A Brief History of Time

Saw A Brief History of Time, an Errol Morris documentary. It dovetails a biography of Stephen Hawking with a biography of the universe as understood by Hawking. His life is an interesting mix of triumph and pathos. The documentary closes with a stirring quote from Hawking, that if we could answer the question of why we exist, then that would be the ultimate triumph of human reasoning for then we should know the mind of god. This is juxtaposed with an image of the back of Hawking's wheelchair, set against a field of stars. His ironic vanity license plate and giant bulky speech synthesizers are placed in mute opposition to his grand words. They make him seem fragile and faintly ridiculous even while his words fire our imaginations.

Throughout the documentary, Hawking's illustrative physics metaphors are given dramatic weight by suddenly returning to Hawking's biography. He explains entropy by pointing out that we see teacups fall and shatter, but we never see the pieces reassemble into a teacup and leap up onto the table. The film shows a shattered teacup and then launches into the story of how Hawking finally lost his ability to speak. The imagery is clear. The teacup lays shattered. Hawking will not speak again. Later he tells us how he mistakenly believed that time would run backwards when the universe started collapsing. "It is no good waiting for the universe to collapse to return to our youth" he poignantly jokes.

But the film is not only gloomy ruminations on paralysis. There is also the science, which seemingly gives the whole thing a purpose (and also I loved the delightful super-nerds that surround Hawking.) We learn that, prior to the paralysis, Hawking was brilliant but directionless and indolent. It took the sickness to motivate him to work. His sickness and the nebulous death of the universe are symbolically linked in the film which seems to imply a great and vital journey for humankind. The film lacks a satisfying conclusion (which would be either a nice, soundbite-ready explanation of fundamental truths of the universe or, more simply, Hawking's death) but by ending here we go out on a high note. Fascinating usage of non-fiction in this film. This is the reason Errol Morris is so renowned.