RECOVERY FROM MENTAL ILLNESS

Victor Bloom MD

The movie, "Shine" is an inspiring true-life drama which vividly depicts the clinical picture of a severe manic-depressive psychosis and some of the psychological factors that contribute to it. It is a powerful object-lesson on how mental decompensation can occur.

We are shown the family and childhood of a piano prodigy by the name David Helfgott. At an early age he wins music competitions, but we see trouble brewing when the father insists that he MUST win. The father is a Holocaust survivor whose family was destroyed by the Nazis and now his sense of family and survival are so intense that he cannot allow his son to leave the home for further schooling for his musical talent.

The father's childhood is crucially important, as he relates saving up for a violin when he was a child, and his father smashed it. The father's latent musical talent is transferred to his son, who is encouraged to play a musical piece which is far beyond his youthful ability, the third piano concerto of Sergei Rachmaninoff. In music school this profound and inordinately difficult piece is call the "Rach-3", as if to reduce it to size, put it in its place.

The father is pictured as overwhelmingly powerful, as he is tyrannical in his direction and smothering in his affection. He is unwittingly making his son an extension of himself, which is always a source of later emotional trouble. The son naturally strives for independence and autonomy and needs to break away from the family, but the father treats this as treachery and disloyalty, lack of appreciation and disobedience, and disowns his son. Symbolically, he burns the precious album of newspaper clippings he has been saving.

Alone in London, having obtained a musical scholarship, the young pianist attempts the impossible, to play the Rachmaninoff Third, which the father loved, and which the father wanted him to play, albeit prematurely. The professor still thinks it is a gamble, but he himself had tackled the Rach-3 in his youth and actually impressed Rachmaninoff himself, with his performance. He was the perfect teacher, but again the ambition of the father-figure was to prove destructive. The teacher had suffered a stroke and was no longer able to play. The boy was to be his reincarnation.

Practicing to play this near-impossible piece was a labor of love, but also a neurotic obsession. The time came for the concert and everyone held his breath. David played with stunning intensity and virtuosity, but somewhere in the middle of the performance, he broke down, fell apart. Somehow, he finished the piece, but along the way he could no longer hear it, was merely getting by because of his memorization of the fingering. He had somehow lost himself, his humanity and became a pianistic automaton.

We see him in an asylum, receiving shock treatments and hydrotherapy. We hear him babbling word salads. He could have been schizophrenic or manic-depressive; sometimes the two clinical pictures merge, especially in the most severe cases. We see him get sympathetic custodial care, but no psychotherapy. Somehow the years go by and he slowly regains contact with reality and some human relationships. He is a very difficult and strange person, but in some ways charming and endearing. He is childlike and various close friends take care of him and protect him.

Gradually, he regains his interest in the piano and plays in a local cabaret, where he is appreciated and applauded. Finally, a certain woman who seems to understand him comes into his life, and despite his bizarre behavior, she seriously considers his touching request that she marry him. She is an astrologer and she finds that it is in the stars that she devout her life to him, amazingly enough.

Still more amazing, with her love and guidance he finds his way back to the concert stage and plays again, displaying his considerable virtuosity to an appreciative audience in his home country of Australia. Now the fact of the matter is that he will be making a world tour this year, and has recorded the Rachmaninoff Third Piano Concerto, which anyone can simply buy in the record store. And he may be coming this way to play in person!

The acting performances are riveting, especially that of Geoffrey Rush, who plays the adult David Helfgott. Rush had formerly been a famous Shakespearean stage actor in Australia, and spent time with the pianist in order to learn his mannerisms. I can say as a psychiatrist that the performance was very realistic, and I can also say that I have seen such recoveries before and know that they can and do happen.

We do not know exactly how these miraculous recoveries work, but the film shows the essential elements of sympathy, empathy, nurturance and protection, all of which are parts of love, which all people need. One also hopes that expert professional care was a vital part of his recovery.

I present details of the film in the hope that it will encourage more people to see it. I don't think that prior knowledge of the plot and outcome will spoil it for anyone. This is not a mystery or a suspense-thriller, but a human drama that is both moving and informative.