Stephen and Jane Hawking with guests at the film festival at the Royal Opera House on February 8, 2015 (London)
The former wife of the famous physicist Jane Hawking claims that the film “The Universe of Stephen Hawking” (the story of the couple’s life and family) is mistaken in many ways. She asked not to believe what you see in the film, presenting this week the book “Cry to Dream Again” at the literary festival in Oxfordshire (England).
The film “Stephen Hawking Universe” was released in 2014 and was based on the memoirs of Jane Hawking “Journey to infinity: my life with Stephen” (Traveling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen), published in 2008. The lead roles went to Eddie Redmain and Felicity Jones.
Hawking reported that she begged the producers to carefully stick to the facts in their memoirs, but they ignored them, which led to serious errors. For example, she said that the film does not show the real realities of her care for a husband with an incurable neurological disease of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The couple married in 1965, approximately 2 years after the diagnosis of ALS. As the disease progressed, Jane had to take care of not only her husband, but also three young children, managing to attend physics conferences around the world. Stephen Hawking died on March 14, 2018 at the age of 76.
“I’m sorry that none of these large-scale travels with the organization, packing of suitcases for the whole family with a seriously ill member and its transportation did not go into the film,” said Jane. “I asked to insert at least accelerated inserts, but I was refused due to lack of time. Now the viewers will always have the wrong opinion about our relationship. ”
Other inaccuracies include the place where the couple first met. This happened at St. Albans Hertfordshire (England), and not at Cambridge University. Also, they did not take into account the support and care of Jane's parents when she fought for her husband's life. She is upset and displaying their parting. It was not a beautiful and tearful mutual care. In reality, the relationship collapsed slowly, painfully and ended in a scandal during the vacation period.
