autistic filmmakers

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20 Feb 2007, 9:41 pm

gloomywtregret wrote:

I wonder about Gus van Sant. (Is it Sant or Zant?) I would think there's something going on there.

I was also thinking about actors the other day and I'd have to go with Guy Pearce and Johnny Depp. I'd say Nikolas Cage should probably take the test as well.

Van Sant {it's Van Zant} isn't Aspie. He's an Andy Warhol-wannabe egotistical as*hole.

Another performer who pops up in my mind is Eric Bana. I always wonder why he's always very reserved during interviews. Two directors that could be Aspie are David Fincher and Christopher Nolan.

How about Kevin Spacey?

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20 Feb 2007, 9:46 pm

Veresae wrote:

AnonymousAnonymous wrote:

Steven Spielberg
David Lynch
Tim Burton
Guillermo del Toro
Alfonso Cuaron
Charlie Kaufman
Zach Helm

Kaufman I could definately see as aspie, though. Adaptation was certainly self-absorbed (and strange) enough. (Not necessarily in a bad way, though.)

I read somewhere, I can't remember, that Kaufman has a daughter with Aspergers.
No wonder he dedicated his Oscar speech to her!

How about Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu?

Prescott
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20 Feb 2007, 10:01 pm

paolo wrote:

I have just seen the bonus additions to the new DVD issuing DrStrangelove. There are many documents on the way Kubrik worked. Extreme perfectionism (up to 20 takes for the same scene), great pressure on the actors and everybody else on the project (Peter Sellers, after finishing the film, where he played three roles, had a severe heart attack). Peter Sellers, extraordinary in this movie, was himself a very disturbed person, having some kind of multiple personalities-no personality. He also played the role of the autistic gardener in “Being There” directed by Ashby. Sellers fought for having the film made and get the part. “He said of the gardener “that’s me”.

I first saw "Being There" when I was about 10. I spent a lot of my childhood hanging around an art-house/second-run cinema. Anyway, that movie really resonated with me, even if I didn't fully get it at the time. Absolutely fascinating film and book.

lemon
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21 Feb 2007, 5:04 am

ZanneMarie wrote:

Have you read her interviews and seen her interviewed. I'd be very surprised if she isn't Aspie. In real life she is most like the characters she plays in Fight Club, Howard's End and The Heart of Me. She is very off center. She dresses quirky and wears her hair quirky. She lived with her parents well into her thirties even though she was working from her teen years. The things she says are just so Aspie-ish.

I've seen her in films since at least 1985 when A Room with a View and Lady Jane both came out. I love her. Have you seen 'Til Human Voices Wake Us? That movie is very personal to Michael Petroni who directed. It makes you wonder about him. I don't know his work, but the fact that the movie is so personal to him and Guy Pearce and Helena Bonham Carter both identified with it makes me curious about him.

maybe you're right, but i didn't know about aspergers when i watched her in these movies (haven't seen "'til human voices..." and some others you mention, and can't remember all the movies i saw her in, a witch in a 'merlin'-film i remember, the first film i saw with her was "room with a view")
and i don't remember what i like so much about her either, will focus on it the next time...

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21 Feb 2007, 10:29 am

AnonymousAnonymous wrote:

gloomywtregret wrote:

I thought about Christopher Nolan!

Eric Bana is said to be a very regular bloke, just shy. He's known as a comedian in Australia so they always think it's bizarre that a shy, comedian plays these tough guy roles in the states.

I love your description of Van Zant. I kind of think he's a bipolar junkie and alcoholic myself.

paolo
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21 Feb 2007, 11:04 am

His name is Gus van Sant. While he is not Asperger, as far as we know (he is openly gay) he has made films portraing people living on the edge. One is "Elephant" (here people on the edge are not the the Columbine killers, but the students caught in the middle) and "Last Days" about Kurt Cobain. Together with Jonh Cassavetes, who had much influence on him, he is one of my favourite independent filmakers.

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21 Feb 2007, 11:29 am

Drugstore Cowboy is one of my favourites.
Matt Dillon is superb. I was watching 'Factotum' the other day and it struck me how Dillon does not seem to have aged over the last 20 years. I think they must have pills for it in Hollywood.

