A BEAUTIFUL MIND.

Beautiful Mind (film)




A Beautiful Mind

Directed by Ron Howard
Produced by Brian Grazer
Ron Howard


Written by Book:
Sylvia Nasar

Screenplay:
Akiva Goldsman
Starring Russell Crowe
Jennifer Connelly
Ed Harris
Paul Bettany
Music by James Horner
Cinematography Roger Deakins
Editing by Daniel P. Hanley
Mike Hill
Studio Imagine Entertainment
Distributed by Domestic:
Universal Pictures
International:
DreamWorks Pictures
Release date(s) December 21, 2001[1]
Running time 135 min.
Country United States
Language English
Budget $60,000,000
Gross revenue $313,542,341
IMDb • Allmovie



A Beautiful Mind is a 2001 American film based on the life of John Forbes Nash, a Nobel Laureate in Economics.[2] The film was directed by Ron Howard and written by Akiva Goldsman. It was inspired by a bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-nominated 1998 book of the same name by Sylvia Nasar. The film stars Russell Crowe, along with Jennifer Connelly, Ed Harris and Paul Bettany.


The story begins in the early years of Nash's life at Princeton University as he develops his "original idea" that will revolutionize the world of mathematics. Early in the movie, Nash begins developing paranoid schizophrenia and endures delusional episodes while painfully watching the loss and burden his condition brings on his wife and friends.

The film opened in US cinemas on December 21, 2001. It was well-received by critics, grossed over $300 million worldwide, and went on to win four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actress. It was also nominated for Best Leading Actor, Best Editing, Best Makeup, and Best Score. The film has been criticized for its inaccurate portrayal of some aspects of Nash's life. The film fictionally portrayed his hallucinations as visual and auditory, yet factually they were exclusively auditory. Too, Nasar concluded Nash's refusal to take drugs "may have been fortunate," since their side effects "would have made his gentle re-entry into the world of mathematics a near impossibility"; in the screenplay, however, just before he receives the Nobel Prize, Nash speaks of taking "newer medications."[3]

Contents
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production
4 Release
5 Accuracy
6 DVD release
7 See also
8 References
8.1 Additional reading
9 External links



Plot
John Nash (Russell Crowe) arrives at Princeton University as a new graduate student. He is a recipient of the prestigious Carnegie Prize for mathematics; although he was promised a single room, his roommate Charles (Paul Bettany), a literature student, greets him as he moves in and soon becomes his best friend. Nash also meets a group of other promising math and science graduate students, Martin Hansen (Josh Lucas), Sol (Adam Goldberg), Ainsley, and Bender (Anthony Rapp), with whom he strikes up an awkward friendship. Nash admits to Charles that he is better with numbers than people, which comes as no surprise to them after watching his largely unsuccessful attempts at conversation with the women at the local bar.

The headmaster of Princeton informs Nash, who has missed many of his classes, that he cannot begin work until he finishes a thesis paper, prompting him to seek a truly original idea for the paper. A woman at the bar is what ultimately inspires his fruitful work in the concept of governing dynamics, a theory in mathematical economics.

After the conclusion of Nash's studies as a student at Princeton, he accepts a prestigious appointment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), along with his friends Sol and Bender.

Five years later, while teaching a class on calculus at MIT, he places a particularly interesting problem on the chalkboard that he dares his students to solve. When his student Alicia Larde (Jennifer Connelly) comes to his office to discuss the problem, the two fall in love and eventually marry.

On a return visit to Princeton, Nash runs into his former roommate Charles and meets Charles' young niece Marcee (Vivien Cardone), whom he adores.

Nash is invited to a secret Department of Defense facility in the Pentagon to crack a complex encryption of an enemy telecommunication. Nash is able to decipher the code mentally, to the astonishment of other codebreakers. Here, he encounters the mysterious William Parcher (Ed Harris), who belongs to the United States Department of Defense.

Parcher observes Nash's performance from above, while partially concealed behind a screen. Parcher gives Nash a new assignment to look for patterns in magazines and newspapers, ostensibly to thwart a Soviet plot. He must write a report of his findings and place them in a specified mailbox. After being chased by Russian agents and an exchange of gunfire, Nash becomes increasingly paranoid and begins to behave erratically.

After observing this erratic behavior, Alicia informs a psychiatric hospital. Later, while delivering a guest lecture at Princeton University, Nash realizes that he is being watched by a hostile group of people; although, he attempts to flee, he is forcibly sedated and sent to a psychiatric facility. Nash's internment seemingly confirms his belief that the Soviets are trying to extract information from him. He views the officials of the psychiatric facility as Soviet kidnappers. At one point, he insanely tries to dig out of his arm an implant he received at The Pentagon, causing much bleeding.


Alicia, desperate to help her husband, visits the mailbox and retrieves the never-opened "top secret" documents that Nash had delivered there. When confronted with this evidence, Nash is finally convinced that he has been hallucinating. The Department of Defense agent William Parcher and Nash's secret assignment to decode Soviet messages was in fact all a delusion. Even more surprisingly, Nash's friend Charles and his niece Marcee are also only products of Nash's mind.

After a series of insulin shock therapy sessions, Nash is released on the condition that he agrees to take antipsychotic medication; however, the drugs create negative side-effects that affect his sexual and emotional relationship with his wife and, most dramatically, his intellectual capacity.

