Hmm...that certainly could be. I was very interested in his story and read the book after I saw the movie in the theatre (Geoffrey Rush was brilliant, I thought)...thought a lot about it for weeks after, especially about the whole "killing the goose that laid the golden egg" theme to mental/emotional sabotage. And I know that officially it's claimed that his father really wasn't abusive atall, but then, what really constitutes abuse when you've got acute nerves twanging anyhow at people's presence and meddling and control? When I was quite little I used to tell people not to breathe on my hands when they were leaning over me watching me draw--and that was a mild reprimand compared to what I often wanted to say about them hanging over me and impinging on me (useful word, impinging).
Given the high internal sensitivity and necessary routine-building of anyone studying concert piano, plus the inherent uncertainty in any performance-art (or art in general), it seems more likely that he broke under that stress compounded by interpersonal emotional pressures, making him regress into a deeper autism, rather than just having some kind of underlying schizophrenia waiting to be triggered at the drop of a (real or imagined) hat. It's always tricky to mess around with the inner workings of creative people, seeing as one can't be sure where the golden eggs are coming from.
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Date: 2006-09-29 12:15 pm (UTC)Given the high internal sensitivity and necessary routine-building of anyone studying concert piano, plus the inherent uncertainty in any performance-art (or art in general), it seems more likely that he broke under that stress compounded by interpersonal emotional pressures, making him regress into a deeper autism, rather than just having some kind of underlying schizophrenia waiting to be triggered at the drop of a (real or imagined) hat. It's always tricky to mess around with the inner workings of creative people, seeing as one can't be sure where the golden eggs are coming from.