Hawking

This is the second documentary that I have seen about Stephen Hawking, the Errol Morris film, A brief history of time from the early 1990s was the first one.

To me this really is about Hawking since then. A worldwide celebrity, still lecturing and writing about Astrophysics and more importantly still alive.

He has since the Errol Morris film been divorced twice, had several dramatisations of his life. This film features interviews with his first wife but his second wife and children are absent.

You get a recount of his life, his childhood, his university days and being struck down by Motor Neuron disease at an early age. We see all the emergency medical equipment he has at his adapted house where he has 24 medical care in case he stops breathing and needs to be revived. As he has gotten older we can see the effects more graphically that his disabilities has on him.

Still Professor Hawking soldiers on, travelling around the world and gets greeted like a rock star. He has the ability to make difficult scientific concepts sound simple and he seems to be comfortable with his celebrity status and his fans.

It is a story about triumph over adversity and Hawking is a remarkable man but very little here was new to me.

Hawking was well-received in its world premiere at Austin's SXSW Film Festival. The film is a biopic about Stephen Hawking the celebrity physicist who has become an emblem of science, a medical miracle, and a hero to everyone struggling with a disability. Hawking has survived for fifty years with ALS when he was expected to die within a few years. Hawking has become an icon in popular culture both because of, and in spite of, his severe disability. In a sense, he has demonstrated the power of the mind can triumph despite the limitations of the physical body. His artificial computerized voice has become symbolic of his triumphs over his disability. Hawking captures this eloquently. The film mentions his scientific discoveries, but focuses on his remarkable life story and presents it in an accessible way to the general public. Stephen Hawking is one of the few celebrities who truly deserves the great acclaim that he receives in popular culture. Fittingly, Stephen Hawking narrates his story in his own famous electronic voice. The film is a moving tribute to a man who has made great scientific discoveries, helped to popularize scientific ideas to the general public, and brought hope to millions through his persistence and refusal to surrender to his disease.

Filmed with the full cooperation of its subject, HAWKING tells the life- story of a great scientist, global celebrity and courageous fighter against debilitating disease. From an early stage Stephen Hawking was always destined to be different; he grew up in an unconventional household, and throughout his university career he found the workload almost too easy. It was only when he discovered he had motor neurone disease, while completing his doctoral thesis, that he discovered the urgency of his research; he never knew when he was going to die or not. The film charts Hawking's meteoric rise to fame, while at the same showing how he became less and less able to move any part of his body. He has always been a great fighter, even though living with him proved difficult for his his ex-wife Jane. The film has some interesting omissions; we do not hear anything from his children or his second ex- wife. Nonetheless it pays tribute to Hawking's unique ability to render difficult scientific concepts accessible to mass audiences. This is someone who thoroughly deserves the recognition he has achieved. HAWKING can prove difficult to watch at times; it does not shy away from discussing Hawking's medical disabilities in graphic detail. On the whole, however, it is an optimistic piece, celebrating the strength of the human spirit.

Hawking is the extraordinary story of the planet's most famous living scientist, told for the first time in his own words and by those closest to him. Made with unique access to Hawking's private life, this is an intimate and moving journey into Stephen's world, both past and present.

This ground was already covered to some degree by Errol Morris in his "Brief History of Time", but this is something of an update. For those who continue to find Hawking fascinating, there can never be too much of his story told. And this is a more personal, raw story, Stephen at his most vulnerable.

The friendship with Jim Carrey is odd, but who knows?

Interesting little sketch of Hawking. Very much a talking head documentary, but interesting story. And I love the way Jane Hawking speaks; she's full of beautiful phrases.