Why Movies Never Actually Show Science

Film and Science

Science has been arguably one of the most influential forces in modern society. But

it’s a subject that is rarely the focus of fictional works.

Science Fiction exists as a genre, but the influence of science is often contained to

constructing the setting for an otherwise traditional story. Rarely are scientists and

the scientific process given the spotlight.

Often science fiction is examining the outcome of a specific technology, science applied,

instead of the scientific process involved with discovering or producing that technology.

Black Mirror, modern science fiction-Twilight Zone, is hardly concerned with the actual

science of what it presents, merely the social and individual ramifications of those technologies,

sometimes to the level of caricature.

In fact much of how science and scientists are presented in film involves some level

of caricature. We often see the scientist as crazed madman [Back to the Future]. Or

science as voluntarily or involuntarily spawning some monster or hero.

[Spiderman, Captain America, Godzilla]

Consider the common theme of superheroes or villain created in a lab by accident. Science

is an out of control force, directed by irresponsible scientists, and whether what it produces is

a force for good or evil is a product of chance.

Even when the scientists creation of a hero is more measured and intentional, [Iron Man]

that scientist is presented as a self-absorbed, egomaniac.

Scientist often exist merely to spout exposition when needed, [Jurassic Park] or as the pawns

of those who hold the real power.

Even films that seem to give science a closer examination, they may paying a lot of lip

service to it’s name, but they often end up casting it aside in favor of other answers

to the story’s central conflict.

I’m not saying that all of these films are bad because they portray science in this way.

But why is this? Why is the scientific process so often overlooked in film?

Aldous Huxley in his essay “Literature and Science” examines the divide between science

and the literary arts.

Talking about authors he says They have not been greatly interested in the science as

a set of logically coherent hypotheses validated operationally by experiment and dispassionate

observation. And the in the field of applied science their concern has been mainly with

the social and psychological consequences of advancing technology, very little with

it’s working or it’s underlying technology.

Huxley’s words could be describing the tech film that is fascinated with the interpersonal

drama surrounding the creation of a technology, more than the the tech itself. But you might

say, “logically coherent hypotheses” and “dispassionate observation” are not the

grounds for great stories. Stories are about passion, feeling, and emotion. You might be

right.

Huxley goes on to describe how both science and literature use language to describe things.

But it’s the nature of what each needs to describe that’s different. The language

of science seeks for clarity and purity in terms of specificity. It seeks to describe

what Huxley calls “public experiences” or those experiences that are external and

in that way shared by individuals.

The literary artist takes a different approach focusing on “private experiences”

“The world with which literature deals is the world in which human beings are born and

live and finally die; the world in which they love and hate, in which they experience triumph

and humiliation, hope and despair…”

The differing goals present a challenge when presenting science in film. Can those two

come together? Reconciling the two is no easy task. But it’s one that Huxley thought was

possible.

One early step, something that Huxley suggests to authors in his essay, is to include more

relevant science within the work itself.

And you can see this happening more and more frequently. Multiverse theory has been explicitly

influential on certain storytellers. For interstellar, Christopher Nolan drew heavily on cutting

edge science to produce accurate visualizations of a black hole.

But fear might creep into the filmmaker that the science included in the film will become

outdated, making the film feel irrelevant in a way it might not if the details were

kept more vague. Or a filmmaker might worry that those details will be inaccurate, making

the story feel immediately irrelevant to those who are more scientifically knowledgable.

And so filmmakers focus on portraying and discussing the emotional, philosophical, and

relational fallout that the effects of science and technology have had and rarely focus on

the science itself. Or sidestep the science in favor of a pseudo-metaphysical solution.

But this doesn’t account for the entire separation. Huxley’s essay was partially

written in response to a lecture given by scientist and Novelist C. P. Snow called “The

Two Cultures” in which he described a cultural divide between scientists and authors. At

that time there was little crossover between the fields of professional artist and scientist.

And it makes sense, the level of dedication needed to be a good scientist and a good artist

are high enough that taking on both is unrealistic for most. I think the cultural separation

that Snow observed is slowly closing as Huxley hoped it would, literature now has many good

examples of the gap being bridged, and recently film has given us some stories where science

itself has played a larger role. Let’s examine a few of those:

Primer Primer imagines the creation of a time machine,

as if it were invented in a garage like the personal computer. Much attention is payed

to the progression of decisions and ideas that lead to the discovery of the actual machine

and subsequent tests. It’s a rare moment when the process of discovery itself takes

center stage ahead of character development.

Primer’s depiction of science can also help us see that the issue is not always that most

movies don’t accurately depict science, but that most movies don’t attempt to depict

the process at all.

Regardless of how dubious the science in Primer might be, the attention it gives to the process

of invention is unique. And the fact that the writer and director Shane Carruth is an

Engineer-turned Filmmaker, is no surprise.

The Martian The Martian might be the film that does the

best job of bridging the divide between science and film. The movie itself is interested

in science, much of the science shown in the film is accurate. Science become the hero

of the story, the scientist the person who is able to overcome adversity and triumph.

The Fountain The Fountain doesn’t depict much science

itself, but it’s an unique film in that it’s almost completely about a scientist

and the act of science itself. Instead of turning the scientist into an adventurer,

[Indiana Jones] or presenting spirituality as something that overcomes science. It uses

those images to show science as a spiritual endeavor and an adventure on it’s own. Instead

of showing love as the thing that works when science has failed, love is the very thing

that motivates the scientific act.

These films show us ways that the divide can be bridged, and I think there’s plenty of

room for more of this type of exploration. One response I’ve seen to this discussion

is that the reason for the lack of depicted science may have to do with the mundane nature

of the majority of scientific endeavors. But I don’t buy the theory, filmmakers are great

at making otherwise boring things appear interesting. Most of politics is boring and dull, and yet

we’ve often found exciting and entertaining ways to depict the political process.

I’m not insinuating that science is superior to things like human ingenuity and love. These

very things are often what fuel the progression of science. Perhaps the romanticism of art

works as a check and balance against the threat of scientific hubris. You can see the less-than-positive

images of the scientist shifting as society’s fears about what it might produce change.

As the ringing the bomb left in culture’s ears is fading, our focus turns to new concerns.

The dialogue between Film and Science might be more important than we think. I’ve been

focusing science’s influence on film, but it goes both ways. Science fiction films make

it into scientific papers from time to time, and science fiction plays a role in shaping

the kind of scientific development and technology that society comes to want and expects.

Research suggests that cinematic depictions of space travel helped shaped public opinion

about it’s viability, helping make it possible to fund those endeavors.

Science isn’t going to become any less influential in the future, and finding more accurate and

nuanced ways to tell stories about it certainly couldn’t hurt… even attempting to tell

those stories at all as has so rarely been done is a noble endeavor.

This video was largely inspired by Aldous Huxley’s essay, and I’ve been a little

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