Copenhagen (PBS Hollywood Presents)

Haunting in more ways than one "Copenhagen" is framed by the meeting of the ghosts of three friends who try to come to grips with why sixty years earlier their friendship was destroyed by a visit. This film is fascinating in structure and brilliantly realized as drama. Francesca Annis is simply wonderful as the wife of Danish Physicist Niels Bohr. She is as brittle and supportive of her husband as she is distrustful and yet tender to their old friend, German physicist Werner Heisenberg. Stephen Rea towers in his portrayal of Bohr and commands the screen in velvet gloved over steel performance. His role is one of such extreme depth and subtlety that I was truly impressed with what he delivered. As Heisenberg, Daniel Craig is a towering presence. Not that the personality of the man he plays is towering, but in his grasp of the complexities and conundrums is. What he does with the slight turn of the head, the shifting of the eyes and the turn of the mouth or the pout of his lips is a lesion in the art of screen acting. It is all about thinking and Craig lets us see what he is thinking. He has the ability to inhabit the moment and let the deepest and sometimes the guarded emotions play across his face. So here you have three great actors in a challenging work that is worthy of your time you might give to it. This film raises an important question, that of moral responsibility to humanity and when it is split like an atom by the three characters it multiplies the question into even deeper ones of loyalty, friendship, and love. A wonderful experience is waiting your arrival in "Copenhagen".

If you've ever watched Sleuth, you know that a small cast can deliver a completely riveting movie experience. Copenhagen delivers just as powerfully. The premise is that Heisenberg, German physicist, makes a mysterious visit to Bohr, Danish physicist and Heisenberg's mentor, during the height of WW-2. At the time, Denmark was was occupied by Germany. History does not record what the two discussed; the entire premise of the movie is a speculative take on what they might have discussed. The speculation is revealed from in-the-moment scenes to retrospective recollections, and is revealed as profoundly important in what was communicated, and what wasn't. None of the three actors overpowers the others; they all contribute superbly and critically to the story and its narrative. You do not have to be a nuclear physicist to enjoy the movie, but an awareness of the history of nuclear physics will be a definite plus. My marginally informed estimate is that the movie doesn't make any mistakes wrt the physics, except that I expected the term "absorption cross-section" to be used where the movie uses "diffusion equation". Again, though, the particle physics isn't the central point and doesn't get in the story's way. Rather, it's the implications of that physics, and what each man perceives of it, and how each man perceives his place in the panoply of scientists and in the context of his nation that form the core of the story. And don't get me wrong-- the woman is utterly critical to the story, as she is the rigorous conscience of both men, and the measurer of truths of the mind and spirit, just as the men are of the truths of the physics. Highly recommended, even with a near total lack of action.

I finally bought this DVD because you can watch this play over and over again and get new insights into such diverse topics as physics, the nature of relationship, loyalty and betrayal, and philosophical questions surrounding just what we think we know and how we know it. It's a delight to see Francesca Annis again...and this is a showcase for Daniel Craig's natural intelligence as an actor and his versatility, which some may still not be aware of. Stephen Rea is always brilliant. Very entertaining. A class act.

"Copenhagen" is a special movie that requires some basic background knowledge in order to fully appreciate it. It's not for everyone. If you don't know anything about the central figures (Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg) you will probably not appreciate all of the significance of their discussions. Many questions are raised about their relationship during the '30s and '40s, but few definitive answers are presented. The coincidences of a rising Hitler in Germany and World War II and the rise of nuclear physics leading to the development of the atomic bomb made the fusion (and fission) of the worlds of physics and politics an extremely dangerous game. We know the end result of the combination, but the movie leaves us with some mysteries about who knew what, who said what, and who did what in the relationship between those two scientific giants during the most destructive era in modern human history.

As a once student of physics, I appreciated the way the dialogue makes efforts to explain some aspects of quantum physics concepts, as well as presenting the moral dilemmas and circumstances associated with the atomic bomb development (and eventual use) during WW2. Highly recommended. Daniel Craig, Stephen Rea, and Francesca Annis (who plays the part of Bohr's intellectual wife) all deliver commanding and convincing performances. I particularly appreciated the prologue and epilogue documentary segments with Michael Frayn discussing background and afterthoughts regarding the actual historical facts and recent learnings (after the play was written).

