DiCaprio to Play Billy Milligan

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DiCaprio to Play Billy Milligan

Postby Project Willow » Fri Apr 24, 2015 9:29 pm

Hmm, do they have the guts to explore the story any further?

Brian Moss on Billy Milligan... http://bornepress.com/disinformation-and-did-the-politics-of-memory/

Of late there is an increasing privatization of what have traditionally been military and governmental services. These groups are without oversight and completely unaccountable to any democratic structures – covert activities are more easily compartmentalized and denied. Mind control, medical experimentation, and military/intelligence training with predominantly fascist ideologies all flourish in these contexts.67 68 With DID – of obvious value is the ability to exert hidden control throughout society by placing people in key political, law enforcement, legal/judicial, and media positions.69 One example will suffice: a description of the alter named Ragen from the book The Minds of Billy Milligan70 published in 1981:

    Ragen, age 23, is the ‘keeper of hate.’ His name is derived from “rage-again.” He identifies as Yugoslavian and speaks English with a noticeable Slavic accent. He also reads, writes, and speaks Serbo-Croatian. A weapons and munitions authority as well as a martial arts expert, he displays extraordinary strength stemming from his ability to control his adrenaline flow. [Another alter named Arthur reads and writes fluent Arabic.]

Not exactly the skill-sets one would expect as a random response to childhood trauma are they? And you would have to wonder what kind of an agenda a therapist would bring to create Ragen iatrogenically. Billy Milligan’s DID was a structured, clinically created system designed to produce a covert soldier. He was also trained to function in the Middle East, hence the fluent Arabic.




Leonardo DiCaprio's "Passion Project": Inside the Actor's Nearly 20-Year Quest to Play a Man With Multiple Personality Disorder

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/leonardo-dicaprios-passion-project-inside-780385


http://www.10tv.com/content/stories/2015/03/09/columbus-ohio-sister-of-billy-milligan-speaks-out-on-upcoming-biopic-starring-leonardo-dicaprio.html

Billy Milligan’s story was destined for the silver screen.

His sister Kathy Preston disagrees. “I didn't think anybody would hold interest over all of these years.” She says if Hollywood is going to tell her brother's story, she hopes the film sends a message about the severe child abuse she says he suffered as a boy and not portrayed as an adventure movie.

“I don't want that; it's not fantasy. This is a horrible reality in our lives.”


Right on, sis.

Billy Milligan passed away in 2014. This would be an opportunity for Hollywood to delve into the shadowy arena of US sponsored torture-based mind control, but it would be a miracle if they ever went there. Ego driven Oscar and profit hunting is guaranteed to prevail over social justice every day.
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Re: DiCaprio to Play Billy Milligan

Postby Nordic » Sat Apr 25, 2015 12:20 am

Wow, this is interesting. I know Cameron was interested in this back in the 90's and was threatening to make it. This will be up to DiCaprio as to how far it goes. Hopefully he'll want to push it very far. One can hope.
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Re: DiCaprio to Play Billy Milligan

Postby Nordic » Sat Apr 25, 2015 12:32 am

And Willow, that bournepress entry is a doozy! Bookmarked so I can closely read through it later.
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Re: DiCaprio to Play Billy Milligan

Postby brekin » Sat Apr 25, 2015 1:00 am

I read the The Minds of Billy Milligan awhile back. Probably because the Flowers for Algeron writer wrote it. While the book was pretty fawning I thought it pretty transparent that Billy was probably just your garden variety serial rapist who was clever enough to create a convincing act. His psychology library in his room at the mental hospital supposedly rivaled the psychiatrists who worked there. He actually had been a consultant for Hollywood people seeking to portray people suffering from multiple personality disorder even before he was released and went west to seek his fortune in Hollywood. I think it says a lot about Caprio (Catch Me If You Can, Shutter Island, The Wolf of Wall Street, etc) that this is his passion project.
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Re: DiCaprio to Play Billy Milligan

Postby brekin » Mon Feb 13, 2017 1:41 pm

Saw this over the weekend. MacAvoy really delivers.
Movie is very disturbing due to the subject matter and some of the themes (alluded to and shown) some necessary, some totally unnecessary.
Basically Billy Milligan's story seemed to be Shyamalined to fit into his oeuvre-universe. Wonder if it was tweaked enough to not be identifiable enough? Or the rights were sold to Shyamalan? If you can get past/over the pretty obvious "abuse creates ubermensch powers" narrative MacAvoy is very believable and compelling. Also, being slightly super hero-y in the Unbreakable universe I think gave them some creative freedom and license from the identifiable subject matter.

