
A Poor Imitation of Alan Turing - dave446
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/dec/19/poor-imitation-alan-turing/
======
NathanKP
I agree with the author's criticism of the movie, but I still personally
enjoyed The Imitation Game.

It's good entertainment even if it is quite exaggerated and not 100%
historically accurate. If it exposes more people to some of the history of
computing and one of its great early engineers then I think that is positive.

~~~
mholt
Where did you see it? Everything says it came out in November in the US but I
still haven't seen it in any of the theaters in my state (even the biggest
ones in all the large cities).

~~~
methodover
In the Bay Area it all but completely disappeared a week after it came out. A
real shame too, I was looking forward to it.

~~~
schoen
I saw it yesterday at the Embarcadero Center Cinema and it's going to be there
for at least the upcoming week.

[http://www.landmarktheatres.com/san-francisco/embarcadero-
ce...](http://www.landmarktheatres.com/san-francisco/embarcadero-center-
cinema)

------
Animats
Enigma (2001) is a better film. It, too, has a gratuitous spy plot. Actually,
not only were there no leaks from Bletchley Park, the secret was kept until
the early 1970s, and full details didn't come out until the 1990s. Turing was
a reasonably important figure at Bletchley Park, which had about 9000 people
at peak. But there were lots of other smart people working on the problem.
Dilley Knox was in charge of the cryptanalysis, and Gordon Welchman did much
of the design on the improvements to the Polish Bombe. Welchman went on to
teach the first computer course at MIT and worked on computers until the early
1970s. He overcame his early opposition to vacuum tubes; he thought they would
be too unreliable.

The real secret of US and British cryptanalytic efforts was to approach it as
an industrial problem. That was new. Cryptanalysis until WWII was someone at a
desk with pencil and paper. Cryptanalytic units were tens of people. The WWII
effort on the Allied side involved not only Bletchly Park, but a big operation
at Arlington Hall in the US and another operation in Hawaii. Bombes, the
electromechanical key-testers, were built by the British Tabulating Machine
Company, National Cash Register, and Western Electric. (NCR's was the most
useful and was produced in large quantities.) About 60,000 people were
involved at peak. It wasn't clear until long after WWII how big the operation
was. Few people were allowed to see more than a small part of it. This wasn't
a "one lone genius" thing.

Some of the secrecy was to make Churchill look good. There were times during
WWII when Churchill sent a message to a general facing heavy opposition "Press
on and you will be victorious", and took historical credit for his courage and
decisiveness. Decades later we find out that Churchill had info such as "14th
Panzer low on fuel and ammo, cannot fight for more than 2 hours" from
intercepts. All German units sent in a strength return each day (all serious
armies do this) which reads like "#1, 12000, #2, 450 ..." and is simply many
effective soldiers, how much ammo, and other basic numbers. It's dull, boring,
and tells which units can fight effectively and how far they can move. Much of
Bletchley Park's work was decrypting and tabulating that info, which told
Allied commanders where the weak spots were on the German side.

~~~
CamperBob2
_Enigma (2001) is a better film._

I haven't seen that, but my understanding is that they cast him as straight.
If so, how is it possible to get past that (rather insulting) inaccuracy?

 _All German units sent in a strength return each day (all serious armies do
this) which reads like "#1, 12000, #2, 450 ..." and is simply many effective
soldiers, how much ammo, and other basic numbers. It's dull, boring, and tells
which units can fight effectively and how far they can move. Much of Bletchley
Park's work was decrypting and tabulating that info, which told Allied
commanders where the weak spots were on the German side._

Can't believe that there wasn't a glut of bogus strength reports floating
around. ("No, Mr. Turing, your friends will find that the 14th Panzer is fully
armed and operational.")

~~~
jameshart
The point is that the Ultra secret was so well kept that the Germans didn't
know their ciphers were broken. They had no reason to send fake strength
reports.