Frustrated, Nash secretly stops taking his medication and hoards his pills, triggering a relapse of his psychosis.

While bathing his infant son, Nash becomes distracted and wanders off. Alicia is hanging laundry in the backyard and observes that the back gate is open. She discovers that Nash has turned an abandoned shed in a nearby grove of trees into an office for his work for Parcher. Upon realizing what has happened, Alicia runs into the house to confront Nash and barely saves their child from drowning in the bathtub. When she confronts him, Nash claims that his friend Charles was watching their son. Alicia runs to the phone to call the psychiatric hospital for emergency assistance. Nash suddenly sees Parcher who urges him to kill his wife, but Nash angrily refuses to do such a thing. After Parcher points a gun at her, Nash lunges for him, accidentally knocking Alicia to the ground. Alicia flees the house in fear with their child, but Nash steps in front of her car to prevent her from leaving. After a moment, Nash realizes that Marcee is a hallucination, because although years have passed since their first encounter, Marcee has remained exactly the same age and is still a little girl. Realizing the implications of this fact, he tells Alicia, "She never gets old." Only then does he accept that although all three people seem completely real, they are in fact part of his hallucinations.

Caught between the intellectual paralysis of the antipsychotic drugs and his delusions, Nash and Alicia decide to try to live with his abnormal condition. Nash consciously says goodbye to the three of them forever in his attempts to ignore his hallucinations and not feed "his demons"; however, he thanks Charles for being his best friend over the years, and says a tearful goodbye to Marcee, stroking her hair and calling her "baby girl", telling them both he would not speak to them anymore. They still continue to haunt him, with Charles mocking him for cutting off their friendship, but Nash learns to ignore them.

Nash grows older and approaches his old friend and intellectual rival Martin Hansen, now head of the Princeton mathematics department, who grants him permission to work out of the library and audit classes. Even though Nash still suffers from hallucinations and mentions taking newer medications, he is ultimately able to live with and largely ignore his psychotic episodes. He takes his situation in stride and humorously checks to ensure that any new acquaintances are in fact real people, not hallucinations.

Nash eventually earns the privilege of teaching again. He is honored by his fellow professors for his achievement in mathematics, and goes on to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for his revolutionary work on game theory. Nash and Alicia are about to leave the auditorium in Stockholm, when Nash sees Charles, Marcee and Parcher standing and watching him with blank expressions on their faces. Alicia asks Nash, "What's wrong?" Nash replies, "Nothing. Nothing at all." With that, they both leave the auditorium.


Cast
Russell Crowe as John Forbes Nash. A mathematical genius who is obsessed with finding an original idea to ensure his legacy. There was difficulty when casting Crowe, who was well-liked by the producers, when he went to film Gladiator in a different time-zone and was difficult to reach for an extended period of time to attach him to the project.[4]
Jennifer Connelly as Alicia Nash. A later student of Nash who catches his interest. Connelly was cast after Ron Howard drew comparisons to her and Alicia Nash, both academically and in facial features.[4]
Paul Bettany as Charles Herman. Nash's cheerful, supportive roommate and best friend throughout graduate college. The character of Charles was not written to be British; however, director Brian Helgeland provided a tape of Bettany from A Knight's Tale. The filmmakers agreed that the character could be British, based on Bettany's performance in the film.[5]
Ed Harris as William Parcher. A highly dedicated and forceful government agent for the Department of Defense. He recruits Nash to help fight Soviet spies.

Josh Lucas as Martin Hansen. Nash's friendly rival from his graduate school years at Princeton. In the end, Hansen tells Nash that nobody wins, and they are at that point consider each other as equals.

Adam Goldberg as Sol. A friend of Nash's from Princeton University who is chosen, along with Bender, to work with him at MIT.
Anthony Rapp as Bender. A friend of Nash's from Princeton University who is chosen, along with Sol, to work with him at MIT.
Vivien Cardone as Marcee. Charles' young niece.
Christopher Plummer as Dr. Rosen. Nash's doctor at a psychiatric hospital.
Judd Hirsch as Helinger. The head of the Princeton mathematics department.

Production
Producer Brian Grazer first read an excerpt of Sylvia Nasar's book A Beautiful Mind in Vanity Fair. Grazer immediately purchased the rights to the film. He eventually brought the project to Ron Howard, who had scheduling conflicts and was forced to pass. Grazer later said that many A-list directors were calling with their point of view on the project. He eventually focused on a particular director, who coincidentally was only available at the same time Howard was available. Grazer was forced to make a decision and chose Howard.[6]

Grazer then met with a number of screenwriters, mostly consisting of "serious dramatists", but he chose Akiva Goldsman instead, because of his strong passion and desire for the project. Goldsman's creative take on the project was to not allow the viewers to understand that they are viewing an alternate reality until a specific point in the film. This was done to rob the viewers of their feelings in the same way that Nash himself was. Howard agreed to direct the film based only on the first draft. He then requested that Goldsman accentuate the love story aspect.[7]

