One reads in Wikipedia ("such a source!", as my Aunt Matilda would exclaim) that the brilliant film, "The Imitation Game", based on Andrew Hodges's biography (Hodges the Oxford mathematician not to be confused with Hodges the author of a Penguin "Logic" textbook) has one failure.
The alleged failure is to make an Anti-Grice out of Turing, by
"exaggerating Turing's social difficulties to the point of depicting him having Asperger syndrome or otherwise being on the autism spectrum."
"While a few writers and researchers have tried to assign such a retrospective diagnosis to Turing, and it is true that he had his share of eccentricities, the Asperger's-like traits portrayed in the film – an intellectual snob with no friends, no sense of how to work cooperatively with others, and no understanding of humour – bear little relationship to the actual adult Turing, who had friends, was viewed as having a sense of humour and had good working relationships with his colleagues.
So there.
Recall this was a point in the NYT review of the film. Notably Turing's inabilities to infer the implicature behind the innocent commentary by the Soviet spy:
Scott had written:
"[Cumberbatch's] Turing, whom the film seems to place somewhere on the autism spectrum, is as socially awkward as he is intellectually agile."
"[Turing] can perceive patterns invisible to others but also finds himself stranded in the desert of the literal."
"Jokes fly over [Turing's] head, sarcasm does not register, and when one of his colleagues says, “We’re going to get some lunch,” Turing hears a trivial statement of fact rather than a friendly invitation.
"[Turing] can perceive patterns invisible to others but also finds himself stranded in the desert of the literal."
"Jokes fly over [Turing's] head, sarcasm does not register, and when one of his colleagues says, “We’re going to get some lunch,” Turing hears a trivial statement of fact rather than a friendly invitation.
“The Imitation Game” derives some easy amusement from the friction between this “odd duck” and the prevailing culture of his native pond."
"The film’s notion of [England] — not inaccurate, but also not hugely insightful — is as a land of understatement, indirection and steadfast obedience to norms of behavior that seem, to a fiercely logical mind like Turing’s, arbitrary and incomprehensible."
"We're going to get some lunch."
This reminds me of Schiffer reminding me of Grice.
Schiffer said that Grice said (and I believe him) that
"We must have LUNCH sometime" MEANS "if you know what I mean: we mustn't".
Or something.
"The film’s notion of [England] — not inaccurate, but also not hugely insightful — is as a land of understatement, indirection and steadfast obedience to norms of behavior that seem, to a fiercely logical mind like Turing’s, arbitrary and incomprehensible."
"We're going to get some lunch."
This reminds me of Schiffer reminding me of Grice.
Schiffer said that Grice said (and I believe him) that
"We must have LUNCH sometime" MEANS "if you know what I mean: we mustn't".
Or something.
Posts
I too found the suggestion that Turing was autistic and the evidence adduced for it incredible and annoying, showing the filmmakers preference for spectacle over reality.
ReplyDeleteIndeed. Annoying. Turing (and Grice for that matter) exploited, as I would say, for comical effect. But there is a Griceian side to Turing's alleged misunderstandings of others' implicatures, and not just for his alleged misunderstandings themselves. But that in another post, perhaps.
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