Alan Turing had one of the brightest minds of the 20th century, but for decades, only a handful of people knew what he’d accomplished.
More recently, the world has learned that the Cambridge-educated mathematician successfully led Britain’s effort to crack the Enigma Code, the German military’s communication encryption system during World War II.
Computer scientists have been aware for quite a while that Turing invented one of the first information processing machines as a part of the code-cracking effort, and made other important contributions to that then-nascent field.
But since the code breakers’ wartime work was classified, everyone involved was prohibited from ever talking about it, or even seeing one another after the project ended. It was less than a year ago that Queen Elizabeth II gave Turing a posthumous pardon for his “gross indecency” conviction (a euphemism at the time for homosexual acts) in 1952. His punishment — he opted for chemical castration, rather than imprisonment — dulled his brain, and he committed suicide in 1954.
“The Imitation Game,” adapted by Graham Moore from the book “Alan Turing: The Enigma” by Andrew Hodges, revisits that long-secret history, but uses some dramatic license to fill in gaps. Although there have been other dramatizations of the code breakers who worked at the Bletchley Park estate, 50 miles northwest of London, “The Imitation Game,” directed by Norway’s Morten Tyldum, attempts to show the full scope of Turing’s character and achievements.
Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays Turing, says he first learned of the math whiz while watching the 1996 BBC film “Breaking the Code,” which starred Derek Jacobi. (It premiered in this country the following year, on public television’s “Masterpiece Theatre.”)
Cumberbatch says, “Then there were semi-fictional incarnations of him in ‘Enigma’ (2001) and other films. But once I’d read Graham’s script, I was so inspired by it, and I started to read about the subject.”
Although the film initially depicts Turing as socially awkward and arrogant, Cumberbatch points out that much more of Turing’s personality and character emerge gradually as the screenplay unfolds.
“What you discover when you watch the film is why he’s wrapped up in himself,” says the actor. “I think he constantly struggled with language and with being in social situations from a very, very young age. It’s all down to emotional insecurity. But what I think is beautiful about the film is you understand where his emotional security becomes strong again, and he blossoms.”
You also understand that the war and Britain’s sodomy laws undermined whatever security Turing sometimes felt.
Keira Knightley plays Joan Clarke, the only female member of the code-breaker team — and a formidable mathematician in her own right. Clarke is welcomed to Bletchley Park by Turing, but the other men think the clandestine project is no place for a woman. Soon, however, she threatens to leave because her parents disapprove — in the 1940s, young English ladies were supposed to marry, not work. At that point Turing proposes marriage to her, despite his sexual orientation, to try to keep her at Bletchley Park.
While acknowledging that parts of the screenplay embroider the facts, Knightley says Clarke’s story must be told. “This isn’t a film about Joan Clarke, but I think you could possibly make one about her,” the actress says. “She’s a fascinating character. She was part of the team that cracked Enigma, and she did have a very hard time getting in … even though she was more than qualified to be there. … She was engaged to Alan for a very brief time, and their friendship is very real.”
Knightley notes that the work of the code breakers remained “top-secret information until the ’90s. Even then, a lot of the people didn’t talk,” she says. “They’d trained themselves not to, (so) there was just no possibility of them letting their secrets out. Even now, we don’t know as much as we’d … like to.”
Though some of the facts probably will never be known, the emotional impact of the film is devastating, and the job of playing Turing shook up Cumberbatch. “I just got completely lost in his tragedy,” says the actor. “I tried to pace myself for the last scene, but I could not stop crying … for this guy who was wronged. It disgusted and profoundly upset me.”
Knightley says Turing “was one of the fathers of the computer, and he made one of the arguably most important breaks of the Second World War that led to the Allies beating the Germans. Who knows what would have happened if they hadn’t broken that code?
“Equally, it’s a celebration of differences,” she says of the film. “It’s about the frightening nature of prejudice and what can be destroyed when we allow prejudice to inform governmental policy and everything else.”
