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I’ve just learned that Kim Peek, the savant that inspired the 1988 movie Rain Man, died on Saturday of a heart attack:
Peek was born on Nov. 11, 1951. At 9 months, doctors said he was severely mentally retarded.
"They told us we should institutionalize him because he would never walk or talk," Fran Peek said. "But we refused to do that."
By 16 months, Peek demonstrated extraordinary abilities. He could read and memorize entire volumes of information.
"He could find anything he wanted to. He read all of Shakespeare, the Old and New Testaments," Fran Peek said.
An MRI later showed that his brain lacked a corpus callosum — the connecting tissue between the left and right hemispheres. Peek said his son’s brain lacked the normal filtering system for receiving information. The condition left him able to retain nearly 98 percent of everything he read, heard or watched on television. The average person only retains about 45 percent.
As both a child and adult, Peek’s favorite place was the library, where he devoured books at a confounding rate. At the time of his death, Peek is believed to have committed at least 9,000 books to memory. He could recite so many gigabytes of facts that people often called him Kim-puter. NASA made him the subject of MRI-based research.
We’ve featured Kim Peek, the Real Rain Man on Neatorama before, in our post 10 Most Fascinating Savants in the World.
Part I [YouTube Clip]
Born 3-and-a-half months prematurely, Derek Paravicini was so small that his doctor presumed that he was dead. Just as his mother had given up hope, she heard the faintest whimper. To keep him alive, he was put on oxygen but improper equipment left him blind and autistic. At the tender age of 2 years old, Derek discovered the piano, and his life was never the same.
Fast forward 30 years. Derek couldn’t tell his left from right and could barely count to ten but his brain is a perfectly programmed musical computer.
Press play or go to Link [YouTube, Part I] to see the amazing things Derek Paravicini, the musical genius, could do.
The rest of the clips: Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
Link: The Human iPod, article at Daily Mail by Harry Mount – via LiveScience
Previously on Neatorama: 10 Most Fascinating Savants in the World
What is it about Hollywood and mentally challenged people? (I wanted to write "crazy people", but realized that’s not PC).
Cineleet has an interesting post about movies that depict mentally challenged characters, from those who suffer from mental retardation, savant syndrome, to plain ol’ derangement, and analyzed what made these movies so great:
The 2008 comedy Tropic Thunder highlights an inconvenient Hollywood truth: Oscar loves mental disabilities. In the film, Ben Stiller’s action hero character, Tugg Speedman, wishing to expand beyond his stereotype, attempts to court Oscar sympathies by playing a mentally challenged farmhand. It ends up being a critical failure. This is because, as Tugg’s co-star Robert Downey, Jr warns him, “You never go full retard”. And he has a point.
The most critically acclaimed performances by characters with disabilities still retained something the audience could emotionally relate to.
For instance, take Dustin Hoffman’s award-winning portrayal of the "idiot savant" Raymond Babbitt in Rain Man (1988):
Character: Raymond Babbitt as played by Dustin Hoffman
Mental Disability: Autism / Savant Syndrome
Barry Levinson’s film features Hoffman as an “idiot savant” who possesses a phenomenal capacity to count toothpicks and cheese balls (and later, cards in Vegas). Hoffman’s performance arguably is one of the most ‘affected’ of all the characters on this list, and as such, the hardest to emotionally connect with, particularly for his brother (Tom Cruise), who’s self-centered and primarily interested in the estate their father left Raymond. But in the midst of his worst autistic episodes, Raymond’s primal instinct to care for his younger brother is the touchstone that makes this performance resonate.What the Critics Thought: The Los Angeles Times called Hoffman’s performance made the film “hypnotically interesting”, and Newsweek’s David Ansen said the film was “made with care, smarts, and a refreshing refusal to settle for the unexpected”.
How it Paid Off: It took home four Oscars that year, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor for Hoffman.
