A Beautiful Mind – Acceptance Speech, Movie Review Example

Ron Howard’s 2001 film A Beautiful Mind features Russell Crowe playing schizophrenic Nobel Laureate John Nash.  In the film excerpt presented byAmerican Rhetoric (2010), Nash delivers an acceptance speech for his Nobel Prize.  This speech is quite brief.  It takes “Nash” only 70 seconds to deliver the mere 99 words contained in the speech.

One could argue that the brevity of the speech is a weekness compared to a typical acceptance speech which is usually lasts 30 to 45 minutes.  Nash is not a particularly dynamic speaker and does not have an engaging affect.  His apparent audience narrows from the entire room to one single person in the end – his wife.

The brevity of this speech could arguably also be considered its greatest strength.  To understand the brilliance of this speech, one must first understand the nature of the project for which he was receiving the award.

Discussion of Rhetoric Device

Nash’s one minute acceptance speech reflects the practical application of the “game theory” for which he was receiving honor.  Game theory employs mathematical constructs which explain how equilibrium is reached and how one’s success is dependent on the choices of others.  This theory marries quantitative mathematics and interpersonal relationships.

Nash uses parallelism as a device in his speech.  He asks two apparently opposing questions which unite into a common answer.  “What truly is logic.”  “Who decides reason?”  Each of these questions begins withrelative pronouns that seem to be unrelated.  “What” refers to a thing (like mathematics).  “Who” refers to a person.  Later in the speech Nash speaks of the parallel relationship between “equations” and “love.”

In keeping with the very theory that won him the Prize that he was accepting, Nash credits his own success not to his own choices, but to those of his wife.  This construct uses a parallel antithesisto reach a conclusion just like his game theory.  The speech is brilliant in its depth and simplicity.

References

(American Rhetoric 2010 John Nash: 1994 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences Acceptance Address)American Rhetoric. (2010). John Nash: 1994 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences Acceptance Address. Retrieved from http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechabeautifulmind.html