When Eddie Redmayne ended up with an Oscar, a Golden Globe and a Bafta Award for best acting in biopic The Theory of Everything, there were no surprises. His performance as Stephen Hawking, an ailing scientist of great repute, was stellar and James Marsh had directed him well. Watching the film, some great performances come to mind -- from Paul Muni and Daniel Day-Lewis to Pankaj Kapur.

The genre of biopics (biographical pictures) is probably as old as cinema itself but still there is some disagreement about its category; some film critics call it a sub-genre of the larger drama and epic film genres. Usually these films depict and dramatise the life of an important historical personage from the past or present era.

Arguably, the founder of the biopic was French filmmaker Georges Melies whose feature-length epic Jeanne D’Arc (1899) is considered the first venture into this genre or sub-genre. Melies was beautifully immortalised by Martin Scorsese in Hugo (2011) that won as many as five Oscar awards.

Probably the heyday of popularity for biopics was in the 1930s when William Dieterle, the great German director, was making high-quality biopics with Paul Muni in The Story of Louise Pasteur (1936) and The Life of Emile Zola (1937).

Biopics on the lives of kings and queens is perhaps much easier with ensuing drama of war and intrigues, even more so in India where even as important a person as Asoka ends up in a stupid love story. Portraying scientists on screen appears to be much more challenging as applied and physical sciences are not a popular staple. When …Louise Pasteur was released, it became clear that cinema could become a useful tool to not only tell a story on screen but also to communicate ideas that could be liberating and educative for the masses.

Unlike some later-day biopics, it was historically and scientifically correct and almost everything shown in the movie had actually happened with the scientist.

Even today the film is relevant to countries such as Pakistan. It should be used as a teaching aid in schools and colleges so that students studying viruses and bacteria could ask intelligent questions.

Also read: Review of The Theory of Everything by Khusro Mumtaz

Muni’s performance as Pasteur was so convincing and extraordinary that he won an Oscar for best lead actor. The film’s climax is its emotional ending when Pasteur’s colleagues pay him tribute and in his closing speech Pasteur explains with passion that making a contribution to the wellbeing of humankind is the most important work of all. Pasteur had faced years of ridicule and isolation when he discovered the role of bacteria in spreading diseases. Ultimately, his findings were accepted and played their part in transforming our world. Such films serve as an antidote against the cynicism prevalent all around us.

Now fast forward to the India of 1990. Noted Bengali director Tapan Sinha -- one of the four outstanding Bengali directors (others being Satyajit Ray, Ritwic Ghatak, and Mrinal Sen) -- directs a film Ek Doctor Ki Maut (Death of a Doctor) that is loosely based on the life of Dr Subhash Mukhopadhyay, an Indian physician who pioneered the IVF (in-vitro fertilization) treatment around the same time when another leading scientist Dr Robert Edwards was conducting separate experiments in England. Dr Mukhopadhyay created the world’s second and India’s first child using IVF.

During his research, he was harassed by the state government and not allowed to share his achievements with the international scientific community. He became so depressed that he committed suicide in 1981, though he had succeeded in delivering baby Durga who was born 67 days after the first IVF baby was born in the United Kingdom.

Tapan Sinha had earlier directed masterpieces such as Kabuliwala (1957) based on Tagore’s short story; and Sagina Mahato (1970) starring Dilip Kumar and Saira Bano, based on the true story of labour movement of 1942-43, told through fictional characters. When he decided to film Ek Doctor Ki Maut, he made some changes in the original story to avoid any legal complications.

In his film, Dr Dipankar Roy (Pankaj Kapur) discovers a vaccine for leprosy, after painstaking research for years at the cost of his personal life. He works in a government hospital but his research is at his home laboratory. Still, professional jealousy and abuse of power by his higher ups frustrate him. With no one to support him but his wife (Shabana Azmi), he tries to fight his way out of the system but is reprimanded by authorities. He suffers a heart attack; harassment continues and he is transferred to a remote village.

In comparison with these two movies, The Theory of Everything falls short in many respects. It does bring some depth and beauty to the life and love story of Stephen and Jane Hawking but is mostly based on the book by Jane that recounts their life together from 1965 to 1995. In the movie, Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones give fantastic and intimate portrayals of Stephen and Jane but the film fails to generate an overall cerebral arousal expected of a biopic about a scientist.

The movie is more of a love story where personal lives are focused rather than presenting a broader picture of Hawking’s life.

Probably the fault lies with the director’s selection of the screenplay; had he not based his film on Jane’s book he could easily get a first rate screenplay concentrating more on Hawking’s scientific achievements and his gradual alienation with his wife as she turned more and more religious under the influence of her mother and a young and good-looking priest. Hawking had challenged the dominant discourse and never felt shy of speaking his mind again religious thought. But the director has tried to play safe by not indulging too much into religion-science battle of ideas.

In contrast stands another biopic, Agora (2009), set in Roman Egypt about the famous philosophy and mathematics professor, Hypatia of Alexandria. Agora too leaves the audience with a lot of food for thought.

There were at least three significant episodes in Hawking’s life that could have been used for broader presentation: one, the nature of his illness that could be discussed in more detail; two, his theories and their contribution to scientific thought that is only partially covered in the film; and three, his refusal to submit to any supernatural forces even in the face of debilitating illness that could steer any ordinary mortal into a divine direction.

Still, the film is worth a watch at least once.