The Imitation Game- Page 2

[inception]

Posted: 1/3/15 at 5:42pm

Thank-you Roscoe. I wanted to vomit when I saw this film. Such a schlocky piece of hokum full of outright lies and fabrications.

Here is an excellent review from the NY Review of Books which points out all the factual problems with the film:


NYRB Review of Imitation Game

Updated On: 1/3/15 at 05:42 PM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/3/15 at 6:10pm

"Wes Anderson is a director who you either love or hate."

Not true at all. I love some of his films, like a couple, dislike a few.

[Fantod]

Posted: 1/3/15 at 6:33pm

Hm. That's a new situation that I've never seen before. Care to say which of his movies you like/love/dislike? And i was more talking about his style as opposed to his actual movies.

[Fantod]

Posted: 1/4/15 at 12:24am

Just got back and I'd say it's one of those movies that we get every year in December/January that is very good, but not quite good enough to rise above the crowded Oscar contenders. Benedict Cumberbatch is excellent as is Kiera Knightley. There's nothing wrong with it and I would recommend it at any other time of the year, but with movies like Mr. Turner (love, love, loved this), The Theory of Everything, Inherent Vice (which is a hot mess but very intriguing), Whiplash, or even Unbroken, I can't say its a must-see. If you want to see it, go see it and you won't be disappointed.

[madbrian]

Posted: 1/4/15 at 7:36am

I thought it was better that The Theory of Everything, and also better than WHiplash, although I'll be rooting for Redmayne and Simmons to win individual awards.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 1/4/15 at 7:37am

If only Mike Leigh had made a film about Turing, we'd have had something really interesting, instead of the batch of cheap easy biopic gimmicks and blatant condescension that some batch of hacks decided to toss onscreen. IMITATION GAME is really unforgivable.

Rather than tell the story of Alan Turing in an intelligent or thought-provoking way, THE IMITIATION GAME's real purpose is to make straight people feel better about the way they've treated gay people over the years -- we all get a collective "we're so glad you're abnormal, thanks so much for ending wars, and doing our hair, and decorating our interiors, and writing those cunning little musicals so sorry about the bigotry and hatred we've put you through, bye now" pat on the head, and there's an end to homophobia -- Turing got his pardon, we get our computers, all's right with the world.

Updated On: 1/4/15 at 07:37 AM

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 1/4/15 at 11:51am

My two cents: a decent, generally well done, conventional movie with some problems. For me what was least successful in the script is Rory Kinnear's investigation, his goals in interviewing Turing, and his response to what he learns; it's a major part of the structure of the film which is never resolved; both Turing and Kinnear deserved far better. It's as far from a great movie as it is from a a fiasco.

Cumberbatch is fine but not revelatory. His vocal work, his sound, is a great deal like Derek Jacobi's Turing in Breaking the Code but there doesn't seem to be anything nearly as memorable for me in his portrayal as there was in Jacobi's. Dance is a stock biopic baddie and does a credible job in those limited circumstances.

As for Knightley, she strikes me here, as always, as a decent actress holding something of herself back and that something keeps her from breaking through to a higher level. When she is interviewed she has a captivating personality, humorous and engaging light that I have never seen her bring nearly fully to life at any moment in any of her characters. I'm hopeful that one day she will give a truly great performance. This isn't it.

I have no objections to the way the movie treated Turing's love life. The degree of attention to his sexuality seemed perfectly appropriate to the story it wants to tell - no more and no less.



Updated On: 1/4/15 at 11:51 AM

[darquegk]

Posted: 1/4/15 at 1:18pm

I think Knightley is a good legit actress who happens to excel the most in weird genre stuff. Her serious work is always adequate, sometimes good, but never great. Her mainstream stuff is usually the best part of the movie it's in. But when she does something off the beaten path, like play a stripper-turned-bounty-hunter in "Domino" or one of the last survivors on earth in "Seeking a Friend for the End of the World," she really shines, and I don't know why.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 1/4/15 at 2:08pm

interesting darquergk, I've never seen those movies and will have to check her out in them. I look forward to seeing them.

I'd disagree with her mainstream stuff always being the best part of the movie. For me, Romola Garai, Saoirsa Ronan and James McAvoy and some of Joe Wright's direction (the war scenes in particular) were the standouts in Atonement, and while Wright's Pride and Prejudice is in many respects a wonderfully satisfying movie, with several first rate performances, Knightley was good but not quite great; she had some very strong movements but like many of her mainstream movie appearances, it doesn't quite reach its promise. Alicia Vikander's memorable Kitty stole Anna Karenina away from Wright and Knightley.

