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Jason Spingarn-Koff’s Shortlist

Published on June 16, 2010

The Shortlist article series is your opportunity to learn about the films that inspire intellectual, artistic and activist leaders—leaders like Jason Spingarn-Koff. We asked Jason to share his favorite films and his thoughts on the power of documentary to change the world.

So what films make Jason Spingarn-Koff’s Shortlist? Keep reading to find out.

Who is Jason Spingarn-Koff?

Filmmaker Jason Spingarn-Koff

Jason Spingarn-Koff is a New York–based filmmaker and journalist who specializes in the intersection of science, technology and society. His first feature documentary Life 2.0, about a group of people whose lives are dramatically transformed by the virtual world Second Life, premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and will have its European debut at the Munich Film Festival on June 26. He was the producer of NOVA‘s The Great Robot Race, which followed a group of engineers in a dramatic $2 million competition to race robotic vehicles across the Mojave desert, and the development producer for the Emmy-winning global public health series Rx for Survival. Spingarn-Koff is a graduate of Brown University and the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. For the academic year 2010-2011, he has been awarded a prestigious Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT.

Jason Spingarn-Koff on the Power of Film

I aspire to entertain and enlighten, while making important subjects interesting. To find the human story behind science and innovation. To help people see the world and themselves from a new perspective, however unsettling, while not being didactic, and with artistry and respect for my subjects and audience. To find humor where you may not expect it. To question the nature of reality and chart the robot uprising.

Jason Spingarn-Koff’s Picks
The following are some of my favorite documentaries about science and technology.

The Day After Trinity: A persistent theme in my work is the unintended consequences of scientific and technological innovation, and Jon Else’s documentary from 1981 is a classic. This sobering, brilliantly told story chronicles the complex life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist who led the development of the atomic bomb and later became one of its fierce critics.

Triumph of the Nerds: It’s Jobs vs. Gates (Round 1) in this epic, definitive tale of the founders of the PC revolution by Mark Stephens (aka Robert X. Cringely). While the style is a bit hokey, the film succeeds in making the material entertaining, and has gained a certain retro appeal since its PBS debut in 1996. The access is amazing, as are some of the quotes, such as this one by author Douglas Adams: “A nerd is someone who uses the telephone to talk to others about telephones. A computer nerd is someone who uses a computer in order to use a computer.”

NOVA: The Elegant Universe: This is one of the finest of examples to how to take an esoteric science topic—in this case, string theory—and make it accessible for a general audience, through the power of lucid storytelling, visual inventiveness, and a talented host (Columbia professor Brian Greene). Stay tuned for the sequel.

Mars: Dead or Alive: Another NOVA favorite, Mark Davis’s verité film follows engineers racing to build and launch a Mars rover. Rare access pays off with strong characters and drama. The CG visualizations—of unfilmable events like the spacecraft’s bouncy landing—are also notable.

The Natural History of the Chicken: Mark Lewis’s endearing and often hilarious film reshapes our notions of this common bird, by profiling a cross-section of people who have close relationships to them—including a woman who revived a chicken through mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. I’m especially drawn to his impeccable craft—employing the full toolbox of narrative filmmaking—and his gift for presenting oddball characters with dignity. Also keep a look out for his latest, Cane Toads: The Conquest. One of my favorites this year at Sundance, it is starting a theatrical run.

In Comparison: The premise sounds deathly boring and unfundable: a world-wide examination of bricks. Yes, the stuff of walls. Harun Farocki, one of the great artists of non-fiction, avoids the tropes of the form—here there’s no drama, no central characters, no narration or overt exposition. The episodic approach is elegant and deceptively simple. We see how this ancient technology is manufactured and used across the globe, from hand-made mud huts in Africa to robotically constructed walls in Germany. While the star is the brick, the real focus is cultural context—what these humble objects say about us. Kudos to the European funders.

Me and Isaac Newton: In one of the gaps between his Up series, Michael Apted turned his lens on scientists (with funding from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen). The focus is not their research per se, but the people—an overt and largely successful attempt to humanize the field. Notably, I believe there isn’t a single shot of a scientist in a lab coat.

Erasing David: This new film from the UK, which played at SXSW, explores the challenge of erasing one’s identity in the digital age (the topic overlaps with the popular Wired article “Vanish” but is unrelated). If produced in the U.S., this could too easily become a narration and talking-head driven cable show. Here, the storytelling device is that filmmaker David Bond attempts to flee his life in England, one of the great surveillance states, while being hunted by a team of private investors. Along the way, the film suggests we all leave trails of digital fingerprints that make it nearly impossible to go undetected.

Koyaanisqatsi: I was hesitant to add this because it’s so well known (and Philp Glass’ score has become the most overused temp-score cliché in science films) yet in high school this had a major impact on me: a God’s eye view of industrialization and an experimental approach to the form. The director, Godfrey Reggio, was kind enough to speak to me after one of his screenings and encouraged me to try my hand at filmmaking.

The King of Kong: This is not a science film by any stretch, but rather a thoroughly entertaining window into extreme geek culture: a heated battle to claim to the top score in Donkey Kong. Seth Gordon’s storytelling transcends meager shooting to demonstrate the power of a classic protagonist-antagonist competition structure. There’s apparently a fiction remake in the works.

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