Doron Weber has seen enough movies featuring scientists to be able to identify Hollywood's three basic types: the mad scientist, the bumbling scientist and the hopeless nerd.
But as director of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Public Understanding of Science and Technology Fund, Weber is encouraging more complex portrayals of science and scientists.
Over the weekend, Mark Decena and Timothy Breitbach, creators of the film Dopamine, received the Sundance Film Festival's inaugural Alfred P. Sloan Prize of $20,000. Dopamine is a comedy about a computer programmer who believes that love has more to do with science than romance.
It might seem like a stretch to compare scientists to, say, African Americans and Latinos, who have historically been targets of often viciously stereotypical portrayals in film and on TV. But Weber thinks the media has a blind spot when it comes to scientists.
"The professions most commonly depicted (in movies and TV) are teachers, lawyers and doctors," Weber said. "It's very rare to see a scientist or engineer. But there are about 2 million people in this country working in those professions, and the work they do is incredibly important in terms of our daily lives."
But are independent filmmakers the ones to tell these stories? Constrained by small budgets, they usually point their cameras at mundane, in-their-own-backyard stuff -- family dramas, gritty crime stories, coming-of-age tales.
Making a film about science means tackling big, thorny issues. Can science become a new frontier for independent filmmakers? Pat Dandonoli, Sundance's director of strategic initiatives, thinks so.
"What independent film can do and has done better than traditional Hollywood is to move away from the stereotypical portrayals -- the shallow, hollow depictions of scientists and their work," she said, citing Christopher Lloyd's character in the Back to the Future series as an example.
"Science represents fertile ground for storytelling and character development."
Ira Flatow, the producer and host of the National Public Radio show Talk Of The Nation: Science Friday, can list plenty of juicy, accessible science stories.
"Just think of all the great scientific minds -- and personalities -- of the last few hundred years that have never been examined by Hollywood in a serious way," he said. "And they all have epic, human stories to tell: Einstein, Feynman, Curie, Newton, Pauling, (Rosalind) Franklin are just a few in this century alone.
"Films like Amadeus show the struggles of musicians and composers; it's not difficult to find stories of scientists who have equally compelling stories."
Sundance is just one staging ground for Sloan's grand plan: to inject science into the mainstream media. Sloan has supported plays (Copenhagen, Proof and QED), radio programming, film schools (with writing and production grants), books and screenplay competitions.
Lynn Hershman Leeson, who received a Sloan award for her film Teknolust at the 2002 Hamptons International Film Festival, calls Sloan's support of independent film "visionary."
"I think if you encourage themes about science, you will get a bevy of scripts. Some will be good, and some will be made," she said. "It can trigger a genre."
Certainly, an overpowering wave of science- and scientist-friendly movies will not be coming to a theater near you anytime soon. But 2002 was a good year, thanks to the profitable and Oscar-winning A Beautiful Mind, a biography of the mathematician John Nash.
Weber thinks that film is a good demonstration of the dramatic possibilities of science-themed films.
"(Films about science) were a harder sell a few years ago," he said. "But now, the word is getting out: A story about science or technology can be successful. Science can sell tickets."
