Particle Fever

Directed by Mark Levinson

This is a documentation of science as a media circus.  It is a public relations infomercial for CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research that operates the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, Switzerland.  I was disappointed in it to the point of loathing.  I was expecting something akin to the old NOVA programs on PBS, where they seriously examine the scientific issues and provide in depth biographical portraits of the scientists involved.  It wasn’t anything like that at all.  This was superficial and childish.  It was a cross between the Oscars and a cheerleading section at a basketball game.  But this is a game that no one understands or knows how to play.  So it is hard to understand why anyone is cheering or what they are cheering for. 

They showed a graphic with an H in the center of it and told us that’s the Higgs Boson; that’s what we’re looking for.  It’s the key to the universe.  It’s the long sought Holy Grail of particle physics.  Well, . . . OK.  But no attempt was made to explain what it is and why it is so important, or why you need this gargantuan apparatus to find it.  Maybe they decided that we are all just too dumb to get it, so they would try to create some phony drama that would hop us up and entertain us.  But it didn’t work on me.  I have too much curiosity — which was the main justification they gave for building this behemoth in the first place.  The film should have pandered to that curiosity that is driving the scientists.  The scientific issues should be engaging and interesting enough in their own right to hold the interest of the audience.  But the filmmakers simply didn’t believe in it.  They opted to make something like late night television.  I’m getting more annoyed the more I think about it.

A hundred years ago a lone, eccentric scientist, driven by little more than his own peculiar interests, could build an apparatus in his basement that was capable of making important discoveries.  That is no longer the case.  It costs a lot of money to build and operate a mother bear like the Large Hadron Collider, and for that they need a lot of support from political leaders and the public, since it admittedly does not produce anything of immediate economic value.  Perhaps the debacle in the United States of the Superconducting Super Collider struck fear in their hearts, when the U.S. Congress, in 1993, canceled the project to build the world’s largest and most energetic particle accelerator after it was well under way.  Perhaps the thinking is that the way to garner public support is through propaganda, public relations gimmicks, and advertising, rather than trying to educate people about the subtleties of particle physics and the deep structure of the universe.  I disagree, but I am certainly no expert on public relations.  My opinion is that this attitude is mistaken and this film is misguided in its fundamental approach to the subject.  It is an unfortunate missed opportunity both to educate the public about recent developments in particle physics and to broaden the base of public support for large scale scientific enterprises of the type done in the Large Hadron Collider.  I don’t think this film is going to be popular, and I don’t think is serves the scientists well who participated in it and who care about pushing back the frontiers of human knowledge and understanding the origins and structure of the universe.  Even if you are suckered by the light entertainment this film offers, you won’t know very much more about the Higgs boson when you leave than you did when you went in.  

Program 3 — Firebird — San Francisco Ballet Performance

February 28, 2014

Three ballets make up Program 3:  The Kingdom of the Shades, which comes from Act II of a ballet called La Bayadére, by Ludwig Minkus and Natalia Makarova; Ghosts, by Kip Winger and Christopher Wheeldon; and Firebird, by Igor Stravinsky and Yuri Possokhov.  They all have to do with male idealizations and conflicts about women.  They are psychological in that they deal with the internal, psychic representations of women in the male imagination rather than with stories, events, or women who might be real.  Firebird is by far and away the superior of the three.

The Kingdom of the Shades is a sublime display of dance technique at the highest level and great visual beauty.  According to the program notes, “The scene is the opium-induced hallucination of Solor, who grieves for his love, the murdered temple dancere (bayadére) Nikiya.”  However, you would never guess this upon watching the ballet.  There is no suggestion of opium influencing Solor (Denis Matvienko), who presents several impressive solos that show him perfectly sharp and at the top of his game.  There is also no suggestion that Nikiya (Maria Kochetkova) has been murdered, or that she is even dead.  What you get is the sense that Solor is dealing with an illusion about a woman, not any woman in particular, but an abstraction of woman, a phantasm.  Nikiya is not a woman who actually exists or ever did exist except in Solor’s imagination.  It is a naive, idealized conception of a woman by someone who doesn’t really know women very well.  The music starts out somber, nostalgic and conflicted, but morphs into a series of waltzes that grow progressively cheesier as they go along.  What saves the ballet is the technical brilliance of the dancers, which we have become spoiled into taking for granted at the San Francisco Ballet, and the visual beauty of the staging and choreography.  Once again the San Francisco Ballet has taken something that is short on substance and turned it into a pleasing visual spectacle.

Ghosts is a more interesting performance in my eyes and ears.  The music is more interesting and the choreography and staging have a greater sense of freedom and imagination.  The ballet is abstract.  The theme is Ghosts.  Well, what is that?   What you see are pairs of male-female couples, that stay pretty much in those pairs throughout the performance.  There are a couple of triangles with two men and a woman, but there is a strong sense of the male-female couple throughout this ballet.  And the couples are strongly interactive.  They look at each other and touch each other and are quite involved with one another physically and emotionally all the way through.

My understanding of a ghost is that it has to do with the past and with the imagination.  A ghost haunts one by intruding into ones consciousness unbidden and unsolicited.  An experience or person of some significance, but long past, continues to disrupt and influence ones present emotional balance and cannot be easily dismissed.  One does not get that sense from this ballet.  There is no sense of the past that I could discern.  And these ghosts were benign, whereas I think a ghost suggests something ominous.  A ghost is an unwelcome presence in my understanding.  This ballet has no such overtones.   One does not get a strong emotional fix on this ballet, but it is visually interesting and danced with a high degree of skill.

The highlight of the evening was Firebird, with music by Igor Stravinsky and choreography by Yuri Possokhov.  This ballet has an interesting concept and is beautifully staged and danced to high quality music.  The dance and the music complement one another very effectively, which is something I especially like to see in a dance performance.  This is one I would like to see again, because I don’t feel like I got it all on the first viewing.  It is a complex, ambiguous story that allows for a wide range of interpretation.  I might have to study this one some before I come to a clearer conception.

The Firebird is a mythical figure (female) who seems to fall in love with a prince.  They part on good terms for reasons that are not clear and the prince then takes up with a princess.  The relationship between the Firebird and the Princess is not clear, and I am wondering if they are the same in some sense?  A devil-like character, Kaschei, appears and brings discord to the romantic couple.  The nature of the discord is not clear, but the Firebird reappears to dispel Kaschei and restore the couple’s harmony and equilibrium.  The story ends with an apparent wedding and a happily ever after sequel.  According to the program notes it is supposed to represent the ultimate triumph of good over evil, something I am finding it increasingly hard to believe in the older I get, but the story is very positive and uplifting and danced and staged at a superb level of skill and taste.

What I can say now is that this story, like the previous two ballets, has to do with male psychology, with male conflicts and idealizations of women, and it represents them in much more depth and interest than the previous two ballets.  The Firebird seems to represent the sensual, sexualized woman of the male imagination.  It is she who rescues the beleaguered young couple beset by turmoil sown by Kaschei, the disruptive, dissatisfied, restless aspect of the young male.  It is the Princess’s ability to tap the sexual energy of the Firebird, the hidden Firebird within herself, that enables her tame Kaschei, to hold the male’s interest, and create a lasting, stable bond.  It is not exactly a triumph of good over evil, but rather a triumph of human connection through sexual bonding over disappointment and dissolution.  This is one you should go see, if you have a chance.  It is both mentally challenging and aesthetically satisfying.