Book review on Ecocinema Theory and Practice

REVIEW Ecocinema Theory and Practice, Stephen Rust, Salma Monani and Sean Cubitt (Eds) (2013) New York and Oxon: Routledge (AFI Film Reader), pp.vii-325, Paperback. ISBN: 978-0-415-89943-7 USD$36.95. Reviewed by Kiu-wai Chu For decades, film and media studies have been dominated by issues related to gender and sexuality, race and postcolonial studies, or globalization and transnationalism. Ecological and environmental issues, on the other hand, have long been an underplayed area of studies. It was not until recent years that the field of “ecocinema studies” began to expand in two major ways. First, there has been a shift of ecocritical analysis from western wildlife cinema to various genres of films produced globally;1 and second, there is more systematic conceptualization and theorization of understanding of “ecocinema” and “eco-films”. With hindsight, efforts spent in the development of the field can now be seen in scholars’ works published in the last two decades. There is no better time for Rust, Monani and Cubitt to present their edited anthology Ecocinema Theory and Practice as a more comprehensive introduction to the field. With essays written by pioneering and emerging scholars, the collection both sketches the development of ecocinema studies over the past two decades and offer much-needed new theoretical frameworks for expanding and defining ecocinema studies. Contributors to the volume have proposed various theoretical approaches that expand the field towards multiple directions of investigations – including Scott MacDonald’s theorization of a specific kind of ecocinema that facilitates a retraining of spectator’s perception; David Ingram’s cognitivist approach towards defining a more pluralistic eco-aesthetics applicable to different film genres; Andrew Hageman’s dialectical ideological critiques to expose that all films are bathed in conflicting ideologies; and Adrian Ivakhiv’s process-relational perspective that examines the film This can be seen in Sheldon Lu and Jiayan Mi’s anthology Chinese ecocinema: In the Age of Environmental Challenge (2009), and Pietari Kaapa and Tommy Gustafsson’s forthcoming collection Transnational Ecocinema: Film Culture in An Era of Ecological Transformation (Forthcoming, 2013).More broadly, Ecocinema Theory and Practice has compiled a useful and extensive, if not exhaustive, list of recommended readings for the field of ecocinema studies between 1990s to 2013. (pp.297-313). 1 1 medium itself and its relationship with the world. The subsequent sections of the book take these theoretical investigations further and engage in various key debates within the field, such as the explorations of the battling ideologies of anthropocentrism and ecocentrism reflected in specific films. Ultimately, as Rust and Monani suggest, ecocinema studies aims to “recognize ways of seeing the world other than through the narrow perspective of the anthropocentric gaze that situates individual human desires at the center of the moral universe” (11). One underlying question raised by most eco-film scholars may be how, and to what extent, can ecocinema articulate the relationship between human and nonhuman world from a non-anthropocentric or ecocentric point of view? Several contributors (Vivanco, Ladino, Starosielski and Molloy) approach the question by focusing on a range of wildlife and documentary films that explore representations of animality and humanity, the complex relationships between the two categories, and the vague boundary between the human and nonhuman world. One of the major problems of animal representations in wildlife films, the authors in this section point out, is the impulse in anthropomorphizing the nonhumans. By critiquing how nonhuman livings (such as penguins and underwater creatures) have been ascribed human characteristics, these essays remind us of the fictionalization and artificiality of wildlife films and documentaries. Eventually, it is revealed that films are often charged with racialized, gendered, and consumeristic ideologies that encourage viewers to turn nonhuman subjects – animals or natural landscapes – into commodified spectacles. Part III Ecocinema Practice: Hollywood and Fictional Film covers a range of environmental issues not emphasized in wildlife films and documentaries. Despite their commercial intentions and their appeal to mass audiences mainly as entertainment, the fictional films discussed by Rust, Brereton and Soles convey messages that are intriguingly environmental. Whether it is through “reinterpreting historical images of oil, cars, and their related military-industrial complexes through the lens of global environmental risk” to reflect a shift in the cultural logic of ecology (Rust, 194); or depicting film protagonists’ spiritual, self-seeking journeys into wild nature in order to reveal “the therapeutic benefits of nature/landscape” (Brereton, 227); or eliciting audience’s sympathetic identifications with the cannibalistic villains in exploitation slasher movies to offer a horrifying reflection of collective cultural anxieties towards urban peoples’ own exploitation of their natural world (Soles), ecocritical readings of films in this section suggest that Hollywood and fictional films since 1970s are coded with eco-messages that may offer alternative, anti-consumeristic ways to understand human’s relationship with natural environment. 