Middle Tennessee State University
S.W. 4150-01 Crazy Hollywood: Movies About Mental Illness
Summer 2005, Session I, May
16- June 3, MTWR 8am-12noon
Office Hours: only via e-mail at cfrost@mtsu.edu
Course Description:
The course will examine films that depict mental
illness. You will watch
films, discuss the films over the Internet, do experiential exercises that
will help you understand and appreciate the messages of the films, and write
papers discussing what you have learned from the films and how you can utilize
this knowledge in your effort to better understand yourself and other people
and how we all relate to one another emotionally.
This course is part of the film studies minor. It is important to observe that this is not a course focused on studying film-making techniques or evolutions in the film-making industry. This is a social work course designed to help refine your thinking and knowledge of how human beings behave and why they relate the way they do to one another in a variety of social settings. Films are used to help you develop this understanding.
Course Objectives:
This course is all about developing your critical thinking skills. Movies
significantly influence the way you think, sometimes for the better,
sometimes to your detriment. The objectives of this course are to enhance
your self-awareness regarding: (a) how films have influenced the way you
think about mental illness and emotional problems, (b) how you can utilize
these influences effectively in relating with others, and (c) how you can
take a proactive role in changing the way society and Hollywood view mental
illness.
Course Requirements and Assignments:
1.
2.
3.
100-90points=A
89-80=B
79-70=C
69-60=D 59 or below =
F
4.
You will submit, via e-mail, six short papers discussing what you have learned from the films and how you can utilize this knowledge in your effort to better understand yourself and other people. You will have a major paper dealing with the same concerns but focusing on the book and movie that you have selected to concentrate upon. You will have an examination covering the readings attached to the syllabus.
Each of the six short papers is worth up to 10 points for a total of 60points, the major paper is worth up to 30 points, and the examination is worth up to 10 points for a grand total of 100 points.
Any
students needing to make arrangements for special considerations in graded
assignments due to disabilities, including learning disabilities, are encouraged
to discuss these arrangements with the instructor.
The course will help you begin to think critically about the movies that you watch. As Drs. Linda Elder and Richard Paul have stated: "Most people don't develop their thinking. One way to put this point is to say that most people do not know how to discipline their thinking. Most of their ideas about the world have come into their minds without their having thought about them. They unconsciously pick up what the people around them think. They unconsciously pick up what is on television or in the movies. They unconsciously absorb ideas from the family they were raised in. They are the products, through and through, of forces they did not choose. They reflect those forces without understanding them."
"To become a critical thinker is to reverse that process, by learning to practice skills that enable one to start to take charge of the ideas one has about the world. It is to think consciously and deliberately and skillfully about that world. It is to begin to remake one's own mind. It is to develop a mind that is analogous to the body of a person that is physically fit. It is like a puppet that discovers the strings, and figures out how to gain control of the way they are pulled."
The papers you write should reflect this beginning skill at critical thinking. Below you will find two student papers that will give you examples of how your papers should reflect the content of this course and your newly developing skills at critical thinking related to the movies you consume.
The movies you are required to watch are: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ordinary People, My Left Foot, Shipping News, Ironweed, Sophie's Choice, Harold and Maude, Memento, I Am Sam, The Great Santini, Benny and Joon, and The Bicycle Thief. All of these movies will be available to you free of charge on hold at the MTSU Learning Resource Center. However, if it is more convenient for you to rent them, they are also avaialable at your local movie rental stores such as Hastings or Blockbuster.
The above are the core required movies. However, other movies are on reserve at the Learning Resrouce Center that will assist you with your learning.
An additional source of knowledge related to this course can be found in the documentaries at the Learning Resource Center (LRC) on campus. You will find the following there and when you are researching a topic you can enrich your knowledge by going and watching some of these videotapes. LRC will not let you check them out, so you have to watch them there.
LRC Documentaries with their call numbers:
Abnormal Behavior: A Mental Hospital H00989a
Addiction and Mental Illness H07310a
Affective Disorders: Mania and Depression H00447a <
Assessment
Therapy Connection H04314b
Autism: Diagnosis, Causes and Treatment H09066a
Bipolar Affective Disorders V02912a
Brain Waves H01796a
Call Me Crazy H07439a
Coping With Life's Ups and Downs H06752a
Cults: Saying No Under Pressure H01902a
Depression and Other Mental and Emotional Issues H08166a
Depression: Children, Adolescents, and the Elderly H05668a
Depresssion: Fighting the Dragon H08772a
Depressive Illness on Campus: Bringing the Facts to Light H00669a
Disordered States H03243a
Dual Diagnosis H08448a
Into Madness H08985a
Living Well With Bipolar Disorder H08649a
Love Story, A: Living With Someone With Schizophrenia H01882b
Mental Illness in the Family: Emotions H06122b
Mental Illness in the Family: History H06122a
My Sister is Mentally Ill H06123a
Overcoming Mental Impairment H09074a
Psychological Factors and Physical Illness H02217a
Psychological Suffering: Nature of the Mind H08640a
Roots of Psychological Disorder H08639a
Self, The: Nature of the Mind H08643a
Troubled Kids: Is Medication the Answer? H09213a
What is a Healthy Mind H08642a
Youth and Violence: A Conversation with Professional Psychologists
H06841a
Listed below are the readings and websites for this course. Any underlined and highlighted item, when clicked upon, will take you to the attached reading or website. Every required movie that you watch has one or more readings. It is recommended that you read the handout before you watch the movie. Remember that you are expected to read ALL of the handouts, not just the ones related to the movies you watch.
One Flew Over
the Cuckoo's Nest
One Flew Over
the Cuckoo's Nest 1
One Flew Over
the Cuckoo's Nest 2
One Flew Over
the Cuckoo's Nest 3
Ordinary
People
Ordinary
People 1
The Tenant
Trapped
in Silence
Trapped
in Silence 1
Equus
Equus 2
Repulsion
Repulsion
Ironweed
Ironweed
2
Last Tango
in Paris
Star 80
Sophie's
Choice
Sophie's Choice
1
The
Collector
Lenny
Adele H.
Censored
Compulsion
Harold
Maude
Left Foot
Polansky
Snake Pit
Meryl Streep
I Shot Andy
Warhol
Civility
Film
History
Food
Spielberg
Life
Metamessage
The Horse
Whisperer
Coffee
Ted Turner
Ellis
Happiness
Test
American Film
Institute’s 100 Greatest Films
Aguirre, The
Wrath of God
The Bicycle
Thief
Casablanca
Citizen
Kane
John
Clare
Joseph
Conrad
Being and Becoming
Famous
Fitzcarraldo
Girl,
Interrupted
Great
Scenes
Dylan
Thomas
William
Ernest Henley
I Am
Sam
Jack
Lemmon
Love, Sex, and
Lust at the Movies
Memento
To Kill
a Mockingbird
So you
want to make a movie?
Movie-Made
America
Martin
Sheen
Shipping
News
The Third
Man
William
Wordsworth
William Butler
Yeats
About
Schmidt
The Politics
and Economics of Addiction in the United States
Love &
Attraction
Barfly
A Lost Lady
by Willa Cather
Charlotte
Gray
Choices:
Developing Your Self-Awareness
The Math
of Choices: Little Ones Add Up
Basic
Counseling Responses
Cultural
Diversity and the Use of Literature:
A White Professor’s Viewpoint on
Best Practice
Class
Exercises
The
Future of Helping
Handout (Future
of Helping)
Glossary
Treating
Ernest Hemingway
The
Hours
K-PAX
Lawrence
of Arabia
That thing called
LOVE!
Marital
Therapy:
Concepts and Skills for Effective
Practice
Microskills
The
Misanthope
Misfits
Learning
From Mistakes
Being a Social
Worker:
Not Just a Counselor
Navigating
Human Service Organizations
Power
Portrait of
a Killer?
Virginia
Satir
Shakespeare
Deborah Tannen
and the Work Environment
Amelie
The Great
Santini
Art of War
by Sun Tzu
Introduction
to Alcohol Research
Almost
Great Films
Behind
the Lines
Big
Fish
Brazil
Catch-22
Far
From Heaven
In the
Cut
Lantana
One Hour
Photo
The Eel
Viva
Zapata
Blue
& This Is My Father
Girl on
the Bridge
Lisboa
Pinero &
Short Eyes
Red, or Trois
Couleurs: Rogue
The
Claim
Three
Love Stories
Three
Seasons
Tom
Horn
Victory
White
Bibliography:
Birkedahl, Nonie. The Habit Control Workbook. New Harbinger: Oakland,
CA 1990.
Coles, Robert. The Mind's Fate. Little, Brown: N.Y., 1995.
Crowe, Cameron. Vanilla Sky. Faber & Faber: London, 2001.
Goldsman, Akiva. A Beautiful Mind: The Shooting Script. Newmarket
Press, N.Y., 2002.
Katz, Ephraim. The Film Encyclopedia (Fourth Edition). Harper Collins:
N.Y., 2001.
Kaysen, Susanna. Girl, Interrupted. Vintage Books: N.Y., 1993.
Kesey, Ken. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Viking Press: N.Y., 1962.
Nolan, Christopher. Memento. Faber & Faber: London, 2001.
Peske, Nancy & West, Beverly. Cinematherapy. Dell: N.Y., 1999.
Sklar, Robert. Movie-Made America: A Cultural History of American
Movies. Vintage Books: N.Y., 1994.