We had an outing to go and see the film of the play "Proof" last night. There were three undergrads from USC, and me. Of course, we had to go and see it in my part of town, in Hollywood's Arclight Cinema, about which I've spoken before. The Arclight is part of the huge transformation that is taking place around the Sunset/Vine, and Hollywood/Vine junctions and surroundings over the last several years. There are so many new things starting up (seems that there's something new opening every weekend).
My companions (Rose, Pavitra, and Jeff) loved the film, as far as I can tell, and I would dearly love to know what the other members of the audience thought (it was a large and full auditorium, which was good to see for a film like this). So what do I think of Proof? In short: For what it is, it's fantastic. It is so rare to see a mainstream film which has main characters who are all academics/scientists without resorting to a standard set of cliches about how to depict them. In fact, my usual list of complaints (see discussion in the threads of those posts) about how scientists are portrayed were addressed, as one character directly mentions that portrayal to illustrate a point in the film. There were some cliches, but they were mostly all mild in comparison to the ones to which they could have resorted, and I put them down to being part of the price you pay for trying to write a drama at all. There are also some amusingly stiff and unnatural uses of the term "theoretical physicist" by the mathematician characters, which while not intentional, I thought it resulted in those references being actually funnier, being a theoretical physicist myself. I still find it quite sad that the central thrust of the play/film is still centred on the "mental illness of the genius" cliche which we should try to get away from in portrayals of scientists if we are ever to teach our fellow citizens that we are not to be feared as "other". And the advertising for this film has very much focussed on that aspect. Here is the blurb from IMDB:
The daughter of a brilliant but mentally disturbed mathematician, recently deceased, tries to come to grips with her possible inheritance: his insanity. Complicating matters are one of her father's ex-students who wants to search through his papers and her estranged sister who shows up to help settle his affairs.
See what I mean? I'm not saying that it is not an interesting subject, just that (as I've said in several other posts and the discussion threads thereof) we need to try to have successful protrayals of scientists as just part of the landscape of regular people. But given that choice of subject (the mental illness of the genius theme), they did a great job.
The academic atmosphere and the flow of the conversations about the mathematics were (largely) very realistically done. There were no artificial constructs, and certainly no stupid scenes where the woman scientist (always played by beautiful actress that nobody notices at first) takes off her glasses, wobbles her head, making her hair fall down about her shoulders and then the male lead notices and says "Why, Dr. Jones, you're beautiful!". Nope, none of that. The comfortably (relatively) ordinary-looking leads, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jake Gyllenhaal, two of my favourite performers from the younger set, were excellent. Witness Paltrow's character's hand hovering for several moments because a thought about what she's working on hits her while she's reaching into the refrigerator to get something. Witness the joy on her demeanour from the revelation brought on by the idea, extra poignant since she's been working so hard on it. We can all relate to that. Anthony Hopkins was his usual solid self. His portrayal of the father's evident pride and joy at being able to do mathematics with his daughter was touching. Hope Davis was also very good as the one "outsider" looking in at the world of the academics. (The "i" joke was extremely well handled...)
I do recommend that you see it, since films portraying academics of any sort as the main protagonists are rare, and good ones are even more rare. Do come back here and share what you think of the film - without too many plot details and spoilers for those who have not had a chance to see it, if at all possible (at least while it is still a short time since the film's release). Well, after that, since the night was still young and we were in the heart of the entertainment capital of the planet, we did other things. First, my usual stop at the excellent and huge collection at Amoeba Music which is right next door to the Arclight. I was looking for the DVD of season one of (the excellently written, cast, acted, and directed reimagining of) Battlestar Galactica (which I ended up not buying....it's not yet on sale there....got to save my pennies, you know.)
One of us (Rose) purchased a CD, we all soaked up the fun atmosphere of Amoeba (which is the main point of going) and then we headed off to West Hollywood to Mel's Drive-In (of American Graffiti fame, although not this branch...so it makes complete sense that we - as USC folk- went there...) for milkshakes. Yep, $5 milkshakes (more or less), just like in Pulp Fiction, and really really excellent ones. The only drawback at that particular Mel's Drive-In is that it is not a Drive-In. Unless I missed another entrance, it is neccessary to do that thing I hate so much (popular in LA because nearly everyone wants to think they're a celebrity): Valet parking. You hand the keys to some potential idiot to let him
monkey around with your car and screw up your transmission and bodywork. And you tip him for this as well! Sigh. Anyway, it was a fun evening, it's late morning now and I have a long Sunday of work ahead of me. Strangely, I've got a morning headache reminiscent of a mild hangover, which is funny since we only had milkshakes (undergraduate companions, you see). -cvj
