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cinemaKid
Joined: 22 Mar 2005
Posts: 1819
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quote:
Originally posted by ghostman:
Beautiful Mind is okay... I actually expected a science fiction film going into it. 
I was not impressed at all. The movie had so many problems, but here are some of them.
1. John Nash in the movie was not a believable mathematician.
2. John Nash's marriage life was much more complex. Alicia Nash was also not a plain traditional American girl; she was actually from Central America. Ron Howard can't just change things around.
3. You really have to wonder what the movie is really about in the end. It is about personal struggle? Is it about love and devotion? What is it about really?
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Thu Jun 08, 2006 2:17 am |
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cinemaKid
Joined: 22 Mar 2005
Posts: 1819
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quote:
Originally posted by ghostman:
So what you're telling me is that he had no gift for math at all? 
Yes, he was a very gifted mathematician; however, the way in which he was portrayed was that he was kind of like a lonely nerd, geek. I don't think that it's entirely false, but there is a pretty big difference between lonely nerd, geek and gifted world class mathematician.
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Thu Jun 08, 2006 2:41 am |
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cinemaKid
Joined: 22 Mar 2005
Posts: 1819
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quote:
Originally posted by ghostman:
It did appear simplified...
Here's some information ...
quote:
...
He met Eleanor Stier and they had a son, John David Stier, who was born on 19 June 1953. Eleanor was a shy girl, lacking confidence, a little afraid of men, did not want to be involved. She found in Nash someone who was even less experienced than she was and found that attractive.
...
(Where is Eleanor Stier???)
...
One of Nash's students at MIT, Alicia Larde, became friendly with him and by the summer of 1955 they were seeing each other regularly. He also had a special friendship with a male graduate student at this time: Jack Bricker. Eleanor found out about Alicia in the spring of 1956 when she came to Nash's house and found him in bed with Alicia. Nash said to a friend:
...
Alicia did not seem too upset at discovering that Nash had a child with Eleanor and deduced that since the affair had been going on for three years, Nash was probably not serious about her. In 1956 Nash's parents found out about his continuing affair with Eleanor and about his son John David Stier. The shock may have contributed to the death of Nash's father soon after, but even if it did not Nash may have blamed himself. In February of 1957 Nash married Alicia; by the autumn of 1958 she was pregnant but, a couple of months later near the end of 1958, Nash's mental state became very disturbed.
At a New Year's Party Nash appeared at midnight dressed only with a nappy and a sash with "1959" written on it. He spent most of the evening curled up, like the baby he was dressed as, on his wife's lap. Some described his behavior as stranger than usual. On 4 January he was back at the university and started to teach his game theory course. His opening comments to the class were:
...
Source
I only cite a part of
the source article
, but I think you get the point ...
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Thu Jun 08, 2006 2:47 am |
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cinemaKid
Joined: 22 Mar 2005
Posts: 1819
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quote:
Originally posted by ghostman:
Now that you mention it, I'm having trouble figuring it out. I thought the ending was a variation of the Dead Poet Society. The fountain pens were a symbolic translation to "Oh Captain, My Captain." Or so that's what I took from it.
The movie suddenly becomes a story of love and devotion in the end, but as you can see, the life story of John Nash wasn't exactly that. As a matter of fact, it was nowhere close. However, the movie take his story, heavily modifies it AND suddenly makes it into a story of love and devotion. I won't work ...
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Thu Jun 08, 2006 2:50 am |
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cinemaKid
Joined: 22 Mar 2005
Posts: 1819
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quote:
Originally posted by ghostman:
So I take it this film was more so a tribute to Nash, as it put him in a better light than he deserved. I also heard from somewhere that he was an extreme racist.
This, I don't know. I'll need to look into it.
quote:
Originally posted by ghostman:
Why, with such outlandish falsifications, do you think A Beautiful Mind earned Best Picture, Screenplay and Director?
I have no idea. From time to time do I feel that Academy is lazy and just doesn't do any fact checking or any mandatory research. Members even lack minimum research sometimes, IMO. Even if we assumed that "A Beautiful Mind" is a work of fiction, I just wouldn't think that the movie is that great.
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Thu Jun 08, 2006 3:06 am |
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ghostman
Joined: 18 May 2006
Posts: 482
Location: The area of your back you can't reach. |
quote:
Originally posted by cinemaKid:
quote:
Originally posted by ghostman:
So I take it this film was more so a tribute to Nash, as it put him in a better light than he deserved. I also heard from somewhere that he was an extreme racist.
This, I don't know. I'll need to look into it.
I found the following from
SOURCE
quote:
In this type of inspirational moviemaking, a conditional triumph is no triumph at all, and a complex or unlikable hero is unthinkable. Goldsman and Howard have expurgated everything about Nash's bisexuality and the fact that he fathered a child out of wedlock. His wife Alicia (Jennifer Connelly) stays faithfully by his side in the movie. We aren't told that, though Alicia did shelter him and though they are still together, she divorced him in 1963.
We aren't told that their son, also a gifted mathematician and also schizophrenic, has suffered as his father did, living a life often divided between rootless wandering and institutionalization. And there is nothing of Nash's plain unpleasantness:
his racism
, his snobbery, his history of violent behavior toward others. Of course, none of these things lessens Nash's accomplishment, diminishes the originality of his ideas or makes his emergence from mental illness any less remarkable. But, by omitting them, the moviemakers are signaling that think they do. And they're implicitly saying to the audience that we can't be addressed as grown-ups.
And for entertainment purposes, counterpoint from a reader.
SOURCE
quote:
I am aghast at your recent review of "A Beautiful Mind." I find it hard to fathom that your reviewer even saw the same movie I did. I attended one of the by-invitation-only premieres, and I left the theater convinced that I had seen the best movie of my lifetime.
