B. F. Skinner Plays Himself revisits the life and works of B. F. Skinner through never-before-seen footage recovered from a failed educational film project. Skinner–a world famous public intellectual in his lifetime who continues to be ranked among the most important psychologists of any era–is now largely forgotten outside a select academic niche. From Skinner’s early work with rats, to pigeon-guided bombs and air-conditioned baby cribs, to Utopian communes and debating Dennis Hopper, we deconstruct the scientist and reimagine his prescient predictions about the pitfalls and potential of shaping behavior. The failure of the abandoned educational film shows that changing behavior–often criticized for its supposed authoritarian potentials–is both more nuanced and more difficult than his critics imagined.

Past screenings: MoMA’s DocFortnight