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Leonardo DiCaprio To Play Alan Turing?
mikejuk writes "2012 is the one hundredth anniversary of Alan Turing's birth, with many celebration events being planned around the world. This week Warner Bros outbid other companies for the script of a biopic based on Turing's life. The script for The Imitation Game, by first-time screenwriter Graham Moore and based in turn on the biography by Andrew Hodges, Alan Turing: The Enigma, was snapped up by Warner Bros in a 7-figure deal. Right now the leading candidate to portray Turing is Leonardo DiCaprio."
Can't have women drooling over a geek. Even if it's only an actor playing a geek. 'tis not natural. /jk
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
...although it would be ironic if the actor playing him would fail his test.
If Scorsese's directing, DiCaprio's leading.
If DiCaprio's leading, Scorsese's directing.
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
As long as the movie is of infinite length, and certain other conditions are observed, shouldn't it be possible for any actor to successfully play Turing, albeit quite possibly requiring impractical amounts of time to do so?
He is one of the last actors I would imagine to play character like Turing, a thoughtful man, mathematician, scientist.. Everything Leo isn't.
Personally I think this would be fantastic. Two of my favorite people. I think Leo is a superb actor and we all know what a fascinating and enigmatic person Turning was.
This doesn't sound like a moneymaker for Hollywood.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
oh... yeah
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
We've already seen the following actors in comparable roles:
Russell Crowe - A Beautiful Mind
Dustin Hoffman - Rain Man
Matt Damon - Good Will Hunting, The Talented Mr. Ripley
Tom Hanks - Forrest Gump
No need to see the same movie twice.
I predict they will ruin this more than they've ruined anything.
Some predictions on the content of the movie (any or all of these my apply): ...
Alan Turing will be played by Justin Beiber
Alan Turing will invent the Atomic Bomb
The movie will feature Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell and be titled Tango & Cash 2: The Alan Turing Story
Yeah baby!!!
A story on Turing could exploits a lot of interesting angles. He's an important figure in computer science AND in cryptography. His most prestigious work was done with WWII in the backdrop, and helped the allies tremendously. Finally, he has the total romantic yet misunderstood hero story - his contribution was a war secret, he was condemned for his homosexuality by the state he helped so much, and died a Plato death.
There's a kickass script to be made out of that.
Oh and DiCaprio is a fine choice. Great actor, versatile enough to pull it out and to let the character be the story.
Should've just made a Cryptonomicon movie. Way more interesting than what actually happened!
At least its not Keanu Reeves.
Enough said.
What's wrong with Eddie Murphy?
Mad scientist Alan "Mhz" Turing invents an intelligent robot that transforms into a flying car, which he uses to embark on a great journey into space where he will find true love with an alien prince (cue for love scene on front of spaceship) and, of course, get the idea for the first desktop computer. When he returns to Earth, he builds a prototype for his new invention, which surprisingly turns out to be a modern Mac (because in Hollywood all computers are Macs), however his contemporaries find out about his love with the alien, which forces him to abandon the Mac and travel back into space where he lives happily ever after as the queen of an alien planet. THE END. If this does well at the box office, expect a sequel in a couple of years.
Who else could understand Turing better?
Yes, the AC went off on a homophobic rant. However, I don't subscribe to the Freudian concept of homophobia as related to repressed homosexuality.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
I think Mr. Homophobic AC has a point with the female inhibition thing. However, that concept implies to me that it's a general male issue rather than an issue specific to _homosexual_ males - straight males would also act like that if straight females were more cooperative.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
a GAY geek. Don't forget that part.
I don't have any large issue with DiCaprio playing Turing. He is versatile, capable, and very hard working. However, the part should go to Jeremy Northam. It would have been a better age match if they tapped him 20 years ago, but there are other factors to consider than matching the actor's age to the character in his prime. I didn't know Turing, so it's just an impression, but I think Jeremy Northam would do a superb job. See The Winslow Boy and tell me I'm wrong.
At first I thought this is stupid, but then I went and looked at pictures of Turing, and there actually is a resemblance. And Leonardo is not a bad actor, even if he is not as good as the hype around him would indicate. Go for it.
"Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius" playing another golf legend, Mr. Walter Hagen (who was from very near my area in fact... who was TRULY "my kind of guy" actually, except for his obsession with $)!
* He played THAT role, to a tee (pun intended)...
APK
P.S.=> I haven't seen him in anything else, but I will keep your suggestion in mind for future reference - because of his excellent portrayal of Walter Hagen... apk
>reads whole message
>reads last line
>another "turing was a fag" troll
*sigh*
Go drink bleach.
