Introduced by Dave Bayer

In his introduction, Dave Bayer will investigate mathematics as metaphor, exploring the various ways films portray the mathematical impulse as an expression of human identity. Bayer is Professor of Mathematics at Barnard College. He was the mathematical consultant for the film A Beautiful Mind, in which he also served as Russell Crowe's hand double.

Peter Greenaway loves the arcane parlor game. With Drowning by Numbers, he fashions a dizzying film in which games are the modus operandi. Obsessive game-playing provokes the characters, poses intellectual puzzles, and provides an unpredictable order to things. In this black but well-lit comedy, three women bear the same name, Cissie Colpitts, and each, in turn, drowns her husband. These improbable homicides are covered up by the amicably perverse Madgett, the local coroner, whose bespectacled son, Smut, counts animal corpses in a celebration of numerical finality. Like a mock fairy tale, sex and death become a metaphorical game that few can beat, but all must play. Offsetting the dark humor is an exquisite landscape of misty woods, lush estuaries, and stark beaches, beautifully photographed by Sacha Vierny.