Please submit your 200-250 word proposals to Tim Boon, Head of
Collections, The Science Museum, London, through e-mail
([log in to unmask]) by 15 June 2006.
2006 Film and History League Conference
"The Documentary Tradition"
November 8-12, 2006
www.filmandhistory.org
AREA: Science and Documentaries
Filmmakers who identify themselves as documentary makers have, throughout
the history of the form, made films that represent scientific themes. This
can be seen to have occurred at four levels:
· Where science and society touch most intimately, documentarists
have often made films that represent the scientific point of view.
Examples include nutrition science, public health, building design and
medicine. Here we may consider some of the films of Paul Rotha, including
his masterpiece World of Plenty (1943).
· Documentarists have often promoted scientific and technological
innovation. Many of the films of the GPO Film Unit promoting telephony are
relevant here.
· Documentarists have also often made films to convey scientific
information or technical expertise. Many of the films of the Shell Film
Unit, including the gearing film Transfer of Power (1939) or the
Techniques of Anaesthesia series made by the ICI Unit during World War Two
are typical of these.
· Documentarists have often used “scientific” theories of montage,
deriving from the Russian school of Kuleshov, Eisenstein, Pudovkin et al.
In virtually all these cases there has been close collaboration between
filmmakers and scientists, often to the extent of close advice on scripts,
scenarios and structure. Sometimes filmmakers have expressed the view that
scientific documentary is a distinct sub-genre; Edgar Anstey, for example,
described the nutrition film Enough to Eat? (1936) as ‘a scientific film
made by scientists’, even though he directed and produced it. In fact,
however, the boundary between scientific documentary and documentary in
general is difficult to draw in any absolute sense; rather, definitions
are specific to times and places; both scientists and filmmakers make
claims about how science should be represented on the screen.
Papers are invited that explore the relations of science and documentary
both in the cinema and on television.
The Film and History League conference details can be found at
www.filmandhistory.org
The meeting will run from 8-12 November, 2006 in the Dolce Conference
Center near the DFW airport. A spectrum of other areas will evolve on
the web site over time.
Send all inquiries and proposals to
Dr Tim Boon,
Head of Collections, The Science Museum, London SW7 2DD
t: 020 7942 4207, f: 020 7942 4103
e: [log in to unmask]
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