Biography? History? Cinema Art Over All?

Rating: Null/10 (8 January 2002)

The film industry's fascination with biographies, real, imagined or twisted goes way back. Perhaps D.W. Griffith made the first important one when he created a silent-screen Abraham Lincoln generally unrecognizable to historians (his U.S. Grant is a funny caricature of a very able general, one of America's best).
Film depictions of dead individuals are different than those of living people or those associated with them. It matters little if Salieri was trashed in "Amadeus." Music lovers know his works as being very fine and uphold his character as unblemished by the taint of suspicion of poisoning Mozart. Beethoven is a semi-buffoon in "Immortal Beloved." No matter - every conductor programs his works with awesome regularity and often tedious results.
When it comes to the living, those involved in making a biopic must consider a number of issues, a libel action not being the least predictable. On the theory that art transcends mundane reality we have been given "Shine" in which a brilliant Geoffrey Rush convincingly portrays a supposedly virtuosic but schizophrenic David Helfgott. One hearing of the actual pianist's sad attempt at resurrecting his aborted career puts paid to that vision.
More controversially, "Hilary and Jackie" presented a version of reality by one part of the late cellist Jacqueline du Pre's family, a picture that included a claimed sexual relationship by the musician with her brother-in-law, apparently with the acquiescence or even encouragement of her sister. A torrent of articles has been spawned by that movie and bitter partisans of both factions are angry.
What to make of "A Beautiful Mind." Russell Crowe is brilliant, Jennifer Connelly even more so, Christopher Plummer is miscast as "Dr. Rosen," a psychiatrist who projects a whiff of evil more real than Professor Nash's powerful hallucinatory helpmates and enemies. Ed Harris is perfect as a spectral government secret agent. James Horner's score is workable and digital enhancement makes teen ingenue Charlotte Church's singing slightly ethereal.
The choices made by the director and script writers as to what to portray about this living, brilliant, erratic and certainly very complex man says more about them and film marketing than it does about their protagonist. That he and his wife were separated for very many years is omitted as is the apparently verified reality that he was bisexual. It seems that being gay is "in" these days in Hollywood while being attracted to both genders is not. Mc Connell as the wife is unbelievably loyal. Perhaps my somewhat biased perspective as a lawyer allows me to admire the performance while denying the possibility that her devotion could have been that intense. Well, of course, it wasn't.
Academy Award nominations are guaranteed for this well-crafted fable. Most schizophrenics aren't geniuses. Most people aren't either. Schizophrenia is eminently more treatable now than when Dr. Nash was at the nadir of his personal and professional life but his accommodation with his disease was then, and remains, extraordinary.
This film is high cinema art. If Dr. Nash and his wife have no problem with how they're portrayed, neither should we.