Namrah Siddique

Documentary Analysis: BBC Dangerous Knowledge

The 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 Gdel 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 Einstein, 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.

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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.

Namrah Siddique

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.

Namrah Siddique
The narrator of the documentary then introduces himself whilst he is filmed walking through a park. The use of the voice
over here 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 include 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 snippets 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 focus on our
understanding of society and the capability of our minds.