Mind reeling : psychopathology on film /

Unlike the myriad texts available that provide a psychological analysis of films, Pettey's unique collection presents a critical analysis of how films depict psychological disorders through various narrative, thematic, and aesthetic techniques. It examines filmic tropes influenced by genre and intertextual expectations of psychological disorders. In addition, the collection explores the evolution of societal acceptance of various disorders and how film serves as a screen--showing rather than reflecting the acceptance. Examining films from different genres and historical time periods, the contributors delve into how directors use mise-en-scène, cinematography, and sound to create the interior and exterior worlds of characters with various "psychopathologies, disorders, and traumas." The collection also calls attention to the stereotyping of professions and gender found in films like Hangover Square (1945), with its "mad" musician trope, and Lizzie (1957), with its multiple personality disorder "loose" woman trope, highlighting how professions and gender become synonymous with specific conditions and disorders. 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. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty. --Antoinette F. Winstead, Our Lady of the Lake University