"Mad, Bad and Dangerous?"
May. 16th, 2007 11:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stoutfellowChristopher Frayling's Mad, Bad and Dangerous?: The Scientist and the Cinema is an exploration of the presentation of scientists in the movies; it's fairly interesting, if for no other reason than the categorization of types and the connections between them. More under the cut.
After a discussion of the popular images of scientists and the ways they are reflected and shaped by cinematic portrayals, Frayling plunges into history. The first film portrayals of scientists, in the short works of Georges Méliès at the beginning of the twentieth century, are slam-bang adventures, in which frock-coated savants embark on trips to the Moon, the Sun, and the bottom of the sea. The paraphernalia of these maniacs - flasks and retorts, skulls, the occasional stuffed crocodile - owe more to the image of the alchemist than to anything more modern, but Méliès is no more interested in the reality than are the satirists of Mad Magazine or The Goon Show, who are in some sense his heirs.
A more interesting thread begins with the madman Rotwang, in Fritz Lang's Metropolis. Rotwang differs from the more familiar mad scientist in that he has actual power: his work underpins the nasty industrial dictatorship of that film. He is also deformed; one of his hands, amputated after a laboratory mishap, has been replaced by a metal appendage. (Deformity or other physical shortcomings are fairly common in the depiction of scientists; at the low end, we have the coke-bottle glasses of the stereotypical nerd, and at the other we find prostheses, humps, and other irregularities.) Frayling traces the development of this type of cinematic scientist as far as Dr. Strangelove - the shift from the serious to the ironic is another common thread - with an interesting digression into the ambiguous figure of Wernher von Braun (one of the influences on Strangelove) and the role played by Walt Disney in von Braun's public image.
Next we come to the mad scientist proper, from Frankenstein on down. This is a familiar image, but Frayling couples it with a burst of biographical films in the 1930s and '40s: Edison the Man, Madame Curie, Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet, and a number of others. Though the scientists in the latter films are presented as almost saintly, they nonetheless share several traits with their mad counterparts. They work alone, against the opposition of the scientific establishment; they are antisocial (though conventional romances are artificially introduced to humanize and redeem the "good guys"); and their work typically culminates in some sort of public trial/demonstration. The scientist, thus, is a monster or a saint, in either case something out of the ordinary. (This ambiguity of attitude is not, of course, confined to scientists; the phrase "Madonna/Whore" comes to mind...)
During and after World War II, a new image arises, that of the boffin. Depictions include real figures such as R. J. Mitchell and Barnes Wallis, as well as Q, from the Bond films. Here, the scientist/engineer's work occurs in the service of the government, and there is a shifting of burdens: the evil that may come of his work is less his responsibility and more that of his employers. The boffin thus becomes a less powerful, but perhaps a more sympathetic figure. The trend continues with the horror films of the 1950s and later; more and more, it is not the scientist who unleashes the monster, but government or business figures, often against the scientist's advice. On the other hand, it is not the scientist who deals with the threat, but the military or some other power.
The mad scientist still appears today, but most often in satiric films - Young Frankenstein, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, and such; the perceived threat in genuine horror seems to have shifted to the impersonal - government, military, business. The scientist, in these works, ranges from the uncaring drone to the ambivalent idealist whose work is perverted by others; he (or, rarely, she) gains in humanity only through a loss of power.
I must mention one problem with the book. Interesting though it is, it suffers from a certain sloppiness. On the editing front, Frayling seems fond of sentence fragments. I can't complain about this per se; I frequently use them myself. However, I use them sparingly, for specific rhetorical purposes; Frayling scatters them freely through the work for no discernible purpose, and I find it a bit grating. A bit more careful fact-checking would have helped as well. for instance, in discussing the slide of the mad scientist from horror to parody, Frayling writes "The Invisible Man becomes Invisible Man (1995)"; as far as I can tell, there was no film of that title in that year. Context suggests that he means Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992). This is not the only error I noticed; none of them are major, but they do niggle.
