Figuring Out the John Nash Story

When true stories get the Hollywood treatment, facts get fudged.

A variety of groups have weighed in on the movie version of John Nash’s life in “A Beautiful Mind,” from Latinos disappointed that the film doesn’t indicate that his wife is Salvadoran-born, to mental health professionals who dispute the movie’s depiction of schizophrenia.

Sunday’s PBS “American Experience” documentary on the Nobel Prize-winning mathematician, “A Brilliant Madness” (9 p.m. KCET, KVCR), fills in some facts that the movie left out, providing new insights into this man who made theoretical breakthroughs, then faced the more complex equation of how to find his way back from schizophrenia.

The hourlong program’s greatest asset is Nash himself, who in present-day interviews helps to tell his story. Looking professorial, he is at once candid and good-natured as he says things like, “To some extent, sanity is a form of conformity.”

The documentary points out that unorthodox thinking is prized in the mathematical community, so that Nash found himself in a relatively safe, tolerant environment during his illness. More so than the movie, the documentary indicates that Nash was actively watched over by colleagues, as well as by his wife, Alicia--who had divorced him but took care of him nevertheless. This it-takes-a-village perspective is even more heartening and inspirational than the one in the feel-good, Oscar-winning picture.

Combining personal photographs and interviews (with Alicia Nash and biographer Sylvia Nasar, among others) with artful imaginings of Nash’s mental states, producer Randall MacLowry and director Mark Samels have organized another fascinating tour through this beautiful mind.