Hawking. (PG.)
Directed by Stephen Finnigan.
Featuring Stephen Hawking, Mary Hawking., Jane Hawking, Niki Pidgeon and Roger Penrose. 90 mins.
Stephen Hawking, who is now in his seventies, occupies a place in the culture akin to that of Bruce Forsyth – you know that to be so greatly feted he must’ve done something of significance at some point in the past but for the life of you, you can’t quite remember what it was (other than that book he wrote.)
Hawking is his autobiography, told by the man himself, chronologically. During this we do find out the achievements that earned him his genius reputation – his research into black holes established the Big Bang theory as the generally accepted scientific explanation of creation and he proposed the then radical notion that radiation could escape from a black hole. Mostly though the film Hawking prefers to talk about himself than the universe.
It is of course a remarkable life story, that of a gifted student who was diagnosed with Motor Neurone disease in his early twenties, given only two to three years to live only to then go on to raise a family and become the most famous theoretical physicist since Einstein.
Though you wouldn’t call it exactly a warts’n’all expose it is open enough to suggest that it wasn’t all inspirational triumph. The film points you in the direction of the story’s dark side, without shining a light on it. Whenever his first wife Jane appears to talk about their life together she is dignified and choses her words carefully, but you get a very clear sense of betrayal that following the success of A Brief History of Time he went off to embrace the celebrity lifestyle.
Hawking states that his aim was to popularise cosmology and worries that he might be more famous for his disability than his science in a film that is all about his disability, overcoming thereof, rather than his science. It’s understandable – explaining the science is hard. Errol Morris came unstuck trying to in his film version of a Brief History and fell back on doing the wheelchair. He did at least try though. Here we are ushered past them with assurances that we wouldn’t understand their significance anyway.
We probably wouldn’t but as the last half hour is taken up with showbiz flim flam – Jim Carrey having him run over his foot, Benedict Cumberbatch on playing him on TV, his Guy Fawkes Night party – it might’ve been worth devoting a few minutes to going over the basics.
Directed by Stephen Finnigan.
Featuring Stephen Hawking, Mary Hawking., Jane Hawking, Niki Pidgeon and Roger Penrose. 90 mins.
Stephen Hawking, who is now in his seventies, occupies a place in the culture akin to that of Bruce Forsyth – you know that to be so greatly feted he must’ve done something of significance at some point in the past but for the life of you, you can’t quite remember what it was (other than that book he wrote.)
Hawking is his autobiography, told by the man himself, chronologically. During this we do find out the achievements that earned him his genius reputation – his research into black holes established the Big Bang theory as the generally accepted scientific explanation of creation and he proposed the then radical notion that radiation could escape from a black hole. Mostly though the film Hawking prefers to talk about himself than the universe.
It is of course a remarkable life story, that of a gifted student who was diagnosed with Motor Neurone disease in his early twenties, given only two to three years to live only to then go on to raise a family and become the most famous theoretical physicist since Einstein.
Though you wouldn’t call it exactly a warts’n’all expose it is open enough to suggest that it wasn’t all inspirational triumph. The film points you in the direction of the story’s dark side, without shining a light on it. Whenever his first wife Jane appears to talk about their life together she is dignified and choses her words carefully, but you get a very clear sense of betrayal that following the success of A Brief History of Time he went off to embrace the celebrity lifestyle.
Hawking states that his aim was to popularise cosmology and worries that he might be more famous for his disability than his science in a film that is all about his disability, overcoming thereof, rather than his science. It’s understandable – explaining the science is hard. Errol Morris came unstuck trying to in his film version of a Brief History and fell back on doing the wheelchair. He did at least try though. Here we are ushered past them with assurances that we wouldn’t understand their significance anyway.
We probably wouldn’t but as the last half hour is taken up with showbiz flim flam – Jim Carrey having him run over his foot, Benedict Cumberbatch on playing him on TV, his Guy Fawkes Night party – it might’ve been worth devoting a few minutes to going over the basics.
