Insane people in movies.

[Svengoolie 3]

Ok insanity is a part of life and growing more common.

I'm personally familiar with insanity and so am interested in how movies portray insane people especially as main characters.



So,  want to discuss some famous insane movie characters?

Obviously one Hannibal Lecter comes to mind. The good doctor is clearly  insane yet also charasimatic,  partially due to the fact he is in movies with people far worse than himself.  He's portrayed as almost sulerhumanly intelligent, educated, physically capable and calmly calculating. In some ways he's nearly a batman or James bond level character.

Sadly few insane people are so formidable and wealthy, contrary to public fears most insane people are far more likely tkbe victims ofabquse and crime than  perpetrators.


Heath Ledger's joker was an interesting look at madness,  especially the need some people have to prove their insanity  isn't really their fault. And I know a lot of people who are insane thru no fault of their own.

The original madman of the movies, Norman Bates , was at least an attempt to portray an insane person as more than a cartoon characicature of an insane person.

[lester1/2jr]

http://youtu.be/AFggpT28JKY?t=54
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[Trevor]

Almost the entire cast of Jannie Totsiens (Johnny Farewell): the first SA horror film.

I believe that it's on YouTube.

[Rev. Powell]

I think the best depiction of schizophrenia on film is CLEAN, SHAVEN. It's about a schizophrenic who goes looking for his daughter after he's released from the mental hospital (too early, it turns out).

http://youtu.be/54LQ0-mSF14
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[RCMerchant]

M (1931) with Peter Lorre.

"You- you are like you are because you want to be, I- I am what I am because I can't help it!"

[Allhallowsday]

ROBERT MONTGOMERY in NIGHT MUST FALL (1937) 

STERLING HAYDEN in DR. STRANGELOVE (1964)

BETTE DAVIS in WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? (1962) 

[Svengoolie 3]

You know an interesting fact appeases here.  Some people who are insane in movies we're clearly driven insane by something,  like general ripper in dr. Strangelove, and Betty david in baby jane.

Ripper was driven insane by the commiephobia the Military industrial complex generated to keep defense spending high after ww2. Baby Jane was drive insane by the false guilt her sister forced on her.

In M Lorrie's character was possibly  born insane.

Is that the horror of insanity in movies, that normal healthy people can be driven insane or that people can be born with it thru no fault of their own?

[claws]

Fitzcarraldo