The Imitation Game (Movie Review by Bob Racine)

                                   1 hr & 54 min, color, 2014

“Sometimes it’s the very people who no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine.”  Three times we hear those words on the soundtrack of this extraordinary motion picture, and each and every time they are spoken in reference to the same individual, i.e. Alan Turing, a mathematical scientist who made a secret and amazing contribution to the winning of the Second World War by his native England.  His story is decades late being told, because his work was so surreptitious and so unprecedented at the time that disclosure after the fact might very well have endangered the lives of his inner circle of fellow mathematicians and indicted the careers of certain high ranking military personnel.  It was a story of personal, behind-the-scenes, sneaky triumph that nobody at the time would believe anyhow.  All his personal top secret files were expunged at the end of the war, and only a few knew what he had been up to.  It took in fact five decades for the drama of his short life to be made public. 

Bernard Cumberbatch (Oscar nominee) gives a commanding, apparently flawless performance portraying him.  Turing was a child prodigy in the math department and by 1939, at the age of 26, he was audacious enough, academically astute enough and lettered enough to persuade the powers that be, which included no less than Winston Churchill, to put him in charge of a team trying to break a Nazi communications code, by all appearances unbreakable, that went by the then secret German name of Enigma. 

A very lonely, socially awkward and standoffish man who lived in his head, Turing was evidently brash and flippant in conversation enough when he had to be to forge his way into the dense structure of officialdom to make his case.  But doing so and getting himself put in charge of the project was just the first phase of his fight that went on for most of the length of the war, not only with the upper brass but with his impatient team members.  It seemed apparent to them that there was only a million to one chance of cracking this Enigma code and could not fathom why Turing spent all his time constructing a machine which he named Christopher.  No one could have imagined that that machine would become the precursor of what we today call a computer.  The way he posed the query was: “What if a machine could decode a machine?”  The Enigma machine to be decoded by his Christopher!  Unlike the human brain that can only examine one coded message at a time, the machine could examine millions in a matter of minutes.

A man named Graham Moore won this past season’s Oscar for the film’s screenplay, which is adapted from the book, “Alan Turing: The Enigma.”  A well deserved honor!  Despite the complicated ramifications of the experiment that tests even the scientifically smartest in the audience, the dialogue is forceful and precise enough to capture the sustained attention of even those of the most meager scientific comprehension such as myself.  (I think I said enough on that subject at the beginning of my previous movie write-up in the April 5 posting on this blog.  If you have not read my comments on “The Theory of Everything,” another true story of a scientist, you can do so at your leisure.)  What makes the writing so dynamic and engrossing is the suspense.  We know Turing and his assistants are going to succeed, but how and when and after how many upsets, setbacks and collisions with their bosses and each other?  An amazing flow of events that if we did not know they are fact would serve as the basis for a rousing and controversial sci-fi tale!

I have no way, short of plowing through the book, which I have not done, of knowing who the fictional characters are as portrayed by a sharp British cast.  Keira Knightley is a young woman crossword genius who Turing reluctantly takes onto his team, when she outshines all the competitors for the top secret mission and gradually wins Turing’s respect.  When she reports for the crossword test, she is mistaken for one of those females applying for the secretarial pool.  She comes to play a very decisive role in the unfolding of the plot, as does a guy named Hugh (Matthew W. Goode), who turns out to be a bit of a rogue, at one point threatening the project but eventually saving it from collapse, when the bigwigs are about to scrap it. 

In fairness to the doubters, Turing’s idea would have seemed to almost anyone at the time to be the stuff out of which pipe dreams are made. 

It is after the war, in the 1950s, that tragedy descends upon Turing’s life, when it is discovered that he is a homosexual.  Homosexuality was at the time not only frowned upon in Great Britain but a crime punishable by imprisonment.  When brought before the judge (a scene we never witness), he is given only one alternative to that imprisonment – hormonal alteration through drugs, better known as chemical castration.  Screenplay writer Moore thankfully does not spend overbearing time on this episode.  He breaks things up nicely, jumping back and forth between the 1940s, the 1950s and the 1920s when Turing was a student in a boys academy, an editing device that it may take a while into the footage to get accustomed to.  We see Turing’s life as a fateful thread that binds all elements together in such a way that the final announcement of his suicide in 1954 at the age of 41 is not as jarring or unexpected as it might have been.  The last we see of this unfortunate man is really heartbreaking!  He is weeping all by himself, expressing fear of abandonment in front of Christopher, which has become his only companion.  This is probably Cumberbatch’s greatest moment, rounding out his brilliant portrayal.

