A Beautiful Mind 20 years

On December 13, 2001, Ron Howard's movie "A Beautiful Mind" premiered in Beverly Hills, California.

The translation of the English title of this film (A Beautiful Mind) into Russian is, in my opinion, that rare case when the translation turns out to be better than the original. Indeed, the phrase "beautiful mind" can probably be applied to the overwhelming number of scientists. And not only scientists. But a rare collision, when genius and schizophrenia are combined in one brain, is just the most adequately reflected by the phrase "mind games".

However, there is no need to make a claim to the creators of the picture in this regard, since the film is an adaptation of the literary work of the same name. Namely, the biographical book by Sylvia Nasar "A Beautiful Mind: a Biography of John Forbes Nash, Jr., Winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, 1994".

A few words about the author of this book. Silvia (Zulfiya) Nazar was born in Germany. Her father, Ruzi Nazar, is a Uyghur by nationality, born in Soviet Uzbekistan. During the Great Patriotic War, he was captured by the Germans and accepted an offer to serve in the Wehrmacht. After the war, he married a German woman and from this marriage in 1947 his daughter Zulfiya was born. In 1951, the Nazar family moved to the United States, where Ruzi Nazar started working in the CIA, and Zulfiya's name was changed to Sylvia.

In 1970, Sylvia Nazar graduated from college with a bachelor's degree in literature, and in 1976 she graduated from the university with a master's degree in economics. After that, Sylvia Nasar worked for 4 years under the supervision of an outstanding scientist, emigrant from Soviet Russia, Wassily Leontief, who not long before that had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics. In the early 80s, Sylvia Nasar completely switched to literary activity, devoting herself to journalism. Naturally, the subject of Sylvia Nasar's articles was economics.

The work under the guidance of the Nobel laureate affected the literary work of Sylvia Nasar: when in 1994 the Nobel Prize in economics was awarded to John Forbes Nash Jr., she decided to write a book about this scientist. The book was published in 1998 and became an instant bestseller. True, some especially attentive and picky literary scholars have drawn attention to some similarity between Nasar's book and the story of American psychologist Robert Lindner's "The Jet-Propelled Couch", published in 1954 in Harper's Bazaar magazine, and in 1955 as part of this psychologist's book "The Fifty Minute Hour". The story described a patient of this doctor who was a prominent scientist and worked for the government. This patient's name was Kirk Allen.

Due to the extreme popularity of Sylvia Nasar's book, translated into 30 languages of the world, producer Brian Grazer, who by that time had already produced more than 20 films and two Oscar nominations, put his eye on it, as they say. Grazer bought the rights to the film adaptation, and it was quite difficult to do this, since John and Alicia Nash banned to use their personal lives as the basis of the film. In addition, Grazer had a rather serious competitor in this endeavor - producer Scott Rudin, who by this time had more than 30 films on his account, including Peter Weir's "The Truman Show".

Somehow, Grazer managed to persuade the Nash to lift their ban on film adaptation. Perhaps the reason for John and Alicia Nash's reluctance to make their lives the basis of the film adaptation was the fact that at that moment they were in a state of divorce, although they lived in the same house. But on the other hand, during the filming of the film, they were again married. It is curious that during the filming of the film, another married couple was formed: Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany got married.

Having become the owner of the rights to the film adaptation, Grazer immediately began to form a team to bring his next film project to life. And the first candidate for the position of director of the picture was Ron Howard, with whom Grazer had already developed a good relationship during the work on several films. True, at first, Grazer and Howard had disagreements over the project's timeline. Grazer even considered offering the director's position to another, rather eminent director. For example, Robert Redford. But everyone was busy. And only Howard was available. Grazer had to make concessions and agree with Howard's proposals on the work schedule.

As a result of the compromise reached, the preparatory period, including the creation of the script, the casting of actors, etc., lasted more than 2 years. More than 20 stars of American cinema applied for the role of John Nash. Among the candidates for the role of John Nash was Jared Leto, who was assisted during the casting by Jennifer Connelly, giving replicas. The couple became friends during their previous work in the film "Requiem for a Dream" by Darren Aronofsky. However, friendly support in this case led to unexpected results. Jared Leto didn't get the role, the role went to Russell Crowe. And Connelly, who was not even considered as a candidate for a role in this film (and there were also about two dozen of them, and all the stars), received an offer to play Alicia. And this role brought the actress a Golden Globe, the British Academy BAFTA Award, as well as the only Oscar nomination in her piggy bank to date.

