The Imitation Game — Page 2

"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.

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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.

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.

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

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.

"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.

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"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

'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

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"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".

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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.

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

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.

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

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).

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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.

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