Re: A Boring Movie

From: Patrick Wilken (patrickw@klab.caltech.edu)
Date: Thu Jan 10 2002 - 19:04:42 MST


> > To each their own but I thought it was one of the best movies of the year,
>> several years in fact. Of course if somebody wrote a fictional story about
>> a young man doing brilliant work in mathematics then developing severe
>> schizophrenia and then becoming a campus joke as he wandered around
>> Princeton for 35 years making wild gestures and talking to himself and then
>> getting better and then winning the Nobel Prize, I'd say it was
>>pap too; however
>> in this case it really happened. Truth really is stranger than
>>fiction. Best acting
>> I've ever seen too.
>>
> > John K Clark jonkc@att.net

I am sorry, but I agree with the others who disliked the film. Why
does Hollywood have to sanitize people's lives? Nash has lived a
brilliant and gritty life. I really do object to Ron Howard deciding
to remove his bisexuality, his illegitimate child, his violent
outbursts, his wife divorcing him... And where was the science?

What right has Hollywood to dramatically re-write a Nobel Prize
winner's life so that it appeals better to those in the midwest?
Scientists are not like the pale character that was portrayed in this
film. We eat, shit and fuck. The subject of the story is a genius
bisexual mathematician who had schizophrenia and made huge
contributions to economics and other disciplines. Why take out all
the pepper and grit? The guy wasn't bambi. But Nash (not the
character portrayed in the film) had an interesting life and it was
worth telling.

ciao, p.

-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Patrick Wilken  
Postdoctoral Fellow in Biology, Caltech
                                
Editor:        PSYCHE: An International Journal of Research on Consciousness
Board Member:      The Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness
http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/                     http://assc.caltech.edu/


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