''A Brief History of Time'' is a 1991

biographical A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or ...

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

about the

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

Stephen Hawking, directed by

Errol Morris Errol Mark Morris (born February 5, 1948) is an American film director known for documentaries that interrogate the epistemology of its subjects. In 2003, his documentary film '' The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara ...

. The title derives from Hawking's bestselling 1988 book ''

A Brief History of Time ''A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes'' is a book on theoretical cosmology by English physicist Stephen Hawking. It was first published in 1988. Hawking wrote the book for readers who had no prior knowledge of physics. I ...

'', but, whereas the book is solely an explanation of

cosmology Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount (lexicographer), Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', and in 1731 taken up in ...

, the film is also a biography of Hawking, featuring interviews with some of his family members and colleagues. The music is by frequent Morris collaborator

Philip Glass Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimal music, minimalism, being built up fr ...

Production

This film project originated with executive producer Gordon Freedman, who brought the project to

Anglia Television ITV Anglia, previously known as Anglia Television, is the ITV franchise holder for the East of England. The station is based at Anglia House in Norwich, with regional news bureaux in Cambridge and Northampton. ITV Anglia is owned and operated b ...

as a co-producer. After acquiring the property, Freedman met with director

Steven Spielberg Steven Allan Spielberg (; born December 18, 1946) is an American director, writer, and producer. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he is the most commercially successful director of all time. Spie ...

for advice on how to make the project into an important documentary film. Spielberg suggested Errol Morris as director. Morris had studied the history and philosophy of science at Princeton and later Berkeley, so was familiar with many of the topics in Hawking's book. Freedman's production company partnered with Anglia Television and Tokyo Broadcasting. David Hickman, of Anglia, became the film's producer. Morris only had a few days of access to film and interview Hawking. Because of Hawking's

ALS Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as motor neuron disease (MND) or Lou Gehrig's disease, is a neurodegenerative disease that results in the progressive loss of motor neurons that control voluntary muscles. ALS is the most com ...

, a disease that progressively affects nerve cells within the spine and brain, Morris filmed various static shots of Hawking, his wheelchair, and the tools he used to communicate, such as his battery-powered computer-based communication system with an electronic voicebox (which was sponsored and provided by Intel Corporation), to later edit together for the video component of Hawking's interview segments in the film. Although Hawking had an aversion to featuring his personal life in the film, Morris saw ''A Brief History of Time'' as being as much a biography as a science text, and much of his directing and editing work was dedicated to finding ways to depict ideas from

theoretical physics Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experim ...

and

and then connect those ideas with details from the life of Hawking. He employed stylized interview sequences, graphic illustrations, and music written by

. Morris also included clips from Disney's ''

The Black Hole ''The Black Hole'' is a 1979 American science fiction film directed by Gary Nelson and produced by Walt Disney Productions. The film stars Maximilian Schell, Robert Forster, Joseph Bottoms, Yvette Mimieux, Anthony Perkins and Ernest Borgnine, ...

'' (1979). Instead of Morris traveling around and filming the various interview subjects in their native surroundings, all of the interviews for this film were shot on specially built sets on a sound stage in England. Morris said he was "very moved by Hawking as a man", calling him "immensely likable, perverse, funny...and yes, he's a genius." He remembers that Hawking had posters of

Marilyn Monroe Marilyn Monroe (; born Norma Jeane Mortenson; 1 June 1926 4 August 1962) was an American actress. Famous for playing comedic " blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s, as wel ...

in his office, and one of them fell down while they were filming. "A fallen woman", Hawking's speech synthesizer intoned. Hawking's mother, Isobel, is the first person we hear from in the movie, and near the end she describes her son as "a seeker" for truth. After the movie premiered, Hawking told Morris, "Thank you for making my mother a star."

List of interviewees

(in order of appearance) Isobel Hawking, Hawking's mother Janet Humphrey, Hawking's aunt Mary Hawking, Hawking's sister Basil King, neighbor of the Hawkings Derek Powney, classmate of Hawking at Oxford Norman Dix, classmate of Hawking at Oxford Robert Berman, tutor of Hawking at Oxford Gordon Berry, classmate of Hawking at Oxford

Roger Penrose Sir Roger Penrose (born 8 August 1931) is an English mathematician, mathematical physicist, philosopher of science and Nobel Laureate in Physics. He is Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics in the University of Oxford, an emeritus fello ...

, mathematical physicist who worked with Hawking on Penrose-Hawking singularity theorems

Dennis Sciama Dennis William Siahou Sciama, (; 18 November 1926 – 18/19 December 1999) was a British physicist who, through his own work and that of his students, played a major role in developing British physics after the Second World War. He was the PhD ...

, cosmologist and PhD supervisor for Hawking John Wheeler, theoretical physicist who coined the phrase "black hole"

Brandon Carter Brandon Carter, (born 1942) is an Australian theoretical physicist, best known for his work on the properties of black holes and for being the first to name and employ the anthropic principle in its contemporary form. He is a researcher at t ...

, physicist John Taylor, physicist

Kip Thorne Kip Stephen Thorne (born June 1, 1940) is an American theoretical physicist known for his contributions in gravitational physics and astrophysics. A longtime friend and colleague of Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan, he was the Richard P. Fey ...

, astrophysicist and friend of Hawking Don Page, theoretical physicist, doctoral student of Hawking

Christopher Isham Christopher Isham (; born 28 April 1944), usually cited as Chris J. Isham, is a theoretical physicist at Imperial College London. Research Isham's main research interests are quantum gravity and foundational studies in quantum theory. He was ...

, physicist Brian Whitt, physicist and editor of Hawking's ''A Brief History of Time''

Raymond Laflamme Raymond Laflamme (born 1960), Officer of the Order of Canada, OC, Royal Society of Canada, FRSC is a Canadian theoretical physicist and founder and until mid 2017, was the director of the Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterl ...

, theoretical physicist, doctoral student of Hawking

Music

The soundtrack for ''A Brief History of Time'' was composed by Philip Glass. Morris says he had Glass compose the score before showing him the movie; instead, he would give him relevant cues like "Falling into a black hole" or "Event horizon." Glass's score has been described as "hypnotic."

Soundtrack

Reception

''A Brief History of Time'' received largely positive reviews. On review aggregator website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds a 93% rating based on 15 reviews. On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film has a 78 out of 100 rating based on 12 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Availability

The film was released on VHS in the early 1990s, but remained unreleased on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...

until

The Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinep ...

issued a release on April 15, 2014.

References

External links

* * * *
''A Brief History of Time''
from ErrolMorris.com
''A Brief History of Time: Macrobiography''
an essay by

David Sterritt David Sterritt (born September 11, 1944) is a film critic, author and scholar A scholar is a person who pursues academic and intellectual activities, particularly academics who apply their intellectualism into expertise in an area of stud ...

at the

Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinep ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brief History Of Time 1991 films Films with atheism-related themes 1990s biographical films 1991 documentary films American biographical films American documentary films Biographical films about mathematicians British biographical films British documentary films Japanese biographical films Japanese documentary films Biographical documentary films Documentary films about mathematics Documentary films about science Films shot at EMI-Elstree Studios Films scored by Philip Glass Films directed by Errol Morris Films shot in Cambridgeshire Films shot in Hertfordshire Stephen Hawking 1990s English-language films 1990s American films 1990s British films 1990s Japanese films