Film adaptation of book excites author

Journalist-turned-writer Simon Winchester’s book ‘The Surgeon of Crowthorne’ is being adapted into a motion picture. The shooting is underway and it stars Sean Penn and Mel Gibson in the lead roles

The Surgeon of Crowthorne’—the intriguing story behind the creation of Oxford English Dictionary (OED)—was written in 1998 by Simon Winchester, British author and journalist. Here’s a story of a professor, who in 1857 was in charge of compiling the OED and the contributor of maximum number of entries (around 10,000). He was William Chester Minor, a doctor by profession.

After repeatedly refusing to meet, the doctor finally concedes Professor Murray’s request to visit, and the latter realises that here was a murderer and a lunatic taking asylum at Broadmoor. The book traces the eccentricities of the madman by night and a genius wordsmith by the day, and the story behind several entries in the OED.

After so many years, the book came back into news towards the end of last year with the beginning of the making of the film ‘The Professor and the Madman’ based on the book starring Mel Gibson and Sean Penn. Mel Gibson has been working on adaptation for some years now.

Simon Winchester, who was at the Jaipur Literature Festival, 2017 expressed excitement over the development. Initially Mel wanted to play the madman, and wanted to direct it too. But later Sean Penn came in to play that role while Mel will be seen as Professor Murray. “I watched the film being shot at Dublin, and quite liked the way it is being done,” he added.

Talking about William Chester Minor, he said, “Minor was paranoid schizophrenic and in today’s world he would have been put on some drugs that would have dampened his genius. In fact, his writing was his therapy.”

The film began shooting in September 2016, and is being directed by Farhad Safinia.