Dave Bayer, a Barnard College Professor of Mathematics, was consulted on the mathematical equations that appear in the film. Bayer later stated that he approached his consulting role as an actor when preparing equations, such as when Nash is forced to teach a calculus class, and arbitrarily places a complicated problem on the blackboard. Bayer focused on a character who did not want to teach ordinary details and was more concerned with what was interesting. Bayer received a cameo role in the film as a professor that lays his pen down for Nash in the pen ceremony near the end of the film.[8]

Greg Cannom was chosen to create the makeup effects for A Beautiful Mind, specifically the age progression of the characters. Russell Crowe had previously worked with Cannom on The Insider. Howard had also worked with Cannom on Cocoon. Each character's stages of makeup were broken down by the number of years that would pass between levels. Cannom stressed subtlety between the stages, but worked toward the ultimate stage of "Older Nash". It was originally decided that the makeup department would merely age Russell Crowe throughout the film.; however, at Crowe's request, the makeup purposefully pulled Crowe's look towards the facial features of the real John Nash. Cannom developed a new silicone-type makeup that could simulate real skin and be used for overlapping applications, shortening the application time from eight hours to four hours. Crowe was also fitted with a number of dentures to give him a slight overbite throughout the film.[9]

Howard and Grazer chose frequent collaborator James Horner to score the film because of familiarity and his ability to communicate. Howard said, regarding Horner, "It's like having a conversation with a writer or an actor or another director." A running discussion between the director and the composer was the concept of high-level mathematics being less about numbers and solutions, and more akin to a kaleidoscope, in that the ideas evolve and change. After the first screening of the film, Horner told Howard: "I see changes occurring like fast-moving weather systems." He chose it as another theme to connect to Nash's ever-changing character. Horner chose Welsh singer Charlotte Church to sing the soprano vocals after deciding that he needed a balance between a child and adult singing voice. He wanted a "purity, clarity and brightness of an instrument" but also a vibrato to maintain the humanity of the voice.[10]

The film was shot 90% chronologically. Three separate trips were made to the Princeton University campus. During filming, Howard decided that Nash's delusions should always first be introduced audibly and then visually. This not only provides a visual clue, but establishes the delusions from Nash's point of view.

The real John Nash's delusions were also only auditory. A technique was also developed to visualize Nash's epiphanies. After speaking to a number of mathematicians who described it as "the smoke clearing", "flashes of light" and "everything coming together", the filmmakers decided upon a flash of light appearing over an object or person to signify Nash's creativity at work.[5]

Two night shots were done at Fairleigh Dickinson University's campus in Florham NJ, in the Vanderbilt Mansion ballroom [2].


Release
A Beautiful Mind received a limited release on December 21, 2001, receiving positive reviews. It was later released in America on January 4, 2002. Rotten Tomatoes showed a 78% approval rating among critics with a movie consensus stating "The well-acted A Beautiful Mind is both a moving love story and a revealing look at mental illness."[11] Roger Ebert gave the film four stars (his highest rating) in his Chicago Sun-Times review and, along with co-host Richard Roeper on the television show Ebert & Roeper, gave the film a "thumbs up" rating. Roeper also stated "this is one of the very best films of the year".[12] Mike Clark of USA Today gave three and a half out of four stars and also praised Crowe's performance and referred to as a welcomed follow up to Howard's previous film The Grinch;[13] however, Desson Thomson of the Washington Post found the film to be "one of those formulaically rendered Important Subject movies",[11] and Charles Taylor of Salon Magazine gave the film a scathing review, calling Crowe's performance "the biggest load of hooey to stink up the screen this year".[14] The mathematics in the film were well-praised by the mathematics community, including the real John Nash.[8]

During the five-day weekend of the limited release, A Beautiful Mind opened at the twelfth spot at the box office,[15] peaking at the number two spot following the wide release.[16] The film went to gross $170 million in North America and $313 million worldwide.[17]

Also in 2002, the film was awarded four Academy Awards for Adapted Screenplay (Akiva Goldsman), Best Picture (Brian Grazer and Ron Howard), Directing (Ron Howard), and Supporting Actress (Jennifer Connelly). It also received four other nominations for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Russell Crowe), Film Editing (Mike Hill and Daniel P. Hanley), Best Makeup (Greg Cannom and Colleen Callaghan), and Original Music Score (James Horner).[18] The 2002 BAFTAs awarded the film Best Actor and Best Actress to Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly, respectively. It also nominated the film for Best Film, Best Screenplay, and the David Lean Award for Direction.[19] At the 2002 AFI Awards, Jennifer Connelly won for Best Featured Female Actor.[20] The film was also nominated for Movie of the Year, Actor of the Year (Russell Crowe), and Screenwriter of the Year.[21]


Accuracy
The narrative of the film differs considerably from the actual events of Nash's life. The film has been criticized for this, but the filmmakers had consistently said that the film was not meant to be a literal representation.[22] One difficulty was in portraying stress and mental illness within one person's mind.[23] Sylvia Nasar stated that the filmmakers "invented a narrative that, while far from a literal telling, is true to the spirit of Nash's story".[24] The film made his hallucinations visual and auditory when, in fact, they were exclusively auditory. It is true that his handlers, both from faculty and administration, had to introduce him to assistants and strangers.[25][5] The PBS documentary A Brilliant Madness attempts to portray his life more accurately.[26]

