We like a great film here at Comms Express. We of course love a big popcorn, summer blockbuster as much as the next Cineplex goer. However two perhaps less obviously mass appeal films have piqued our interest.
The Theory of Everything and The Imitation Game are the two films in question. They look at two of UK’s greatest minds – Sir Stephen Hawking and Alan Turning; perfect viewing for us techs here at Comms Express.
Both films have a muted release of November of this year. The Imitation Game tells the story of English mathematician and logician, Alan Turing, who helped crack the Enigma code during World War II. Playing Turning is Benedict Cumberbatch, who will be joined by a stellar cast including Keira Knightley, Charles Dance, Mark Strong and Matthew Goode.
It is such a compelling tale. Like many we have long held an interest in the great minds that cracked the Enigma Code. Author Robert Harris wrote a cracking yarn a few years ago; ‘Enigma’ and the books success helped propel the heroic efforts of the unsung heroes of World War Two to the fore. I don’t think it is over dressing the issue but without the motley crew of scholars, chess and crossword champions, linguists and intelligence officers who at the behest of war-time Prime Minister Winston Churchill came together at Bletchley Park to crack the Nazi Germany Enigma code and help negate the threat of the deadly U-boats, there may have been a different outcome to the Second World War.
Now we love our tech here. We marvel at the advances our suppliers have made within our field. However to me the whole mystique behind the revolutionary electro-mechanical Bombe and the secret work undertaken by the aforementioned crack minds is marvellous. Unbeknown to the Nazi’s the Bombe could crack up to 3,000 codes a day.
Now I have absolutely no idea as to the mathematical analysis behind the mechanics of the now famous machine but now over 70 years have passed I feel it is only right that some of the relatively unknown names at Bletchley Park are now feted and awarded the acclaim they fully deserve.
The film will also centre on Turning’s post-war decline and his conviction for homosexuality. From the safe vantage point of a more enlightened 2014 it is hard to fathom a conviction for being gay. In 2009 Gordon Brown made a public apology on behalf of the British government for the way Turing was treated.
The Theory of Everything is a film with another young British actor we’re sure to win acclaim for his forthcoming performance. Eddie Redmayne will portray physicist Stephen Hawking. The film was inspired by Jane Wilde’s (Felicity Jones playing the future Mrs Hawking) memoir, ‘Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen’.
The couple met while studying at Cambridge in the 1960s. The Theory of Everything will follow Hawking’s early life, his diagnosis of motor neurone syndrome and his early success in the world of physics.
Remarkably the prognosis at the time of his diagnosis was that Hawking’s would only live for two years. Of course this proved to be incorrect. Today he is the celebrated physicist and cosmologist. The author of best-selling A Brief History of Time and The Universe In A Nutshell has been the Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge for 30 years.
By not allowing his disability to overshadow his life and career stands as a true inspiration. We look forward to seeing both The Theory of Everything and The Imitation Game. Our tip? Have a little bet on Redmayne and Cumberbatch to feature at the Oscars next year.
Until next time…
