This course will consider the representation of mental illness in a wide range of films, beginning with silent classics like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and A Page of Madness. The course will ask the question, what does madness bring to cinema, and vice versa? in the three main genres that have dealt with this subject, documentary, narrative, and experimental film. The emphasis will be on films that consider both the mad individual, and the doctor or institution that claims to understand and cure mental disorders. The engagement of film theory with the nature of dreams, hallucinations, and delusions will be examined alongside experiments with psychological manipulation aided by the cinematic apparatus (e.g., Parallax View; A Clockwork Orange). Films to be studied include One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Shock Corridor, The Snake Pit, Spellbound, Now Voyager, The Devils, Persona, The Manchurian Candidate, Marat/Sade, Titicut Follies, Asylum, David and Lisa, A Beautiful Mind, and Shutter Island.