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The Imitation Game Fails Test of Inspiring the Next Turings
reifman writes In 'The Imitation Game': Can This Big Fat Cliche Win Best Picture?, reviewer Monica Guzman blasts the film for distorting history and missing the opportunity to inspire today's tech savvy, highly surveilled generation to follow in Turing's path: Instead of an inventor, it shows a stereotype. Instead of inspiring us to follow in the footsteps of a person who shaped technology, the film inspires us only to get out of the way of the next genius who can. The Imitation Game changed aspects of the real Alan Turing's personality to conform more closely to our idea of the solitary nerd. It falls in line with the tired idea that only outcasts could love computers...As for explaining the science behind Turing's code-breaking machine, the movie doesn't bother. if invention doesn't deserve top billing in this story, where the technology at its heart is not only historically significant but hugely resonant in our lives today, then I don't know where it would. The message of the movie is that the uncommon man can do amazing things, but the message we need is that the common man, woman, anybody can and should tinker with the technology that manages our whole world.
The movie is from start to finish is to show how gay people suffered in history, and breaking the gay stereotype of being "Fabulous". They weren't taking the nerd rights at all.
sounds more like "my agenda wasn't served by this picture"
every single historical film ever made, and ever will be made, will be inaccurate. because you can't distill someone's life or a major event into 2 hours and retain accuracy. which doesn't mean anything
because to pay homage to someone we admire, and to make more people aware of the great things they did, far, far outweighs the griping someone might have about accuracy
don't get me wrong: there is such a thing as propaganda and lies. but as long as a film remains broadly accurate we can forgive a foible here and there
for example: there are also people griping about the films "american sniper," and "selma." i'm not going to say if chris kyle did or said ugly things that were conveniently ignored, and i'm not going to say if lyndon johnson's attitudes were incorrectly conveyed. because it doesn't matter to my point in this post. what i'm going to say (i have to be careful because you can set off all sorts of pointless tangential arguments based on misunderstanding) that my *personal* belief is: getting someone interested in the history far outweighs these foibles
the movies were obviously made with care and concern, and were not made as ugly propaganda attack pieces, which also exist, and are what is worthy of ridicule and condemnation. the intentions of the people making "american sniper", "selma", and "the imitation game" were good, honorary to their subject matter, historically faithful if not 100% accurate, and were obviously not made with the intention of ignorant attack pieces. so they are all worthy films anyone should see, to get more people interested in these important topics, as we all should be, to learn from them
and if someone is more interested in the actual history, they can pursue the actual historical facts in academic treatises, documentaries, biographies, etc. which will never, ever be boiled down into 2 hour pop movies
i will say this: the controversies about lbj in "selma", and chris kyle in "american sniper", are far more substantial than these weak contrived complaints about "the imitation game"
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Have you seen Particle Fever? It's possible to make a movie about technically complex topics that's also accessible to a wider audience. Human drama is probably the most important element in any successful movie, but you can also surround that drama with technical information. People become more receptive to it that way, rather than eyes glazing over.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
The movie is about a recluse with a dark secret, who, despite not fitting in and being generally weird, finds a purpose for himself and a way to make a contribution to the war, only to see his greatest accomplishments hidden from view and perverted by the security state.
Sigh. I saw the movie and it was a well-executed film, but it was essentially about a made-up person. I agree with your summary of the fictional character, but not the man. Turing was certainly eccentric, but he had friends, was liked by his colleagues, and had a good sense of humor. As terrible as his chemical castration was, it certainly didn't ruin his mind - he did some interesting work on mathematical biology inspired by those very changes. And he died more than a year after the end of his "treatment". And it was recast as an "us-vs-them" story, which simply isn't true - thousands of people were working on breaking Enigma and made steady progress throughout the war, with the support of the entire chain of command (in particular the Commander Denniston).