~~~
cbd1984
The point is, they had little reason _not_ to.

~~~
jerf
Nothing particularly prevents disinformation from reaching your own side. The
more obvious it is that a channel is "false", the less likely you are to fool
the enemy, but the more "real" the channel is the more likely you are to fool
_yourself_. A study of the history of war will show armies generally have a
hard enough time inculcating themselves with cultures that will prevent them
from deliberately lying to themselves as it is.

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geographomics
I had the same feeling when watching this film. Instead of giving this
portrayal the depth Turing deserved, Cumberbatch instead fell back on his
usual typecast genius character with minor tweaks. Very disappointing.

~~~
melling
Cumberbatch didn't write the screenplay.

~~~
geographomics
Nonetheless, he was poorly cast.

------
ape4
I agree with the article on the idea that Turing didn't get jokes. Us hackers
like jokes and can very well understand them. How can you do tricky crosswords
and not get double meanings, etc.

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panzi
Here is James Grime's (Enigma and Alan Turing expert/fanboy) comments on The
Imitation Game:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCSp1RZLhkg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCSp1RZLhkg)
[http://aperiodical.com/2014/11/an-alan-turing-expert-
answers...](http://aperiodical.com/2014/11/an-alan-turing-expert-answers-your-
the-imitation-game-questions/)

------
xenophonf
I don't understand why some caricature of a gay man has to be used when the
actual Turing is so much more lively, complete, and interesting. One-
dimensional characters might work great in a light comedy or something, but I
expect something greater from a work purporting to be a biopic of an important
historical figure (and important not just to the war but also for computing,
in my opinion his greater contribution to the world).

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rnovak
Compared to Hackers (1995) and the Matrix (1999) (and countless others), I
could watch this movie over and over again. I supremely enjoyed it.

~~~
atmosx
Hacker's is mostly like a children's movie. Matrix on the other side is
excellent IMHO.

Another good movie on the topic of computers is 'The traveling salesman' and
'Sneakers'.

------
methodover
I've always been skeptical of the suicide issue. We don't know what happened
to Alan Turing at the end of his life, but of all the available options
suicide by far makes the most sense.

I'm having trouble finding the sources now, but I could've sworn I remembered
reading that no-warning, no-note suicide is not at all uncommon. And it's
especially true with men, I thought.

~~~
klmr
I agree with this. We’ve had this discussion on HN before (at least once) [1].
And the claim that Turing “bore the [chemical castration] with fortitude” is
ludicrous, and the more likely explanation is that he had erected a facade of
equanimity. I still dislike the film’s portrayal of his death because it was
too cowardly to point fingers and actually show his state-induced suicide – or
too anxious to show it as ambiguous, just like the film couldn’t even bring
itself to show him kissing another man, instead resorting to a female love
interest. The film makers can cry “historically accurate” all they like. In
reality, it’s _anything but_ accurate to put such emphasis on a non-homosexual
relationship.

[1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4150781](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4150781)

------
Tycho
Quite enjoyed the film but I think it's best scene (when they realise how to
speed up the machine analysis and manage to decipher the latest transmission)
is immediately followed by its worst (melodramatic revelation that one of the
characters relatives was about to die).

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revicon
TLDR; Real life doesn't make for a movie anyone wants to watch, so the
director added a bit of extra drama and rearranged a few things to make for a
coherent story.

~~~
vilhelm_s
From Scott Aaronson's review
([http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2096](http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2096)):

> The fabrications were especially frustrating to me, because we _know_ it’s
> possible to bring Alan Turing’s story to life in a way that fully honors the
> true science and history. We know that, because Hugh Whitemore’s 1986 play
> _Breaking the Code_ did it. The producers of _The Imitation Game_ would’ve
> done better just to junk their script, and remake _Breaking the Code_ into a
> Hollywood blockbuster. (Note that there is a 1996 BBC adaptation of
> _Breaking the Code_ , with Derek Jacobi as Turing.)

~~~
simi_
Whoa, the whole thing is on Youtube!
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S23yie-779k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S23yie-779k)

~~~
fineline
Thanks, added to my watch list. My Mum directed a theatre production of this
years ago, and it's still one of the most memorable plays I've seen, be
interesting to see the Beeb version.

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benihana
This seems to be the summary of the article:

> _These errors are not random; there is a method to the muddle. The
> filmmakers see their hero above all as a martyr of a homophobic
> Establishment, and they are determined to lay emphasis on his victimhood._

