Scientists are one of a number of professions whom over the years Hollywood has mercilessly stereotyped. In the movies, at best they have been charming but out-of-touch boffins, at worst cold-hearted and humourless beings. Madame Curie however is a rarity in that it shows scientific folk as being the dreamy, romantic types that they so often are in real life.
Adapted by sci-fi novelist Aldous Huxley and others from the biography by Marie Curie's daughter Eve, the screenplay makes concession to the fact that Hollywood movies are designed for mass consumption. As such the scientific jargon is dumbed down, almost painfully. On the one hand technical talk is skipped over as babble (as in a not-so-discrete dissolve during Marie and Pierre's walk home together when she begins quizzing him over formulae) and, conversely, the protagonists seem implausibly clueless at times (the idea of the Curies dismissing the stain at the bottom of the bowl and taking days to realise it might be radium is laughable). But nevertheless it's impressive and rewarding the way the writers find ways of making real scientific concepts easily digestible, such as the discovery of radium focused in waiting for the right number to appear on a spectroscope.
For the two lead roles MGM decided to re-team its star-couple of Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon, previously seen as Mrs and Mr Miniver in the previous year's Best Picture winner. Sadly they don't compare to their earlier incarnations, the interaction between them veering from wooden to melodramatic. However, as their on screen relationship develops the affection appears very real and touching. These aren't exceptional performances in their own right, but the rapport between the two of them is clear and effective.
Thank goodness director Mervyn Leroy has the sense to direct this movie with steady delicacy, with long takes and measured performances giving the story the dignity and also the humanity it requires. There's a particularly nice moment where the Curies are by their daughter's bedside, Walter Pidgeon telling a story to little Margaret O'Brien, Garson sat silent and motionless between them, the camera dollying in, then out, upon her face as the emotion of the moment plays across it.
Madame Curie is a far from perfect work, and Hollywood will probably never get science quite right. And yet this picture achieves a quite wonderful thing – a marriage between the magical romanticism of that great movie-making factory, and the equal yet misunderstood allure of scientific endeavour. The common ground exists, and Madame Curie treads it.
Adapted by sci-fi novelist Aldous Huxley and others from the biography by Marie Curie's daughter Eve, the screenplay makes concession to the fact that Hollywood movies are designed for mass consumption. As such the scientific jargon is dumbed down, almost painfully. On the one hand technical talk is skipped over as babble (as in a not-so-discrete dissolve during Marie and Pierre's walk home together when she begins quizzing him over formulae) and, conversely, the protagonists seem implausibly clueless at times (the idea of the Curies dismissing the stain at the bottom of the bowl and taking days to realise it might be radium is laughable). But nevertheless it's impressive and rewarding the way the writers find ways of making real scientific concepts easily digestible, such as the discovery of radium focused in waiting for the right number to appear on a spectroscope.
For the two lead roles MGM decided to re-team its star-couple of Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon, previously seen as Mrs and Mr Miniver in the previous year's Best Picture winner. Sadly they don't compare to their earlier incarnations, the interaction between them veering from wooden to melodramatic. However, as their on screen relationship develops the affection appears very real and touching. These aren't exceptional performances in their own right, but the rapport between the two of them is clear and effective.
Thank goodness director Mervyn Leroy has the sense to direct this movie with steady delicacy, with long takes and measured performances giving the story the dignity and also the humanity it requires. There's a particularly nice moment where the Curies are by their daughter's bedside, Walter Pidgeon telling a story to little Margaret O'Brien, Garson sat silent and motionless between them, the camera dollying in, then out, upon her face as the emotion of the moment plays across it.
Madame Curie is a far from perfect work, and Hollywood will probably never get science quite right. And yet this picture achieves a quite wonderful thing – a marriage between the magical romanticism of that great movie-making factory, and the equal yet misunderstood allure of scientific endeavour. The common ground exists, and Madame Curie treads it.