Events
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Screen legend Spencer Tracy stars as the dual title role in this 1941 adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic horror tale. Dr. Henry Jekyll is a prominent, socially upstanding physician whose unorthodox theories alarm his older, more conservative colleagues. Jekyll believes that each man has two selves, one good and one evil, that can be separated through science, thereby freeing the good so that it can triumph and allowing the bad to "destroy itself in its own degradation." Toiling away in his lab, the affable Jekyll perfects a drug which transforms him into the cruel and remorseless Edward Hyde. Initially, Jekyll is able to dispense of Hyde whenever he chooses. But as he repeatedly takes the potion, he finds himself unable to control his malevolent alter ego. Lana Turner co-stars as Jekyll's loving, forgiving fiancée and Ingrid Bergman as a luckless barmaid pursued and abused by the brutish Mr. Hyde.
Before the film, professors John Durant and Anne Harrington provide a fascinating window into some of the scientific theories and debates of the era in which Stevenson's original novella was born. In the late 19th century, man's bestial origins, as revealed by Darwin, and the idea of degeneration (that humanity could fall downwards on the evolutionary ladder as easily as it could move upwards) gripped the Victorian imagination. It was a time when physicians circulated a double brain theory, when dual personality and other cases of mental illness were often attributed to brain asymmetry, and when people anxiously wondered where the soul lived in relation to the brain.
Anne Harrington specializes in the history of psychiatry, neuroscience, and the other mind sciences. She is the author of Medicine, Mind and the Double Brain, Reenchanted Science, and The Cure Within, and has produced a range of articles and edited collections.
John Durant joined MIT in 2005. He was formerly assistant director and head of science communication at the Science Museum, London and professor of public understanding of science at Imperial College, London. Professor Durant has a PhD in history and philosophy of science from the University of Cambridge. His areas of research include the history of evolutionary and behavioral biology, particularly debates about animal nature and human nature in the late-19th and 20th centuries.
Tickets: Museum of Science members and students: $7.75; general admission: $9.75; Coolidge Corner Theatre members: free. Tickets are available in advance at coolidge.org or at the theater box office, 290 Harvard Street, Brookline.
With Science on Screen, the Coolidge Corner Theatre shows a feature film or documentary with a basis in science, combined with exciting remarks by noted scientists and others in related fields. The Science on Screen series is co-presented by the Museum of Science, Boston and New Scientist magazine.
| Format | Lecture |
| Grades | n/a – n/a |
| Author | n/a |
| Speaker(s) | Anne Harrington, chair and professor, Department of the History of Science, Harvard University; John Durant, director, MIT Museum, adjunct professor, Science, Technology and Society Program, MIT, and executive director, Cambridge Science Festival |
| Location | Coolidge Corner Theatre — Museum of Science, Boston |
| Website | Buy tickets from the Coolidge Corner Theatre |
| Duration | 3 hours |
| Reservation | n/a |
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Schedules
Remaining seats appear in parenthesis after event time.
October 19, 2009: 7:00 p.m.
