A Beautiful Mind

A Beautiful Mind, American biographical film, released in 2001, that told the story of American Nobel Prize winner John Nash, whose innovative work on game theory in mathematics was in many ways overshadowed by decades of mental illness. Parts of the film, which is set largely on the campus of Princeton University against a backdrop of Cold War intrigue, are seen from Nash’s delusional perspective. The movie, directed by Ron Howard and based loosely on Sylvia Nasar’s 1998 biography of Nash, won four Academy Awards, including that for best picture.

The movie begins in 1947 at Princeton, where Nash (played by Russell Crowe) has arrived as a graduate student, together with Martin Hansen (Josh Lucas), Richard Sol (Adam Goldberg), Ainsley (Jason Gray-Stanford), and Bender (Anthony Rapp). Nash is arrogant and dismissive of his classmates but gets along with his roommate Charles (Paul Bettany). Nash generally pursues his studies alone but, when Charles suggests that he take a break and go to a bar, Nash agrees. At the bar, a discussion with his classmates as to the most successful way for them to approach a group of women leads to Nash’s breakthrough paper on game theory.

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Nash later receives an appointment to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where Sol and Bender become his assistants. A few years later, he is asked to the Pentagon to decrypt coded Russian communications. His success impresses William Parcher (Ed Harris), a high-level agent in the Department of Defense. While teaching at MIT, Nash begins dating a student, Alicia (Jennifer Connelly). Parcher visits Nash to enlist him in a group of workers who scan newspapers and magazines to find hidden Russian codes embedded in the text. Nash is to leave deciphered codes in a secret drop box for Parcher. The clandestine work makes Nash nervous, but he is cheered when he reunites with his former roommate Charles. He marries Alicia soon thereafter. Some time later, Nash gets caught up in a gun battle between Parcher and several Russian agents. Terrified, he asks Parcher to be relieved of his assignment, but Parcher tells him that he would be killed if he were to quit. While giving a lecture at Harvard University, Nash sees Charles in the audience but then spots Russian agents as well, and he flees.

Nash is captured, sedated, and sent to a psychiatric facility under the care of Dr. Rosen (Christopher Plummer). Dr. Rosen tells Alicia that Nash suffers from schizophrenia and that Parcher and Charles exist only in Nash’s mind. Alicia is not convinced until she sees the inside of Nash’s office and also finds the drop box, which is full of unopened missives. Nash receives therapy, and Nash, Alicia, and their son move to Princeton. The medication makes Nash lethargic, however, and eventually he stops taking his pills. After he knocks Alicia to the ground when Parcher urges him to kill her, he and Alicia decide to find a way to live with his illness. After that, although Nash continues to see Parcher and Charles, he no longer interacts with them. Eventually, he is able to return to teaching, and in 1994 he receives the Nobel Prize.

A Beautiful Mind was criticized by some viewers for glossing over some of the darker elements of Nash’s life story, including the facts that Nash fathered a child with a different woman before marrying Alicia and that he was arrested in 1954 for indecent exposure. The mathematician’s symptoms in fact did not begin until 1959, after he had written his dissertation. Although the film depicted Nash’s hallucinations as largely visual, Nash himself reported that his delusions were mostly auditory and mental. The screenwriter, Akiva Goldsman, conceived of the visual hallucinations as a method for giving the viewer the sensation of experiencing delusions. Though in reality Nash apparently had a remission of his mental illness, in the movie the character says that he is taking a newer medicine. This was a choice made by the director in order not to give the impression that abandoning medication was an appropriate method of dealing with schizophrenia.

Production notes and credits

• Studios: Universal Studios, DreamWorks, and Imagine Entertainment
• Director: Ron Howard
• Writer: Akiva Goldsman (script)
• Music: James Horner

Cast

• Russell Crowe (John Nash)
• Jennifer Connelly (Alicia Nash)
• Josh Lucas (Martin Hansen)
• Adam Goldberg (Richard Sol)
• Anthony Rapp (Bender)
• Paul Bettany (Charles)
• Ed Harris (William Parcher)
• Christopher Plummer (Dr. Rosen)

Academy Award nominations (* denotes win)

• Picture*
• Lead actor (Russell Crowe)
• Supporting actress* (Jennifer Connelly)
• Directing*
• Editing
• Makeup
• Music
• Writing*