Dec 2, 2002 4 min read

When movie producers promote a new film as being “based on a true story” you need to always remember that poetic license offers them a wide range of freedom to stray from the truth. We would like to believe what we are seeing on the screen, particularly when it involves stories of people and events that have made significant contributions to society.

Unfortunately, almost all of the mainstream movies that spring from real life events are produced with added dramatic effects. Facts are frequently ignored, actors portray real people in such ways that their mothers wouldn’t recognize them, and there is so much fiction added that it bears little resemblance to the “true story.”

Hollywood producers aren’t interested in making documentary films. They leave that to the academics, government agencies and the military people. The motion picture studios want to attract the largest audience possible to their products.

However, those of us who might put down a few dollars to see a movie because it is “based on a true story” are disappointed when we discover that the movie distorted the facts almost to the point of being unrecognizable.

For those of you who thoroughly enjoyed the movie, “A Beautiful Mind,” about the life of mathematical genius and Nobel Laureate John Nash, you will be thoroughly disappointed to know that most of the events shown in the movie never occurred.

About the only truth found in the movie is that Nash was a genius, he was a paranoid schizophrenic, and he was awarded a Nobel Prize in economics.

In her book, “A Beautiful Mind,” on which the movie was loosely based, Sylvia Nasar documents the life of John Nash, which shows him to be a self-centered, insensitive, egotistical, social elitist, and an uncaring person. A harsh description indeed for the same John Nash portrayed by actor Russell Crowe as a kind, caring person who was the victim of a mental illness.

But the facts in Nasar’s book speak for themselves. Nash had a mistress, whom he believed to be beneath his social status because she was a nurse. They had a son. Nash never gave a dime to the mother or to the boy for his support, even when he wound up in three foster homes. Nash had several other affairs, always only thinking of himself and his own pleasures.

When he finally married, it was not the idealized lifestyle portrayed in the movie. His wife finally divorced him, another fact not mentioned in the movie, although they did remarry later in life. He had a second son, who had a mental illness very similar to what Nash suffered.

If the movie had reflected the facts in the book, the viewers would not have left the theater thinking John Nash was such a nice guy. He inflicted a great deal of pain on everyone around him. Possibly this was related to his mental condition, but that is not known. There are many people around whose personalities have not developed beyond the kicking, screaming tantrums of a typical self-centered, spoiled 3-year-old. Nash certainly fits that description.

Hollywood probably will never be able to stay true to the facts in these so-called “true” stories. The truth is usually very boring, not really that interesting, and if we had to sit through two hours of a real documentary on John Nash’s life we would all be asleep within the first 30 minutes.

It is disappointing nonetheless to be misled by so much hype and fantasy as was found in this movie about John Nash. It is clear that the movie producers set out to create a kind, sympathetic character who would not offend the viewers. This they succeeded in doing. In the process, they failed miserably to tell the story of the real John Nash.

Mike Ellis is the editor of the Herald-Standard. His e-mail address is: mellis@heraldstandard.com.