Barbican Cinema Highlights Science On Screen

This autumn, Barbican Cinemas continues its partnership with the London Mathematical Laboratory entitled Science on Screen, a series of films exploring the rich terrain between science and cinema. Notable figures from science and medicine introduce their favourite films, making unexpected connections, which show how scientific perspectives can shed light on artistic, cultural, and social issues. As the series unfolds audiences discover how science is a human endeavour as dependent on our creative impulses as any other. This season the Barbican will screen work from directors Darren Aronofsky, Ingmar Bergman and Stanley KubrickPi
Simon DeDeo explores humankind’s obsessive search for patterns, using Darren Aronofsky’s tale of mathematics, religious mysticism, and the financial markets of 90s New York, Pi. Sean Gullette stars in this claustrophobic thriller as a genius looking to numbers to find answers in the universe. Tormented and at the brink of insanity, he stumbles upon a mysterious number which may unlock patterns found in nature. Physicist turned cognitive scientist, Simon DeDeo is an External Faculty Professor at the Santa Fe Institute and a Professor of Complex Systems at Indiana University, where he runs the Laboratory for Social Minds.

Wild Strawberries
Physicist Geoffrey West uses Ingmar Bergman’s great classic to explore the science of aging, death and their role in the search for life’s ‘meaning’. On a road trip to receive the crowning honour of his career, a distinguished academic physician surrealistically looks back on life – his loves, psychological deceptions, achievements and the emptiness of his relationships with family and friends. Geoffrey West is Distinguished Professor of the Santa Fe Institute, Associate Fellow of Oxford University’s Martin School and Senior Research Fellow at Imperial College. A theoretical physicist whose interests run from fundamental biological questions to developing global sustainability, his research includes metabolism, aging & death, ecosystems and innovation.

The Killing
The laws of physics, be they classical or quantum, are deterministic and yet we can barely predict next week’s weather, let alone the flow of a rolling brook. Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing is a graphic illustration of human chaos in the classic noir tradition: criminal mastermind, Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden) constructs, with chronometric precision, a series of events that will wreak chaos at a race track, setting the scene for a flawless robbery. But greed, insecurity, and even the escape of a small poodle, derail these events, taking a chaotic and unpredictable turn for the worst. The film is introduced by Ron Dickman. After several years as a painter, Dickman turned to science, earning a Doctorate in Physics from the University of Texas in 1984. He was professor of physics at CUNY and is currently professor of physics at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, in Brazil. His principal research interests are statistical mechanics, thermodynamics and stochastic processes.

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John McArthur

Editor-in-Chief at Moviescramble. A Fan of all things cinematic with a love of Film Noir, Sci-Fi and Julia Roberts in Notting Hill. He hopes to grow up some day.