What is the link between depression and artistic genius?
An Oscar-nominated documentary about emotionally tortured concert violinist Nadia Salerno-Sonnenberg, Speaking in Strings, “looks at her difficulties
sympathetically but in the process may have turned her into the next David Helfgott as far as the public is
concerned. That’s unfair to Salerno-Sonnenberg, who is vastly more talented and capable than Helfgott,
the pianist whose story was chronicled in the movie Shine, and who was then exploited by his wife and
managers in a concert tour for which he was not fit. But it does raise a question: Do depression and other
emotional problems have a particular connection with artistic creativity?”