2 The use of textual readings in the first three sections of the book enables readers to re-approach a wide range of films from new ecocritical angles. But to what extent are films effective in cultivating sustainable eco-consciousness, and how films may have an effect in shaping people’s way of life, is beyond what textual analysis alone can show. Salma Monani and Sean Cubitt expand the field beyond film analysis to engage in other multidisciplinary approaches. Monani makes a first step in exploring the intersections of film festival studies and ecocritical studies, and argues how environmental film festivals serve as public spheres to make room for ecocinematic social engagement. Cubitt, on the other hand, calls for our attention beyond realist pictorial film images, and proposes a number of strategies to translate empirical scientific data into visually legible symbols enabling the general population to better understand environmental science. Other contributors’ essays also suggest or hint at possible directions to go multidisciplinary, to expand the field further by intersecting ecocinema studies with academic disciplines such as cognitive science and psychology (Ingram), eco-branding, marketing and production studies (Molloy), audience reception studies (Brereton), and digital and new media studies (Cubitt). Among the books published on the subject of ecocriticism and film to date, Ecocinema Theory and Practice is by far the one with the greatest breadth and depth in its diverse theoretical approaches and range of films discussed. However, it is unlikely for such an anthology to be able to fully encompass the large range of approaches to ecocinema studies. Aware of this lack of comprehensiveness in the collection, Rust and Monani outline several possible directions for future development of ecocinema studies (9-11). Yet, a further and important addition to their list may be what ecocinema studies could learn from the broader field of ecocriticism. With the latter rapidly emerging as a significant academic field, scholars in ecocinema should make use of concrete examples to experiment with the applications of ecocritical theories and concepts on film, through which to address the current debates on the potential of ecocriticism in ecocinema studies. Recently, there is a growing pragmatism in ecocriticism, and “a proliferation of studies and courses emphasizing the fundamental materiality (the physicality, the consequentiality) of environmental things, places, processes, forces, and experiences” (Slovic, 619). Can such a material turn be seen in eco-film criticism? With MacDonald’s description of the filmstrip itself as a material object that “encapsulates the way in which modern life and the natural world are imbricated” (18) and Ivakhiv’s concurrent words that “cinema has its material ecologies” (90), we are encouraged to explore the materiality of film, which can perhaps spin out another area for further research studies, and open up the field to a broader audience in neighbouring fields. 3 The book shows its greatest strength in interpreting “non-environmentalist films” – from experimental art films, wildlife films and documentaries to Hollywood commercial cinema– as readable environmental texts that the authors argue can raise audience’s ecological awareness or sensibility. However, there is a lack of attention to more radical, activist environmentalist films, which often present eco-didactic statements boldly and directly to the audience,2 and efforts appear to have tilted toward engaging more in conceptual theorization of “ecocinema”, with limited coverage of specific environmental issues in the world,3 such as issues of waste and pollution, forced migration of human and animals caused by urban development, natural disasters and consequences inflicted on the physical environment and its inhabitants, or toxicity and illness generated by environmental degradation. The book does a significant and groundbreaking job in introducing multiple philosophical and theoretical approaches towards a variety of films that re-evaluate our relationships with landscape, animals, and the rest of the nonhuman world. But in an age of many environmental challenges, critical analyses of films that address more specific environmental issues in the real world could keep ecocinema studies down to earth and, in turn, broaden the field’s readership. REFERENCES Slovic, S. (Autumn 2012) “Editor’s Note”, ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment 19.4. Willoquet-Maricondi, P. (2010) Framing the World: Explorations in Ecocriticism and Film. Charlottesville: U of Virginia Press. 2 Both MacDonald and Willoquet-Maricondi seem to suggest a firm hierarchical opposition between “ecocinema” and “environmentalist films”. The fundamental message of the latter, as Willoquet-Maricondi states, “is one that affirms rather than challenges the culture’s fundamental anthropocentric ethos.”(Willoquet-Maricondi, 47) 3 The only exception in the anthology may be Hageman’s chapter, which focuses on films about the struggle of Bolivian water privatization. 4