Updated On: 1/4/15 at 02:08 PM

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 1/8/15 at 11:54am

"Wes Anderson is a director who you either love or hate."

Not true at all. I love some of his films, like a couple, dislike a few.

Ditto that. The ones I liked were Rushmore, The Life Aquatic, Moonrise Kingdom and Grand Budapest Hotel. Though I admit I really only liked Rushmore on the first viewing when it was originally released. I've since found it a bit tiresome in that distinct Wes Anderson way on subsequent viewings.

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 1/8/15 at 12:09pm

I'm a fan of RUSHMORE, TENENBAUMS and BUDAPEST. I hated MOONRISE KINGDOM.

For it, it was a straight-splaining of Turing and I just want to say, 'We can tell our stories, thank you.' I know that's limiting and reductive and, ultimately, not really how I feel, but if, as a heterosexual story teller, you tell our stories in the way Roscoe described (and I agree with you here, Roscoe), then I'm going to say, 'Thanks a lot, but no thanks.'

[Scripps2]

Posted: 1/8/15 at 3:34pm

"As someone outside but closely allied to both the queer community and computer science community, I ask this question in the hopes that someone from within one or both will be able to answer: if Turing's death was not what the movie and associated historical narrative presents, is it disingenuous to present him as a modern queer martyr?"

I'm a gay graduate (albeit several decades later) of the same maths department of the university where Turing was instrumental in developing the (possibly) first computer, and was in attendance at the 2012 lecture where Jack Copeland put forward the thoughts referred to in the NYRB link. I don't think that makes my opinion any more valid than any other in this thread but I do remember becoming increasingly irritated as the lecture progressed and Copeland tried to reclaim Turing solely for the science community.

Whatever the reasons for Turing's death (accident, suicide, murder) it does not change the fact that he received the same sort of injustice from the British state, having helped it win WWII, that he would have received had the Nazis won the war. And, yes, there's the argument that we cannot project today's values onto the past but this is still within living memory for some - Britain has today the same Head of State that it did at the time of Turing's death. That he was given the (no) choice of prison or chemical castration is bad enough. That he (or any gay man) had to face criminal charges is bad enough. So I don't think it's disingenuous at all.



Particularly when another maths graduate of unconventional sexuality who worked for the intelligence services has died in mysterious and unexplained circumstances recently. Updated On: 1/8/15 at 03:34 PM

Posted: 1/11/15 at 12:00am

I was underwhelmed by this film. The main problem being it was like spending 2 hours with an unfunny british version of Sheldon from Big Bang Theory. I don't know if Turing had Asbergers or anything like that, but it was certainly portrayed that way. I remember liking the Derek Jabobi film very much, and the character was presented as much more "normal"and also more sympathetic, as I recall.
That said, I really enjoyed the kld who played the younger Turing. The scene in which he gets the bad news at school was great. The heartbroken look on his face brought me to tears, which none of the rest of the film did.

[canmark]

Posted: 1/11/15 at 10:52am

'Gay All-Stars Come Out for Imitation Game Campaign'
http://www.advocate.com/politics/media/2015/01/09/watch-gay-all-stars-come-out-imitation-game-campaign

[Auggie27]

Posted: 1/11/15 at 11:03am

I think Roscoe's and Son Of's points are spot-on. I tried to love it, on general principal, but the movie has a patronizing teachable-moment earnestness, and to me, despite expert performances, not helped by the casting. There's something about Cumberbatch's rabbity, wet-eyed catatonia that just bespeaks a perpetual state of poor-me-ness, abject cheese-stands-alone-hood. That's unfair as a measure of his talent, but my impression of what he brings to the character. He's a fine actor, but he's so predictably long-suffering in this film, he wore me out. I still shed tears, full disclosure. I don't think the movie is devoid of power.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/11/15 at 11:17am

"There's something about Cumberbatch's rabbity, wet-eyed catatonia that just bespeaks a perpetual state of poor-me-ness, abject cheese-stands-alone-hood."

I want to gay marry this sentence. Not least for the use of "bespeaks".

[haterobics]

Posted: 1/11/15 at 10:55pm

Finally caught this one tonight and enjoyed it a lot, but those title cards at the end were such a gut punch. Not new information, but still hard to process...

