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A Beautiful Mind
The John Nash of Nasar's biography, while less likable, is far more fascinating and multidimensional than his cinematic counterpart; he is a draft dodger, a vicious prankster (one practical joke of Nash's involved filling a light fixture with water, which could have electrocuted a hapless victim when he turned on the light), and an arrogant braggart.
Hollywood has whitewashed much from Nash's life; besides working to dodge the Korean War draft out of fears that it would hurt his career, Nash fathered an illegitimate son whom he refused to help care for, despite the fact that his own circumstances were far better than those of the child's mother. The woman he married, Alicia Larde, is portrayed in the film as the one and only love of Nash's life; no mention is made of their 1963 divorce. (Nearly forty years later, the couple remarried.) To read Nasar's biography is to discover fascinating episodes like Nash's stint in Europe, when he attempted several times to renounce his American citizenship and obtain political asylum, and his encounters with fellow patient and Pulitzer prizewinning poet Robert Lowell in a Massachusetts mental hospital.
The book is as absorbing a history lesson as it is a story; Nasar sets Nash's life beautifully in the context of his time. Nash's bisexuality, for example, was much more of an issue then than it would be now; while today many areas have laws against discrimination based on sexual orientation, in 1954 not only was it legal for employers to dismiss a homosexual employee, but any evidence of homosexuality was sufficient grounds to deprive a government employee of security clearance. Later, the reader learns of many once-credited treatments for mental illness, like insulin injections (thought to deprive the brain of sugar and thus kill off defective brain cells), colonic irrigation, and even "fever therapy," given by inoculating patients with malaria or typhoid. Nasar's description of the politics by which Nobel prizes are awarded, a process purposely shrouded in mystery by the various committees involved, is a particularly fascinating read. Her inclusion of these and other details paints a rich historical picture that's a pleasure to read.
The one thing missing from A Beautiful Mind is, of course, the voice of John Nash himself. Where possible, Nasar plucked quotes from his writings and the recollections of friends and colleagues, but Nash himself maintained, as he put it to a New York Times reporter, "a position of Swiss neutrality" toward his biographer. Throughout the extraordinary story of Nash's life -- his rapid rise to fame, his loves, his illness, his disappearance for decades from the academic community, and his recognition at last as a Nobel laureate, one wants to ask him, "What were you thinking?" Unfortunately, it's a question Nasar was unable to answer.
One true merit of the movie, so highly altered from Nash's real story (and, considered apart from the facts, it is both moving and interesting), is that it will undoubtedly inspire many to pick up Nasar's beautifully written biography. It's time to meet the real John Nash.
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My girlfriend's father is an economics professor, and was excited to see him speak this year. It seems, however, that he is a shadow of what he once was.
Apparently, his presentation was not terribly insightful. And when asked by an audience member about some of his famous work, he responded that he "doesn't remember any of that anymore."
The entire event was very awkward for everyone in attendance. Here is a man who made some brilliant discoveries in his heyday that are very useful in game theory and economics. People come to hear him speak and it only displays how his mind has gone-- he can't even relive the old glory.
mark
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. -- Carl Sagan
After two weeks of reading praise in the reviews, I finally went to see the movie. I must say I didn't like it, possibly because it hits too close to home.
Watching Nash's life suddenly reveal itself as an empty shell, a madman's delusion, was too painful. It creeped me out so much that I lost interest in the rest of the film and the recovery to normal life that he made. I guess I became afraid of what it would be like to lose control of your mind in this manner, a very disturbing perspective.
Needless to say, beyond the amount forced upon me by the movie, I could not sympathize with the character much because of the pride and prejudice and contempt and even, I would say, malice in his competitiveness (while he had it), that he touts.
To summarize, I felt sorry for him, but even more repulsed by him, and thus by the movie.
As for his portrayal as a mathematician, it had both parts that I liked and those that I didn't. There wasn't much specifics to it though, predictably.
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There was an interview with Sylvia Nasar on NPR yesterday (I think it was Fresh Air, meaning it should be online right now), and she seems to approve of the movie. As she puts it - when you write about a while person's life, you have to pick facets. When you compress it into a book, you have to pick and choose what to focus on. In the movie, they only had two hours, and chose to focus on the relationship Nash and his wife had. She also adds that she was at their second wedding last June (John Nash is 74 and very much alive), and that the wedding was merely a reaffirmation of a relationship that has always been a marriage. She said (and I'm badly quoting from memory: "John [Nash] called it a 'retraction of a mistake'. Something you would expect a mathematician to say". Apparantly they have been together these 40 years, with all the ups and downs that a long relationship with serious stress would be expected to have.
It's important to remember that the focus of the movie needs to be tighter (less room to explore), but that the book *also* has to focus on certain aspects, and that it should not be taken as a 'more factual' account - in the HBO 'behind the scenes' piece "Inside A Beautiful Mind", they interview Crowe, but in the background of a few scenes, you can see an elderly couple in two chairs watching from near the director and camera - I wonder if that was Nash and his wife?
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
John Nash never received a Nobel Prize. The only "real" Nobel prizes are the ones in chemistry, peace, literature, physics, and medicine/physiology. Those were the ones established by Alfred Nobel in his will, and first awarded in 1901. The Nobel prize for Economics was established about 70 years later, in 1968. The Bank of Sweden created a foundation to award, "The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel". It was basically a marketting ploy to celebrate it's 300th anniversary. :)
While the selection process is done similarly (the Economics award is done by the Royal Swedish Academy of Science, which also awards the prizes for chemistry and physics), the awards are quite distinct. Some physicians will complain bitterly if one mentions the Nobel Prize in Economics, since economics is not a "real" science.
Disclaimer: I read the book a couple of years ago, so much of this is from memory.
Irony: People who discover the book because of the movie tend to be more critical of the movie.
I thoroughly enjoyed both the book and the movie. Sure I was aware of things that got left out, but as we all know from for example LOTR, when movies are made from books choices have to be made. I really appreciate the way them movie chose to emphasize the importance of relationships in Nash's li fe, as troublesome as they may have been at times.
Nash's bisexuality: The book shows this ambiguously, not as a well-developed preference. It reflects Nash's narcissism more than anything else.
Nash's divorce: Although they did separate for a short time after the divorce, they lived together for 25 years before getting remarried. When they were remarried last summer, Nash referred to the event as a retraction of the divorce, like a journal would retract a publication error.
Terry Gross interviewed Sylvia Nasar on last night's Fresh Air (Real Audio). She was strongly supportive of the choices made while writing the screenplay. She suggested that if more emphasis had been put on Nash's sexuality or political views, it would have detracted from the more important stuff, ie, Nash's lifelong relationship with Alicia and his descent into schizophrenia.