The Soloist: A look at how Schizophrenia is portrayed in film

The Soloist is a film based on the life of Nathaniel Ayers, a homeless former cello prodigy who suffers from schizophrenia. Steve Lopez, a journalist for the LA Times, befriends Ayers when he overhears him playing violin on the streets of LA. Lopez becomes fascinated with the tragic story of this talented but mentally ill musician. The two form a friendship, which is complicated by the struggles they have to face when dealing with Ayers’ schizophrenia.
Nathanial Ayers is portrayed in the film as having paranoid schizophrenia. Schizophrenia generally consists of three types of symptoms – positive, negative, and cognitive. Positive symptoms are hallucinations, delusions, confused …show more content…
The portrayal of the gradual early onset of schizophrenia is very accurate. In the film, Ayers is seen as a teenager withdrawing from all social interactions and preferring the company of his cello instead of his family. He begins having unpredictable emotions, such as manically laughing when his mother complements his playing. As the disease begins to run its course, his symptoms become more prominent. Nathaniel begins having visual hallucinations, such as seeing a flaming car driving down the street. He also has persecutory delusions that his sister is trying to poison him. He even forces her to eat the food that she brings him in order to make sure that it is not poisoned. The hallucinations also become auditory, the most common schizophrenic hallucination type, and paranoid. He hears voices that say, “I can hear your thoughts, they can hear your thoughts” ( Foster et al. 2009) He believes that everyone is trying to harm him, even if all they are doing is leaving cigarette butts lying in the street (something which bothers him …show more content…
While schizophrenia does run in families, about 60% of people with schizophrenia do not have any family members with the disorder (Dean, K., & Murray, R. M. 2005). Also, people genetically predisposed to schizophrenia don’t always develop it. This shows that a merely biological model is inherently flawed. Twin studies have suggested that biological factors such as inherited genes may make a person vulnerable to the disorder, but environmental triggers are required to actually acquire it. A better model would take into account this type of gene-environment interaction. In fact, studies have suggested some environmental factors that could trigger schizophrenia such as prenatal exposure to a viral infection, low oxygen levels at birth, or even parental loss or separation (Dean, K., & Murray, R. M.