He added the bit about the casino in Vegas for the same reason. Morrow had minimal experience with gambling but liked the idea of incorporating Vegas and the casino in the film. So, he took Kim to Reno to see what the experience would be like.
He gave Kim a book about counting cards and was gone for about ten minutes by when Kim had already finished reading the book. He identified five individuals in the USA who had skills similar to Kim Peek and met them and their families. He even spent a great deal of time with Kim to learn his mannerisms and understand him better. Hoffman had worked at a psychiatric care home when he was an aspiring actor. So, he also drew upon his experiences from there.
Morrow clearly stated that the film is not a profile of a person with Autism and was also aware that it played a role in the misinformation about the disorder since people started to assume that all persons with Autism would also have savant skills.
Several scenes were created during the filming process and were not part of the script written by Morrow and Ronald Bass; one such example is the scene towards the end where Charlie and Raymond are meeting with the lawyers where Raymond has a meltdown.
He also memorised musical compositions note-for-note, could do calendar calculations like work out what day of the week it was on June 24, , and later in his life could play those musical compositions he memorised on the piano.
In , screenwriter Barry Morrow met Kim Peek by chance, and was so blown away that he decided to write the story which would eventually become Rain Man. In , Dustin Hoffman requested to meet Kim to help him prepare for his role. Following the movie, Kim received lots of requests to make public appearances — and together with his father, he set off around the world promoting messages of equality.
After Dustin Hoffman won the Oscar for his star performance as Raymond, he even gave the statue to Kim to take with him on his speaking tour. Using a combination of his near-perfect recall and his prodigious mathematical calculating abilities, Kim could calculate the best routes in his head in an instant, years before anybody thought to put a computer on the job. And not just for modern persons… Kim could tell you in a second that Isaac Newton was born on a Sunday—but also, interestingly, that his birthday was both Christmas Day and January 4, , since two competing calendars were in use at the time.
Even better, Peek could instantly provide any other notable events that might have happened on the same day from his recall of newspaper headlines and other historical reading. When a thespian deviated, even slightly, from the original work, Kim would stand up mid-performance to correct them. An impressive feat of memory, but not something that went over well with the Shakespeare in the Park crowd. Brain scientists were equally eager to study him in the search for clues as to his extraordinary powers.
In Nasa scientists scanned his brain to look at what happened when Peek expressed and thought of things. Neurologist Elliott Sherr was part of a team at the University of California that was working with Peek at the time of his death, trying to understand the impact of the damage to his cerebellum.
Peek was initially diagnosed as having autism, but in recent years that view has been overturned. Scientists remained intrigued by signs that over the years he seemed to acquire greater cognitive skills to interpret facts — something assumed to be lacking in savants. He had begun to play the piano, and had developed something of a sense of humour. Before Rain Man he had shunned company and was incapable of looking people in the eye, but the film seemed to boost his confidence and social skills.
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