ben Sobel and Paul Vitti,
the psychiatrist and the mobster, from the first film" and "there was a good
story to tell", so the sequel was commissioned. I leave it to readers with the
interest to Google the story, the plot and the characters, the production and
background details, the box office and reception/ratings the films received, the
money which the films grossed, and all the who's whos.
Part 2:
In the last 50 years, since the first manifestations of bipolar disorder in my late
teens, I have been stabilized on anti-depressants and anti-psychotics. In those
same five decades, there have been an increasing number of films and TV series
that deal with issues of mental health. I won't even try to summarize them all.
They each deal, in their own ways, with specific disorders and, from time to
time, with Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and the infancy and development of the
psychoanalytic movement.
"Freud has never been more relevant," said David Cronenberg(1943- ) recently.
Cronenberg is a Canadian filmmaker, screenwriter, and actor. He is one of the
principal originators of what is commonly known as the body horror or
venereal horror genre. "Because of Freud's understanding of what human

2. beings are, and his insistence on the reality of the human body. We do not
escape from that. Jung went into a kind of Aryan mysticism, whereas Freud was
insisting on humans as we really are, not as we might want to be."2
Cronenberg points out in relation to some of his more extreme depictions of
violence and sex, mental health issues and criminality that: "Different countries
have different reactions to my depictions of somewhat extreme situations and
topics..2
Some films are successful in some places; some not. What will play in
Glasgow for three years non-stop will be taken off the air in a dozen or more
Middle Eastern countries.......I'm interested in people who don't accept the
official version of reality, but try to find out what's really going on under the
hood."-Ron Price with thanks to 1
Wikipedia, 7/2/'15; & 2
Steve Rose, "David
Cronenberg: Analyse this," The Guardian, 6 February 2012.
Part 3:
The psychotherapy used in these
movies, like that used in the TV
show, The Sopranos, raised all
sorts of questions about human
nature & morality; for example,
can a criminal mind be changed,
and committed to going straight?
What is the nature of a psychotic
break and can it be treated in the
short-term without medications &
therapy for years to come?.....Are
these portrayals of mental health
problems honest and accurate???
Ron Price 7/2/'15 to 9/2/'15.

3. ---------------------------------
Mr JONES and ME
Part 1:
I saw the 1993 movie Mr Jones at some time during the years when I was
retiring from FT, PT and volunteer-work, 1999 to 2005, and retiring from an
extensive involvement in Baha’i community life.1
I had had a working life of
50 years, 1949 to 1999, and been involved in the earliest years-decades of
community-building for Baha’is in Canada and Australia.
I don’t remember now exactly when I first saw Mr Jones, but I watched the last
half of that same movie last night.2
In the movie Jones was diagnosed with
manic-depressive illness in his late adolescence. He had several hospitalizations
over more than 20 years. I, too, was diagnosed with a variant of manic-
depressive illness. It was called a "schizo-affective state" at first, but a dozen
years later psychiatrists gave it the name bipolar disorder. Jones talked about
his serious suicide attempt at college; I have had suicidal ideation or the death-
wish, as it is also and sometimes called, for more than half a century from 1963
to 2015.
Part 2:
Watching this movie made me reflect on my own experience and the result is
this prose-poem.-Ron Price with thanks to 1
The Universal House of Justice,
April 1996; and 2
Mr Jones, 7TWO TV, 10:40-1:00 a.m., 23 & 24 March 2012.
Richard Gere is a lovely fellow;
Lena Olin is even more lovely.1
But bipolar disorder is not-so-
lovely & needs to be watched
all of one’s life. After Gere &
Olin form the bond that ends
the two hour movie I wonder
what happened to him in his

