Depiction of madness in film

[Ejlertson 65]

This weekend I watched The Professor and the Madman
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt5932728/

I found it an interesting and enjoyable watch, but what really blew me away was Sean Penn's acting as a Schizophrenic.

For people like us, it's worth watching just for that.

It made me think what other films has actors convincingly play out insanity.
Suggestions?

[ragr 43]

For sheer lunacy it has to be Jack Nicholson in The Shining.

For bouncing back and forth it would be Toni Collette in Hereditary.

[rsanford 539]

Does Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets counts? He wasn’t a psycho but he had multiple problems. And the recent movie Joker portrays a very realistic version of psychopathy.

[Psullie 573]

+1 for Joker.

Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine, Cate Blanchett does a spectacular job. Beatrice Dalle in Betty Blue. Michael Keaton in Birdman.

[TrippyHippy 291]

Actually, I don’t think the Joker movie has a very realistic portrayal of mental illness at all and this is one of the major criticisms of the movie. It is more a scriptwriting affair of adapting ideas from Martin Scorsese’s King of Comedy and Taxi Driver to the comic book milieu than it is of a researched representation of any documented case - although I do think Joaquin Pheonix still acted very well in it though. 

I do think there is a difference between realistic portrayals of mental illness in movies (which are often quite dry rather than compellingly entertaining), and cinematic portrayals of ‘madness’. In horror movies, there are lots of great movies with 'mad' characters in them - The Haunting, Repulsion, The Shining, Mulholland Drive, Donnie Darko, The Babadook, Candyman, even Evil Dead II.

 

Edited March 2 by TrippyHippy