--
BMO
Or, maybe, he was persecuted and later committed suicide, and that makes him a more interesting figure to write about for mainstream media than the others.
Or you know, the concept of a Turing machine. Church published an equivalent concept (namely lambda calculus), but it was Turing who came up with the Turning machine incarnation. The field chose to use the Turing machine which goes quite nicely with FSA, push-down automata, etc. It was Turing's particular incarnation that struck a chord with the field. Save your righteous indignation for something else (possibly Newton vs. Leibniz re: calculus) and quit making up reasons to be upset.
All of that research into Turing's contemporaries just so you can justify your homophobic biases.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I'll bet that the movie will focus on his persecution for homosexuality, and his death, even more than his inventions
"Ah, who's BETTER n' US, kid...?" -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ5Gr2joVe8&feature=related
APK
P.S.=> My fav. scenes though, lol, are when he shows up HAMMERED & HUNG OVER to golf matches as "Sir Walter" (lol & also when he says he's not FAMOUS, but rather, "infamous" too) and just KNOCKS THE SNOT outta everyone, easily (even Bobby Jones, initially when he's still green that is, not as much later once Mr. Jones got used to Walter's "psychological tactics")...
... apk
Post's 1936 paper described the same kind of machine, and Post came up with better versions of it (nobody uses Turing's original formulation, and the formulations actually used in textbooks etc usually build on Post's work).
I can't find a reference right this second but I'm fairly certain that nobody thought of the DFA or PDA abstractions for >10 years after all three papers were published (I think Post's later work on string rewriting and the PCP helped lead to those ideas along with the corresponding ideas of regular/context free), so there wasn't yet any other framework for the Post/Turing formalism to fit more naturally into.
Thanks for actually trying to provide an alternate reason rather than jumping at my throat for mentioning the only reason I'm able to come up with like most of these folks. I'm interested to hear whatever alternate explanations people can come up with.
It could be a zany rom-com with a dog, a monkey using an abacus, and even fit in the gay angle somehow (maybe a fashion designer on the side, a la Zoolander?). Tom Cruise could be the romantic interest, fighting with Turing the whole time about how machines are evil and Xenu is the one true way, until the monkey, riding the dog, slaps Cruise with a fish and makes him realize the errors of his ways. Let Terry Gilliam direct.
Guaranteed $500 mil 1st weekend.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
That I can't wait to see, or the part where Turing blasts the incoming V2 with a couple of .45s held sideways. Gangsta style. While diving over a moving tank. In slow motion.
This is gonna be AWESOME.
I just can't wait to see Leo bite into the poisoned apple. The hormonal castration should be particularly dramatic too. Maybe they can get the political apology right in the film, and properly repent for a truly disgusting deed. But I still think Matt Damon would be a goodlier choice, based on the face. ....Well Alan, you were way ahead of your time, but we were still in the dark ages. Sorry about that, and thanks for all the help. PS: If you come back, try San Francisco, Rome, or maybe Key West; I hear they finally accepted that patterns of "indecency" are not always matters of choice, and even if they were, they're your own. And anyway, you're really not missing much - and CCTV never flatters the form.
Laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them being made. - Otto von Bismarck
In your original post, you admit to Post's work being submitted after Turing's. Just food for thought.
The reason is probably nuanced and impossible to determine. But this sort of thing happens rather frequently in scientific research. There's the more famous example I cited about Newton and Leibniz. Why does Newton always get the credit, but we use Leibniz's notation? Is it because Newton moved onto calculus (but then why Leibniz's notation) or was it just a fluke? Take the slightly different example of powered flight. Why did the Wright Brothers get everything right and not somebody else? How close was somebody else to beating the Wright Brothers?
In the end, for some reason or another, the field just settled on Turing. It isn't really important why and it's probably non-deterministic. I honestly don't think it was because he was gay as the terminology was really crystalized before (or right on the cusp) the gay rights movement had any real momentum, widespread attention, or successes under its belt. What's more interesting is that three people independently discovered these foundational concepts contemporaneously. And I think that leads to an even more interesting question. Why did this happen with three people at this particular time in human history? Did somebody else stumble upon the concepts before, but didn't publish or wasn't in a position to publish?
I didn't just collect a bunch of random names of his contemporaries to post here in response to this article. I've studied mathematical logic a good bit, and recently have been working towards writing a brief article about the history of logic and development of theoretical CS from 1870-1950.
Though I like everybody else started off with the idea that he was some kind of exceptional genius who earned the title of the father of computing, I had to abandon this idea in the face of evidence that others deserved more of the credit than he did.
If you can provide a better explanation for his idolization, let's hear it. But otherwise your summary dismissal of my reasons looks rather like you're the one whose bias is showing.
