The construction of disease in the history of film. An analysis of the film stereotypes of epilepsy

Our presentation examines historical changes in the contextualisation of ep ilepsy by the media. In movies, one may note a particularly longlasting pre dominance of traditional complexes of the significance of epilepsy. - Epile psy as an hereditary disease, as a degenerative illness, as a cause of crim inality -. These are the motifs, established myths, which lived on in movie s long beyond the time at which scientific opinion had distanced itself fro m them. A radical change in the manner of presentation of epilepsy began in the late'sixties. From that time on, not only the connotation of epilepsy was altered, but, above all, the presentation of the patient, who hencefort h, according to the changing processes of society was shown as a self-aware and active shaper of his life. Thus it is precisely the development during the last fifteen years, in which numerous sensitive motion pictures have t ackled the inner perspective of the patient, movies having not only ceased to pass on the established myths, but become promoters of new attitudes tow ard disease. With this type of representation of disease and patient, due t o its direct and broad effect, motion pictures can spread new realities in a manner hardly possible for other media.