A Beautiful Mind

[blpurdom]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "caliburncy" <caliburncy at y...> wrote:
> Spoiler 
> space 
> if 
> you 
> haven't 
> seen 
> this 
> wonderful 
> film 
> and 
> don't 
> want 
> to 
> know 
> some 
> pretty 
> important 
> details.
> (And also some stuff about "The Sixth Sense," so if you haven't
> seen that either...yeah right!)
> 
> --- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "blpurdom" <blpurdom at y...> wrote:
> > When it was over, I immediately wanted to see it again.  It felt 
> > similar to the first time I saw "The Sixth Sense."  I wanted to 
> > see it again to look for the subtle clues that I missed the 
> > first time that when the main character was seeing a 
> > ghost/hallucination, no one else was seeing it.
> 
> Actually, in terms of clues (misdirective foreshadowing), there 
> are relatively few that I am aware of.  Some, certainly, but not 
> on the level of something like "The Sixth Sense", probably because 
> ultimately this twist is not the point.

Something I thought of as soon as he is in the psychiatrist's office 
and we KNOW for sure that he's imagining the roommate was the scene 
in the library.  After the roommate convinces him to go out, we see 
him leaving, yelling about beer, but clearly alone.  The perspective 
switched from his to the way the rest of the world sees him, so at 
that point we don't see the roommate, we see him as he really is: 
alone.  In retrospect, the fact that the roommate appears neither at 
the bar when he's socializing with the other mathematics students 
nor at his wedding, where you might expect him, should have been 
huge red flags.

> But what I think would be *really* fascinating to look for upon 
> seeing it again is . . . what event inspired the creation (and 
> reappearance) of each of his hallucinations?  [snip] It was when 
> the little girl first appeared that I began to wonder . . . why 
> would that girl suddenly demand creation?  What in Nash's mind 
> caused that?

He also created an elaborate backstory to explain the roommate 
having custody of the little girl, including the alcoholic brother-
in-law and a truck accident.  And she never seemed to have a need to 
be in school.  I loved that his logic kicked in finally when he had 
the revelation about the little girl never growing older.  

> The first time that Ed Harris's character appeared, again only if 
> I recall correctly, was when Nash was at the Pentagon decoding 
> that sequence.  Was the sequence then real, as I might assume, 
> thereby creating sufficient paranoia and stress to lead to 
> Parcher's creation?  Or was the sequence itself not real?  

I think he was really called to the Pentagon.  He sees--or thinks he 
sees, that's never clear--a shadowy figure behind a screen above the 
floor where he's shown the data they want him to analyze.  He 
says, "Who's Big Brother?" referring to the figure, and it's clear 
from the reactions of the people around him that no one else sees 
the figure.  From this one instance of being--or imagining being--
watched, he constructs the subsequent elaborate conspiracy.

The details are astounding: the abandoned warehouses that Nash 
imagined were full of government employees and large supercomputers; 
the house where he dropped his information, which he never noticed 
was actually abandoned and had been for some time.  When he finds a 
similar set-up to the warehouse in the small shed behind his house, 
by then we know it isn't real, and yet--for a moment, I almost 
expected his wife to find government employees and computers when 
she opened the door, instead of more clippings that indicated he was 
still very ill.

Another great thing about the film is that the actors all turned in 
stellar performances whether their actual characters were real or 
imagined, which is what made the discovery of the extent of his 
illness so surprising.  And it was also very interesting that even 
after he knew they weren't real, the imaginary people continued to 
accompany him in his daily life, and he just calmly ignored them, 
even while being aware of their presence.  It's great that this film 
has already won four awards!

--Barb

Chapter 14 of the Last Temptation is up....Are you tempted?
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