Mind Reeling
Psychopathology on Film
Published on 1. December 2020
Book
Hardback
258 pages
978-1-4384-8101-2 (ISBN)
Description
Across a variety of genres, shows how mental disorders are depicted in cinema.
Mind Reeling investigates how cinema displays and mirrors psychological disorders, such as bipolar disorder, amnesia, psychotic delusions, obsessive compulsive behavior, trauma, paranoia, and borderline personalities. It explores a range of genres, including biopics, comedies, film noirs, contemporary dramedies, thrillers, Gothic mysteries, and docufictions. The contributors open up critical approaches to audience fascination with film depictions of serious disturbances within the human psyche. Many films examined here have had little scholarly attention and commentary. These essays focus on how cinematic techniques contribute to popular culture's conception of mental dysfunction, trauma, and illness. This book reveals the complex artistic and generic patterns that produce contemporary images of psychopathology in cinema.
Mind Reeling investigates how cinema displays and mirrors psychological disorders, such as bipolar disorder, amnesia, psychotic delusions, obsessive compulsive behavior, trauma, paranoia, and borderline personalities. It explores a range of genres, including biopics, comedies, film noirs, contemporary dramedies, thrillers, Gothic mysteries, and docufictions. The contributors open up critical approaches to audience fascination with film depictions of serious disturbances within the human psyche. Many films examined here have had little scholarly attention and commentary. These essays focus on how cinematic techniques contribute to popular culture's conception of mental dysfunction, trauma, and illness. This book reveals the complex artistic and generic patterns that produce contemporary images of psychopathology in cinema.
Reviews / Votes
"Pettey's distinctive, innovative collection departs from staid psychological analysis and introduces readers to a narrative, aesthetic method by which to analyze the representation of psychopathology in film, a method both engaging and enlightening ... Highly recommended." - CHOICEMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Albany, NY
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
US School Grade: College Graduate Student and over
Illustrations
27 Illustrations, black and white
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
577 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4384-8101-2 (9781438481012)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
12/2020
1st Edition
De Gruyter
from
€84.99
Available for download
Person
Homer B. Pettey is Professor of Film and Comparative Literature at the University of Arizona. He is the editor of several books, including Hitchcock's Moral Gaze (with R. Barton Palmer and Steven M. Sanders) and Rule Brittannia! The Biopic and British National Identity (with R. Barton Palmer), both also published by SUNY Press.
Content
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction: A Very Brief History of Psychopathology in Cinema
Homer B. Pettey
2. Adele H., Camille Claudel, and Margot de Valois: Isabelle Adjani's Real "Mad" Women? Costume Drama and the Disruptive Female
Susan Hayward
3. Musical Madness on Hangover Square
Murray Pomerance
4. Screening Multiple Personality Disorder in the Age of Kinsey: Lizzie and The Three Faces of Eve
R. Barton Palmer
5. The Cine-Telescopic Psyche: 1950s Serial Killers and Sexual Psychopathology in The Sniper and While the City Sleeps
Robert Miklitsch
6. Pathologies of Pedagogy in Midcentury Melodrama: The Miracle Worker and A Child Is Waiting
Jennifer L. Jenkins
7. Passion and Delirium: Representing Madness in Spider and Asylum
Jim Leach
8. Scorched: Landscape, Trauma, and Embodied Experience in Incendies
Tarja Laine
9. Ghostly and Ghastly Desires and Disorders in Young Adult: KenTacoHuts in Mercury
Julie Grossman
10. Criminal Biographies and Visual Culture
Homer B. Pettey
Contributors
Index
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction: A Very Brief History of Psychopathology in Cinema
Homer B. Pettey
2. Adele H., Camille Claudel, and Margot de Valois: Isabelle Adjani's Real "Mad" Women? Costume Drama and the Disruptive Female
Susan Hayward
3. Musical Madness on Hangover Square
Murray Pomerance
4. Screening Multiple Personality Disorder in the Age of Kinsey: Lizzie and The Three Faces of Eve
R. Barton Palmer
5. The Cine-Telescopic Psyche: 1950s Serial Killers and Sexual Psychopathology in The Sniper and While the City Sleeps
Robert Miklitsch
6. Pathologies of Pedagogy in Midcentury Melodrama: The Miracle Worker and A Child Is Waiting
Jennifer L. Jenkins
7. Passion and Delirium: Representing Madness in Spider and Asylum
Jim Leach
8. Scorched: Landscape, Trauma, and Embodied Experience in Incendies
Tarja Laine
9. Ghostly and Ghastly Desires and Disorders in Young Adult: KenTacoHuts in Mercury
Julie Grossman
10. Criminal Biographies and Visual Culture
Homer B. Pettey
Contributors
Index