ADRIAN MALONE : A Nobel Cause

The faint sounds of Liverpool still linger in producer Adrian Malone’s voice. At 57, he has done a wealth of PBS and BBC documentaries: “The Ascent of Man,” with Jacob Bronowski; “The Age of Uncertainty” with John Kenneth Galbraith; the landmark 13-part “Cosmos” with Carl Sagan, and, in 1992, the 10-part “Milennium: Tribal Wisdom and the Modern World.”

Now comes “The Nobel Legacy,” the first of three installments debuting Thursday on KCET. The series features three Nobel laureates--Dr. J. Michael Bishop (UC San Francisco) for medicine, Leon Lederman (Illinois Institute of Technology) for physics and Dudley Herschbach (Harvard) for chemistry--and the elegant counterpoint of poet-classicist Anne Carson, who makes no bones about being skeptical of science.

Malone’s “Nobel” is complex, perplexing, fascinating, occasionally infuriating and eerily beautiful, its subject matter as vast as the universe. And all in three hours.

The idea came from sole funder Baxter International (medical technology) and IMG International Management Group, which represents the Nobel Foundation and sports figures. (When IMG phoned his home in Bethesda, Md., Malone said, “I don’t do sports .... “)

Times Staff Writer Judith Michaelson caught up with Malone by phone to talk about the documentary.

What drew you to the Nobels?

It seemed to be an ideal situation where one could draw people into both the wonder and the beauty of science as opposed to men in white coats holding test tubes. The other thought--we might do it every year. Three programs about the three science prizes (through) the year 2000.

The sort of people we’re concerned with, apart from the people on the screen, were the Super Nobels: (Francis) Crick and (James) Watson on DNA, (Werner) Heisenberg (physics) and (Robert Burns) Woodward, (called the “Einstein of synthetic chemistry”). We could have talked about Einstein and Linus Pauling, but that may be for other years.

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You’re best known for “Cosmos.” How does “Nobel Legacy” differ?

It has moved on. In “Cosmos” our metaphors were mostly scientific. The metaphors for this one are deliberately not taken from science. They try to build bridges across knowledge, and say if you appreciate the beauty of this statue, you should also appreciate the beauty of the form--the body--that actually made it. ... In “Physics” we used the four forces that bind matter together, and I said it’s almost the same as those that bind human families and societies together. That’s quite a thought. I’m quite proud of that metaphor.

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But with subjects as broad and complex as medicine, physics and chemistry, weren’t you biting off more than you can chew with Anne Carson?

I don’t think so. ... A great many people are also against a notion of science. They feel that science is maybe leading us down the same path as the Frankenstein monster. And those people’s views have to be served and appreciated in some way. ... I think Carson’s mistaken, but at the same time she has a poet’s license.

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But wouldn’t it have been better to deal with the science, rather than the cracks in the landscape?

I think we did do that; we answer it. This is for a wide popular audience. This is not (just) for the dedicated science viewer who might watch “Nova.” This is for people who say, “Hey, that’s good looking, what the hell is that?” ... You can look at “Hamlet” in the physics show, and think about the principle of uncertainty. It’s the same bloody thing.

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What will viewers learn in “Medicine”?

That medicine is part of the continuum of biology--in other words, the whole study of living things. If it’s just considered as only the work of mechanics, then you’ve lost it.

The “Medicine” hour is sort of shot and edited to feel like medicine. It looks warm and sunny. Its heroes are human like Bishop and Watson and Crick. ... I would love viewers to come away with one word in mind-- compassion.

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Yet Carson asks, “How much money is it worth to give somebody’s heart a tuneup (with angioplasty) that may last only years or months?” That sounds rather cold-blooded.

It’s almost the same words people in Oregon have been using about their graduated medical plan. ... The fact is, that’s what happened to me . I’ve had four angioplasties and a bypass. The angioplasty is just a damn tuneup.

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Aren’t you glad you had them?

Oh sure, but there’s probably a helluva lot of people who could have been served with that amount of money.

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With DNA being discussed in “Medicine” and the national soap opera of the Simpson trial, will people understand more of it?

I think they will. But they won’t necessarily come away understanding the notion of using DNA as a forensic device. ... I hope they understand that the blueprint of life is DNA. That’s what life is. That’s where it happens.

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Of all the science Nobel laureates, who is the most interesting?

Heisenberg. Heisenberg has fascinated me for many years. This is a man who invents or finds the principle of uncertainty. He is himself someone who we do not know whether he stayed in Germany (during the Nazi era) to make the bomb--or stop the bomb.

“The Nobel Legacy” airs Thursday, May 11 and May 18 at 10 p.m. on KCET.