The story of Prometheus tells of a titan that stole fire (knowledge) and gave it to mankind so we could learn and prosper. Zeus was angry at this and chained Prometheus to a rock and every day sent an eagle to eat out his liver. He was punished for giving away knowledge and changing the balance of power.
Maybe I am just like my father, too romantic. My mum, who is an idealist in her own right, didn’t want to get married because it was about ownership of women and now I have two last names. However, maybe she grew out of it because now she always gets angry at me when I think people should act honourably and match their words and their deeds.
Radioactive (dir. Marjane Satrapi) is another biopic where the protagonist has superior skill and talent but the structure of society continues to make it hard for society to use those gifts because its upsets the structure. In this case, women aren’t scientists.
Rosamund Pike stars as Marie Curie, the first women to win a Nobel prize, and the first person to win two Nobel Prizes. The film is based on the graphic novel Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout; by Lauren Redniss. It details her great efforts to be taken seriously for her science. She discovered, along with some help from her husband, two new elements and she coined the term Radioactivity to describe when an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation.
The film portrays Curie, as most of these films do, as brilliant but nigh on intolerable. So indulged in her work that she has no time or inclination to be anything but completely efficient with her personal interactions bordering on rude. And I get that. If the scientific community kept saying science is all that matters and they search for knowledge and truth, and your science is proving their science wrong, too hell with the hegemony and deal with the issues.
It’s the same old cliche that you see with any “brilliant” person, however, this does not make a story. The film cut back and forth to future events that used her discovery of radioactive for good and most bad outcomes. The film was almost saying the discovery of knowledge was not always a good thing. I was waiting for the eagle to come down and eat Curie’s liver.
Her discover ended up killing many people and making others unwell as they were not aware of the effect it would have when they found it. Her husband Pierre Curie (Sam Riley) was very unwell before he died due to the exposure to the element that made his and his wife famous. Her discover also lead to many innovations that help humanity but the film kept mentioning the bad stuff.
I think it’s great that these people exist. So profoundly talented that they smash the status quo into pieces. They highlight the hypocrisy of those in power and how they have not acted in the commonwealths benefit, only their own. Their fear lets us all down. However, sometimes stories and ideas are better communicated in a different form.
This movie was completely serviceable but straightforward, there was no great cathartic moment. It is a story that the world should know but maybe it would have been better being a documentary rather than a film. It’s worth seeing to be informed, but I find it humorous that Curie said: “be less curious about people and more curious about ideas”. I wonder what she would think about a movie about her life.
Luke McMeeken-Ruscoe
10 March 2020