Copenhagen [DVD]

The movie is excellent, based on the famous meeting of the great German physicist Werner Heisenberg and the equally great Danish physicist Neils Bohr in German-occupied Denmark (Copenhagen) in 1943. What did the German want to know or share? Lots of tension and fine acting. Worth the rental if you missed it on the big screen.

This dramatisation of the 1941 meeting between Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg is outstanding for its interweaving of the scientific, and the personal; the political rather less so. The science is basic, as it should be, but is at least not entirely ignored. The politics/ethics is also basic and, somewhat disappointingly but in accord with the Zeitgeist, attempts a claim at moral equivalence between the Allied and Nazi atomic programmes. Heisenberg was, we are invited to believe, just a patriot seeking to protect his family and people, and he never hurt a fly. It is difficult to credit an intellect such as Heisenberg's with such shallow claims.The play deserves its five-stars, however, for the clash of the two personalities and their respective scientific positions. It is a reminder that the now much diminished BBC was once capable of such a production.

This film is about two top physicists during ww2 they both knew each other and had worked together b4ww2 and it is about the reason for the German physicist risky visit to his old mentor in Denmark. It is basically did he stall/stop the German Atomic Bomb or even tell his mentor how it could be done! Its a unknown conversional meeting they had which academic historians have puzzled over. This film goes over some of the scenarios of what ifs ! It is a very slow type film and is defiantly not an action/car chase film, this is more of a radio 4 listeners film.

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.

utterly compelling to watch, the structure basically allows us to rewatch the events of Bohr’s, his wife’s and Heisenberg’s 1941 meeting in Copenhagen again and again from different view points as the characters revisit it from beyond their graves (as it were). They are trying to pin point exactly why Heisenberg came to visit the Bohrs at that time. They analyse different theories as to why; and it comes down to basically Heisenberg did the right thing not (!) to make the relatively simple critical mass calculation for pure Uranium 235, otherwise he/Germany would have realised how relatively simple it would have been to make the atomic bomb... with no doubt disastrous consequences... Heisenberg was right in frightening Bohr in their walk and for Bohr not to help him. The tables turned, Bohr thanked Heisenberg and the Bohrs tried to downplay Bohr’s own involvement in the making of the American atomic bombs. Fascinating to watch and stellar performances from all 3 actors.

Ditched is.

The discussions between the three people, Neils Bor, his Wife, and Heisenberg, are crucial to gain anything from this mainly true story. The sound quality was not good and we could not hear what was being discussed on several occasions. The piano music drowned out some of the softly spoken passages too! It would have been nice to see flashback scenes as the young scientists carried out their Copenhagen experiments. Nothing particularly exciting in the film, just a fairly boring, repeating discussion querying why Heisenberg visited Neils during the war and why he didn't succeed in making the bomb.

Attention, c'est complexe, surtout en anglais car le sujet n'est pas simple, le film tient plus d'une pièce de théâtre. Beau jeu d'acteurs

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).

A complex story of the wartime meeting between Neils Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. Thought to be a spy mission by Heisenberg to find out what the Western allies were up to in their developments of the Atom Bomb. A long lasting friendship between these two geniuses was destroyed. Both men subsequently distorted what might have been discussed. In the event the Nazi's development of nuclear reactors and possible an atom bomb failed

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.

予定日に届かなくてすぐに問い合わせをしたが、商品がどこにどのようになっているかわからず解決も出来ず埒が明かず終い。2度目に問い合わせをすると、即予めコピペした同文メールが送付されるシステムとしか思えず不信感が募った。また所品はFRAGILE扱いと封筒に印刷されていても、中で固定された包装等がなされていないために、確かに新品ではあったが、茶封筒を開封する前からガチャガチャと中のケースからＤＶＤが外れている音がしている事が明らかで傷だらけでないかと恐ろしかった。同じリージョン２でもＰＡＬ方式なのでＤＶＤプレイヤーでは再生不可能だったが、ＰＣでは再生出来た。他にも欲しいＤＶＤがあったが、こちらの売り手からは断念した＊評価もクレームが掲載された他の人の分は削除されていて、好評価のみをうたっていることが見受けられたので要注意＊