In this first part of the National Geographic Channel's "Genius" series, the life of Albert Einstein is depicted up until the time he flees from Germany during the rise of Hitler.
The program opens with the brutal slaying of the German Foreign Minister and close friend of Einstein, Walter Rathenau on June 24, 1922. This terrorist act was committed by the Freikorps, the right-wing militant group comprised primarily of World War I veterans. In the fledgling Weimar Republic, political assassinations took an enormous toll on the revolutionary government. Eventually, the leadership vacuum would be filled by the Nazis.
This is the backdrop for the biography of Einstein in this well-performed and handsomely filmed television series. Oddly, however, the filmmakers choose to make use of flashbacks to tell Einstein's story. It is almost as if they were afraid of boring the viewer if the story were told in a linear chronological fashion. While it is fairly easily to follow the adult Einstein's story and the younger Einstein played by a different actor, the transitions between timeframes were often abrupt, and they broke up the flow of the narrative.
As appropriate to the film's title, there is the attempt to analyze the true nature of a genius. In this case, Einstein was primarily an autodidact, who was not comfortable as a student in a formal classroom setting. We watch young Einstein's mind wander during a lecture, as he visualizes light and begins to speculate on how fast light travels.
The women in Einstein's life (mother, sister, lovers, and wives) are set up effectively in this opening program. But there could have been greater attention paid to the turbulent world of Europe in the 1920s, which occupied most of this opening program. The staggering effects of The Great War and the toll that it took economically and morally on the nations of Europe were virtually non-existent in the film. The greatest strength of the film is Geoffrey Rush's convincing interpretation of the middle-aged Einstein.
The program opens with the brutal slaying of the German Foreign Minister and close friend of Einstein, Walter Rathenau on June 24, 1922. This terrorist act was committed by the Freikorps, the right-wing militant group comprised primarily of World War I veterans. In the fledgling Weimar Republic, political assassinations took an enormous toll on the revolutionary government. Eventually, the leadership vacuum would be filled by the Nazis.
This is the backdrop for the biography of Einstein in this well-performed and handsomely filmed television series. Oddly, however, the filmmakers choose to make use of flashbacks to tell Einstein's story. It is almost as if they were afraid of boring the viewer if the story were told in a linear chronological fashion. While it is fairly easily to follow the adult Einstein's story and the younger Einstein played by a different actor, the transitions between timeframes were often abrupt, and they broke up the flow of the narrative.
As appropriate to the film's title, there is the attempt to analyze the true nature of a genius. In this case, Einstein was primarily an autodidact, who was not comfortable as a student in a formal classroom setting. We watch young Einstein's mind wander during a lecture, as he visualizes light and begins to speculate on how fast light travels.
The women in Einstein's life (mother, sister, lovers, and wives) are set up effectively in this opening program. But there could have been greater attention paid to the turbulent world of Europe in the 1920s, which occupied most of this opening program. The staggering effects of The Great War and the toll that it took economically and morally on the nations of Europe were virtually non-existent in the film. The greatest strength of the film is Geoffrey Rush's convincing interpretation of the middle-aged Einstein.