He's such an interesting person with a fascinating story - it's a real damn shame they basically invented a character to give his name.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
1. Alen Turing was gay.
2. He was briefly engaged to his coworker lady friend.
3. He worked on Enigma.
4. He died after the war.
Besides that it was a complete fiction. "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" was more historically accurate.
If you want the truth, I suggest starting with wikipedia: "Marian Rejewski", then "Bombe", then "Bletchley Park", then "Coventry Blitz".
Sadly, the real story is way more interesting and moved much faster than the movie. The Poles gave Enigma cracking plans to the French and the Brits on July 24th 1939. The Brits started up Bletchley Park, brought in Turing and many others, and had a working Enigma cracking program (many machines) by the end of fall 1939!
Another interesting detail that many books on Enigma (and this movie very loosely alludes to) still get wrong has to do with the German upgrade to their code machine in 1942. David Kahn in his "The Codebreakers" book attributes the success in cracking Enigma after 1942 to capturing code books. The truth is that Alan Turing became the technical ambassador to the United States and came over the pond November 1942. He met with some engineers at NCR and developed an electronic version of the mechanical bombe, the plans were finished and approved by the US Navy in January 1943, and the first working prototypes that were 10000 faster than the British bombs were working by May. The rest of that story is at wikipedia: "United States Naval Computing Machine Laboratory".
These are the stories I want to see, not the I'm-the-misunderstood-genius-Asperger-syndrome Turning bullshit that "Imitation Game" put out there.
- Minarke
I find it ironic that the movie chooses to portray Turing in an inaccurately negative light,
when so many times, the film industry polishes up a flawed human hero in a Hollywood retelling.
What I find ironic is how they manage to mention the people who actually cracked Enigma twice and only in passing. First one of those British intelligence types blurts out something about Enigma being "stolen by Polish intelligence" and a second time when Turing claims his machine is based on "an old Polish decryption device" (or something to that effect). At the time this movie is supposed to have happened the bomba kryptologiczna, which is probably what they are referring, to was about 3 years old. That may be dated technology today but by the standard of the 1930s three years was not 'old technology'. Turing achieved great things but he and his team didn't crack Enigma all on their own with British ingenuity. They stood on the shoulders of people like Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Rozycki and Henryk Zygalski and many others who cracked Enigma with Polish ingenuity. They were the ones who originally had the audacity to think that they could crack the world's most sophisticated cypher technology with the meagre resources the Polish cypher bureau had.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
You've obviously never heard of D4nny. I'm not sure I approve of comparing a brass-tacks intellectual contribution like Turing's to subjective pursuits like music. Turing's accomplishment is massive regardless of your feelings about it. Music's beauty is in the ear of the listener.
And he died more than a year after the end of his "treatment".
This. There is a good chance that Turing actually didn't commit suicide, but rather died of accidental cyanide inhalation. He had set up a chemical lab in his living space and wasn't exactly using OSHA-approved storage protocols for dangerous chemicals. His mother, at the time, said she didn't think he'd killed himself, and contemporary accounts were that he was doing pretty okay. The supposedly cyanide-poisoned apple was not tested for cyanide. None of this is conclusive.
IMO, any modern report on Turing should account for the possibility he didn't kill himself. The suicide angle makes a great story for gay rights activists, but it does a disservice to the memory of this great man to reduce him to a political talking point. The forced hormone treatment was abominable, whether or not it drove him to suicide. There's a chance it did, and a chance it did not.
vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
The really scary thing about all of these posts is that I can easily imagine the people making them putting a visionary like Mao Zedong in power.
Its really kind of scary what happens when you put highly intelligent asocial people in power; one longs for the company of "stupid, mewling peasants".
OK, I'll bite.
I could say the same from the other point of view.
Each and any average dude uses products invented and designed by someone who was way above average, starting from fire and ending up with that "phat aiphone" in one's pocket.
The few rely on the work of the many and the many use the work of the few. Symbiosis at its best.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)