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The Quest for Tannu Tuva
1988 · Film · documentary · 45 min
Directed by Christopher Sykes
The story of physicist Richard Feynman's fascination with - and efforts to visit - a remote country in the center of Asia, called Tannu Tuva, "the land where the reindeer meets the camel".
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Five documentaries with and about the great American physicist Richard Feynman (1918-88), all made for the BBC TV 'Horizon' science series.
- Feynman: The Pleasure of Finding Things Out (1981)
- The Complete Fun to Imagine With Richard Feynman
- Feynman: The Quest for Tannu Tuva (1988) aka Last Journey of a Genius
- Feynman: No Ordinary Genius Part One - 50mins
- Feynman: No Ordinary Genius Part Two - 50mins
Feynman's friend Ralph Leighton wrote about Felnman's long-standing desire to go there [1]. The BBC Horizon programme had an episode called "The Quest for Tannu Tuva" [2] which might be on youtube.
[1] http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tuva-Bust-Richard-Feynmans-Journey/dp/0393320693
[2] http://sciencek.com/video/1151/horizon-1988x25-the-quest-for-tannu-tuva-1988-07-04/
There is a whole genre of educational documentaries that basically have no point of view (other than general, popular consensus). For me, the best documentaries are basically audio books with very good illustrations, and while audio books don't work for me at all, documentaries do. From watching hundreds of hours of them, I think the best ones actually lack an overarching story (seeng as how reality usually doesn't have an epic climax). Because the content is being delivered so fast, there's some latency involved here, but the medium lends itself well to repeat watching, listening, or both.
Something like BBC/PBS "Universe" stuff from the late 90's aged very well because they are snapshots of discoveries and problems that now are not nearly as exciting anymore, but they tell you a lot about the very recent history of the subject. This goes for a lot of other subjects, whether it's art, or math, or history. Documentaries can be historical documents in themselves, just check out "Civilization" from 1970 (I think), or "The Human Animal" from 1994.
Soundtrack, narration opening, editing, those all hold clues to trusting or not trusting the content, and it's pretty easy to establish credibility and historical context early on. But they can also be the equivalent of an amazing lecturer.
Edit: one obvious addition to the biography section would be "The Quest For Tannu Tuva", parts of an autobiographical interview with Feynman, on YouTube as well. Edit 2: "The Strange Life and Death of Dr. Alan Turing" from 1992 as well.