In final credits we are told that Queen Elizabeth, all those fifty years later after his suppressed record was finally no longer top secret, granted him a posthumous Royal pardon.  I am certainly gratified by that move on her part, though I do not believe the word “pardon” was the right one.  One can only be pardoned for something done wrong.  When Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon, he was not telling the country that Nixon was innocent.  He was saving him from the prosecution he deserved.  But in my book Turing did nothing to be prosecuted for, either during the war or in his sexual behavior.  What the Queen should have granted him was a Royal exoneration. 

We today are still playing the Imitation Game, which is the scheme to teach computers to emulate the human brain in its reasoning acuity.  And the question raised as far back as Kubrick’s “Space Odyssey” remains to be fully answered: How much capability will we permit them?  Will they always be at the service of human intelligence or will they somehow surpass us and develop minds of their own that produce ideas in opposition to and competition with ours?   I personally reason that as long as human intelligences of Turing’s caliber are in play, the chance of automatic intelligence gaining the ascendency will remain in grave doubt.

To read other entries in my blog, please consult its website:  enspiritus.blogspot.com.  To learn about me consult on the website the blog entry for August 9, 2013.

The Theory of Everything (Movie Review by Bob Racine)

                             2 hrs & 3 min, color, 2014

Listening to scientists of any variety discussing the ramifications of their science has always made me squirm with frustration.  I feel as if my ears as well as my limited brain are being stuffed full of wire mesh or crammed with cotton, hay and rags.  And this cramming can make me dizzy or it can dull my interest until I recoil against what seems like the prattling of a foreign tongue.  I always struggled through Biology and Mathematics when in high school and college, until my retentive powers slowly began to flivver out.  I know what buttons to push to make my TV give me what I want, but do not ask me to explain why that button produces that desired result.  Just tell me the sequential steps to take; do not expect me to perceive the electronic principle of it.  I guess I am saying in so many words that I feel intimidated when called upon to fathom the shop talk of any scientist, even my doctors, who have mastered medical science, attempting to explain to me what has gone awry in my body.  Rather embarrassing!  I am a right-side-of-the-brain individual, and it does not take very much left-side chatter to find me wanting for comprehension.

Surely one of the virtues of “The Theory of Everything,” the current biopic of world famous English theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking, is its easy digestibility, even on the part of a dullard like me.  I feared before seeing it that I would once again have to face the intimidation of a lower caste Science student.  No such problem!  The film contains some shop talk, but it is enshrouded in a narrative that puts a human face upon the man and the struggle in which he has been for many years enmeshed.  It is a very warm human tale that traces the path he took from utter helplessness to a rich fulfillment of vision and purpose.

Most of present day western humanity is already somewhat familiar with the particulars of his affliction – being struck down with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease) at 21, in which the cells and neurons in the brain that control muscle use die off, eventually rendering the victim totally helpless, unable to move an arm or a leg.  He was told at the time when he was diagnosed that he only had at most two years to live.  Meanwhile , 52 years and three children later, at age 73, he is Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge in England.  In short, he retarded the disease’s progressive rate, though we have to bear in mind the fact that he has had medical technology at his disposal that Lou Gehrig never did.  (Gehrig lived only three years after he was struck down.) 

There is considerable discussion in the film about black holes and space/time and the behavior of neurons and cell formation/dissolution.  But it is all palatable.  I found myself rooting for him when he faces the scientific establishment in his limp and slurring condition, knowing already that he is going to break through and be accepted as an equal in spite of this, whether I fully understand the theories and claims being set forth or not.  It is the man I root for, not a school of thought.  I never felt intimidated by his interplay with other brilliant minds, thanks to screenplay writer Anthony McCarten, Director James Marsh and to the woman, Jane Hawking, who rescued him at least twice from the jaws of death , married him, inspired him and finally wrote her book “Traveling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen,” from which the screenplay is adapted.

