Movie on the big screen in New Jersey

Princeton Garden Theatre

I'm not a medical doctor but I have picked up some cinematic diagnostic skills through the years. So I know that although a cough in ordinary life might just be from a common cold or a sip of water going down the wrong throat, if someone coughs in a movie, that person probably has T.B. (tuberculosis). The accuracy of this diagnosis increases greatly if the film is set prior to World War II. The Man Who Knew Infinity is the story of Srinvasa Ramanujan Ivengar, an Indian mathematician who was born in 1887, so....

Though this film was not set in the United States, let alone New Jersey, much of the film is set at Trinity College, Cambridge, a most prestigious school of learning. We watched the film at the Princeton Garden Theatre, which is just across the street from Princeton University, a most prestigious school of learning. The theater opened its door in 1920. (The first movie shown was Civilian Clothes starring Thomas Meighan. No, I had not heard of that movie or that actor until now.) In 1993 the theater was purchased by Princeton University, and it was renovated inside and out. It now has two screens. In 2014 Renew Theaters took over management. The theater specializes in foreign, independent, and classic films. Our other viewing choices the day we went were Love and Friendship (we saw it in Nashville) or Rear Window (love that film, but it was playing too late).

I appreciated that the music played before the film was the soundtrack of The Maltese Falcon. The theater has a nice collection of vintage movie posters and a very cool P.S.A. Apparently, actor Ethan Hawke grew up in the area, and this was his theater. So the star of Boyhood, The Purge, and Gattaca is the guy who lectures the audience on turning off their cell phones.

But back to the movie we did watch. The Man Who Knew Infinity tells the (as always, mostly) true story of Ramanujan (played by Dev Patel of Slumdog Millionaire), an Indian mathematician without a formal education who was brought to Trinity College at Cambridge University just prior to World War I. There is a bit of a Movie Churches angle to the film, too. Ramanujan's mentor, G. H. Hardy, was an atheist and a good friend of Bertrand Russell (author of "Why I Am Not a Christian"). But Ramanujan believed inspired theories were truly inspired, from the gods. Another math guy in the film, John Littlewood, is a Christian (as was Isaac Newton who gets more than a mention or two in the film).

Some have said it's difficult to make an interesting film about writing because neither typing or cursive is inherently cinematic. Frankly, adding and subtracting aren't ripe for montage either. On the other hand,   as we mentioned regarding a New Jersey film on the small screen, A Beautiful Mind (about the great Princeton mathematician John Nash) won the Oscar for Best Picture.

Anyway, there's a reason more films are about cops than actuaries.

New Jersey films on the small screen

There are a whole lot of films set and/or made in New Jersey, so we aren’t going to talk about them all. But I’ll eliminate a good deal by not including films made in both NJ and NY. Just dropping Woody Allen NJ and NY films eliminates a whole lot.

So let’s try to keep things short by starting with Peter Dinklage. Dinklage’s breakthrough role (long before Game of Thrones and about the same time as his bit role in Elf) came in The Station Agent, the story of a dwarf (as the character describes himself), Finn, who inherits a train station in rural New Jersey and decides to live there (because he has nowhere else to go). When many think of the Garden State, they think urban, but aside from the opening scene in Hoboken, the film takes place in a lovely, woodsy, small town. The film is not just set in New Jersey, but also filmed there as well.

As for churches (see the blog’s name), we see a brief cameo of a church when Dinklage walks through the country. Otherwise there is no church, and there are no clergy in the film but the film is really about the search for community. Finn is isolated by his size and shape. He has a hard time relating to people. He encounters a woman (Patricia Clarkson) isolated by her grief and a man (Bobby Cannavale) isolated by his lack of social skills. The three together eventually find community, the very thing many search for in a church. It’s often a difficult search.

Some people have a more built in community in their lives. 1950’s Cheaper By the Dozen, the mostly true story of the Gilbreth family of Montclair, New Jersey. Two parents and twelve children make for quite a community by themselves. The father, Frank, was an efficiency expert who used his children in research on time saving. Sadly, the film was made on Hollywood sets rather than NJ.

Other films about real New Jersey residents were filmed in New Jersey. For instance, a couple of members of the Princeton faculty have been featured in major motion pictures. Walter Matthau played Princeton University’s* Albert Einstein in heavily fictionalized comedy, I.Q. The 1994 romantic comedy is more concerned with whether Meg Ryan and Tim Robbin’s characters will hook up than with any theories of physics. Closer to real life, but still off in significant detail is 2001’s A Beautiful Mind. The 2001 drama about Princeton mathematician John Nash and his struggles with mental health. The film won the Oscar for Best Picture, and Russell Crowe won an Oscar playing Nash. It fudges a bit, particularly about Nash’s marriage, but, like I.Q., it was filmed in New Jersey.

Of course, plenty of quite fictional films have been set and filmed in New Jersey. Kevin Smith’s career began with the 1994 New Jersey film Clerks, which follows a couple of convenience store clerks who do little of consequence. But they do have a rather awesome conversation about the construction crew on the Death Star in Star Wars.

The great French director Louis Malle captured one of Burt Lancaster’s last great roles as a small time gangster trying to protect a young woman (Susan Sarandon) in 1980’s Atlantic City. I’m sure you’ll be pleased to hear the film was set and filmed in Atlantic City.

Also set and filmed in Atlantic City: Bob Rafelson’s 1972 cult classic The King of Marvin Gardens with Jack Nicholson. An early film by John Sayles, Baby It’s You, was set and filmed in New Jersey with a soundtrack featuring two of Jersey’s most celebrated troubadours, Frank Sinatra and Bruce Springsteen. Another cult classic with a great soundtrack is 1983’s Eddie and the Cruisers about a fictional rock star who vanishes. And there is, of course, Garden State, which set new trends in wall paper.

Finally, I'd like to mention a film that many think is fictional, but actual sites on the internet make it clear the film is actual fact. 1984’s The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension tells the story of a brave physicist, test pilot, surgeon, and rock star, Buckaroo Banzai, and his brave struggle against evil space aliens attempting to take over and/or destroy earth. We learn in the film that in 1938, when Orson Welles produced the famous radio broadcast of War of the Worlds, an actual invasion of Grover’s Mill, New Jersey, was taking place -- but Welles was brainwashed by the aliens to say that it was all a hoax. I’d say the film is hardly fiction, but rather hard hitting journalism. But whether true or false, the film is very great fun. Sadly, though it is partly set in New Jersey, and even has a character named New Jersey, it was not filmed in New Jersey.


*Our next post will feature the film we saw on the big screen in New Jersey, where we return to the location of A Beautiful Mind.