Oops. Meant to say "Is it because Newton moved onto physics", obviously not calculus. Somehow missed that in my proof read.
Oh, and my point about the Turing machine fitting in with the other conceptual machines wasn't really about the timeline, but rather, the field has demonstrated a preference for thinking about computability with conceptual machines. Siding with Turing machines over lambda calculus could be the first sign post down that road.
Also, did anyone else independently come up with oracles? It may be that Turing's further theoretical work using oracles may have cemented him as the most famous of the three.
And it just occurred to me, Turing's work at Bletchley Park may be more celebrated than the others because he's also known for the Church-Turing thesis. It could be that his renown for each fed off each other.
Or you know, the concept of a Turing machine. Church published an equivalent concept (namely lambda calculus), but it was Turing who came up with the Turning machine incarnation. The field chose to use the Turing machine which goes quite nicely with FSA, push-down automata, etc. It was Turing's particular incarnation that struck a chord with the field. Save your righteous indignation for something else (possibly Newton vs. Leibniz re: calculus) and quit making up reasons to be upset.
Ironically Lambda Calculus was brought back to life by McCarthy in Lisp and has been with us ever since. As Abelson and Sussman have said in their lectures, people tend to confuse the tools of the trade with the fundational concepts. Computer Science is not about computers, its about computations, computers are but a tool. And the lambda calculus is a much better abstraction for explaining computation than a Turing machine ever was.
History is very selective (in a wrong sort of way), and we have to accept that general folklore makes Alan Turing THE father of computer science even if its not historically correct.
I don't think it's fair to say lambda calculus is a better conceptual tool than Turing machines. Sure, that may be the case for you and others, but it doesn't mean it is the case for everyone. I've known several academics who can think with state machines better or easier than lambda calculus and I've known academics who think better with lambda calculus. So much of scientific progress is wrought on pursuing intuition and gut feelings which leads someone to a formal answer. Using a conceptual machine over lambda calculus will allow some people to intuit more freely and successfully. And some people will intuit more freely and successfully with lambda calculus. Some people may benefit from employing both schemes.
Anyway you cut it, Turing was exceptionally brilliant. He wasn't cribbing off of Alonzo Church or Emil Post and he moved into other scientific fields quite naturally. All three men are perfectly deserving of the credit. Turing being considered the father of computing science is not historically inaccurate so much as it is historically incomplete. Consider Charles Babbage. His Analytical Engine was Turing-complete well before Turing, Church, or Post were even born.
I have to smile, seeing SIRI+YOU are playing his imitation now all day.
Yes, Caprio is a sterling selection, but please no Guns'n Agents stuff, but more Beautiful Mind'esk. Turing thinking was far more fascinating.
FAIL if not includes his Mind about building a Brain by to get his passed kid friend Malcolm back:
a) by building a Mind from scratch with/inside a Computer (has to be invented)
b) in a Petri dish with chemicals (de novo rules had to be thought out)
c) How to make a neuron/code cocktail that evolves into human (imitation game)
c) Code breaking was just a job assignment. Enigma was just an "opponent". (Was asked, so did it brilliant for the job's sake; of course he was a perfectionist)
Think, he was planning to have a self-evolving SIRI thingy; but actually wanted a Malcolm-like thing. The "imitation game" thingy was just a selection rule for his self-evolving "would be" MALCOLM.
PS: I am curious who will act John v Neumann.
my 5c,
muenalan
Why not a British actor?
Great, yet another terrible fake English accent to look forward to. Why does Hollywood always hire British actors to portray the villains, yet never hires British actors to portray British characters?
The fact that things got named after Turing when terminology was first being settled in the late 30s-early 50s is, as you say, not attributable to his homosexuality. But that's not what I'm talking about- though naming things is a very visible way of assigning credit etc it doesn't explain the continuing total imbalance of credit or the popular idolization.
You make an interesting point about oracles- I don't know about independent inventors there- but here's a relevant quote from a paper "Turing Oracle Machines, Online Computing, and
Three Displacements in Computability Theory" by R. I. Soare:
Again, it's conceivable this could have contributed to Turing's fame, but as far as deserved credit goes, taking oracles into account would actually weigh in Post's favor.
I don't think saying Newton gets all the credit for calculus is accurate. Even high school students learn about the independent discovery and Leibniz's contributions.
The Wright Brothers are a somewhat more parallel case, as everybody learns about them and nobody remembers any of the other innovators in early flight.
Turing: WE NEED TO GO DEEPER
Megan Fox:: But sir, we don't have enough stack frames - the dream could collapse!
Turing: I SAID DEEPER, DAMNIT!
