READ STORIES >
SPACE: A GUIDED TOUR
By Sarah Keenlyside
When David Sington's In the Shadow of the Moon (now showing nationwide) premiered at the Film Festival in January, Sundance took the opportunity to convene filmmakers, authors, and scholars on how - from fiction to documentary - science is portrayed in film. This story was originally published on Saturday, January 27, 2007.
To say that an ever-expanding universe of ideas was exchanged at yesterday's Space: A Guided Tour panel (supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation), might not even be an accurate metaphor. "Einstein came along and changed the whole Newtonian view that space was just this absolute, unchanging stage, the arena of reality," said Brian Greene, Professor of Physics and Math at Columbia University. "What we have learned more recently is that there is a lot of circumstantial evidence that we need to change our thinking of space once again, because we suspect that space is not a fundamental idea...There's definitely a realm in which we can try to imagine a space-less arena. And by virtue of relativity, that would mean a timeless arena. I don't even know how to picture that. If you ask me to picture a place without space that has no time, it gives me a headache."
What does this have to do with science fiction filmmaking? After seeing this panel, the line between science and science fiction might not be so clear. And if you weren't there, that's a real shame because it was arguably the most mind-bending, engaging, and downright inspiring panels at the Festival this year. A group so impressive and diverse it is worth mentioning everyone: moderator John Underkoffler, noted film science advisor; Greene; Ann Druyan - Cosmos Studio co-founder and wife of the late, great Carl Sagan; Margaret Wertheim - science journalist and author of The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace, docmaker David Sington (In the Shadow of the Moon); director Darren Aronofsky (Pi, Requiem For a Dream, The Fountain); director Chen Shi-Zheng (Dark Matter); and Howard Suber, UCLA Film School Faculty.
If there had been any more intellects on the panel, the room might have melted down. Instead it was the audience's brains that melted as the panel discussed topics ranging from how science has fueled science fiction and vice versa, the meaning and insignificance of human existence on a cosmic scale, and how accepting our place in the universe can fuel new narratives set in space. And then they moved on to the problems and pitfalls of visually representing aliens in movies, other cultural interpretations of space, the impossibility or possiblity of teleportation, and spaceas a theater for stories about spirituality. "In the modern age of science, space took over the role that was previously been played by spiritual space," Wertheim said. "Spiritual space in the medieval era was filled with other beings - angels and demons. And from the very beginning of the modern conception of space in the 16th century, you had people beginning to look at outer space and populate it with other supernatural beings."
One of the weirdest questions of the day came from Underkoffler: "If you were to cast space, which actor would be the voice?" "Rosie Perez," answered Aronofsky. "Hello Kitty" was Chen Shi-Zheng's answer. But on a more serious note, according to Druyan, there is still a lot of room for imaginative new narratives and interpretations of space. "What I think is so interesting is how under-utilized our great talent to simulate reality visually is," she said. "When you consider the revelations of the modern, scientific revolution, and this barrage of discovery that comes to us continually, and how rarely we use this talent to create the illusion of being places we've never been - usually we use that talent to blow things up, or to destroy things, but we virtually never use it to reflect the insights and the revelations of science."
Panelists were asked to recommend their favorite, but little known, space movie:
John Underkoffler: Space Truckers
Darren Aronofsky: The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonsai
Margaret Wertheim: The Wild Blue Yonder
Ann Druyan: Man Facing Southeast
David Sington: Silent Running