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21 Feb 2007, 12:08 pm

Kosmonaut wrote:

Hmmmm...Matt Dillon? Aspie? I always wonder how a guy who's 43 can look half his age.

On Topic : Steven Soderbergh
George Clooney
Michel Gondry
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
David Fincher

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21 Feb 2007, 7:58 pm

Kosmonaut wrote:

I like Drugstore Cowboy and My Own Private Idaho. I'm not so fond of the later ones. I love the smiley face in the sky when River Phoenix has a Narcoleptic moment on the highway. I can still hear the music.

I thought it was S! I should have looked it up.

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22 Feb 2007, 8:45 pm

ZanneMarie wrote:

I don't agree with your statement about lucid dreams. I actually see and hear stories in my head like movies and that is how I write. The difference between that and Schizophrenia is that I don't believe that is real. I know it's only going on in my mind. I also listen/watch it or not at will and use it how I want. And none of it has made me paranoid (probably since I know it isn't real). People also see math and music in their heads. That doesn't necessarily make them Schizophrenic.

I said it in that way because in an interview Guillermo said that he had lucid dreams, and then explained that these were a form of schizophrenia. In other words, he said he has schizophrenia, and he LITERALLY saw the faun, and always screamed. He thought it to be real back then.

Also, one of my online friends has been officially diagnosed with schizophrenia even though she knows her hallucinations aren't real.

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23 Feb 2007, 11:22 am

Well if Guillermo thought they were real, yes I could see that. I think many children do that though, just like having imaginary friends. I'm not sure what age they are supposed to grow out of that.

About your friend and the "official" diagnosis, what I've read in many Aspie articles is that people are often misdiagnosed as Schizophrenic and Shizoid and other things. It doesn't really give me a warm fuzzy about the whole "official" diagnosis when it seems to change between diagnosticians. Do Pyschs even call themselves diagnosticians?

Anyway, I'm going to go search around for research on Schizophrenia and Asperger's (among other things). I've always read that the brain dysfunction is different, but I want to read about the differences.

Here's the deal about seeing things. Temple Grandin also sees movies in her head about livestock facilities. That's just how she designs. Other designers might put it on paper or into a program. I don't see any difference at all. Her visual abilities are just enhanced so she uses them. I think she talks about the whole processes of misdiagnosis she went through.

My aunt, grandmother and great grandmother could all see music in their heads when they heard it. They could play anything on any instrument that they heard only once. None of them could read a note of music. I don't recall anyone thinking they were Schizophrenic even though they actually saw people playing the music in their heads. They also didnt act like they had Asperger's. They were pretty uber NT as a matter of fact.

So, I don't know. They can call you anything they want really. All those names are just manmade constructs like my stories. It's all really fiction in the end. We just choose as a group to believe some of it.

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25 Feb 2007, 6:49 pm

What about Godfrey Reggio?

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27 Feb 2007, 7:36 pm

ZanneMarie wrote:

Well if Guillermo thought they were real, yes I could see that. I think many children do that though, just like having imaginary friends. I'm not sure what age they are supposed to grow out of that.

I don't think many children actually hallucinate the images, though. That's the difference.

ZanneMarie wrote:

About your friend and the "official" diagnosis, what I've read in many Aspie articles is that people are often misdiagnosed as Schizophrenic and Shizoid and other things. It doesn't really give me a warm fuzzy about the whole "official" diagnosis when it seems to change between diagnosticians. Do Pyschs even call themselves diagnosticians?

My friend isn't aspie at all, but she's very schizoprhenic. If you have been diagnosed with AS and start hallcuinating things, then you no longer have AS; you have schizophrenia. It overlays it. An example would be John Nash, who showed many symptoms of AS before going totally bonkers when schizophrenia hit.

ZanneMarie wrote:

Here's the deal about seeing things. Temple Grandin also sees movies in her head about livestock facilities. That's just how she designs. Other designers might put it on paper or into a program. I don't see any difference at all. Her visual abilities are just enhanced so she uses them. I think she talks about the whole processes of misdiagnosis she went through.

"Seeing" something in your head isn't the same thing as actually seeing it appear in real life. You can imagine something without hallucinating it. I imagine things all the time but I don't hallucinate them.

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