Jump to content

The Oxford Murders (film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Laubbaum (talk | contribs) at 13:59, 20 June 2009 (linkfix). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

For the novel, see The Oxford Murders (novel).
The Oxford Murders
File:Oxford murders post.jpg
Promotional film poster
Directed byÁlex de la Iglesia
Written byJorge Guerricaechevarria (screenplay)
Álex de la Iglesia (screenplay)
Guillermo Martínez (novel)
Produced byKevin Loader
Gerardo Herrero
StarringElijah Wood
John Hurt
Leonor Watling
Distributed byOdeon Sky Filmworks, Tornasol Films
CountryUnited KingdomUK  Spain
LanguageEnglish
Budget$14.1 million

The Oxford Murders is a 2008 thriller film adapted from an award-winning novel of the same name by the Argentine mathematician and writer Guillermo Martínez, directed by Álex de la Iglesia and starring Elijah Wood, John Hurt and Leonor Watling.

Plot

The plaster cast of Trajan's Column at the Victoria and Albert is discussed in the film.

November 1993. Wood plays Martin, an American student at the University of Oxford who wants Arthur Seldom (Hurt) as his thesis supervisor. He idolises Seldom and has learnt all about him. He takes rooms in Oxford at the house of an old lady who is an old friend of Seldom. Also in the house is the old lady's daughter, who is her full-time carer, and a musician by occupation.

In a public lecture, Seldom quotes Wittgenstein's Tractatus to deny the possibility of absolute truth. Hoping to impress his idol, Martin disputes this, asserting his faith in the absolute truth of mathematics: "I believe in the number pi." Seldom humiliates him, ridiculing his arguments and making him look foolish in front of the audience. Disillusioned, Martin decides to abandon his studies and goes to his office to collect his belongings. There, he encounters his office-mate, a disillusioned mathematician Podorov (Burn Gorman), who also failed to become a student of Seldom's.

Martin then returns to his digs, where he finds Seldom arriving to visit his old friend, the old lady. The two men enter the house together and find Martin's landlady murdered. Seldom tells the police that he had received a note with his friend's address marked as "the first of a series". As Seldom is an authority on logical series, he suspects that a serial murderer is using murder as a way to challenge his intelligence. Martin and Seldom discuss how easily the murder of the old lady might have been overlooked, particularly as she already suffered from terminal cancer, and Martin suggests that the murderer is committing 'imperceptible murders'.

Martin, Seldom and Lorna, a Spanish nurse with whom Martin has struck up a relationship, try to solve the mathematical clues as the murders continue. They have to contend with police suspicion, a rising body count and tensions between the three of them. There is a wide range of suspects, from the three principal characters to the mathematician and the old lady's daughter. The solution lies in the mathematical concepts, but there are many twists along the way as Martin learns the truths behind reality.

Mathematical and philosophical references

The characters debate several mathematical, physical and philosophical concepts such as logical series, Wittgenstein's rule-following paradox, Heisenberg's Principle of Uncertainty, Gödel's Theorem, circles, the Vesica Piscis, the possibility of perfect crime, Fermat's Last Theorem and its proof by Professor Wiles, the Taniyama conjecture, the tetraktys and the Pythagoreans. There are references, also, of the Butterfly effect.

Artistic license

"Logic series" actually is not an established topic in mathematical logic or mathematics. Contrary to what Seldom states in his lecture at the beginning of the film, the argument of Wittgenstein's Tractatus actually does not proceed by the use of equations (with the exception of a few simple equations in Wittgenstein's introduction of the truth tables) and it is not expressed in the formal language of mathematical logic; the argument is rather a philosophical argument expressed in normal, yet idiosyncratic, language. Professor Andrew Wiles, who solved Fermat's Last Theorem, is represented as "Professor Wilkes" of Cambridge University in the film, and Fermat's Last Theorem is represented as "Bormat's Last Theorem".

Production

Filming at the White Horse pub, Oxford, 22 March 2007.

The film is a Spanish-French-British production directed by Spanish Álex de la Iglesia. Before the confirmation of Elijah Wood in the film, the Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal had been considered for the role of the mathematics student. There were some weeks of speculation on who would play the lead. On 26 December 2006 Tornasol Films announced that Wood was cast in the lead role. The director Alex de la Iglesia commented that he convinced Wood to accept the role for the script. De la Iglesia also praised Wood: “I'm delighted to work with Elijah, who undoubtedly has the most powerful eyes in the industry and who is perfect for the part”.

The British actor John Hurt was cast in the role of a professor of the University, who helps the young student in his quest to try to stop a series of murders. The actor Michael Caine had been considered for this role.

De la Iglesia described daily in his blog the peculiar situations that happened during the production of the film. The film is his first foray outside his typical black comedy genre into more dramatic fare.[1][2][3][4]

Filming began on 22 January 2007 and finished on 24 March, with locations in Oxford and the Cast Courts of the Victoria and Albert Museum of London. It was picked up for UK release by Odeon Sky Filmworks, opening on 25 April 2008. So far, the release date for the US is unknown.

Cast

References

  1. ^ De la Iglesia inicia el rodaje de 'Los crímenes de Oxford'. hoy.es
  2. ^ noticias
  3. ^ Eurimages gives coin to 'Oxford' - Entertainment News, Web Exclusive, Media - Variety
  4. ^ Wood joins suspects in 'Murders'
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=The_Oxford_Murders_(film)&oldid=297547698"