Documentary Analysis: BBC Dangerous Knowledge

The second documentary I am going to analyse is called Dangerous Knowledge. This documentary
takes a journey into the understanding of human knowledge and discusses the link between our
knowledge and the scientific reasoning behind it. It also focuses on four historical Mathematicians,
George Cantor, Ludwig Boltzmann, Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing. It takes a look at how the power of
their knowledge eventually drove them insane and led them to committing suicide. This series
concentrates on George Cantor whose work was the foundation of 20th Century mathematics. He
believed he was God's messenger, but he was driven to insanity as he tried to prove his theories of
infinity.

The documentary begins with a slow pace, soft tempo piece of music. The music is accompanied by a
moving image of mountains with an slight brown hue.

On screen graphics appear in sets of flashes just over the moving image to give a historical feel. The
narrator opens the documentary with the quote ''Beneath the surface of the world are the rules of
science, and beneath these set of rules is a matrix of pure mathematics which explain the nature of the
rules of science''.
This opening sentence is powerful for the viewer to gather the basic understanding on the direction of
the documentary and also giving off the impression that the understanding of human knowledge lies
within scientific and mathematical explanations. It also lets off the idea that being able to understand
our own thoughts and how to generate certain levels of knowledge hold a complexity which cannot be
explained narrowly, but need a lot of research into such people who inspire these ideas as Albert
Eisntein, Plato and Aristotle.

During this introduction to the documentary, various clips are shown from different angles of a
silhouette of a man standing on a cliff.

This imagery connotes a contemplative state of mind which is being felt by the individual. I believe
this because it relates back to ordinary people being in an open space in order to free their minds,
clear their thoughts and form summaries of certain situations or feelings running through their
minds.
The uses of shots of mountains from various angles ties in with the slow paced non-diegetic music
playing in the background of the narrators speech. The images encourage a relaxed expression for the
audience.

A second set of on-screen graphics are revealed to the viewer which show what is being said by the
voice of a man whispering ''To see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wilder flower. To hold
infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in a second.'' Each time the main word being
emphasized here is merges into the next. To See A World, Heaven, Infinity and Eternity, are being
shown to the audience. The use of this on-screen effect highlights the importance of these words as
they are being said. They also allow the viewer to visualize what is being said and let it play on their
minds.

The next shot is of an interview with a man who has a view on the topic. Here the use of the rule of
thirds is has clearly been executed.

The use of the rule of thirds is to give off the perfect alignment of the image of the speaker, kept to one
side and allowing the flow of the image. This allows the viewer to engage with the interviewee as he
asks a question for the audience to think about. ''What is the system that everything has to adhere to if
there is no God?''. The way in which this question has been forged on the minds of the viewer gives
that connection between the documentary and the audience. In some ways it allows the viewer to
become a part of the documentary by thinking about the question and being able to come up with
their own answer and/ or explanation in response to the question.
An image of a snow globe merged into an image of flames is used as a link between the speeches of the
two interviewees.
There is also a sound effect of a clock ticking in the background which connotes the idea of time. The
thought of time can also be relate with the viewer in the sense that time is something which people
rarely perceive as precious but instead tend to 'live in the now'.

The angle used for the next speaker is from the waist up, because he is using hand gestures. The use of
this angle is important as it allows the viewer to have some kind of insight to a person's personality
through the way in which they interact with the camera.
A third speaker is revealed to the audience, who gives his view on the topic stating that it isn't a matter
of liking the evidence or not as it is proof which we should accept.

Overall, the structure of the documentary interacts with the viewer in a way that allows them to come
up with their own small conclusions of various information being shared with them whilst they are
being exposed to quotes and a series of imagery in the forms of both still and moving pictures and also
on-screen graphics, which link in with what each person is explaining to the audience. The viewer is
also being provided with various points of view which give their own interpretations on the topic. The
use of various perspectives mean that the documentary doesn't hold bias as it isn't telling the viewer
what to believe but it is showing them different sides of the discussion and they are left to freely be
able to decide which way they wish to follow, if any.

The narration though the documentary is not constant. It begins with introducing the documentary to
the viewer as a documentary and follows by revealing various perspectives which relate to the topic.
The three first interviewees have a small piece to say each lasting roughly 10 seconds, after which the
narrator returns to explain the purpose of the documentary. This is an interesting structure as it keeps
straight to the point of the documentary, briefly giving examples which link in with the topic and are
followed by detailed explanations.
After the brief view points on the topic in question, an explanation of the documentary begins to
expand as described by the narrator. He informs the viewer that the documentary is going to take
them on a journey through the ideas of four great mathematicians as they tried desperately hard to
make sense of the link between maths and the universe and how they pursued the questions they had
to the point of insanity and eventually suicide. He explains that what they discovered still exists in our
world today though we only understand the basics of it all and are yet to unravel its full potential.
During the full explanation of the documentary, there are a series of clips being shown in the form of a
19th century society which show historically related images from a man writing, to a close up of
another man's face and going into a close up of a man's hand to the paper as he writes. This is
accompanied by the slow paced soft tempo music playing in the background to which gives the feel of
the documentary taking the viewer on a journey back in time to discover what the documentary is
explaining to them.
At 2minutes into the documentary the title appears, Dangerous Knowledge. The on-screen graphics of
the title fade in with the image of a 17th century clock in the background. Again, this links in with the
idea of time being central to the development of the documentary.
The narrator of the documentary then introduces himself whilst he is filmed walking through a park.
The use of the voice over hear gives the feeling that he is thinking out loud. He explains that he is
dedicating this documentary to the four mathematicians whose ideas have influenced our
understanding on the nature of our society and whose life stories hold an important message for us
today. Cutaways of the main sites including a cathedral, the transport and people walking in Halle,
east Germany showing the audience the location of where the journey of the documentary begins. He
explains how Georg Cantor started off his own journey by asking himself a simple question, ''How big
is infinity?''

The use of on-screen graphics provides the audience with an image of a man sitting alone in the dark
with a light above him, above the image says, ''God's Messenger''. This image has been provided for
the audience to think about what us coming next. The image also connotes the idea that Georg Cantor
possibly thought of himself as God's Messenger as he began his journey to understanding the laws of
mathematics in relation to our universe. It provides a divide in the documentary and makes the
audience aware that the documentary is going to take a new direction. This image is followed by a
black and white image of Georg Cantor. This image is accompanied by the short clips of speakers
giving their own views on Georg Cantor and his theory.

The documentary moves quickly placing a lot of information in small spaces of time. Information is
being fed to the audience in snipets which allow them to think on the same wavelength as the film
maker.
The viewer is being educated which is part of the initial aims of the BBC, ''to educate, inform and
entertain''. Looking at Bill Nichols'Introduction of Documentary Modes, I have found that this
documentary takes on more of a Poetic Mode. This is seen in the way that the documentary has
reassembled the society we live in currently in order to be able to transform a historical meaning
behind the way it has been formed. The documentary lets off feelings for the viewer which make them
think on a broad level. This seems to be the aim of the documentary and it has been structured
effectively to do so. It doesn't aim specifically for a representation on the world we live in but on the
ideas we have been given and focuses on our understanding of society and the capability of our minds.