Insignificance, a 1985 fantasy film imagining a meeting between four characters very similar to Albert Einstein, Joe McCarthy, Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe meeting in a hotel room one night in New York, screens at the BFI Southbank, London, on March 14 and 25, as part of Sex and Death, a tribute season for British director Nicolas Roeg.
“Roeg’s interest in sex is perhaps as much a physical manifestation of his passion for examining bigger questions about life and the fragile nature of existence. One of the greatest scenes in his oeuvre (contained in one of his most underrated films) occurs in the opening half of 1985’s ‘Insignificance’, a cosmic meditation on our place within the universe which has versions of Marilyn Monroe, Senator Joe McCarthy, Joe DiMaggio and Albert Einstein meeting in a hotel room and discussing identity, procreation and astrophysics. The scene sees Marilyn (played by Roeg’s then-wife Theresa Russell) explaining the theory of relativity to Albert Einstein with the aid of some toy trains and a balloon. The way this audacious episode is choreographed is at once majestic, thought provoking and richly cinematic. It’s an example of the director celebrating the stylistic possibilities of cinema, and offering an eccentric and intimate view of two humans considering their place within the galaxy. And really, you can’t get more Roegian than that.”
David Jenkins, Time Out
Insignificance is a quirky little film and it certainly won’t be to everyone’s taste, but I loved it. It is now available on DVD, and you can also preview the celebrated scene where ‘MM’ demonstrates Einstein’s theory of relativity on Youtube.