American Experience: A Brilliant Madness - The Story of John Nash

Plot

A Brilliant Madness chronicles the life of mathematician and Nobel Prize winner John Nash. Born in Bluefield, WV, the eccentric Nash joined the prestigious math department at Princeton in the late '40s. In 1950, at the age of 21, he developed the Nash Equilibrium, a challenge to traditional game theory that would prove revolutionary to economics. No one, however, recognized its importance at the time. After receiving his doctorate, Nash began teaching at M.I.T. where he met and married Alicia Larde. He was frustrated, though, by the slow progress of his career and began to exhibit signs of mental imbalance. He claimed that aliens were sending him coded messages and that his picture was on the cover of Life disguised as the Pope. Nash was committed for a short time to McLean Hospital where he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. For the next 20 years, Nash suffered from the disease until he slowly began to recover in the 1980s. In 1994, he received the Nobel Prize for his work in game theory and resumed his work at Princeton University. ~ Ronnie D. Lankford, Jr., Rovi

Cast

• Liev Schreiber - Narrator

Credit

Melissa Martin - Associate Producer, Mark Samels - Director, Karen Schmeer - Editor, Margaret Drain - Executive Producer, Tom Phillips - Composer (Music Score), Peter Donahue - Cinematographer, Randall MacLowry - Producer, Mark Samels - Screenwriter, Randall MacLowry - Screenwriter, Mark Samels - Senior Producer

Previous:	American Experience (1990 Film), American Etiquette for a Formal Party: Manners for the Hosts, Guests and Catering Staff (2000 Film)
Next:	American Experience: A Class Apart - A Mexican American Civil Rights Story (2009 Film), American Experience: A Midwife's Tale (1997 Film)