General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Insignificance

Insignificance is a 1985 British comedy-drama film directed by Nicolas Roeg, adapted by playwright Terry Johnson from his own stage play, in which four unnamed characters resembling Albert Einstein, Marilyn Monroe, Joe DiMaggio, and Joseph McCarthy converge in a New York City hotel room over a single night in the 1950s¹. Playing the Professor is Michael Emil, the Actress is portrayed by Theresa Russell, Gary Busey takes the role of the Ballplayer, and the Senator is played by Tony Curtis.¹

Key fact	Detail
Director / writer	Nicolas Roeg; screenplay by Terry Johnson, adapted from his play¹
Cast	Michael Emil (the Professor), Theresa Russell (the Actress), Gary Busey (the Ballplayer), Tony Curtis (the Senator), Will Sampson (the Indian elevatorman)²
Source play	First performed at the Royal Court Theatre, London, on 8 July 1982²
Production	Principal photography began 18 June 1984 in London, with location work in New York City; budget $4 million²
Festival	In Competition at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival; winner of the C.S.T. Prize³
US release	2 August 1985 (Los Angeles), rated R, distributed by Island Alive Releasing²
Runtime	Criterion lists 108 minutes; the AFI Catalog lists 110 minutes¹^•²

Spoilers

Premise and characters

The film never names its four principals, identifying them only as the Professor, the Actress, the Ballplayer, and the Senator, but their models are unmistakable: a white-haired Princeton physicist, a white-blonde movie star, a baseball legend, and a red-baiting senator¹^•⁴. A title card before the opening credits states, "This story and its contents are entirely fictitious"².

According to the AFI Catalog synopsis, the story is set in March 1954 at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City. The Senator visits the Professor on the eve of an "Anti-American" activities committee hearing and pressures him to cooperate, but the Professor refuses to testify. At three in the morning the Actress visits the Professor's room and goes to great lengths to prove she understands his Theory of Relativity. Her husband, the Ballplayer, arrives; embarrassed by him, she first refuses to leave with him, then locks herself in the bathroom. The Senator returns in the morning with a search warrant, finds the Actress alone in the Professor's bed, threatens to destroy the Professor's work, and punches her in the stomach when she offers to sleep with him. The Professor, refusing to cooperate, throws his life's work out the hotel window; the Actress suffers a miscarriage, and the Professor admits guilt over the atomic bomb his theories helped create. The film ends with the Professor imagining another bomb destroying the hotel room and burning her alive².

The film's most often cited scene is the Actress's demonstration of relativity for the Professor, staged with props including clockwork trains and balloons⁵. The Los Angeles Times review notes that the meeting is not entirely surreal, since Einstein and Monroe did once meet and were reportedly charmed by each other⁴.

Themes

Roeg uses the four icons as a fun-house-mirror image of fifties America, reflecting on the nature of celebrity and lingering cold-war nuclear nightmares¹. The characters stand for the pillars of American culture: science and technology, entertainment, politics, and sports⁶. The film is set against the threat of atomic destruction, the House Un-American Activities Committee at "full boil," and Monroe's famous subway-grate scene, which opens the film with the Actress's skirt blowing up "like a mushroom cloud"⁶^•⁷. Screen Slate places the story in the week of the initial hydrogen bomb tests at Bikini Atoll, and notes the film's flashes of twisted Timexes, pocketwatches, and broken clocks as part of a meditation on cinematic time⁸.

Production

The project was the third collaboration between Roeg and producer Jeremy Thomas². According to trade-press reports gathered by the AFI Catalog, Roeg planned to begin filming in New York in 1983; principal photography instead began 18 June 1984 in London at Lee International Studios, moved to New York City for ten days, and returned to London for a final week. Filming was completed on the $4 million picture by mid-August 1984². The production companies were Zenith and Recorded Picture Company².

The crew included cinematographer Peter Hannan, editor Tony Lawson, and composers Stanley Myers and Hans Zimmer². The songs include "Wild Hearts," written by Will Jennings and Roy Orbison and sung by Orbison, and "Life Goes On," sung by Theresa Russell².

Release and reception

The film screened In Competition at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival and received the C.S.T. Prize³; Cinegraph records this as the Technical Grand Prize⁹. It opened in Los Angeles on 2 August 1985 and in New York on 11 August 1985².

Contemporary reviews were divided. The Spectator's Peter Ackroyd called it "by any standards an interesting film" and praised Michael Emil's handling of a difficult part, while finding the source material somewhat constricting for Roeg's concerns¹⁰. The Washington Post's Rita Kempley was dismissive, calling the adaptation self-indulgent⁷. Later assessments have been warmer: Adam Nayman of The Ringer called it "a minor masterpiece of American counter-mythology, with the most comically apocalyptic finale since Dr. Strangelove," and Roger Ebert gave it three of four stars, calling it "more of an acting and writing tour de force than a statement on sports, politics, sex symbols or relativity"¹¹. Rotten Tomatoes reports a 73% Tomatometer from 15 reviews and a 65% audience score¹¹.

Home video

The Criterion Collection issued a director-approved special edition (Spine #566) with a newly restored digital transfer supervised by Roeg and Thomas, new interviews with Roeg, Thomas, and editor Tony Lawson, the set documentary Making "Insignificance," the original trailer, an essay by critic Chuck Stephens, and a reprinted exchange between Roeg and Terry Johnson¹. The film streams on the Criterion Channel and can be rented or bought on Prime Video¹².

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of the 1980s › Comedy-dramas of the 1980s

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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