Best Picture nominee A Beautiful Mind‘s high-profile star, its respected director, the film’s studio chief and the author upon whose book it was based have leapt to the defense of John Forbes Nash, Jr.–the schizophrenic mathematical genius whose life inspired the film–as the particularly nasty mudslinging campaign attacking him continues.
At the height of Oscar mania, reports in such respectable fare as the Associated Press and the showbiz trades have bashed Nash with accusations that he was, among other things, a bisexual, an adulterer, a poor father and an anti-Semite.
According to Los Angeles Times reports, rumor has it the negative coverage stems from a fervent anti-campaign launched by rival studios 20th Century Fox and Miramax, who hope to damage A Beautiful Mind in the public eye and improve their own films’ chances at grabbing Best Picture gold–an award that could mean millions added to the winner’s grosses. Both studios vehemently deny the accusations.
Those behind the film speak out
Russell Crowe, nominated for Best Actor for his portrayal of Nash, and Best Director nominee Ron Howard spoke out against the negative campaigning at the recent Oscar nominees luncheon in Beverly Hills.
Crowe attributed Nash’s bizarre statements and negative quotes–such as a 1967 letter in which he attacked Jews–to his paranoid delusions.
“To quote the sort of things that John Nash was saying within those 35 years of hospitalization and medication–at a time when he was absolutely overtaken by the disease of schizophrenia–as something that is meaningful to John Nash and who he is, and to put that up against his achievements…I think it’s beyond irresponsible,” said the actor.
During that period, Nash alternately claimed to be the Messiah, Job and a slave in chains. “He also declared himself governor of Antarctica,” added Crowe. “This is a fellow who was getting messages from aliens through the New York Times…Though actually, you probably can get messages from aliens through the New York Times.”
A visibly disgusted Howard also had a few words to say. “I think that presenting yourself and advertising on behalf of a project you care about, encouraging Academy members to consider your film, that seems above board and reasonable,” he said. “If there’s an attack strategy that is about attempting to undermine the other candidates’ credibility–well, that’s a shame. That’s tragic. And if there’s anything that can be done about it, it should be, but I don’t know if that’s possible.
“It’s particularly disheartening and angering if it somehow takes its shape in an attack on an individual not involved,” the director and former actor continued. “In our case, John Nash is 72 years old, he’s alive, he’s a noble figure, he’s endured a great deal. And for anyone to try to distort behaviors that are reported to occur at the absolute height of his delusions in the midst of a hellish 35-year period of schizophrenia is, I think, not doing the world or John Nash or themselves any kind of service. I have no respect for that whatsoever. To the extent that I feel some of that has occurred, I take it personally.”
Crowe, too, was distressed that the Oscar race had turned so down-and-dirty. “I think we have to examine the amount of money that we’re spending on these campaigns,” he said, “because as soon as it costs that much money, that takes people to a different place. This is supposed to be about the joy of filmmaking, it’s supposed to be about a celebration, and it really shouldn’t get into those kinds of topics.”
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Stacy Snider, who heads Universal Pictures, the studio behind the film, has decried the attacks on the film in The Hollywood Reporter. “Lines that should be clear to all of us have recklessly been crossed. Filmmakers who have done honest work that was never engineered to win an award now are having to defend their intentions.”
“The timing of these latest missives and their orchestration has to be calculated,” said Snider, who did not reveal where the attacks might have originated but revealed she had contacted rival studio chiefs and urged them to take the high road in their campaigns. “It can’t be inadvertent.”
Snider is familiar with such tactics: another Universal film, The Hurricane, saw its Oscar chances greatly damaged in 2000 when inaccuracies regarding the real-life Ruben “Hurricane” Carter were trumpeted throughout the media.
In defense of Nash
From the beginning of their marketing campaign in late 2001, however, the filmmakers behind A Beautiful Mind took pains to indicate that the movie was only loosely inspired by Nash’s real-life experiences and was not a literal retelling.
