Venturing inside Cameron's CROWDED ROOM

By: Patrick Sauriol
Date: Saturday, May 22, 2004
Source: Screenwriter's Voice

Before he began work on TITANIC, filmmaker James Cameron was interested in making a film tackling the subject of multiple personality disorder. Titled THE CROWDED ROOM, Cameron based his story on a real-life sufferer of MPD named Billy Milligan, a man who suffered with nearly 20 different "people" living in his head. Milligan's personal hell eventually escaped from outside the confines of his mind one day when he raped three college students. Preparing to go to trial, his defence team of lawyers chose to make a case for him being criminally insane as a result of suffering from MPD. This is where Cameron chose to center his story for THE CROWDED ROOM, his unproduced screenplay written before the success of A BEAUTIFUL MIND.

In reviewing Cameron's script, Screenwriter's Voice notes that such films as A BEAUTIFUL MIND and IDENTITY have diluted the subject matter with the public, so the story of Billy Milligan's condition in THE CROWDED ROOM probably has lessened the chances of the film ever being made. That's a shame according to Voice reviewer Justin Clark who feels Cameron's take on this malady surpasses the Oscar-winning Ron Howard film. "It lacks the overdone melodrama of A BEAUTIFUL MIND; it doesn't make crucial mistakes like the ending of IDENTITY; best of all, it doesn't pull any punches with its subject matter whatsoever," says Clark in his review. "Cameron never flinches, that all too familiar swagger is right there in its pages, and the story is told all the better for it."

For more on this lost project, read the review on Screenwriter's Voice.


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