LAUSR

Film is a universal language of modern societies. Larger-than-life images, stories, ideas, and characters portrayed in films can speak across the globe. This makes science and technology—which have shaped the modern world but remain little understood and poorly integrated into mainstream culture—a rich subject for film and a goldmine for filmmakers. From the mad scientist films of the '20s and '30s to the postnuclear dystopias of the '50s; and from the ecological disaster flics of the '70s and '80s to the space adventures of recent years, films have periodically reflected society's hopes and fears about science. But we can do better when it comes to dramatizing the great, ongoing human enterprise to understand and enhance the world around and inside us.