Why do movies always portray insane asylums with slanted floors and walls?

Did they actually used to be like this? And if so, why? I've seen this in so many movies and even some video game cutscenes. If anyone doesn't know what I'm talking about, the scene I've posted below is a perfect example (skip to 0:48).

They just put you in the holding tank for a couple of weeks and then dump you back on the street in this neck of the woods.
You're luck if you get your shoes back.

originally posted by: skunkape23
They just put you in the holding tank for a couple of weeks and then dump you back on the street in this neck of the woods.
You're luck if you get your shoes back.

Lol. I've been in an institution once (for a suicide attempt). The place they had me in was nothing like you see in movies or TV shows; it was more like a hotel. Not an unpleasant experience in the least, except for one morning when I was watching the news and some middle-aged fat guy sat on my lap.

A common Surreal Art motif. That scene there deliberately surrealist. Surreal art is the natural motif one would opt for with a nutter house, the mental aspects, not to mention the in an dark mad house portrayal how the darkness of the Great War had on humans is what birthed the proper Surreal Art Movement.

Probably as a visual aide for the viewer. The slanted walls and whatnot help portray a sense of instability and uneasiness. Those places can make you feel that way, so for those who have never been it can help to further express the uncomfortable sensations associated with being in the phunny pharm.

a reply to: Xaphan

Directors need to inspire certain feelings & plot points through each scene and they only have a short amount of time to do it. So they often use scenery, music, and other aspects that the viewer will automatically associate with the director's intentions.

For example, let's say an early scene is meant to establish that a main character is tough and feared by other tough guys in the streets. The director may place the scene in a stereotypical "tough guy" spot like an underground fighting or gambling spot, a street corner with stereotypically tough looking thugs, etc. And to show that the main character is feared by other tough guys, the scene may show him/her getting handshakes from other established tough characters, beating up random tough looking guys, or having other tough guys act visibly scared of crossing the main character. And of course, the music will be something heavy or "hard" to further get the point across. That's intended to convey to the viewer that "this main character is a legit tough guy".

Since most viewers have probably never been in an insane asylum, showing a real one might not inspire the intended emotions. And that's especially true if the scene is short, meaning that the visuals have to set the mood without enough dialogue to explain the situation. If viewers are shown a stereotypical facility with abstract designs & people in straight jackets with weird screaming/yelling in the background & doctors rushing to medicate their clients, viewers will probably conclude that "this place isn't right/this place is creepy/the people here are bad news". So the director got his/her point across.

It helps to remember that it's just story telling. Everything in a scene from the music to the setting to the camera angles to the costumes to the actors/actresses facial expressions are meant to get specific points across to the viewers. If a director is good enough, they can get their points across before if even gets to the dialogue (meaning that you should be able to watch a scene on mute and at least get an idea of what's going on in that scene).

So if you see the main characters talking to an unkempt looking prisoner who's visibly angry at them in a weird slanted building with padded walls and people in straight jackets, you'll probably conclude that they're trying to get information from a "crazy" person or former enemy/criminal in an insane asylum. And if the main characters are constantly looking shocked or in denial by what the former enemy is telling them, then it's probably got something to do with betrayals within the main characters' circle, a respected character being revealed to be in on something bad, etc.

Hope this helps and nope I'm not a director. lol ETA: Now that I think about it, I guess I am a director to some extent since I make videos as a hobby. I just don't consider myself one because I don't know the official lingo, never really studied it, and never really cared about it. But I do know that it's up to them to turn a bunch of words on paper (the script) into a visual experience that gets the script's points and nuances across. Meh.

a reply to: Xaphan

Honestly? Yes, and all hospitals are spherical, government buildings diamond shaped, they actually all create optical illsions on the exterior, so no one knows unless they've been inside. (sarcasm).

What IgnoranceIsntBliss said.

a reply to: Xaphan

You'd have to be mad, you know, to really appreciate how insane you have become.

Can I interest you in this fashionable canvas smoking jacket with sleeves that tie in the back? They are all the rage on the continent, you know.

Do you come here often?

I only come here during the mating season, of course.

You know, you dance divinely!

Only some do this, but I don't remember this to be so in Stonehurst Asylum, Shutter Island, One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest. Having said that, I think the director is trying to give the audience the feeling of warped psychosis to relate to how the patient may be perceiving life and their surroundings. It also adds to the strangeness factor for the viewer.

For the same reason asylums are portrayed like this, people in "horror" movies act always stupid and the same.
Like little teenage girls that are hunted by a lunatic serial killer, a killer that killed all of the girls friends. That´s why she is alone, in the middle of the night, in a cabin out in the woods. Only she and the killer!

Then she hears that sound from the way more unsafe outsides, the dark forest...

We all know how that ends, everytime, since decades!

Same reason they depict "crazy" people as nose pickers and jello sniffers. It's all bull#.

originally posted by: SpeakerofTruth
Same reason they depict "crazy" people as nose pickers and jello sniffers. It's all bull#.

I don't always have to pick my nose after, but I cannot resist sniffing the jello...

I guess It depends how much thorazine they let me have ...




Respectfully,
~meathead

a reply to: Mike Stivic

Lol