Psychoanalysis of Nas, the leading actor in "A Beautiful Mind"

Abstract: The movie "A Beautiful Mind" is a psychological blockbuster familiar to domestic audiences. The hero Nas is a typical schizophrenic patient. This article analyzes Nass psychologically from the performance of Nass in the movie, and reveals the psychological reasons why Nass suffers from schizophrenia from the perspective of analytical psychology, so as to help the audience better understand movies and psychopaths.


Keywords: Nass Affective Unconscious Archetype



Even now, when people talk about schizophrenics, The usual reaction is still fear, disbelief, rejection, and discrimination. It is difficult for normal people living in real society and ordinary life to understand the weird behaviors and behaviors of mentally ill patients. However, in our society, there are more and more mental patients. They not only need the attention of doctors and psychological workers, but also the recognition and support of the public. And the most recent film, A Beautiful Mind, certainly succeeds in that end. ?

Akiva Goltzman, the screenwriter of "A Beautiful Mind", has carefully arranged the plot, and Russell Crowe, who plays the leading actor Nas, also performed superbly. There are also Princeton's beautiful campus in golden autumn, calm and ethereal music, and layered and blended shots, all of which make "A Beautiful Mind" a delicate and beautiful movie, and won four Oscars in one fell swoop. However, what is really impressive is Nas's wonderful thoughts and legendary experiences in the movie, and the touching love brought by Alisa is what really touches people's hearts. beauty. ?

Akiva Golzman's parents are well-known psychologists in New York, and he has a good understanding of mental patients. In this sense, Golzman is the first psychoanalyst of the Nass archetype. Both film and psychoanalysis are trying to explain a story, trying to penetrate into a person's heart. Golzman's psychoanalysis makes Nas's mind truly and deeply reproduced on the screen, and we hope to help ourselves and the audience better understand the movie and Nas through some psychological analysis viewpoints. mind.


1. Personality Analysis: Conflict between Thinking and Emotion

(1) Imbalance between Thinking and Emotion

"A Beautiful Mind "shows a genius mind. The first impression Nas gave the audience was at the welcome reception at Princeton University. In Nas's eyes, the sun shines through the image of the glass and the lemon, floating in the air, and then coincides with the tie pattern of a student next to him. Nas smiled slightly and said to the classmate: Do you know? I can explain mathematically how ugly your tie is. This is Nass, the genius of West Virginia, in his mind, mathematics seems to explain everything. He observes everything in life and expresses everything in life with mathematical formulas and mathematical reasoning.Such as rugby games, the activity cycle of pigeons, the performance of a woman chasing a man who snatched her wallet, etc., his famous game theory was inspired by the observation of the social activities of men and women in bars. Through the window full of formulas, you can see Nass's thoughtful face. In his eyes, the world is a rational world full of numbers, logic and reasoning, and he is tirelessly pursuing in the rational world he understands.

In contrast to his pursuit in the mathematical world, he has little enthusiasm for real life. The beginning of the film also shows Nas's personality through some clips. He is withdrawn by nature, doesn't speak much, refuses to socialize, and is out of tune with the lives of other students. Undoubtedly, Nas's intellectual and emotional development was very uneven.

When talking about psychological types, psychoanalytic master Jung regarded thinking, emotion, feeling, and intuition as the four poles of the functional cross diagram, and the center is the ego. Thinking is opposite to emotion, feeling is opposite to intuition. The ego can be biased in both of these opposing dimensions. People who like thinking have their own willpower directed to the thinking end, and emotion can only be placed at the lower end and is a secondary function. When the two are relatively balanced, the ego can still understand and control emotions better, and the emotion at this time is a rational emotion. But the more people who are used to thinking, the more likely they are to be repelled by emotions. When thinking occupies all of consciousness, emotion can only function in the unconscious. Emotions can't be understood and controlled by consciousness because they are repelled, so they often lose their rationality and become irrational emotions. Therefore, Nas is not afraid of others' attacks on his thinking, because that is what he can consciously and control, but he is afraid of emotions from the unconscious, which is an area he cannot understand and control. In the film, we can feel that Nas's dull expression hides his complicated inner conflicts, success and failure, loneliness and recognition, love and results...