(queue explosions, wild chalkboard montages involving long sequences of seemingly nonsensical mathematical characters, flaming lightcycles ridden by the possessed cephalopods of the apocalypse and this sound)
The fact that things got named after Turing when terminology was first being settled in the late 30s-early 50s is, as you say, not attributable to his homosexuality. But that's not what I'm talking about- though naming things is a very visible way of assigning credit etc it doesn't explain the continuing total imbalance of credit or the popular idolization.
I'd just chalk it up to momentum. Once the naming was settled, the fame just sort of took off as a natural result. How many people call a tissue a Kleenex? Ultimately though, I think the fame and renown are the result of a large number of minor influences in a stochastic process adding up to the result we have today. (I'm a computer scientist, it's how I perceive and interpret the world.)
My personal opinion (and I have modified it as a result of this discussion) is not so much that Turing doesn't deserve credit or that assigning credit to him is inaccurate, but Church and Post should share the credit in the same way that Newton and Leibniz share credit for calc. My computer science education had no classes dealing with the history of computer science. My historical knowledge is from professors tangential lectures and out-of-class discussions, plus independent reading. And the tangential lectures on history really didn't come until I got into upper level and theoretical classes. From what I've seen, this is pretty standard in CS curricula and is a likely source of relative obscurity for Church and Post. And hey, at least Church got his name attached to the thesis. It's not as though Turing was plagiarizing or anything (a point I went into in a post a little further down) and he did take to other fields of study very naturally. He was clearly an exceptional talent as were Church and Post. Yes, Post continued to be productive for years, but unfortunately, Turing's participation in the field was cut very short.
To sum up, I don't think Turing receives too much credit, Church and Post need to also be recognized along side Turing for their seminal contributions, and Post deserves more name recognition for his later contributions.
Couldn't agree with you more. Turing is extremely overrated.
better age match??
Türing was past 40 when he had the affair with the 20-something guy that led to his arrest and consequent suicide.
Leo's perfectly the right age for 40.
Why do people remember Turing rather than Church and Post
Church because of scientific progress, and Post because of telephones and email.
PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
If he's not gay, I will literally spend all my effort burning this to the ground. I'm an English computer scientist, you don't fuck with Alan.
Max von Sydow played Jesus... LOL
I think the conclusion is that he could do it
Leonardo as gay Turning, a prospect one cannot await to happen! :-) :-) Cheers a Glory to Turing!
Again, it's conceivable this could have contributed to Turing's fame, but as far as deserved credit goes, taking oracles into account would actually weigh in Post's favor.
I don't think saying Newton gets all the credit for calculus is accurate. Even high school students learn about the independent discovery and Leibniz's contributions.
The Wright Brothers are a somewhat more parallel case, as everybody learns about them and nobody remembers any of the other innovators in early flight.
History likes to chose a victor, except in cases of important controversies like in the case between Newton and Leibniz and these drag on for centuries way beyond the deaths of the participants.
And in this particular case calculus was almost entirely developed by Leibniz, Newton was just cruising along so to speak on this particular issue.
Maybe we choose to remember Turing as the father of CS because when computers came of age, the physical computer (as envisoned by J Neumann) was so to speak much similar to a Universal Turing Machine than to a recurisve function. He also touched upon Artifical Intelligence field etc... So of course he deserves to be credited, but since history likes it cut and dry we get to the situation were all the rest is eclipsed in popular culture. Professional historians of science acknolwedge the contributions of others, the influence they had on Turing and the influence Turing had on others.
But popular culture is more simplistic in its views (Hey think about how Einstein is depicted in popular culture there is your answer).
As for the Wright brothers; there were many many people experimenting with flight in europe and yet not one of them got the correct idea. They were still thinking of airplanes as "airborne horse carriages". They took the analogy too far and failed to understand the fatal flaw, that is that you cannot turn in flight by keeping your attitude fixed. You had to roll (and pitch) to turn, the same way you had to roll to turn when riding a bicycle. The Wright brothers had the correct intuition and beat the competition. But to say they did this in a desert of ideas is just plain wrong.
The reason Turing is so respected is that he, like Dijkstra and very few others, made significant contributions to both the theoretical and practical side of computer science. As well as proposing a theoretical model of computation, he worked to create some of the first real computing engines. That's what makes people regard him as the father of modern computing: taking some interesting theories and turning them into machines that helped win the second world war and went on to produce the foundations for our society.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Isn't it ironic that a Jew and a homosexual helped end the war with such monumental scientific contributions? (Einstein with atomic bombs, Turing with cryptanalysis.) :)
Anyway, would love to see an unflinching movie on this great man's life! A true hero and my most favorite computer scientist ever. Tragic what happened to him later in life...
