The document analyzes the film "A Beautiful Mind" to understand how to portray schizophrenia in a short film. It discusses how the main character John Nash, who has paranoid schizophrenia, is represented in the film. Specifically, it notes how the film shows his daily struggles with the disease through his facial expressions and mood swings. Scenes where Nash discusses his schizophrenia with his wife and doctor provide examples of how the character does not always want help with his condition. The document concludes that analyzing scenes from "A Beautiful Mind" will help ensure the portrayal of schizophrenia in the author's short film is accurate and believable.

1. A BEAUTIFUL MIND

2. I choose to analyse ‘A
Beautiful Mind’ as the
storyline is about a professor
(Russell Crowe) who has
schizophrenia. It presents
clearly how people live day by
day with this disease. The
main protagonist John Nash
has paranoid schizophrenia.
This is the same type that our
main character will have in
our short film. The film has
given us an insight into how
we can get our actor to act in
a manor that is a true
representative of a person
living with schizophrenia.

3. The scenes (from the video on
the right) are majority from the
parts of ‘A Beautiful Mind’ where
he talks about his disease or
shows the effects the disease has
on him in his daily life. There are
a lot of close up shots used
throughout this montage. This is
because they are effective in the
way that the audience can really
get a look at what he is feeling.
His facial expressions show a lot
about what he is feeling and they
way he is trying to think about the
questions that are being
presented to him.

4. The scene in which John
Nash is talking with his wife
and his doctor, it shows that
sometimes schizophrenics
don’t like to talk about their
disease. In some cases, like
John Nash, admit that they
have a problem but they can
sort it themselves and don’t
need any help. Nash states
himself that because he is a
professor and can “solve
problems, [he] can solve this
one as well”.

5. Furthermore, his mood
changes very quickly. This
links to our short film as one
of the parts of the story is that
he has mood swings daily and
in 10 minutes he can be in a
complete different mood to
what he was before. This is
shown well in a scene in ‘A
Beautiful Mind’. Therefore, we
can use this as a basis to
make sure that our portrayal
of a paranoid schizophrenic is
right and that our actor has a
clear idea on how he can
make his role believable.