Cinema has emerged in the twentieth century as one of the most powerful vehicles for the popularization of science. Medical melodramas, science-fiction films and biopics can be used to advantage by historians and sociologists of science alike in order to reconstruct the always elusive public opinion. As a subgenre of historical films, biopics constitute a vigorous attempt to communicate to the lay public the ethos conventionally associated with scientific endeavour. Much more than a simple illustration of the lives of great scientists, biopics are one of the best indicators of public attitudes towards science and technology in contemporary society.
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References
1.
Ferro, M. , 1973, Le film, une contre-analyse de la société?Annales, 28, 109.
2.
quoted in The Historian and Film, edited by P. Smith (Cambridge University Press, 1976), p. 1.
3.
and Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 4 (1974) are undoubtedly among the best. As to the rest, Film and History, the journal of the Historians' Film Committee (Department of History, Newark College of Engineering) is a publication devoted to the analysis of this topic.
4.
For a general introductory survey on the question, see Elena, A., 1989, Cine e historia de la ciencia: un estudio preliminar. Sylva Clius, 3(8), 3-45.
5.
A more comprehensive treatment of the topic is to be found in Gabbard, K., and Gabbard, G. O., 1987, Psychiatry and the Cinema (University of Chicago Press).
6.
Shortland, M. , 1987, Screen memories: toward a history of psychiatry and psychoanalysis in the movies. British Journal for the History of Science, 20(4), 452.
7.
On the Barnhardt/Einstein question, see Lambourne, R., Shallis, M., and Shortland, M., 1990, Close Encounters? Science and Science Fiction (Bristol, New York: Adam Hilger), pp. 80-81.
8.
and Comolli, J.-L., 1977, Un corps en trop. Cahiers du Cinéma, 278, 5-16. On the subject of scientists' biopics, the only reference I know is Shortland, M., 1987, Reel lives: scientific biography on film (Cornell University Communications Seminar).
9.
Anderson, C. , 1987, Biographical film. Handbook of American Film Genres, edited by W. D. Gehring (New York, Westport, London: Greenwood Press), p. 332.
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Anderson, C. , 1987, Biographical film. Handbook of American Film Genres, edited by W. D. Gehring (New York, Westport, London: Greenwood Press), p. 334.
11.
Quoted by Robinson, D., 1976, Scientists of the silver screen. New Scientist, 72(1032), 734.
12.
and also Weart, S., 1988, The physicist as mad scientist. Physics Today (June), 28-37, for a more detailed view of the relationship between horror films and biopics in that period.
13.
Anderson, C. , 1987, Biographical film. Handbook of American Film Genres, edited by W. D. Gehring (New York, Westport, London: Greenwood Press), p. 340-341. The rise of production in the 1980s (see Figure 1) can be explained simply in terms of the increasing number of films made for television (more than 50% of the total figure).
14.
See, for example, Baldizzone, J., 1986, Esquisse d'un catalogue des biographies cinématographiques. Les Cahiers de la Cinémathéque, 45, 18.
15.
and Petley, J., 1979, Capital and Culture: German Cinema 1933-45 (London: British Film Institute), pp. 138-149.
16.
Hull, D. S. , 1969, Film in the Third Reich (Berkeley: University of California Press), p. 346.
17.
For a rather different view, see Petley, J., 1979, Capital and Culture: German Cinema 1933-45 (London: British Film Institute), pp. 141-144.
18.
See the interesting reflections by Rochal himself in his paper `L'esperienza del mio lavoro nel film biografico', included in the collective work Il mestiere di regista (Milan, Rome: Fratelli Bocca Editore, 1954), pp. 263-346.
19.
Cited in Amengual, B., 1970, Alexander Dovjenko (Paris: Editions Seghers), p. 113, who stresses the relevance of this dialogue from Shchors (1939) in order to properly understand Dovzhenko's motives in undertaking Michurin.
20.
Oms, M., 1968, Alexander Dovjenko (Lyon: Prémier Plan), p. 71.
21.
The choice of these rather than of other more neutral terms has been inspired by their use in the Spanish titles of two of this subgenre's most significant examples: The Story of Graham Bell (Irving Cummings, 1939) and The Story of Louis Pasteur (William Dieterle, 1936) became in Spain respectively El gran milagro (literally `The Great Miracle') and La tragedia de Louis Pasteur (literally `The Tragedy of Louis Pasteur').
22.
See, for example, Taton, R., 1955, Causalités et accidents de la découverte scientifique (Paris: Masson Editeurs).
23.
Quoted in Shortland, M., 1987, Screen memories: toward a history of psychiatry and psychoanalysis in the movies. British Journal for the History of Science, 20(4), 439.
24.
and De Solla Price, D. J., 1967, Science since Babylon (New Haven: Yale University Press), p. 4.
25.
Guarner, J. L., 1973, Roberto Rossellini (Barcelona: Editorial Fundamentos), p. 178.
26.
See Monterde, J E., 1986, Cine, historia y enseñanza (Barcelona: Editorial Laia), pp. 91-92, on the demands which this convention imposes on historical films.
27.
De la Breteque, F., 1986, Contours et figures d'un `genre'. Les Cahiers de la Cinémathèque, 45, 97.
28.
Amengual, B., 1986, Dérive historico-socio-politique à partir de la vie de Thomas Edison. Les Cahiers de la Cinémathèque, 45, 27.
29.
De la Breteque, F., 1986, Contours et figures d'un `genre'. Les Cahiers de la Cinémathèque, 45, 95.
30.
quoted by Shortland, M., 1987, Reel lives: scientific biography on film (Cornell University Communications Seminar), p. 14.
31.
For a detailed case study of this film, see Elena, A., 1993, El ángel inoculador: Pasteur y los origenes de las biografias cinematográficas de científicos. Las imágenes de la ciencia en el cine de ficción, edited by A. Elena (forthcoming monographic issue of Arbor).
32.
Pasteur (Jean Epstein and Jean Benoit-Lévy, 1922) and Pasteur (Sacha Guitry, 1935). Pasteur clearly holds a fascination for filmmakers: he appears in Rossellini's La lotta dell'Uomo per la sua sopravvivenza and Klaren's Semmelweiss, and is also the subject of an important documentary, L'oeuvre biologique de Pasteur, made by Georges Rouquier and Jean Painlevé in 1947.
33.
Joannou, M. , and McIntyre, S., 1983, Lust for lives. Screen, 24, 147.
34.
Argentieri, M., 1984, Il film biografico (Rome: Bulzoni Editore), p. 47.
35.
See the excellent study by Gubern, R., 1974, Mensajes icónicos en la cultura de masas (Barcelona: Editorial Lumen), pp. 261-325.
36.
Hankins, T. L. , 1979, In defence of biography: the use of biography in the history of science. History of Science, 17, 1-16.
37.
Bloom, I. Z. , 1980, Popular and super-pop biographies: definitions and distinctions. Biography, 3(3), 225.
38.
quoted by Shortland, M., 1987, Reel lives: scientific biography on film (Cornell University Communications Seminar), p. 15.
39.
The best study of the Eloges and their significance is Paul, C. B., 1980, Science and Immortality. The Eloges of the Paris Academy of Sciences (1699-1791) (Berkeley: University of California Press).
40.
Smiles, S. , 1861-1862, Lives of the Engineers, with an Account of their Principal Works (London: J. Murrary).
