Film & History 40.

1: Introduction Spring 2010

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY CONFRONT REALITY

Science and technology, and the people associated with them, are
seldom depicted in film as benign. Heavy-laden with the potential for salvation or
destruction, they are nearly always cast as a potent force in the shaping of
humanity’s well-being, and so, of its history. This Janus-faced nature of science
is, of necessity, governed by a pact of mutual obligation with society—one that
offers support, intellectual autonomy, and substantial cultural authority to the
practitioners of science and technology in return for greater control over the
unknown and intervention in the ills that plague humankind.

Early cinematic narratives of society’s relationship with science and

technology typically fell into two categories. The first ranged from unabashedly
fantastic tales of promise and possibility—the Melies brothers’ A Trip to the Moon
(1902) and William Cameron Menzies’ Things to Come (1936)—to celebratory
biopics like The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936) and earnest documentaries such as
Night Mail (1936) and Power and the Land (1940). The second category of
narratives was cautionary tales, featuring scientists who placed their own hunger
for knowledge and power ahead of society’s needs. These were the cinematic
archetypes of misguided and mad science: Dr. Rotwang of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis
(1927); James Whale’s Dr. Frankenstein (1931); the many incarnations of Dr.
Jekyll (notably 1920, 1931, and 1941); and the unseen designer of the machinery
that bedevils Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times (1936).

Both visions of the relationship of science, technology, and society have

remained continuously in play on movie screens through the present day, with
some films continuing to celebrate the engagement of science with society, while
others caution about the dangers of its disengagement. Beginning in the 1950s,
the horrors of the Second World War and the fears of the Atomic Age spawned a
third type of narrative: one that questioned whether the long-standing pact
between science and society was inherently flawed. Films addressing the social
and human costs of science began to appear immediately after the war: as
straightforward dramas (The Beginning or the End, 1947), as comedies (The Man in
the White Suit, 1951), as monster epics (Gojira, 1954), and as detective stories
(Kiss Me Deadly, 1955). The skepticism and irony given form in these films defy
the clearly positive and negative poles of earlier portrayals, creating a range of
complex, and often contradictory, cinematic depictions of science and
technology in the latter half of the twentieth century.

This issue of Film & History, “Science and Technology Confront Reality,”
is the first of two special issues on Representations of Science and Technology in
Film. The five articles featured here explore how science and technology are
variously pressed into service across genres to mitigate society’s complexities and
fears, from civil-defense films, to rubble films, to classic B-movie horror, and
from docu-drama to mock-documentary.

In our lead article, “Good Germans, Humane Automobiles: Redeeming

Technological Modernity—In Those Days,” Paul Dobryden examines the rubble of
humanity, and the car entrusted with its salvage. Through the memories of a
battered automobile found amidst the ruins of a German city, the film seeks to
reconstruct an alternative history of the Third Reich—one in which the ideal of

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Film & History 40.1: Introduction Spring 2010

“the humane” persisted—in order to give hope, and a useable past, to a war-torn
nation. In its rejection of technological modernity, despite its faith in the
machines of war, German society proved faithless in its pact with science and
technology. Here, however, the automobile, as the film’s narrator, rescues both
the memory and the humanity of the Good German.

We then move to the Atomic Age and look at the ways in which civil-
defense films, designed to prepare children for the possibility of nuclear war, also
planted the unintentional seeds of social change. In “Atomic Kids: Duck and Cover
and Atomic Alert Teach American Children How to Survive Atomic Attack,” Bo
Jacobs examines how fearful Baby Boomers, heeding Bert the Turtle’s
exhortations to take responsibility for their own survival—to do their part as
members of the Cold War national defense team—grew into a generation
characterized by intellectual independence and social activism in defense of
humanity as a whole.

James Scott’s article, “The Right Stuff at the Wrong Time: The Space of
Nostalgia in the Conservative Ascendancy,” explores another aspect of the post-
World War II era: the intricate relationships among politics, American
masculinity, and the space program in Philip Kaufman’s 1983 historical drama,
The Right Stuff. Here the science and technology of the Mercury program grant
access to outer space—a new frontier—to the astronaut-pilots who stand as
modern-day versions of the cowboys of the Old West. That privilege, however,
comes at a price: the institutionalization of their “frontier” spirit as they become
icons of American progress.

Gerhard Wiesenfeldt’s “Dystopian Genesis: The Scientist’s Role in

Society, According to Jack Arnold” looks at Arnold’s evolving portrayal of
scientists in classic films from the Golden Age of science fiction, such as It Came
from Outer Space (1953), Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), and The Incredible
Shrinking Man (1957). In each of these films, the scientist is positioned as a
gatekeeper between society and the unknown, serving as investigator, mediator,
and protector—a role that, when honored, enhances both science and society,
but, when abused, puts both society and the scientist’s own humanity at risk.

Finally, in “Evidence of Things Not Quite Seen: Cloverfield’s Obstructed

Spectacle,” Daniel North unpacks the ways in which director J. J. Abrams uses
new media technologies—generally praised for democratizing access to
information—to blur the lines between reality and fiction in Cloverfield (2009).
North exposes Abrams’ deliberate violation of science and technology's pact with
society, describing how the filmmaker exploits hand-held camera footage,
promotional materials, online resources, and even new media’s “noise” to build
and then to erode the promise of truth-telling and thus to draw audiences into
the uncertain perceptual world of the film.

All five of our articles highlight individuals, instruments, and ideas that
promise mixed blessings: great power at the risk of great peril. Together they
explore, in a wide range of eras and contexts, how science and technology shape
our collective experience and define our shared intellectual landscape.

~ Cynthia J. Miller, A. Bowdoin Van Riper, Loren P.Q. Baybrook