Death by Design: Where Parallel Worlds Meet (1997)

A guided tour into the invisible world of cells, told through a collage of metaphors. Discusses and portrays the invisible world of cells, how they communicate with each other, work ... See full summary »

Directors:

Jean-François Brunet, Peter Friedman

Writers:

Peter Friedman, Jean-François Brunet

Stars:

Klaus-Michael Debatin, Pierre Golstein, Robert Horvitz

1 win.

Cast

Credited cast:
Klaus-Michael Debatin	...	Himself
Pierre Golstein	...	Himself
Robert Horvitz	...	Himself
Rita Levi-Montalcini	...	Herself
Polly Matzinger	...	Herself
Martin Raff	...	Himself

Storyline

A guided tour into the invisible world of cells, told through a collage of metaphors. Discusses and portrays the invisible world of cells, how they communicate with each other, work together, reproduce, and die, all to benefit the larger organism of which they are a part. State-of-the-art microcinematography is playfully intercut with parallel images from life at the human scale: a hundred lighted violins, imploding skyscrapers, pieces of film on the cutting room floor. Contains interviews with noted biologists.

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Plot Keywords:

cell | biologist | science | cellular biology | independent film

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Genres:

Documentary

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Company Credits

Production Co:

Independent Television Service (ITVS)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

70 min

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Connections

Featured in Zomergasten: Episode #20.4 (2007)

User Reviews

A great scientific documentary

This documentary explains a strange mechanism of pluricellular bodies (like ours) to produce large amounts of cells that are destroyed without having been used. That is the central point of the movie, but the directors also have made an effort to explain this point as simply as possible so they make lots of references to human conduct in which you can see that our social behavior -at least seen from the outside- looks a lot like what cells do. All scientists interviewed are clear and pedagogic and, thanks to their testimonies, the strange phenomenon of cellular death ends up being also a reflection of our (western) society's fear of death. A great, entertaining and enlightning film.