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5
SUNDAY
I don’t know too much about physics, or chemistry, or any kind of anything to do with science. But the great thing about Rube Goldberg contraptions is that, though they purport to teach you how gears and pulleys work, it’s really easy to ignore all that equal-and-opposite-reaction stuff and just get mesmerized by objects falling over and rolling around. Swiss artists and filmmakers Peter Fischli and David Weiss’ 1987 The Way Things Go is a remarkable half-hour of falling and rolling. Perhaps spurred into action by Switzerland’s tragic obsession with pacifism, Fischli and Weiss created the coolest contraption this side of the breakfast maker from Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. After a while, the tires and candles and oily rags that propel the machine onward even seem to develop personalities. So it’s not as if you’re rooting for something so lame as science—you’re cheering on cute little tires. The film screens daily at regular intervals as part of “Gyroscope” at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, 7th Street and Independence Avenue SW. Free. (202) 357-2700. (Josh Levin)