The differences were substantial. Few if any of the characters in the film, besides John and Alicia Nash, corresponded directly to actual people.[27] The discussion of the Nash equilibrium was criticized as over-simplified. In the film, schizophrenic hallucinations appeared while he was in graduate school, when in fact they did not show up until some years later. No mention is made of Nash's supposed homosexual experiences at RAND,[24][28] which Nash and his wife both denied.[29] Nash also fathered a son, John David Stier (born 19 June 1953), by Eleanor Agnes Stier (1921–2005), a nurse whom he abandoned when informed of her pregnancy.[30]

The movie also did not include Alicia's divorce of John in 1963. It was not until Nash won the Nobel Memorial Prize that they renewed their relationship, although she allowed him to live with her as a boarder beginning in 1970. They remarried in 2001.[31]


Nash is shown to join Wheeler Laboratory at MIT, but there is no such lab. He was appointed as C.L.E. Moore Instructor at MIT.[32] The pen ceremony tradition at Princeton shown in the film is completely fictitious.[33][5] The film has Nash saying around the time of his Nobel prize in 1994: "I take the newer medications", when in fact Nash did not take any medication from 1970 onwards, something Nash's biography highlights. Howard later stated that they added the line of dialogue because it was felt as though the film was encouraging the notion that all schizophrenics can overcome their illness without medication.[5] Nash also never gave an acceptance speech for his Nobel prize.[33] Around the time of the Oscar nominations, Nash was accused of being anti-semitic. Nash denied this and it was speculated that the accusation was designed to affect the votes inside the Academy Awards.[29]



DVD release
A Beautiful Mind was released on DVD in the United States on June 25, 2002 as a two-disc set.[34] The first disc featured two separate audio commentaries from director Ron Howard and Akiva Goldsman, deleted scenes with optional commentary from the director, and production notes. The second disc included documentaries such as "Inside A Beautiful Mind" a making-of documentary, "A Beautiful Partnership: Ron Howard and Brian Grazer" detailing the partnership between the director and the producer, "Development of the Screenplay" discussing Akiva Goldsman scripting of the film, "The Process of Age Progression" detailing the makeup effects, "Casting Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly", "Creation of the Special Effects", "Scoring the Film", as well as "Meeting John Nash" displaying the real John Nash. Footage of the real John Nash accepting the Nobel Prize for Economics is also included along with reactions from the winners of the Academy Awards, storyboard comparisons, the theatrical trailer and an advertisement for the soundtrack to the film.


John Forbes Nash, Jr.
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John Forbes Nash, Jr.


John Nash at a symposium of game theory at the University of Cologne, Germany (2006)
Born 13 June 1928 (1928-06-13) (age 80)
Bluefield, West Virginia, United States
Nationality American
Fields Mathematics, Economics
Institutions Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Princeton University
Alma mater Carnegie Institute of Technology
Princeton University
Doctoral advisor Albert W. Tucker
Known for Nash equilibrium
Nash embedding theorem
Algebraic geometry
Notable awards Nobel Prize in Economics (1994)
John Forbes Nash, Jr. (born June 13, 1928), is an American mathematician and economist whose works in game theory, differential geometry, and partial differential equations provided insight into the forces that govern chance and events inside complex systems in daily life. His theories are still used today in market economics, computing, accounting and military theory. Serving as a Senior Research Mathematician at Princeton University during the later part of his life, he shared the 1994 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with game theorists Reinhard Selten and John Harsanyi.

Nash is also the subject of the Hollywood movie, A Beautiful Mind, which was nominated for eight Oscars (winning four). The film was based on the biography of the same name, and focuses on Nash's mathematical genius and his struggle with schizophrenia.[1][2]
Contents
1 Early life
2 Post-graduate life
3 Marriage and illness
4 Schizophrenia
5 Recognition and later career
6 Film controversy
7 References
8 External links



Early life
Nash was born and raised in Bluefield, West Virginia. He was born to electrical engineer John Forbes Nash and his wife Margaret Virginia Martin, an English and Latin teacher. On November 16, 1930 his sister Martha Nash was born. He was an avid reader of Compton's Pictured Encyclopedia, Life Magazine, and Time Magazine[citation needed]. Later he had a job at the Bluefield Daily Telegraph.

At age thirteen, he carried out scientific experiments in his room. He returned the social rejection of his classmates with practical jokes and intellectual superiority, believing their dances and sports to be a distraction from his experiments and studies.[citation needed]

Martha, his younger sister, wrote that "Johnny was always different. [My parents] knew he was different. And they knew he was bright. He always wanted to do things his way. Mother insisted I do things for him, that I include him in my friendships... but I wasn't too keen on showing off my somewhat odd brother."[3]

In his autobiography, Nash notes that it was E.T. Bell's book, Men of Mathematics—in particular, the essay on Fermat—that first sparked his interest in mathematics. He attended classes at Bluefield College while still in high school at Bluefield High School. After graduating from high school in 1945, he enrolled at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on a Westinghouse scholarship, where he studied first chemical engineering and later chemistry before switching to mathematics. He received both his bachelor's degree and his master's degree in 1948 while at Carnegie Tech.

