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gerbillo
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24 May 2021, 6:50 am

because when we talk about autism we always refer to rain man? it is true the character was autistic but also (idiot) savant. this is important because autistic people are not savants, just someone.
perhaps this has given rise to the legend that all drivers are geniuses. the rain man character is an autistic of what level? I mean it's not asperger's...



The_Znof
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24 May 2021, 7:14 am

I don’t know about Dustin Hoffman, but the man his character was based on is not autistic, but has brain damage or a birth defect that strangely results in a photographic memory.

Not sure if I got that 100% right, but it should be closer to it than the movie



naturalplastic
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24 May 2021, 7:32 am

There was a real guy that the movie was based. He was not autistic, but was brain damaged. As they filmed the movie they tweeked the character, and had him be autistic, but a savant in numbers and arithmatic.


Back in the Seventies/Eighties when the movie was made there was no such diagnosis as "Aspergers" in the US, nor in any country outside of Austria and Germany. And autism was not yet thought of as a "spectrum" even in the US. Autism was discovered in the Fifties by the American Dr. Kanner, and was reserved only for the VERY autistic. It was not until 1994 when they expanded autism to include a range of people, and when they recognized aspergers as a diagnosis (and stuck it into the now enlarged autism category) that folks less manifestly strange than the Rain Man could be diagnosed as being "on the spectrum of autism". Before that you were severe, or nothing.

Anyone, real or fictional, who was label as autistic prior to the mid Nineties would be roughly equivalent to what we know call "low functioning", or to "level three autistic".

Since Dustin Hoffman's character was in circa 1980 you can assume that he would be what we now call "low functioning".

Many (am not gonna say "all") idiot savants tend to be autistic. But not all autistic (low, hi, or middle functioning) are savants. But even ones who are not often have special interests. A young lady once described me as being "like an idiot savant"- which I took as neither an insult nor a compliment because it was actually a fair description- So even though very few of us on the spectrum are actual "idiot savants" its not a bad metaphor for many of us .


But I digress.

Now that we are in the 21st century -and have the concept of a spectrum- the two go-to characters in media that folks think of are the Rain Man (for low functioing autism), and Sheldon Leonard of the BigBangTheory(for aspergers,
and HFA). You might like it or not, but those are the two.



Last edited by naturalplastic on 24 May 2021, 7:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

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24 May 2021, 7:35 am

The inspiration for the Raymond Babbitt character was Kim Peek - see (in Italian) https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Peek
(English: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Peek)


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kraftiekortie
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24 May 2021, 8:05 am

Kim Peek, it turned out, was not autistic at all. He either had a missing corpus callosum, or most of it was missing. He exhibited autistic-like behaviors---but, apparently, developed a "social conscience" later in life.

He had a photographic memory in the extreme; yet he couldn't dress himself. His father took care of him all his life.

Autism was explicitly written about circa 1942-1943 by Leo Kanner. At almost exactly the same time, "autistic psychopathy" was written about by Hans Asperger. Most of the subjects of both their research studies were children.



kraftiekortie
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24 May 2021, 8:50 am

As for the driving, I believe Raymond was told he was an "excellent driver" once----when he was a kid and he briefly took control of a car being driven by an adult.

When he actually did try to drive a car, he didn't do too well. he did as well as I did when I started taking driving lessons.



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24 May 2021, 10:28 am

Found this link, he didn’t have autism but poor connectivity between both parts of his brain.

I suppose they didn’t know much about autism in the 80’s so just thought it easier to give him that diagnosis that still haunts us today when we tell people and they say you don’t act like rain man LOL

https://www.aruma.com.au/about-us/blog/ ... -kim-peek/


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24 May 2021, 10:32 am

So, did they basically give him Sheldon Cooper syndrome? (Which is to say the package of traits Hollywood assigns to savant-like characters regardless of what the underlying condition is or is intended to be?)


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kraftiekortie
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24 May 2021, 10:35 am

Kim Peek and Raymond Babbitt are portrayed nothing like Sheldon Cooper.

Rain Man was a stereotypical "high-functioning" autistic person of the 1980s.

