#7. are art and science really opposites?
an ode to the science film.
All my life, creativity has been associated with the arts, and intellect has been associated with the sciences. Science was filled with numbers and hard-to-grasp concepts, and the arts were filled with some sophisticated superiority in appreciation, and there was no right or wrong. Science felt harsh, and art felt judgmental.
But the closer I looked, the more I found art in nature. All it takes is a glance away from the textbook and into the orders and arrangements that keep us alive.
ok now let’s talk about science films.
the first name that pops into your head is probably Christopher Nolan. Nolan is probably one of my favourite directors because of his approach to science. I’ve tried many times to write about him and his works, but I cannot seem to put my huge jumble of thoughts into coherent paragraphs.
Nolan doesn’t claim to be a scientist himself. he is an artist at heart. the beauty of science is what drew him to the complexities of theoretical physics. essentially, the core of movies like Interstellar and Oppenheimer is their inherent appreciation of science. the wonder, the fascination in their eyes. whether they’re looking at a black hole or a blackboard, there is a wonder that scientists carry in their eyes. the same fascination that led Oppenheimer to see visions of the universe, and pushed Cooper to leave his daughter behind.
after watching his movies, I managed to read books and watch lectures on the basis of advanced physics, while simultaneously (almost) failing my ninth grade physics exam. and I think that’s the essence of science that the education system fails to incorporate.
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especially in the reign of the jee exams and endless hours of coaching and practicing, we fail to see the point of it. the reason we bother ourselves with trying to figure out the ways of the world is because of the wonder it holds. science is a language that we try so heard to learn that we strip it down to the bells and whistles Duolingo aspect of it, and forget its poetry, its literature and the intimacy it holds in a conversation.
the best way to display that wonder for science is through the eyes of the scientists themselves. which leads me to the series of movies on scientists, like A Beautiful Mind, Oppenheimer, the Theory of Everything, The Imitation Game, Hawking, and many more. While I have not watched all of these, the ones I’ve watched I enjoyed. A Beautiful Mind, for instance. again, the heart of the movie is not the science aspect itself. but it opens up to a wider range of stories. his relationship with his wife, his journey with schizophrenia, and everything else. (side note, game theory and behavioural economics are actually super fascinating, and I’d definitely encourage everyone to read up on it(try ‘predictably irrational’, definately an eye-opener))
this has actually been sitting in my drafts along with a hundred other stories for months now, and upon reviewing, I realised that Project Hail Mary has really brought back the back-to-the-future-esque excitement towards science fiction to the screens, and I had to mention it.
This Ryan Gosling and Sandra Huller-starrer revived science from its dull and pretentious fate, and made it accessible and attractive. it brought a visual colour to science that was unlike that brought to the screens by the likes of interstellar. it’s reception upon release was phenomenal honestly, and I couldn’t be happier to see a film like Project Hail Mary be so celebrated.
final thoughts.
cinephiles are more often than not, people seeking an escape from the sciences and the stoic perception of it. some of them are also just slightly pretentious judgemental people who think that they are the only ones capable of forming opinions on films.
but at the end of the day, there is beauty in everything we see if we just take a second and look at it. so I think it’s about time we showed some more love for contemporary science films.
(pray for me I might fail my science exams)
