Is A Beautiful Mind actually Drop Dead Fred in disguise?

***SEE A BEAUTIFUL MIND BEFORE READING***

I don't know anything about scizophrinia. I can't even spell it properly. But what I do know is that it is a very serious mental illness. And I can't believe that such a serious affliction could be as simple as it was portrayed in A Beautiful Mind.

In A Beautiful Mind, John Nash (Russell Crowe) is a scizophrinic. But all we see is that he has 3 imaginary friends. And he overcomes his disease with the help of his wife, by ignoring these friends. Give me a break. Are audiences, and Academy members, that stupid that they have to be fed this watered down version of a frightening mental condition?

Drop Dead Fred, starring Rik Mayall and Phoebe Cates, was critically panned upon its release. It didn't receive one Oscar Nomination. And yet, it is pretty much the same story, except the scizophrinic is female and it's played for laughs. Phoebe Cates has an imaginary friend since childhood. She, with the help of her mother, tries to ignore this friend but Fred, the imaginary friend, ends up winning and they live happily ever after.

Drop Dead Fred might not have the professionalism or the studio backing, but it's not as sentimental and doesn't even try to be serious about a disease it obviously knows nothing about.

A Beautiful Mind was panned by critics outside America. We don't get it. Explain to me please, why it has affected America. I refuse to believe the country can be manipulated so easily.

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I couldn't believe that she knew my name. Some of my best friends didn't know my name.

I do believe sir, that you have gone mad.

After reading this, it does sound very hilarious to even entertain this notion. But you sure made it sound good.

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"I was walking down the street with my friend and he said, "I hear music", as if there is any other way you can take it in. You're not special, that's how I receive it too. I tried to taste it but it did not work." - Mitch Hedberg

I wasn't aware that the film was blasted by non-american critics. Is that true or are you making stuff up?

You're forgetting a few very important factors Val.

One, this is a true story. It is actually truth. This did happen. And I'm not just saying that because I know that some stuff was excluded (homosexuality and such) but at the same time this is something this man truly did. He ignored this things. It's a true credit.

A Beautiful Mind effected me, and I'm non-American. It is a true picture of schizophrenia, take it from someone who has spent the majority of his life mixing with these people on a daily basis. Crowe, Howard and the film create a real picture of this disease. You say they know nothing about it, then why do it sentimentally? Because they do know something about it, and this man and they have reproduced it correctly.

And maybe you're complaining because it's American, and you just don't like that. I reminded of the thread basically against American Patriotism in the movies.

Just because this film is American doesn't mean it doesn't depict schizophrenia correctly. Take it from me, it does.

Just because Drop Dead Fred is Brittish doesn't mean it does.

Get over it.

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www.esotericrabbit.com

Well that was certainly interesting.

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~Anything is possible.

Well, that post was certainly pointless...

Silver Bullet,

You say you know people with scizophrinia, well then tell me, how come they're not cured yet? If this film is to believed all they need is to get a bunch of real friends and then they can start to ignore their imaginary ones. A Beautiful Mind replaced the disease of scizophrinia with the disease of loneliness. We're asked to believe that John Nash created these imaginary friends mainly because he had no friends at all, and then when he finally found love and friendship, he could ignore these manifestations. Bull! I don't buy it.

Truth??? HaHa! A Beautiful Mind is complete fiction. In real life, John Nash was a far more interesting character. He was gay for one thing. He divorced his wife. He made anti-semitic comments. These are all very dramatic plot points that should have been included in a film of his life. But Ron Howard and Hollywood were much more interested in dumbing down the story into the usual man overcomes adversity cliche.

I'll stick to films like Misery, if I want to know what Scizophrinia is really like.

And Drop Dead Fred may have been a comedy, but does anyone see the similarities here. Rik Mayall kicked butt as Fred.

"Snotface".