(2) Three kinds Irrational emotions

Fear of failure: He fears failure, refuses to fail, and cannot accept failure. There is a scene in the movie where his rival Hansen challenges him to a game of chess. Hansen said: Are you afraid? Nas said confidently: I am afraid, very afraid, but you are the one who is afraid. However, when Nass lost the game, he was stunned, unable to accept the fact, and said: You shouldn't have won. The game I played first was flawless. This game must have flaws. Nas stood up nervously and knocked over the chessboard in a panic. Later, when he talked about the incident with his imaginary roommate, he was still brooding: I lost to a self-righteous guy. I had the initiative, but I lost it somehow. What the hell. In the film, we can also see a lot of Nurse's anxiety when he was afraid of failure. When he didn't write a recognized paper, he felt deeply frustrated and slammed into the glass window full of complex formulas. , said painfully: I can only think of so much. Nas pursues success and honor, and his emotions are deeply occupied by this desire.

Isolated helplessness: Although Nas has superhuman intelligence, he is a lonely genius. When he first entered the campus, he walked up the stairs alone, with a long shadow behind him, it was a lonely figure. Several times in the movie he talks about how he feels about other people. When he first chatted with the imaginary Charles, he said: I don't like people very much, and people don't like me very much. His mentor Hellinger told him: Your isolation may have greatly affected your academic development. Interactions between people will bring us new vision. Nurse said: I don't make friends because I'm a donkey. He also said in his first conversation with the imaginary Patchell: I like to be alone, and more importantly, people don't like me. In fact, it can be seen from the film that the environment in Princeton is quite tolerant of Nass. Nurse believes that people dislike him is just a projection of his internal dislike of others. His isolation from the world isolates his emotional connection with others, especially when the environment creates stress, which can easily translate into a state of hostility to the environment, which aggravates his anxiety. But he also needed recognition, and his eyes lit up with eagerness as he watched the many teachers in the dining hall put their pens in front of an old professor in respect.

The confusion of love: It can be said that Nass does not pay attention to the emotions between people. interest. An interesting scene is that in the school bar, classmates encouraged Nas to chase a girl. He came to the girl, looked at her calmly and said: I don't know what to say if I want to sleep with you, but can you just pretend that I have said those words? I mean let's just skip the opening lines and get right to the point. Nas doesn't believe in adult romance, so he plays a prank on the girl. Here, what Nas sees is only the purpose and result of the relationship between men and women, and regards it as a completely objective and emotionless process. From this detail, we can also see that his emotion is rejected by rational consciousness.

From the above analysis, we can see that there is a great imbalance between Nas's personality and psychological experience, thinking and emotion, consciousness and unconsciousness. The reason for his schizophrenia. Those psychological components that are rejected, disdained and resisted by him, those emotions that are not realized can only be expressed in abnormal ways.


2. Symptom analysis: unconscious intrusion and self loss

(1) Compensation function of the unconscious

Nas's The main symptom is the appearance of three hallucinatory figures in his life, who influence and control Nas's life. These three hallucinations all originate from Nas's unconsciousness, and are pathological manifestations of the unconscious compensatory function.

The unconscious includes all mental experiences that are not consciously experienced and are part of our personality.For normal people, the unconscious often serves as a supplement to the conscious through desires or motivations that are opposite to the conscious tendency. For example, dreams in daily life are a manifestation of the compensatory function of the unconscious. People with an unbalanced mental development are often victims of an imbalance between the conscious and the unconscious. They struggle with their unconscious, whose normal compensatory functions can only be expressed in abnormal forms.