Not real often does an actor or actress come along, previously unfamiliar to movie audiences, who appears to be the perfect fit for a dominant screen role of iconic dimension.  Eddie Redmayne makes Hawking so completely his creation that it is inconceivable that anyone else could have been cast.  Where does the actor leave off and the character begin?  Hawking viewed the film before release and commented that at times he thought he was watching himself.  So thoroughly and naturally does the fusion take place that I wonder if the actor in this case will ever be free of the man he has portrayed.  Will he find other parts just as demanding, that draw forth the same degree of skill and imagination and innovation?  Is there somewhere else to go? 

I guess I take some measure of comfort from recalling Peter O’Toole’s explosive screen debut as T.E. Lawrence in “Lawrence of Arabia.”  I remember wondering at the time whether he could ever possibly even approach the caliber of portrayal he evidenced in that monumental juggernaut of an adventure.  Since that debut, he has worn many faces of many unforgettable figures and excelled at them all.  I had no need to worry.  I hope for the same in Redmayne’s case.

Especially powerful and engaging are those moments in which Hawking has to grope with normal functions but with such limited capacities – struggling with the task of bringing his spoon up to his mouth to eat, his hand shaking uncontrollably, and literally climbing stairs one at a time by himself prostrate and face down, with nothing to assist him in his climb but the wooden bars on the railing.  A very physically demanding role!  And his face, with his wide mouth, his almost flat stretch of a smile and his big beady eyes that appear to be always searching by themselves for cosmic answers to cosmic questions!  I can only begin to imagine how much training and practice Redmayne had to undergo before he could perform in front of the camera. 

And let us not throw mere passing glances at Felicity Jones as Jane; she has engraved on my memory the image of a small-of-stature, seemingly innocent, protected young language student who surprises her family and the world and maybe the movie audience by turning into a strong, determined and fiercely loyal woman almost overnight, who sets the bar considerably high for Stephen in the steps he takes to fight ALS and pursue his career.  No shrinking violet, hers is a fully committed love that requires her to make some difficult, major league decisions.   Ms Jones hits her mark in every scene, whether it calls for humor, anxiety, tough-mindedness, confrontational anger, tears, tenderness, or visible emotion unaccompanied by words.  Her face speaks most incisively.  Her previous film work has been sparse, but now she should have a productive career ahead of her.

One issue never quite resolved between Stephen and Jane is the religious question.  She is a faithful member of the Anglican Church fully accepting of the tenets of her faith.  When after having just met him she asks him about his specialty, Cosmology, he remarks that the science is “a kind of religion for intellectual atheists.”  In place of worshipping and seeking for God, he claims to be in search of “one single unifying equation that explains everything in the universe.”  Whether or not this difference impacts upon their marriage is open to question.  Let the viewer decide, after their marriage is lovably terminated, each of them having become attracted to someone else. 

Though I found the film to be an inspiring tribute to human resilience and compassionate caring, there is one aspect of the production about which I feel the need to speak a little negatively, and that is the photography.  I have no quarrel with where the cinematographer chose to put the camera, but the use of color images I found at times confusing and annoying.  One moment we are bathed in a cold dim blue, at others in a splashy yellow or orange that seems a little overexposed and all for no apparent reason artistic or otherwise.  Better choice of palettes would have been a plus.  Easier on the eyes! 

Everyone who takes an interest in “The Theory of Everything” should bear in mind that the film only deals with the man’s early life.  It does not by any means cover the entire range of his writings and his findings and the contribution he has made to making science accessible to the average person.  If you want to know how far his persistent struggle has taken him and the many innovations he has made in his field, I recommend his Biography as posted on line by Google.  It would be a very fitting and hopefully exciting follow-up to seeing the movie.  It was for me.   

To read other entries in my blog, please consult its website:  enspiritus.blogspot.com.  To learn about me consult on the website the blog entry for August 9, 2013.