Scientific research and scenario

Rigorous scientific research, whether it concerns the hard sciences or the humanities, anchors the screenplay in reality and generates singular ideas born from the encounter between imagination and reality.

Documentation, Experimentation, and Sergio Leone

Scientific research involves extensive documentation on a subject, as well as experimentation on the same subject. When I speak of sciences, I consider all sciences, not just the hard sciences, but also the humanities: history, sociology, anthropology, which are sciences as well! It’s not just physics, mathematics, or chemistry.

The filmmaker Sergio Leone, who never made strictly historical films in the sense that the stories he told were always fictional, relied on a very rigorous scientific approach for costumes, weapons, props, and sets. Each of these details was historically accurate to perfection. Nothing forced him to do this, as the stories he told were pure fiction. He could have, and no one would have blamed him, taken all the liberties he wanted with the historical veracity of these details, but that wasn’t his practice. He paid immense attention to the precision of these details. At first glance, this might seem unnecessary, or even obsessive. But why have Sergio Leone’s films stood the test of time so well? It’s because they are rooted in reality.

The Ontology of Cinema and Research

Cinema derives its magic, much like the tape recorder or photography, from the mechanical recording of reality, which is why it is ontological: it is proof of the existence of what is filmed (and even with special effects, it doesn’t lose this power of proof—that’s another, very interesting topic). And if what is filmed in an invented fiction is of the order of reality (like the historical accuracies in Sergio Leone’s films), then what is filmed resonates with the ontological nature of cinema itself. This accuracy of the trace gives the film a multiplied anchoring power. This is one of the keys to the strength of Sergio Leone’s films.

Furthermore, research through documentation and in-depth experimentation on the subject or context of the film allows us to discover ideas through the encounter between our imagination and this precisely defined reality. We will literally discover our ideas, rooted in reality. And they will be very precise, very informed. They will constitute powerful discoveries for the audience, worthy of great interest, even within a fiction.

Our research will inspire an infinite number of dramatic situations, ideas that are each more astonishing and unique than the last, which will bring to our screenplay, and then to our film, a powerful singularity—something unique that arises from the encounter between our personal subjectivity and the reality of the field in which our film is set.

This field can encompass multiple aspects. Imagine a fiction set in the medical field, in the suburbs of Naples, within a community of left-leaning individuals. We can conduct scientific research on the geography of the area, its climate, the history of public health in that region of Italy, or how the Covid crisis was managed there, etc.

Sociological Investigation

To conduct this scientific research, nothing beats a sociological investigation. I highly recommend starting your scientific research with a sociological investigation in the spirit of Bruno Latour. This opens incredible doors, in ways that are difficult to imagine. Of course, it’s more effective to do your research before writing, but it will be useful at any stage.

Brief Summary of Bruno Latour’s Investigation Method:

• Identify the actors involved in a given phenomenon (e.g., people, institutions, technologies, etc.).
• Map the relationships between these actors to understand how they interact and collaborate to produce concrete outcomes.
• Analyze the networks of relationships to identify control points and breaking points—moments where actors can influence outcomes.
• Use visualization techniques to represent the networks of relationships and facilitate analysis.
• Interview the actors to understand their perspectives and roles in the relationships and processes being studied.
• Analyze the material objects involved in the processes studied to understand their role in social relationships.
• Identify key moments where actors and material objects were connected or disconnected to produce changes in the relationships and processes studied.

Putting Research into Practice

It’s never too late to engage in scientific research that will automatically enrich the screenplay, and it should be demanding research—not superficial, not just a few online readings—but research in books, in libraries. I suggest allocating a significant budget for purchasing books, as well as for fieldwork and direct encounters with researchers—not to interview them, but to discuss their area of study in depth with the aim of stimulating our thinking about aspects of the subject we couldn’t even have imagined without this research.