I have not been to the theatre in some time – there has been so very little to see. Some films that I anticipated and were excited about (like Girl on the Train, and Inferno) turned out to be less than well reviewed. So I have been back at Netflix, along with watching Season 2 of Game of Thrones.
The movie was The Man Who Knew Infinity with Jeremy Irons and Dev Patel. In it, there is told the story that was referred to in Good Will Hunting. In Good Will Hunting the two professors are talking about how great Will could be and exciting math comes from unexpected places. This is the story of the unknown self taught Indian genius, Srinivasa Ramanujan. The era was around the First World War and the young man is married in India and it takes some time before people see his genius in Math. They suggest sending some excerpts of his work to England. From there his journey begins.
Irons plays a prof who is obsessed by Math, but also doing “proofs” and showing the work. He presses the genius to show the proofs and won’t publish him (as initially promised) until he does.
Where the movie fell down for me is the importance of a fellowship from the school, where he would become the youngest fellow and become more part of the University. But who cares? Why does he care? Seems even with struggling health that there is his looking for validation from the white people. His genius surpasses all of them, but he still wants this and yearns for it apparently. I saw this as a movie at TIFF, but was glad to see it. Moreso than Lady in the Van. Worth a viewing, but no need to pay big bucks for it.
This past weekend I did see Amadeus Live with a real orchestra and choir to play the music from the film. It was very well done. Hearing Mozart with the orchestra and also seeing it with an audience was a treat. From the laughter and the moving moments, you could feel this film from the perspective of one who had not seen it before. I was glad that I saw the advertisement for this outside the ROM a couple weeks back. This remains one of my favourite films of all time, and is likely the best film I could think of to see with a live orchestra. They are doing E.T. in a while but to me hearing John Williams’ score live is not the same as Mozart.
Mondays With Robbie 