After a discussion of the popular images of scientists and the ways they are reflected and shaped by cinematic portrayals, Frayling plunges into history. The first film portrayals of scientists, in the short works of Georges Méliès at the beginning of the twentieth century, are slam-bang adventures, in which frock-coated savants embark on trips to the Moon, the Sun, and the bottom of the sea. The paraphernalia of these maniacs - flasks and retorts, skulls, the occasional stuffed crocodile - owe more to the image of the alchemist than to anything more modern, but Méliès is no more interested in the reality than are the satirists of Mad Magazine or The Goon Show, who are in some sense his heirs.
A more interesting thread begins with the madman Rotwang, in Fritz Lang's Metropolis. Rotwang differs from the more familiar mad scientist in that he has actual power: his work underpins the nasty industrial dictatorship of that film. He is also deformed; one of his hands, amputated after a laboratory mishap, has been replaced by a metal appendage. (Deformity or other physical shortcomings are fairly common in the depiction of scientists; at the low end, we have the coke-bottle glasses of the stereotypical nerd, and at the other we find prostheses, humps, and other irregularities.) Frayling traces the development of this type of cinematic scientist as far as Dr. Strangelove - the shift from the serious to the ironic is another common thread - with an interesting digression into the ambiguous figure of Wernher von Braun (one of the influences on Strangelove) and the role played by Walt Disney in von Braun's public image.
Next we come to the mad scientist proper, from Frankenstein on down. This is a familiar image, but Frayling couples it with a burst of biographical films in the 1930s and '40s: Edison the Man, Madame Curie, Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet, and a number of others. Though the scientists in the latter films are presented as almost saintly, they nonetheless share several traits with their mad counterparts. They work alone, against the opposition of the scientific establishment; they are antisocial (though conventional romances are artificially introduced to humanize and redeem the "good guys"); and their work typically culminates in some sort of public trial/demonstration. The scientist, thus, is a monster or a saint, in either case something out of the ordinary. (This ambiguity of attitude is not, of course, confined to scientists; the phrase "Madonna/Whore" comes to mind...)
During and after World War II, a new image arises, that of the boffin. Depictions include real figures such as R. J. Mitchell and Barnes Wallis, as well as Q, from the Bond films. Here, the scientist/engineer's work occurs in the service of the government, and there is a shifting of burdens: the evil that may come of his work is less his responsibility and more that of his employers. The boffin thus becomes a less powerful, but perhaps a more sympathetic figure. The trend continues with the horror films of the 1950s and later; more and more, it is not the scientist who unleashes the monster, but government or business figures, often against the scientist's advice. On the other hand, it is not the scientist who deals with the threat, but the military or some other power.
The mad scientist still appears today, but most often in satiric films - Young Frankenstein, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, and such; the perceived threat in genuine horror seems to have shifted to the impersonal - government, military, business. The scientist, in these works, ranges from the uncaring drone to the ambivalent idealist whose work is perverted by others; he (or, rarely, she) gains in humanity only through a loss of power.
I must mention one problem with the book. Interesting though it is, it suffers from a certain sloppiness. On the editing front, Frayling seems fond of sentence fragments. I can't complain about this per se; I frequently use them myself. However, I use them sparingly, for specific rhetorical purposes; Frayling scatters them freely through the work for no discernible purpose, and I find it a bit grating. A bit more careful fact-checking would have helped as well. for instance, in discussing the slide of the mad scientist from horror to parody, Frayling writes "The Invisible Man becomes Invisible Man (1995)"; as far as I can tell, there was no film of that title in that year. Context suggests that he means Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992). This is not the only error I noticed; none of them are major, but they do niggle.
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Date: 2007-05-16 05:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-16 06:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-17 12:52 pm (UTC)I tend to get highly frustrated with the image of scientists in the popular media, as well as the image of science/genetics. Jurassic Park, anyone? Love the movie, hate that the portrayal of scientific advance is always catastrophic. But I figure there's little I can do. Except be a scientist in real life and not look like a stereotypical one, though I'll admit to being a nerd, I don't think I tend to look like one!
Sounds like an interesting book! But I'd better not read it, it'd just get me more frustrated!