The Imitation Game - A Top Secret Life

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Movie
German title The Imitation Game - A Top Secret Life
Original title The Imitation Game
Logo The Imitation Game.png
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2014
length 113 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
JMK 8
Rod
Director Morten Tyldum
script Graham Moore
production Nora Grossman ,
Ido Ostrowsky ,
Teddy Schwarzman
music Alexandre Desplat
camera Óscar Faura
cut William Goldenberg
occupation
synchronization

The Imitation Game ( German  "The Imitation Game" ), directed by Morten Tyldum is a dramatized biopic about the British logician , mathematician , cryptanalyst and computer scientist Alan Turing . The main roles in the war drama are played by Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley . The screenplay was written by Graham Moore using the biography Alan Turing - Enigma by Andrew Hodges , where Moore took the liberty of straying far from historical reality and twisted or dramatically exaggerated many facts.

The film celebrated its world premiere at the 41st Telluride Film Festival on August 29, 2014 and was also shown in September at the 39th Toronto International Film Festival , where it won the audience award for best feature film. The European premiere was on October 8, 2014 at the London Film Festival . In Germany, the film was released on January 22nd, 2015. In 2015 he was awarded the Oscar for best adapted screenplay .

action

The mansion (Engl. The mansion ) of Bletchley Park was the headquarters of the British code breaker and is now a museum.

The film consists of three intertwined storylines that represent important periods in Alan Turing's life. In the following, these are given in chronological order, unlike in the film.

1927

The young Alan Turing is an introverted boy who is bullied by his schoolmates for being different. Only his friend Christopher stands by him. They exchange encrypted messages with each other in math class . Alan begins to fall in love with Christopher. When he wants to reveal his love for him after the holidays, he learns that Christopher has died of tuberculosis.

1939-1941

The replica Turing bomb , called "Christopher" in the film

After the war between Germany and Great Britain began , Turing applied for a position at the Government Code and Cypher School in Bletchley Park . During the interview with Commander Alastair Denniston , he made a negative impression on him because of his arrogance and social incompetence. Nevertheless, he can convince Denniston to hire him. Together with Hugh Alexander , John Cairncross , Peter Hilton , Keith Furman and Charles Richards, he is supposed to " crack " the messages of the German army encrypted by the Enigma .

Turing quickly developed the idea of ​​building a cryptanalytic machine to find out the key , which changes daily, more quickly. He finds no support from his superiors, which is why he turns to Winston Churchill , who then appoints him as head of the team.

Turing resigns Furman and Richards and hires Joan Clarke and another employee. He forges a friendship with Joan Clarke while at work. As Clarke's parents urge her to get engaged, Turing proposes marriage so that she can continue working on the project.

Turing completes his electromechanical "cracking machine" ( Turing bomb , called "Christopher" in the film); but it works too slowly to be able to break the German cryptograms . His supervisor Alastair Denniston gives the team a month in which to show progress, otherwise he wants to stop the project. When a colleague from another department, while flirting with Hugh Alexander, mentions that her German counterpart always starts his radio messages immediately, Turing has the decisive idea. Since a weather report is sent in encrypted form at the beginning of each day, which always begins and ends with the same words, the team can significantly limit the search space for the machine and finally it is possible to crack the code.

Despite the success, some of the now known German attack plans are not passed on and losses are accepted on the part of the Allies , as Turing and his team fear that the Germans would otherwise learn that the Enigma has been compromised and change their procedures or even the system.

Turing reveals his homosexuality to his fiancée Joan Clarke . When she wants to stay with him anyway, he rejects her.

1951

There is a break-in at Turing's home. After telling the police that nothing had been stolen and sending the police away, an officer suspected that he might be an agent of the Russian secret service . Investigations in this direction now reveal by chance that Turing is homosexual . He is convicted of "gross fornication and sexual perversion" and given the choice of going to prison for two years or undergoing hormone therapy. Since he cannot do his work in prison, he opts for hormone therapy, which has a lot of side effects. He suffers an emotional breakdown while visiting his former fiancée, Joan Clarke. Turing's suicide at the age of 41 is mentioned in a text before the credits.

The "interrogation" with Detective Nock, in which Turing tells him about his secret activities in World War II , is the main plot of the film.

background

Filming began on September 15, 2013 in England . Filming locations included Turing's old school, Sherborne and Bletchley Park , where he and his colleagues worked in the war. The film was shot in cities in England: Nettlebed in Oxfordshire and Chesham in Buckinghamshire . Other locations were Bicester Airfield and the Law Society Building in Chancery Lane. Filming ended on November 30, 2013.

synchronization

The film was set to music at Film- & Fernseh-Synchron in Munich . Benedikt Rabanus wrote the dialogue book and directed the dialogue.

role actor Voice actor
Alan Turing Benedict Cumberbatch Tommy Morgenstern
Joan Clarke Keira Knightley Dascha Lehmann
Hugh Alexander Matthew Goode Norman Matt
Maj. Gen. Stewart Menzies Mark Strong Tom Vogt
Alastair Denniston Charles Dance Leon Rainer
John Cairncross Allen Leech Louis Friedemann Thiele
Peter Hilton Matthew Beard Tim Schwarzmaier
Detective Robert Nock Rory Kinnear Patrick Schröder
young Turing Alex Lawther Tobias John von Freyend
Christopher Morcom Jack Bannon Tobias Kern
Helen Tuppence Middleton Marieke Oeffinger
Jack Good James Northcote Karim El Kammouchi
Superintendent Smith Steven Waddington Matthias Klie

reception

criticism

source rating
Rotten tomatoes
critic
audience
Metacritic
critic
audience
IMDb

The film was received very positively. It achieved a value of 89% positive reviews from the film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes .

Kai Mihm from epd Film awarded 4 out of 5 stars. The film is well written, excitingly staged and gains "narrative finesse through the nesting of three time levels [...]." In addition, "Benedict Cumberbatch [...] in the main role is great pleasure". It should be The Imitation Game "more than a biopic ," since Graham Moore and Morten Tyldum developed "from Turing's fate a set of topics," the "beyond mere retelling of a life" beyond fashion. According to the title, “the portrait of a world” is drawn almost incidentally, “in which almost everything is based on appearance and play, deception and mimicry”.

Historical truthfulness

The British historian Alex von Tunzelmann accuses the film of "defamation" in relation to Turing and proves a number of historical misrepresentations. Their heaviest accusation is not historically correct placement of John Cairncross as a spy of the Soviet Union in Turing's team at Bletchley Park. Turing biographer Andrew Hodges thinks it is "crazy" that the two people met in Bletchley Park under the working and safety conditions. However, the film presents it as if there had been an agreement between Turing and Cairncross not to reveal each other's secret. Turing is thus portrayed as also guilty of treason because he is covering a spy. Tunzelmann strongly contradicts this representation as "wrong" and "defamatory". One plot line of the film builds on this construction, as it portrays the police investigation into Turing, which led to his indictment and conviction of homosexuality, as being motivated by suspicion of espionage against Turing. Historically correct, however, is that the police never investigated with this motive, but it was Turing himself who drew suspicion into his private life when he had a police statement changed after a theft. The film also depicts technical issues incorrectly, including the use of Tipp-Ex , as the corresponding products did not come onto the market before 1956 and Tipp-Ex itself has only been sold since 1959. Overall, Tunzelmann classifies the film as "unsustainable" due to its mistakes, which are based on the portrayal of Turing as a traitor.

In the film, Menzies 'humorous remark even implies that the management of MI6 themselves was in the picture about Cairncross' role as a double agent and deliberately used this to pass certain information on to the Soviets , because Churchill was so paranoid that he called them wanted to refuse any information. There is no publicly known evidence for this allegation, but such a construction relativizes Turing's alleged “betrayal”.

The portrayal of Turing as a distinctly autistic personality is also heavily questioned. Friends and relatives have described him as sociable and humorous, so that one has to assume that this aspect is a clichéd exaggeration by the scriptwriter.

As a first success, Turing's team can determine the positions of submarines that are about to attack a convoy . Turing does nothing, because otherwise the Germans could find out that the Enigma is broken . The British did indeed use strategies to cover up the fact that they had cracked the Enigma code. It was not up to the cryptanalysts to make such a far-reaching decision, it was the responsibility of the Admiralty and the Prime Minister .

Awards and nominations

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Release certificate for The Imitation Game - A Top Secret Life . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , January 2015 (PDF; test number: 148 844 K).
  2. Age rating for The Imitation Game - A Top Secret Life . Youth Media Commission .
  3. Chris Christensen: Review of The Imitation Game, Cryptologia, 2016. doi: 10.1080 / 01611194.2016.1236639
  4. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/aug/28/telluride-lineup-headlined-by-wild-rosewater-and-imitation-game
  5. Archived copy ( Memento of the original from September 18, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.tiff.net
  6. http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/announcements/imitation-game-will-open-58th-bfi-london-film-festival
  7. http://www.filmstarts.de/kritiken/198371.html
  8. Wartime Spy Movie to be Filmed in Bicester - Oxfordshire ( Memento of the original from October 4, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / oxfordshire.county-homesearch.co.uk
  9. Sherlock's on the trail of a new movie blockbuster (From The Oxford Times)
  10. German synchronous index: German synchronous index | Movies | The Imitation Game - A Top Secret Life. Retrieved May 28, 2018 .
  11. a b c The Imitation Game at Rotten Tomatoes , accessed April 6, 2015
  12. a b The Imitation Game at Metacritic (English), accessed on April 6, 2015
  13. The Imitation Game - A top-secret life in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  14. Kai Mihm: Review of The Imitation Game. epd film , December 12, 2014, accessed April 23, 2015 .
  15. Alex von Tunzelmann: The Imitation Game: inventing a new slander to insult Alan Turing. The Guardian , November 20, 2014, accessed November 21, 2014 .
  16. Toby Young: The misguided bid to turn Alan Turing into an Asperger's martyr. The Spectator , January 10, 2015, accessed May 10, 2020 .
  17. ^ Alan Turing: The Enigma . Burnett Books Ltd, 1983, ISBN 0-09-911641-3 , pp. 272-3.