It’s “old,” made in 2004, but not only had I not seen it, but somehow never heard of it until watched on DVD.
It seems difficult to believe that a film just about mathamaticians could be interesting, but it sure is. For any others who may have missed it, it’s well worth watching, IMHO. Very unusual plot, lots of suspense, and outstanding acting and direction.
I’ve seen the play, and loved it, but haven’t caught the movie yet. I’ll have to add it to my list.
Aw, I was hoping this thread would be about the 1991 Australian film called Proof. Now that’s an excellent film. I never did see the Gwenyth Paltrow one.
I would like to see it; just haven’t gotten around to it yet.
I read the play for English, and I really enjoyed it. It seemed somewhat short to me, but then again, I also read Shakespeare in that class.
Weird ancedote:
I had two old male professors. They had been teaching the class together for almost a decade and were good friends. When talking about the play, they mentioned they had a chance to see it.
P1: Our wives actually let us go see the play together!
P2: And it was great!
P1: And the play was good too!
And the entire class wondered what the great part was. They had a few…moments like that.
I caught in on New Year’s Day at the Angelika when I had nothing better to do and needed to get serious. And I’d seen the play, with Mary Louise Parker, on Broadway.
It took a while for the film to grow on me but I loved it, and thought that Gwyneth was overlooked at Oscar time.
Those who’ve seen both the play and the movie, how do they compare? I’ve seen the play, and I thought it was absolutely excellent, perhaps the best play I’ve ever seen (it’s vying with The Tempest, for me). And I’d heard that there was a movie being made, but I’d honestly not even realized it was out yet. Is the movie as good as the play?
I never saw the play, but I too thought the movie was excellent. I don’t have anything long-winded to say about it.
Just really enjoyed the acting, how it was put together, the mystery, the relationships, the writing. High quality stuff.
The movie didn’t play for very long last year, and it just came out a few weeks ago or so on DVD. I wanted to see it but BBuster’s copies are all out.
If you enjoyed Proof in either the play or movie version, do not die until you have seen the play Copenhagen. A similar theme but even better execution, IMO.
I just watched it, and I need someone to explain it to me. Use spoiler boxes if necessary. I kept waiting to see if she was crazy, or if her dad was, and/or if the boyfriend was imaginary. Perhaps I’m daft, but I didn’t get it.
I read the play before seeing the film and thought they were both great.
I thought it was pretty straightforward.
Her dad was a brilliant mathematician who went pretty mad (senile?). While taking care of him, the daughter solved a mathematical proof. The young mathemetician and the girl’s sister didn’t believe she was the author of the proof at first, but the mathemetician was won over once he had several people go over it and decided that some of the methods were too modern for the old man to have used. I think they made it more unclear in the film since they showed both the father and daughter working on proofs until the very end and noly then showed that what the father was working on was pure nonsense.
Ooooh, zombie thread!
As I understand it, although it was clearer on film than the stage:
Hal wasn’t imaginary. Catherine did indeed come up with the proof, as Hal took it to some professors towards the end. Her father had gone insane and his notebooks were full of rambling poetic observations but no math, and she was covering it up to save his rep, as well as undergoing some issues herself, but she was also a genius.
If you like math plays, Tom Stoppard’s ARCADIA is the next one you should read, although as usual with him it goes far afield. Saw it on Broadway with Robert Sean Leonard, Victor Garber, etc. although I think some women were in it too. I had to see it again (this time at the Majestic in Boston) to really follow it, though.
I also saw COPENHAGEN and have the DVD on my wish list.
There’s no doubt at all that she was crazy. Sane people don’t have conversations with their fathers the evening before the father’s funeral. This is not inconsistent with her being a genius, as well (in fact, the two go hand in hand disturbingly often).
Incidentally, I have now seen the film, since my previous post. It was a fairly faithful adaptation, though they changed the order around some. The play had most of the modern material in the first act, then all of the flashback material in the second, ending with the “two weeks later” part of the modern, presumably to allow opportunity for costume and set changes, while the movie, being edited, was free to intermingle them more. It was perhaps more dramatic intermingled, but also sometimes disorienting, since you weren’t sure when you were at the start of any given scene. And I’m not certain that Gwyneth Paltrow was the best choice to play Catherine. Overall, though, the movie was still very good.
I also never heard of “Proof”. However, one night when I was surfing the cable channels, the description of the movie (mathematics and Gwyneth Paltrow) certainly grabbed my attention. I liked it a lot. In base[sub]16[/sub], I’d rate it e[sup]e[/sup]
Mehitabel
<snip>Her father had gone insane and his notebooks were full of rambling poetic observations but no math, and she was covering it up to save his rep</snip>
I didn’t get the impression she was trying to save her father’s reputation. Don’t you remember her improvised eulogy at her father’s funeral? I couldn’t find the quote in the IMDB but she mentions in her father’s later years, the library books she had brought him were only used for his trying to derive some great cosmic connection from the Dewey Decimal numbers.
Which, if using hexadecimal and two’s complement math, is just a hair under e[sup]pi i[/sup].
I liked the movie too, though it was like watching another world. When formally presenting a proof, do mathmaticians actually stand up and dryly read from the notebook? I always imagined there’d be some visual materials - a chalk board, graphs, etc. - and at several points there may even be lots of hand-waving as they skip parts that rely on well-known proofs and axioms.
I thought the geek rock band was pretty fun, though. Which I suppose was the whole reason it was in there.
[spoiler]Actually, he was probably schizophrenic, and they mention in the beginning of the movie that he first became ill when he was in his mid-twenties, around Catherine’s age.
Did it seem to anyone else that the character of Robert was based in some part on John Nash Jr.? When they were listing his accomplishments at the funeral, it reminded me of Nash.
There is no real reason for any of this to be in spoiler boxes, is there?[/spoiler]