Films of Fact : A History of Science in Documentary Films and Television

by Boon, Timothy

• ISBN13: 9781905674381
• ISBN10: 1905674384
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-06-30
• Publisher: Columbia Univ Pr
• More Book Details

Summary

Britain has long been recognised for its proud contribution to documentary cinema, yet its long tradition of scientific and medical documentaries remains underrepresented in the literature on nonfiction film. Films of Fact is the first in-depth history of the genre, which began with amateur hobbyists in the early twentieth century, played a key role in government post-war health programmes, and became a treasured part of popular culture with BBC2's Horizon and the programming of Channel 4. Central to the narrative is Paul Rotha, a pioneering advocate of science broadcasting of the post- war period, and a figure second only to John Grierson in British documentary history, who helped nurture the collaborative ethos and practices that make scientific and medical documentaries a unique subgenre of documentary cinema. Written by a specialist scientific scholar, Films of Fact is a landmark text on a crucial yet rarely discussed aspect of British popular culture.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 1
Science, Nature and Filmmaking	p. 7
Technology, Science and Modernity: The World of Documentary	p. 33
Documentaries and the Social Relations of Science	p. 73
Science, Films and War	p. 110
The Fate of Documentary Science Film Genres Since 1945	p. 151
The Growth of Television and the Representation of Science	p. 184
Television Science Genres 1955-65	p. 209
Coda: The Fate of Genres in Television Science Since 1965	p. 233
Notes	p. 242
Bibliography	p. 269
Index	p. 297
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.