FIRST LOOK PICTURES Matthew Broderick (right) as Richard Feynman arrives at Los Alamos to work on the Manhattan Project.

Mainstream movies are usually not very kind to science--witness the implausible and sinister behavior of the tornadoes in Twister or the secretive ineptitude of the government researchers in Independence Day. So it is a pleasant surprise to see two thoughtful, scientifically literate films--Infinity and Microcosmos--now going head-to-head with the likes of The First Wives Club. Infinity--a biography of the late physicist Richard Feynman--is in some respects the more unusual of the two. It stars Matthew Broderick and Patricia Arquette, both well-known Hollywood actors. But the subject is not the usual Hollywood fare: Infinity concerns Feynman's childhood and early adult years, focusing on his work on the Manhattan Project and on his relationship with his first wife, Arline, who died of tuberculosis at a young age. The result is a curious hybrid, part an account of the making of a scientist, part morality tale and part tragic romance.

The screenplay for Infinity derives from chapters in Feynman's two best-selling books of reminiscences, Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman! and What Do You Care What Other People Think?. To the credit of Broderick (who directed as well), the movie hews quite closely to its source. The early sections showing how Richard's father, Melville, fostered his youthful curiosity offer a rare, perceptive look at a budding scientific mind. In one touching scene, the young Richard asks his father why when he pulls his wagon forward, the ball sitting in the wagon rolls to the back. Melville Feynman responds with a serious discussion of inertia and explains--quite accurately--that we know what inertia does, but nobody knows at the deepest level what it is. Later, Richard tries to explain to his father how an electron can emit a photon even though the photon was not "really" there before. These well-drawn exchanges eloquently express the way a scientist views the world.

The real, 24-year old Richard Feynman (center) with his colleagues at Los Alamos.

Unfortunately, Infinity is limited by Broderick's excessive reverence for his subject. Feynman's reminiscences, which appeared in print 40 years after the fact, are tinged with longing and arrogant pride but carefully do not reveal too much emotion. The movie, too, feels oddly remote. As a child Feynman had an almost pathological fear of being seen as a "sissy"; the emotional trauma of Arline's death and the moral conundrum of working on the Manhattan Project surely figured into his later, carefully cultivated madcap persona. But Infinity offers only sporadic glimpses of Feynman's inner turmoil. There is little sign of the dark restlessness that led him to crack safes at Los Alamos or bang on the bongos long into the night.

Infinity does not attempt a comprehensive overview of Feynman's life and work. You will not see his work on quantum electrodynamics (which netted him a Nobel Prize in 1965), his groundbreaking ideas about what we now call "quarks," or his theory of superfluidity. You will not witness his brushes with anti-Semitism or his often abusive treatment of women. (First Look Pictures has helpfully placed some additional information about Feynman on the Infinity Web site.) What you will see is an intriguing, if somewhat romanticized, portrait of the scientist as a young man

Comments

Add Comment

Leave this field empty

Add a Comment

You must sign in or register as a ScientificAmerican.com member to submit a comment.
Click one of the buttons below to register using an existing Social Account.