Why has it taken Hollywood so long to come up with a film about John Nash

A.� The schizophrenic, Nobel prize-winning mathematician John Nash, revealed in Ron Howard's In A Beautiful Mind, lives up to Hollywood's idea of a genius - brilliant mind, but tortured personality.� The film, released this week in the UK, has earned Russell Crowe another Best Actor Oscar nomination. Howard is said to have been keen to make a film about Nash for some time, but Crowe's other commitments meant filming was only complete before Christmas.

�

Q.� Which other geniuses have been portrayed on the big screen

A.� Film tends to simplify genises - anyone who stands out attracts admiration and envy. In Amadeus the competent court composer Salieri is jealous of Mozart's musical talent, compounded by the fact Mozart is a self-possessed child.

�

Many producers choose to play geniuses as artists in torment. Pianist David Helfgott in Shine, poet Reinaldo Arenas in Before Night Falls, painter Jackson Pollock in Pollock or film-maker FW Murnau in Shadow of the Vampire, all of them generally suffered for their art.

�

Gwyneth Paltrow's new film The Royal Tenenbaums, released here on March 15, is about a clan of prodigies who have grown up into losers, haunted by the loss of their childhood talents.

�

In Good Will Hunting, Matt Damon's aptitude for mathematics is seen as more of a curse than a gift. At the end of the film, he's seen making a 'normal' life for himself by turning his back on his sums and making a new life with his girldfriend.

�

Q.� What about the mad and the bad

A.� The thriller Pi is the story of a dysfunctional maths genius whose research into the titular number leads him to dementia. Somewhere along the lines, it tells us that the super-intelligent are more prone to madness.

�

The mad scientific genius was born with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and Fritz Lang's Metropolis, made in 1926, created the shock-haired lunatic. He was the first power-mad boffin posied to take over the world.� The criminal and disfigured genius has been created in everything from Phantom of the Opera to James Bond villains and the Joker in Batman.

�

For more film and television questions and answers, click here

�

By Katharine MacColl