A Brief History of Time (1991)

This is a really two documentaries: one about Stephen Hawking's intellectual evolution and one about his theories. Several people reminisce about Hawking as a child, student, and young scholar. I didn't give this film too many stars because I thought it withheld information from us when it really is all about providing information. One, because the people speaking are not identified until the very end in the credits. It would have helped to be able to know that one was the sister, one the friend, another the aunt, etc. Perhaps we are supposed to figure this out from context, but trying to decipher what they said AND sorting them into categories was hard to do because some clips were rather short. Two, the theoretical explanations were too short; please don't give us just teasers, but delve into the subject matter a bit more.

Documentary maker Errol Morris tackles nothing less than the origin and fate of the universe, placing the often mind-bending theories of the popular science guide alongside a portrait of the author himself, British cosmologist Stephen Hawking, who for many years has been confined to a wheelchair, unable to move or speak, while his mind has been ranging freely all over creation. Hawking (and his ideas) can't help but inspire a compelling film, but there's an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu because the style is identical to 'The Thin Blue Line', with the same Philip Glass music score, the same oddball graphic digressions, and the same clips from old Hollywood movies (in this case Disney's 'The Black Hole', with mad scientist Maximillian Schell). But unlike the previous film there isn't any sense of resolution, because the questions posed by Hawking ("why do we remember the past, but not the future?") will likely never be answered. Out of respect for the scientist Morris downplays the deadpan ridicule that made his earliest films so amusing, but there's no shortage of the trademark dry wit, much of it provided by Hawking himself, who narrates most of the film with his own computer generated voice.

This is a difficult film to rate, because the film is supposed to be based on the writings and research Hawking made available for the layman. But instead it goes off into Hawking's personal and professional life, while only superficially touching on the general concepts that Hawking has researched. The distillation of scientific information is a tricky process, and I don't envy the film makers for tackling this project, because it must have been a real challenge to formulate and codify in an emotional vein Hawking's writings.The film makers chose to portray the man in a hope of getting people to connect emotionally with his ideas, and in this way better understand what it is he discovered about the universe, and where such information might take us. I think this angle of attack partially successful, but perhaps lacking in the more mathematical underpinnings of Hawking's theories. But that's just the way things are. Unlike Sagan, whose purpose with his films was to explain how science itself works, and the history behind the molding of the scientific process, we have Hawking's theory on, essentially, everything. Why the universe seems to "go" in one direction in terms of what we call "Time", and why things don't operate differently. Such a topic requires more of a sharper focus on the math and how that math describes the physical world. That's a tall order, and it's one the film maker's adroitly side step in this piece.Still, I enjoyed the film for what it is, and I truly hope to own a copy on DVD someday. Until then I'll have to look to my old VHS for a night's entertainment on Hawking's theory of life, the universe... and EVERYTHING! (with a nod to Douglas Adams).Take if for what it is, an emotional retrospective on the genius that is Stephen Hawking.Enjoy. :-)

Stephen Hawkings is a genius. He is the king of geniuses. Watching this movie makes me feel dumb. But it's a great movie. Not highly entertaining, but very very intriguing. The movie centers around wheelchair bound Stephen Hawkings, a man who makes Einstein look average, and his theories and scientific discoveries about the universe, time, the galaxy, and black holes. Everyone at sometime or another during a really intense high comes to a moment when they think they'v got the universe and the cosmos figured out and they swear as soon as they sober up they'll write it all down. Well here is a man who actually held that feeling for more then six hours. Here is a man who despite suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease has become the greatest mind the world has yet seen. Watch this and listen in on how he has formulated theories on black holes. Awesome. You won't be the same after you see it.