Curse for genius?

I personally think the success of Ron Howard's "A Beautiful Mind" has little to do with his filming skills or artistic views. I am not saying that Ron Howard is a mediocre director. However, I would be happier to see "The Fellowship of the Ring" snapped the Oscar's best picture than "A Beautiful Mind" in 2002. Well, the former is an amazing cinematic journey, while the latter is at best a fictionalized documentary film.

Having said that, this is still a decent film. The life of John Nash is that kind of story people resort to for drama: a jackpot for genius, lunacy, charisma, maverick, and above all, Nobel Prize – entirely falls on one individual. Can you imagine a more dramatic life a person can have?



Caution needs to be exercised when it comes to deciphering the information delivered by this movie. This movie seems to add more stereotypical images to individuals with extraordinary cognitive capacities. Yes, it was based on a true story, but not quite true in some regards. The out-of-date treatment in psychiatric hospitals demonstrated in this movie may further demonize the psychiatric medicine and fuel the war between sciences and arts. The fact that John Nash miraculously backed on his feet without much help of anti-psychotics may also mislead the general audience. You see, with an IQ score greater than 150, John Nash can afford his unleashed psychotic symptoms; this doesn’t work for most patients.

Anyway, I am personally inspired by John Nash’s passion on pure sciences and his perseverance in original ideas. The filmmakers have succeeded in telling us that the mind of human beings has great potential despite our physical fragility, for which I am truly thankful.