Film: The Professor and the Madman
Film Number:10
Stars: 4
Any student of university English can tell you about their forays into the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), particularly if they were students before the nineties when this wield tome, which takes up about two shelves in the library and is printed on bank paper, was put in front of them. Voila, you have the whole of the English language at your fingertips, complete with references, etymologies and various other information about pretty much any word in the English language. Now, the whole reference is online. You can subscribe to the OED. You can follow the OED on Twitter and get a word of the day. It is just one of those things that word nerds hold very dear - I had this conversation with a word nerd colleague today. There is nothing like it, and if you love the English language you will have this close to your heart.
But I digress.
What isn't widely known is the background of the OED. Of course, most English undergraduates can tell you that Dr Samuel Johnson created the first dictionary in the 1750s. By the mid-1800s the language was getting away from the scholars and it was time to create a new dictionary - one that gave a word's history as well as meaning.
Enter James Murray (Mel Gibson). A canny polyglot, polymath of a man who enlists to take on the task where many others have failed. He moves his family from London to Oxford and gets on with the task. He sees the task for what it is, asking the publish to put in contributions to the dictionary, sending out fliers in books. Words come tumbling into his Oxford shed where he and his team compile the dictionary.
In parallel, we are introduced to William Chester Minor, a troubled American Army doctor, suffering delusions who guns down a man in cold blood while in the state of mania. At his trial, he's found not guilty of murder, but is sent to Broadmoor Lunatic Asylum to serve out the Queen's pleasure (basically he was not to be let out). Making good use of the time between being rather nutty, Minor ends up contributing to the dictionary. He remains to this day the dictionary's greatest single contributor.
There's a bit more back story such as what happens to the wife of the man Minor killed, indeed, what happened to Minor. Then there's the struggles between Murray and the stuffy board who want to see him gone. Then there's the wonderful English countryside and views of Oxford and the wonderful range and depth English films bring to the world.
I really enjoyed this, even though Mel Gibson in one of the main roles. I'm not Mel's greatest fan, but he's a good actor when he's not overdoing it, and he brings back the accent he used for Braveheart (must see that one day...) but he's good and restrained. Sean Penn is excellent as the troubled Minor.
There are some great minor parts in the movie - Steve Coogan as Freddie Furnivall, one of Murray's backers. Natalie Dorman is ethereal as always as the murdered man's wife. Eddie Marsan is good value whatever he is in - and he's great as Minor's jailor. Stephen Dillane, Jennifer Ehle, Anthony Andrews and Ioan Gruffudd round out the oh so terribly English cast.
This is a solid film, based on Simon Winchester's book The Surgeon of Crowthorne - which is definitely worth a read for the vocabulary alone.
As a standalone film, this won't be for everybody, but for word nerds and anglophiles, this is a must see.
Today's song:
Film Number:10
Stars: 4
Any student of university English can tell you about their forays into the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), particularly if they were students before the nineties when this wield tome, which takes up about two shelves in the library and is printed on bank paper, was put in front of them. Voila, you have the whole of the English language at your fingertips, complete with references, etymologies and various other information about pretty much any word in the English language. Now, the whole reference is online. You can subscribe to the OED. You can follow the OED on Twitter and get a word of the day. It is just one of those things that word nerds hold very dear - I had this conversation with a word nerd colleague today. There is nothing like it, and if you love the English language you will have this close to your heart.
But I digress.
What isn't widely known is the background of the OED. Of course, most English undergraduates can tell you that Dr Samuel Johnson created the first dictionary in the 1750s. By the mid-1800s the language was getting away from the scholars and it was time to create a new dictionary - one that gave a word's history as well as meaning.
Enter James Murray (Mel Gibson). A canny polyglot, polymath of a man who enlists to take on the task where many others have failed. He moves his family from London to Oxford and gets on with the task. He sees the task for what it is, asking the publish to put in contributions to the dictionary, sending out fliers in books. Words come tumbling into his Oxford shed where he and his team compile the dictionary.
In parallel, we are introduced to William Chester Minor, a troubled American Army doctor, suffering delusions who guns down a man in cold blood while in the state of mania. At his trial, he's found not guilty of murder, but is sent to Broadmoor Lunatic Asylum to serve out the Queen's pleasure (basically he was not to be let out). Making good use of the time between being rather nutty, Minor ends up contributing to the dictionary. He remains to this day the dictionary's greatest single contributor.
There's a bit more back story such as what happens to the wife of the man Minor killed, indeed, what happened to Minor. Then there's the struggles between Murray and the stuffy board who want to see him gone. Then there's the wonderful English countryside and views of Oxford and the wonderful range and depth English films bring to the world.
I really enjoyed this, even though Mel Gibson in one of the main roles. I'm not Mel's greatest fan, but he's a good actor when he's not overdoing it, and he brings back the accent he used for Braveheart (must see that one day...) but he's good and restrained. Sean Penn is excellent as the troubled Minor.
There are some great minor parts in the movie - Steve Coogan as Freddie Furnivall, one of Murray's backers. Natalie Dorman is ethereal as always as the murdered man's wife. Eddie Marsan is good value whatever he is in - and he's great as Minor's jailor. Stephen Dillane, Jennifer Ehle, Anthony Andrews and Ioan Gruffudd round out the oh so terribly English cast.
This is a solid film, based on Simon Winchester's book The Surgeon of Crowthorne - which is definitely worth a read for the vocabulary alone.
As a standalone film, this won't be for everybody, but for word nerds and anglophiles, this is a must see.
Today's song:
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