"THE IMITIATION GAME's real purpose is to make straight people feel better about the way they've treated gay people over the years"

Err, if that was the goal, it would seem to be a colossal failure. Not sure how you landed on that conclusion, but I had the opposite reaction. I'm not straight, but even so... it seems the only conclusion is to see how horribly he was treated after saving millions of people. Updated On: 1/11/15 at 10:55 PM

[Roscoe]

Posted: 1/12/15 at 8:59am

It's something akin to the joke made a few years back at the Oscars, when Jon Stewart was hosting. There was a self-serving montage of Hollywood Films Dealing With Important Social Issues (inevitable clips from THE DEFIANT ONES and GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER, that sort of thing), and when it was over Stewart looked right into the camera and said, "And after these movies were released, none of those issues was ever a problem ever again." The titles at the end deliver up all kinds of interesting Facts About Persecution of Gays and then ties it all up in a tidy little bow: Queen Elizabeth, the leader of the government who persecuted Alan Turing, actually gave the guy a pardon, and Turing's advances paved the way for What We Now Call Computers, so that's that, homophobia's nicely disposed of, cucumber sandwiches anyone?

THE IMITATION GAME re-writes history in some rather unpleasant ways, making Turing's post-war legal problems a bit of Cold-War Paranoia fall-out (the cop investigating the burglary, which Turing didn't report, is convinced that Turing is a Soviet Spy, and the truth comes out later in the investigation) which is quite simply not the case, and whitewashes, I think, the real barefaced bigotry of those anti-gay laws that were on the books for so long in the process, and of the people who enforced them. And then Keira Knightley's grotesque little speech at the end, where she tells Turing that she's so glad he's abnormal because he saved so many lives, strikes me as being revoltingly sentimental and deeply condescending: can you imagine someone kneeling next to Harvey Milk's bleeding body and saying, "Sorry about the guy who shot you, but I'm so glad you're gay because you made San Francisco streets free from dog poo!"

To say nothing of the way the film presents Turing as a total basket case psycho, such a bag of tics and neuroses that he doesn't even recognize an invitation to lunch when he hears it. The real Turing seems to have been a handful, no doubt about it, with apparently only a nodding acquaintance with the idea of personal hygiene, but nobody that I've read backs up this image of Turing The Twitching Tragic Spaz the movie goes to such lengths to establish.

Updated On: 1/12/15 at 08:59 AM

[haterobics]

Posted: 1/12/15 at 2:53pm

"The titles at the end deliver up all kinds of interesting Facts About Persecution of Gays and then ties it all up in a tidy little bow: Queen Elizabeth, the leader of the government who persecuted Alan Turing, actually gave the guy a pardon, and Turing's advances paved the way for What We Now Call Computers, so that's that, homophobia's nicely disposed of, cucumber sandwiches anyone?"

I didn't come to that conclusion at all. I think my thought was that the pardon was way too little far too late, after the needless persecution under the same ridiculous law that found Oscar Wilde gaoled. I read it as far more of an indictment rather than anything positive.

"And then Keira Knightley's grotesque little speech at the end, where she tells Turing that she's so glad he's abnormal because he saved so many lives, strikes me as being revoltingly sentimental and deeply condescending."

Again, I don't think this was about his sexuality. He said, "You got what you wanted, didn't you? Work, husband, a normal life..." and then she uses his saying normal to contextualize that his not being like everyone else is why she took a train past a city that wouldn't have existed were it not for him, and that she is married to a former soldier who would have died were it not for him, so she is glad he isn't normal, since otherwise those things wouldn't have happened. So, it wasn't about his sexuality, but his genius. His being gay isn't why the city or her husband were still around... and her calling him not normal was to spin off his use of her having a normal life.

I'm sure there are historical inaccuracies, since I don't recall any movies like this not having them. I read the lunch invitation as showing how literally he thought. They said they were going to lunch, and he said OK. He hadn't been invited, so he interpreted that as a statement. But again, I have no clue whether that is rooted in any truth or just some fabricated thing to try and show how he processed information. I was enjoying the movie too much to care, really. If I want to learn more about Turing, I'd read one of many books about him... each of which could also probably be picked apart on some niggling details.

Updated On: 1/12/15 at 02:53 PM

[Roscoe]

Posted: 1/12/15 at 3:20pm

Looks like we disagree on what constitutes a niggling detail. I'd say rewriting history so that Turing covers up the activities of a Soviet spy is a pretty serious matter. But if the audience is too busy enjoying something to think seriously about the way history is being re-written as long as they get their easy tear-jerk of a movie, and if they really don't care that lies like these are being presented because hey, it's just a movie and not history -- well, as Pope Sunshine says, who am I to judge?

