The Soloist Essay

500 Words2 Pages
The movie titled “The Soloist “ was a portrayal of a man called Nathanial Ayers and this film is based on his life. The events that took place once a man called Steve Lopez forever discovered him changed his world. The story told is a true story and the portrayal of Nathanial is from a clinical standpoint is very accurate in its depiction of a person who suffers from schizophrenia. Steve Lopez is a writer for the L.A. Times and saw Nathanial playing a violin with only two strings and making beautiful music with a broken down instrument and it impressed him as well as gave him some well-needed fodder for his next story, at the time Steve needed a good story. Steve spoke with Nathanial and it was immediately apparent there was some mental health concerns. His appearance was bizarre; he decorated his clothing and personal effects with oddly colored and brightly painted designs. His speech was disorganized and rambling, he was unable at times to focus on the topic of discussion at all. Other times he seemed more lucid and almost “normal” but these moments were fleeting and inconsistent. Yet the moment he began to play his music he became the proverbial butterfly breaking free from his cocoon. The passion and precision displayed by Nathanial were more than just a story after Steve got to watch him play. Nathanial became a sort of personal crusade to Steve and after he wrote an article about him a woman donated a cello, which as it turns out was the true instrument of choice for Nathanial. He allowed Nathanial to store the cello at the local mental health center called LAMB which is a dual diagnosis center in L.A. Steve is told by Nathanial that he was a student at Julliard and Steve does a background check and finds out that he was a student for two years but dropped out after two years. Lopez gets more information from Nathanial’s family and he finds out that he
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