Alan Turing was the mathematician and cryptanalyst who broke the Nazis' Enigma code at Bletchley Park, thereby shortening the Second World War significantly and saving thousands of lives in the process.
The Norwegian director Morten Tyldum was a 2012 BAFTA nominee for the 2008 Norwegian-language movie, Hodejegerne , which was based on Jo Nesbø's novel about a headhunter, a novel translated into English as Headhunters. The story concerns a headhunter who risks everything to obtain a valuable painting owned by a former mercenary.
In The Imitation Game, Turing risks everything also in his obsessive quest to crack the German Enigma code at Bletchley Park. He is aided by a team of fellow cryptanalysts and mathematicians, including John Cairncross. Cairncross is played by Dublin actor Allen Leech, already a familiar face to Downton Abbey fans as chauffeur Tom Branson.
The 43-year old director comes from Bergen. Norway was occupied by the Nazis which prompts the question as to whether Tyldum felt an instinctive interest in that Second World War period and efforts to quell Hitler’s expansionism.
Alan Turing: The Enigma is the seminal biography written by Andrew Hodges, upon which Graham Moore based his screen-play. “I always thought I knew history really well, but I have to say that when I started reading up on Turing, I was shocked by how much I didn’t know, “ he replies.
“ I was struck by how much of his story was unknown and hidden, so that was one of the reasons that I became so obsessed about it. It’s kind of shocking – he should have been front cover of my history book at school.”
The film-maker has always admired "the dignity and the strength with which the British people dealt with that part of the war. That was something very important that I wanted to have in this film.”.
"1939-40 was a really dark year, the Nazis were winning, Germany seemed unstoppable, England was being bombed to pieces, starved and there was a shortage of food. It was like a hell on earth.”
In 1952, the real-life Alan Turing was convicted for homosexuality, and the highly-gifted mathematician committed suicide in 1954. Turing fascinated the director “as a man who didn't belong anywhere, this outsider, this closeted gay man, who was never really accepted. Yet he became like the man who saved us all, in many ways, this man whose achievements were so important and who almost becomes forgotten afterwards.”
Turing died at the relatively youthful age of 42. Awards like the Nobel Peace Prize, which would almost certainly be bestowed upon his like nowadays, were out of the question. He did, however, receive a Queen’s pardon in December 2013.
Alan Turing wrote a rueful letter to his friend which according to the film director, summarised contemporary prejudice against him. `Turing thinks machines can think, Turing sleeps with men, therefore machines cannot think ‘ - his work was being ridiculed, he was not taken seriously, he became like this foot-note, erased from history. On top of that, The Secrecy Act meant that everything that was done in Bletchley was kept secret. Nobody talked, (they had) probably the best-kept intelligence secrets in the history of the world.”
Keira Knightley plays fellow intelligence officer Joan Clarke, the rather conflicted love interest of the piece. The relationship was doomed from the start, given Turing’s homosexuality. On time off, Morten enjoyed Knightley and Cumberbatch’s company immensely, along with all the cast and crew.
“We became this family that was on a mission. We were all so close together and worked really hard - we had long, long hours, it was sort of like a passion project for everybody. I think everybody wanted to do right by the legacy of Alan Turing. There was no drama, everybody was so prepared and so committed, it was a beautiful experience to work with this amazing, talented group of actors."
I mention Dubliner Allen Leech who plays the mathematician John Cairncross. ”Alan Leech is phenomenal, I cannot praise him enough. He is so supportive, so friendly, so talented, he gives so much of himself. The only thing I regret on behalf of the Irish people is that I had to make him into a Scot! Because that’s the character, and he had to change his accent.”
Read Paddy Kehoe's review here