Sylvia Nasar, the author and New York Times journalist who wrote the 1998 non-fiction biography of Nash, also defended the mathematician in an editorial opinion column for the Los Angeles Times. Nasar wrote that she was inspired to defend Nash after her experience at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, in which the students asked her questions relating exclusively to the tabloid-esque rumors and expressed no interest in the physicist’s trailblazing mathematical theories.
“Mainstream news organizations have stated everything from the ‘fact’ that Nash was gay and an adulterer to the ‘fact’ that he was a bad father and a bigot–all of which are untrue,” wrote Nasar. The author–who spent nearly three years researching her subject and has no financial interest in the success or failure of the film–debunked several allegations against Nash.
“While he had intense emotional relationships with other men in his 20s, no one I interviewed claimed, much less provided evidence, that Nash ever had sex with another man,” she wrote. “True, Nash was arrested in a police trap in a men’s room in Santa Monica in 1954, at the height of the McCarthy era. Rand Corp., where he was working, stripped him of his security clearance and fired him, ignoring Nash’s complete denial and saying it didn’t matter whether the police were telling the truth or not. The charge–‘indecent exposure’–was dropped.”
Eleanor Stier, a nurse who became pregnant with Nash’s child, alleged that Nash refused to marry her or support the baby and said the filmmakers “completely left me out of it. They tried to pretend I don’t exist.” While Nasar concedes Nash did have an affair with Stier early in the courtship of his wife-to-be Alicia (played in the film by Best Supporting Actress nominee Jennifer Connelly), Nasar says the affair had ended by the time he married Alicia.
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Disputing the bad father tag, Nasar wrote, “For years…Nash has cared for his younger son, who has suffered from schizophrenia. Indeed, Nash’s reason for going forward with the movie was to be able to provide for Alicia and his two adult sons.”
She also challenged the cynical accusations that the Nashes’ remarriage in 2001 after 40 years of separation was for movie marketing purposes alone. “Actually, they were divorced in 1963, but by the time they remarried last June they had been living together for 38 years, many of which were years of poverty and illness,” wrote the author. “In the epilogue of the new paperback edition, I quote the Nashes on their wedding day. ‘The divorce shouldn’t have happened; we saw this as a kind of retraction of that,’ John Nash said.”
In reference to claims of his anti-Semitism–a highly charged issue, especially considering the many Jews in the Academy–Nasar wrote that several distinguished Jewish scientists and academics were among Nash’s earliest supporters when he was still a student. “In recent years, his most prominent supporter has been Ariel Rubinstein at Tel Aviv University, winner of the Israel Prize…The letter the [New York] Post quotes was written eight years after Nash was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, when he felt himself threatened by Jews and the state of Israel…These were signs of paranoid delusions.”
Impact on Oscar chances
Internet gossip columnist Matt Drudge has reported that he interviewed at least three Academy voters who would not vote for the film based on the allegations of anti-Semitism.
But one Academy voter Hollywood.com contacted who wished to remain anonymous–a producer who has helmed biographical projects in the past–said, “I believe when you do a theatrical production or a motion picture you’re allowed a dramatic license.” As long as, he added, the interpretation was “reasonable” and not “an absolute lie historically, like, Hitler was a nice guy.”
The producer added that although he did not vote for Mind for Best Picture, it wasn’t due to allegations of anti-Semitism or anything else. “The only thing I zero in on is ‘Do I like that film?'” Nevertheless, this voter acknowledged that negative Oscar campaigns, both overt and covert, can be “considerably effective.”
With eight nominations, other major award wins, critical acclaim and blockbuster success at the box office, A Beautiful Mind remains a major front-runner in the Academy Awards derby. Crowe’s performance as Nash has already earned him a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a British Academy Film Award and several critics associations’ trophies.
Nash, as the film depicts, won a Nobel Prize in 1994.
