farnovision

Baird Again

I don't know why we (?) are even having this debate about Farnsworth -v- Sarnoff, RCA, Zworykin, etal, when anybody who is even remotely familiar with the subject knows that Scotsman John Logie Baird really invented television, as this clip clearly demonstrates:

Just behind Copernicus

Link: Top 100 most influential people in History

# 28 Nicolas Copernicus

# 29 Socrates (just because of his reputation)

# 30  Philo T. Farnsworth (invented electronic television that most closely resembles contemporary ones)

And BEFORE Moses, no less (#32).

A "Second Life" for Farnsworth?

Link: 'Farnsworth Invention' Hits Best Week Yet at Music Box

Broadway's The Farnsworth Invention celebrated its best week yet at the Music Box Theatre.  The new play by Aaron Sorkin grossed $346,739.00 for the week ending December 30, 2007.

For those in the cast and crew, this is certainly good news. But, then, in light of the previous post... you do have to wonder.

Do We See The Problem Yet?

Yeah, I know, it's "just a play."  But like I keep saying, too many people -- like this one -- leave the theater thinking what they've just seen is an accurate portrayal of history, and then arrive at all kinds of wrong conclusions based on what they've just seen:

What brings Philo T. Farnsworth down, what causes him to lose out to the wily David Sarnoff, is that he believes that science should be done in the open. He’s stuck with a problem in implementing television, and he’s delighted to see a fellow engineer show up in San Francisco who wants to talk to him. But the engineer turns out to be an RCA employee who then returns to the East Coast and succeeds in transmitting a clear picture- something that Farnsworth had been unable to do.

Next person who tells me "it's just a play" is going to get hit over the head with the heaviest history book I can get off my bookshelf. Remember what George Santayana said. You do know who he was, right? No, not the guy John Wayne defeated at the Alamo...

Let Me Repeat That....

....for those of you on drugs:

Here, again, we see why ultimately this play serves the RCA party line, as yet another viewer who doesn't know the real story comes away from the theater thinking they've just  seen its genuine re-enactment:

Even though Farnsworth sued Sarnoff and RCA, he eventually lost his patent claims on a technicality of a previous held patent by Zworykin from 1923

Now repeat after me:  Farnsworth WON all his litigation against RCA, he retained all his patents, and RCA was ultimately forced to pay him no less than $1-million to use those patents.  Three years later RCA snuck Zworykin's 1923 application through a lay court on some technicality in order to spend the next (now) seventy years making the case that results in misconceptions like this writer's -- aided and abetted by "historical drama" like The Farnsworth Invention.

Likewise, The Village Voice

The Village Voice has posted it's review of The Farnsworth Invention:

Farnsworth never explores any aspect of the story deeply. From the sources of the stirrings that made a rural potato-farmer's kid an electronics whiz by high-school age to the seismic shift in social patterns caused by the mass success of radio and then TV, everything is brushed in, snappily, with a factoid or two, encased in a wisecrack whenever possible, as on those TV docudramas that leave you wishing you'd been told the real story instead.

And to think... the real story was right there all the time... <*sigh*>

Thank You, Mr. Leonard

Back on November 5th, I posted an entry here entitled "The Great Deception Continues" which cited a blog by Arthur S. Leonard, a professor at the New York Law School, who saw an early preview of The Farnsworth Invention as it prepared for its opening on Broadway.   I noted then how Mr. Leonard had reiterated one of the fallacies of the play, i.e. Farnsworth's inability to deal effectively with his "light problem," and how that contention has always been one of the cornerstones of RCA's PR campaign to dismiss the breakthrough represented by Farnsworth's Image Dissector Tube. 

This morning I learned that Mr. Leonard has obtained a copy of my book (ah, so he's the one...) and, apparently a couple of weeks ago, posted an extensive entry to his blog that is very sympathetic to the perspective I have been expressing:

Schatzkin strove mightily to create the most accurate account he could, based on recollections of the inventor's widow and sons as well as many who had worked with him.  To then see the oversimplifications, truncations, rearrangements of time and place, and so forth, that Sorkin undertook to create a dramatic vehicle of reasonable length, must be upsetting to any author.  But perhaps more significantly, presumably for dramatic purposes, Sorkin's stage play distorts Farnsworth's life by suggesting outcomes that differ from the reality depicted in Mr. Schatzkin's biography -- not just in detail but in broad outline and theme as well.

I think Mr. Leonard has gotten to the real crux of the issue, why this play (or movie) is so important, and why it's so frustrating that it turns out the way it does:

It would do well to remember that many of the important scientific inventions that created our modern world were devised by individuals who lacked extensive formal training in science and technology, who were largely self-taught, such as Thomas Edison, for example.  It may be that true scientific genius would even be hampered by formal training, since formal training may have the unfortunate effect of grounding somebody too deeply in the received paradigms of his or her time ... for the truly unusual geniuses among us who are capable of the transcendent insights that produce the quantum leaps in science, higher education may at times prove a hindrance rather than an enabler of such breakthroughs.

Now, why can't somebody put THAT into a play or movie??

The irony here is that it was my post of Mr. Leonard's post back in November that first tipped Aaron off to the fact of this biographer's (admittedly belated) reservations about his play. 

I may have had an opportunity to express these themes to Aaron Sorkin well  before the play opened on Broadway. If I did I blew my chance. Now I don't know if Aaron and I are on speaking (well, e-mailing...) terms.  So I just hope that whoever is monitoring this blog on Aaron's behalf will tell him about this post, and steer him toward Mr. Leonard's post.  Perhaps then we will have something to talk about:  "the spirit of exploration" (as Aaron put it in a couple of interviews).

Some Good, Some Not So Much

Here's a review from somebody in the cheap seats:

Aaron Sorkin's The Farnsworth Invention got pretty roundly panned by Ben Brantley, but my assessment of it is far more kind. The first question is whether Sorkin has learned from the failings of Studio 60, and the answer is mostly yes.

What's more interesting are the comments that follow, which discuss some of the issues we've been entertaining around here.  Like, f'rinstance, this one:

It's not just Wikipedia. Apparently, Sorkin pretty much destroys the historical record, especially in terms of key patent decisions. As a Sorkin fan, I really want to see the show; as a historian, I'm queasy that he's reportedly playing so fast and loose with the facts. I have no problem with "historical fiction" as a genre, but I do think creative artists bear some responsibility to keep the major details correct.

Which is my point entirely. Anybody can make stuff up to serve their dramatic purpose (to varying degrees of success, as reviews of this play readily attest). The real challenge is remaining faithful to the underlying facts and finding/amplifying the drama within. That's a full order of magnitude harder. That one of the great screenwriter/playwrights of our time could not rise to such a task only underscores the degree of difficulty.

This Just In:

More reviews that slipped through the net earlier today:

New York Press (Stan Friedman):  Sometimes showing off (“Music is what Mathmatics does on a Saturday night”), sometimes using his familiar ironic understatement (“You’re going to want to not screw this up”), Sorkin delivers what his established fans and critics have come to expect: a showcase of his own formidable talent.

NY Daily News (Joe Dziemianowicz):  Scenes play out like brief vignettes from a History Channel biopic (the story was originally intended for the big screen) without stirring emotions. No wonder music accompanies several scenes, as in a film, to tug the heart... Sorkin has been ridiculed for distorting facts, but he admits to taking liberties with his characters. "I just made that last scene up," Sarnoff confesses at one point... Dramatic license is one thing. But a play about the invention of television that fails to blaze in living color is another.

Newsday (Linda Winer): Sorkin sprinkles anachronistic profanities as liberally as he makes up fiction about real people's lives. Farnsworth historians are already incensed about big and small inaccuracies. See thefarnsworthinvention.com for specifics. I appreciate the concern. I just wish someone had cared half as much about the world-altering distortions in last season's hit, "Frost/Nixon," alas, soon to be a major motion picture.

Review Summary, "Tony" Prospects

The Envelope - a column at LATimes.com that handicaps the prospects for various awards like the Oscars and the Tonys, offers up this summary of the reviews:

Tonys 2008: 'The Farnsworth Invention' lacks originality

TV and movie scribe Aaron Sorkin's return to Broadway 18 years after triumphing with the military courtroom drama "A Few Good Men" was met with a collective critical shrug. Reviews for the strike-delayed opening of "The Farnsworth Invention" — a historical drama about the birth of television — range from bad to mediocre, albeit with one notable exception. This hoped-for awards contender in a busy season of play premieres may find itself forgotten, if not gone, come Tony time next June.