Another Nature Speaks to the Camera: Natural History and Film Theory

Hovanec, Caroline

doi:10.1353/mod.2019.0030

Cited by 7 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 15 publications

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“…In an interesting study Caroline Hovanec interesting study of British natural history films, discovers that: "Many early-twentieth-century naturalists perceived nature photography and cinematography as a nonviolent, noninterventional alternative to hunting and killing wildlife. In the camera they found hope for a way to shoot, capture, and display without hurting anything" [Hovanec 2019]. This non-violent (at least in its intentions) way of looking at nature is common to Petras Abukevičius, who was the first filmmaker to dedicate his whole attention to nature in Lithuania.…”

Section: Trajectories Of Looking: In Search Of Nonhuman Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

Creating New Sensibility in Lithuanian Documentary Cinema : “ Acid Forest ” and “ Animus Animalis ” ( a Story About People , Animals and Things )

Valiūnaitė

2022

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This paper is an analysis of two Lithuanian documentary films – Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė’s “Acid Forest” (Rūgštus miškas, 2018) and Aistė Žegulytė’s “Animus Animalis (A Story about People, Animals and Things)” (Animus Animalis (Istorija apie žmones, žvėris ir daiktus)) (2018). Both of these films re-evaluate the way animals are being represented in cinema. The analysis will be conducted within three frameworks: Lithuanian poetic documentary, nature or wildlife documentaries and animal studies in the field of film studies. While both “Acid Forest” and “Animus Animalis” employ cinematic language that is common to Lithuanian poetic documentary, they both broaden the genre not only with their aesthetic decisions, but also by extending its thematic focus usually limited to human interest. By changing the elements of conventional nature or wildlife documentaries these films manage to question the power dynamics of different species. They create a new sensibility towards nonhuman living creatures by reorganizing the point of view usually belonging to human beings, even by limiting spatial and temporal freedom of the spectator. Interdisciplinary focus on animal studies within the field of film studies sets another important framework that helps us understand why “Acid Forest” and “Animus Animalis” become relevant case studies: they widen the field of documentary cinema in the local context and they are also a part of a global shift in documentary filmmakers’ approach towards nonhuman beings.

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Section: Trajectories Of Looking: In Search Of Nonhuman Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

Creating New Sensibility in Lithuanian Documentary Cinema : “ Acid Forest ” and “ Animus Animalis ” ( a Story About People , Animals and Things )

Valiūnaitė

2022

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The ciné-biologists: natural history film and the co-production of knowledge in interwar Britain

Long

2020

Br J Hist Sci

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This article analyses the production and reception of the natural history film series Secrets of Nature (1919–33) and its sequel Secrets of Life (1934–47), exploring what these films reveal about the role of cinema in public discourses about science and nature in interwar Britain. The first part of the article introduces the Secrets using an ‘intermedial’ approach, linking the kinds of natural history that they displayed to contemporary trends in interwar popular science, from print publications to zoos. It examines how scientific knowledge was communicated in the series, especially the appeal to everyday experience as a vehicle to engage mass audiences with scientific subjects. The second part examines the Secrets series through the lens of knowledge co-production, detailing how a range of different figures, including academic scientists, nature photographers, producers and teachers, became entangled in making the films. Recovering the term ‘ciné-biology’, it argues that Secrets developed a unique style of filmmaking that generated cultural space for the life sciences in British popular culture. The third part analyses two interwar cinema experiments to explore how audiences, imagined and real, shaped the kinds of natural knowledge characterized by the Secrets films.

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The (un)natural history film: formalist tendencies old and new

Williamson

2022

New Review of Film and Television Studies

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Another Nature Speaks to the Camera: Natural History and Film Theory

Cited by 7 publications

References 15 publications

Creating New Sensibility in Lithuanian Documentary Cinema : “ Acid Forest ” and “ Animus Animalis ” ( a Story About People , Animals and Things )

Creating New Sensibility in Lithuanian Documentary Cinema : “ Acid Forest ” and “ Animus Animalis ” ( a Story About People , Animals and Things )

The ciné-biologists: natural history film and the co-production of knowledge in interwar Britain

The (un)natural history film: formalist tendencies old and new

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