Sheldon Cooper is a stereotypical "Aspie" of the 2000s to the present.



funeralxempire
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24 May 2021, 10:44 am

kraftiekortie wrote:
Kim Peek and Raymond Babbitt are portrayed nothing like Sheldon Cooper.

Rain Man was a stereotypical "high-functioning" autistic person of the 1980s.

Sheldon Cooper is a stereotypical "Aspie" of the 2000s to the present.


Obviously they're different roles in different genres separated by decades.

What I mean is that when Hollywood depicts developmental issues, mental health issues and a host of other concerns it usually reduces them down to an over-simplified version that doesn't really reflect what the condition is.

For ASD (and other conditions that sometimes are associated with savant tendencies) it usually means writing the roles like they're children except for when it relates to whatever their skill is.


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kraftiekortie
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24 May 2021, 10:49 am

Yep....of course this is true.



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24 May 2021, 10:50 am

As I remember, the story is a bit more complex. While the Hoffman studied Peek for the character, the author did base the initial story on an autistic man. You can read more in Neurotribes by Steve Silberman.



The_Znof
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24 May 2021, 9:20 pm

His IQ was in the eighties. I wonder if the strong memory somehow tanked his IQ



Im literally an ret*d but not 100%

Image



Last edited by The_Znof on 24 May 2021, 9:34 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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24 May 2021, 9:26 pm

Rain Man, the Movie / Rain Man, Real Life by Darold Treffert MD

Quote:
Raymond Babbitt, the main character in the movie Rain Man, has become the world’s best known savant due to Dustin Hoffman’s remarkably accurate and sensitive portrayal of Savant Syndrome in that film. That 1988 movie, in its first 101 days, accomplished more toward bringing Savant Syndrome to public awareness than all the efforts combined of all those interested in this condition the past 101 years following Dr. Down’s 1887 description of this disorder. It is a memorable movie about a memorable savant. It won four Academy awards, including Best Actor for Dustin Hoffman and Best Picture for 1988. I was pleased to have been a consultant to that film. Because that film has served as the introduction for so many persons to savants, it is worth looking at some of the effort and activity that led to its creation, its authenticity and its success.

he first version of Rain Man was written by Barry Morrow, who had earlier written the original story for the award-winning TV movie Bill, in which Mickey Rooney played a mentally ret*d person. The Rain Man script was inspired by another mentally handicapped young man —Kim Peek — whom Morrow had come to know in Salt Lake City, and who had striking savant skills as described elsewhere on this website. Morrow sent the story on to Hollywood. When the script ultimately reached Dustin Hoffmann’s agent, he sent it to Hoffman with the idea that Hoffman play the part of the younger brother, Charlie Babbitt. But Dustin Hoffman had seen the 60 Minutes piece on Leslie Lemke done in October 1983 and was very moved by it — “moved to tears,” he stated, in fact. He wanted to play the part of the savant, not the brother. Tom Cruise was cast as the savant’s younger brother. It turned out to be a splendid bit of casting.

It was this October 25, 1986, draft of Rain Man, which was the initial one sent to me for my reaction and comment because of my interest and involvement with Savant Syndrome. The producer was interested then, and remained so throughout the movie’s production, that the story remain accurate, authentic and credible. In that the studio succeeded.

That October 1986 version of the script was very different from the finished product. First of all, that early version had Raymond Babbitt’s mental handicap as mental deficiency rather than autism. A variety of persons, especially Dustin Hoffman, felt that the portrayal of an autistic person, with all the typical associated rituals, obsessiveness, resistance to change and relatively affectionless behaviors might make a more interesting character for Raymond Babbitt, one the public had never really been exposed to on screen. Also, autism would create an opportunity for a more complex interaction between the two brothers. That, of course, was a crucial and significant change and as it turned out, a very successful one. However it required a major rewrite of the script changing from the real-life savant model, Kim, whom Morrow had written about to a new, composite character. The savant skills remained but the basic disability was an entirely different one, now autism, with all of its distinctive, difficult and demanding characteristics and features.

A second crucial change was in restoring and maintaining an authenticity and believability of the story line. That 1986 script was, to me, much more of what I had feared Hollywood might do in attempting to portray savant syndrome — embellish and exaggerate to a point of unbelievability. Savant syndrome is spectacular in its own right; it does not need to be embellished. But that first script had in it more typical Hollywood scenes — Mafia mobsters, narrow escapes and a chase scene in which Charlie and Raymond roar out of a burning barn on a motorcycle and sidecar fashioned by using some of Raymond’s savant mechanical skills. Scenes such as that fortunately gave way to more credible episodes in the final script.