How long after the purchase will they prohibit anyone from using the term Turning Machine in any product or application?
http://code.google.com/p/moonblink/wiki/Tricorder
Sorry Tricorder fans, Tricorder has been deleted from the Android Market by Google, at the demand of CBS's legal weasels. This all happened without any discussion or warning -- I was simply notified after the fact.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
But nothing he did at Bletchley Park has anything to do with "produc[ing] the foundations for our society." His machines there were totally special-purpose rotor machines, no more related to modern computers than were the German Enigma machines they existed to decrypt or the Polish decryption "Bomba" they were based on.
He didn't have anything to do with Colossus, which was the one project from there that did have any relevance to modern computing; the idea that he was responsible for Colossus is a common misconception.
'nuff said
Post actually predeceased Turing; if he "continued to be productive for years" while "Turing's participation in the field was cut very short" that's because Turing turned his attention to other things.
I guess another explanation for Turing's early fame is that his article in Mind introducing the Turing Test captured the popular imagination in a way that everyone's more substantive work --including his own-- didn't. Though it's not CS but rather philosophy of mind, and though I think as philosophy of mind it's kind of naive and its primary merit is that it is effective as a starting point for discussion, I'd bet that from the time of its publication until the AI winter it was better known and more discussed than any real theoretical results.
But Turing's idolization - plays, parades, statues, and being the only one to really get credit for creating the computer revolution in the eyes of millions whose interest came after the PC exploded in popularity- really started after the AI winter had been going on for a decade and people had become disillusioned about hard AI and about the post-ELIZA Turing test. I still retain my former conviction about the most plausible explanation for his idolization over the course of the past 25 years.
I'm certainly not saying Turing was a hack job whose contributions should be overlooked; far from it. And no matter what you think of other sodomy laws, Lawrence v. Texas, etc, it's obviously atrocious what was done to Turing. But I think there are a dozen other "fathers of computing" who are at least as deserving of all the brouhaha and of a Commemorative Year as Turing is.
So this DiCaprio person actually passed the Turing Screen Test then, eh?
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Apparently even the Modbois are not immune to the Political Correctness bug. Hint, people: it means you can't think for yourself.
I am well aware that it is not the most popular viewpoint, but it's not "troll". It's the truth.
And now, they get an american to play Turing. This makes me want to cry, or blow something up, or both. Ironically, I actually don't think DiCaprio would be a bad choice, I think he could actually pull it off - but he shouldn't.
Leo has played real life gay chacters before and they are his worst unsympathetic performances. They were just horrible. I'm sure if he is to play Alan that everyone will come away thinking he was as straight as any of them. It will be another historical straight-washing of a famous gay character.His suicide was because he was found out to be gay, I wonder if they'll be brave enough to tell that end to the story? The whole gay aspect was conveniently ignored in Beautiful Mind, another great gay character played by a homophobe also.
This film has been rated NP Complete
tone
Certainly not Church. Because, most computer scientists are agnostic so they won't remember Church. Post? Email is faster, cheaper, and greener.
With the exception of the role he playing in "What's Eating Gilbert Grape", he has been film after film trying to play roles he is thoroughly unsuited for. He tries to play roles made for guys much more macho or intelligent than he is. Other's have mentioned Keanu as being the type to fail the Turing test... but in reality, from the interviews I've seen with him, DiCaprio is often nearly as bad. I think it's terrible when you have little guy like DiCaprio who is in rush to grow up to be Matt Damon playing roles like these.
I think that DiCaprio needs someone to explain to him that he is not and never will be Bruce Willis (for pure testosterone), Matt Damon (for his ability to fake someone intelligent) or Al Pacino (for his sheer versatility and ability to play role such as the jew in "the merchant of venice"). Even worse is that someone needs to tell him that there is no way in hell he is a suitable replacement for Michael Clarke Duncan... he's too short, too small, too white and also not nearly smart enough.
He is at best who Heath Ledger was trying so hard not to be... a pretty little boy who will end up on posters in teenaged girls bedrooms.... though more like middle aged women now probably.
I truly hope they can find an actor far better suited for this role.
Well... maybe if they do a film about Babbage... Leo can play Ada.
Its easier to explain computing in terms of a machine to people and lambda calculus is not instantly real to most of us. So Turing is one of the people whose work almost any layman can at least conceive.
I think this deserves plenty of credit.
This is all just my personal opinion.
You got the Mac part right, because the next computing-related movie will surely be a Jobs biopic.
Unless the name of the movie is Cryptonomicon, I'll take a pass. Otherwise Hella yeah!