This course examines how classic American cinema represents and often stigmatizes mental illness and social deviance. We will refer to the American Psychiatric Association’s Mental Disorders: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (the DSM) for summaries of disorders. Topics include: the institutionalization of madness in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975); paranoia and madness in Taxi Driver (1976); the family and madness in Joker (2019); murder and madness in Night of the Hunter (1955); war and madness in Deer Hunter (1978); and alcoholic/supernatural madness in The Shining (1980). For all these films, we will analyze how mental states are translated into cinematic language and consider how each work reflects—or misrepresents—prevailing understandings of mental illness and the cultural contexts in which they were produced.
This course is offered with the generous support of the Association for Continuing Education