Theos-Talk Archives (March 1995 Message tl00028)

I sent this before, but it did not format.  One more try!

This is one of those films that is of definite interest to
theosophists.

Many know the story of Stephen Hawkings and how he developed some
of our best and most current models of scientific cosmology while
suffering from ALS, a debilitating motor-neron disease.

The film asks all the big questions: where did the universe come
from?, how will it end?, why do decent people suffer?, why do
some people need a wound to heal them is some strange way so they
will get on with their work?, and many more.  In fact there are
enough questions for several films and very few satisfying
aswers.

The film asks the questions and then throws the viewer back on
himself.  In that moment of "no answers" may come a moment of
transformation.  I don't mean your will pack your bags and feed
the starving in India or become a lounge lizard in reaction to
that moment, but you may see life a little differently after
seeing how Mr.  Hawkins fights his disease in order to get to a
grand unified theory that if found "we will know the mind of
God".

Well, he hasn't found it yet.  In fact, the film is a little
misleading, because if my memory serves me correct, he reivised
the book so that the universe is now expanding indefinitely with
no fixed creation or destruction point, as opposed to the "big
crunch" scenario in the film

No mattter, the film stand on its own and operates at a
surprising number of levels.  There are perhaps too many
interviews, but they give the film a human, homey feeling tone.
Yet the music of Phillip Glass is alway there, insisting,
suggestive, foreboding , ominous, portentous.  It leads one to
think big things are coming, really big things.

Well the payoff is there, but not what one might expect.  It is
personal story about Hawkins, the triumph of the human spirit,
seemingly undeserved suffering, the origin and end of the
universe and the scale of these vastly different events somehow
become part of an even larger story, our collective larger story.
What did you think about the film?

Namaste

Keith Price