Opinions are gonna differ all over the place. One person's acceptable dramatic license is another's unconscionable insult to the memory of a major historical figure, a pack of lies that distorts history for its own tear-jerking sentimentalized self-congratulatory ends.

Updated On: 1/12/15 at 03:20 PM

[Patronus]

Posted: 1/13/15 at 7:34am

I agree with you for the most part Roscoe.

I admit that I wasn't strongly versed in the story of Turing going into the film and I felt fortunate to get the "jist" of all he accomplished and how he was wronged, but as a movie it just fell short for me. The tone was all over the map and it seemed as if they weren't sure what type of emotions they wanted to generate for much of the film and then hit you over the head with it at the end only to once again change direction with "but it's okay! He made a computer AND got pardoned!"

The earlier post about feeling like you were spending 2 hours with an unfunny Sheldon Cooper is pretty spot on. It seemed they wanted to portray him as an amusingly rude caricature.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 1/13/15 at 9:19am

I'm coming to think of THE IMITATION GAME as being more accurately entitled THE VICTIMIZATION GAME. Part of the agenda of the film is to rob Turing of any and all joy -- the guy's such a total victim in every way, he's completely unversed in even the most basic mechanics of simple human interaction, he's got zero sense of humor and his life is shown to be just utter grimness. It even deprives him of the opportunity to triumphantly rub Charles Dance's face in his success in breaking Enigma -- the excitement over breaking the code is immediately tempered with WORRY over which messages they'll be decoding and whose lives will be saved and all that. Check out the cover of the book on Turing by B. Jack Copeland, there's a picture of Turing laughing -- it is impossible to imagine this film's grim twitching cartoon of misery with that look on his face.

The NYRB article linked to above goes into all this better than I can.

I wasn't an expert on Turing by any means when I saw the film -- I'd seen BREAKING THE CODE on PBS all those years ago, and had an idea of the story. The only new information I got from IMITATION GAME was Turing's relationship with a Soviet Spy (which never happened), that he was initially investigated by the police as being a Soviet spy (which isn't true), and that he was an utterly joyless basket case of a human being (which also doesn't seem to be true).

[haterobics]

Posted: 1/13/15 at 11:40am

"Part of the agenda of the film is to rob Turing of any and all joy..."

And how do you know that was willful and intentional on their part? The writer of the film has said in interviews he has been obsessed with Turing since he was 14, and he got the job when a producer friend mentioned interest in doing a film on Turing, and he went into a 15-minute monologue about his affection for such a project and immediately how he saw it being structured.

So, to go from that point to your belief that this film was constructed as a deliberate Trojan horse for gay misery or somesuch... I'm not sure how you can connect those dots without inventing them.

Perhaps the movie tried to do something different and potentially failed at it? Were scenes removed that would have explored other avenues but didn't make the final cut because they didn't support the overall tone?

I just don't know how you get from disliking it to knowing it was constructed to specifically have the negative agenda you now ascribe to it.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 1/13/15 at 12:09pm

Their intentions are beside the point -- I can say that based on the evidence of what is ON THE SCREEN RIGHT THERE IN THE MOVIE, haterobics. If they had another agenda, if they intended anything but "robbing Turing of any and all joy" then they FAILED miserably. Maybe there are scenes of Turing dancing the night away and having a grand old gay old HAPPY HAPPY JOY JOY time, maybe there's a scene of Turing getting all "take that, Beeeyotch!" in Charles Dance's face over having broken the Enigma Code, that were cut from the film and will wind up as part of the Director's Cut Blu-Ray, but don't hold your breath. As it is, the movie presents Turing's life as being unbroken unalloyed MISERY in every single way except how brilliant he is as at math.

Looks like we disagree. Enjoy your IMITATION GAME Kool-Aid -- you're not alone in chugging it right down.

[haterobics]

Posted: 1/13/15 at 12:23pm

I enjoyed it and will probably never see it again. Not one of my favorite movies of all time or anything.

I guess I just don't see how you can be certain they have an agenda but then not care what their intentions were, as the two would have to line up to prove your point, no? If you were just saying it was a bad, historically inaccurate movie you didn't like, that would be a different thing than making them willfully creating it for some nefarious purpose.