Girl, Interrupted (1999) James Mangold Discussion Questions, Resources, and Viewing Guide

Girl, Interrupted (1999) James Mangold Discussion Questions, Resources, and Viewing Guide “Madness in Movies” Coordinated Studies Brian Holt & JC Clapp, North Seattle Community College, 2013

1. Notice the establishing shot in the first scene. Describe it in detail and analyze what’s significant about it in the context of the entire film.

2. The film contains lots of multi-pane windows (as well as other grids and frames such as door frames, picture frames, car window frames, window blinds, lines/stripes and the like). These frames visually and literally box in and cage characters. Notice who is framed, and when. How does the framing work? Where do you see boxes, grids and frames? What does it communicate?

3. How does the mise-en-scene evoke the 1960’s? Point out some specific details that make it clear what the time and place of the film is.

4. How does color work in this film? Notice who and what is in white, who and what is in black, etc. What meaning might the various color associations have?

5. Look at the scenes throughout the film where there is a client (or clients) interacting with a psychotherapist. What do you notice about how the therapist talks to the clients? How the clients react to the therapists? Where do you see examples of appropriate client/therapist interactions? Where do you see inappropriate interactions? Notice, also, how these scenes are constructed to show the distance or closeness between the people in the scene.

6. At about 40 minutes into the film, Suzanna, Georgina, Cynthia, Polly, Lisa, and Janet sneak into the basement to go bowling, and then go into the therapist’s office and read their psychiatric files. What do we find out about these characters during this part of the film? Look at how they sit, move, behave, speak, and dress. What does that tell us about their character?

7. There are several strong motifs that we see repeated throughout the film. Cats are one of them. What might cats symbolize? What other symbols or motifs did you notice?

8. Some of the common symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder are: intense efforts to avoid perceived abandonment, patterns of unstable and intense relationships, impulsivity, suicidal behavior, emotional instability, chronic feelings of emptiness, intense anger, and paranoid thoughts. Suzanna is diagnosed as having this condition. Are the symptoms accurately portrayed? How (or how not)? 9. At about 57 minutes into the film there is a non-diegetic song with a montage of scenes that use fade dissolves to move between them. Why is this technique used? What does it communicate? This is a good example of the difference between the plot and the story in a film. There’s another place later in the film with a similar technique. Do you find them an effective way to move the story forward?

10. Notice how Suzanna is shown almost exclusively wearing stripes. Lisa is shown almost exclusively in white or nearly-white/neutral-colored clothing. What does the costuming of the characters indicate or communicate to the viewer? What other clothing do you notice in the film that is indicative of the character’s mental state?

11. There are many historical references to what was happening in the late 1960’s (the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., for instance) that set the story in a particular cultural context. Discuss how the culture or happenings of the times might impact or influence those living in it. Women and people of color, specifically, lived within cultural constraints. How can the constraints of the society you live in affect your mental health? How might we see the characters in this film constrained by the society and culture they live in?