The film version of John Nash GS '50's life is a far cry from the one he has lived

A private man, once known only in mathematics and economics circles for his intellectual side, has been yet again thrust into the spotlight. This time, however, his research is only a footnote. Now his human side has an audience.

The life and world of John Nash GS '50 is far more complex than the new movie "A Beautiful Mind" would lead viewers to believe. Nash, who after studying at Princeton became a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, suffered from paranoid schizophrenia — and then recovered.

Before battling the illness full-time, Nash made innovative contributions to game theory and economics. Then, after he significantly overcame the illness, Nash was awarded the 1994 Nobel Prize in economics.

Inspired by Nash's life story, Columbia University journalism professor Sylvia Nasar wrote a biography of Nash, titled "A Beautiful Mind." The biography was a National Book Critics Circle Award winner. Though the movie is based in part on the biography, it is not, as Nasar pointed out, a documentary.

"By employing fiction," Nasar said in an e-mail, "[director Ron Howard] does something in the movie that you can't do — and should never pretend to do — in biography: take the audience into the character's mind. And that's essential, in a movie, to communicate emotionally what this illness is from the point of view of the sufferer."

In the movie, which Nasar called "a brilliant adaptation," Nash's character is able to think away his hallucinations, which may or may not be an exaggeration of reality. McCosh Health Center psychologist Marvin Geller, who has yet to see the movie, said Nash's ability to reason with his condition would be rare, though possible.

In some psychotic patients, Geller said, "there is a part of them that is enough in touch with reality that they are able to fight against their psychotic thinking. In psychological terms there's some potential ego strength . . . some part is holding on to reality and helping them fight against it."

Today, however, most patients are immediately and continuously treated with medication, Geller added.

The movie left major aspects of Nash's life out of the screenplay and fictionalized part of the Princeton culture.

"It's true he was a brilliant young mathematician . . . It's true that he got the Nobel Prize," said math professor Hale Trotter GS '56. However, he said, the parallels between Nash's real life and the one portrayed in the movie end there.

Nash fathered a child with another woman before marrying Alicia Larde. This is left out of the movie, but Nasar said the focus just on Larde and their child was appropriate.

"[The book is] also about the people who stuck by Nash and made his recovery and recognition possible. The focus on Alicia, without whom of course Nash would have perished, is exactly right," Nasar said.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

In the movie, Nash gives a brilliant speech after receiving the Nobel Prize. "He did not give any speech at the awards ceremony, nobody does," Trotter said. Though winners may lecture on their work, Trotter added, Nash did not do so.

"Nash wasn't allowed to make a Nobel speech, incidentally," Nasar said. "He did something even better though: He remarried the woman who sheltered him for all those years and provided for her and his two sons."

Trotter also said that the atmosphere of the mathematics community at Princeton in the 1950s was not as competitive as the movie portrayed, and though the Cold War was on people's minds, it was not at the forefront of mathematical attention.

"In small matters," Trotter noted, "you don't play "Go" out on the grass." Just as the characters in the movie did, Trotter used to play the game in the common room with other students.

The movie also depicted what appeared to be a Princeton mathematics department tradition, where faculty members would honor another member by giving him pens.

"As far as I know that's a complete invention of the script writer," Trotter said of the pen tradition. "Nobody that I've come across has ever heard of it anywhere."

Ron Howard met with another University math professor and told him about the pen tradition in the movie. "The professor had the oddest look on his face, like, 'No, we wouldn't do that,' " said Eric Hamblin, director of the University's Center for Visitors and Conference Services, who was responsible for interacting with the movie's crew.

Production on campus went well, Hamblin said. "As far as the relationship, it couldn't have been better."

In an interview with the Princeton Packet last week, Russell Crowe, who played Nash, seemed to still hold a grudge against University students. He said in the article, "It was fun being surrounded by so many students who really do consider themselves in the milk-and-honey elite of this country, because they couldn't care less if you were making a film there or not . . . because of that ultimate arrogance."

Hamblin commented, "They shot a feature film on a University while we were in session, so I didn't appreciate the comments by Russell about the undergraduates."

Hamblin admitted that students were at times overzealous about taking photographs, most notoriously the one of Crowe replying to a student with his middle finger. But Hamblin said he never considered telling students what to do in their rooms. That would have "seemed silly," he added.

The scenes on campus were filmed last spring and during the summer. The movie was released in selected theaters, including the Princeton Garden Theater, on Christmas Day.

As with all movies based on a true story, the use of story-telling license only added to the mystery and enchantment of the real-life version.

"The tens of millions of people with these illnesses can, if only they had access to proper medical care and got the support they deserve from their communities, triumph just as Nash has," Nasar concluded.

Nash was unavailable for comment earlier this week.