We watched the 1947 version at a film night at church. I had never seen it. There are many things of interest - 1940s New York and a scene in Dutch. That scene - there is a transcript on the IMDB site at the link in the first line - involves a young girl who has come to New York from the Netherlands. I assumed, because she had no English and I thought it was post war, that this was for reasons related to the post war state of affairs there, but no reason is given. There is only one African American character (in the kitchen). And then there is the role of men and women - there is one very central female character, a divorcee and single parent, but the other women seem to be at home, with an allowance and having martinis made for them by their husbands...
But the reason for this post is mental health. The central character, Kris Kringle, is convinced he is Santa Claus. He has taken part in Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, as Santa, but thinks he actually is. The State of New York wishes to have him declared insane and there is a court case. Santa's lawyer (or Kris Kringle's) argues that because the post office can deliver letters to "Santa Claus" to Mr Kringle, therefore (because they are a federal agency), he must be Santa Claus. There is the proof.
There's a shot of a news report referring to psychiatrists as "alienists", which is interesting.
But, the thing that I found really interesting was the reason why Santa / Kris was put into a hospital and then taken to court was because he had confronted Macy's in store psychologist about his dealings with Alfred, the janitor in Macy's. His appointments with Alfred had convinced Alfred that he had "issues" (a modern term for it). Santa/Kris was sure the psychologist had no qualifications, and after hitting him with his cane, was taken away to a secure hospital. Santa/Kris had actually already had his own appointment with the psychologist, and he had obviously had this sort of appointment before, as he knew exactly what to expect and had upset the psychologist by apparently not taking things seriously, because he knew what the questions were going to be, and what the answers were.
There is a lot in this film that perhaps would not have been commented on in 1947, but would be now. And that includes the things about mental health and the attitudes to it. Who is sane and who is not? And who is anyone to say what is wrong with someone else, and judge their demeanour or attitude?
Then there's the smoking - of a pipe in the house, and then of a cigarette in the bedroom. But that is a whole other blog post.
Some more thoughts about the "appendix" to Ian McEwan's Enduring Love, discussed in an earlier post. The appendix is, or, as it turns out, purports to be, a reprint from the "British Review of Psychiatry", by Wenn and Camia, about de Clérambault's syndrome. An early review of the book,as you may remember from that earlier post, thought it was the article on which the novel was based. But others were suspicious, noting that the journal was not one they had heard of, and also that the authors' names were an anagram of Ian McEwan.
I was interested to know what would happen if you critically appraised the paper. Could you tell that it was (as McEwan admitted in Psychiatric Bulletin) fictional?
Of course, the psychiatric science in the article might well not be fictional at all. According to Oliver Burkeman's Guardian article (cited in my earlier post), this paper was submitted for publication to the British Journal of Psychiatry, but did not make it into print - it would be fascinating to know why! An appraisal of the content, though, would be a critical appraisal exercise for psychiatrists or mental health nurses. But I wondered - what about the references?
The last one is also by Wenn and Camia, so once you know that these are fictional authors, this one is suspect. It turns out the volume number and year don't match, and those pages in that volume are something else entirely.
One of the British Journal of Psychiatry references has an author name and title belonging to different page numbers and volume, but the page numbers and volume cited actually belong to another article about the same syndrome.
The other British Journal of Psychiatry references are correct, as is the one from Social Science and Medicine (which is, however, missing a section title, being made up of many sections at the time).
One reference has no article title. Another has different punctuation.
But apart from the Wenn and Camia article, and that mixed up British Journal of Psychiatry reference, this is all relatively trivial. In days gone by I was "bibliographic adviser" for a microbiology journal, and checked the reference lists for accuracy. There were often errors of this sort, so this "British Review of Psychiatry" paper is, I suspect, no worse!
de Clérambault is cited as C.G., rather than G.G., but that again is minor (although possibly if you were a psychiatrist, you would know - possibly not, though).
Here, in closing, is some reading material about de Clérambault and his work. He was a French psychiatrist, who trained first in law, who published many articles, and whose "Oeuvres psychiatriques" were collected together after his death.
de Clérambault's syndrome, from Patient.info.
Signer, S. F. (1991). “Les psychoses passionnelles” reconsidered: a review of de Clérambault’s cases and syndrome with respect to mood disorders. Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, 16(2), 81–90.
(Another of Signer's papers is cited in the appendix, but with the wrong initials, I think).
Clérambault, from Encyclopedia Universalis (in French)
I have made reference to this book by Ian McEwan in two previous posts, one about autobiography and biography as health literature, and one about mental health in film. In that latter post I said I would write about Enduring love again. Here at last is that post.
As an appendix to Enduring love, there is a scientific paper, a case report, about the condition that one of the characters in the story is living with, De Clerambault's syndrome. A review of the book in Psychiatric Bulletin talks of the book as based on this case report. But a later letter to the same journal rings an alarm bell. The authors are not in the medical register, and there is no journal of the name quoted (British Review of Psychiatry - I had my suspicions about this). Another letter in the same issue points out that the last reference in this scientific paper does not exist, and that the authors' names are an anagram of Ian McEwan.
There is also an article by Oliver Burkeman in the Guardian, 16th August 1999, which tells the story in more detail, who thought it was a real paper and who did not, and has a confession from the author himself. For other discussions, see this post on Novel Ideas, and the guide by Roger Clarke and Andy Gordon, some of which is in Google Books. p.67 onwards refers to the appendix.
I read the novel when I was off work last year, at the same time my elder son was reading it for AS Level English. Being at somewhat of a loose end, I found myself wondering about the value of this "paper" in teaching. What would happen if you were to use the appendix as a critical appraisal example? Would anything tell you it was not a real paper? How could you tell? I have not yet tried it out. Perhaps another blog post beckons!
References
McIvor, R. Enduring love [book review]. Psychiatric Bulletin, 1999; 23(1): 61
Granville-Grossman, K. Enduring love. Psychiatric Bulletin, 1999; 23(4): 242-3.
McCreadie, R. Enduring love. Psychiatric Bulletin, 1999; 23(4): 243.
A conversation at home about F.D.C. Willard reminded me of Ian McEwan's novel "Enduring Love", for reasons which will become apparent in a later post. There is brief mention of this novel in an earlier post about autobiography and biography as health literature, as it is a novel that deals with mental health issues.
Looking for material on the web about the novel, I found the Minds on Film blog from the Royal College of Psychiatrists, which has an entry about the film of the novel. This blog has been going for five years (there is an index, by health condition, of the first five years) and features structured reviews of films that deal with mental health issues, each review summarises the story and addresses its relevance to the field of mental health.
The latest films reviewed include Still Alice (I have just ordered the novel for work, following my Dementia Friends training) and the television series The Outcast.
If you are looking for film or television that deals with mental health issues, I would recommend a look at Minds on Film.