[...]
Dr. Nash's bisexuality, racism and violent turns toward others also have no real reason to be in this script.
Would you have the already ignorant people of this world take it to mean his sexuality was a symptom of his mental illness? Or have others discount a man of genius because he was, at times in his life, a racist? And the movie does explore the inherent violence he was capable of. Perhaps your reviewer went out for popcorn at that point.
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Thu Jun 08, 2006 3:25 am |
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cinemaKid
Joined: 22 Mar 2005
Posts: 1819
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quote:
Originally posted by ghostman:
Dr. Nash's bisexuality, racism and violent turns toward others also have no real reason to be in this script.
Would you have the already ignorant people of this world take it to mean his sexuality was a symptom of his mental illness? Or have others discount a man of genius because he was, at times in his life, a racist? And the movie does explore the inherent violence he was capable of. Perhaps your reviewer went out for popcorn at that point.
I've got to disagree with this. The movie didn't exclude certain events, but they completely changed too many events. Yet the movie still claims that it's authentic and is based on a true story.
1. The movie is only loosely based on a true story.
1.2. The movie should have been released as a fiction because that's what it really is.
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Thu Jun 08, 2006 3:55 am |
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cinemaKid
Joined: 22 Mar 2005
Posts: 1819
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Here's another one:
quote:
...
Eleanor Stier, the abandoned woman, disagrees - as well she might - with the film that renders her invisible. The Nash she knew was, she says, "sort of mean". The "real" Nash, Drudge asserts, has been a racist, sexually deviant, snobbish love rat. Beautiful mind, lousy character.
None of the dark side of Nash appears in Ron Howard's film (nor, if it had, would Crowe's agent have let him play the part). Since Nash is still living, and sane enough to sue, it is risky to sling this kind of mud. Hence the Drudge ruse. Beautiful.
If one believes the biography by Sylvia Nasar on which the film is loosely based, it would seem that Drudge's allegations have some truth in them. During his 30-year immersion in paranoid schizophrenia, she says that Nash did indeed bombard Jewish colleagues (by whose brilliance he had always felt threatened) with letters addressing them as "Jewboys". He also believed that he was the Emperor of Antarctica, and on visiting terms with aliens. Pelicans and Tralfamadorians have no votes at the Motion Picture Academy. Many Jews do.
Nash was charged with public indecency (as was his fellow genius, Alan Turing, who was sentenced to the torture of chemical castration). Nash was, one deduces, bisexual (or unsure as to which way he swung) and - as he protested - "experimenting". He was, after all, a scientist. The love-child episode is apparently true, and reflects badly on him.
...
Source
I don't mean to offend old people, and let's be fair; it's not that difficult to find an inappropriate comment or three, related to race and ethnicity, made by any major figure in history if he's older than, say, uh, 60 years or so.
However, I do not necessarily come to conclude that John Nash is a bad person given evidences. I just think that ...
1. There is a pretty big disparity between John Nash in real life and John Nash in the movie.
1.2. A Beautiful Mind is more or less a fiction.
2. My take is that the movie actually destroys the essence of John Nash and his struggle by portraying him as a very normal innocent man who happens to suffer from schizophrenia.
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Thu Jun 08, 2006 4:13 am |
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ghostman
Joined: 18 May 2006
Posts: 482
Location: The area of your back you can't reach. |
quote:
Originally posted by cinemaKid:
Here's another one:
quote:
...
Eleanor Stier, the abandoned woman, disagrees - as well she might - with the film that renders her invisible. The Nash she knew was, she says, "sort of mean". The "real" Nash, Drudge asserts, has been a racist, sexually deviant, snobbish love rat. Beautiful mind, lousy character.
None of the dark side of Nash appears in Ron Howard's film (nor, if it had, would Crowe's agent have let him play the part). Since Nash is still living, and sane enough to sue, it is risky to sling this kind of mud. Hence the Drudge ruse. Beautiful.
If one believes the biography by Sylvia Nasar on which the film is loosely based, it would seem that Drudge's allegations have some truth in them. During his 30-year immersion in paranoid schizophrenia, she says that Nash did indeed bombard Jewish colleagues (by whose brilliance he had always felt threatened) with letters addressing them as "Jewboys". He also believed that he was the Emperor of Antarctica, and on visiting terms with aliens. Pelicans and Tralfamadorians have no votes at the Motion Picture Academy. Many Jews do.
Nash was charged with public indecency (as was his fellow genius, Alan Turing, who was sentenced to the torture of chemical castration). Nash was, one deduces, bisexual (or unsure as to which way he swung) and - as he protested - "experimenting". He was, after all, a scientist. The love-child episode is apparently true, and reflects badly on him.
...
Source
I don't mean to offend old people, and let's be fair; it's not that difficult to find an inappropriate comment or three, related to race and ethnicity, made by any major figure in history if he's older than, say, uh, 60 years or so.
However, I do not necessarily come to conclude that John Nash is a bad person given evidences. I just think that ...
1. There is a pretty big disparity between John Nash in real life and John Nash in the movie.
1.2. A Beautiful Mind is more or less a fiction.
2. My take is that the movie actually destroys the essence of John Nash and his struggle by portraying him as a very normal innocent man who happens to suffer from schizophrenia.
I think the movie would've been more viewable if instead of glorifying Nash as a tragic nerd, perhaps if he was realistically portrayed as tragic anti-nerd. He'd boast that he had made contact with ET, take academic bribes from his students, racially taunt those who weren't of his skin color and making a dramatic scene on campus, not to mention exploring his homosexual tendencies. 
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Thu Jun 08, 2006 8:31 am |
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