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A Beautiful Mind & Fight Club

206.214.0.140

Posted by petew on August 10, 2002 at 08:43:58

In Reply to: What's so bad about it? posted by cfraser on August 10, 2002 at 05:49:41:

pulled it (MIND) off the satellite (pay-per-view) last night and enjoyed it so much i watched it a second time with the wife

yes we were both in tears.

i thought it was a lovely film. i'd read/heard several reviews and twice listened to a fascinating interview of Mr. Nash conducted in front of a live audience by a local PBS radio pyschologist. Yes the media psycho is an incompetent interviewer, a blithering idiot even by the standards of ordinary minds, a whining, irritating, "how do you feel about that" predictable bore, but nevermind, every word Mr. Nash spoke in the public radio special seemed a revelation: his mind is unlike anything in my experience. One wished the interviewer would have stayed home and just let Mr. Nash say whatever came to his beautiful mind.

so watching this "story" (Ron Howard is one of Hollywood's best storytellers-- not an historian) unfold, knowing that it was never intended to "tell the truth" or "get the facts right" but simply open a window to the *feel* of this man's world, was for me a riviting, fascinating, emotional thrill. I was particularly pleased with how well Rod Howard "tricked" me into understanding the nature of the hallucinations...brilliant and ultimately terrifying (the little girl dashing in and out of frame at the limits of our peripheral vision...chilling!).

this technique reminded me of the totally misunderstood "Fight Club", a film about a young man's desent into the delusions and hallucinations of schitzophrenia (the film begins with a man in his mid twentys, who almost imperceptabily leaves his lonely life behind (if you can call blowing up your own apartment imperceptable)for a mad world of increasingly imaginary people and situations. the fun is trying to guess which characters are from his "real" life and which are constructions of his growing psychosis. for those who know the classic symptoms and etology of this disease it is a fascinating story. If you don't "get" that Brad Pitt is a figment of the protagonist's imagination--it's merely another stupid, violent, exploitive, teenage-boy power fantasy movie. Works on both levels--it depends on your intellectual/emotional maturity i suppose.

I'm sorry to read that so many inmates here did not enjoy "Mind". I would have thought we music-lovers were not so self-consciously embarassed about succumbing to the emotional impact Ron Howard directed into this story--i thought it added much--these are after all real people; Mr. Nash does have a son who is now in his mid-twenties and suffers from the same affliction. And his wife did stand by him throughout all the trials. The parents here can empathize with how much Mrs. Nash has suffered (almost couldn't bare to watch the bath scene). The film's emotional impact pales by comparison to the real story. This is not a documentary--just Hollywood entertainment inspired by real people and real situations. I think it's brilliant for what it is intended to be.

Perhaps my enjoyment of the film is enhanced because I have had the opportunity to work with a scientist with a five Sigma mind, have been to Princeton and felt the power and the crushing intellectual competition Ron Howard barely hints at in his story. Through the movie I felt the thrill of being in the presence of extraordinary genius and walking the halls where one might turn the corner and bump into Einstein at any moment. Didn't anyone get the allusion with Ron Howard's clever scene with the bicycle? Has nobody here ever seen the classic photo of Einstein riding his bicycle at Princeton?

I feel sorry for those imprisoned by their unwillingness to suspend a harsh and arbitrary "film standard" worldview for a few hours so as to indulge in the emotional fun of classic Hollywood formula popular film. a bit paranoid, don't you think?

I highly recommend "A Beautiful Mind".

Then rent "Fight Club", and see it for the first time.

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