A Brief History of Time

The film A Brief History of Time is a documentary about the life and work of Stephen Hawking, the physicist. Released in 1991 and directed by Errol Morris, it derived its name from Hawking's book of the same name.

The biography won the Filmmaker's Award (from National Society of Film Critics), Grand Jury Prize and Filmmaker's Trophy (Documentary Section - Sundance Film Festival), and the Best Documentary Award (Seattle International Film Festival), all in 1992.

Reviews

"This "Brief History of Time" has its impenetrable moments, but it is also something of a delight. It functions both as an introduction to the work by Mr. Hawking and his associates in their search for a unified theory of physics, and as a most engaging portrait of him, the members of his family, his friends and colleagues. They are variously serious, funny, brilliant, caustic and, from time to time, eccentric in a way that evokes memories of more than one novel about England's academe." — Vincent Canby, New York Times, August 1992http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9E0CE4DA1139F932A1575BC0A964958260

"The details of Hawking's early life are fascinating -- he is described as the only 'normal' member of an eccentric family -- but we soon lose any sense of him as a fleshed-out human being. The film is too intent on sanctifying his mind."— Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly, August 1992http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,311554,00.html

"Stephen Hawking's book is famous for having sold nearly 6 million copies, most of them to people who never finished reading it. Errol Morris' documentary is like a rebuke: Seeing the movie, I made a resolution that I would go back to the book and this time I really would finish it. Perhaps."— Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, August 1992http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19920828/REVIEWS/208280301/1023

Plot Synopsis

The documentary deals with Stephen Hawking's life and his theories of astrophysics. Errol Morris puts together a set of interviews with the Hawking family, Hawking's colleagues, peers and students, and weaves them into a biographical sketch of Hawking. It also examines his long battle with a motor neuron disease similar to Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. The disease, diagnosed when he was 21, and its consequences, left him almost totally paralyzed as well as without speech.

The film also serves as an introduction to Hawking's main body of work in cosmology and quantum gravity. Amongst several contributions of significance in his field, he was a co-author of the Penrose-Hawking Singularity Theorems which hypothesized the cause for space and time singularities produced by gravity. Interspersed with Morris' characteristic use of stark graphics, the documentary includes footage of Hawking using his voice synthesizer to answer a variety of questions on science.

Morris employed sets which were re-creations of his subjects' homes and offices and conducted the interviews on stage, primarily to exercise great control over placement and lighting.

Cast