ReAction!
Price:
$49.95 (06)Description
ReAction! gives a scientist's and artist's response to the dark and bright sides of chemistry found in 140 films, most of them contemporary Hollywood feature films but also a few documentaries, shorts, silents, and international films.Even though there are some examples of screen chemistry between the actors and of behind-the-scenes special effects, this book is really about the chemistry when it is part of the narrative. It is about the dualities of Dr. Jekyll vs. inventor chemists, the invisible man vs. forensic chemists, chemical weapons vs. classroom chemistry, chemical companies that knowingly pollute the environment vs. altruistic research chemists trying to make the world a better place to live, and, finally, about people who choose to experiment with mind-altering drugs vs. the drug discovery process.
Little did Jekyll know when he brought the Hyde formula to his lips that his personality split would provide the central metaphor that would come to describe chemistry in the movies. This book explores the two movie faces of this supposedly neutral science. Watching films with chemical eyes, Dr. Jekyll is recast as a chemist engaged in psychopharmaceutical research but who becomes addicted to his own formula. He is balanced by the often wacky inventor chemists who make their discoveries by trial-and-error.
Reviews
"Fascinating and engrossing. The book leaves the reader with plenty of ideas for films to see and some excellent stories about chemists and chemistry. But more than that it presents a fascinating view of chemistry, the movies and chemistry in the movies, which gives the reader plenty of food for thought next time a bit of chemistry appears on the silver screen; and this is perhaps far more than one might expect from a book about chemistry in the movies."--Nature Chemistry
"Griep and Mikasen show that popular films can be chemically interesting as well as entertaining. The book really comes alive when it takes even the unlikeliest chemistry in a film seriously. The first and possibly best example of this is where the authors discuss a candidate for the compound that turns Dr Jekyll into Mr Hyde, based on contemporary evidence about Robert Louis Stevenson, but there's more of this all of the way through, further examples including Flubber, Moonraker, and an Elvis Presley vehicle, called Clambake"--Chemistry World
Product Details
352 pages; 50 halftones; 6-1/8 x 9-1/4; ISBN13: 978-0-19-532692-5ISBN10: 0-19-532692-XAbout the Author(s)
Mark Griep
is a chemistry professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, who is searching for new antibiotics and who recently received a College Distinguished Teaching Award.
Marjorie Mikasen
is a Geometric painter, who recently received an Individual Artist's Fellowship from the Nebraska Arts Council. Her work is in public and private collections. The authors are married and were awarded an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant in the area of Public Understanding of Science to do the research for this book.
Companion Resources
The following resources are available from the "ReAction!: Chemistry in the Movies" companion site:
