A BEAUTIFUL MIND: Blu-ray (Dreamworks SKG 2001) Universal Home Video

Eschewing the less flattering passages in Sylvia Nasar’s book (including John Forbes Nash’s frequent run-ins with the law, his fathering an illegitimate child with a nurse he completely disowned, and, his alleged solicitation of homosexual sex in a men’s public bathroom), Ron Howard’s A Beautiful Mind (2001) treads safe and familiar territory in this moderately fictionalized account of the brilliant mathematician’s life. Yet, there is something disingenuous about Akiva Goldman’s screenplay; setting up the initial premise of John Forbes Nash – genius – while still a student at Princeton, only to spend the bulk of the picture debunking this genius by graphically illustrating John’s disquieting descend into schizophrenia. Russell Crowe, who thus far in his career, had been thought of as something of the beefy Aussie-hunk du jour, able to throw around his muscled might, goes for the inward – small – performance here, and excels at extolling a caricature of Nash as an introvert, tortured by his own magnificent intellect, gradually to unravel and betray him by transcending from fact into fantasy. Crowe is superb here, and thus, much of the truth of the real Nash gets replaced by Crowe’s tenderly introspective performance. Crowe allows us to go behind the gears of a complex mind and slowly emerge from its self-imposed malaise. It’s the gentler Crowe, soft-spoken, exuding an awkward – almost gawky – charm that draws out our empathy; a real tour de force for the actor justly Oscar-nominated a second time as Best Actor (losing out to Denzel Washington, for Training Day).

Regrettably, the rest of A Beautiful Mind is rather insincerely packed with hyperbole and mechanically contrived hyper-fiction; Howard, clearly more invested in illustrating the episodes from Nash’s own fruitful imagination that, for very long stretches in this movie also lead the audience to believe the more darkly purposed events taking hold of Nash’s free time are actually happening in real/reel time, rather than born of the main character’s deteriorating mental state. My biggest concern with any celluloid biography to take such grand artistic liberties is, in the way its clever structure alters our collective perception as a stand-in for the true mettle and merits of the real person being immortalized.  The real John Forbes Nash is sincerely owed his due as an American mathematician who made essential contributions to game theory, differential geometry, and the study of partial differential equations; the influences governing chance and decision-making inside complicated routines found in everyday life. Tragically killed in an automobile accident in 2015, along with his wife, Nash’s theories continue to be widely analyzed in economics. He remains the only mathematician to be awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences and the Abel Prize. And, as there is often said to be a very fragile veneer to delineate between human genius and its antithesis – insanity – as in the movie - in 1959, the real Nash illustrated the first clear signs of his mental illness. He spent several agonizing years inside a psychiatric hospital for paranoid schizophrenia; his condition to have moderately abated after 1970, allowing Nash to return to his academic work.

The movie, A Beautiful Mind, picks up Nash’s story with his arrival at Princeton, initially met with much anticipation. By now, Nash has already won the prestigious Carnegie Prize for mathematics and is considered a great mind in the making. That is enough to impress his roommate, Charlie (Paul Bettany) as well as to create a quiet rivalry among Nash’s more immediate peers. But Nash is antisocial, his lack of success in squiring ladies leading him to develop the concept of ‘governing dynamics.’ He assumes a professorship at MIT where he meets Alicia (Jennifer Connelly) – one of his calculus students. Now, here is where the narrative gets tricky. Nash is reunited with Charlie who introduces him to his niece, Marcee (Vivien Cardone). Nash is also introduced to a mysterious agent in the U.S. Dept. of Defense – William Parcher (Ed Harris)…or is he? Nash is asked by Parcher to decipher an encrypted telecommunications message, which Nash does with considerable ease. However, soon Parcher is asking Nash to look into more hidden conspiracy codes, built into everything from newspaper articles to magazine ads. Nash’s quest for these ‘hidden messages’ eventually becomes his all-consuming obsession. He is hunted by Soviets spies, sedated and then sent to a psychiatric facility.

The wrinkle, later exposed, is that none of the aforementioned actually happened. All are a product of Nash’s increasing schizophrenia and paranoid delusions. After enduring an excruciating series of shock therapy sessions, Nash is released into Alicia’s custody. But the anti-psychotic drugs he is forced to take have affected his innate ability to perform complex mathematics. And thus, for ten long years, this brilliant mind is silenced. The latter half of the movie grows ever darker and more foreboding with Nash increasingly contemplating the death of his young son and wife at the behest of Parcher’s urging. Eventually, Nash fights back these demons and is restored to a portion of his former self, doing research at Princeton. The movie ends with Nash honored with the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics. Well-received by most critics, and a real tear-jerker besides, there are too many major inconsistencies between fact and fiction to warrant A Beautiful Mind as a certified bio-pic. Rather, it emerges more along the lines of an enlightened, if largely experimental and fragmented critique of Nash’s mental illness. Yet, even here, the film tends to hypothesize and speculate rather than relate cold hard facts. For example, Nash’s hallucinations were auditory – not visual. The movie naturally has no other choice but to present them as concretely manifested episodes, straining Nash’s tenuous toe-hold on reality to the breaking point.

After Ron Howard’s long-time collaborator, producer, Brian Grazer first read an excerpt from Sylvia Nasar's A Beautiful Mind in Vanity Fair he aggressively pursued the film rights. Alas, Howard’s prior commitments precluded his immediate involvement and Grazer began the fruitless endeavor to audition other A-list directors in his stead. As this process dragged on – and on – Howard eventually became available and was immediately snatched up by Grazer. At Howard’s behest, the love story was beefed up and brought more clearly into focus. The production also hired David Bayer, a professor of Mathematics at Barnard College, Columbia University to act as a creative consultant, and, make-up artist, Greg Cannom who had successfully aged Russell Crowe in the movie, The Insider (1999). Cannom had also previously worked with Howard on 1985’s Cocoon. At Crowe's request, Cannom endeavored to push the make-up applications to mimic the real Nash, with silicone overlapping applications and dentures used to lend Crowe a slight overbite. Howard and Grazer also aligned themselves once more with composer, James Horner with whom they shared a long-standing collaborative tradition. In turn, Horner brought in relatively unknown Welsh singer, Charlotte Church to sing the soprano vocals in his underscore. As already acknowledged, A Beautiful Mind virtually avoids the labyrinth of less than flattering moments that summarize Nash’s real-life experiences. Thus, in the end, the picture succeeds only if one sets aside what is known about schizophrenia or Nash and simply embraces it as a work of pure pop fiction.

Universal’s Blu-ray exhibits exemplary image quality. Visually, this is a very dark film, moodily lit and photographed by Roger Deakins as a sort of uber-romantic/noir-like mystery. Shadow delineation is excellent. Fine details are evident even during the most dimly lit scenes. Colors are highly stylized, but the palette is saturated in golds and greens. Flesh tones are particularly pleasing. As Nash steadily slips into his psychosis, contrast is elevated to gradually differential for the audience what is real and what is, in fact, another of Nash’s hallucinations. This is as originally intended. The audio is 5.1 DTS and exceptionally nuanced, with James Horner’s brooding score really exercising the acoustics in rear and side channels. Extras include a making of featurette, audio commentary and theatrical trailer. Bottom line: A Beautiful Mind is a beautiful movie. But it presents an alternate theory to Nash’s real-life drama and woes. And this, at least, makes it a complete fail insofar as movie bio-pics go.  Judge and buy accordingly.

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

3.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

4.5

EXTRAS

3