The content of unconsciousness mainly includes personal unconsciousness and collective unconsciousness, and collective unconsciousness is the deepest level of the mind. It contains many common experiences of human beings. In analyzing the dreams, symptoms or hallucinations of normal or mentally ill people, we can often touch the archetype of the collective unconscious. Archetypes are the main content of the collective unconscious. There are many kinds of archetype modes, including almost all human psychological experiences, but the most important archetypes in the unconscious are mainly heroes (the ideal self in the character), shadows (the opposites of the characters), and anima or animus (the image of the opposite sex). ), the wise old man (inspires the intuition of wisdom), the self-nature (integrity of character), the Holy Child (heralding new life), etc. Archetypes are often expressed through imagery.

(2) Three archetypes

Through the previous analysis of Nas's personality, we know that in Nas's mind, the emotions ignored and rejected by consciousness are in the In the unconscious state, those unconsciousnesses that conflict with consciousness are concentrated in three aspects of irrational emotion, derived from three archetypes, and expressed by three characters. When they invade Nas' conscious world, they fulfill their compensatory function uncontrollably. ?

Roommate Charles--Shadow

According to the doctor's analysis, Nas may have started to suffer from schizophrenia when he was in graduate school. He had already fantasized about a roommate, Charles, by then. Charles's personality is completely opposite to that of Nass, and he concentrates the characteristics of those classmates around Nass who are incompatible with Nass. There are many aspects of Charles' personality that Nurse denies. He is the shadow of Nas. When Charles first appeared in the film, he appeared as a prodigal son. It was in stark contrast to Nas' reserved expression at the time. When Nurse talked about his fascination with mathematics, Charles said: Mathematics does not bring truth, do you know why? Because he is so bored. When Nurse said he hadn't written a thesis yet, Charles asked him: How long has it been since you dated? But different from other students, Nass was recognized by Charles, who always thought he was a genius and encouraged him all the time. Nas, who is lonely in his heart, undoubtedly needs this kind of recognition and encouragement, so Charles is also a manifestation of Nas's need to be recognized in loneliness. ?

Pacher, an official of the Ministry of National Defense--Hero Archetype

Everyone wants to succeed, and every culture has a heroic consciousness, which is our deep-seated psychological needs. But for Nass, this deep psychological need manifests itself through hallucinations. When the Patchell hallucinations first occurred,Nurse had achieved a certain amount of fame and had successfully cracked codes at the Pentagon. But for a person who cannot accept failure, the greater the success, the more afraid of failure. He needs more sense of accomplishment to relieve his subconscious anxiety about failure. Patchell made Nass feel like a hero because their project affected 150,000 lives. related to the security of the country. Participating in such a work is the ideal and desire deep in Nas's heart.

The little girl Matthew—the prototype of Anima

The little girl Matthew is innocent and cute, and she has never grown up. He is the female experience in Nas's heart. The clip where Nas received a slap in the face for disrespecting women's feelings in a bar shows that Nas lacks female experience and does not pay due attention to women's emotions. His female experience is weak and immature. When he began to know his later wife Alisa and was deeply attracted by it, he began to fantasize about Matthew, that is, when he talked about Alisa with Charles in the hallucination, his face was full of happiness expression. He said: "He was fascinating and I was overwhelmed. Should I marry her?

(3) Mental split?

Nas's inflated emotional needs are gaps through which the unconscious invades and controls consciousness. After the unconsciousness neglected by Nass manifested through fantasy, Nass' personality was gradually split. Those archetypes of the unconscious have formed the egos. They are independent of each other and often replace the real world in Nas's head. For mental patients, when these split selves often conflict with the normal self, the original real self will gradually lose courage and ability, so that the patient is completely controlled by the fantasy world. In the film, when Nas felt threatened and expressed his unwillingness to continue working, he was threatened by Patchell, so he compromised again and again. For him, those hallucinations were real. When he was taken to a mental hospital and told he was sick, he didn't believe it and thought it was a Soviet conspiracy. And when Alyssa went to visit him and presented them the materials he had sorted out intact, he still couldn't accept the reality. But in his heart, he believed in Alisa. At this time, his fantasy world began to be impacted. The contradiction between the truth in his mind and the reality in reality made Nas feel very painful. He dug his wrist to find the diode that could emit numbers. Afterwards, he underwent electroshock therapy. Dr. Rosen said: Now he is going through the most difficult stage of schizophrenia, the fear of not knowing what is real and what is false...


