Frames of Minds

The pleasures of film-viewing are the gateway to new understandings of the human mind. With this visionary and essential compendium, Eelco Wijdicks has done the deep work of illuminating connections that will alter the way we think. * Kirsten Johnson, Filmmaker *
Dr. Eelco Wijdicks again turns his authoritative gaze on the cinema of illness and medicine with a sweeping history that investigates how, from the earliest nickelodeons, the medium has treated the facts and known understanding of complicated conditions and disorders. Hollywood loves pain and neurosis, and Wijdicks examines a wide range of co-morbidity factors that suffuse the best and worst (famous and overlooked) movies. These range from substance abuse, depression, and schizophrenia to an examination of how the penchant for violence on the screen, especially from certain stars and filmmakers, might affect your mental health. * Patrick McGilligan, Film historian and biographer *
Psychiatry and film have long had an uneasy relationship. However, the celluloid's view has been often subverted by sensationalism, scaremongering, and the reification of stigma. Frames of Mind is as much a scholarly exploration of the history of mental health and film, as an invitation to imagine intersections. Dr. Eelco Wijdicks offers an entreaty toward an overdue agenda for cinema and psychiatry: one that replaces voyeurism and exploitation of some of society's most vulnerable with a shared commitment to better understand, empathize, and elicit meaningful action on their behalf. This volume will help us better appreciate, through film, not just the burdens of mental illness, but the promise of treatment, recovery, and reintegration. * Andres Martin, Psychiatrist, Yale School of Medicine *
In Frames of Mind, Eelco Wijdicks narrows his historical aperture to neuropsychiatric representations. This work not only better focuses our appreciation of how mental illness by actors, writers, and directors have shaped audiences' perspectives on these diseases, but also documents how filmmakers have appropriated depictions of mental illness as metaphors to dramatize their era's cultural chief concerns., Frames of Mind is a director's cut of brave scholarship exploring where the movie magic ends and medical misrepresentation begins for pressing issues and politically charged subjects like substance use, sanity, violence, and more. * Michael P.H. Stanley, Neurologist, Tufts Medical Center *
Frames of Minds is a fascinating read. It will be useful and of interest to film scholars, historians, healthcare workers, and anyone interested in the depiction of the human condition in cinema. * Arpan K. Banerjee, Hektoen International *
It is a beautifully written, engaging, comprehensive, but also personal book, and at times it feels like a private tour to Wijdicks' own home cinema. As a reader and as a fan of both "neurocinema" and Wijdicks' essays, I am looking forward to the next episodes. * Rui Araújo, The Lancet *