Leo, Marty, and Howard

I went to a special screening of Martin Scorcese’s new film, The Aviator, last night at the Egyptian theater on Holywood Boulevard. It’s a long, obsessive film—three hours—and covers the life of Howard Hughes from the early thirties to the late forties, including incidents of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) that plagued him massively in his later life. It was a benefit for the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute, organized by “Friends of NPI.” Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz, the research psychiatrist who wrote the book Brain Lock and who consulted with Scorcese and Leonardo DiCaprio (as Howard Hughes) about how to represent OCD on screen, was on the panel that kicked off the film.

I went to a special screening of Martin Scorcese’s new film, The Aviator, last night at the Egyptian theater on Holywood Boulevard. It’s a long, obsessive film—three hours—and covers the life of Howard Hughes from the early thirties to the late forties, including incidents of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) that plagued him massively in his later life. It was a benefit for the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute, organized by “Friends of NPI.” Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz, the research psychiatrist who wrote the book Brain Lock and who consulted with Scorcese and Leonardo DiCaprio (as Howard Hughes) about how to represent OCD on screen, was on the panel that kicked off the film.

Dr Jeffrey Schwartz

Dr. Schwartz, my shrink for a short while when my OCD symptoms were bad, participated in a panel discussion with the filmmakers and the head of the NPI, Dr. Whybrow. Through my contact with Schwartz, I was asked by people at Miramax to videotape certain segments of a documentary on OCD that will accompany the DVD release of the film next year. I’ve covered some of Dr. Schwartz’s patients as they enact and/or talk about their symptoms. I’ll even cover my own symptoms, though I’ve decided to be anonymous.

...from the video