3. The Mystery of Recovery: The Contest between Rational Emotion and Irrational Emotion

(1) True and False

Schizophrenia It is often considered a mental illness from which recovery is difficult. But Nas miraculously recovered without insisting on medical treatment, this is the power of love.Alyssa's love is the bridge between Nas' unconsciousness and consciousness, and also the bridge between Nas and reality.

To heal a patient who can no longer tell the difference between the real and the fake, the most important thing is to let his attention focus on reality. Nas's luck is that he has always had the support of Alyssa Love. Nas has always been able to feel Alisa's love and believe in Alisa's love. When he was confused between truth and falsehood, at least he knew that Alyssa's love was real. It is this real emotion that allows the real world to re-enter Nas's consciousness, making Nas refocus on the real world under the guidance of real emotion.

The climax of the film is when Nurse suffers from a psychotic relapse and is threatened with Patchell's life. Alyssa calls the doctor, and Patchell orders Nas: You have to stop her. Nurse was nervous about his wife's safety and quickly said: Don't get her involved. When Pacher took out his gun and pointed it at Alisa, Nas rushed over and knocked his gun to the ground. When Alisa rushed out, Nas was under the pressure of several hallucinations at the same time, Patchel pointed a gun at him, and said sternly: Kill her! Either she dies or you die! . Charles ran down the stairs and said: Oh, John, do as he says. Matthew took his hand and looked at him, as if asking him to make a decision. All the sounds and images were spinning in Nas's head, and finally he rushed out to block Alisa who was about to leave, and said excitedly: Matthew can't be real, she never grew up. At that moment, it was precisely because of his unwillingness to hurt Alisa, precisely because of his love for Alisa, that his reason overcame his illusions, and his ego was at that moment strong and controlled the irrational illusions.

(2) Rational emotion and irrational emotion

When Nass is really aroused, when he really feels the power of rational emotion, he can gradually get rid of irrationality Emotional control. Because at this time, emotion is no longer a blank in Nas's consciousness, it can be accepted and understood by consciousness, and become the driving force of self.

In the film, when Alyssa was deciding whether to let Nas return to the hospital, there was a touching dialogue. Alyssa tremblingly took Nas' hand and pressed it to his face, In your own face, you know what's real, this, this, and put Nas's hand over your heart, and this, they're all real. Alyssa stared into his eyes, put his hand on his heart, and said sincerely: Maybe it is here, I believe that some powerful forces are entirely possible. Nas's tears finally flowed down with sobs.

Alyssa believes that Nas's heart can feel her true love, and she believes that Nas's true feelings are powerful enough for Nas to overcome the illusion and regain his lost self. With this belief, she helped Nas begin the difficult journey of fighting the illusion and reuniting with his divided self. Alyssa encouraged Nas to return to work on campus, an environment that would help Nas stay in touch with reality and divert his attention to the day-to-day.He confronted the hallucinations, and whenever Pacher's hallucinations reappeared, he yelled: You're not real, you're not real. Although Nas has been seen as an oddball at times, the power of his ego has grown and eventually controlled his hallucinations.

Decades of battling mental illness have given Nass a deeper appreciation for life. When he chatted with Thomas King, a member of the Nobel Foundation who came to visit him, he sighed: poetic beauty is not human nature. And he even expressed his heartfelt words at the Nobel Prize award ceremony: I hardly believe in data, logic, and rationality, but I have been pursuing it. I asked myself what logic is and who defines rationality. Spinning in and out, I found out by accident, but the most important thing in my life is that I have the love of my life, if there is any reason, it is because of you, my love, you are all my motivation!

The film has given us profound enlightenment. Modern society is a world that values ​​technology, rationality, and thinking. We often ignore emotion. However, Nass' life experience shows that it is only the beauty of thought, not the beauty of real humanity. Only good emotions can integrate the mind and the soul and build a unified and beautiful soul. This is worthy of our deep thinking.