For actors, it’s a cinematic gift, a chance to play a characteristic as well as a character. For directors, it’s a chance to explore the psyche in visual and narrative detail. For audiences, it’s a window into a world they will (hopefully) never experience. When combined in the just the right way, without histrionics or spectacle, the results can be incredible. With the latest example (at number nine) hitting home video this week, it’s time to look at the ten best examples of cuckoos since, well, Cuckoo’s Nest. Call them crazy or nuts, but the truth is, there’s a great deal of universal human struggle in these individual stories. There’s also a lot of motion picture artistry here from everyone involved.
Mental Illness: Depression
Actor: Kirsten Dunst
As a follow-up to his equally disturbing Antichrist, Dogme ’95 auteur Lars Von Trier decided to explore the end of the world via a family in freefall. At the center of his narrative is Justine, a young woman who becomes nearly catatonic, worried that Armageddon is approaching. Sure enough, a rogue planet named Melancholia is on a collision course with Earth. Dunst may not have earned Oscar recognition for her work, but she did win the Best Actress award at Cannes — and she deserved it.
Mental Illness: Bipolar Disorder
Actor: Bradley Cooper
For many, he’s a funny guy or the straight man in funny films. Others see him as a thinking man’s romantic lead. In either case, Cooper broke the mold when he made this film, a fresh approach to mental illness from notorious director David O. Russell. Though his issue is not front and center as it is with other similarly-styled narratives, we do get a feel for the effects of the malady. Equally amazing is how Cooper keeps it simmering just beneath the surface.
Mental Illness: Dissociative Identity Disorder
Actor: Anthony Perkins
For many, this was the first time that such a psychological situation was featured in a mainstream movie. Of course, horror fans wince the moment you mention Norman Bates’ problem, and the last act mea culpa lecture by Simon Oakland about what such a “split” entails. No matter the wrap-up, Hopkins does a defiant job in keeping Norman and “Mother” separate. The moment when he/she attacks Vera Miles says more about the syndrome than any police profiler.
Mental Illness: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (among many)
Actor: Nicolas Cage
While more people are familiar with Jack Nicholson’s showboating turn in As Good As It Gets, this is the OCD movie we prefer. Ridley Scott, staying away from starships and androids for once, puts Cage through his con man paces, highlighting a screenplay which features a mentally unbalanced huckster who must deal with a teenage daughter he didn’t know he had. As he did in Leaving Las Vegas, our lead owns his problems. Unlike said film, Cage didn’t get the kudos he clearly deserves here.
Mental Illness: Schizoaffective Disorder
Actor: Geoffrey Rush
They say that actors like playing “crazy” because the result is usually an awards season bonanza. Such was the case with this then-unknown Australian actor who blew onto the scene and swept the 1996 talent trophies. Granted, the first half of the film offers equally amazing work from young Noah Taylor, but it was Rush who provided the proper adult perspective. He took home the gold statue that year, and hasn’t looked back since.
Mental Illness: Schizophrenia
Actor: Brad Pitt
The first of two appearances on our list for this brave matinee idol. Hot off his work in Thelma and Louise as well as A River Runs Through It and Legends of the Fall, he made a radical left turn here, costarring with Bruce Willis in Terry Gilliam’s futureshock epic. His character, who may or may not be the cause of humanity’s end, is full of false prophesies and physical tics. For Pitt, it remains some of his best onscreen acting ever.
Mental Illness: Schizophrenia
Actor: Ralph Fiennes
Imagine this amazing pairing: director David Cronenberg, known for his unsettling bio-horror, and the actor who played the nasty Nazi Amon Goth. Now blame Sony Pictures Classic for why you’ve never seen this brilliant take on the above-mentioned ailment. Haunted by memories of sex and death, Fiennes allows subtlety to rule, creating an unforgettable portrait of a man shaken and unsettled by his thoughts, as well as the reasons he was/is hospitalized in the first place.
#3 – One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Mental Illness: Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Actor: Jack Nicholson
For many, it was just a matter of time. After earning nods for Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, The Last Detail, and Chinatown, Nicholson finally snagged Oscar gold for playing the sociable rebel Randle McMurphy in Ken Kesey’s non-conformist classic. It remains a total tour de force, a near hurricane like performance that wipes out almost everything, including his equally adept co-stars Louise Fletcher and Brad Dourif, in its path. In a career full of movie milestones, this is one of Nicholson’s best.
Mental Illness: Dissociative Identity Disorder
Actor: Edward Norton/Brad Pitt
Perhaps the better mention would be for director David Fincher. He hired Norton to play the put-upon insurance adjuster working hard to hide potential recall issues — and then gave him a (SPOILER ALERT) sexy alter ego to represent everything his character was not. Pitt plays Tyler Durden like a rotting rock star, a man enamored with his power over people and his potency as a sex partner. His comeuppance is all the more sweet when we realize it’s all part of Norton’s unhinged personality.
Mental Illness: Schizophrenia
Actor: Peter Greene
Few have seen this penetrating, difficult movie which attempts to take a less hysterical look at the trials and tribulations of the mentally ill. Greene, perhaps best known as the hillbilly rapist Zed from Pulp Fiction, turns in such amazing work that it’s almost impossible to see him afterward and not think of his performance here. He is so convincing and unheralded filmmaker Lodge Kerrigan is so sparse in his hints at the character’s inner horror that it’s only at the end, when it’s all over, that the impact is apparent.
Honorable mention: 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Cognitive Disonance.
HAL 9000.
Do you give “Rain Man” a consideration, or “I never promised you a Rose garden” or actually “The Madness of King George” which is a Metabolic cause for delirium- Porphyria.
Russell Crowe’s portrayal of Schizophrenia in ‘A Beautiful Mind’.
This list is missing A Beautiful Mind & What’s eating Gilbert Grape. I know they are not very new, but they are very good. Check them out.
I have a problem with the line that says “for actors, it’s a cinematic gift.” Mental illness is not a gift. They should consider it a privilege to be able to portray and learn and comprehend the mindset of someone. My struggle and other’s struggle is not a one way ticket to an Academy Award. Mental illness is a serious issue that while I enjoyed some aspects of your article, I still feel deserves to be written about with more tact.
BRAVO!
Why only the white actors? Some diversity please would be appreciated.
I guess whites are more fucked up than the rest..
Irish movie DAVIN deals with that kind of stuff
Richard Gere’s portrayal of bipolar disorder I in Mr Jones is excellent, while Silver Linings Playbook seems to me to be more along the lines of bipolar disorder II.
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