During all of those months of delay, Dustin Hoffman was carefully doing his homework for the part he very much wanted to do. He watched hours of tapes and movies of savants, both autistic and ret*d. He studied scientific papers and manuscripts, talked to various professionals, visited psychiatric facilities and spent time with savants and their families to experience those relationships firsthand. There were three individuals Dustin Hoffman met and studied in-depth. One was Kim Peek (described elsewhere on this website). Another was an autistic savant and his brother (just as in the movie) who prefer to remain anonymous. He spent a great deal of time with them in their typical family activities.

The other autistic savant Dustin Hoffman got to know well was Joseph Sullivan, who lives in Huntington, West Virginia along with his parents, Drs. Ruth and William Sullivan. There had been two excellent documentaries filmed about Joseph, a 1967 film called The Invisible Wall and a 1986 film entitled Portrait of an Autistic Young Man. Both were projects of the UCLA Behavioral Sciences Media Laboratory. Dustin Hoffman carefully studied not only the films themselves, but also some 16 hours of outtakes from the 1986 production. Therein he was able to get a very in-depth look at a most impressive young man and his family.

Joseph is fascinated by, and extremely facile with, numbers. Like other mathematical savants, numbers are his friends. He can do mathematical equations in his head quickly and accurately. When appearing on the Oprah Winfrey show in January 1989, for example, it took him only seconds to multiply, in his head, and give the correct answer to the problem 41 x 385 = 15,785. A second test was even more striking as he gave correctly in 15 seconds, without paper and pencil, the answer to this problem: 341 x 927 = 316,107. He is fascinated with license plate numbers and remembers myriads of them only glimpsed at years earlier. He has perfect pitch and, like all savants, a phenomenal memory. The strength of that memory was demonstrated recently when Joseph was given a 36-number grid to study for two minutes; he was able to then recall all 36 numbers correctly exactly as they appeared in that grid in 43 seconds.

Joseph has many of the obsessive, ritualistic behaviors seen in autistic persons, and indeed, seen in Raymond Babbitt. Hoffman borrowed one of Joseph’s rituals, in fact, for Rain Man, that of eating cheese balls with a toothpick. Another scene, a tantrum when the smoke alarm goes off, was patterned after Joseph’s real-life action once to a fire in a wastebasket. The phone number memorization scene is similar to Joseph’s reading and memorization of encyclopedias. Joseph will often incorporate into his stream of language his favorite license plate number – DT 52 52 – or become preoccupied with the sound of certain letters and repeat words with those letters over and over like the sound of “s” in the word “association.” These verbalizations often are linked to some kind of characteristic head movements or other repetitive bits of language or sounds. He loves numbers and he loves sounds.

Joseph was the fifth of seven children born to Drs. Ruth and William Sullivan. Mrs. Sullivan describes Joseph as a very bright infant; at age 18 months he was able to put together a picture puzzle of the United States. At age 4 he would draw maps of entire continents with all the countries and all their capitals correctly spelled including complicated words such as Czechoslovakia. At age 2 the diagnosis of autism was made. The picture that has emerged since has been consistent with the diagnosis of a high-functioning autistic person with the classic obsessive-compulsive rituals, normal language interspersed with idiosyncratic speech, unusual preoccupations and some very prominent disabilities juxtaposed with some also very prominent and unusual special abilities. Joseph can startle one with his mathematical prowess, for example, but it took him two years to learn to ride a bus in his city of 63,000. He works presently at the county public library reshelving books and spends his free time listening to records, watching movies and painting detailed pictures of dead-end streets. He is preoccupied with dead-end streets.

Joseph has a job because of his mother’s efforts to set up a system of services not only for her son, but for many others like him, through the Autism Services Center she has established in Huntington, West Virginia. After the diagnosis of autism was made, Mrs. Sullivan set about learning all she could about the disorder. But her efforts went well beyond her own quest for reliable information and enlightenment; she devoted her life and career to providing such information to other families in her state and throughout the country via her agency and now the national autism associations.

