HUM3060, SCI3050, SOC3060 - Science and Civilization

Does Cinema reflect the public view of Science?

There have been hundreds and hundreds of sci-fi films. Many of them are terrific entertainment (like King Kong, Back to the Future, Jurassic Park, etc) but this list is focused on films in which science and civilization confront the future and where the issue of science's place in our lives is directly addressed:

Metropolis Germany 1926 Directed by. Fritz Lang, One of the great classics of the silent film era. In a future society dominated by machines, a young man of the ruling class joins with oppressed workers as the evil science guys develop the ultimate machine - a robot to replace the workers. An amazing vision - have we eliminated the possibility that this could be our future?

Things to Come Britain 1936 Directed by W.C. Menzies. Another amazing film, not technically startling, but far ahead of its time in confronting a vision of a future: world-wide war destroys civilization, which is rescued from the brink of barbarism by a union of scientists and engineers who substitute reason for politics.... Fears, hopes or wishes about the future of the world - created less than 20 years after the end of WW I and just three years before the start of WW II.

The 1950s had a series of films which reflected the public's ambivalent feelings about science. First, there were the paranoid UFO films about invading aliens: The Thing from Another World 1951, The Day the Earth Stood Still 1951, The War of the Worlds 1953, Earth vs the Flying Saucers 1956 and many others up to Day of the Triffids 1963. And then the series of films about human interference with nature creating grotesque creatures and giant animals, usually somehow involved with atomic bomb explosions - e.g. The Incredible Shrinking Man 1957, Them 1954 (giant ants) ,and then giant gila monsters, snails, bees, dinosaurs, lizards, moths, etc.

In general the 1960s and 1970s were not a great time for cinema, but two science-oriented films that are not terrible are Soylent Green 1973 In the year 2022 New York City is an overpopulated disaster. What will we do to survive? Can technology save us, or feed us? And, 1964's Dr Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. which is somewhat about what has science gotten us into? with a huge dash of black humor.

Blade Runner 1982 Directed by Ridley Scott. Harrison Ford and Darryl Hannah. In a confusing, polluted and dark post-apocalyptic world a giant corporation manufactures robots indistinguishable from humans. To what end?

Brazil 1985 Directed by Terry Gilliam. Another post-apocalyptic techno-world, stratified into castes that serve the state. Can an individual survive without being crushed?

Gattaca 1997 Directed by Andrew Niccol with Jude Law, Uma Thurman. A society in which lives are dominated by genetics and DNA analysis. Can science tell us how to live? Not post-apocalyptic, but is this the way the world will work?