Nash also created two popular games: Hex in 1947 (independently created first in 1942 by Piet Hein), and So Long Sucker in 1950 with M. Hausner and Lloyd S. Shapley.After graduation, Nash took a summer job in White Oak, Maryland, working on a Navy research project being run by Clifford Truesdell.



Post-graduate life
In 1948, in Nash's application to Princeton’s mathematics department, Nash's advisor and former Carnegie Tech professor R.J. Duffin wrote a letter of recommendation consisting of a single sentence: "This man is a genius."[4] Though accepted by Harvard University, which had been his first choice because of what he perceived to be the institution's greater prestige and superior mathematics faculty, he was aggressively pursued by then chairman of the mathematics department at Princeton University, Solomon Lefschetz, whose offer of the John S. Kennedy fellowship was enough to convince him that Harvard valued him less.[5]

Thus, from White Oak he went to Princeton University, where he worked on his equilibrium theory (Nash equilibrium). He earned a doctorate in 1950 with a dissertation on non-cooperative games.[6] The thesis, which was written under the supervision of Albert W. Tucker, contained the definition and properties of what would later be called the "Nash Equilibrium". These studies led to four articles:

"Equilibrium Points in N-person Games", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 36 (1950), 48–49. MR0031701
"The Bargaining Problem", Econometrica 18 (1950), 155–162. MR0035977
"Two-person Cooperative Games", Econometrica 21 (1953), 128–140. MR0053471
"Non-cooperative Games", Annals of Mathematics 54 (1951), 286–295.
Nash also did important work in the area of algebraic geometry:

"Real algebraic manifolds", Annals of Mathematics 56 (1952), 405–421. MR0050928 See also Proc. Internat. Congr. Math. (AMS, 1952, pp 516–517).
His most famous work in pure mathematics was the Nash embedding theorem, which showed that any abstract Riemannian manifold can be isometrically realized as a submanifold of Euclidean space. He also made contributions to the theory of nonlinear parabolic partial differential equations.


Marriage and illness
In 1951, Nash went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a C. L. E. Moore Instructor in the mathematics faculty. There, he met Alicia López-Harrison de Lardé (born January 1, 1933), a physics student from El Salvador, whom he married in February 1957. Alicia admitted Nash to a mental hospital in 1959 for schizophrenia; their son, John Charles Martin Nash, was born soon afterward, but remained nameless for a year because his mother felt that her husband should have a say in the name.

Nash and Lopez-Harrison de Lardé divorced in 1963, but reunited in 1970, in a nonromantic relationship that resembled that of two unrelated housemates.

Alicia referred to him as her "boarder" and said they lived "like two distantly related individuals under one roof," according to Sylvia Nasar's 1998 biography of Nash, A Beautiful Mind. The couple renewed their relationship after Nash won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1994. They remarried June 1, 2001.

Nash received the "honoris causa" degree in Economics by the University of Naples Federico II on 19th March 2003.


Schizophrenia
He began to show signs of extreme paranoia and his wife later described his behavior as becoming increasingly erratic, stating that he began speaking of characters who were putting him in danger. Nash seemed to believe that there was an organization chasing him, in which all men wore "red ties". Nash mailed letters to foreign embassies in Washington, D.C. declaring that he was establishing a world government.

He was involuntarily admitted into the McLean Hospital, April–May 1959, where he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and mild clinical depression.[3] Upon his release, Nash resigned from MIT, withdrew his pension, and went to Europe, unsuccessfully seeking political asylum in France and Eastern Germany. He tried to renounce his U.S. citizenship. After a problematic stay in Paris and Geneva, Nash was arrested by the French police and deported back to the United States at the request of the U.S. government.

In 1961 he was involuntarily hospitalized into the Trenton State Hospital. He was in and out of mental hospitals until 1970, being given insulin shock therapy and antipsychotic medications, usually as a result of being involuntarily committed.[3][7][8]

Although prescribed antipsychotic medication, Nash has said he never really took it. For some periods he was forced to or voluntarily complied under the pressure, but after 1970 he was never committed to the hospital again and never took antipsychotic medication again. The film A Beautiful Mind fabricated him later taking the then new atypical antipsychotics, which Nash attributes to the screenwriter (whose mother, he notes, was a psychiatrist) not wanting to incite people with the disorder to stop taking their medication.[9] Others, however, have questioned whether the fabrication obscured a key question as to whether recovery from problems like Nash's can actually be hindered by such drugs[10] and Nash has said they are over-rated and the adverse effects are not given enough consideration once someone is considered mentally ill.[11][12][13]

According to his biographer Nasar, Nash recovered gradually with the passage of time. Encouraged by his then former wife, Alicia, Nash worked in a communitarian setting where his eccentricities were accepted. Alicia also said that for Nash "it's just a question of living a quiet life".[14]

