Exemplary lives: biographies of scientists on the screen

Abstract

Cinema has emerged in the twentieth century as one of the most powerful vehicles for the popularization of science. Medical melodramas, science-fiction films and biopics can be used to advantage by historians and sociologists of science alike in order to reconstruct the always elusive public opinion. As a subgenre of historical films, biopics constitute a vigorous attempt to communicate to the lay public the ethos conventionally associated with scientific endeavour. Much more than a simple illustration of the lives of great scientists, biopics are one of the best indicators of public attitudes towards science and technology in contemporary society.