FILMS OF FACT

Britain has long been recognised for its proud contribution to documentary cinema, yet its fine tradition of scientific and medical documentaries remains underrepresented in the literature on nonfiction film. Films of Fact is the first in-depth history of the genre, which began with amateur hobbyists in the early twentieth century, played a key role in government post-war health programmes, and became a treasured part of popular culture with BBC2’s Horizon and the programming of Channel 4. Central to the narrative is Paul Rotha, a pioneering advocate of science broadcasting of the post-war period, and a figure second only to John Grierson in British documentary history, who helped nurture the collaborative ethos and practices that make scientific and medical documentaries a unique subgenre of documentary cinema. Written by a specialist scientific scholar, Films of Fact is a landmark text on a crucial yet rarely explored aspect of British popular culture. Discussed are films such as World of Plenty (1943) and Land of Promise (1945), and television programmes such as Horizon (1964 onwards) and Crucible: Science and Society (1982).

March 2008
328 pages

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Timothy Boon is Head of Collections at the Science Museum, London. He is also a historian and curator of science, medicine and film, and a contributor to Signs of Life: Medicine and Cinema (2005).

‘Chief curator of the Science Museum, Timothy Boon, has written a well-researched book that provides background detail for historians of UK science film-making during this period.'
– Josie Glausiusz, Nature

'Timothy Boon’s Films of Fact: A History of Science in Documentary Film and Television is something quite special. It’s a history of a type of film which has barely been covered by historians, and has much that is new or revelatory, for the silent era and beyond. But it’s also a cultural history, which addresses why these films were made, what the popularisation of science means, and how science relates to society at large ... An exciting read'
– The Bioscope

‘A remarkable insight into the evolution of the scientific documentary’
– David Dugan, Windfall Films

'A work of considerable scope and significance ... Meticulously researched, it combines thorough scholarship and an engaging readability'
– John Christie, University of Leeds 

‘This groundbreaking study links early scientific films, the British documentary movement and television's engagement with science in a much-needed overview of how the moving image has shaped our sense of science.'
– Ian Christie, Birkbeck College, University of London

'Films of Fact will prove instructive for twentieth-century historians of all kinds (social, media, scientific) and also for science communication specialists. Its detailed account of the making and content of specific films illuminates many aspects of the context of the day, and even, as Boon briefly explores in his conclusion, poses questions about the nature and role of scientific communication in the present day.'
– British Journal for the History of Science 

‘It contains a vast amount of otherwise inaccessible information and will be an indispensable starting-point for future explorations of this territory, not least for its copious bibliographical references and extraordinary breadth of archival documentation. Wallflower Press are to be congratulated for making such a major work of scholarship available at a very reasonable price.'
- Michael Clarke, Viewfinder

'Though Films of Fact confines itself to British non-fiction film, the scope of its analysis makes it essential reading for historians of science and technology who wish to utilize film, and, by the same token, for media studies scholars who seek engagement with the scientific and the technological. Films of Fact by Timothy Boon mends what, up to now, has been a gaping hole in both history of science and media studies-an examination of the specific historical circumstances that determined how, in the twentieth century, science, technology, and medicine were presented to the British public in the form of the moving picture. ... He persuasively argues that any appreciation of the contemporary public understanding of science requires knowledge of the specific circumstances directing the century-long liaison between science and the moving picture.' – John Tercier, Medical History 

'Films of Fact ... establishes a narrative history of the changing genres of scientific documentary from the Edwardian nature films of Charles Urban to late twentieth-century critical television series such as Crucible and Pandora's Box, whilst at the same time pursuing its own rigorous philosophical engagement with the idea of scientific popularisation. ... By emphasising the contingency of these developments, Boon allows us to re-examine the documentary materials we deploy in our historical reconstructions whilst at the same time questioning the basis of our contemporary approach to the public understanding of science. It is a work of meticulous enthusiasm. The author is to be congratulated on his achievement.' – Rhodri Hayward, Social History of Medicine.