If I knew all mysteries and all knowledge, and have not charity, I am nothing. St. Paul
I hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind. Eric Hoffer
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Re: DiCaprio to Play Billy Milligan

Postby Project Willow » Mon Feb 13, 2017 3:39 pm

Lots of people in the DID community are upset with the movie and have written letters and started petitions. I haven't, and won't see the film, so I can't comment on it specifically.

This "abuse creates ubermensch powers" is everywhere of late. I'm still waiting for my super powers to kick in. I know I have my dark sections and parts, I'd like to see more honest approaches or treatments of that phenomenon, both fictional and non. It's extraordinarily difficult because there are very strict rules about how to present to society as a victim in order to prompt cultural and institutional improvements. The writer below is conforming to them.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/open-letter-m-night-shyamalan-split-perpetuates-stereotypes-people-dissociative-identity-disord

Hollywood filmmakers have to stop portraying people with multiple personalities as dangerous freaks.

Dr. Michelle Stevens is the author of the upcoming book, Scared Selfless: My Journey from Abuse and Madness to Surviving and Thriving. She is the founder and executive director of Post-Traumatic Success, a nonprofit organization that provides education and inspiration to those affected by psychological trauma.

Dr. M. Night Shyamalan,

According to the box-office results, congratulations are in order. It seems your new movie, Split, is doing gangbusters. That means millions of people all over the world have seen or will soon see your story about a man who is suffering from dissociative identity disorder.

Personally, I think that’s a shame.

For as much as I’m rooting for you as an artist, Mr. Shyamalan, I’m angered that you chose to climb to success on the overburdened backs of the mentally ill.

I’m sure you beg to differ. After all, Split — a psychological thriller about a sociopath with multiple personalities — follows a long tradition of films like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Psycho, Dressed to Kill, Raising Cain, Primal Fear, Fight Club and Mr. Brooks. In fact, murderous multiples have become so ubiquitous in Hollywood that they are practically their own genre.

But just because other filmmakers have callously chosen to portray people with multiple personalities as dangerous freaks doesn’t let you off the hook. For the record, dissociative identity disorder is a real mental illness that affects millions of real people, including me.

As a person who suffers from multiple personalities, as well as a psychologist with an expertise in the subject, I feel it is my duty to school you in a few facts: People who suffer from dissociative identity disorder are not, generally speaking, creepy or deceptive; we don’t lurk in dark alleys. We aren’t kidnappers who lock teenage girls in basements, and we certainly aren’t murderers. Instead, we are husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, friends and neighbors who silently suffer from a painful, scary, often debilitating condition in which our sense of who we are feels divided into fragmented parts. Our condition is caused by a history of severe and repeated child abuse. In truth, we are victims of unimaginable violence. Multiple personalities, as well as the depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and suicidality that most of us suffer, are all just symptoms of miserable childhoods.

When you and others in Hollywood make a mockery of our disorder, it’s no different than the schoolyard bully who taunts a disabled kid. Would you make a movie about a person with Down syndrome who has sick sexual fantasies? Would you pen a script about a knife-wielding killer with autism?

Of course not. It’s distasteful.

So why is OK to deride my mental illness?

With the release of your highly objectionable movie, you have become my bully, Mr. Shyamalan. I am personally harmed by the grotesque stereotypes you perpetuate in Split. Your derivative depiction of Kevin Crumb as one more gender-confused, cross-dressing multiple with a penchant for violence has the same effect as shouting across the playground, “People with dissociative identity disorder are dangerous nut jobs!”

I have lived for years with the stigma created by movies such as yours. Despite being a successful doctor who runs a charity for adult survivors of child abuse, I live with constant anxiety that people will learn of my diagnosis. For no matter how long I’ve known someone or how highly they think of me, once they know I’m a multiple, the reaction is always the same:

First, the person’s eyes widen. A countenance of disbelief crosses their face, followed by horror. Their pupils dart about as they start to silently reassess every interaction we’ve ever had. In an instant, I am transformed in their minds from a respected psychologist, wife and mother into a monster — a monster created entirely by you and the others of your Hollywood ilk.

I’m not a monster, Mr. Shyamalan. On the contrary, I’d say I’m a pretty ordinary person with a stable, loving family life who has dedicated her career to helping other people. Like millions of others, I suffer from mental illness.

