Alan Turing
If you haven't seen "The Imitation Game," one of the films nominated this year for Best Picture, you surely won't after reading this. My Gawd.
The link above is to the New York Review of Books' "Blog" review of the film, authored by Christian Caryl. Caryl, a journalist and contributing editor to Foreign Policy magazine, has a strong research background regarding the life of Alan Turing, the protagonist in director Morten Tyldum's film which highlights the life of Turing, the brilliant British mathematician widely credited for breaking the Nazi codes and contributing, to a great extent, to the Allied victory in World War II. The film features Benedict Cumberbatch as Turing. Caryl takes no issue with Cumberbatch's acting, but that is about the only thing he doesn't castigate about this film.
You don't need to see this film to appreciate the review, a condensed version of a longer and (believe me) even more scathing version that appears in the most recent print edition of the NYRB. Whether you read the online Blog version or the print version, your fingers will be smoldering so much afterwards that you'll very likely want to run and find a bucket of cold water to immerse them.
In addition to Turing's pivotal role in breaking the German codes, the film references another, lesser-known aspect of Turing's life--his conviction after the war on charges of homosexuality, his "treatment" by administration of female hormones mandated by his sentence, and his subsequent death, likely by suicide.
Citing the historical mischaracterizations rampant throughout the film, Caryl takes issue with the basic portrayal of Turing as someone who seems completely isolated and disconnected from human society, particularly the small group of Codebreakers in which Turing was immersed from 1939 onward at Bletchley Park, just north of London, England. The film portrays Turing as utterly clueless socially, obnoxious and off-putting, contrary to the recollections of his contemporaries who found him somewhat eccentric but rather charming:
As his biographers vividly relate, though, he could also be a wonderfully engaging character when he felt like it, notably popular with children and thoroughly charming to anyone for whom he developed a fondness.
All of this stands sharply at odds with his characterization in the film, which depicts him as a dour Mr. Spock who is disliked by all of his coworkers... The film spares no opportunity to drive home his robotic oddness. He uses the word “logical” a lot and can’t grasp even the most modest of jokes.
Caryl believes the entire thrust of the movie was to portray Turing as an "outsider," when he was in fact a willing an eager participant in the collective enterprise of cracking the Nazi codes. The film also portrays the work of the codebreakers as essentially fruitless for years until a "Eureka" moment occurs in 1941. But the factual record shows that the codebreakers were achieving success from the start of their efforts, due in large part to Turing's methods. Caryl calls the entire movie a "bizarre departure" from the historical facts.
Caryl also notes that "conflict" set up between Turing and Alastair Denniston, the Royal Navy officer in charge of British Signals Intelligence, is largely fabricated. The actual Denniston was an experienced codebreaker whose work early in the war provided the template for Turing's own efforts. The episode in which Turing purportedly discovers a Soviet spy in the midst of the codebreakers is similarly fabricated. The spy, John Cairncross, and Turing never met:
Tyldum and Moore conjure up an entirely superfluous subplot involving John Cairncross, who was spying for the Soviet Union during his service at Bletchley Park. There’s no evidence that he ever crossed paths with Turing... but The Imitation Game includes him among Turing’s coworkers. When Turing discovers his true allegiance, Cairncross turns the tables on him, saying that he’ll reveal Turing’s homosexuality if his secret is divulged. Turing backs off, leaving the spy in place.
Not many of the critics seem to have paid attention to this detail—except for historian Alex von Tunzelmann, who pointed out that the filmmakers have thus managed, almost as an afterthought, to turn their hero into a traitor.
Caryl describes this as but one of many, many historical inaccuracies in the film:
A bit like one of those smartphones that bristles with unneeded features, the film does its best to ladle in extra doses of intrigue where none existed.
The most egregious errors, according to Caryl, appear to grow out of the filmmaker's desire to turn Turing into some type of gay martyr. While the "hormone therapy" administered as his "sentence" is appalling, there is no evidence that it contributed to Turing's death (by cyanide) nor that he suffered from severe depression in the year prior to his death. In fact there is a good argument that Turing's death was a tragic accident caused by misplaced chemicals in his home, self-rigged laboratory.
But even if you believe that Turing was driven to his death, The Imitation Game’s treatment of his fate borders on the ridiculous. In one of the film’s most egregious scenes, his wartime friend Joan pays him a visit in 1952 or so, while he’s still taking his hormones. She finds him shuffling around the house in his bathrobe, barely capable of putting together a coherent sentence. He tells her that he’s terrified that the powers that be will take away “Christopher”—his latest computer, which he’s named after the dead friend of his childhood (just as he did with his machine at Bletchley Park).
As near as I can tell, there is no basis for any of this in the historical record; it’s monstrous hogwash, a conceit entirely cooked up by Moore.
Rather than portraying Turing's homosexuality in a realistic manner, the filmmakers end up creating something of a caricature of Turing at the end--a whiny, weak man who fits neatly into the classic homophobic stereotype:
This is indicative of the bad faith underlying the whole enterprise, which is desperate to put Turing in the role of a gay liberation totem but can’t bring itself to show him kissing another man—something he did frequently, and with gusto...The Imitation Game is a film that prefers its gay men decorously disembodied.
Even the film's key scene, when Turing has an apparent "Eureka" moment that finally permits the pieces of the German codes to fall into place, is grossly misportrayed, according to Caryl. This, from the print version of the NYRB article:
About a third of the way in I realized with gathering dread, that we would soon be coming to a scene in which a character makes an offhanded remark that inspires the hero to jump to his feet with an awestruck expression, thereupon announcing an astonishing discovery that resolves everything at a single stroke.
And indeed, that is exactly what happens. Caryl's take on the film's contrived "Eureka moment" (also only available in the print version) is hilarious:
Just to make matters worse, the discovery in question hinges on the notion of a "crib," an often-repeated word or phrase in enciphered texts...[.]Far from being a stunning innovation introduced by Alan Turing, cribs are a standard part of the cryptanalytical toolbox. The movie's eureka scene is thus the equivalent of a criminal lawyer declaring "Good Lord! It turns out that there's a thing called the Fifth Amendment, which allows a suspect to avoid incriminating himself."
Caryl no makes no effort to hide his general disgust with this film and its portrayal of Turing, who is now viewed as the father of modern computer science and artificial intelligence:
To be honest, I’m a bit surprised that there hasn’t been more pushback against The Imitation Game by intelligence professionals, historians, and survivors of Turing’s circle... I strongly doubt, though, that many of those in the know are recommending this film to their friends.
The Imitation Game was nominated for 8 Academy Awards.
You can find out the actual winner for this year's Best Picture, ahead of time, by going here.