Enigma (2001 film)

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Enigma

Directed by	Michael Apted
Produced by	Mick Jagger Lorne Michaels
Written by	Tom Stoppard (based on the novel by Robert Harris)
Starring	Dougray Scott Kate Winslet Saffron Burrows Jeremy Northam
Music by	John Barry
Cinematography	Seamus McGarvey
Editing by	Rick Shaine
Distributed by	Miramax Films
Release date(s)	January 22, 2001
Running time	119 min.
Language	English
IMDb profile

Enigma is a 2001 film set in World War II. It stars Dougray Scott and Kate Winslet and is based on the novel Enigma by Robert Harris.

1 Plot
2 Main cast
3 Criticism as revisionism
4 Miscellaneous facts
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Plot

The story takes place in March of 1943 with the Second World War at its height and is loosely based on actual events. The cryptanalysts at Bletchley Park, England, have a problem: the Nazi U-boats have increased the security of key-changing of their Enigma machine ciphers, leading to a blackout in the flow of naval vital signals intelligence. This could spell disaster in the critical Battle of the Atlantic, on whose outcome Britain's survival depends. The British cryptanalysts have cracked the "shark" cipher before, and they need to do it again in order to keep track of U-boat locations and steer shipping convoys out of their way.

The plot follows the fictional character of the brilliant but maverick working class mathematician Tom Jericho (played by Dougray Scott). He is returned to Bletchley Park from Cambridge to assist with the crisis after a period of recuperation bought on by overwork earlier in the war combined with an unhappy love affair with Claire Romilly (Saffron Burrows), which led to his having a nervous breakdown. Jericho immediately tries to see Claire again and finds she has mysteriously disappeared. He enlists the help of Claire's blue stocking housemate Hester Wallace (Kate Winslet) to follow the trail of clues and learn what has happened to her. Mr. Jericho and Miss Wallace, as they coldly call each other, repeatedly break the rules of the Bletchley Park establishment and the law as their hunt gets more intense. Jericho is closely watched by MI5 agent Wigram (Jeremy Northam), who plays cat and mouse with him throughout the film. Jericho is tolerated at the Park, despite his transgressions, because of the brilliant plan he invents for uncovering the new key. The plan may unfortunately mean sacrificing at least one Allied convoy to the U-boats.

The film follows events as signals intelligence see a convoy spotted and then hunted down by the U-boats, but this gives enough information for the new key to be analysed using electro mechanical Bombe devices.

Tom and Hester at the same time in their unofficial research uncover a British government plot to bury the intelligence information of the Katyn massacre for fear it might weaken American willingness to remain in the war on the same side as Stalin.

This in turn leads to their suspicion that a Polish cryptanalyst, Jozef 'Puck' Pukowski (Nikolaj Coster Waldau) at the park may have been so incensed by his own learning of the massacre that he is prepared to betray Bletchley's secrets to the Nazis in order to take revenge on Stalin.^[1]

[edit] Main cast

Dougray Scott - Tom Jericho
Kate Winslet - Hester Wallace
Saffron Burrows - Claire Romilly
Jeremy Northam - Mr. Wigram
Nikolaj Coster Waldau - Jozef 'Puck' Pukowski
Tom Hollander - Logie
Donald Sumpter - Leveret
Matthew Macfadyen - Cave
Corin Redgrave - Admiral Trowbridge
Nicholas Rowe - Villiers
Edward Hardwicke - Heaviside

[edit] Criticism as revisionism

The scaled-down model of a World War II U-boat used in the film. The model was donated to the Bletchley Park museum.

The film - and by association the book - have attracted criticism for their portrayal of the Polish role in Enigma decryption. Critics argue that in the film the fictitious traitor turns out to be Polish whilst only slight mention is made of the contributions of pre-war Polish Cipher Bureau cryptologists to Allied Enigma decryption efforts and that historically the only known traitor active at Bletchley Park was British spy John Cairncross who passed crucial secrets to the Soviet Union.^[2]

There is also criticism of the character of Jericho who appears to be a sanitised version of Alan Turing, a key figure at the real Bletchley Park in both the cracking of Enigma and the development of the digital computer. In the 1950s Turing was prosecuted for homosexual acts, lost his security clearance, and ultimately committed apparent suicide with an apple laced with cyanide.^[3]^[4] These critics feel the fictional depiction of Jericho is another example of Hollywood revisionist history and his depiction as heterosexual is an insult to the memory and the suffering of the real Turing. The real code breaking genius has a supporting character in the novel which makes it clear its plot is set during a time when Turing was in the US.^[5]

[edit] Miscellaneous facts

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During the film' premiere in Edinburgh, Dougray Scott stayed for only fifteen minutes of the film – he went to a nearby pub to watch a Scottish Premier League football match between Rangers and his favourite team, Hibernian. And co-producer Mick Jagger stayed away altogether.^[6]
When Tom Jericho is tapping on the desk with a pencil in the film, he is spelling out "Claire" in Morse code.
When Hester Wallace decodes the long list of Polish names the camera zooms in on the name "Zygalski". Henryk Zygalski was a Polish mathematician who helped to break Enigma designing the "perforated sheets" also known as "Zygalski sheets".
The mansion in the film is not the real Bletchley Park mansion – it was shot, instead, at Chicheley Hall.^[7]
Co-producer Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones rock group, makes a cameo appearance as a soldier in a bar. He also lent the film's design department a four-rotor Enigma encoding machine he owned – to ensure the historical accuracy of one of the props.
The festivities around the London premiere of the film are shown in the 2001 documentary Being Mick.