He studied scientific papers and manuscripts, talked to various professionals, visited psychiatric facilities and spent time with savants and their families to experience those relationships firsthand.
There were three individuals Dustin Hoffman met and studied in-depth. One was Kim Peek described elsewhere on this website. Another was an autistic savant and his brother just as in the movie who prefer to remain anonymous.
He spent a great deal of time with them in their typical family activities. Ruth and William Sullivan. There had been two excellent documentaries filmed about Joseph, a film called The Invisible Wall and a film entitled Portrait of an Autistic Young Man. Dustin Hoffman carefully studied not only the films themselves, but also some 16 hours of outtakes from the production. Therein he was able to get a very in-depth look at a most impressive young man and his family.
Joseph is fascinated by, and extremely facile with, numbers. Like other mathematical savants, numbers are his friends. He can do mathematical equations in his head quickly and accurately. He is fascinated with license plate numbers and remembers myriads of them only glimpsed at years earlier. He has perfect pitch and, like all savants, a phenomenal memory.
The strength of that memory was demonstrated recently when Joseph was given a number grid to study for two minutes; he was able to then recall all 36 numbers correctly exactly as they appeared in that grid in 43 seconds. You might like to try this yourself to see how you do. Study the grid for as long as you like, then remove it and write the figures on another sheet of paper from memory:.
Joseph has many of the obsessive, ritualistic behaviors seen in autistic persons, and indeed, seen in Raymond Babbitt. He loves numbers and he loves sounds. Joseph was the fifth of seven children born to Drs.
Sullivan describes Joseph as a very bright infant; at age 18 months he was able to put together a picture puzzle of the United States. At age 4 he would draw maps of entire continents with all the countries and all their capitals correctly spelled including complicated words such as Czechoslovakia. At age 2 the diagnosis of autism was made. The picture that has emerged since has been consistent with the diagnosis of a high-functioning autistic person with the classic obsessive-compulsive rituals, normal language interspersed with idiosyncratic speech, unusual preoccupations and some very prominent disabilities juxtaposed with some also very prominent and unusual special abilities.
Joseph can startle one with his mathematical prowess, for example, but it took him two years to learn to ride a bus in his city of 63, He works presently at the county public library reshelving books and spends his free time listening to records, watching movies and painting detailed pictures of dead-end streets. He is preoccupied with dead-end streets.
After the diagnosis of autism was made, Mrs. Sullivan set about learning all she could about the disorder. But her efforts went well beyond her own quest for reliable information and enlightenment; she devoted her life and career to providing such information to other families in her state and throughout the country via her agency and now the national autism associations.
Dustin Hoffman actually met Joseph in Cincinnati while filming Rain Man, but he felt that he knew him well by that time having studied, and studied again, the films of this remarkable young man. But you people have Joe in your community for the rest of your life, and I would take that any day of the week.
He is a very special person who shines through. This magic he has somehow came through to me. In his remarkable portrayal of an autistic savant, Dustin Hoffman is careful to point out that while he studied these savants in-depth and got to know them well, he did not seek to imitate them.
He used his knowledge about them only to teach him how he might be if he were autistic. He did not seek to mimic Joseph Sullivan; he learned only what it would be like to be autistic and sought to portray that. Not all autistic persons are savants, in fact only one in 10 autistic persons have any savant abilities, let alone the prodigious skills of Raymond Babbitt.
Dustin Hoffman had two excellent models for autism in Joseph Sullivan and the other two brothers whom he so carefully studied. He does not undergo a spiritual transformation; he simply gets in touch with things that are more important than selling cars.
He is aided in this process by his girlfriend, Susanna Valeria Golino , a Latino who loves him but despairs of ever getting him off autopilot. By the end of "Rain Man," what have we learned? I think the film is about acceptance. Charlie Babbitt's first appearance in the movie has him wheeling and dealing in the face of imminent ruin, trying to control his life and the lives of others by blind, arrogant willpower.
What Raymond teaches him is that he can relax, because try as he might, he will always be powerless over other people. They will do just about what they choose to do, no matter how loud Charlie Babbitt screams.
Raymond has a lot he can teach Charlie about acceptance, even if it is the solitary thing he knows. Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from until his death in In , he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism. Jack Murdock as John Mooney. Lucinda Jenney as Iris. Dustin Hoffman as Raymond Babbitt. Valeria Golino as Susanna. Ralph Seymour as Lenny. Jerry Molen as Dr. Tom Cruise as Charlie Babbitt. Bonnie Hunt as Sally Dibbs.
See more at IMDbPro. Trailer Rain Man: Blu-Ray. Full Episode Video Streaming Wars! Who Will Win Your Attention? Photos Top cast Edit. Valeria Golino Susanna as Susanna. Gerald R. Molen Dr. Bruner as Dr. Michael D. Roberts Vern as Vern. Ralph Seymour Lenny as Lenny. Lucinda Jenney Iris as Iris. Loretta Wendt Jolivette Dr.
Bruner's Secretary as Dr. Bruner's Secretary. Barry Levinson. Barry Morrow story screenplay Ronald Bass screenplay. More like this. He finds that the father who threw him out as a teen ager has died. He's left him a now antique convertible and something more important, a previously unknown brother, Raymond.
Raymond is autistic, but is able to calculate complicated mathematical problems in his head with great speed and accuracy. Their father has left his fortune to Raymond who doesn't even understand what money is for. Charlie is enraged by what has happened and by his father keeping Raymond's existence from him for his entire life.
He kidnaps Raymond from his residential home but then finds that Raymond will only fly Qantas.
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