Ecocinema and Media

Our first book, Ecology and Popular Film,examines representations of nature in mainstream film while also looking at film itself as a form of nature writing. Considering a selection of mainstream movies that embrace a wide variety of environmental themes, from the Lumières'Oil Wells of Baku (1896) to Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth (2006), Murray and Heumann explore such themes as environmental politics, eco-terrorism, ecology and home, tragic and comic eco-heroes, the spectacular, and evolutionary narrative, in a manner that is both accessible and fun. Other films discussed include The River (1937), Soylent Green(1971), Pale Rider (1985), 28 Days Later (2002), and The Day After Tomorrow (2004). The book also includes a comprehensive filmography of films that deal with environmental themes and issues.

 

"The authors discover something like an `ecological consciousness' at work in popular film, finding that movies as diverse as Pale Rider and Eight Legged Freaks bring to light large-scale concerns about ecological well-being, and what might be called ecological trauma--opening up a space for hope and change." -- James Morrison, author of Roman Polanski

 

To order this book: http://www.sunypress.edu/p-4725-ecology-and-popular-film.aspx