Stephen Hawking is among the truly unique figures to rise to the Anglo-American pop culture firmament in the late 20th century.
A theoretical physicist, Hawking’s accomplishments include having sketched a model to reconcile general relativity with quantum mechanics. He became widely recognized beyond his peer group for his 1988 work “A Brief History of Time.”
The book was on the Sunday Times’ best-seller list for over four years and has sold well over 10 million copies – not bad for a primer on cosmology (“stars,” “black holes” and stuff like that.)
Skeptics have wondered how many of those copies of “Brief History” were actually read, but Hawking remains a celebrity among a small group of hard-science missionaries dedicated to sharing their view of the universe with a wide nonspecialist audience.
Skeptics also wonder whether the pop culture priesthood would have embraced Hawking had he not been diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) while still a young man. The affliction has all but immobilized the body that contains his energetic intelligence, leaving him a wheelchair-bound figure who communicates through a voice-synthesizing device.
This incongruity, only one of several embodied by Hawking, lies at the center of James Marsh’s 2014 feature “The Theory Of Everything.” Based on “Travelling to Infinity,” the memoir of the scientist’s first wife Jane Hawking, and adapted for the screen by Anthony McCarten, the film remains true to a proven formula for biopics on the love lives of Anglo-American scientists.
Like Jon Amiel’s 2009 film “Creation” about Charles Darwin and his wife Emma, Marsh’s movie focuses on the eccentricities of brilliance and how they resonated through the protagonists’ efforts to coexist as a normal couple.
Like Ron Howard’s 2001 picture “A Beautiful Mind,” a fictional account of the relationship between Nobel-Prize-winning mathematician John Nash and his wife refracted through the prism of Nash’s schizophrenia, the picture is seasoned with tragedy and the protagonists’ oft-amusing resilience to it.
Although the film begins in Hawking’s 20s – when the scientist, though a geek, is still in good health – the match of Jane and Stephen seems by no means inevitable. Jane is, like Emma Darwin, a devout Christian and Stephen is a far more militant atheist than Darwin was.
She asks him what theoretical physicists worship, if not God. “One single unifying equation,” he replies. “One that explains the universe.”
She shrugs off this irreconcilable difference, but Jane’s decision to marry Hawking is sealed by a doctor’s diagnosis that leaves him with two years to live. Since she loves him, she reasons, they must spend as much of that time together as possible.
They marry and get started making children – ALS doesn’t affect male reproductive stamina – and since he lives far beyond his putative expiry date (now 72, Hawking remains productive), the couple go on to have three children together.
Theirs is not a happily-ever-after sort of marriage, but anyone unfamiliar with Hawking’s life will likely be surprised by how and why Stephen and Jane eventually decide to break up.
Marsh’s film had its world premiere in September at the Toronto International Film Festival and “The Theory of Everything” raised the curtain on the Dubai International Film Festival Wednesday.
Film buffs drawn to innovative approaches to cinema won’t find much to hold their attention in “The Theory of Everything.” It has none of the formal bling of Howard’s films or the thoughtful narrative structure of Amiel’s work.
The movie is as appealing as the Hawkings’ life together, a story festooned with lovely people you’d enjoy having a drink with at the pub. As such, it will likely enjoy a long and stable postfestival career in commercial theaters and the more homey formats that inhabit cinema’s tertiary market.
Now in its 11th edition, DIFF remains an expansive event, providing audiences with an opportunity to view a selection of critically acclaimed and prize-winning international movies from 2014. There are some 118 feature-length and short films on offer, more than half of which are enjoying their Arab world debut. Of this number, 55 are having their world or international premiere. Organizers have expressed pleasure at the number of films from the Gulf region in the selection.
The Gulf’s oldest international film festival is a notably slimmer thing than it was in its 10th-anniversary year, which saw 175 films projected. DIFF’s administration has been reticent to frame the festival’s several changes in terms of budget cuts, preferring to reference changing market trends, refocused resources and priorities.
The absences are, nevertheless, palpable, not least on the professional side.
DIFF has presided over competitions for Arabic-language features, feature-length docs and shorts since 2006, launched an Asia-Africa competition in 2007 and subsequently, a contest for Emirati films.
For the 2014 edition, the Muhr Asia-Africa competitions have been excised, while its panorama program has been folded into the noncompetitive Cinema of the World selection. Formerly separate competitions, Muhr Arab Features and Muhr Arab Docs have been folded into one contest.
The principal change at the Dubai Film Market was announced some time ago. Dubai Film Connection – the highly successful co-production market, which for eight years was the cornerstone of DIFF’s film development activities – was canceled in favor of a market focus on postproduction and distribution.
Like the city that hosts it, DIFF has been mercurial in its growth. Indeed, it might be argued that it would run contrary to the nature of the thing to become too predictable.
That said, in its first decade, DIFF has come to be seen as a reliable platform for fostering the development of Arab cinema. Given the instability that has characterized the region’s political life since 2011, it wouldn’t be a bad thing to build some stability into this platform.
Arab cinema might just benefit from it.
DIFF continues through Dec. 17. For more information, see www.dubaifilmfest.com.
