Before I dive into the titular film of this post, let me briefly comment on a lesser film that I stumbled across recently. Some 5 years ago, probably while I was an early undergrad, I used to watch all the trailers on iTunes, to keep abreast of what was coming out. I watched a trailer for an indie picture called The Blue Tooth Virgin. And I would always see it on my list, unobtrusive, especially because I no longer even remembered the trailer. I spent years trying, on occasion to understand the title. Only 24 hours after finally seeing it do I understand it has nothing to do with Bluetooth technology.
I do not suggest it. I can say its hanging just now between 3 and 4 stars, a moot point while my Netflix account remains closed. But it does bring up interesting questions about friends who read each other's work. This may have been the opposite of the film's point (I still don't really know), but I learned always to shoot straight, if only to avoid the complications of backtracking over your previous words.
Now let me move on my main feature, A Beautiful Mind. I chose this now because I remembered enjoying it, but didn't have a rating for it. This film is definitely one of the greats, finding itself in the rather elite category of Best Picture Oscar winners. I realize this accolade can, at times, be dubious, but in this case, it is undoubtedly deserved. I'm going to begin with wit. For wit, I gave it a 9.75. I know this means it's nearly perfect, but let me state my case. To begin, the script is nearly flawless. A Beautiful Mind's singular genius seems to come from its collaborative nature. The perfection of the script is due as much to Russell Crowe's improvisation and Ron Howard suggestion as to Akiva Goldsman's masterful screenwriting. A lot of my perspective on this film comes from a detailed viewing of the special features. A deleted scene that I believe should have made it reveals to me a single serious flaw, which goes more to wisdom than wit, that of focusing on the physical aspects of John and Alicia's relationship.
One of its best aspects is that the pacing maintains tension all the way through. For me, on this second viewing, a lot of the tension is released. I'm about to reveal the main conceit of the film so stop if you haven't seen it.-----------------------------SPOILER ALERT-------------------------------------------------
As a rewatcher, I obviously know that John Nash was schizophrenic and I even knew ahead of time which people that he sees were delusional, but I maintained my interest for two big reasons. The acting is spectacular and the descent into madness is particularly interesting to me. First, on the acting, I believe this is the best performance, so far, in the careers of Russell, Jennifer Connelly, and Ed Harris. This isn't an insult to any of them. All are fine performers, but this is there highest point to my mind.
Russell's portrayal of the descent into madness has a careful subtlety that astounds me. He begins with a sort of quirkiness, an idiosyncrasy that is all too familiar to me and follows it fast and hard to a highly conspicuous mental breakdown. This portrayal frightens me.
Jennifer's arc is similarly fascinating and as well played as anyone could havce done it. She begins with the sort of alluring/alarming direct stare that made me think of "glaukopis Athene." Her eyes are a gift from God, but her use of them is captivating. And she uses them as well to be frightening, terrified, and pitiable as she does to be charming.
Ed plays exasperated and domineering with charisma and chutzpah, but with just enough insanity to reveal hints of his delusional nature. Paul Bettany does something very similar with the wily and carefree roommate. The whole cast works together in beautiful concert.
Now let me turn to the question of wisdom so that I may gush about my own fear of mental illness. I am terribly afraid of slipping into complete and total insanity on a number of levels. I am afraid of my compulsions and the way they sometimes force me to read, watch and do things I later think I probably didn't need to do. I am afraid of my imagination and the likelihood that it could lead to some very involved delusions. I am afraid of my distance, practically and emotionally, from people that makes me feel like a sociopath and that I will spend too much of my life alone. I am afraid of my mind on nearly every level. I can't say this movie makes me feel better, but it does make me scared and yet not alone. Scared and not unique are two of the most productive states for me to be in. Scared is helpful, because I need nothing more than motivation on almost any day. Not unique is essential, because I have a tendency to make my problems and my world out to be one of a kind when I am assured by far wiser individuals that "there is nothing new under the sun."
For its portrayal of something important to me in an honest fashion, with insight, I immediately gave it a high score for wisdom, but one little choice made me bring it down to a 9.5. Ron admitted on the commentary to adding a line about taking newer medications near the end of the movie, despite the fact that John Nash never went on meds again. I am very unsure about the use of medication in the treatment of a wide variety of mental and emotional disorders, but whatever one thinks, it seems dishonest to use the story of a man who chose to live without medication and lived a more fulfilled life because of it as a springboard to promote the opposite approach to mental health. That seems dishonest. I don't mean to impugn the integrity of Ron or Brian Grazer, but this moment felt like a lapse in judgment to me.
Nonetheless, the movie dealt well with mental illness and focused heavily on the healing power of strong, non-emotionally based love to transform human lives. And that is to be applauded.
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A couple other ideas worth commenting on are Nash's relentless pursuit of what he called his "original idea," which I would restate as the pursuit of greatness. Pursuit of recognition and reward drive a large portion of our society, but the drive that some have or choose to foster in themselves to do something new, something great and innovative is what moves us forward and what changes the world for the better.
One last note should be on Nash's own bargaining theory, with which I am only familiar through the film and for which he won the Nobel Prize in economics. This reevaluation of Adam Smith's theories on the value of competition is unique in my experience as one that draws on it and neither wholly accepts it nor rejects it, but builds something new from it (a rather Aristotelean or maybe Hegelian move). It builds a theory that accepts the self-interest principles but argues that self-interested cooperation is more effective. This idea has a lot to say to me in terms of a bridge between ethics and economics. Now on to wonder.
For wonder, I chose to give this film a very high 9.75. There are a myriad of reasons for this. First, the music is glorious, but much more importantly it is apt. Music is never a distraction from storytelling. This brings me back to Joyeux Noel and the way I praised its music for never pushing the performance, but all being organic. A Beautiful Mind does it completely different, allowing the music to lift simple moments to the height of grandeur. James Horner is a pretty fantastic composer, to my mind, but his decisions here are some of his best. His use of Charlotte Church, who sings beautifully in a way I'm not sure I've heard before, is genius. He chose to use her voice more like an instrument than the way that voices are normally used (I am paraphrasing him here and claim no detailed or impressive knowledge of music).
Second, I feel Ron outdid himself as the director. His use of the flashes of light to signify a breakthrough or making all delusional characters repeatedly appear aurally before being seen are beautiful little decisions that enhance the movie. He managed to use the color palette and tones in such a way to brilliantly create opposing forces attacking Nash's life and maintains that motif consistently and yet creatively. I mentioned before that I feel this film contains the best performances ever from more than one actor and I think that can't be a coincidence. Ron seems to have brought out the best in his cast, both individually and as an ensemble.
Lastly, I'd love to compliment the visual effects people, both in terms of makeup and the complex process of aging the actors minutely through the film and the little visual tweaks that make the film more seamless and perfect than would have otherwise been possible. The makeup department went from making Russell look younger than he was to multi-layered facial prosthetics that genuinely look and move like real skin. More than once I marveled at how young he was back then and at his oral prosthetic that gave him an overbite, never knowing what the behind-the-scenes work was doing. The effects department also gave us some beautiful shots that helped to explain Nash's major bargaining theory, mentioned above.
So, if you haven't seen this masterpiece or just never realized its outstanding worth, sit down with it soon. Or if you just want to sympathize with someone who's having a hard time, enjoy this film. Go in peace!
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