Biographical Omissions: The Case of A Beautiful Mind and the Search For Authenticity

By Dr. Andrew C. Billings

Dr. Andrew C. Billings is an assistant professor of Communication Studies at Clemson University. His research interests lie in mediated communication, often involving the intersection of gender, race, film, and sports.

"Once the Academy Award season begins, everyone seems to take the attitude that all's fair in love and war and that winning the Oscar is war."
           -Anonymous Oscar-nominated screenwriter

On March 24, 2002, the Academy Awards concluded with a Best Picture statuette awarded to Ron Howard's A Beautiful Mind, a biopic of the schizophrenic mathematician John Forbes Nash. While Nash's real-life story is remarkable, another story of "overcoming the odds" has been built: the story of how A Beautiful Mind survived a whirlwind of negative publicity to gain the Best Picture award. The controversy stemmed from perceptions that Nash's life has been whitewashed for the silver screen, including the omission of (a) Nash's alleged anti-Semitism, (b) his homosexual leanings, and (c) his divorce and ultimate remarriage to current-wife Alicia Nash (Bunbury, 2002; Lyman, 2002; Mcginty, 2002). Detractors argued that A Beautiful Mind was being irresponsible to omit such large issues, yet Universal Pictures stood behind the film, arguing that no one's life can be portrayed in its entirety and that A Beautiful Mind had been as accurate as possible. The studio went on to say that there was clear evidence of an "orchestrated campaign" against the film that had more to do with winning an Oscar than achieving authenticity (Seiler, 2002, p. 4D). Film historian Pete Hammond argued that this was one of the nastiest campaigns in recent memory, stating that "to accuse the subject of a film of being Anti-Semitic when you know that a lot of the people who will be voting on the Oscars are Jewish, well, that's really down and dirty" (Lyman, 2002, p. 1A).

Within the entire battle over A Beautiful Mind, one can extract a larger question prevalent within the debate concerning the responsibility of a film to portray a historical person or event in an accurate way. How far must a director go to ensure authenticity? In the case of Howard's film, the questions became quite complex. Take, for instance, Nash's homosexual leanings. Giltz (2002b) writes that Nash was frequently referred to as a "homo" in college and also was arrested for public indecency in a men's restroom, ultimately losing his job at the Rand think tank because of the arrest. In fact, the book in which screenwriter Akiva Goldman adapted the movie contained over thirty references to homosexuality, yet all thirty instances were omitted for the movie (Giltz, 2002a). Thus, while no one was arguing that A Beautiful Mind was telling outright lies, they did argue the film was guilty by omission. Contrast this with the equally ugly controversy surrounding the 1996 film Ghosts of Mississippi, chronicling the murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers and the subsequent trial to exact justice thirty years later. Critics all agreed that Ghosts of Mississippi was "85 to 90 percent true", but, as Medgar Evers' brother Charles states, "the bigger problem is that other 'true' facts are shunted to the background" (Wiltz, 1997). In the case of A Beautiful Mind, some were even arguing that the film was 100% true, but that the majority of the whole truth was left out. In the case of Nash's homosexuality, it was not even an overt choice, as Brian Grazer and Ron Howard were forced to sign a contract that guaranteed the omission of such leanings. Thus, A Beautiful Mind becomes not a case of a director making choices of what to keep and what to leave on the cutting room floor; instead, A Beautiful Mind can be equated with the television journalist who agrees to requests to keep certain topics "off-limits" before interviewing a major public figure.

Hardt (1993) states that the "question of authenticity remains one of the major issues underlying the critique of contemporary social thought" (p. 49). Yet, one must wonder: could anyone, even Nash himself or his wife Alicia, tell a story that is 100 percent true? More succinctly, is authenticity attainable? The latter question must be answered in the negative, as authenticity is an ideal that is unreachable and that American society should implement a new standard for measuring the "accuracy" of historical film narratives. A Beautiful Mind is just the most recent in a long line of films criticized for not being "accurate enough." The debate has been waged for decades.

It is a common notion within academia that nothing we ever say is truly authentic; everything is borrowed directly or indirectly from someone else. In essence, every story we tell is someone else's depiction or at least someone else's language that has been instilled within us through maturation. For instance, if a person were to tell the story of how their first day of school was, it would be their own story, yet their language would be influenced by their background and through other students' perceptions. Clearly, it is likely that a thousand people could each live the exact same day and still render a thousand different authentic stories. Thus, the moral contact with self that Trilling (1969) describes does not really make a story authentic, but it can make a story true. For instance, people who were present at the assassination of John F. Kennedy would all have a true story to tell that would depict their version of the true happenings. Still, as evidenced in the past 30 years, there were many different sides to the same "Truth", making absolute authenticity impossible, even for eyewitnesses of the assassination.

As a result, Visker (1995) argues that the "subject" of any story should be dropped from any argument pertaining to authenticity; the only important aspect of the story is the author/storyteller's ability to recall or retell the story to the best of his or her collective memory. So, in response to the question proposed in the introduction, Visker would argue that who tells the story in Schindler's List is not important; what is of vital importance is that the person telling the story has the ability to tell the story as closely as possible to collective memory found from witnesses and research. In the case of Spielberg's Holocaust epic, this proved to have obstacles of its own, as critics subsequently learned that key scenes, such as Liam Neeson's great "one more person" monologue, were inserted for dramatic effect rather than for historic accuracy.