In the future, I’d appreciate it if you stopped using our pain and suffering as fodder for your entertainment.
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Re: DiCaprio to Play Billy Milligan

Postby Luther Blissett » Mon Feb 13, 2017 3:42 pm

Just make up a superpower, at this point people are liable to believe you.

Also reading the Borne piece.
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Re: DiCaprio to Play Billy Milligan

Postby Iamwhomiam » Mon Feb 13, 2017 4:47 pm

Thank you for bringing this to our attention, Willow. While hoping for Hollywood to do justice with DiCaprio's portrayal of Milligan, perhaps delving into how he became proficient in a few languages, I wonder if they'll go with "he faked it." Shyamalan deserves the negative criticism for furthering Hollywood's sensationalizing of DID with his rather vulgar violent rendition.

The other day I watched a very strange and disturbing flick that was focused upon the extreme isolation and abuse of a young woman/teen. She escaped, but really, what a fucked up plot. Beyond the Black Rainbow. Extremely disturbing - be warned.
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Re: DiCaprio to Play Billy Milligan

Postby brekin » Tue Feb 14, 2017 2:20 pm

Seemingly reliable statement by Milligan before he died.

A Statement from Billy Milligan
"To the psychiatric community, MPD/DID is a marketable commodity."

In December 1997, Danny DeVito arranged with Todd Graff to write a screenplay for a film called The Crowded Room, based on the life of Billy Milligan and reportedly starring Leonardo DiCaprio. As Billy Milligan did train DiCaprio among others in the proper enactment of classical, Wilburian multiple-personality behavior (as he describes below) the idea that DiCaprio might play Billy is not as farfetched as it first appeared to us. This is the latest information we have on Billy Milligan at this time. Daniel Keyes has some more up-to-date information on Billy Milligan. You can buy "The Minds of Billy Milligan" Right Now through amazon.com
Billy Milligan gave this statement in a telephone interview with Astraea household in the fall of 1996. We have not heard from him since then, and invite him to contact us for updates any time. Here is what he said:

*** I just did a thing for the Japanese and I read something and I can't remember, but I probably ordered one of my guides to put it on the net. We have a super computer. We flag important things, such as "MPD, DID," we flag "government agencies," and that's how I found your booklist.

Nippon Television considered me one of the most informed experts because I've lived with MP with 40 years; also the doctor who did the biofeedback tests; Dr. Tomin, she's in Los Angeles somewhere. She and her husband developed a machine that is the most amazing mind reader you've ever seen.
Basically I've been approached. But I don't do talk shows, I've been asked to be on Donahue and everything else. My books are "Minds of Billy Milligan" and "The Milligan Wars." This was published in Japan. Both sold 3 million copies each.
This was twenty years ago for me. This is, I see this crap come on tv all the time. These doctors are making it happen, or creating these people. I'm not saying I was anything special, but there's millions less people than we are told. There's probably two or three hundred in the whole US. I see these people switch back and forth on TV like there's nothing to it. And that just isn't possible. Why would anyone want to go on TV and lose control?

I've read all these books, and doctors saying they're treating hundreds of MP cases, and they're MAKING them, because they don't have anything else to do with their time, and you know psychiatrists have the highest suicide rate among professionals.
Imagine yourself standing in front of a sink. You're getting a glass of water. And the whole world around you instantaneously changes, and now you're in a park acting like you're getting a glass of water. Out of thin air. And you just lost that time. That's what it's really like. And basically to me, I'm sick and tired of the phonies, the freak shows and the phonies, because what they're doing is not only damaging the people that they're making role play these games, they're damaging the people who are desperate for help.
That is what I will go on. That's what I told the Japanese. 30 million people watch Sunday Plus 30 and I've been getting an enormous response.

I haven't published "The Milligan Wars" in the US because I'm being sued over the information that is in it. The state of Ohio Dept. of Mental Health makes too much money over MP. I've caught them, graft, everything. They're taking DID patients and give them shock treatment and everything, and they get paid for that.
When I downloaded the Ohio State Dept. of Mental Health computers, and checked their personnel and hospital records, and forensic center records, I'd find things like that they charged $11.80 for a hard boiled egg and cup of milk.
In my book, 90% of all psychiatrists are phoneys. They're just snake oil salesmen. They just bill Medicare and Medicaid an enormous amount of money and then talk you into coming in and crying on their shoulder. And then drug you up.
I'm trying to make a film based on The Milligan Wars. Minds of Billy Milligan explained what it was. The Milligan Wars is the fighting of these doctors over the situation. They'll keep you as long as they can. They convince your children that they have it.