This review is of the PBS Hollywood Presents edition. The play itself is 95 minutes long. It comes with a ten-minute prologue, in which the playwright Michael Frayn explains the background to Bohr and Heisenberg's relationship and to their meeting in 1941. The parallel is between Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and the uncertainty of his intentions in travelling to German-occupied Copenhagen to see Bohr. Physicist Michio Kaku explains some of the science involved. I saw `Copenhagen' on the stage and was blown away. I immediately saw that it has film potential. I envisioned an arty production, in both colour and black-and-white, with allusions to water as a metaphor for memory and loss, in particular with reference to the Bohr's loss of one of their sons in a boating accident. Imagine the level of my aroused curiosity, therefore, on hearing that a film-for-television had been produced by the BBC. This review is therefore made from the angle of someone who witnessed the original stage production. The production is credited as being "from the play by Michael Frayn", adapted and directed by Howard Davies. This is important, for it became clear to me quite quickly that this is not the play I saw on stage, both in terms of content and in terms of style. The bulk of the play is still there, of course, but before referring to the excisions that have been made, it is worth commenting on the more explicit change of mood. The most obvious is that the sincere and warm relationship between Bohr and Heisenberg as portrayed on the stage has gone: instead, the atmosphere between the two - or between the three, I should say, as Bohr's wife Margrethe is of equal importance - is more wooden, more distant. The film opens imaginatively in modern Copenhagen with Bohr and Margrethe in their ghostly 1940s clothes catching the bus home and walking through the park whilst Heisenberg arrives in the city on the modern express: the past and the present cleverly intermeshed. But all that follows is set in their true time, and that of their memories. But their memories are not portrayed, which is unfortunate, and the jump-cut editing that I would have expected in a filmed version, editing that would have enhanced understanding of the story and heightened interest in the characters, has been eschewed. The result is an interpretation that would test the boredom threshold of all but the most interested viewer, a fact borne out by my other half giving up after only twenty minutes of watching this version. Stephen Rea is good as Bohr, though his Irish accent often pokes through the lines. Daniel Craig's accent is English throughout. Only Francesca Annis remains convincing in terms of voice. I have my doubts about Daniel Craig playing Heisenberg. He is a fine actor, but he does not seem to have a voice for this part. I am not talking only about accent and pronunciation (for instance, he says `Nee-Carlsberg' instead of `Noo-Carlsberg' - and later gets it right) but his intonation for me did not seem to accord with the role. Perhaps this was a choice of the director, who wanted to place Heisenberg in a more cold and insensitive light than that on stage. And here we touch on the issue of content. In short, much that is sympathetic to Heisenberg is left out. In his postscript to the published play (available on Amazon), Frayn supposes "that this is what sticks in some people's throats - that my Heisenberg is allowed to make a case for himself." It seems that this filmed adaptation has sought to negate this aspect. I cross-referenced the film's script with that of the original play, and found that much of Heisenberg's speaking parts were reduced or omitted altogether. These included much of his personal background and history and his dedication as a scientist; his closeness to Bohr; his problems with the Nazi regime; his positive remarks about the work of other scientists ("Europe in all its glory again"); and his love of such liberal composers as Bach and Beethoven. In the end, of course, an argument can be made that Heisenberg killed no one but Bohr contributed to the deaths of millions. This is not one to which I personally ascribe, but it is a valid one nevertheless. But the omissions made in the text of this filmed version do not allow the viewer much room to see Heisenberg as a human being, fraught with the stress of having to make some difficult choices. In addition, the film version leaves out many of the times that the Bohrs refer to the loss of their son in a boating accident, a feature that ran with memorable effect as a recurring motif in the stage play. Some of the scientific explanations are also left out of the film, which could be unhelpful for those with little or no knowledge of particle physics. But this also has the effect of potentially losing the parallels to be seen between the interaction of thought and intention with that of complementarity. There is a further ten-minute epilogue at the end, featuring not only Frayn but also Heisenberg's son and daughter, and colleagues of both Heisenberg and Bohr. There is also some discussion surrounding the letter that Bohr wrote to Heisenberg in the 1950s but never sent. As Frayn points out in this epilogue, even if we knew exactly what was said at the 1941 meeting, what Bohr thought Heisenberg intended, and what Heisenberg thought Bohr thought Heisenberg intended, would still be elusive. So, in conclusion, whilst it is welcome to see Frayn's play being brought to a wider audience, I fear that this film has resulted in an interpretation that lacks both imagination and balance.

This is a superb production for the BBC of Michael Frayn's play of the same name. Not always easy to understand, but amply repays repeated viewings. Great acting, and shows off Daniel Craig's versatility in a demanding and quite intellectual role.