Ge aE Wea noya ten Cr aun ee O= | : is i AS Bs NOSIS om a ROWE EMOTO NOGA BEAUTIFUL MIND By Akiva Goldsman Based on the biography by Sylvia Nassar REV. 8/11/2000FADE IN ON: EXT.-NORTH AMERICA-1947-DAY The way the world looks to God. The odd puzzle geometry of sea and land pieced together as if by unseen design. CLOSER... VAN NEUMANN (OVER) Mathematicians won the war... EXT.-NEW JERSEY-1947-DAY Alternating squares of lawn and lot, criss-crossing highways, a game board of cement and grass. CLOSER STILL... VAN NEUMANN (OVER) Mathematicians broke the Japanese codes and built the A-bomb... EXT.-PRINCETON UNIVERSITY-DAY Rows of heads. PUSH IN on a single FACE looking skyward, as if he can see us. Uncommonly handsome. Piercing blue eyes. JOHN NASH. VAN NEUMANN (OVER) Mathematicians like you... TRACK over the all male students to the head of the common. JOHN VAN NEUMANN, is delivering the matriculation speech. VAN NEUMANN But peace’s flame burns all too briefly. Atomic weapons are within Stalin's reach. You are the vanguard of democracy and freedom. Today, we bequeath America’s future into your able hands. Welcome to Princeton. The crowd erupts in APPLAUSE. EXT. -PRINCETON- PRESIDENT’ S RECEPTION Sunlight dapples the flickering autumn leaves. Students in formal dress mill. FIND two STUDENTS standing at a bar, sipping martinis. ZWEIFEL is tall and wiry, like a scarecrow made of skin. SHAPELY is older, maybe 26, and handsome. Both watch someone in the crowd. SHAPELY Milnor’s gonna get the brass ring if it kills him. .