Educational Media Reviews Online

This documentary provides a concise summary of the life of one of the world’s greatest scientists. Marie Curie, The Woman Behind the Mind begins with her birth in Warsaw to an impoverished family that highly valued education. It describes her childhood, the young adult years she spent as a governess in Poland, and her education at the Sorbonne in Paris where she completed degrees in physics and mathematics, graduating at the top of her class. The focus then shifts to her marriage to physicist Pierre Curie and the research that won them the Nobel Prize for Physics (with Henri Becquerel). The video also covers the scandalous love affair that Marie began with a married colleague following Pierre’s premature death. The ensuing outrage nearly cost her the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. The film concludes with Marie’s work with x-rays during World War I and her death from leukemia.

Throughout, the biography conveys her struggles with poverty, Russian oppression of Poles, misogyny, the loss of loved ones, and poor health brought on by exposure to high levels of radiation. Interviews with scholars provide context and illustrate the importance of Marie’s contributions to science and society.

The film quality is mediocre. It combines videotaped interviews, old photographs, and contemporary footage of historic sites in Marie’s life. Inexplicably, the director incorporates hokey reenactments of ordinary events. For example, one scene shows the arms of a woman - presumably Marie - setting a dinner table. While the documentary proceeds chronologically, dates are rarely mentioned. The unseen narrator rarely provides explanatory support, such as why Marie began as a medical student at the Sorbonne but graduated with a degree in physics, or why she went on to obtain a second degree in mathematics. Nevertheless, this biography provides an intriguing profile of a woman who made significant contributions to the world under less than ideal circumstances.