To the psychiatric community, MPD/DID is a marketable commodity.
They've actually opened hospitals entirely devoted to it. They keep their game going until their insurance runs out. There's one called Del Almo, up here in Los Angeles, and it's one of the worst. I was in Del Almo myself for about a day and a half, until the federal marshals came and dragged me out.

My thing is educating people. I just did this thing for Nippon TV that if you want to you can contact 3.1 Productions in Hollywood, and Warner Brothers. Ask them "What's going on with the "Milligan Story," Because they've actually tried to quash this, because the doctors and hospitals don't want this shit out in the open, cause it'll ruin a lot of their freak shows. They didn't put it in the DSM-III until I came along, 20 years ago. Now, I'm being sued for trying to stop them. Everybody's suing everyone, trying to stop it, cause they don't want anyone stopping their freak show.
I've trained actors to play this role; Johnny Depp, Christian Slater, John Cusack, and Leonardo diCaprio, to enact MP as it really is and not as it is popularly seen. The people that go on those shows are merely conditioned actors. It's like Chris Sizemore. It's what she is now, is a trained actor. It's really depressing.
I own a production company now, called Stormy Life Productions. We're going to make a short film. We're more than willing to work with groups who want to put something up on the air. We're ready to go on television with facts and figures.

I actually talked to a young lady who recanted her statement. The social workers actually talked her into saying her father molested her. They took her out of her home. She went to school and talked another girl into saying the same thing, because they'll buy you jeans and sneakers and all kinds of stuff! And in six months she's really missing her family. Her father was in jail and everything, and then she came forward. This is what our psychiatric social workers and psychiatric community will actually do. They are dangerous to the mental health and well-being of our entire society.
Basically I hope that people who are humane and caring people will help us join this resistance. I want a movement started. I want the freak show stopped. It's doing more damage than it is good.

Billy Milligan
21 October 1996

---

This is the only other information we have on Bill Milligan's activities for the last several years. According to Bill's conversation with us, his household did NOT permanently integrate, as reported in this article. They are capable of integrating at will, but find this reduces their mental and physical capacities: "the whole is less than the sum of the parts."

Multiple-Personality Figure Allegedly Threatens Judge in San Diego
June 25, 1996

SAN DIEGO (AP) - An Ohio man found innocent of rape in 1978 after claiming he had multiple personalities has been jailed in California for allegedly threatening a judge.

Billy Milligan, who is awaiting a psychiatric evaluation, also has been found incompetent to manage his own affairs, The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch reported today.
Milligan, who moved to California from Columbus several years ago, was being held without bail in the federal Metropolitan Corrections Center on criminal contempt charges.
Milligan's court-appointed attorney, Gretchen von Helms, said Milligan allegedly referred to strapping explosives to his chest to get attention. He also allegedly talked about banging on a judge's door and robbing a bank, the newspaper said.
Ohio officials remain interested in Milligan because they want to tap into royalties from a book deal to help pay part of the $453,000 bill for his 11-year stay in state mental hospitals.
Ohio Attorney General Betty Montgomery, acting through special counsel Larry Branch, a San Diego attorney, is seeking $150,000 from the proceeds of foreign sales of "The Minds of Billy Milligan," a book Milligan wrote with Daniel Keyes. The book did not sell well in the United States but did well in Japan, The Dispatch said.

A movie about Milligan's case also is in the works.
Once Ohio officials tried to claim his assets, his troubles returned, Milligan told The San Diego Union-Tribune.
"Everybody's gotten a piece of me, but I didn't get anything," Milligan told the newspaper. "Now they're all trying to make me sick again so they can take away my money."
Milligan was found innocent by reason of insanity on charges that he kidnapped, raped and robbed three women in the Ohio State University area.
He was released in 1988 after spending a decade in mental hospitals. Psychiatrists said Milligan's 24 personalities had merged into one and that he no longer posed a threat to himself or the community.
The state says Milligan owes $303,000 for hospital stays and $150,000 in interest on the debt, bringing the total to $453,000. He has paid $9,000 of that amount.

http://www.astraeasweb.net/plural/milligan.html
If I knew all mysteries and all knowledge, and have not charity, I am nothing. St. Paul
I hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind. Eric Hoffer
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