Throughout his work, but especially in his articles, interviews, talks, and lectures, Latour often cited films to help animate his ideas, positions, and concepts. In this gallery, the Bruno’s Movie Database (or BMDb) gallery, I have assembled trailers for the films he brought to his reader’s attention. In some instances, the full films are linked. In those instances where neither the trailers nor the full films were available, I have tried to link them to other useful pages.
Brett Merritt
Prototyping alternative futures for science education
BMDb
At a performance for the Art et Anthropocène event held at the Villa Médicis in Rome on 22 Oct 2020, Latour read from a piece he wrote titled, “When the Earth Moves, On a Galileo Lovelock-Margulis parallel.” In it, he commented on this 1975 Joseph Losey film.
I strongly suspect that it was Latour who first introduced me to work of filmmaker Edward Burtansky. I don’t think it was an article (if it was I haven’t found it yet), so my best guess is that it was a lecture. Someday I’ll trace that lineage and update this entry.
In “Steps Towards the Writing of a Compositionist Manifesto,” New Literary History, Vol. 41, 471-490, 2010.
In Facing Gaia: Eight Lectures on the New Climatic Regime (Translated by C. Porter), Polity Press, 2017.
Latour collaborated with visual artist Armin Linke on a number of occasions. In 2012 at the Centre Pompidou – Festival Hors Pistes, Latour and Linke joined forces to speak with an audience after the screening of Linke’s 2011 film, Alpi. On the back of a promotional poster for the film, Latour commented on its value and impact.
“Two Lessons from an Old Imam,” an op-ed first published in Le Monde (Translated by T. Howles), 20 Jan 2015.
During the HKW-sponsored Anthropocene Lecture in Berlin in 2018, Latour encourage audience members to take in this documentary film.
More flims forthcoming…
Should you ever need to cite this highly idiosyncratic page:
Merritt, Brett W. “BMDb.” Brett Merritt: Prototyping Alternative Futures for Science Education, Self-published, 28 Jan 2024. https://brettwmerritt.com/creations/latour-project/BMDb/.