Yet, beyond the question of the "right to tell a story" comes the larger question of the need to tell the story accurately, another historical Holy Grail. As previously argued, there is no way any director or film producer can tell a story that somehow is or becomes a historical event. Three hundred factually accurate films about the JFK assassination could be made; still they would have three hundred different contexts, equating to three hundred different stories.

An excellent example of controversy because of an apparent lack of responsibility to collective memory is Oliver Stone's 1995 film Nixon, the biography of the controversial 1970s president. The film received heavy critique for apparent inaccuracies, most notably Nixon's characterization as a man on the edge of sanity. People within the Nixon administration itself called the film a whitewashing of the truth. In fact, Powers (1995) found entire scenes that were invented for dramatic effect, including a trip to CIA headquarters to visit Richard Helms and demand to know who is leaking stories as well as some documents he'd previously signed. In real life, the scene never took place. Much like the 1996 film The People vs. Larry Flynt, people debated the film not because of factual inaccuracy, but because of what facts were emphasized. Tear (1997) argues that Milos Forman not only made the freedom vs. censorship issue black and white, but the film also made it "red, white and blue" (p. T13). The large majority of critics agreed that while the film portrays Hustler editor Larry Flynt as despicable and low-class, there is also no doubt that it shapes arguments to make the audience root for a pornographer over the religious right. There was no argument in either film that suggested outright lies. For the most part, the films were factually accurate, yet the way they were portrayed was not true to most people's collective memory. This argument led the 1997 film Titanic to pay close attention to the concept of collective memory. The film producers reportedly spent $200 million on the film, much of it being used to ensure historical accuracy to the collective memory of the survivors (Nashawaty, 1997, p.8). Even then, some had problems with the way designers of the ship were perceived to be shortsighted.

The discussion of historical events that are staged and formatted for public consumption is becoming increasingly important. We now live in an era in which CBS News had to admit to "staging" a war scene for a late 1980s telecast of the situation in Bosnia. Kerri Strug's historical one-legged vault actually occurred after the American team had already secured the gold medal, yet NBC videotaped it and then showed it before the scores had indicated the gold was theirs. This form of argument addressing collective memory is obviously based on the idea that the people who witnessed a historical event should have some form of "priority" in establishing the collective memory. Many find fault in that logic because people witnessing a historic event such as the JFK assassination or the sinking of the Titanic obviously have their own memory influenced by emotion and immediacy. Yet, it is logical to argue that people witnessing an event should be responsible for collective memory. After all, the person witnessing a murder receives priority over the person who merely watches it on television. Why should the same not be true for people witnessing landmark historical events? The people witnessing the sinking of the Titanic should have priority over people who heard about it in the news because they meet one intrinsic criteria: they were there.

Which brings this issue back to the present-Ron Howard's A Beautiful Mind. Howard did consult the Nash's and many former students when attempting to achieve the best form of "authenticity" possible. Lead actor Russell Crowe argued the three issues thusly. First, he stated that the alleged anti-Semitism were rightly not in the film because they were uttered by Nash when he was deeply mentally ill. Second, he argued that the homosexual leanings of Nash are hinted in the film, if not overtly mentioned. Finally, Crowe felt that bringing up the divorce and remarriage of Nash would serve to make the film longer and more meandering. Still, one could argue, if the goal is to make an entertaining film, Crowe's arguments stand; however, if the goal is to depict Nash's life, it may require a more meandering storyline.

Ultimately, people felt some things simply needed to be left out. Most would argue that the intentions of Howard and his crew were noble, although some would say he was misguided. Even others would argue that the biggest issue of all should be the portrayal of schizophrenia as something a person can "live with" without treatment. Still, the best anyone can hope to do is do their best to achieve the closest version of authenticity possible. There will always be debates on whether the directorial decisions were the right ones, but this should not lead us to believe that these films have no historical or biographical value. As head of Universal Studios, Stacey Snider states: "Lines that should be clear to all of us have been recklessly crossed. Filmmakers who have done honest work that was never engineered to win an award and now having to defend their intentions" (Mcginty, 2002, p. 2). Ultimately, A Beautiful Mind's actions were defended, winning four Academy Awards, including best picture, director, supporting actress, and adapted screenplay. The controversy regarding historical narratives will no doubt rise again soon. When it does, it will be important to discern the difference between authenticity and staying true to collective memory.

References

1. Burbury, S. (2002, Mar. 23). The Oscar for best smear campaign goes to. The Melbourne Age, p. 1.
2. Giltz, M. (2002a, Mar. 19). A beautiful addendum. The Advocate.
3. Giltz, M. (2002b, Apr. 2). A beautiful minefield. The Advocate.
4. Hardt, H. (1993). Authenticity, communication, and critical theory, Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 10, 49-69.
5. Lyman, R. (2002, Mar. 16). A Beautiful Mind meets ugly Oscar tactics. The New York Times, p. 1A.
6. Mcginty, S. (2002, Mar. 21). Academy of dirty tricks. The Scotsman, p. 2.
7. Nashawaty, C. (1997, May 2). Ships log, Entertainment Weekly, p.8.
8. Powers, T. (1995, Dec. 31). The politics of culture, facts? Nixon works on fears. Los Angeles Times, p. 1M.
9. Seiler, A. (2002, Mar. 20). Is Mind being smeared? USA Today, p. 4D.
10. Tear, R. (1997, Dec. 25). A rotten man; a rotten movie. The Toronto Star, p. T13.
11. Trilling, L. (1969). Sincerity and Authenticity, New York: Norton.
12. Visker, R. (1995). Dropping the "subject" of authenticity. Being in Time on disappearing existentials and true friendship with being. Research in Phenomenology, 24, 133.