Subject: [HM] The Good Will Hunting principle
From: James Propp (propp@math.wisc.edu)
Date: Sat Jun 10 2000 - 22:38:47 EDT
Have any of you actually seen David Auburn's new play "Proof"?
What did you think of it?
Here's an amusing excerpt from Amy Gamerman's review of the play
(which appeared in the May 21 issue of the Wall Street Journal,
page A24):
"... Mr. Auburn's brainiacs hail from the Hollywood school of genius.
That's where highly photogenic people learn how to make Einsteinian
breakthroughs without the benefit of a fancy degree while watching
the late-show on TV. Call it the ``Good Will Hunting'' principle
of brain power, in which a hero's brilliance can be measured in
direct proportion to his or her kissability and sulky disregard
for higher education."
Mark Saul had a similar remark on the way "Good Will Hunting" somewhat
trivialized intellectual accomplishment even as it glamorized it:
> He [Will Hunting] is not portrayed as ever struggling with anything
> mathematical. Without the presence of such a struggle, the achievement
> of making a mathematical discovery easily loses its attraction, and
> so the film misses an essential emotional element of the experience
> of doing mathematics (I am indebted to Hyman Bass for this insight).
(For the rest of Mark Saul's review, see
http://www.math.wisc.edu/~propp/hunting
or look in the April 1998 issue of the Notices of the American Mathematical
Society.)
Jim Propp
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b28 : Sat Jun 10 2000 - 22:56:24 EDT