week4-imitation game

The Unlikely Sherlockian Connection Between Benedict Cumberbatch and ‘The Imitation Game’

NOVEMBER 12, 2014 | 08:36AM

Spreading the word about Alan Turing has become something of a mission for those involved in the film, especially Cumberbatch, who noted that audiences seem to be responding to the mathematician’s remarkable tale. “The majority of the reactions that I’ve heard of afterwards, people are going ‘why the hell haven’t I heard of this man? Why didn’t I know this story?’ And I feel the same; he should be in history books as well as on the front covers of science books. He should be on bank notes with Darwin and Newton, he’s up there,” Cumberbatch insisted.

“He’s a war hero, a gay icon, and the founder of the computer age. He really is that important — he invented the idea of the universal machine, which still exists. Computers anywhere in the world, no matter what language you speak, operating the same system, that was his concept. The internet would’ve been a disaster for manufacturing and consumerism and computers if the universal machine wasn’t already in place as something that he’d implemented, because everything would’ve had to change… Now, when you put his name in Google, it links him with me, which I’m very flattered about, but which I had to apologize to his family about at the London premiere — it’s sort of the wonderful irony in a way, that’s the same algorithm that he used to crack the code,” he added.

But Turing didn’t crack the Enigma code alone; though he wasn’t much of a team player, the government assembled a number of code breakers to work the problem alongside him, including Hugh Alexander (Matthew Goode), John Cairncross (Allen Leech) and Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley), the only female member of the team.

“What’s interesting about Joan is that her story, her real story, follows exactly the same argument as feminism today,” Knightley noted on the red carpet. “What she was up against was a place at the table and equal pay, and it’s amazing how, of course women’s rights have come on a huge way since the 1940s but, the argument at the center of feminism today is still a place at the table and equal pay. So I thought that was very interesting.”

Goode — currently appearing in CBS’ “The Good Wife” — and Leech, who stars on “Downton Abbey,” hope that the film can affect positive social change, given the way Turing was victimized for his genius and his sexuality.

“A tagline of the film is that it can take someone different to achieve the kind of greatness Alan Turing did, and I think it’s too easy these days when someone is different, especially in a school environment, to shun them and make fun of them, and there are repercussions to that,” Goode noted. “Luckily, this man still fought his way through and was able to change the course of the world in many ways.”

Leech agreed, “I hope people recognize… what this man could’ve achieved. Rather than celebrating the fact that he was different, we persecuted him for it, and look what we lost.”

“The Imitation Game” hits theaters on Nov. 28.

http://variety.com/2014/film/news/benedict-cumberbatch-alan-turing-imitation-game-sherlock-1201353771/

Structure of the Lead： 

WHO- Cumberbatch

WHEN- not given

WHAT- Cumberbatch commented on Alan Turing

WHY- Cumberbatch played Alan Turing’s part

WHERER-not given

HOW-not given

Keywords：                                          

1. icon崇拜對象

2. manufacturing從事製造業的

3. consumerism消費主義

4. implement執行

5. irony諷刺

6. algorithm演算法

7. enigma不可解的事物

8. feminism爭取女權運動

9. victimize使犧牲；受迫害

10. tagline高潮下的結尾

11. shun避開

12. persecute迫害