(via NYMag)
For Betty’s CrackerDaughter, and the computer geeks, and the LGBT historians, and everyone else who has reason to be grateful to Alan Turing (which means, of course, all of us, especially here on the internet).
Anybody here know where I might find a copy of the BBC production of Breaking the Code? I’ll admit I find it easier to imagine Derek Jacobi as Turing than Cumberbatch, but from this trailer, I’m still looking forward to the final release.
Origuy
Looks like someone uploaded Breaking the Code to YouTube.
srv
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S23yie-779k
Origuy
Ted Nugent was scheduled to play at the Coeur d’Alene Casino next month until the casino owners found out about his “attitudes and view”. Wearing a feathered headress on stage may have had something to do with it, since the casino is owned by the Coeur d’Alene Tribe.
Origuy
Oh, hell. I forgot and used the word for a place where people go to lose money for fun. It’s in the link, too, so rewording it won’t help. Any FPs around to get my last comment out of purgatory?
Anne Laurie
@Origuy: @srv: Thanks, guys!
Jewish Steel
Speaking of Derek Jacobi, I stumbled on to this last night.
Animated Epics: Beowulf (1998)
It’s excellent.
LesGS
@Origuy: Welp, there goes any chance of going to bed at a reasonable hour. I have loved Jacobi since I first saw him in “I, Claudius’ when it was originally broadcast on public T.V. when I was in high-school in the ’70s. I need to find a source where I can watch him and Ian McKellan in “Vicious”.
NotMax
@LesGS
Most but not all of Vicious available at fullseries.net.
Origuy
@LesGS: Have you seen the Brother Cadfael series? Those were great.
bad Jim
Enigma is a not bad movie about Bletchley Park. One of its chief attractions is the slightly pregnant Kate Winslet as the homely roommate of a mysteriously disappeared beauty. The main plot hinges are based on actual events.
Comrade Scrutinizer
Love Jacobi. Tired of Bandersnatch Cummerbund showing up everywhere.
evap
It seems way too dramatic for the story of the breaking of Enigma, but I’ll probably see it when it comes out. I wonder if they show what happened to Turing after the war?
gogol's wife
@LesGS:
If you love Derek Jacobi, I think you should stay away from Vicious. It looks terrible. Watch Last Tango in Halifax instead — he’s magnificent in it.
prufrock
I think Jacobi is a great actor, but his views on the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays run into truther territory. My biggest problem with anti-Stratfordians is their idea that a “commoner” couldn’t possibly be the greatest English language writer in history. They’ll harp on his lack of education, ignoring the fact that seven years of drilling in writing, history, and Latin were way above average for the time. Besides, if a decade and a half of formal education were a requirement for great writing and oratory skills, the life of Abraham Lincoln would be an impossibility.
HeartlandLiberal
The efforts of Turing and his team literally won the war for the Allies. And how was he rewarded?
Will the movie address this bit of shameful history of how Turing was persecuted after the war, persecuted to death? (from Wikipedia)
Turing was prosecuted for homosexuality in 1952, when such acts were still criminalised in the UK. He accepted treatment with estrogen injections (chemical castration) as an alternative to prison. Turing died in 1954, 16 days before his 42nd birthday, from cyanide poisoning. An inquest determined his death a suicide; his mother and some others believed it was accidental. On 10 September 2009, following an Internet campaign, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made an official public apology on behalf of the British government for “the appalling way he was treated.” The Queen granted him a posthumous pardon on 24 December 2013.
Gosh. I am sure Turing felt so much better after that posthumous pardon.
gogol's wife
@HeartlandLiberal:
I can’t believe they would make a film about Turing and not include that part of the story.
WaterGirl
@Comrade Scrutinizer: You said: ” Tired of Bandersnatch Cummerbund showing up everywhere.”
I was reminded of this comment from Steeplejack from last night:
https://balloon-juice.com/2014/07/21/monday-evening-open-thread-americas-prisons-are-broken/#comment-5062194
Lurking Canadian
@prufrock: clearly the 16th President of the US was really the Earl of Oxford.
Uncle Cosmo
@HeartlandLiberal:You might want to back off a bit on this–
–because it might well not have happened without a major helping of help from the Poles:
On the sidewalk outside the administration building of the university in Poznan there is an eloquent understated memorial to Rejewski, Rozycki & Zygalski–a triangular prism monolith, about 7′ high in bronze, each face covered with a chaos of numbers & letters, and the 3 mathematicians’ names at the base. I stumbled across it on a visit a few years ago. For those of us who know the story it’s quite moving.
Yes, Turing was a genius, & yes, for his troubles he was treated shamefully by a society infamous for winking at what ran rampant ;) in its “public schools”–but like all scientists & mathematicians, he stood on the shoulders of giants, poorly known & insufficiently recognized though they might be.
Amir Khalid
@LesGS:
True story: at university, Derek Jacobi and Ian McKellen had a crush on each other. But neither knew the other one was gay, since in England that was still illegal.
Steeplejack
@gogol’s wife:
I’ve seen only one episode of Vicious, but it is dreadfully trite and formulaic: park these two superstar actors on a couch and let them trade snarky one-liners and abuse the visiting supporting cast. LOL. Not.
StringOnAStick
@Steeplejack: Sadly, I must agree. I caught 2 episodes and they were dreadful examples of excessive scenery-chewing. These two must be doing the series out of shear who-gives-a-crap.
Steeplejack
@StringOnAStick:
Well, that beach house/London pied-à-terre is not going to pay for itself.
Mister Harvest
@HeartlandLiberal: There’s a mention of his homosexuality in one of the trailers, so at least it is not completely absent. Unclear how much makes it into the final movie, though.
bago
Hopefully this pierces the veil of ignorance surrounding nerds and teh gay.