Nash dates the start of what he terms "mental disturbances" to the early months of 1959 when his wife was pregnant. He has described a process of change "from scientific rationality of thinking into the delusional thinking characteristic of persons who are psychiatrically diagnosed as 'schizophrenic' or 'paranoid schizophrenic'"[15] including seeing himself as a messenger or having a special function in some way, and with supporters and opponents and hidden schemers, and a feeling of being persecuted, and looking for signs representing divine revelation.[16] Nash has suggested his delusional thinking was related to his unhappiness, and his striving to feel important and be recognized, and to his characteristic way of thinking such that "I wouldn't have had good scientific ideas if I had thought more normally." He has said that "If I felt completely pressureless I don't think I would have gone in this pattern".[17] He does not see a categorical distinction between terms such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.[18] Nash reports that he did not hear voices at first, only some years later around 1964, until later engaging in a process of rejecting them.[19] Nash reports that he was always taken to hospital against his will, and only temporarily renounced his "dream-like delusional hypotheses" after being in hospital long enough to decide to superficially conform and behave normally or experience "enforced rationality". Only gradually on his own did he "intellectually reject" some of the "delusionally influenced" and "politically-oriented" thinking as a waste of effort. However, by 1995 he felt that although he was "thinking rationally again in the style that is characteristic of scientists", he felt more limited.[15][20]


[edit] Recognition and later career
In Princeton campus legend, Nash became "The Phantom of Fine Hall" (Fine Hall is Princeton's mathematics center), a shadowy figure who would scribble arcane equations on blackboards in the middle of the night. The legend appears in a work of fiction based on Princeton life, The Mind-Body Problem, by Rebecca Goldstein.

In 1978, Nash was awarded the John von Neumann Theory Prize for his discovery of non-cooperative equilibria, now called Nash equilibria. He won the Leroy P. Steele Prize in 1999.

In 1994, he received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (along with two others), as a result of his game theory work as a Princeton graduate student. In the late 1980s, Nash had begun to use electronic mail to gradually link with working mathematicians who realized that he was "the" John Nash and that his new work had value. They formed part of the nucleus of a group that contacted the Bank of Sweden's Nobel award committee, and were able to vouch for Nash's mental health ability to receive the award in recognition of his early work.[citation needed]

Nash's recent work involves ventures in advanced game theory, including partial agency, that show that, as in his early career, he prefers to select his own path and problems. Between 1945 and 1996, he published 23 scientific studies.

Nash has suggested hypotheses on mental disorder. He has compared not thinking in an acceptable manner, or being "insane" and not fitting into a usual social function, to being "on strike" from an economic point of view. He has advanced evolutionary psychology views about the value of human diversity and the potential benefits of apparently non-standard behaviors or roles.[21]

Nash has also developed work on the role of money in society. In the context that people can be so controlled and motivated by money that they may not be able to reason rationally about it, he has criticized interest groups that promote quasi-doctrines based on Keynesian economics that permit manipulative short-term inflation and debt tactics that ultimately undermine currencies. He has suggested a global "industrial consumption price index" system that would support the development of more "ideal money" that people could trust, rather than more unstable "bad money". He notes that some of his thinking parallels economist and political philosopher Friedrich Hayek's thinking regarding money and a nontypical viewpoint of the function of the authorities.[22][23]



Film controversy
In 2002, aspects of Nash's personal life were brought to international attention when "mudslinging" ensued over screenwriter Akiva Goldsman's semifictional interpretation of Sylvia Nasar's biography of Nash's life in A Beautiful Mind in relation to the film of the same name.[24] The movie A Beautiful Mind, nominated for eight Oscars,[1] credits Goldsman under "written by" rather than "screenplay by". According to the Writer's Guild, Goldsman's "omissions are glaring and peculiar", including Nash's "extramarital sexual activities,[25][1] his racial attitudes and anti-Semitic remarks."[26] Nash later claimed any anti-Semitic remarks must have been made while he was delusional.[26]

In the mid-1950s Nash was arrested in a Santa Monica restroom on a morals charge related to a homosexual encounter and "subsequently lost his post at the RAND Corporation along with his security clearance."[27][28] According to Nasar, "After this traumatic series of career-threatening events, he decided to marry."[28]

Nasar stated that the filmmakers had "invented a narrative that, while far from a literal telling, is true to the spirit of Nash's story."[29] Others suggested that the material was "conveniently left out of the movie in order to make Nash more sympathetic,"[30] possibly in an effort to more fully focus on the "debilitating longevity" of living with paranoid schizophrenia on a day-to-day basis.[30]

New York Times critic A. O. Scott pointed to a different perspective. Scott wrote of the Oscar scandal and the artistic choices made in the omissions as well as choices, such as casting actors, that have to be made that "the cold war in A Beautiful Mind in which the paranoia and uncertainty of McCarthy-era academic life is reduced to spy-movie clichés" smoothed over "and made palatable and familiar" a "difficult passage in American history."[31] Thus, the Cold War's effects on Nash's life and career were left unexplored.[31] Goldsman won the Oscar for "Best Adapted Screenplay".[26] The film also won Best Picture, Best Director (Ron Howard) and Best Supporting Actress (Jennifer Connelly).