Dustin Hoffman actually met Joseph in Cincinnati while filming Rain Man, but he felt that he knew him well by that time having studied, and studied again, the films of this remarkable young man. Dustin Hoffman also attended a special pre-premiere of Rain Man in Huntington on December 10, 1988, just before its official premiere in New York City on December 12. At that event Dustin Hoffman stated, “We just made a film that will play for a month or two, or whatever, in cities around the world, and be put out on cassette and put on shelves and seen once. But you people have Joe in your community for the rest of your life, and I would take that any day of the week. I think that’s important. He is a very special person who shines through. This magic he has somehow came through to me. When I first looked at that footage I said, ‘I love that man.’ And I love you for making him a part of your community.” Before the screening he stated, “I tried very hard to be myself in this film. But I hope what emerged was Joe’s spirit, because that’s what moved me.”

In his remarkable portrayal of an autistic savant, Dustin Hoffman is careful to point out that while he studied these savants in-depth and got to know them well, he did not seek to imitate them. He used his knowledge about them only to teach him how he might be if he were autistic. He did not seek to mimic Joseph Sullivan; he learned only what it would be like to be autistic and sought to portray that.

He learned his lesson magnificently.

Rain Man is a movie about two conditions — autism and Savant Syndrome. Not all autistic persons are savants, in fact only one in 10 autistic persons have any savant abilities, let alone the prodigious skills of Raymond Babbitt. Dustin Hoffman had two excellent models for autism in Joseph Sullivan and the other two brothers whom he so carefully studied. From that study comes the remarkable replication of the obsession for sameness, the odd and stereotyped mannerisms, the avoidance of affection, unique use of language, and the repetition and clinging to ritual. They provide all the modeling necessary for the autism part of Raymond Babbitt.

But the movie is about Savant Syndrome as well, which exists along with the autism but not as an intrinsic part of the autism itself.


In the movie the term "high functioning" was used because based on what was understood in 1988 the "Rain Man" character was "high functioning".

In the decades since the "rain man" stereotype has become a burden to autistic people. Either because people upon meeting autistics assume they will be like Rain Man or since they are not like Rain Man they assume they can't possibly be autistic. Because of the continuing burden of the stereotype, the fact that Kim Peek was not Autistic has been used to be dismissive of the whole enterprise. This is wrong. The character was not created to be laughed at but emphasized with. It was the first time most people had seen an adult autistic and an autistic that was not completely dysfunctional. In its wake, the original neurodiversity advocates such as Jim Sinclair and the late Donna Williams found an audience of parents curious as to what their kids might be like when they grew up. Despite all the controversies later it was the Aspergers diagnosis that allowed the spectrum to be understood enough for most of the members here to know they are autistic. I find it hard to envision that diagnosis getting into the DSM without all the hubbub surrounding 'Rain Man' released a few years earlier.

Yeah, Kim Peek was not autistic but if 'Rain Man' presented to an up to date knowledgeable clinician today how many of you have any doubts he would be diagnosed with ASD?

The harmful stereotype is the fault of all the people who have not moved beyond the character, not the team that created the movie. That does not change what the film was and is an important part of the history of autism deserving of all the accolades it received, still.


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24 May 2021, 9:43 pm

ASPartOfMe wrote:
A variety of persons, especially Dustin Hoffman, felt that the portrayal of an autistic person, with all the typical associated rituals, obsessiveness, resistance to change and relatively affectionless behaviors might make a more interesting character for Raymond Babbitt, one the public had never really been exposed to on screen. Also, autism would create an opportunity for a more complex interaction between the two brothers. That, of course, was a crucial and significant change and as it turned out, a very successful one. However it required a major rewrite of the script changing from the real-life savant model, Kim, whom Morrow had written about to a new, composite character. The savant skills remained but the basic disability was an entirely different one, now autism, with all of its distinctive, difficult and demanding characteristics and features.

.


they did well in that part, cept in real life the Tom Cruise character does not have a change of heart and goes on for all eternity as an outrageous dick.



gerbillo
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25 May 2021, 10:21 am

excuse me how do I respond to a certain post here in this discussion? i can't find the reply button under the various answers