Lab Coats in Hollywood: Science, Scientists, and Cinema - Hardcover

Kirby, David A.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0262014785 ISBN 13: 9780262014786

Verlag: MIT Press, 2011

Inhaltsangabe

How science consultants make movie science plausible, in films ranging from 2001: A Space Odyssey to Finding Nemo.

Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, released in 1968, is perhaps the most scientifically accurate film ever produced. The film presented such a plausible, realistic vision of space flight that many moon hoax proponents believe that Kubrick staged the 1969 moon landing using the same studios and techniques. Kubrick's scientific verisimilitude in 2001 came courtesy of his science consultants—including two former NASA scientists—and the more than sixty-five companies, research organizations, and government agencies that offered technical advice. Although most filmmakers don't consult experts as extensively as Kubrick did, films ranging from A Beautiful Mind and Contact to Finding Nemo and The Hulk have achieved some degree of scientific credibility because of science consultants. In Lab Coats in Hollywood, David Kirby examines the interaction of science and cinema: how science consultants make movie science plausible, how filmmakers negotiate scientific accuracy within production constraints, and how movies affect popular perceptions of science.

Drawing on interviews and archival material, Kirby examines such science consulting tasks as fact checking and shaping visual iconography. Kirby finds that cinema can influence science as well: Depictions of science in popular films can promote research agendas, stimulate technological development, and even stir citizens into political action.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

David A. Kirby is Lecturer in Science Communication Studiesat the Centre for History of Science, Technology, and Medicine at theUniversity of Manchester, England.

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Lab Coats in Hollywood

Science, Scientists, and CinemaBy David A. Kirby

The MIT Press

Copyright © 2010 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-262-01478-6

Contents

Acknowledgments......................................................................................................................................ixPreface..............................................................................................................................................xi1 Scientific Expertise in Hollywood: The Interactions between Scientific and Entertainment Cultures..................................................12 Cinematic Science: Scientific Representation, Film Realism, and Virtual Witnessing Technologies....................................................213 Valuing Expertise: The Entertainment Industry's and Scientific Community's Motivations in the Science Consulting Relationship......................414 Scientists on Screen: Being a Scientist, Looking Like a Lab........................................................................................655 Cinematic Fact Checking: Negotiating Scientific Facts within Filmmaking Culture....................................................................956 Best Guesses: Scientific Uncertainty, Flexibility, and Scientists in the Aisles....................................................................1197 Fantastically Logical: Fantastic Science, Speculative Scenarios, and the Expertise of Logic........................................................1458 Preventing Future Disasters: Science Consultants and the Enhancement of Cinematic Disasters........................................................1699 The Future Is Now: Diegetic Prototypes and the Role of Cinematic Narratives in Generating Real-World Technological Development.....................19310 Improving Science, Improving Entertainment: The Significance of Scientists in Hollywood...........................................................219Notes................................................................................................................................................235Index................................................................................................................................................259

Chapter One

Scientific Expertise in Hollywood: The Interactions between Scientific and Entertainment Cultures

Space may be the final frontier but it's made in a Hollywood basement. —Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Californication," 1999

In 2009 the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) hired Hollywood filmmakers to digitally enhance footage of the Apollo 11 Moon landings for the Apollo program's fortieth anniversary. NASA had taped over the original video footage and alternative footage was grainy. To clean up the images NASA employed Lowry Digital, which had previously remastered copies of Citizen Kane (1941) and Casablanca (1942). Of course, the filmmakers' collaboration played into the claims of those who consider the Moon landing itself to be a hoax. This vocal minority believes that the pinnacle of humanity's scientific achievement was made in a Hollywood basement.

More accurately, many hoax proponents think that director Stanley Kubrick created the footage of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the Moon in Shepperton Studios of Surrey, England. Kubrick's vision of space travel in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) was so impressive and the visuals were so realistic that hoax supporters have claimed that the film was the means by which NASA tested the cinematic techniques for creating the hoax films. Alternatively, they argue that NASA only lent its assistance in making 2001 to coerce Kubrick into staging the Moon landings on the same sets. The televised images coming from the Moon bore too much resemblance to media images that the hoax supporters had previously seen in Kubrick's film and in other realistic space movies like Destination Moon (1950) and Conquest of Space (1955). 2001 can easily be called the most scientifically accurate film ever made for its time. Kubrick's film felt authentic and the scientific authenticity of this fictional text made it easy to see how some people believed filmmakers could fake the Moon landings.

Kubrick used cinematic language in 2001 as a means to explore complex ideas about the relationship between humanity and technology as well as humanity's place in the universe. For Kubrick, explorations of complex ideas did not emerge through simplification. Instead, they came about by displaying every detail of these complexities. Scientific verisimilitude was crucial for Kubrick not only in creating a visually rich film but also in putting the complexity of his questions into science, technology, and meaning on display. Kubrick's attention to detail was legendary, so it is not surprising that he went to great lengths to imbue his film with as much scientific accuracy as possible.

Influenced by both Italian neorealist films of the 1940s and the experimental style of the French New Wave movement of the 1960s, Kubrick's goal for 2001 was the transformation of science fiction movies from juvenile adventure stories into a medium of intellectual exploration comparable to science fiction literature. To this end, the filmmaker hired former NASA space scientist Frederick Ordway as his primary science consultant to work on the film for almost three years (figure 1.1).

Ordway had founded an aerospace consultancy and thus had contacts with every major organization working on rocket development. A glance at the list of organizations contributing scientific and technical advice for 2001 dwarfs such input for any other film before or since. With Ordway's assistance the production staff consulted with over sixty-five private companies, government agencies, university groups, and research institutions. In addition, Kubrick hired Ordway's business partner, aerospace engineer Harry Lange, as a production designer. Lange had previously worked for NASA illustrating advanced space vehicle concepts including propulsion systems, radar navigation, and docking techniques. Piers Bizony describes Lange's job at NASA as visualizing "as-yet-unborn vehicle concepts, so that NASA and its associated army of corporate collaborators could communicate their ideas for the future." Essentially, Kubrick was asking Lange to do the same for his film.

Kubrick needed assistance in planning how to portray on film events that were not even remotely in the near future. A manned trip to the Moon was right around the corner, certainly, but Moon bases were not on the agenda in the 1960s, nor were orbiting space stations and manned trips to Jupiter. In order to speculate on future space missions Ordway and Lange not only had to come up with suitable technology based on current thinking in the space sciences, but also had to provide logical explanations for why this technology would exist, how it would fit into 2001's narrative, and how it would impact the film's visuals. Ordway had to use his experience within the space science industry—whose experts were just beginning to work out these details for themselves—to extrapolate from current trends to future realities. So, for example, the "Cavradyne engines" used for 2001's spaceships were based on an assumption that continuing advances in gaseous-core nuclear reactors and high-temperature ionized gases in the 1960s would make this technology...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: MIT Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2011
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0262014785
• ISBN 13: 9780262014786
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 265
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar