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You cannot trust yourself effect.

OrdinaryCitizen

Well-Known Member
Some movies mostly about Insane Asylum like Shutter Island (2010) after watching leave a idea that you cannot trust yourself like your mind might be playing jokes with you.

Is there some official name for this type of movie or how would you describe it.

Reason i am asking i am looking for more movies that show this effect.
 
That's a sort of self-gaslighting. Gaslighting, in fact, is the name derived from an Ingrid Bergman movie called Gaslight, in which her malevolent husband tries to convince her not to trust her own mind. Forms of gaslighting are blaming a perception on imagination and crazy-naming (you've been mentally ill before, so therefore your judgments are questionable).

Why do you want to find more movies like Shutter Island?

Shutter Island made me shudder...
 
The first thing that comes to mind is that film with Russell Crowe who portrayed John Nash, a brilliant, but schizophrenic mathematician. Who at times had some incredible and elaborate hallucinations.

- "A Beautiful Mind"


Another classic of such a genre might be the Oscar Award winning film, "The Snake Pit". A drama that documents a mentally disturbed woman who is committed to an institution, and how she eventually improves.

 
I know l can't trust my mind in donut stores, little doughy voices tell me to start mastercarding baker's dozen before the apocalypse.
 
I know there's an upcoming adaptation of The Invisible Man that apparently will play with this idea.

The film apparently will focus on a malevolent businessman "committing suicide" and leaving a vast sum of money for his ex wife. The catch? she has to prove that she's completely sane for a full year.
(I'm sure you can guess where this is going based on the title).
 
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Coincidentally, a list of these movies would also be a list of movies that misrepresent mental illness.
 
One of my favorites that combines the element you describe with some horror and adventure is a movie The Descent.
Another movie you might like is The Sixth Sense. A twist on what you describe.
You might also like Room 1408.
 
Coincidentally, a list of these movies would also be a list of movies that misrepresent mental illness.
Hm... well, I thought A Brilliant Mind did a fantastic job. I took quite a while before I realized that what John Nash was experiencing was actually mental illness (Okay, maybe I'm slow) ... instead I actually got into his psychotic state and paranoid delusions.

Incidentally, my almost-certainly autistic father knew John Nash when my dad was in grad school. I asked what his opinion of Nash was. Typically for my dad, he didn't have much psychological insight, but recalled that John Nash had drawn a naughty cartoon on the blackboard in the teacher's lounge!
 
I know there's an upcoming adaptation of The Invisible Man that apparently will play with this idea.

The film apparently will focus on a malevolent businessman apparently committing suicide and leaving a vast sum of money for his ex wife. The catch? she has to prove that she's completely sane for a full year.
(I'm sure you can guess where this is going based on the title).

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! Dear Hollywood, leave my favorite books alone and come up with your own ideas for a change.
 
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Some movies mostly about Insane Asylum like Shutter Island (2010) after watching leave a idea that you cannot trust yourself like your mind might be playing jokes with you.

Is there some official name for this type of movie or how would you describe it.

Reason i am asking i am looking for more movies that show this effect.

Movies like Shutter Island are called psychological thrillers.

These aren’t really thrillers, but they feature delusional characters:

-The Professor and the Madman (2019)—a fantastic movie about a paranoid schizophrenic who helps assemble the first Oxford Dictionary while incarcerated at Broadmoor Asylum (based on true events)

-Touched with Fire (2016)—it’s about two people who have bipolar disorder (it’s written and directed by a man with bipolar and is based on his own experiences/life)

-Eraserhead (1977)—the most horrifying, bizarre, and utterly brilliant movie I’ve ever seen, but I don’t know how to describe it. It made me feel like I was losing my mind when I watched it, and I’m not even kidding (I had to watch it in 15 minute intervals over a period of several days).
 
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Why do you want to find more movies like Shutter Island?
There's few people i know who really don't trust themselves (their judgements and own experience) i want to try and show them how they possibly been fooled into thinking that way by media.

I know there's an upcoming adaptation of The Invisible Man that apparently will play with this idea.
Trailer looks creepy, its more of a horror movie i guess like Delirium (2018), it being a horror might do more bad than good since i were to recommend to someone on spectrum.
 
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There's few people i know who really don't trust themselves (their judgements and own experience) i want to try and show them how they possibly been fooled into thinking that way by media.
I'd be careful of that. How do you know there isn't good reason to distrust their own perceptions? Like suppose they are convinced they are Jesus, or Napoleon, or any other historical figure; or perceive they can fly when leaping off a tall building. But media have convinced them that these are common delusions, and not to be believed.

Do you really want to change their mind?
 
Hm... well, I thought A Brilliant Mind did a fantastic job. I took quite a while before I realized that what John Nash was experiencing was actually mental illness (Okay, maybe I'm slow) ... instead I actually got into his psychotic state and paranoid delusions.

Incidentally, my almost-certainly autistic father knew John Nash when my dad was in grad school. I asked what his opinion of Nash was. Typically for my dad, he didn't have much psychological insight, but recalled that John Nash had drawn a naughty cartoon on the blackboard in the teacher's lounge!

I read the biography of John Nash and what was depicted in that movie was not his experiences, let alone anyone's experiences. You not experiencing it as mental illness is perhaps a more realistic view of it.
 
Biography, or autobiography? Because I mean how would you know if the biographer got it any more right than the filmmaker did?

I actually marveled at Ron Howard's direction, pulling me into that confusing paranoid world view without my realizing it... he's come a long way since Opie.

Erratum: I called it A Brilliant Mind but the actual title was A Beautiful Mind.
 
Do you really want to change their mind?
it has to do more with where they get information they mentioned to me that there is no source of unbiased information i said "your own personal experience is" and they said they trust their own perception less than they trust others.
Perhaps they might be crazy, however if they cross a line worst thing they get institutionalized, living & thinking that one cannot trust himself is worse in my opinion than thinking he's Napoleon.

Could be better way to show them than a movie found few articles about self-gaslighting.

Do you gaslight yourself? Here’s how to stop
Depression and Self-Gaslighting - Brute Reason
 
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It's worse - Elizabeth Banks (who recently remade Charlies Angels - a film that has become a box office flop) has been given a new movie to make.
That movie? The Invisible Woman - Elizabeth Banks to Direct, Star in ‘Invisible Woman’ for Universal

You’re killing me! Nobody reads the classics anymore. And they’re all being mangled and warped into movies that bear little resemblance to the actual stories, because god forbid anyone read a book. I’m waiting for them to make The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and/or Treasure Island. My heart will break, and it will be my cue to abandon “civilization,” so called, and retreat to the Arctic a la Frankenstein’s monster.
 
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Biography, or autobiography? Because I mean how would you know if the biographer got it any more right than the filmmaker did?

I actually marveled at Ron Howard's direction, pulling me into that confusing paranoid world view without my realizing it... he's come a long way since Opie.

Erratum: I called it A Brilliant Mind but the actual title was A Beautiful Mind.

One indication would be intention: the book intended on being accurate, while the movie knew it was being inaccurate. For example, he never suffered from visual hallucinations. Also, I remember reading that John Nash commented on at least one inaccuracy in the movie.

But a Hollywood film is almost never intended to be particularly accurate.

And I didn't even notice that you called it that! Ha!
 

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