Double helix double take

It's not often that you get to witness a major scientific figure watch his own theatrical indictment. But at the 2005 annual Sloan Film Summit presented by the Tribeca Film Institute in New York earlier this month, the attendance of Nobel laureate James Watson provides just that opportunity.

The afternoon opened with a panel discussion on "Good Science in Good Films" in which Watson revealed that he had been "upset" by Jeff Goldblum's depiction of him in the 1987 film The Race for the Double Helix. "I thought he was unpleasant," he said. But he quickly conceded that "a friend of mine did say I was unpleasant at the time. You're bound to seem crazy to most people."

Despite this familiarity with unflattering publicity, Watson didn't seem prepared for the final excerpt in a series of readings from upcoming science-based films of a screenplay entitled The Broken Code. Watson himself ...