depression and movies

[dms1972]

I don't know if I suffer from depression but I feel there is no point or meaning in life and seem to have lost my faith. My doctor prescribes me with couple of meds and I have been on those for years. But I just think its a malaise that I have been in for years. Maybe the meds help a bit, so I keep taking them.

But leaving that aside for a bit. One thing on the internet led to another - and I was bored and I watched an old film from the 1980s called To Live and Die in LA. To be honest I could not remember what this film was about, and wasn't even sure I'd seen it. But I reckon i must have watched it back in the day because bits were familiar to me. I don't know why I try to find something in these movies, some meaning or moral, because I am not sure there is anything in some of them.

Are there any films that you have found helped you in depression.

 

[Tempura]

Feeling no or little meaning in life is common with depression. They like to go hand in hand. They always don't, but it's common.

Movies can be stories. There is something about stories that fascinate and help us. We get to project ourselves on characters, settings and scenarios. Many stories deal with loss, despair, perseverance, you name it, things that affect us all. Stories help us deal with things. We have always been drawn to stories, and while the ways we tell them might always change the concept still remains the same.

I'm 100% certain there are many films that either helped me in my depression or just provided enough escapism for things to be more tolerable, but of course when I have to drop names my mind goes blank. I'll try name some but I will be forgetting plenty, my memory is like a haze.

I did like Scorsese's Silence, it's relatively new. I watched it at a time when I thought I was losing my faith. It's a hard movie to watch, but that movie in particular says something about faith, what faith ultimately is when it's stripped out of everything but its own essence. It's not preachy, it's not about theology, it's brutal and some Christians might get offended by it. But it was important for me. It was the perfect movie for me to watch amidst my crisis of faith.

Then again I'm not downplaying simple escapism, especially when it comes to depression. In depression we get so easily tangled into ourselves, it can become about self-occupation in a bad way where we just turn more and more inward and just feed the cycles of some dark inner forces which we push more and more into reality. There is blindness to it and in a sense we can start worshiping our misery without knowing it. We start to shut others out, shut even God out, in our mind, and perhaps also in action. Stories and movies help us to relate to other people more, to step into their shoes and especially step out of our strange inner confinement to embrace the fact that the depressed reality we feel is not the only thing that seems to exist. Just to get out of that mindset I'd say movies can be worth it. When my depression was the worst, for whatever reason I watched Good Will Hunting many times, also High Fidelity. I have no idea if they helped me, but I was drawn to them. Also Big Lebowski is a movie I watched many times. Since I was a drunkard I got some strange comedy out of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas but that one is certainly not for everybody.

Lately I loved Denis Villeneuve's movies Enemy, Arrival and Blade Runner 2049. Enemy especially is a weird one, it's more of a metaphorical thing and not a straight story, almost art-house. Oh and Mel Gibson's Hacksaw Ridge, loved it. Desmond Doss wasn't a pushover.

And sometimes, sometimes I need a simple, dumb action movie. Just to enjoy the silliness. Just to not take everything too seriously. There are plenty of those and they never end. At times I watched horrible movies on purpose. The worse they are the better. I mean absolute disasters, so inept that it becomes funny. Perhaps it helps me deal with my own inability in some ways.

Said a prayer for you brother, Christ be with you.

 

[dms1972]

Feeling no or little meaning in life is common with depression. They like to go hand in hand. They always don't, but it's common.

Movies can be stories. There is something about stories that fascinate and help us. We get to project ourselves on characters, settings and scenarios. Many stories deal with loss, despair, perseverance, you name it, things that affect us all. Stories help us deal with things. We have always been drawn to stories, and while the ways we tell them might always change the concept still remains the same.

Thanks for you comments and prayer.

The film I was watching To Live and Die in LA, is a very 1980s film, it almost encapsulates a lot of the 1980s, and the soundtrack is by Wang Chung a very 80s pop group. So watching the film, even a whole day afterwards I feel strangely the 80s mood or malaise lingering over me, like I am back in those days.

The film i mentioned is a bit nihlistic, its neo-noir (whatever exactly that is?). Directed by William Friedkin and explores the thin line between cops and crooks, how they can almost exchange places. There's not really many good guys in it. Two cops (one is reckless and in his mind thinks he is above life and death) decide to bend the rules to catch a master counterfeiter, but things don't go to plan, and an undercover FBI agent (whom they think is a crook) is shot and killed. They complete the sting and think they have the bad guys, but in a final exchange of shots, the reckless cop kills one of the crooks and, is himself shot in the head! On the one hand its an unexpected ending, and in other ways its sort of been coming the whole film in way. The studio even asked the director to film an alternative ending in which the main character survives. But Friedkin released it with his original ending. Near the end the guy's partner who through the whole film has been much more concerned about what they are going to do, and calling his partner out at one time for bending the rules by taking a diary from a crime scene, his character arc ends it seems with him becoming like his partner, adopting his reckless unethical approach. It sounds like but its not like Lethal Weapon and those sorts of films which end with them having a laugh.