[edit] References
^ a b c "Oscar race scrutinizes movies based on true stories". USA Today. March 6, 2002. http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/oscar2002/2002-03-06-true-stories.htm. Retrieved on 2008-01-22.
^ "List of Oscar Winners". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/oscar2002/2002-03-24-winners.htm. Retrieved on 2008-08-30.
^ a b c Nasar, Sylvia. A Beautiful Mind, page 32. Simon & Schuster, 1998
^ Kuhn W., Harold; Sylvia Nasar (Eds.). "The Essential John Nash" (PDF). Princeton University Press. Introduction, xi. http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i7238.pdf. Retrieved on 2008-04-17.
^ Nasar, Sylvia. A Beautiful Mind, page 46-47. Simon & Schuster, 1998
^ Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library : FAQ John Nash
^ Ebert, Roger (2002). "Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2003". Andrews McMeel Publishing. http://books.google.com/books?id=HJGZOs4S4_EC. Retrieved on 2008-07-10.
^ Beam, Alex (2001). "Gracefully Insane: The Rise and Fall of America's Premier Mental Hospital". PublicAffairs; ISBN 1586481614. http://books.google.com/books?id=M2ZrduulEAwC. Retrieved on 2008-07-10.
^ John Nash (2004) Interview by Marika Greihsel for the 1st Meeting of Laureates in Economic Sciences
^ Whitaker, R. (2002) Mind drugs may hinder recovery. USA Today.
^ John Nash PBS Interview: Medication
^ John Nash PBS Interview: Paths to Recovery
^ John Nash PBS Interview: How does Recovery Happen?
^ Nasar, S. (1994) The Lost Years of a Nobel LaureateNew York Times
^ a b John Nash (1995) Autobiography From Les Prix Nobel. The Nobel Prizes 1994, Editor Tore Frängsmyr, [Nobel Foundation], Stockholm, 1995
^ John Nash PBS Interview: Delusional Thinking
^ John Nash PBS Interview: The Downward Spiral
^ John Nash (2005) Glimpsing inside a beautiful mind Interview by Shane Hegarty
^ John Nash PBS Interview: Hearing voices
^ John Nash PBS Interview: My experience with mental illness
^ By David Neubauer (2007) John Nash and a Beautiful Mind on Strike Yahoo Health
^ John Nash (2002) Ideal Money Southern Economic Journal, 69(1), p4-11
^ Julia Zuckerman (2005) Nobel winner Nash critiques economic theory The Brown Daily Herald
^ Levy, Emanuel (2003, page 16). "All about Oscar: The History and Politics of the Academy Awards". Continuum International Publishing Group, ISBN 0826414524. http://books.google.com/books?id=dH2Lb_YhIhAC&dq=%22John+Forbes+Nash%22+%22homosexual%22. Retrieved on 2008-01-22.
^ "Eleanor Stier, 84". The Boston Globe. http://www.boston.com/news/globe/obituaries/articles/2005/04/10/eleanor_stier_84_brookline_nurse_had_son_with_nobel_laureate_mathematician_john_f_nash_jr. Retrieved on December 5 2007.
^ a b c Levy, Emanuel (2003, page 145). "All about Oscar: The History and Politics of the Academy Awards". Continuum International Publishing Group, ISBN 0826414524. http://books.google.com/books?id=dH2Lb_YhIhAC&dq=%22John+Forbes+Nash%22+%22homosexual%22. Retrieved on 2008-01-22.
^ Leebaert, Derek (2002, page 117). "The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Shapes Our World". Back Bay, ISBN 0316164968. http://books.google.com/books?id=_Ywjc0FvFCIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22John+Forbes+Nash%22+%22homosexual%22. Retrieved on 2008-01-22.
^ a b Johnson, David K. (2004, page 160). "The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in The Federal Government". University of Chicago Press, ISBN 0226404811. http://books.google.com/books?id=ivCo3yph63QC&dq=%22John+Forbes+Nash%22+%22homosexual%22. Retrieved on 2008-01-22.
^ "A Real Number". Slate Magazine. http://www.slate.com/id/2060110/. Retrieved on August 16 2007.
^ a b Wehner, Chris C. (2003, page 40). "Who Wrote That Movie?: Screenwriting in Review: 2000 - 2002". iUniverse, ISBN 0595292690. http://books.google.com/books?id=q3V0pPkwDEsC&dq=%22John+Forbes+Nash%22+%22homosexual%22. Retrieved on 2008-01-22.
^ a b Scott, A. O. (March 21, 2002). "Critic's Notebook: A 'Mind' Is a Hazardous Thing to Distort". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/movies/bestpictures/mind-ar2.html. Retrieved on 2008-01-22.

[edit] External links
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: John Forbes Nash, Jr.
Autobiography at the Nobel Prize website
Nash's home page at Princeton
IDEAS/RePEc
Nash FAQ from Princeton's Mudd Library, including a copy of his dissertation in PDF format
Video of Dr. Sylvia Nasar narrating the story of John Nash at MIT
Beautiful mind, unconventional matter, a 2001 Daily Princetonian interview
O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "John Forbes Nash, Jr.", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive
John Forbes Nash, Jr. at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
"A Brilliant Madness" - a PBS American Experience documentary
John Nash speaks out about alleged omissions in film - Guardian Unlimited
John Nash and "A Beautiful Mind" Written by John Milnor as a reaction to the book A Beautiful Mind – not the movie – and mostly focusing on his mathematical achievements.
"John Forbes Nash, Jr.". John H. Lienhard. The Engines of Our Ingenuity. NPR. KUHF-FM Houston. 1994. No. 983. Transcript.
Department of Economics - News
John F. Nash presented in Freedom section
Penn State's The 2003-2004 John M. Chemerda Lectures in Science: Dr. John F. Nash, Jr.
video: Ariel Rubinstein's Lecture: "John Nash, Beautiful Mind and Game Theory"
Lecture of John Forbes Nash at the Nobel Laureate Meeting in Lindau, Germany, 2005
Nash Equilibrium 2002 article in Slate magazine by Robin Wright, speculating on links between Nash's theoretical work and his delusions
Video, enclosed in a book, of the meeting with Ennio De Giorgi, Trento, Italy, 1996
John Nash Forum





