I just watched a clip of the young actress Natalie Portman addressing a college graduating class. In the clip she related an anecdote about a famous concert violinist she met who said that he couldn’t be a composer because he knew too many great musical works and every time he wrote a note he was overwhelmed by thoughts of another great work with that note and couldn’t continue. From that she inferred that ignorance and inexperience is the key to creativity and, consequently, the young people graduating, unencumbered with knowledge or experience, were in a position to create great things.
There are two problems with her remarks. The first is that she is undermining the college education that she would presumably be saluting with her remarks. The other more serious problem is that her view of creativity is an illusion of youth. In most walks of life the key to creativity is the skill and knowledge that are the products of years or decades of experience.
There are exceptions, of course. Music and mathematics happen to be two of them in which prodigies are the rule rather the exception. The gloomy news for the young people Ms. Portman was addressing is that if, at the age of 20, they haven’t already composed great music they probably never will.
And if they wish to be great writers, painters, architects, engineers, doctors, lawyers, or even salesmen they have years of learning and toiling ahead of them before they will be able to do something great.
I wouldn’t say prodigies are the rule in mathematics. It is true that most people who do important/good work will exhibit talent at a young age, but that’s not the same as being a prodigy.
Even in chess, which has become especially “prodigy prone” in the last 20 years, it’s not that simple. Sure, the Grandmasters have gotten younger, but thanks to computers (databases, playing programs, and sites for playing the game online) the players are able to put in tremendous amounts of work at earlier ages, and thus mature faster.
Ice- I think that when you read through the biographies of the great mathematicians (Euler, Newton, Fermat, Gauss, etc.) an awful lot of them really were child prodigies. However, unlike the musicians, few published any great works, AFAICT, until later in their 20s, 30s and 40s.
Dave- Amongst the great actresses, how many had a major film success by the age of 21? Any?
Steve
It’s a tough question to answer. What do you mean by “great actresses”? Baby Peggy and Shirley Temple were box office champs and were pretty much washed up by the time they turned 10. Shirley Temple was the top box office performer of any age or sex in the world for two years running before she turned 10. I could also name any number of what might be termed “screen goddesses” who’d had several top box office films under their belts before they turned 21 but whose best films were behind them by the time they turned 35. Lana Turner, Linda Darnell, Kim Novak, and so on. I don’t think they were great actresses though. Some of Elizabeth Taylor’s best movies were before she was 20.
In terms of just the screen, I think a truly great actress just gets better with more experience. By many reckonings Lillian Gish was the greatest actress the movies have ever known. She had top notch performances (and box office success) in movies in every decade from the nineteen teens through the 1970s. It’s true of actors, too. Michael Caine (just to pull a name out of a hat) was a pretty fair actor in his twenties but he’s much better now. John Wayne was an enormously better actor at 60 than he was at 21.
BTW, Natalie Portman is the living disproof of her own point. She’d been in some box office successes before she turned 21 but not because of anything she did. She was over 21 before she turned in a really solid memorable performance after having been in the movies for a decade. If she’d stopped acting at 21, she’d be a footnote at best. Is she a great screen actress? Call me back in 20 years.
Steve, I’ve know a couple of people that showed enormous mathematical talent at very young ages who went on to do …. Nothing of any consequence. (Yet, as I suppose there’s always a chance.)
Talent at a young age is necessary to be of the highest rank, but it’s hardly sufficient.
Unsubstantiated drivel, Dave. Total bullshit. Get a life.