You're expecting the film to give a cure for schizophrenia. The film is not trying to give a cure for schizophrenia. Instead it's only trying to show, and it does, how one extraordinary man was somehow able to use his mind, will power and courage, to somehow control a problem. He was never cured, and still isn't. He still see's these things, you realise, don't you? They've never gone away. As ofpure will power he has been able to somehow ignore them. He did this through the power of the same mind that ailed him. There is no claim that there is a cure. No one ever says people need to do what Nash did, and nor are people saying that this is an everyday acheivment and that schizophrenia is lonliness. It does show how one man and his extraordinary will power was able to keep something devestating under control (to an extent). You're searching for a cure that is not there, and in "finding" one you claim that the film is trivilaising the anture of the illness. Pft.


I said:

"This did happen. And I'm not just saying that, because I know that some stuff was excluded (homosexuality and such)."

So, thanks for reading my whole post there.

The movie's screenplay didn't happen.

The story about the FBI guy was a fiction made up by Akira Goldsman. In Nash's book he spends more time sending signals into outer space to communicate with aliens or stealing money from his mother thinking that he's worked out the unpredictable stock exchange.

In the book, Nash learns to separate rational thinking from delusional thinking to overcome his scizophrinia. Just think about this sentence for a minute. Think how difficult that is. There is a lot more wrong with the man than simply having three imaginary friends. But this is what Akira Goldsman, one of the worst writers in Hollywood, came up with.

A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar is much more informative than the movie and it is also more emotionally rewarding. The movie didn't deserve to be called an adaptation of it because it created so much that wasn't in it. John Nash's story is a good one and it possesses enough dramatic material to be a knock-out movie. Instead we get a sentimental (that acceptance speech is a nightmare), manipulative (how dare they make an action thriller out of the disease without informing the audience that this is all in his head) disaster movie.

I'm upset that it has been so successful. It is one of the worst examples of Hollywood dumbing down good material.

just like to add....

a lot of people I know hate russell crowe.... he can't act, can't sing and the first and last thing he was ever good in were romper stomper and LA confidential - you want to know why???? He was just being himself.

Interesting Fact:
He broke a door at my Uncles Pub during his motocycle ride through north queensland and the northern territory, after abusing and old woman and getting really really pissed. My Uncle said he had a nice voice though.....
something redeeming for you there russell!!

I completley, one hundred percent, disagree.

Yeah that's the bloke that wrote Batmin Forever, Batman and Robin and Lost in Space.

******

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Another high quality post by Fez Wizardo

Hey Silver Bullet,

What do you think of the film now that I've told you about what really happened in John Nash's life? I like debating with you buddy. You seem to be the only one brave enough to stick up for A Beautiful Mind.

And I agree with 50% with aussie beauty's statement. The man can't sing (and his band have the worst name ever) but damn, the man can act, cf. the Insider, LA Confidential, Gladiator.

I still love the film. I'm seeing it again tomorrow I enjoyed it so much.

I realise that it wasn't all in there, but I knew all that before you tried to change my mind and tell me so. The thing is, two things, actually, the first is that it wasn't a deliberate thing to leave it all out, it was a legal thing. Nash actually had claus in the contract that allowed him to choose which parts of his life went in, and they had to craft a film around the rest. They had to make a descion on how to do this. They decided not to so much create a complete portrait of a man (which would have been hard as it was) but to create a portrait of schizophrenia (which they do gallantly) and then simply show how this one man was able to overcome it (which they also do gallantly). NOT find a cure....

The other thing was that it is not required to show everything. It just so happens that what Nash didn't want them to show let them focus more on other things, basically the seriousness of his illness and how he was able to overcome it personally. The other stuff would have gotten in the way. It is important with all films, not only biopics, to tell a story, and preferably to tell it in under three hours. A Beautiful Mind does that. It takes out a few things that while important to the whole picture of the man, it is not important to the story that they are trying to tell that simply involves him in the centeral position.

