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
I took a course from Bruno Latour back in 2014 titled, “Scientific Humanities.” In it, he used a number of films to illustrate key ideas and concepts he wished for us–his students–to assimilate. One of the films that left a significant impression on me was a 1974 6-episode BBC television series, Microbes and Men, dramatizing the development of vaccines by Pasteur, Koch, and others in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
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 took a course from Bruno Latour back in 2014 titled “Scientific Humanities.” In it, he used a number of films to illustrate key ideas and concepts he wished for us–his students–to assimilate. Another of the films leaving an impression on me was Life Story (aka. The Race for the Double Helix), a 1987 historical drama staring Jeff Goldblum, Tim Pigott-Smith, Juliet Stevenson, and Alan Howard.
I took a course from Bruno Latour back in 2014 titled, “Scientific Humanities.” In it, he used a number of films to illustrate key ideas and concepts he wished for us–his students–to assimilate. Another of the films leaving an impression on me was the 2000 television series, Longitude, staring Michael Gambon and Jeremy Irons.
I strongly suspect 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.
Latour discussed the Hollywood blockbuster Avatar with high-praise in, “Steps Towards the Writing of a Compositionist Manifesto,” New Literary History, Vol. 41, 471-490, 2010.
I took a course from Bruno Latour back in 2014 titled, “Scientific Humanities.” In it, he used a number of short-form videos to illustrate key ideas and concepts he wished for us–his students–to assimilate. One of the videos he shared with our class, a TEDxCanberra talk by Professor Will Steffen, introduced us to the notion of the “Anthropocene,” which Bruno had been writing–and speaking–about since the early 2000s.
Melancholia was mentioned 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.
I took a course from Bruno Latour back in 2014 titled, “Scientific Humanities.” In it, he used a number of films to illustrate key ideas and concepts he wished for us–his students–to assimilate. Another of the films leaving an impression on me was a 2013 BBC documentary, Clockwork Dreams, presented by Professor Simon Schaffer (co-author, along with Steven Shapin, of Leviathan and the Air-Pump, a key text in Latour’s early Science Studies work).
Latour alluded to “Two Lessons from an Old Imam” in 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 encouraged 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/project-latour/BMDb/.
Last updated: 23 Jan 2025
