Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: The Imitation Game

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Posted by Stu Jamieson (Member # 4626) on 01-17-2015, 06:35 PM:

2001 saw the release of Enigma, a film about the titular Nazi encryption machine and more specifically about the legendary mathematician who was instrumental in cracking it's code. It had a high profile cast (for it's time) in Dougray Scott, Kate Winslet, Saffron Burrows, Jeremy Northam and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau who would, of course, become much more famous later on as a pivotal character in an obscenely popular medieval TV show. There's a problem with Enigma, however, and that is that it substituted the real-life homosexual mathematician, Alan Turing, for a fictional heterosexual mathematician named Thomas Jericho and indeed the story centres around his very heterosexual love affair. This incredible sleight against a significant historical figure is, in retrospect, offensive to say the least let alone the disappointment in reducing a highly intriguing historical event to a spy-chasing romance.

The Imitation Game seeks to correct this "reimagining" and essentially succeeds in this goal. Sure, there is much licence taking for the purposes of spicing up the script (which is a little frustrating given the intrigue of the truth) but it hits the important notes and we emerge at the other end with the commensurate admiration and sympathy that Turing deserves.

Turing's homosexuality is dealt with deftly. Critically, Turing kept his illicit sexuality secret and so does the film for a good deal of the proceedings, appropriately revealing it as it becomes critical to the story. It is never permitted to overshadow the significance of Turing's mathematical genius yet it doesn't resile from the personal cost of the injustice which his sexuality invites even if this chapter of the story is a little prone to melodrama.

The film remains compelling throughout, touching upon the important issues such as the official withholding of intelligence at the expense of innocent lives. Though these events are at times presented nonfactually, the gravity of the issues are rightly felt nonetheless.

Ever since his turn in the Sherlock television programme, Benedict Cumberbatch has become a viewers' darling and his excellent performance here will not endanger that status. Likewise, Keira Knightley is excellent as is Charles Dance and Mark Strong. Matthew Goode does what he can in a rather thankless role as fellow mathematician, Hugh Alexander.

The Imitation Game is not entirely authentic but it hits the right tone and canvases the appropriate issues and historical landmarks admirably in a compelling presentation.

9 out of 10

Posted by Terry Lynn-Stevens (Member # 7349) on 01-18-2015, 11:14 AM:

I thought the movie was pretty good, I doubt it will have a chance at the director or best picture award.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-02-2015, 05:21 AM:

quote:
There's a problem with Enigma, however, and that is that it substituted the real-life homosexual mathematician, Alan Turing, for a fictional heterosexual mathematician named Thomas Jericho and indeed the story centres around his very heterosexual love affair. This incredible sleight against a significant historical figure is, in retrospect, offensive to say the least let alone the disappointment in reducing a highly intriguing historical event to a spy-chasing romance.

I totally agree with you on this one. That movie was a total insult to the legacy of Alan Turing. Was it really too controversial back in 2001 to have an homosexual as lead character? Didn't we still get over the trauma that one of the brightest minds of the 20th century was a homosexual, who got mistreated until the point he committed suicide, despite all he achieved for the rest of us?

quote: Stu Jamieson
The film remains compelling throughout, touching upon the important issues such as the official withholding of intelligence at the expense of innocent lives. Though these events are at times presented nonfactually, the gravity of the issues are rightly felt nonetheless.

I think the non-factual parts can largely be excused as part of the "dramatization process" and getting the gravity of their achievements and decisions across. There was just this one thing that did bother me. Turing and all the others that worked on their machine knew it would never be fast enough to go trough all possible iterations, so they knew they needed some known targets in the messages they tried to decode, practically right from the start.

Knowing this, the scene in the bar felt even more like a cheap ripoff of the bar scene in A Beautiful Mind, where the ultimate simplified version of the Nash Equilibrium supposedly came to Nash himself in an eureka moment featuring hot women.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 04-02-2015, 07:15 AM:

Thank you, Stu.