I followed some commentary on it and one of the actors said what he thought the movie was about was "the destruction of values..."

Not suggesting it as a film that would be good to watch in depression. It doesn't really leave me feeling any better about the world or myself. I am not sure the film really works or manages to do what it intended.

If you are interested here is a short commentary which has some good insights (I should point out: it shows some clips which have profanity and violence)

 

[Hank77]

I don't know if I suffer from depression but I feel there is no point or meaning in life and seem to have lost my faith. My doctor prescribes me with couple of meds and I have been on those for years. But I just think its a malaise that I have been in for years. Maybe the meds help a bit, so I keep taking them.

But leaving that aside for a bit. One thing on the internet led to another - and I was bored and I watched an old film from the 1980s called To Live and Die in LA. To be honest I could not remember what this film was about, and wasn't even sure I'd seen it. But I reckon i must have watched it back in the day because bits were familiar to me. I don't know why I try to find something in these movies, some meaning or moral, because I am not sure there is anything in some of them.

Are there any films that you have found helped you in depression.

I don't suffer from depression but what's going on right now in our country is not uplifting in some ways.
I watched this movie the other day and really liked it maybe you would, too.

 

[Jeshu]

Good films to watch when you struggle with mental illness? Nell, a beautiful mind, and the The Wall, Pink Floyd i find educational when it comes to that.

i have realised that depression creates its own depression and that agreing with our depressive thoughts makes things much worse. Faith in God's love on the other hand is strongest to survive depression and the first to break free from it. i have sure learned to exercise faith in God's love when depression strikes. Without Him i be long time dead already.

Try it for yourself exercise faith in God's love and see how you get lifted above your misery in no time.

 

[dms1972]

Good films to watch when you struggle with mental illness? Nell, a beautiful mind, and the The Wall, Pink Floyd i find educational when it comes to that.

i have realised that depression creates its own depression and that agreing with our depressive thoughts makes things much worse. Faith in God's love on the other hand is strongest to survive depression and the first to break free from it. i have sure learned to exercise faith in God's love when depression strikes. Without Him i be long time dead already.

Try it for yourself exercise faith in God's love and see how you get lifted above your misery in no time.

What is Pink Floyd's music and the Wall about? I have only listened to a little

 

[Jeshu]

What is Pink Floyd's music and the Wall about? I have only listened to a little

It is a musical movie starring a person called pink. The movie follows him from birth to when he is a pop star but he makes bad choices and good life eludes him. The movie points out that he builds walls within through his parent's actions as well as the world in which he lived and that in the end only the removal of the inner wall could bring good life back.

The movie flicks back and forth between past and present and has some classic songs playing throughout, like comfortably numb, another brick in the wall, blue sky, and of course mother, all songs that a lot of (mentally ill) people relate to.

 

[dms1972]

It is a musical movie starring a person called pink. The movie follows him from birth to when he is a pop star but he makes bad choices and good life eludes him. The movie points out that he builds walls within through his parent's actions as well as the world in which he lived and that in the end only the removal of the inner wall could bring good life back.

The movie flicks back and forth between past and present and has some classic songs playing throughout, like comfortably numb, another brick in the wall, blue sky, and of course mother, all songs that a lot of (mentally ill) people relate to.

Thanks for the link - I know the song well and think i heard for the first perhaps when i was about ten - I wasn't sure about the message or if I understood it. There is something about the vocals in places, its as if they are kind of subliminal or something, on a different level - anyone else find that? - maybe someone can explain that aspect - its seems like different experience for me just listening to the song, from listening to it with the video.

This longer version is pretty good:

What's the idea behind the inflated pig they sometimes have at concerts?

Have the group written about the song anywhere?

 

[Tempura]

(Barging in just to say Pink Floyd's High Hopes is one of the best songs ever made. That was it, carry on people)

 

[Jeshu]

There is something about the vocals in places, its as if they are kind of subliminal or something, on a different level - anyone else find that?

Yes indeed this part of the appeal The Wall offers, subliminal messages everywhere. The information is portrayed in many subtle ways, this is what makes the movie so appealing. i have watched The Wall many times but still enjoy how they put the movie together.

What's the idea behind the inflated pig they sometimes have at concerts?

They wrote a song the called the dogs of war, exposing those leaders who love orchestrating wars, dogs of war is basically an anti war song. i think that the pig Pink Floyd often uses symbolises the greedy, selfish, controlling people we find at higher levels of authority.

Here a youtube video of David Gilmour discussing The Wall.