The filming process itself began on March 26, 2001, literally the day after Russell Crowe received an Oscar for his role in the film "Gladiator". And just a few weeks after the release of the film "A Beautiful Mind" Russell Crowe was awarded the Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama. In addition to winning this nomination, Ron Howard's film received three other Golden Globes, including Best Motion Picture - Drama. But in the nomination for Best Director - Motion Picture, Ron Howard lost to Robert Altman, the director of the film "Gosford Park". Howard's companions-underdogs were David Lynch ("Mulholland Drive"), Peter Jackson ("The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring"), Steven Spielberg ("Artificial Intelligence") and Baz Luhrmann ("Moulin Rouge!").

For the second time in a row, the American Film Academy did not award Russell Crowe with its gilded statuette, although it awarded the corresponding nomination. In total, the American Film Academy awarded 8 nominations to Ron Howard's film "A Beautiful Mind", of which 4 was named the winner. Including the most important ones - Best Film and Best Director.

Of the prestigious film forums outside the United States, only the British Film Academy awarded Ron Howard's A Beautiful Mind with its nominations. "A Beautiful Mind" received 5 BAFTA nominations but won only two acting nominations. In the most important nominations - Best Film and Best Director - British film academics gave the palm to the film "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" and its director Peter Jackson.

The assessment of Ron Howard's film "A Beautiful Mind" by professional film critics cannot be called unambiguous. The film received a lot of negative reviews, and most of the negative reviews were caused by serious discrepancies between the film and the real biography of the Nobel laureate. In fact, the authors of the picture omitted a number of points from the biography of John Nash, in particular, his bisexuality in his younger years, the presence of his illegitimate son, for whom he refused to pay alimony, and some other details. The authors of the film depicted the almost idyllic family life of John and Alicia Nash, although in fact they lived for more than 30 years, being divorced. But if John and Alicia lived apart for most of their lives, they died together, on the same day and, one might say, in the same minute. John and Alicia Nash were killed in a car crash on May 23, 2015, when the driver of the taxi in which they were traveling lost control and collided with a guardrail and a second car on a highway in New Jersey. The New York Times reported that although the two drivers suffered only minor injuries, the Nashes "were thrown out of the cab, and both were pronounced dead on the spot." John was 86 and Alicia was 82.

However, the authors of the film not only removed something from the hero's biography, but also added something. For example, Nash's visual hallucinations were added, although it is known that he only suffered from auditory hallucinations. A pompous Nobel speech was also added, filled with pompous gratitude to his wife. In fact, the Nobel Committee did not invite John Nash to the prize for fear of instability in his behavior. Instead of a speech at the Nobel Committee, John Nash gave a short speech at Princeton. The main points of this speech were expressions of gratitude to the Nobel Committee, since the prize would raise his, Nash, credit rating, which he badly needed. And also - regret that the prize was awarded to four, and not to him alone. Not a word was said about his wife.

Some particularly zealous critics of the film even turned to Sylvia Nasar with the question of how she assesses the distortion of her literary work produced in the film. Nasar replied that the filmmakers "invented a narrative that, although far from being literal, corresponds to the spirit of Nash's story." Perhaps that is why the guru of American film critic Roger Ebert rated Ron Howard's film "A Beautiful Mind" with the maximum 4 stars in his system and included it in his list of "Great Movies".

The following figures indicate the evaluation of Ron Howard's film "A Beautiful Mind" by ordinary moviegoers. With a combined production and marketing budget of $ 88 million, its box office grossed more than $ 313 million. 79% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users gave this film ratings from 8 to 10. At the same time, 22% of users rated the movie with the highest score - "ten".

With that said, FilmGourmand rated Ron Howard's film "A Beautiful Mind" at 8,873, placing it at # 199 in the Golden Thousand.