Key words: psychoanalysis, cinema, psychopathology, psychosis, psychopathy
Pietro Rizzi’s research analyses Cinema’s narratives about mental illness trough a filmography composed by Polanski, Cronenberg, Haneke, Garrone and Lars Von Trier movies. Rizzi proposes an extensive-longitudinal study to evidence a changing of mental illness archetype in cinematic universe: main ill characters are psychopathic instead of being psychotic. In this way Cinema presents a new social image of mental illness not yet defined in actual society. Rizzi concludes that collective attitudes are influenced by Cinema, like other Mass-media, that has the power to shape ideas substance and their form. Cinema’s analysis would be a useful instrument to enrich psychiatric and psychotherapeutic research.