NekoHomey
Purely Joyful Movie!
BroadcastChic
Excellent, a Must See
Catherina
If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.
Paul Evans
This is a fascinating character study, it raises so many questions about Heisenberg, and questions his motives for research, self indulgence, search for greatness, or simply because he was subjugated by Hitler.As a film it kept my attention from start to finish, it's a truly fascinating story, so incredibly interesting. The three lead performances from Craig, Rea and Annis are incredible, they made the film so believable, each so truthful. The way the story is told is very different, almost unique.After watching this you can't help but ask the question, can you imagine what would have happened if.....I loved it, would love to see it on the stage one day. This is an exceptional film. 9/10
siri-4
Copenhagen is a challenging and powerful film that requires close attention. It builds up in rapid layers and, though it only has three characters, they each are articulate and extremely significant figures in their own right. The rise of Nazi Germany from 1933 on casts its shadow over events and the dynamic discussions and attempts at communication occurring. The audience is privy to both what people say, and their thoughts about what they are saying. It is based on the drama by Michael Frayn. Denmark is an occupied country. Hitler's forces have invaded and control most of Europe (Sweden, Switzerland and Portugal are neutral). Director Howard Davies also wrote the script for the film with Michael Frayn who wrote the original theater play. Frayn is present in a detailed prologue and epilogue to the body of the TV movie that provides a detailed description of the context of the play, and some historical background. In the essential question of why Werner Heisenberg went to see Niels Bohr in 1941 is re-assessed. There are also interviews with living relatives of the two greats that reveal that it is possible Heisenberg wanted Bohr to know that he was in charge of the German work on a nuclear weapon and could delay its achievement (in the end he claims they were two weeks away from success, while Bohr queries his neglect of the consequent radiation from an explosion that would kill them—another example of the human error that bedevils the practical use of nuclear energy). IN his final years Bohr penned many drafts of a letter to Heisenberg, that was never posted, and his family guaranteed for 50 years. Bohr's "confessions" were not available to Frayn when he wrote the play. Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976) and Niels Bohr (1885-1962) first met in Gottingen, Germany, when Heisenberg was 20 and challenged Bohr's mathematical calculations at a public talk. Heisenberg would spend six years in Copenhagen working under Bohr. Bohr had first developed a theory of the structure of an atom that became known as Quantum Mechanics (not nuclear physics), for which he was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1927. Their interactions stimulated Heisenberg to further develop Quantum Mechanics and the theoretical concept of the Uncertainty Principle in 1927 when he was 26 years old, for which he won a Nobel Prize in 1932 (not 1933 as said in the film, and an award which included recognition of his discovery of allotropic hydrogen).
paul2001sw-1
In the late 1920s, Werner Heisenberg and Niels Bohr worked closely together to formulate the "Copenhagen interpretation", a philosophical synthesis that provided a basis for understanding the radical new field of quantum mechanics that they (and others) had recently developed. But when world war two broke out, Heisenberg's country (Germany) invaded Bohr's (Denmark): Bohr was eventually to leave home and contribute to the successful allied efforts to develop a nuclear weapon, whereas Heisenberg led the failed German program. But in 1941, when Bohr still lived in Denmark, Heiseberg visited him, and the subject of that meeting has subsequently become a matter of speculation and controversy. Bohr felt that Heisenberg had come on an intelligence-gathering mission and sent him packing; Heisenberg claimed that his (poorly formulated) aim had been to establish a consensus among physicists, to promote continued research into the nature of the atom while denying a weapon to their political masters on both sides. Heisenberg continued to claim, after the war, that he hadn't wanted to build a bomb for the Nazis; but it seems likely that he had not been in a position to do so anyway having failed to conceive one essential idea. If Heisenberg was not a saint, this does not make him a figure of pure evil either: indeed, while the evils of Nazism make him easy to condemn, it's surely also easy to understand the pressures on a patriotic man trying to pursue his great love, theoretical physics, when his country was ruled by monsters. In Michael Frayn's play, 'Copenhagen', now adapted for television, Heisenberg is depicted as a man racked by uncertainty: if his approach to Bohr was confused, Frayn suggests that Heisenberg himself didn't really know what he wanted, at least not in the context of a world at war. As one of Heisenberg's own contributions to physics is known as the "uncertainty principle", there's an open goal for that the dramatist cannot resist, and he frames his imaginative reconstruction of the two men's encounter (whose substance is well-documented) in the language of physics itself, using analogies to their great research to describe their personal outlooks and predicaments. Though probably not literally accurate, it's skilfully done, and as well as exploring the ambiguities of their situation, also makes one interested in the physics itself; the three person cast are all excellent in this version.
ChoirBoyOC
I awarded this presentation 4 stars. They are all for the script, which has been butchered beyond recognition in places. What can possibly be said? They took one of the finest plays written in the last century and methodically robbed it of its heart, humor and humanity. I don't really blame the actors, who are probably doing their best with shoddy direction and incomplete characters (because the very complete characters of the stage version have had their insides -- and insights -- ripped out). I do very much blame the director, who seems to strain to find ways to undermine the script. There are so many awkward pauses, awkwardly re-staged moments and awkwardly re-imagined line readings in this TV movie that at times, I forgot ever loving the play. I'm not one of these people who thinks that genius plays are automatically inferior on film (quite the contrary), but this particular genius play has been tremendously under-served by this outing. Now I hope they'll make a *real* film of this play. The world deserves it.
