Stephen Wiltshire from London is a star among savants. His nickname is "the living camera."
Stephen is autistic. He lives in a world of his own. Communication is difficult for him. He didn't speak his first words, "pencil" and "paper", until he was five. Yet when he was eleven he drew a perfect aerial view of London after only one helicopter ride. Even the number of windows in all the major buildings in his drawing was correct.
For this film we're testing the "living camera" in Rome. Stephen has never seen the eternal city from above before. After only a 45 minute helicopter flight we'll ask him to draw a five and a half yard panoramic picture of the historic city center, without having a second glance at it. Stephen has three days.
In these three days, Stephen will have to keep thousands of details in his head. The innumerable copulas, the tiny winding streets, all the balconies and windows of the endless array of houses, and each and every column and window arch of Rome's major sites, from the Pantheon, to St. Peter's, to the Coliseum.
Five and a half yards of paper can look scarily empty. The amazing thing, Stephen starts the drawing as we would, with the church of St. Peter's. But he doesn't do any sketches, nor roughing out of the space for the drawing. It is as if the panorama already existed within his head. With all the proportions, all the roads, all the details – a little miracle.
At the end of the second day, Stephen is a good half way through his creation.
After three days of his drawing marathon even Stephen Wiltshire starts to tire. He has filled in more that five yards of paper in fine pencil. He has been restlessly aligning window to window. and house to house, because Stephen loves to be applauded for his art.
In the left corner he has finally reached the ruins of the Forum Romanum. Stephen's sister Annette is rejoicing with him. He's made it. Obviously, he's pleased with his work.
Yet our vexing question still remains. How precise is Stephen's ability to memorize? Is it really true that you can only see a single curve of the Tiber from above?
We started to compare the accuracy of the drawing with the real thing. Is Stephen's version of St. Peter's copula too dominant? Yet here again, like with the curve of the Tiber, Stephen is frightenly right.
We wondered if the famous Roman hills should probably stand out more in Stephen's panorama. But again Stephen had seen it better. From a thousand feet up the hills are optically almost level. Checking the Pantheon, we did discovered some minor inaccuracies on the roof. But the number of columns at the portal is again absolutely correct.
And despite our doubts Stephen has drawn one of the most complex building the Coliseum so precise it is practically a blueprint of reality. Stephen was also accurate in the insistences we checked of nameless buildings and side streets. Had we had more time his sister Annette believes he would have put in even more detail.
Stephen has never trained for this feat of magic. The miracle simply happened when he started to draw. Yet none of would have bet that Stephen would be able to draw Rome just from memory.
"Some of the areas, all of the parts, lots of detail, many things, and some of the city, the neighborhoods and the villages. And then the easy part is St. Peters and the Forum and the Coliseum. And then memorize it by adding it by memory."