4. middle age, late adulthood &
old age…Did he come to full
compliance on his meds; did
he have more talk therapy or
did his battle continue with a
win-win as one likes to think.
1
these were the leading actors in this film
Ron Price
24/3/'12 to 9/2/'15.
-------------------------------------------------
SOME REFLECTIONS ON MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES IN THE MOVIES
Part 1:
If I were a Hollywood actor in the last fifty years (1965-2015), to say nothing of
films in the last seventy(1945-2015) years of my life, I would be calling my
agent to be on the lookout for roles in which I could play a mentally troubled
character. Just about every possible disorder finds its place in at least several, if
not one or two dozen, films in the decades since WW2.
If I listed all the films, not to mention the TV series containing mental disorders,
which I've seen in those 70 years, this prose-poem would go on far too long. I
will, though, list some of the disorders themselves: antisocial, avoidant and
borderline personality disorders; histrionic, narcissistic, and obsessive-
compulsive personality disorders; schizoid and schizoaffective personality
disorders, inter alia. The list is legion, and the disorders I have mentioned are
just a start.
Part 1.1:
I will list a few films I've seen since retiring from FT, PT and casual-work and
enjoyed while on an old-age pension in the last decade: 2006 to 2015. Dustin
Hoffman in the 1988 film Rain Man won an Academy Award for 'Best Actor in
a Leading Role' for his portrayal of a man with autism; Kathy Bates earned her

5. Oscar playing a woman with delusional disorder in Misery in 1990; the next
year, Anthony Hopkins earned one for the role of a cannibal/serial killer, in the
2001 film Hannibal; in 1993 Holly Hunter was the mute heroine in the 1993
film, The Piano; 1994 produced Tom Hanks as the PTSD and mentally
challenged but winning Forrest Gump; in 1995 there was the alcoholic-
clinically depressed Nicholas Cage of Leaving Las Vegas; Geoffrey Rush won
the Best Actor award in Shine for his 1996 performance as the schizoaffective
pianist David Helfgott; 1997 was Jack Nicholson's turn in As Good As It Gets
for doing obsessive compulsive disorder; James Coburn picked up his Oscar as
the sadistic paranoid father in 1997's Affliction; and in 1999, Michael Caine
was a narcotics addict and Angelina Jolie co-starred as a person with clinical
depression or a sociopath of Girl, Interrupted. All of the following films
featured BPD: Mr. Jones (1993), Pollock (2001), Sylvia (2003), Mad Love
(1995), and Michael Clayton(2007).
Part 2:
Overall, the mass media do a poor job of depicting mental illness, with
misinformation frequently communicated, unfavourable stereotypes of people
with mental illnesses predominating, and psychiatric terms used in inaccurate
and often offensive ways. People’s information and knowledge of mental health
subjects comes, for the most part, from television. TV often perpetuates the
stigma and the negative stereotypes by inaccurate depictions, misinformation
and uninformed dramatic sketches. This has been part of the world of the
mentally ill for centuries and it has been part of the backdrop of my own
experience in these several epochs.
In some ways it is difficult to appreciate how far society has come in its
knowledge and understanding; in other ways the problems are massive and
complex. The list of activities performed by people and various organizations
dedicated to struggle against stigma, though, is not only impressively long and
wide-ranging, but provokes strong inspiration as well.
The year 1981, for example, was proclaimed the International Year of Disabled
Persons (IYDP) by the United Nations. It called for a plan of action with an
emphasis on equalization of opportunities, rehabilitation and prevention of
disabilities. The theme of IYDP was "full participation and equality", defined as
the right of persons with disabilities to take part fully in the life and
development of their societies, enjoy living conditions equal to those of other

6. citizens, and have an equal share in improved conditions resulting from socio-
economic development. By 2008 there were 3,900 athletes from 146 countries
in Beijing at the paralympics. Although this extended discussion of the disabled
portrayed in films and the disabled in sport is tangential to my BPD story, it is
relevant to mention, en passant.
Part 3:
The illness I had suffered from, starting perhaps at my conception in 1943, had
become, in some ways, a source of claim to fame. But it was not all a story of a
new age of understanding. On television, that most popular story-teller in
modern society, people negotiated their attitudes to and their understandings of
different social and political issues of which mental illness/distress was but one.
The most common disability portrayed on television during the years that my
autobiography was being written, 1984-2015, has been mental illness/distress.
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