Browse Hierarchy FLM609P: Ecocinemas: Nature, Animals, and the Moving Image

Ecocinemas is a single-semester level 6 module focusing on the intersections between cinema and the natural world. The module explores film's embeddedness in the physical world from a number of perspectives: film as an environmental practice in its own right, as a vehicle for exploring the relationship between the human and the nonhuman world, and as a more-than-human projection. The module covers a diverse range of themes: the key role of nonhuman animals and the natural world in the development of the cinematic medium, the representation of animals and nature in film, cinema's environmental footprint, and film as an ecological advocacy tool. The first part of the module looks at the history and theory of the visual representation of nature and animals, from pre-cinematic forms such as cave paintings, to photographic studies of animal locomotion and early scientific cinema. The subsequent blocks introduce students to the principal strands of eco-criticism and ecocinema via a variety of case studies, including the wildlife film, environmental and animal advocacy documentaries, and fictional representations of animals.