[edit] See also
A Beautiful Mind: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Mental illness in films

[edit] References
^ "A Beautiful Mind". Variety. http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=filmsearch_exact&dept=Film&movieID=15161. Retrieved on 2009-07-17.
^ http://www.princeton.edu/mudd/news/faq/topics/nash.shtml
^ USAToday.com
^ a b A Beautiful Mind DVD featurette Casting Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly, [2002]
^ a b c d e A Beautiful Mind DVD commentary featuring Ron Howard, [2002]
^ A Beautiful Mind DVD featurette A Beautiful Partnership: Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, [2002]
^ A Beautiful Mind DVD featurette Development of the Screenplay, [2002]
^ a b Dana Mackenzie. "Beautiful Math". Swarthmore College Bulletin. http://www.swarthmore.edu/Admin/publications/bulletin/june02/bayer.html. Retrieved on 2007-09-01.
^ A Beautiful Mind DVD featurette The Process of Age Progression, [2002]
^ A Beautiful Mind DVD featurette Scoring the Film, [2002]
^ a b "A Beautiful Mind". Rotten Tomatoes. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/beautiful_mind/. Retrieved on 2007-08-14.
^ "A Beautiful Mind". Ebert & Roeper. http://bventertainment.go.com/tv/buenavista/ebertandroeper/index2.html?sec=6&subsec=A+Beautiful+Mind. Retrieved on 2007-08-15.
^ Clark, Mike. "Crowe brings to 'Mind' a great performance". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/2001-12-21-beautiful-mind-review.htm. Retrieved on 2007-08-27.
^ ""A Beautiful Mind"". Salon Magazine. 2001-12-21. http://archive.salon.com/ent/movies/review/2001/12/21/beautiful_mind/index.html. Retrieved on 2007-08-27.
^ "Weekend Box Office Results for December 21–25, 2001". Box Office Mojo. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/?view=&yr=2001&wknd=51b&p=.htm. Retrieved on 2008-05-22.
^ "Weekend Box Office Results for January 4–6, 2002". Box Office Mojo. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/?yr=2002&wknd=001&p=.htm. Retrieved on 2008-05-22.
^ "A Beautiful Mind (2001)". Box Office Mojo. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=beautifulmind.htm. Retrieved on 2008-05-22.
^ "74th Academy Awards". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. http://www.oscars.org/74academyawards/nomswins.html. Retrieved on 2007-08-27.
^ "A Beautiful Mind (2001) - Awards and Nominations". Yahoo! Movies. http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1807426893/awards. Retrieved on 2007-08-27.
^ "AFI Awards 2001". American Film Institute. http://www.afi.com/tvevents/afiawards01/afiawards1.aspx. Retrieved on 2007-08-27.
^ "AFI Awards 2001: Movies of the Year". American Film Institute. http://www.afi.com/tvevents/afiawards01/mpawards.aspx. Retrieved on 2007-08-27.
^ About.com: Ron Howard Interview [1]
^ "A Beautiful Mind". Mathematical Association of America. http://www.maa.org/devlin/devlin_12_01.html. Retrieved on 11 August 2007.
^ a b "A Real Number". Slate Magazine. http://www.slate.com/id/2060110/. Retrieved on 16 August 2007.
^ "A Brilliant Madness: Special Features". PBS. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/nash/sfeature/sf_nash_06.html. Retrieved on 16 August 2007.
^ "A Brilliant Madness". PBS. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/nash/index.html. Retrieved on 16 August 2007.
^ Sylvia Nasar, A Beautiful Mind, Touchstone 1998
^ Nasar book
^ a b "Nash: Film No Whitewash". CBS News: 60 Minutes. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/03/14/60minutes/main503731.shtml. Retrieved on 16 August 2007.
^ "Eleanor Stier, 84". The Boston Globe. http://www.boston.com/news/globe/obituaries/articles/2005/04/10/eleanor_stier_84_brookline_nurse_had_son_with_nobel_laureate_mathematician_john_f_nash_jr. Retrieved on 5 December 2007.
^ Nasar book
^ "MIT facts meet fiction in 'A Beautiful Mind'". Massachusetts Institute of Technology. http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2002/nash-0213.html. Retrieved on 16 August 2007.
^ a b "FAQ John Nash". Seeley G. Mudd Library at Princeton University. http://www.princeton.edu/mudd/news/faq/topics/nash.shtml. Retrieved on 16 August 2007.
^ "A Beautiful Mind (2001)". movies.com. http://movies.go.com/a-beautiful-mind/d785054/drama. Retrieved on 5 August 2007.

Additional reading
Akiva Goldsman. A Beautiful Mind: Screenplay and Introduction. New York, New York: Newmarket Press, 2002. ISBN 1557045267