Had the film been about homosexuality or something, yes, sure, it should be in there. But they chose what they wanted to focus on, and they did so. They also wanted to show the message about love, willpower and heart, and they do that too. The fact that he divorced his wife is VERY important in the grand scheme of his life. Not so much to the tale that is being told.

It is important to note that.
It so much a story about his life. It isn't meant to be.
It tells a story, shows some themes, using parts of a true story, and a real man. It is superbly done. The film doesn't alter any truths...

I still love it.
To each his own.

Didn't see A Beautiful Mind, but I did see Drop Dead Fred. Yes, I admit it, but Rik Mayall rocks. He's in the Young Ones, The single greatest television show of all time!

"Rick, you're the classic example of an only child..."

oh, and I can NOT be the only guy here with a crush on Phoebe Cates!

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"You, me, everyone...we are all made of star stuff." - Neil Degrasse Tyson

https://shawnsmovienight.blogspot.com/

Phoebe Cates is a goddess.

And Kevin Kline is the luckiest man in the world.

So? You name me one movie in which things occur exactly as they did in real life. Documentaries are excluded. Every film ever adapted from 'real life' takes dramatic liberties.

Consider that John Nash never existed. Does that make the movie any less moving? I don't care about what was left out. I care about what's there, and in my opinion, A Beautiful Mind is compelling, and transcends its tacky and sentimental subject matter. It's a fantastic picture. (I do, however, agree about his acceptance speech. I would do just fine without it.)

I especially appreciate how Ron Howard allows the audience to stay disoriented for so long, and the impact of learning that it's "all in his head" was remarkable. If you call it manipulative, you could say the same thing about Vanilla Sky, Unbreakable, Fight Club, or The Sixth Sense.

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**** the Lakers!

I love Drop Dead Fred!

I would marry Drop Dead Fred if he was my imaginary friend. I'd be the first person to marry an imaginary friend. That's how much fun he is in the movie. Any guy who can successfully sink Carrie Fisher's houseboat is a success himself.

I don't agree that all movies should be historically accurate. I love Titanic though its story was fabricated but...

A Beautiful Mind is the story of John Nash. And it is an adaptation of a biography of him. But the movie's screenplay ignores the book. It might as well have been John Cash or Joe Bloggs who was the lead. There was very little of John Nash's life that was represented in A Beautiful Mind. They use his name and the faint outline of his story in order to manipulate the audience. A large majority will go home believing that this was a true story. It wasn't even close to being true.

But I agree that a movie should be watched objectively as a movie. And I still don't think it works. I didn't fall for it. And I'm usually manipulated pretty easily - Billy Elliot and E.T., for example were very manipulative but I enjoyed them.

I thought there were so many bad scenes. Jennifer Connelly screaming in the bathroom was out of place with the rest of the movie. I get the point, but it was poor editing to place it straight after a moment of light relief, i.e. when Crowe is talking to the garbage man.

The sheer lapse of time was horrible. What happened to Nash during the years that the film flies past? A few students tormented him is all we're told. How did Connelly put up with him during these years? Connelly, in fact, is completely ignored for the last half-hour but we're still supposed to buy that she was the reason he overcome his disability!

I like Ron Howard as a director, but the man has no idea what college is like. The early scenes were just stereotype college nerds. I was uninterested. But the script is this movie's big problem. I'm finding it hard to live in a world where Akira Goldsman has an Oscar. The scene at the beginning where we see an old college lecturer being given pens as a sign of respect is so obviously going to reappear at the end. The dialogue between Crowe and his college enemy (horrible character, worse performance), "Are you scared Nash?" - "Horrified, petrified, stupified by you!", is such an outrageously bad piece of dialogue that I was ashamed to be watching a film that would repeat it. AAAGGH!!

And the make-up was awful...


Drop Dead Fred is the better movie.

NO!

YOU'VE GOT IT ALL WRONG

i managed to see this pretty poopy (imo) film.

it's a rip off of sixth sense because in

but in a beautiful mind it's

you see? akira goldsmith has just taken the plot made it into opposite and cashed in on it. that bastard!